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Originally Posted by dalem
So you knew that Frodo would fail and claim the Ring and that Gollum would prevail and get it back? That's funny because even the old Prof. himself wasn't 100% how that would work out while he was writing it. 
But seriously, I disagree completely with most of your points re characters. First, and my own personal distaste for angsty "grey" characters aside, there is no "grey" regarding Good and Evil - acts are either one or the other. JRRT's characters are not all one way or the other although some certainly are. Boromir fails, Faramir prevails, but both are tested and know it. Likewise Galadriel and Gandalf both pass by refusing the Ring but they KNOW that if they claim it they will use it to do great Evil no matter that their intentions would be Good. |
we dont live in a world of absolutes, so why should some folks living in some fantasy realm? im not saying there is no emotive substance/emotive depth here, its just its all way to predictable and has become a cliched formula<granted by imitators and hacks>. archetypes,pet characters, stoic antiheros, bad guys who look evil,act evil and couldnt possibly be mistaken to the contrary, contrived, composite stereotypes<dwarves dont like elves, elves disdain humans>its like, nick nolte and eddie murphy not seeing stuff eye to eye in the movie "48 hours", total re-hash,formulaic stereotypes from which characters...individuals...relate to one another, everyone pretty much does the honerable thing, says the rights things, for the most part.
so what i look for in any book regardless of genre, is tangable,realistic human emotion, dialogue and actions, no matter how far fetched the context. the grey areas portrayed reflect the subjective way in which characters...individuals....relate to the story, relate to one another, relate to the world as presented to them. tolkien employs a formula thats very absolutist,spoon-fed, unmistakable is as presented. i want to be forced to second guess the guys im rooting for, i want hidden metaphor thats run contrary to whats being presented, i want to re-evalulate the morals,principles,ideology of my own when i analyze the context of problems,conflicts presented in a novel. i dont get much of it with tolkien........i do, however, get a whole hell of alot of it with frank herbert with the dune series.
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Regarding character growth, Gimli and Legolas overcome their ancient animosities and grow to be fast friends. Gandalf passes and is "reborn" into a starker, greater version of himself. Saruman falls, mainly by his own design. Denethor falls as well, another casualty of "mere" human frailty and clouded good sense. Grima is given a chance at his own redemption but fails that in the end. The Hobbits have grown immensely as we see at the end of their story and the Scouring of the Shire.
I could go on.
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im not denying there is good stuff there, its just his writing style has already been made cliche' by countless hack movie directors and fantasy novelists, its not tolkiens fault, but its hard to look past.
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Of course, if you DO like pussyboy indecisive self-doubters in your fiction then I agree that LOTR is not for you.
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i swear, man, im down with tolkien, make no mistake, was a huge D and D geek in my childhood and love fantasy/sci-fi movies/comics/books to this day. tolkien is like the jimi hendrix of fantasy.i just hold my favorite books to a high standard, the LOTR series i hold in high regard, it just reads like a comicbook in book form, nothing wrong with that, but im more used to more complex stories in which not everything is revealed and explained, where everything isnt supposed to be revealed and explained and where you are still left with questions afterwards.