# My Theory About LOTR (long) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 3, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766 "2012-05-03T15:59:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kim_o_the_Concrete_Jungle)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/61 "2012-05-06T06:34:36Z")
I’m not going to claim LOTR has no examples of foreshadowing. I’m just saying, those instances where it does occur are not particularly notable examples of the art, and not something that I find particularly praiseworthy about LOTR. Honestly, I sometimes wonder whether LOTR fans read any other books at all. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/62 "2012-05-06T06:48:46Z")
I for one have read plenty of others. My favorites are wide ranging but I’m not bothering to list them. Just because I find LOTR well written doesn’t mean I have no taste which is what Kim seems to imply. ---
**Author:** ![Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kim_o_the_Concrete_Jungle)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/63 "2012-05-06T06:57:19Z")
What I’m implying is that there are plenty of reasons why LOTR is an interesting and worthwhile book, but that traditional literary devices like plotting, foreshadowing, pacing, and so on are not among them. There’s a reason why LOTR is widely loved by its readers, and just as widely panned by its critics. ---
**Author:** ![Alka\_Seltzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c89c15/32.png) [@Alka\_Seltzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alka_Seltzer)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/64 "2012-05-06T11:36:58Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > Every time you have to stop the forward motion of the story and have a pages-long wodge of exposition, you’ve pretty much failed as a writer. Again, why? The writer’s job is to produce something interesting, that’s it. You can’t grade a work of art by tallying up a few technical points. LOTR is not something handed in as a piece of homework. Ultimately, artistic judgements are subjective. > [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > I seriously don’t see the problems with pacing, pov, or scouring etc that you do. They are not problems with the work so much as just stuff that you personally don’t like. not a failing of the author necessarily. Exactly. > [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > There’s a reason why LOTR is widely loved by its readers, and just as widely panned by its critics. Lord of the Rings has always _[polarised](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_of_J._R._R._Tolkien)_ critics. Ever since it’s publication, it’s split the literary world in two, with some considering it among the greatest works of English literature, while others dismiss it as juvenile. There is very little middle ground. I don’t find this very surprising. It’s romanticised world-view doubtless turns off a lot of readers, while those that do engage with it find it enthralling. > [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > Honestly, I sometimes wonder whether LOTR fans read any other books at all. Please don’t be patronising. ---
**Author:** ![Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kim_o_the_Concrete_Jungle)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/65 "2012-05-06T12:36:30Z")
Yeah, I think I’m done here. I don’t see any value in where this conversation is heading. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/66 "2012-05-06T12:42:53Z")
Yeah, God forbid you learn a little something from people who are _much_ more knowledgable about the work in question than you are. You just keep on as the keeper of all things genre. It’s a tough burden. ---
**Author:** ![Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ee7513/32.png) [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kim_o_the_Concrete_Jungle)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/67 "2012-05-06T13:09:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Yeah, God forbid you learn a little something from people who are _much_ more knowledgable about the work in question than you are. You just keep on as the keeper of all things genre. It’s a tough burden. I’m ending this because it’s getting personal, which you’ve just demonstrated. ---
**Author:** ![Zakalwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zakalwe/32/270_2.png) [@Zakalwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zakalwe)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/68 "2012-05-06T13:33:20Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > While I’m at it I have to say, I think a lot of people misunderstand genre writing. > > Honestly, I sometimes wonder whether LOTR fans read any other books at all. You don’t think these were personal? You’ve basically accused everyone who disagrees with you of being ignorant. You should understand that there are (at least) a couple of posters on this board who are, in fact, published and successful genre authors. There are also several posters on this board who have invested significant time in reading and studying Tolkien. They have taken care to place him in his proper context with regard to genre and read much of his (previously) unpublished work and notes. You “read somewhere” “that Tolkien was not a fan of revising his work”. You then said that you were going from memory so “don’t hold me to it” and that you were “rather relying on this here.” (all quotes from your own OP). When is it pointed out to you (repeatedly) that the thing you (by your own admission) were relying on was a false assumption, you hand-waved past it and started lecturing us on genre and writing as if you were Moses down from the Mount with the true Word of Genre and we were all ignorant fools worshipping the Golden Calf. When people challenged you, you got huffy and said you were taking your ball and going home. So, I poked back a bit. Sue me. ---
**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:** [May 6, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/69 "2012-05-06T16:28:17Z")
Kim o the Concrete Jungle, you’re an intelligent person, but you apparently haven’t read any of the scholarship on how Tolkien created _The Lord of the Rings_ (and his other works as well). There’s a lot of work available on this matter, so it’s not necessary to have to guess about Tolkien’s motivations the way that you do. I belong to a group of people who have done scholarly work on the Inklings (sometimes professionally, sometimes as amateurs), although I can’t say that I’m a Tolkien scholar myself. I asked them (on our E-mail mailing list) if they could recommend something one-volume-ish that you could read to learn about Tolkien’s motivations in writing _The Lord of the Rings_. They gave me some suggestions. One of them was even nice enough to join the SDMB and contribute to the thread. I didn’t want to simply tell you to read all twelve volumes of _The History of Middle-earth_, since that might simply discourage you. One suggestion was that you read Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull’s _The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide_. Another suggestion was to read just the three and a half volumes in _The History of Middle-earth_ that are specifically about _The Lord of the Rings_. Still another was to read the papers by Thomas and Scull in _The Lord of the Rings 1954 – 2004; Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder_. There isn’t unfortunately a definitive single book that could explain to you how _The Lord of the Rings_ was written. Have you read a biography of Tolkien? That might be one place to start. There are single books if you want just to know about the writing of _The Silmarillion_ or about the writing of _The Hobbit_ - Douglas Charles Kane’s _Arda Reconstructed_ for the first book and John Ratecliff’s _The History of the Hobbit_ for the second book. ---
**Author:** ![scop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@scop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scop)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/70 "2012-05-06T17:38:20Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > Every time you have to stop the forward motion of the story and have a pages-long wodge of exposition, you’ve pretty much failed as a writer. > > I can’t put it any plainer than that. Good, because this comment reveals everything we need to know about your views. It means that the vast majority of classic, world literature has been written by failures and as such are failed stories. Need the discussion really continue after such a confession? Well, ok…your view seems influenced and based on particular kinds of modern genres and movies, thus on a very narrow experience and knowledge base. ---
**Author:** ![scop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@scop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scop)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/71 "2012-05-06T17:46:33Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > Exactly. His part of the story was over and done with. Why bring him back for the scouring of the shire? For exactly the reasons stated in the story. And others intimated in the story that a careful reader would ferret out easily enough. ---
**Author:** ![scop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@scop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scop)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/72 "2012-05-06T17:55:00Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > Yes, Tolkien put a lot of work into it. But LOTR’s plotting is nothing to write home about. Nor is the interlacing of various threads. As I’ve pointed out, the dramatic curve is all over the place, because the scouring of the shire is step down from dramatic battles that precede it, and Gandalf’s imprisonment in Orthanc doesn’t make it into the book at all except as post-hoc exposition. The landscapes of middle earth are at best generic. > > Those aspects of LOTR I’d describe as mostly adequate, but not particularly notable, and I can think of plenty of other books that do it better. So you say, but I doubt since other comments you make reveal a general ignorance of literature. So the Shire’s battle is less dramatic than other battles makes Tolkien a bad author? My word! So novels in order to be good must have a single, huge, high climax and then epilogue and boy o boy any other crescendo not higher than the major climax should be left out. Good to know. Where’d you take your creative writing class in high school? I have no idea why you bring up Gandalf’s imprisonment…a major scene in the movies, but as you say not in the book…nor does the book need it. Generic landscapes? I think you need to go back and read the novel. Most critics of Tolkien point to the landscapes as being too well done, too detailed, too much attention paid to them. If they are “generic” it is because you have read too much of the pulp fantasy genre now current that in fact derives from Tolkien before you actually read Tolkien. ---
**Author:** ![scop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@scop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scop)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/73 "2012-05-06T18:03:07Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > I’m not going to claim LOTR has no examples of foreshadowing. I’m just saying, those instances where it does occur are not particularly notable examples of the art, and not something that I find particularly praiseworthy about LOTR. > > Honestly, I sometimes wonder whether LOTR fans read any other books at all. It is clear you have read little outside the fantasy genre. Scribbler’s examples of foreshadowing are but a few that could be mentioned, and while you are free to simply wave your hand airily and dismiss them as not very good, let’s be clear that you did say that Tolkien wasn’t interested in such things as foreshadowing and other “writerly” stuff. I’ll be happy, btw, to provide a short list of other books and works I’ve read, just to show that your patronizing nonsense is exactly that. ---
**Author:** ![scop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@scop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scop)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/74 "2012-05-06T18:06:38Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > Yeah, I think I’m done here. I don’t see any value in where this conversation is heading. To be frank, there was little value from the original post. Your theory was based on an assumption that you even admitted you weren’t sure of, and is a false one (Tolkien constantly revised everything he wrote, including LoTR, which took him over a decade to complete because he kept tinkering.) Once that assumption falls, the rest of your theory and claims fall with it. ---
**Author:** ![scop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@scop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scop)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/75 "2012-05-06T18:08:26Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > I’m ending this because it’s getting personal, which you’ve just demonstrated. Yes, you crossed that line with a truck when you “wondered” if LoTR fans read anything else. ---
**Author:** ![scop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@scop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scop)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/76 "2012-05-06T23:32:43Z")
So I have to wonder, if ol’ Kim is still reading, what is about LoTR you do like since you dislike how the author handles plot, pacing, imagery, characterization, genre, tone, dramatic curves, etc and even said the author failed as a writer. With all of that, you still claim that you like the book and I have to wonder why. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/77 "2012-05-07T00:32:00Z")
Scop - agreeing with your posts and wondering the same things about our original poster person. But as he (or she) has insulted me & everyone else here who likes LOTR & won’t come back to apologize or explain, I’d say it’s really not worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Scribbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5fc32e/32.png) [@Scribbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribbler)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/78 "2012-05-07T00:32:07Z")
I have no wish to go on beating Kim about the head for holding onto a personal reaction to LOTR. But his questions and responses do raise some interesting points about modern storytelling and reactions to it. As someone pointed out, it seems to be influenced more by movies (which are _very_ plot driven) than by actual study of literature. Kim does have a point that stopping for exposition _can_ have a stalling effect on the forward movement of _plot_. I may be trained as a literary scholar (a master’s in medieval English literature), but I have lived and worked in Hollywood, dealing with screenwriting in all forms, for quite a long time now. And _for a movie_, you do indeed have to beware of stopping the forward movement with exposition. But LOTR isn’t a movie. And if including exposition in a prose novel is a sign of failure, how then does one explain the wild success of writers like Michael Crichton (lots of exposition in his work) or even James Michener, who can easily spend a hundred pages on exposition of the history of a locale from the creation of the world until the day his story begins. And nobody is going to call Michener an unsuccessful writer. Kim’s focus is entirely on **plot** , and therein is the problem. He does not, apparently, see that for some writers, the development and shaping of the characters is of equal importance. The Scouring of the Shire, for instance, isn’t about _plot_, it’s about _character_. It shows the pettiness to which Saruman has fallen: he has lost his power, yes, but he can still do evil. But his scope by then was small – and as he says to Frodo, the four hobbits have grown. They are now among the Great of Middle-earth, because they have faced great evil and not been corrupted by it. And even that Frodo knows is not entirely true, because he knows he failed. As I said, _this_ is about character, and the reader (or most of them) is interested in this chance to see the new shape of their characters in action. The chapter serves the purposes of theme and character not plot. And those are perfectly legitimate literary aims. So, even if Kim has “taken his ball and gone home” I thank him (?) for the thread, because it’s a nudge to me to get serious and start work on the paper on foreshadowing in LOTR that I meant to do years ago, but never got around to. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/79 "2012-05-07T00:38:40Z")
> [@Kim\_o\_the\_Concrete\_Jungle](#): > > The landscapes of middle earth are at best generic. :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: ---
**Author:** ![Scribbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5fc32e/32.png) [@Scribbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribbler)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2012, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766/80 "2012-05-07T00:43:34Z")
> [@Ludovic](#): > > :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: Indeed. “Generic.” You know the quote from Inigo Montoya – not the one about his father… 😃 The western door of Moria; the lake on the eastern side of Moria, with the stars reflected in the water; Lothlorien; Minas Tirith, the Dead Marshes; the Pass of Cirith Ungol … even the wastelands crossing Mordor. Generic? Ai me, may I be able to write so “generically”! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-theory-about-lotr-long/620766.md?page=5)