# Surely The Lord of the Rings is one of the best stories ever written **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth, books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [May 13, 2024, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504 "2024-05-13T19:48:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/181 "2024-05-16T03:35:57Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > The truth is that a 100% faithful adaptation would have been a crashing bore, requiring at least 6 films. No, not boring at all. But yeah- very long. One change jackson did i really liked- Dumping Glorfindel for Arwen. And JRRT actually added strong female characters to his fantasy epic- Eowyn, Galadriel, and yes, Arwen. Most other fantasy novels before (except Red Sonia- one book)- the only role for a female is to be rescued by the strong guy. Arwen rescues Frodo, Eowyn kills the Witchking -with a major assist from Pippin- and it is pretty clear Galadriel is the most powerful person of any sex in middle earth- except Sauron. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/182 "2024-05-16T04:07:28Z")
Ozma. Glinda. Jirel of Joiry. She who must not be named. Marion Kerby. Not exactly damsels in distress. Specifically in LOTR women are little more than cameos. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/183 "2024-05-16T04:51:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > to be honest, the LotR is so long- something had to be cut, and Bombadil was one of the obvious choices- as well as the Scouring of the Shire. Naah - that argument only works if Jackson hadn’t spent a lot of film time on stuff that wasn’t in the books, like the warg attack/Aragorn death fake-out, or diversions to Osgiliath/Faramir being a dick, or most Arwen scenes. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/184 "2024-05-16T05:23:28Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Arwen rescues Frodo That’s Jackson, not JRRT. _JRRT_’s Arwen, at least in LOTR, is just a love interest. The old Nurse has more agency and impact in the story. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/185 "2024-05-16T08:05:20Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > See, if I had to read a thousand pages of that style of writing by the end I’d be wanting to die. Or by page 100. Verily foorsooth it soundeth as if it wast parodying itsownself. Since Tolkien was a linguist and contributor to the OED, we can be confident that this style is authentic. Unlike the many pastiches and parodies that have followed. I’ve learnt a lot about the English language and expanded my vocabulary considerably by reading his books; and I don’t recall a single ‘forsooth’ in any of them (but I’m sure that if he did use it, he would use it correctly). ---
**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 16, 2024, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/186 "2024-05-16T09:18:06Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > There were other fantasy writers at the time – a slim handful. I think I read most of them then – Mervyn Peake, E.R.Eddison, George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis, Lord Dunsany --and none of those were much like Tolkien or at all approached his genius. I agree with all the literary criticisms. He was born in 1916, and looked backward from there. He drew on archetypes and stories from a number of ancient European epics (the Sagas, the Kalevala) as well as mythic old England, in a way that I don’t think anyone had done before and no one has done better. I remember reading LOTR when I was eleven, and feeling as though I was actually reading documents and stories from a real culture, a magic world I could not bear to leave. Tolkien was born in 1892, not 1916, or are you talking about someone else? Both before and after he began creating the universe of Middle-earth (in 1914), he read much early literature. In creating this universe, he was not consistently putting together a history. Right from the beginning, he was able to change its history to make it more interesting. He continued doing that right up till his death.in 1973. He was not someone putting together a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces already existed. He was doing what a novelist sometimes does in writing a novel. Since no one except the novelist sees the manuscript before he submits it, a novelist has no problems in making basic changes to the story. Even at the end of Tolkien’s life, there were inconsistencies. Much of the books published since Tolkien’s death that look at the many manuscripts and other scraps of his writings try to create a timeline of his writing while explaining the slowly changing versions of Middle-earth. Most people who say they like Tolkien mean that they like _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_. In general, that’s what a new reader should start from. In general, it’s not that great an idea to start with some other piece of his writing. ---
**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 16, 2024, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/187 "2024-05-16T09:25:13Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > I don’t recall a single ‘forsooth’ in any of them It appears that the word “forsooth” didn’t exist before 1661. Tolkien was a scholar of Old English, not Middle English or Modern English. Old English was what was spoken before 1000 A.D. Middle English was what spoken between 1000 A.D. and 1400 A.D. Modern English was what was spoken after 1600 A.D. (Obviously all those transitions were gradual, not sudden, but we have to have some terms to express the different periods.) ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/188 "2024-05-16T09:27:23Z")
> [@bump](#): > > So I feel like it comes back to what you’re reading the novels for- are you reading for well done language, world-building, and settings, or are you reading like you’re watching a movie in your head? Because the former type of readers will _love_ LOTR, while the second will find it somewhat boring at best, and unreadable at worst. I don’t get this. I’m _always_ watching a movie in my head when I’m reading fiction. And when I first read LOTR when I was fourteen, I was an omnivorous reader: language and style weren’t important to me, and of course Tolkien would have been the first time I even encountered world-building back in the spring of 1968. But I got pulled in by the _story,_ and that’s why I devoured the trilogy in a matter of days. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/189 "2024-05-16T11:28:48Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > Tolkien was a scholar of Old English, not Middle English or Modern English. Tolkien was very much a Middle English scholar as well. He did a definitive _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ translation along with _Pearl_ and _Orfeo_, for instance, as well as other academic works on Chaucer. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/190 "2024-05-16T11:41:24Z")
The reason why I’ve re-read LOTR many times over the years is that there’s a lot going on in it at different levels, and you’re not just not going to pick up on all of it on the first reading, you’re probably still going to be seeing things you didn’t before on the third or fifth or eighth reading. _The Hobbit_ is very different from this: it’s much more a straightforward story, with way fewer depths to plumb. I’ve re-read it a few times, but that’s all it takes to exhaust the possibility of seeing anything new in it that didn’t strike you on first reading. ---
**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 16, 2024, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/191 "2024-05-16T12:15:53Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Tolkien was very much a Middle English scholar as well. He was mostly an Old English specialist though. He didn’t do much with anything past 1400 A.D. A word like “forsooth” which wasn’t attested until 1661 wasn’t something he would talk about. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/192 "2024-05-16T12:20:03Z")
Not Pippin, but Merry Brandbuck. He used the knife that unknit the dark spells that kept the Witchking from being killed for good. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/193 "2024-05-16T15:06:52Z")
The 5/17/24 Dork Tower strip is strangely applicable to this discussion. [dorktower.com](http://dorktower.com) (Non-Patreon followers will have to wait until Friday.) ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/194 "2024-05-16T15:58:51Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > They sold over 100 million copies before those films came out. I remember reading that they had sold that many before those films came out. That didn’t have that much effect on the number sold: Well, I bought all 4 (Hobbit plus the trilogy) in Kindle format after the movie came out, so there’s at least one additional sale 😃 . ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/195 "2024-05-16T16:05:51Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > There’s a Howard the Duck comic where the cover asks the question, “Where do you go, what do you do, the night after you’ve saved the Universe?” A little more on that sidetrack: In all cases, you have a big party / get drunk / get laid / all of the above, tonight. “Tomorrow” is another thing. Maybe you take up with some long-planned destiny (Aragon becoming king, the Elves sailing off into the sunset, etc.). In LOTR, everyone else goes back to their normal life, dealing with more ordinary evils / bad behavior. Garden-variety thieves, murderers, and so on. In other tales, there may well be another ur-monster coming around the bend; You may not know what or when that will be (except in Sharing Knife, where you do know “what”), but you’ll know there’s a problem when people start disappearing / changing behavior / whatever. In the meantime, back to normal life. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/196 "2024-05-16T16:18:49Z")
I’m like you- I’m definitely a head movie watcher. But some people are actually reading the sentences and evaluating them for their own sake; word choice, etc… are more than just a vehicle to get the story to the reader in their minds. And others _love_ the world building. I found it a bit distracting and like it slowed the pace of the story inappropriately in many places. That’s why the movies did so well; they were able to show a lot of that by visual means, or just judiciously choose what to expound on, and what to leave out. That’s what I’m getting at; Tolkien is a great writer, and the story’s great, but it’s not written in the style that we’re used to as modern fantasy/sci-fi readers, and for me, it made the mental movie slower and less dynamic than I’m used to; stuff like “The Expanse” is far better written in that sense. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed it immensely as well. But I do think that it could (and was in the movies) be stripped down to go faster/read more cohesively. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/197 "2024-05-16T16:25:49Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > In LOTR, everyone else goes back to their normal life, dealing with more ordinary evils / bad behavior Not for Frodo. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/198 "2024-05-16T16:28:16Z")
I was talking with my wife about it last night, and she mentioned one interpretation of LotR that I hadn’t considered before: it’s a post-apocalyptic story. There is, of course, a Reddit thread on the topic: [https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/7x1qzy/lord\_of\_the\_rings\_is\_almost\_postapocalyptic/](https://www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfans/comments/7x1qzy/lord_of_the_rings_is_almost_postapocalyptic/) and it makes me really really really want to see George Miller do a remake of LotR set in the Mad Max universe. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/199 "2024-05-16T16:54:50Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Not for Frodo. Excellent point. He might fall into the “long-planned destiny” bucket. Ditto Bilbo. There’s some indication that Sam might ultimately go sailing west too, once he’s lived his life. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2024, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504/200 "2024-05-16T22:02:43Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Not Pippin, but Merry Brandbuck. > > He used the knife that unknit the dark spells that kept the Witchking from being killed for good. Thanks. oops. > [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > In LOTR, everyone else goes back to their normal life, dealing with more ordinary evils / bad behavior. Garden-variety thieves, murderers, and so on. There is clearly a huge party when Aragorn becomes King. Everyone arrives for it. Also of course- Aragorn goes from being Strider the lone ranger to the King. Sam, Merry and Pippin are hailed as heroes and become leaders in the Shire. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/surely-the-lord-of-the-rings-is-one-of-the-best-stories-ever-written/1001504.md?page=11)