# Hobbit questions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 28, 2012, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353 "2012-12-28T04:28:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353/61 "2013-01-03T15:44:16Z")
Tolkien may have influenced some recent sword and sorcery. He didn’t influence Robert E. Howard. Neither Tolkien or Howard read each other’s writings. Howard died a year before _The Hobbit_ was published and Tolkien didn’t happen to read any of the earlier writings that are now referred to as sword and sorcery. There was some overlap between the writings that influenced Howard and those that influenced Tolkien, but it wasn’t really that large an overlap. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353/62 "2013-01-03T20:42:16Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > No, but there’s quite a lot of magic items floating around. Rings and swords are obvious, but IIRC in the Hobbit it is mentioned that the dwarves are renowned for making magical toys for example. > And of course you’ve got the magical elven water that glows in the dark (and elven names that \*physically hurt \*orcs), the pool that shows the future, the palantiri, the silmarils, the intelligent tireless horses, the dragon-slaying black arrows, the armies of undead kept “alive” by an oath and a curse… hell, even the elven bread and capes given to the party in Lorien can be considered magic items. Not world shattering artifacts perhaps, but still - it’s bread that always tastes awesome & fills you up in three bites, and chameleon capes. Oh, and ropes that know when to untie themselves ! > > Middle-Earth is positively steeped in magic, it’s just subtle magic rather than flashy but pedestrian fireballs. It’s all the more clever that a reader might even start to think it’s a low magic setting 😉 Thank you; I couldn’t have said it better myself. Compare this to a Conan style setting where there are no magic swords, people occasionally reference gods who may or may not exist and who certainly don’t seem to get directly involved, where humans are the only race, etc. A little bit of quick skimming on Conan (Which is pretty much the prototype/poster child for “Sword and Sorcery”) will indicate that the setting was basically a sort of “historic earth” for which the author didn’t want to be bothered with actual historical detail. Both Sword and Sorcery and High Fantasy are both certainly genre fiction, but they are only superficially similar, and I don’t believe they are really any more related than “Fantasy and Sci Fi” which somehow still manage to end up on the same bookshelf in a lot of stores. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353/63 "2013-01-04T15:02:02Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > I don’t believe they are really any more related than “Fantasy and Sci Fi” which somehow still manage to end up on the same bookshelf in a lot of stores. But that _is_ your mistake. Sci-Fi is fundamentally fantasy fiction. Y’all are missing the forest for the trees. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353/64 "2013-01-04T16:27:01Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > But that _is_ your mistake. Sci-Fi is fundamentally fantasy fiction. Y’all are missing the forest for the trees. So all genre fiction is basically the same? I think this is a slippery slope. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353/65 "2013-01-04T16:53:31Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > So all genre fiction is basically the same? I think this is a slippery slope. I didn’t say that sci-fi is the same as horror, detective, historical fiction, romance, or all the other genres. I said sci-fi _is_ a subset of fantasy fiction. And it is. And by that, of course, I mean that _most_ of it is. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353/66 "2013-01-04T18:48:45Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > No, but there’s quite a lot of magic items floating around. Rings and swords are obvious, but IIRC in the Hobbit it is mentioned that the dwarves are renowned for making magical toys for example. > And of course you’ve got the magical elven water that glows in the dark (and elven names that \*physically hurt \*orcs), the pool that shows the future, the palantiri, the silmarils, the intelligent tireless horses, the dragon-slaying black arrows, the armies of undead kept “alive” by an oath and a curse… hell, even the elven bread and capes given to the party in Lorien can be considered magic items. Not world shattering artifacts perhaps, but still - it’s bread that always tastes awesome & fills you up in three bites, and chameleon capes. Oh, and ropes that know when to untie themselves ! > > Middle-Earth is positively steeped in magic, it’s just subtle magic rather than flashy but pedestrian fireballs. It’s all the more clever that a reader might even start to think it’s a low magic setting 😉 Of course _cloaks of elvenkind_ and _rope of climbing_ are perfectly cromulent D&D magic items, and _lembas_ would certainly qualify as a minor magic item too. Strictly speaking it _doesn’t_ fill you up - it’s extremely easy to nom your way through a day’s rations in a moment of idle curiosity, as Gimli does in the book - but it is extremely sustaining, all the more so if you eat nothing else, keeps good pretty much indefinitely, and tastes (as you say) awesome. It also has the minor side-effect that wickedly evil creatures find its taste and smell abhorrent… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353/67 "2013-01-05T16:30:36Z")
One can certainly define the genres of science fiction and fantasy in a reasonable and sensible way such that science fiction is a subset of fantasy. Alternately, one might define them in a different reasonable and sensible way such that both of them are subsets of what one might call speculative fiction. I prefer this latter approach, since there are some works which don’t fit neatly into either science fiction or fantasy, but which do fit into speculative fiction: Alternate history, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353/68 "2013-01-05T17:00:19Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > LotR is a _high_ magic setting? :dubious: Its most powerful spellcaster never even throws a fireball! Gandalf casts _fire seeds_ in _The Hobbit_, and the fire he uses to ignite fir-cones is especially pernicious, because even a spark of it in a wolf’s fur soon spreads into a serious flame which can’t be smothered, only quenched in water. He produces a bright flash when the dwarves are being captured a chapter or so earlier, which kills two or three goblins out of hand. He casts another spell that extinguishes _all_ the lights in the Great Goblin’s cave - rather like one version of _pyrotechnics_, and at a respectable level. In LotR, Gandalf ignites a bundle of soaking wet firewood (with reluctance, because as he says, he’s written “Gandalf Is Here” in signs that many spying eyes will be able to read); he fights off the Nazgul on Weathertop off-stage and leaves conspicuous burn-marks on the hilltop; he routs an attack by wolves with one of the only two spell-incantations recorded (_Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i ngaurhoth!_) shortly before reaching Moria; he breaks the bridge under the Balrog’s feet; he disarms Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli with a gesture when they are about to attack him thinking he is Saruman; he breaks Saruman’s staff; he drives off the Nazgul with “white fire” when they are pursuing Faramir’s retreat; and disarms Denethor with another gesture shortly before Denethor immolates himself. Obviously _fireball_ didn’t exist in that universe, but apart from that Gandalf doesn’t do too badly given that he’s meant to use persuasion rather than force. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hobbit-questions/645353.md?page=3)