Quote:
Originally Posted by leib10
The main problem I have with Tolkien's writing is his gross overuse of deus ex machina. Pretty much every battle involves one army coming in to save another army at the last minute, and after a while the story got predictable.
I have a problem with deus ex machina because it generally shows lazy and unimaginative writing on the author's part. Rather than thinking of some clever way to solve a problem, it is solved by some outside factor that requires little imagination to think of.
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There are only two real battles described in any detail in LOTR - Helm's Deep and the Pellannor Fields. At Helm's Deep the arrival of Gandalf with reinforcements is less a
d.e.m. than it is good timing. Likewise at Gondor, Aragorn
means to bring the Corsairs and other reinforcements from Southern Gondor to defend the City - again it is literary license that he arrives "just in time".
The only real
d.e.m. is the arrival of the Eagles (as I have mentioned they are truly intended to be) at the Last Battle in front of the Morannon.
-dale