/lit/ - Literature

>>21212298
>how much did he actually invent?
I think a highly detailed world with even invented languages was his own thing. Prior to that fantasy of course existed but not to an autistic degree he brought to the table, just nice fantastic stories.

>>21212298
Well he didn't invent jack shit, but he did show that there were a market for autistic world building and thus ruined the fantasy genre forever.

Also, all the pre-Tolkien works still exist so you can just go read them instead doing this "tell me about the old days, grandpa" schtick.

>>21212305
Sword And Sorcery dark fantasy mostly, like Robert E Howard's Conan. Tolkien influenced the fantasy landscape with the sheer amount of 'tism that went into his worldbuilding, and of course the language. He also just managed to take mythology and use it to put in something connected and overarching.

The old Testament and its fanfiction the bible were pretty big deals.

>The old Testament and its fanfiction the bible were pretty big deals.

>>21212298
I suppose the main difference between pre and post Tolkien fantasy was the settings. Pre-Tolkien fantasy was set in exotic locations such as different planets or past/future Earth whereas post-Tolkien fantasy was set in invented worlds with developed lores such as Middle-Earth.
I recommend Lord Dunsany if you want to read some good Pre-Tolkien fantasy

>>21212376
> invented worlds
Middle Earth is planet Earth pre-history.

>>21212383
>AND DID YOU KNOW VIGGO ACTUALLY BROKE HIS TOE IN THAT SHOT???

god shut the fuck up

>>21212393
what?
>Middle-earth is the main continent of Earth (Arda) in an imaginary period of the Earth's past, ending with Tolkien's Third Age, about 6,000 years ago.

>>21212298
Do you have permission to use this image?

There was very little sense of place. Most fantasy was set in some assumed and ethereal fantasy land. It wasn't particularly grounded, which ironically made all the fantastical shit feel less impactful.

Its why Tolkien mogs 99% of fantasy, because he tried to create a realistic backdrop like in mythologies (that being our own world in most cases; like greek and norse gods interacting with our human world, instead of the story only being told in the land of 'made-up-nameia').

>>21212298

Do you have permission to use this image?

It's our photo and we own the copyright, which we bought for £18,000 at auction.

>>21212412
>which ironically made all the fantastical shit feel less impactful.
If you are not an autist, not really.

>>21212298
These are the books that influenced his work: http://www.professorsbookshelf.com/
The fantasy landscape in the anglosphere was good, Dunsany, Hope Mirrlees, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, H. Rider Haggard wrote some of the best fantasy novels and short stories of the late 19th and early 20th century.

>>21212400
It's still a made-up fantasy world because middle-earth never actually existed.

>>21212298
>but how much did he actually invent?

Very little on his own.

Why did Tolkien steal from the Finns then? Old Fakey lacked the imagination to come up with something original?

>“It [discovering Finnish] was like discovering a wine-cellar filled with bottles of amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me.”

>[The Kalevala was] “the original germ of the Silmarillion” (Letters, 87)

>Quenya is a constructed language created by Professor J. R. R. Tolkien. According to its creator, Quenya's main models were Latin, Finnish and Greek. It could perhaps be said that Finnish was the most important of these in the beginning, because it gave Tolkien the initial impulse to create Quenya. Finnish influence does indeed seem strong in the earliest forms of the language, at least in vocabulary, where many words are Finnish in style.

Why most people try to discredit the Finnish influence that Tolkien recreated with his Silmarillion/Lord of the Rings/World of Arda?

I see people here commenting absurd things like "Tolkien was channeling the Northern Spirit of European Folk-tales" etc, when it is clear that he is not talking about the Northern Spirit, but the Finnish spirit, the finnish landscapes and the finnish culture, heritage and language.

>But muh bible! Gandalf the white is Risen Jesus!
It is more than clear that Gandalf sole inspiration was the sage Väinämöinen.

>b-but muh Odin! The Grey Wanderer! He is Gandalf
It is clear that Odin shares little to none similarities with Gandalf. Perhaps the one Eye of Odin could be regarded as a reference to the one eye of Sauron

>B-but muh Merlin the Wizard! Surely he is the true inspiration of Gandalf
Absolutely not. Merlin resided in a tower, just like the corrupted wizard Saruman, whom Gandalf overthrows.

Numerous academic treatises have also been written how Silmarillion is basically just retelling of the forging of Sampo:
http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/nbnfioulu-201804201498.pdf

It could be universally agreeable to say, that without the Finns, Finnish language and the Kalevala, none of you people would have ever read Lord of the Rings that defined your childhood.

>>21212606
>>21212298

>Be Ol' Fakey
>Fake it all
>Fake it till you make it
>put Silmarillion in the drawer and never release it because understand it was not an original work, but rather a sad retelling of the Finnish national epic, Kalevala
>Die
>Your son finds the manuscripts
>Puts them all together
>Call it "Silmarillion"
>Never mention the Finns or Kalevala
>Never give credit to the Finnish national epic
>"My father was a genius! He invented all this mythos from his own head without the influence of Finns, at all!

How much Tolkien exactly did steal from the Finns and the Kalevala?

>Tolkien wrote that The Story of Kullervo was ‘the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own’, and was ‘a major matter in the legends of the First Age’; his Kullervo was the ancestor of Túrin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. In addition to being a powerful story in its own right, The Story of Kullervo – published here for the first time with the author’s drafts, notes and lecture-essays on its source-work, The Kalevala, is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien’s invented world.

Verlyn Flieger, who wrote that above quotation, is the Professor in the Department of English at the University of Maryland.

Why does /lit/ say that the influence of Kalevala was rather minor, when university professors and academia say contrary things and tell us that the Finnish myths and national epics of Finland formed the very backbone of Tolkien's mythological world?

Who is right? Some neckbeards on 4chinz or actual professors who study linguistics, mythology and world literature?

>>21212612
>>21212606
>>21212298

Tolkien was a finnophile/fennomaniac, pic related.

Even the whole Silmarillion reads like a total copy paste of the Kalevala. It was not only linguistical aesthetics he stole from the Finns.

>[The Kalevala was] “the original germ of the Silmarillion” (Tolkien Letters, 87)

Like there was three Silmarils, the Kalevala's Sampo has/had three qualities. Both are stolen/claimed by the forces of North. Melkor in Silmarillion, Louhi in Kalevala.

Both are stolen back by Enchantment. Luthién sings Melkor and whole Angband to sleep with her song and Beren steals the Silmarils back: In Kalevala Väinämöinen sings the song of enchantment and the whole forces of North fall sleep and the heroes steal the Sampo back

Both the Silmarils are lost/scattered around the world and thrown into sea, just like the North awakes and pursue ensues (just like in Silmarillion), Sampo is scattered to the sea/around the world, so in the end nobody possesses them

The magical Sampo (as the Silmarils were forged by great craftsman Fëanor, so was the Sampo forged by great craftsman and blacksmith Ilmarinen of which the word "Ilmen" of Arda derives from)

Silmarillion, more than anything, is 90% Finnish influence and basically the retelling of the heroic deeds of the Kalevala heroes in high fantasy setting

This is not even up for a debate, but academically recognized, historical fact.
Numerous academic treatises have also been written how Silmarillion is basically just retelling of the forging of Sampo.

This is not even up for debate my friend. You are being intellectually, and nationalistically, dishonest if you disagree with the above considerations. I am sorry kid.

Bachelor’s Seminar and Thesis
English Philology

Researching J.R.R. Tolkien:
How Kalevala influenced his legendarium
http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/nbnfioulu-201804201498.pdf

https://jyx.jyu.fi/bitstream/handle/123456789/41456/URN-NBN-fi-jyu-201305151681.pdf;sequ
J.R.R. Tolkien’s Land of Heroes–
Fëanor, a tragic hero of Middle-Earth in
comparison to Seppo Ilmarinen from the Kalevala

University of Jyväskylä
Department of Languages
English

What J.R.R. Tolkien Really Did with the Sampo?
Jonathan B. Himes
https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1342&context=mythlore

+50 other numerous academic studies.

>>21212606
>>21212612
>>21212618
I ain't reading all that but based on the level of cringe displayed in your copy pasta I can only assume your thesis that the silmarillion is stolen from some finnish crap I never heard of is a load of shit

Chad Vance
>writes about morally complex protagonists (the main one is a habitual rapist) in vivid fantasy world described in enticingly vague details
>the plot is about cool episodic adventures, cunning thievery and powerful wizards, some world-ending shit happens every other page
>his clever magic system ends up becoming a foundation of D&D magic, the most influential fantasy activity of the western world (literally called 'vancian')
>the prose is simple and humorous

Faggot Tolkien
>rips off King Arthur and plethora of celtic myths
>whypipo good, otherpipo evil
>the plot is some boring moralistic undertaking that takes forever, the whole story is just a tradcath autofellatio fantasy
>his """""sorcerers""""" barely use magic
>the prose is overwrought and filled with obnoxious academic horseshit and made-up languages and gayass songs

>>21212643
>your thesis that the silmarillion is stolen from some finnish crap I never heard of is a load of shit

Academia and researchers disagree with you. I don't really care what some people on 4chinz think is the truth, I listen to actual professors.

>>21212612
>>21212606
Based and truthpilled. He obviously stole from The Kalevala a great deal and just disguised it under "influence" kek fucking thieving anglos.

>>21212646
There are no "whites" in LOTR.

>>21212298
>What was fantasy like before him?
The Old Testament and its fanfiction the bible were pretty big deals.

>>21212653
>TRUST LE EXPERTS
The same ones responsible for rings of power?

>>21212709
Honestly, respect the Finns.

He created fantasy.

>>21212734
And stole from the Finns.

>>21212682
True, the hobbits were brown.

>>21212298
It's annoying how Tolkien took inspiration from years of studying folklores, mythologies, languages, fairy-tales, theology, history etc. and then 95% of modern fantasy just takes inspiration from Tolkien. It's like you're just getting farther from the source. They just throw dwarves and elves into their stories willy nilly and it just makes the whole thing cheap and so obviously constructed, whereas with Tolkien he's drawing from the actual source of what humans have imagined or known about "fantastical" things, or as Tolkien would say, "Faery-Land".
It's why I think he stands pretty much alone in the genre of world-building fantasy, unless you also have literal decades to dedicate to crafting a single world, while also being a legitimate academic, don't even attempt the genre. But I don't mind fantasy that doesn't try to craft a big world, or just puts their story into the real world.

>>21212744

Tolkien infantilized Kalevala to his own designs.

But then again, most of Tolkien readers like that. They disregard actual myth and timeless wisdom in exchange for infantile elements (dwarves, goblins, tam bambadillo etc.) and probably eat some cheap carbohydrate trash and candy while reading some dumbed down "epic sword fights"

Tolkien had little to none originality and he lacked in imagination. Melkor was a self-insert of Tolkien himself. Man who could not create something original, but rather debase and defile the Finnish myths and Kalevala to his own designs, his son inheriting the throne of Tolkien estate and assumed a new role as Sauron the Dark Lord (Christopher Tolkien) who continued in the line of Melkor making money/capital on Finnish myths.

For Tolkien, it was all about the Money.

>>21212734
Not even close.

Bim Bom Jolly Tom

TAm Bambadillo!!

>dildo braggings
>slay le dragongs
>big mage with powerful spells, woah
>orcs vs. humans
>virgin elve pussies
>took an arrow in to the kne
>"run, fools" -- Gandhi
>spiders_attack_the_gemblos_while_they_sleep.mpg
>the little dude is actually a huge hero dude
>(size don' matter, kids [REMEMBER TO BUY MUH BOOKS GOYIM!!])
>hop on my griffon, master Harry
>le good always wins never lose hope :)

>>21212734
what the fuck was Night Land then?
>published 45 years before LOTR

>>21212612
>>21212618
>muh academics
Shut up, you incredible faggot. If we listened to academics we'd be reading everything as a metaphor for gay sex and racism.

>>21212753
please take your impotent mongoloid rage elsewhere jonne

>>21212769
>I WILL NEVER READ THE KALEVALA!!!!!

"le hibbit he has a cool sword wahh"

This is how you sound, kid

>>21212769
kys stupid nog
>>21212776
based finnchad.

>>21212298
>how much did he actually invent?
Not too much. A lot of it already existed in Norse mythology, in old fable, in chivalric romance, in Renaissance writers like Rabelais and Ariosto, and in German drama like Wagner's Ring. He brought stuff together and popularized it. That's important in itself, but you can trace almost all of it to older sources.

>>21212771
Respect the Finns. That's all what I ask.

>>21212646
>American retard writing pulp trash for autistic DnD fags
Vs.
>Man with sense of purpose writing timeless literature that has yet to be surpassed in it's genre
>muh wypipo
>muh moral ambiguity
Go watch kike trash on netflix then.

Visit my thread >>21212748

>>21212784
that's the wrong order of things; first you have to be respectable

>>21212703
>The Old Testament and its fanfiction the bible were pretty big deals.

>>21212753
His creation is unique; for me the most interesting part is how everything is essentially in line with a developed sense of Catholic theology. Something that both Lewis and Tolkien were concerned with, to somehow reconcile pagan mythos with a Christian view and it's a very interesting, Lewis expirements with it in his Space Trilogy as well as Narnia (imo Lewis does it worse). But they both also talk about this in their academic writings and letters.

>>21212768
John C. Wright's Nightland book is way better.

Why are Finns so fucking autistic? Is it the cold?

>>21212794
>ATHEISM IS JEWISH GUYS!!!!!
Fucking tards

>>21212794

test

>>21212797
>His creation is unique
He simply remixed foreign myths. He's the fiction equivalent of a DJ.
>for me the most interesting part is how everything is essentially in line with a developed sense of Catholic theology.
The first chapter of the Prose Edda written by Snorri Sturluson deals with a Christian origin of the world (much to the chagrin of pagans). So combining pagan Norse myths with Christianity is also not even original to him.

>>21212809
Atheism as a movement is financed and promoted by jews.
>>21212817
>It is I, Wolf_Of_Odin

>Might sound like a stupid question but what was the fantasy landscape like before Tolkien? Obviously there were stories about wizards with magic rings and such but how much did he actually invent?

Not much. Tolkien fanboys who have read nothing but Tolkien greatly overestimate his influence. He was a good writer but Dunsany, Howard, Leiber, Vance, George Macdonald and Clark Ashton Smith each contributed more to the genre.

>>21212840
The only one of those who didn't dwell in obscurity until the 70s was Macdonald.

>>21212830
It comes from education and has been dawning on our minds since the renaissance. The stiff and false gods of old are not worshiped sincerely anymore save for poor minded schizophrenics. It can never go back to the way it was, but there is a “secularist” materialist way of thinking of the soul and living “spiritually”. Stop blaming a race/religion on all your troubles. These aren’t the real conspiracies of the world

>>21212822
Are you just butthurt that people credit him as some kind of prime-creator, doing something absolutly never before seen in any way? Because I'd agree he's not that, but you could almost say that any creation is just remixing elements of other creations. Sorry but Tolkiens world meets any practical definition of something original.
But that is an interesting point about the first chapter of the prose edda.

Tolkien was pretty good for his time, of course nowadays we have The witcher

>>21212854
Same as LOTR.

>>21212876
>first book is literally just folk tales retelling but with edgy violence and sex
Stopped right there

>>21212915
folk tales already have violence and sex

>>21212682
True, whites do not exist and never existed

>>21212915
You made the correct decision.

>>21212919
but not edgy violence and sex. moderns don't know how to do it with taste and it's always pornographic.

>>21212947
>edgy
reddit buzzword from the early 2010s

>>21212947
You sound like a christard, maybe just stick to the bible. The church fathers discouraged reading after all.

>>21212954
it get's the point across. also you just used the word "buzzword".

>>21212956
I don't care what those old geezers say unless I already agree with it.

>>21212956
You sound like a faggot. Stop reading pozzed shit.

>>21212975
You should agree with all of it. We could have avoided globohomo entirely if people gave the fathers their due respect.

>>21212999
I don't know, I think things really do evolve more than the Catholic church lets on. Some of those old niggas didn't even like dancing and considered it a sin.

>>21213019
Dancing evolved into twerking which is pure decadence. They were right.

>>21213019
Look at tiktok and tell me dancing isn't dysgenic

>>21213025
>>21213027
You serious ?
The obvious answer is that ''twerking'' is just a degenerated form of dancing. No class, but I do like sexy cultural dancing like flamenco and such.

>>21213100
>It's okay because I like it.
That's how it starts, nigga

>>21213100
In my language there is a different word for popular/vulgar dance and cultural/folkloric dance.

>ACKSHULLY ROBERT SCRIMBLEBIMBLE WHO PUBLISHED THREE SHORT STORIES IN WEIRD TALES IN 1934 WAS A BIGGER INFLUENCE AND HE WROTE ABOUT VIOLENCE AND SEX FOR MATURE READERS SUCH AS MYSELF UNLIKE THAT MORALFAG TOLKIEN!

>>21212991
>stop reading
The cry of a pious slave, go clean my boots

>>21213135
>Slurping goyslop makes me a master. Lol. Lmao.

>>21213143
>media I don't like
>goyslop!

>>21213148
Yes, degenerate fantasy novels published by jews are goyslop by definition.

>>21212298
a lot better

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/57631270

>>21212412
>There was very little sense of place. Most fantasy was set in some assumed and ethereal fantasy land. It wasn't particularly grounded, which ironically made all the fantastical shit feel less impactful.

it´s the other way around you dumbfuck

>>21212298
he stole it from Wagner and bastardize it for the masses, like a true pleb like he was

>>21212744
>genre of world-building fantasy
>genre of world-building

all fantasies have a setting different from ours, what a stupid word, how stupid you are!

>>21213241
Yeah but the whole thing of trying to have the entire world fleshed out with a rich history and tales and such is different. Dumby.

>>21212298
Wow you all sound like a bunch of spoilt, jealous cock cucking jews.

neckbeards like to feel better because they´re "tolkien connoisseurs" or whatever because most of the shit you see nowadays in tv, movies and books are fantasy driven, funny how they still can´t see that even tolkien´s work is just a waste of time, like every fantasy work out there, no matter if it´s good or bad

>>21213213
>Now, there are several notable critics who have lamented the unfortunate effect that Tolkien’s work has had on the genre, such as in Moorcock’s Epic Pooh and Mieville’s diatribe about every modern fantasy author being forced to come to terms with the old don's influence.
Imagine taking either of those seething leftoid cucks as an authority.

>>21213266
But everything is a waste of time. What isn't a waste of time?

>>21213247
>the entire world fleshed out with a rich history and tales and such is different

is bullshit, the setting is secondary to the narrative, themes and characters

no different from a stage play having a painted background

>>21213279
fantasy is a waste of time, like videogames and porn

>>21213282
Usually, but with Tolkien the world is almost the main focus. Which is why I just decided to call it ''world-building fantasy" and that no one has done that aswell as him and any attempts at it are lame and stupid.

>>21213295
Fantasy is literature. Literature is an end in itself. You are in the wrong board.

>>21213305
>Usually, but with Tolkien the world is almost the main focus

which is why his work is so lifeless, he sought refuge in his setting in order to compensate that the guy has no writing ability

juvenile trash is the right word to describe lord of the rings

>>21213307
might as well admit you also like capeshit

>>21213331
>Timeless tale of good against evil BAD!
>Coomer good!

>>21213339
The best capeshit has never reach the heights of the best fantasy literature so this is a stupid thing to say.

>>21212857
Might wanna rip into a Cambridge Companion, because that's nonsense. Higher Criticism coincided with Darwin popularizing an evolutionary model while socialist movements were faltering. That wasn't a coincidence. In reality, the atheism you and I know is the byproduct of Cubists/Surrealists and Weimar pedophiles like Hirschfeld.

>>21213351
i´ve never even mentioned grrr martin and you have this fat dude living rent free in your mind lmao

is this the true power of "tolkien intellectuals"?

>>21213351
Lotards again with their "timeless" shit
Go watch capeshit kid

>>21213352
fantasy is capeshit for boomers, at least fantasy starting with tolkien

>>21213331
You're half right. Tolkien himself talked about how he struggled to write drama and had to force himself to use the most basic literary elements like suspense, but recognized it was necessary to do so for a novel. He's also says himself that he's not very interested in people, and more in "things" as he put it. So I can see why you would say it's lifeless, if what you're looking for is a drama.

>>21213394
What a cynical remark.

>>21213394
lmao. accurate and true pic

>>21213405
>Tolkien himself talked about how he struggled to write drama and had to force himself to use the most basic literary elements like suspense

>>21213418
How?

>>21213425
What are you saying ?

>>21213389
Capeshit has no sense of timelessness. It's disposable entertainment.

>>21213387
You're the only one who mentioned Martin, you dumb faggot.

>>21213452
how people like to compare small fries tolkien with someone who was leagues beyond him in every conceivable way

>>21213461
you sure about that?

>>21213461
>It's disposable entertainment.

and fantasy isn´t????

>>21212305
>>21212306
>>21212321
>>21212441
>>21212786
>autist this autist that
Christ, shut the fuck up.

>>21213473
Yes and no reddit memes will change that.

>>21213525
No, faggot autist, I won't.

>>21213471
You just misunderstood what I was saying. Tolkien wasn't really trying to write a good drama, so it's useless to compare him to Wagner in that way. But in general I would put him on the same creative level as Wagner. I honestly think that you just don't have a taste for fairy tales so you don't understand why people like him. It's very hard to present a good critisicm of something if you don't even have a taste for what they are reaching for.

>>21213586
>But in general I would put him on the same creative level as Wagner

this is bullshit, are you going to say next that George Lucas is like Tchaikovsky????

>>21213602
No.

>>21212298
There wasn't any "fantasy" before Tolkien, "fantasy" exists only as Tolkien-imitation.

Tolkien just rewrote fucking Beowulf except made it more boring and dragged out with autism.
Pic related predates Tolkien by decades and is better, more imaginative, more exciting and more creative than Tolkien's autistic poetry anthology with a threadbare plot.
Conan by RE Howard is better too.

>>21212768
Even an acquaintance of Tolkien wrote epic fantasy with rich worldbuilding decades before LotR.

>>21213823
Princess of Mars and Conan are low-rent pulp garbage

>>21213823
Conan is low IQ trash. Is this bait?

>>21213998
Because fantasy is such an intellectual genre for smug gatekeeping virgins and isn't primarily for the enjoyment, escapism, tittilation and excitement of adolescent boys.
"Oh no, not another swordfight against an alien/snakeman while a bare breasted woman screams, I want more Tom Bombadil poems about potatoes."

>german literature
All of it became derived from all the "Poems of Ossian" in the 1800s

>>21212298
Holy shit. Is /lit/ always that toxic? Even /pol/ is comfier. What a bunch of obnoxious kids.
Also
>all these assblasted finns, muh mythology
Mythology is mainly unreadable the way it was transcribed. Tolkien took a lot of myths and connected them to create a huge, interconnected universe with logic and consistency that is lacking in kalevala, mabinogion and others.

>>21214038
Conan is high-test, you clearly wouldn't understand

>>21214068
>muh high t.
There are many chads that behave more manly than your fag conan.
Turin Turambar, Fingolfin, Feanor, even Aragorn.

>>21214066
everyone likes Tolkien we're just messing around

T. High test witcheranon

>>21214087
>Turin Turambar, Fingolfin, Feanor
Even Tolkien's names were faggy
Tolkien and all the boomer fucking drug-addled hippies like Led Zeppelin that revived his faggy autism poetry anthology led to mainstream fantasy being as shit as it is.
D&D1e wqs nearly a Sword & Sworcery game but cos of all the boomer hippies, Gygax caved to pressure and made it "Tolkienesque" cementing that faggy style as mainstream fantasy forever, when high-test muscle-bound loincloth Frazetta-kino should have been fantasy's mainstream aesthetic.

>>21214127
>Tolkien was gay
>I wanna read about muscle men in loincloths

>>21214127
>when high-test muscle-bound loincloth Frazetta-kino
Dude, you sound gay af

>>21214140
>"I'm so not gay I'm only going to read about FULLY dressed men so I don't even have to THINK about their bulging muscles!"
A powerful male physique in mortal combat with an enemy while a bellydancer screams from her shackles for him to save her is the least-gay thing imaginable, anon.
The only men who don't like looking at powerful male bodies are the ones who either feel inadequate because they are dyel/fatties, or lack confidence in their heterosexuality.
A powerful body is aspirational anon. If you don't like looking at them, then all that tells me is that you're happy being inadequate or you're a closet fag.

>>21214158
And you sound physically inadequate.
But it's okay, because you're high-IQ, right, anon?
All women a sapiosexual now, aren't they?

>>21214187
Stop thinking about dude's bodies for 2 seconds

>>21214213
Dude, YOU have a dude's body. And I can tell by your aversion to being reminded of what a powerful tool it can be that you're neglecting it.
It's cope. Because you're out of shape and convince yourself that being well-read and intelligent is enough to compensate for having a weak, frail body, and you reassure yourself that anyone who admires muscle is gay.

How has no one mentioned Peake yet?

>>21214087
>Aragorn
Being a gary stu that has everything fall into his lap due to prophecy is being manly now?

>>21212552
>he doesn’t know

>>21214278
Because Peake is shit and Tolkien mogs him.

>>21212298
There was no fantasy, Tolkien invented it.

I just picked up fellowship and so far its dull. its depressing since i love the movies and assumed i'd love the books

>>21212298
So you're just unfamiliar with Sword & Sorcery and Weird Fiction?

>>21213525
kys

>>21212298
There sits the greatest criminal of the arts. Because of him we have all these fat faggot manchildren calling themselves "writers" and shitting up untold shelves with their make-believe. Because of him we have ~genre~, as opposed to "literary" fiction. ?? What the fuck is "literary" literature? It's either literature or it isn't. But not anymore, because of him. There's a scene in The Faerie Queene where a knight is fighting this old serpent witch thing, and at one point it vomits a bunch of goblin children in a ruinous black muck which fills the cave and threatens to end him. This is a visual representation of Tolkien's contribution to literature.

>>21214561
What?

>>21213741
epic bait

>>21214373
Literally every Conan story has 20% of the wordcount dedicated to all the men blowing Conan over how masculine and powerful he is because his a barbarian.

Dude beats the most learned swordsman in the world by "fighting like a wolf" lmao.

>>21214267
>>21214213

Wow, a simultaneous double projection. You are both clearly homosexual and embarrassed about your bodies

>>21213394
This image exerts seething attitudes.
He did make languages, it is a deeply catholic work and there's literally nothing wrong with that.

>>21213823
Beowulf is a short book though? Obviously his characters embody elements from the piece, but it's obviously not Beowulf.

>>21212606
I find it interesting that in order to make something profound or intelligent in literature, you must reinvent the wheel itself, although in reality, we both know that Tolkien cannot draw his cosmos from lore other than History and Mythology as subjects. It makes perfect sense that his books embodied elements from many aspects of the Finnish epic. He was a historian after all, I don't really understand your point. Are you also going to fault most of humanity for writing on Christian themes that deeply interested them? Art doesn't imitate life? People just simply start writing on topic that does not resonate with them?
What even are you trying to say

>>21212306
Yeah but retard "worldbuilding and magic systems" cancer that has gone on to consume writers and aspiring writers of the genre isn't really a Tolkien thing and is more a DnD and vidya thing.

>>21212306
>>21215247
I think its far less to do with Tolkien and a lot more to do with the current education system. More people are reading and writing than ever before, and marketing is one hell of a thing. To even consider Tolkien as the individual who caused all of this is such a weak take.

>>21212606
>>21212612
>>21212618
>calling Kalevala the Kalevala

>>21215276
That's a pretty cheap copy of Old Gregg.

>>21215254
>To even consider Tolkien as the individual who caused all of this is such a weak take.
Yeah, but /lit/ doesn't read so they'll blame him

>>21212606
>"From an academic perspective Tolkien’s works make a very interesting reading because
of their depth in storylines and characters and brilliant imagination. He has created an entire
world with its history, legends and religious systems. His works are worth researching because
there are so many connections to different mythologies and history of Europe."

Read your own fucking sources, embarrassing that people in this thread let this man walk all over them.

>>21212646
I wouldn't really call Vance's prose simple.

>>21215276
that's how epics are called in English

>>21215240
>I find it interesting that in order to make something profound or intelligent in literature, you must reinvent the wheel itself,
NAT but no, you can definitely say something intelligent or profound by stealing from others but if you are described as original, then you should, you know, make original stuff rather than stealing.

>>21215780
>original stuff rather than stealing.
You make it sound so easy. Besides, he obviously didn't produce lord of the rings with original in mind. It was an amalgamation love letter of everything he found fascinating in his world.

>>21215797
>he obviously didn't produce lord of the rings with original in mind
of course he didn't and that's not his fault. the fault is in the people calling him original or worse "the inventor of fantasy".

>>21215805
But he is the father of fantasy

>>21215813
bait

>>21212327
>>21212340
Akshually, that could be taken as a compliment, since:
1. Pic related. Scholars have huge trouble differentiating between fantasy and religious literature.
2. Pic related. Tolkien's concept of "sub-creation" explicitly stated that good fantasy DOES evoke religious experience.
3. https://medium.com/belover/no-tolkiens-the-lord-of-the-rings-isn-t-christian-a7d3b34b7677
"But his Catholic talk was strange and irreligious. He notes in an essay: “The Gospels contain a fairy-story, or a story of a larger kind which embraces all the essence of fairy-stories.”
To call the gospels a “fairy-story” isn’t Catholicism.
Christian Tolkien fans like a scene in which he seemed to lead C.S. Lewis into the faith. The details are odd. Tolkien said Christianity was just like other myth-systems, except for being true — a “true myth,” as he said.
That is not devout Catholicism.
He made no effort to study theology or write about it. He never visited Rome. He seems to have deeply loved Santa—when he is nearly silent on the Jesus story."

>>21215838
Yeah, Tolkien was a larp pagan catholic, going as far as to autism about the Latin mass in public.

>>21215838
>>21215859
>NOOOOOOO YOU HAVE TO BE RELIGIOUS FOR THE EXACT SAME REASONS AS OTHER PEOPLE OTHERWISE YOU ARE LE LARPING.

>>21215865
You're kidding right, he was clearly a Christian. Just because he didn't go to Rome doesn't dispute that. I'm Christian, I haven't been to Rome, therefore I'm not Christian.

>>21215870
what? do you even understand my post?

>>21215870
I'm Christian, too. Jesus was just a cool fairy tale and a myth. LotR is as good a substitute as a Bible. Amen, brother.

>>21215874
>That is not devout Catholicism.
He made no effort to study theology or write about it. He never visited Rome. He seems to have deeply loved Santa—when he is nearly silent on the Jesus story."

My point applies to this specific post.

>>21215880
bait

>>21212298
>Orlando Furioso
>Le Morte d'Arthur
Based knights running flying and sailing around the globe, saving damsels, buttfucking enchanters and foreign kings, and never ever taking off their armor.

>>21212298
The Worm Ouroboros
The King of Elflands Daughter
Lud-in-the-Mist
The Virgin and the Swine
Conan the Barbarian
Jirel of Joiry
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
The Compleat Enchanter
The Well of the Unicorn
Three Hearts and Three Lions
The Dying Earth
The Broken Sword

pretty based honestly

The thing you have to remember about Tolkiens influence is that when LotR first came out it was only in hardback which was expensive and only briefly released in the US
It was seen as a dense and obscure work that few actually read
It was not until the late 1960s when bootleg paperbacks appeared that it became widely read and influencial among the hippies

LotR influence is more on derivative works, stuff like Sword of Shannara

>>21215941
Why were hippies reading LOTR again?

>>21215970
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolkien%27s_frame_stories
Because it gave an illusion of depth and history. It was framed in such a manner that you felt as if you were actually uncovering something.

But unlike, say, The Worm Ouroboros, that just kept hurling at you randomly assigned names like "Mercury", "Demons", or "Witches" (without any connotations usually associated with those terms).

>>21215970
Hippies wanted escapism. And lo and behold, "bible-esque" LotR delivered.

>>21215970
it was le groovy! little people fighting evil wizards and stuff, bro.

>>21215970
For the same reason, that Russians have, like, 13 translations of LotR.

Mythology is natural to humans.
Modern culture is all about boring, mundane shit (work, eat, shit, have career, die. End of history)
And Tolkien reactivates all the mythology vibes (heroism, nobility, beauty, etc.) and frames it, so that you could navigate in today's world (technology bad, because Melkor marred Arda, so that humans confuse the value that things have in themselves with an instrumental use)

>>21212306
Name a single fantasy IP pre-Tokien and don't say shit like Dunsany or muh Kalevala

>>21216070
>fantasy IP

>>21216070
Pre-Hobbit
>The King of the Golden River
>The Princess and the Goblin
>The Well at the World's End
>Peter Pan
>The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
>Conan the Barbarian
>The Worm Ouroboros
Pre-LOTR
>The Sword in the Stone
>Gormenghast
>The Chronicles of Narnia
>The Little Grey Men

>>21212768
Based, anon. It was based.

>>21216106
>Gormenghast
love this shit like you wouldnt believe
though maybe a whole fucking page to describe some horny fucker biting into a peach is a bit much

>>21212606
>Tolkien was '''''''''inspired''''''''' by ancient finns/kalevala

I keep hearing this but no one ever provides citations or sources. I mean, what gives?

>>21212768
>what the fuck was Night Land then?
>>21212768

kinda gave me a sci-fi/horror pulp vibe, if you omitted the god-awful romance hoccus poccus dribble

>>21215970
A story about people walking around barefoot, singing songs and smoking weed? With the idealization of non-industrialization? About moral goodness that isn't stemming from authority?

The SFF scene in general was regarded as counter culture. Even Black Sabbath sings about Gandalf on their first record...

>>21216368
Mostly it's just one autist haunting this board, because the influence is vague and minor (there's traces of Väinämöinen in Gandalf for example).

LotR is rather 80% made up by Sinclaire's Babbitts, WWII, and Wagner's Ring Cycle.

>>21216417
>moral goodness that isn't stemming from authority?
except it is. The more Frodo drags the Ring, the more he resembles an ancient hero of the past, talks from the position of strength and later sinks into despair (‘but it’s like things are in the world. Hopes fail. An end comes. We have only a little time to wait now. We are lost in ruin and downfall, and there is no escape.’)

>>21216457
>authority is when I become stronger
??
that anon is talking about an authoritarian entity, like a government.

>>21216368
nta but:
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34063157
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Kalevala
https://library.stonybrook.edu/2019/12/10/j-r-r-tolkien-and-the-kalevala/
http://jultika.oulu.fi/files/nbnfioulu-201804201498.pdf

>>21213120
cope

>>21216106
Ok good reply anon, I'll check these out

>>21216324
>maybe a whole page to describe some horny fucker biting into a peach is a bit much
Newb.

>>21212298
Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword is a great book to look at to see how Tolkein changed things.
It's a fantasy epic released the same year as Fellowship with similar inspirations but it takes place on Earth in a certain time period and it's much more blood and guts.
Tolkein really set the precedent for having a whole imagined universe with it's own cosmology and history and of course the whole language thing was pretty uniquely his.

>>21217611
>>but it takes place on Earth in a certain time period
>he doesn't know

>>21217611
>but it takes place on Earth in a certain time period
Anon, I...

>>21213120
Ayo, its Robert Scrimblebimble!