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/lit/ - Literature

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3266425 No.3266425 [Reply] [Original]

How well-known was Lord of the Rings before the films? I was only seven when Fellowship came out so I can't remember. Obviously it was popular, but would regular people have understood references to it or anything?

>> No.3266435

>How well-known was Lord of the Rings before the films?

Very well known, however it wasn't a household name like Star Wars et cetera before the films.

>> No.3266434

There were a lot of nerds who liked it, but it probably wasn't any more popular than like Lovecraft or whatever

>> No.3266445

It had its own niche. It was a very popular fantasy book, but in a very different way. You'd have some nerds playing RPG, very specific types of book worms, things like that. Everyone reads the book as a teenager, so everyone knows. It was referenced in songs, films and tv.

But now there is no really excuse for not knowing it. The films kind of boost everything up for everything. The books haven't changed, but how we take media has. You heard of Twilight, right? Me too. And I don't know anyone who has read it, but I still know about it and hear jokes about it. It's the same thing.

Now, every "nerd" must love Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and TBBT, it's just disgusting.

>> No.3266452
File: 372 KB, 976x1494, hippielotr.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3266452

Hippies loved LotR

>> No.3266456

>>3266452
Good thing to see at least one person read it when I posted that pdf

It's not that well known that hippies popularised it and people hated LoTR when it was published

>> No.3266481

It got popular in the sixties, but it was still pretty underground. Very Lovecraft, in the sense that influenced many writers, some incredibly popular, despite never being particularity mainstream.

>> No.3266482

It was popular enough that Led Zeppelin wrote a song about it

>> No.3266493

it was incredibly popular.
I don't know what the fuck these people are talking about
It was voted book of the century by Time before the films came out
My parents read me the hobbit and lotr when I was a kid
I watched the hobbit movie like 500 times when I was a kid
Which is to say, I didn't have an unusual upbringing. LOTR is and has always been way more well known and liked than Lovecraft. Why do you think they invested so much money in the first movie? They knew it was going to be huge because it was the most popular book of the century

>> No.3266503

It was one of the only books I'd actually heard of back when I was a non-reading kid (which was pre-movies).

>> No.3266525

>>3266452
I was watching the film yesterday on tv when suddenly saruman said to Gandalf: "Your love for the Halflings' leaf has clouded your mind."

Then I recalled how in the books the hobbits lived happily smoking pipeweed and generally not giving a fuck

So do you think that the hobbits and gandalf are stoners? it explains why they had 6 meals a day sometimes, really

>> No.3266528

>>3266482
A dozen of them.

>> No.3266533

>>3266525
I think that originally Tolkien made them smoke tobacco and Peter Jackson changed it to pipeweed to pander to a large community of people.

>> No.3266546

>>3266525
Tolkien said it was tobacco in an introduction to something. But authorial intent doesn't mean shit and when you read the book and watch the film it's perfectly fine to interpret it as marijuana-type weed.

But all in all, all societies have some kind of smoke and knowledge of herbs, so it's cool that Middle-Earth has it too. Not straight tobacco or cannabis, but a third fictional drug.

>> No.3266561

>>3266533
I'm 98.4534783% sure it's referred in the books as pipeweed and subgenus of nicotiana, but not tobacco.

>> No.3266580

>>3266561

The word "Tobacco" is used once or twice in my edition, and they drink coffee in the hobbit, but it's not in Lord of the rings.

>> No.3266604

aside form the tobacco/weed issue:

the shire and the hobbits basically life this utopian idyllic agricultural self-sufficient life in harmony with nature - and this is threatened by the wonders of technology and industrialism sauron and espcially saruman conjure up.
this threat is prevented in the last second though by hippie-gandalf, and the middle earth falls back into an age of numenorean medieval restauration.
so this hippie vs. technology theme IS really strong in LotR, no wonder the treehuggers loved it. (many of them said, that the One Ring is actually a stand-in for the atom bomb)

>> No.3266609

>>3266604
>the One Ring is actually a stand-in for the atom bomb
That doesn't really make any sense, though. In what way is it like the bomb? It makes you invisible? The hippies have it but the industrial people don't? Wearing it means the industrial leader can see you? Gollum has the bomb? What's he, then - Korea?
I see the point behind it but it only applies if you aren't actually reading the text, you're just looking at a vague summary.

>> No.3266623

>>3266609
I also don't really think this analogy fits, I just wanted to mention it. however, the power the ring to essentially decide every war, and that this power is so corrupting that no one really should wield it and you'd better get rid of this shit is somewhat similar to the power of the bomb. lotr also includes some people who want to use the power of the ring and use argumentes is quite similar to the argument governments used to get this technology (we have to use it, defend ourselves against evil, blah blah). at the end, this wise hippie guys get their will of course.

no that I wrote that, I actually quite convinced myself a bit. well, I think it is still oversimplifying.

>> No.3266624

>>3266609
And besides Tolkien came up with the idea of the ring long before atomic bombs were invented

>> No.3266635

>>3266623
There's certainly a romantic view of nature up against a demonised view of industry but I'm not sure I agree that was deliberate, it was just things he thought were nice vs things that weren't. No overt agenda other than to write a book.

>> No.3266640

>>3266624

>guy who has never heard Der Ring des Nibelungen

>> No.3266703
File: 578 KB, 475x625, Carlo+Gesualdo+cge.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3266703

>>3266623
Reading this makes it sound like the ring is a stand in for industrial wealth or something. But that still wouldn't explain why Bilbo had it.

Also
>at a restaurant the other day with friend who doesn't read
>make a sarcastic comment about wanting to go see the Hobbit
>he say's no I'm not really into that stuff
>I say, "Yeah, I liked the book, but the movie looks like shit."
>his response: "It was a book?"
>call him an idiot and make a bet that the waitress (his cousin) will know that it's a book
>ask her
>she doesn't
>mfw

>> No.3266801

>>3266452
>>3266456
Can I have the whole thing, please?

>> No.3267221

>>3266703
>Movie looks like shit
No

>> No.3267260

>>3267221

It is such a bad movie. Go kill yourself - it's the national sport of New Zealand.