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How would YOU have ended Lord of the Rings?

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froody1911:

--- Quote from: Fool010 on March 05, 2011, 08:45:13 AM ---I think what bogs LOTR down the most is the fact it isn't a separate work, but a part of a larger cycle that never got written. As a consequence the flow gets killed by the amount of background info Tolkien pours in.

But my main gripe still remains the lack of effort he's put into the characters, it's pretty much obvious he cared a lot more about the context and the story than about them.

--- End quote ---
I beg to differ. The core LotR story stands completed with The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and the LotR books. The other books and the short stories, while expanding on the universe, aren't directly related.

The characters are developed well enough. These are stories about the world in general, and are told through the perspectives of a multitude of characters. Obviously, you can't have immense focus on each character. Yet, I feel that these books have much more character development than most, if not all, fantasy books from around its period.

Nikkoru:
It's "dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants", writers inspired by Tolkien, developing unique and interesting works of their own using devices and ideas from his work. There are better contemporary fantasy writers than Tolkien in terms of plot, character design and development, detailed settings.. and so on. Our tastes and perceptions have been influenced due to this. That's what makes writing within a genre both interesting and somewhat mindless repetitive.

It's kind of like saying Chrono Trigger is dull because it's over 15 years old and strictly 2D, or Mobile Suit Gundam is somehow inferior to modern mechas simply because the animation is decades out of date.

Ixarku:

--- Quote from: Sabinlerose on March 05, 2011, 03:58:19 AM ---Curious what you think about the Word and the Void series.
Running with the Demon is one of my favorite books I have ever read.

--- End quote ---

I never read the Word and the Void, although at one point, I considered picking it up.  I may still do so one day, but I've gone a different direction the last year or so, into some heavier stories (Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, then Erikson's Malazan, and next up, Glen Cook's The Black Company).

(It occurred to me just now that Brooks linking two series together around pre- and post-apocalpytic worlds is similar to what Fred Saberhagen did with his Empire of the East and Book of Swords series.  I've been meaning to pick up Empire of the East... gotta remember to do that.)


As for LotR, I think one of the things that Fool010 doesn’t care for – the amount of background material – was one of the things that drew me into the story.  Tolkien’s vision is immense, and the way he presented the backstory and hinted at larger, deeper events at different times captivated me.  It was the feeling that there was this vast, ancient world stretching out behind me full of mystery and untold stories.  (This is also a reason I enjoy the Cthulhu mythos, and why I like reading about our Earth’s own pre-history.  Heck, even in WoT, the glimpses into the Age of Legends were some of my favorite parts.)

Fool010:

--- Quote from: Ixarku on March 05, 2011, 01:17:18 PM ---As for LotR, I think one of the things that Fool010 doesn’t care for – the amount of background material –

--- End quote ---

When did I say that ?
I consider  the amount of background info to be disproportionate, if not invasive, definitely distracting. Too much info, but at the same time not sufficiently developed. 'Lots of very important stuff happened in the past' doesn't satisfy me.

The closest analogy I can think of would be putting too much seasoning on your food, while it's not a bad thing per se it can spoil the whole thing when you overdose. If you have to throw in background info, then flesh it out properly, more isn't always better.

I still maintain LOTR should've been part of a much larger cycle, then the informative overkill would've made sense.

Someone said earlier The Hobbit and Silmarillion completed LOTR ... well I don't agree. They may complement it, but as a whole it's far from complete. Not even to mention that Silmarillion isn't a proper book, but rather a digest of unused stuff. Some kind of blueprint, but definitely not an accomplished work.

Ixarku:

--- Quote from: Fool010 on March 05, 2011, 02:42:48 PM ---
--- Quote from: Ixarku on March 05, 2011, 01:17:18 PM ---As for LotR, I think one of the things that Fool010 doesn’t care for – the amount of background material –

--- End quote ---

When did I say that ?
I consider  the amount of background info to be disproportionate, if not invasive, definitely disctracting. Too much info, but at the same time not sufficiently developed.
--- End quote ---

Er, what you just said above leads me to infer that you don't care for it.  But sorry if I misinterpreted what you said.

Personally, I do consider The Hobbit and the Silmarillion and LotR as part of a single, greater, albeit incomplete work.  It's all part of the same world, even if the stories themselves are not tightly integrated, and even if the majority of the non-LotR books aren't proper stories.  Some references in LotR don't make a lot of sense without knowing the background of Middle-earth.  Obviously, the point of including the backstory in LotR was to give the reader a glimpse of a much larger world, to present the War of the Ring as the ‘final chapter’ of a long series of conflicts.

I definitely agree that all of the backstory makes the pacing in LotR ponderous at best.  But it also made me really want to know more about the heroic First Age, and more about balrogs, and more about lost Numenor.


To continue your food analogy, I guess you could say, yeah, it’s way too spicy, but it’s great if you like Indian food, and makes me want to try more.

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