Tolkin Visionary or not?

[Telrunya]

How do you feel about the works of J.R.R. Tolkin? Are you one of the many who veiws him as the father of modern fantasy or do you fall in the catagory of people who just don't care for his style? Tell me why? What moves you one way or the other?

 

[Andy Broadley]

I fall into catagory of thinking he was a very good author and produced some excellent books. First read The Hobbit while at school and have gone on from there.


Father of fantasy ? Don't know, and aint worried one way or the other. I doubt there will ever be another to match him. I wish Hollywwod had left the books alone though. Thought the films disappointing. I know a great many will disagree with me on that, but that's just me I suppose.

 

[MoonlessNight]

He is the father of modern fantasy in that he set the tone for what fantasy worlds would look like, and many of modern fantasy's long running cliches stem from him. He certainly was not the father of fantasy in general, fantasy as a genre had existed long before him, though it looked a bit diferent than today's because today's fantasy owes quite a bit to Tokien. But he didn't write in the same way that today's fantasy is written. His writing was much more dry and historical. So I don't know whether we can call him the one and only father of modern fantasy. A lot is traceble back to him, yes, but then again, much isn't.

 

[Telrunya]

I fall into catagory of thinking he was a . . . good author and produced some excellent books. First read The Hobbit while at school and have gone on from there.


Father of fantasy ? Don't know, and aint worried one way or the other. I doubt there will ever be another to match him. I wish Hollywwod had left the books alone though. Thought the films disappointing. I know a great many will disagree with me on that, but that's just me I suppose.

I was disappointed by some aspects of the film, some of the things that got left out or changed but I do think that given the wealth of things in the book it would be almost impossible to get it all in the way Tolkin wrote it. I think overall they did a good job. Lightyears better than the animated movies from the 60's and 70's

 

[Father Niko]

Father of modern fantasie, yep. Its also nice that he used the bible.

 

[stonetoflesh]

Tolkien is most definitely NOT the father of the modern fantasy novel-- that would be William Morris, who wrote and published several fantasies in the late 19th century. Other notable pre-Tolkien fantasy writers were A. Merritt, E.R. Eddison, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, Lord Dunsany, H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore, et al.
Tolkien was largely responsible for fantasy's rise to prominence in the latter half of the 20th century... As for his specific contributions, I think Moonless Night put it best:

He is the father of modern fantasy in that he set the tone for what fantasy worlds would look like, and many of modern fantasy's long running cliches stem from him.

 

[MoonlessNight]

If you want to get right down to it, Gary Gygax is at least as important as Tolkien for determining the shape of today's standard fantasy novel. The wizard in training archetype never and never would have appeared in Tolkien's work by the very nature of wizards. But it is of course central to the game of Dungeons and Dragons. Everyone wants to play as a wizard, but if they are quasi-angelic beings then of course they could not be in the same group as warriors in training or else that would unbalance things. So wizardry became a profession. This is also true of the motif of priests in fantasy novels. Note that nearly every fantasy novel today is polytheistic, but in the Lord of the Rings noone even mentions a god (though in fact, there is exactly one god of Tolkien's universe). The modern practice ultimately stems back to the cleric class, I think.

I wonder what today's fantasy would have looked like had Dungeons and Dragons never been invented.

 

[Telrunya]

Of course Gary Gygax, Ed Greenwood and crew got started primarily because of Tolkin's influence. I think modern fantasy would look alittle more diverse but generally the same if not for Dungeons and Dragons. There has been a pretty major push to diversify fantasy role playing games in the past ten years too. Also many newer fantasy writers are looking at a monothesic world as well. The future of fantasy could be very differant than it is today.

 

[stonetoflesh]

If you want to get right down to it, Gary Gygax is at least as important as Tolkien for determining the shape of today's standard fantasy novel. The wizard in training archetype never and never would have appeared in Tolkien's work by the very nature of wizards. But it is of course central to the game of Dungeons and Dragons. Everyone wants to play as a wizard, but if they are quasi-angelic beings then of course they could not be in the same group as warriors in training or else that would unbalance things. So wizardry became a profession. This is also true of the motif of priests in fantasy novels. Note that nearly every fantasy novel today is polytheistic, but in the Lord of the Rings noone even mentions a god (though in fact, there is exactly one god of Tolkien's universe). The modern practice ultimately stems back to the cleric class, I think.

I wonder what today's fantasy would have looked like had Dungeons and Dragons never been invented.

Gary Gygax?! Don't forget Dave Arneson!!!

The D&D magic system was lifted from Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories; Gygax and Arneson did incorporate the "wizards can't wear armor or use most weapons" bit, but beyond that... There was a great article in an early Dragon magazine (can't remember the issue number) that tried to determine what level magic-user Gandalf was; the article author tried to classify Gandalf's various magical effects described by Tolkien as D&D spells. It struck me as apples and oranges, really; the Istari really are sort of "quasi-angelic" and definitely unique whereas the D&D wizard is more of an esoteric kind of tradesman found all over [insert campaign setting here].

I think D&D was really influential in canonizing many of the now-cliche elements of Tolkien's work; what come to mind are the characteristics of elves and dwarves (and their distrust of one another), the "ranger" as an outdoorsy fighter-type, orcs and goblins as standard bad-guy cannon fodder, etc. So... In that sense I definitely agree, MoonlessNight. D&D also prompted a lot more kids to read fantasy novels, thus increasing the market for even more fantasy novels.... I wonder what percent of fantasy writers who published their first book after 1974 had at any time played D&D or another FRPG. It would be an interesting study, methinks.


If D&D hadn't been invented, my childhood wouldn't have been nearly as exciting...

 

[stonetoflesh]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to MoonlessNight again.


I don't know about GG's Gord the Rogue novels though...

​

 

[Blessed-one]

uh.. Tolkien isn't the only one who writes good fantasy..

 

[stonetoflesh]

uh.. Tolkien isn't the only one who writes good fantasy..

Agreed... But Tolkien is enjoying a(nother) resurgence in popularity right now, and lots of people are reading his books-- possibly for the first time-- after seeing the movies. People who may not have been interested in fantasy now find themselves drawn to it. There are also people around here who have read it a dozen times over 20+ years or whatever; the cool thing is that it's a great story and whether you've read it once or you've read it 50 times it's still a great story. (I don't think I would read any of Modesitt's Recluce books again, as much as I enjoyed them the first time around...)

Oh well, it could be worse-- everyone could be talking about the Wheel of Time as the greatest fantasy work ever!

EDIT: Also... I think the point of the thread isn't that Tolkien is the "be all-- end all of fantasy, so no one else should even bother"; rather, that there are certain tropes and cliches that were introduced to the genre by Tolkien that remain in place to this day. Tolkien also introduced a degree of rich depth and complexity to the "world-building" aspect of fantasy writing; he set the bar for all those who would follow, whether or not the would-be world-building fantasy author in question was a "fan" of Tolkien's stories.

 

[Telrunya]

EDIT: Also... I think the point of the thread isn't that Tolkien is the "be all-- end all of fantasy, so no one else should even bother"; rather, that there are certain tropes and cliches that were introduced to the genre by Tolkien that remain in place to this day. Tolkien also introduced a degree of rich depth and complexity to the "world-building" aspect of fantasy writing; he set the bar for all those who would follow, whether or not the would-be world-building fantasy author in question was a "fan" of Tolkien's stories.

Yes this was the just of what I was asking

 

[BInC]

I don't know if he is the father of modern fantasy, but it does seem like many books follow his example. He had some awesome books, and his world was so detailed. For every detail you had in the books (which was alot of details by just about any standard) there were 10 more details to back it up that he had written down in his notes. His stories were based on an entire world instead of an area limited to the position of the charachters. Middle-earth had history, somthing so many books lack. And his central idea was more than an epic quest to save humanity, but also a way to show that no one man should have too much power. Even the most humble people (like frodo or bilbo) can be twisted into evil by handling more power than men asre supposed to have. Of course, true wisdom is shown by Gandalf, who knows that he should never carry the ring, for he is already very powerfull and could easily be coerced into thinking he could control the ring.

Father of fantasy? I don't know. Really good author? Heck yes!

 

[Vash_21]

Yes!

 

[Amielia]

Umm i really like the tolkin books i have read, the movies were okay, but the books way better, woohoo

 

[Telrunya]

Umm i really like the tolkin books i have read, the movies were okay, but the books way better, woohoo

I find that's the case with every movie that has been made from a book. On the other hand I rarely enjoy books that were made from movies. Star Wars books being an exception here for the most part. I really didn't care for many of the earlier books.

 

[prettyrose436]

Umm i really like the tolkin books i have read, the movies were okay, but the books way better, woohoo

I agree with you! I don't think that Tolkin should be considered the "father" of fantasy however because there were other fantasy writers before him.

 

[savvy]

LOTR and the Hobbit were ok, but they are far better fantasy books out there. I don't care for his writing style, even though I know it was the best approach to take, thought his characterization was poor, and think his worldbuilding left much to be desired (how the heck does their economy function?? I like to know these things). I do appreciate him because he inspired others to write fantasy (though I wish people would stop taking over his cliches and attempt to be more original).

 

[greenjacketguy]

I fall into catagory of thinking he was a dammed good author and produced some excellent books. First read The Hobbit while at school and have gone on from there.


Father of fantasy ? Don't know, and aint worried one way or the other. I doubt there will ever be another to match him. I wish Hollywwod had left the books alone though. Thought the films disappointing. I know a great many will disagree with me on that, but that's just me I suppose.

i would definitely agree with that. the movies were pretty bad but the books were awesome. parts of his books were a little slow but he not only wrote a book, he made the whole world down to the last detail. that is very uncommon these days.