The Speculative Fiction Thread formerly Fantasy Thread

[foxcatdog]

Because sci fi sucks cause no mystique.

At least i can draw parellells between harry potter and lord of the rings see harry and frodo (who both ultimately represent innocence). ron and sam (bravery), voldemort and sauron (power through voldemort is ultimately human through inhuman in the sense he isn't good and sauron is a maiar) also both can't understand good, dumbledore and gandalf through i find dumbledore to be a bit better through i suppose i find that about all of the harry potter characters. And the ring is basically a horcrux through that only really is relevant in the second, sixth and last books. Tolkiens world is pastoral, english and overtly eurocentric and patriarchal whereas harries world is none of these. Legolas isn't really an elf (but elrond and arwen even tho she ultimately becomes a human are). Arwen is ultimately kinda like ginnie in she's kinda bland through she does a better job at conveying mystique to the viewer.

[alice]

So JRRT ripped off JKR? I never thought if it that way before but... you may have a point. Even the names are just different enough to avoid copyright lawsuits, too.

[foxcatdog]

Inspired is more like it. It's definitely not a rip off their is too much different. (i finally realised what was wrong with my post)

[hwhatting]

So JRRT ripped off JKR? I never thought if it that way before but... you may have a point. Even the names are just different enough to avoid copyright lawsuits, too.

Inspired is more like it. It's definitely not a rip off their is too much different.

@foxcatdog: Have you actually understood what Alice wrote?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I had thought they were trolling to begin with.

[alice]

Perhaps it was because I wrote "if" when I really meant "of"?

Oh, and it's alice, not Alice, paving the way for case-sensitive pronouns.

Getting back on topic:

Legolas isn't really an elf

Discuss!

[Raphael]

Getting back on topic:

Legolas isn't really an elf

Discuss!

Well, if your idea of an elf is a small, fairy-like creature...

[WeepingElf]

Getting back on topic:

Legolas isn't really an elf

Discuss!

Well, if your idea of an elf is a small, fairy-like creature...

But the idea of an Elf as a powerful, human-sized being is far older than that, and all Tolkien did was to reinstate the Elves into the majesty they had in Germanic mythology. Tiny fairy-like elves are post-medieval folklore.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Trying to give a very precise definition to a fantasy creature which isn't the product of a specific author is probably going to be fruitless. We use the word dragon to describe both (mostly) evil fire-breathing dinosaurs and (mostly) beneficent water-serpents, after all.

[Ares Land]

Getting back on topic:

Legolas isn't really an elf

Discuss!

Int. scene, a pub. Aragorn and Gimli are sitting with two pints, both very drunk.

An elf passes. Gimli spits on the ground
GIMLI - Fuckin' elf. Can't stand the fuckers with their fuckin' ears (increasingly agitated). Hey, Spock, go the fuck back to Rivendell or wherever it is you come from.
ARAGORN - Calm down Gimli. He hasn't done anything wrong.
GIMLI, grumbling - Can't stand the fuckers.
ARAGORN - What about your pal Legolas?
Gimli grunts.
GIMLI, grumbling - Legolas isn't really an elf. (very agitated) Hey, fuckface, what the hell are your ears still doing here?

(cue bar fight)

[Travis B.]

Inspired is more like it. It's definitely not a rip off their is too much different.

So J. K. Rowling's work inspired J. R. R. Tolkien? How does that even work (considering I am pretty sure that Tolkien was probably dead before the Harry Potter series was started, considering J. K. Rowling was eight when Tolkien died)?

[Ares Land]

Inspired is more like it. It's definitely not a rip off their is too much different.

So J. K. Rowling's work inspired J. R. R. Tolkien? How does that even work (considering I am pretty sure that Tolkien was probably dead before the Harry Potter series was started, considering J. K. Rowling was eight when Tolkien died)?

There is a fantasy author (I can't remember his name but it's something funny, like Pluto or Goofy; hipster type with a beard) who's ripping off Tolkien blatantly though.

[hwhatting]

Two likes for Ares's posts

[foxcatdog]

I'm serious tolkiens elves are spirits of Arda, of unchanging things. Legolas in the movies is more like a fantasy bowmen with pointy ears like those of the forgotten realms (which from what i can tell is the single worst example of worldbuilding ever written besides all of its derivatives (WOW, LOL) and he's a real elf in that setting. I will read the books at some point in the future but i chose to read the Belgeriad for now because the prose is more interesting but as far as i'm concerned he isn't an elf.

[linguistcat]

I'm serious tolkiens elves are spirits of Arda, of unchanging things. Legolas in the movies is more like a fantasy bowmen with pointy ears like those of the forgotten realms (which from what i can tell is the single worst example of worldbuilding ever written besides all of its derivatives (WOW, LOL) and he's a real elf in that setting. I will read the books at some point in the future but i chose to read the Belgeriad for now because the prose is more interesting but as far as i'm concerned he isn't an elf.

While I like both the movies and the books, they are very different experiences and AFAIR (this was about 2 decades ago when I read LotR) there were several characters who were different between them, Legolas being one. Maybe don't judge a book by its cover, or in this case the movie based off it.

[Torco]

forgotten realms isn't as bad as other conworlds (insert almost any YA book as example), but it certainly isn't good either: the thing is, it's built to fit previously existing D&D tropes, which are in turn built to fit previously existing tolkenian tropes, which in turn are built to fit previously existing mythological tropes from northern europe and... I dunno, wagner? so it's... I don't know, leftovers reheated in oil many, many times.

[WeepingElf]

Tolkien strongly disliked Wagner, to put it mildly. When a critic compared Lord of the Rings to Wagner's Ring der Nibelungen, Tolkien commented, "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases." This is very easy to understand: Wagner drew Germanic mythology into the service of German nationalism, an ideology which Tolkien, an Englishman had been in World War I, heavily objected against, already before the rise of the Nazis.

[Torco]

makes sense, plus he did say repeatedly he strongly disliked allegory. thogh his stuff is very racially... informed?

[WeepingElf]

Yes, there are racial stereotypes common in his time in his writing. It would have been better to avoid them. But trying to compensate for them by having a black Elf in The Rings of Power IMHO doesn't really make sense.

[Travis B.]

Yes, there are racial stereotypes common in his time in his writing. It would have been better to avoid them. But trying to compensate for them by having a black Elf in The Rings of Power IMHO doesn't really make sense.

Compensating by putting in a Black elf seems awfully like, ahem, tokenism?