# Tolkien criticism **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 23, 2015, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676 "2015-01-23T15:09:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/161 "2015-01-28T21:26:22Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Just what is the ring’s power? See the [Lord of the Rings wikia’s article](http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/One_Ring), especially the sections on [Effects of the One Ring](http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/One_Ring#Effects_of_the_One_Ring) and [Powers](http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/One_Ring#Powers). ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/162 "2015-01-28T21:55:17Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > It is not meant to be realistic. Indeed; If one expects realism, one might as well nitpick how there can be eagles big enough to carry human beings, or how a race that lives essentially forever be declining in population. And that’s leaving ASIDE all the “obvious” magic. Please check your “realism” nitpicks at the door. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/163 "2015-01-28T22:20:34Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > . . . how a race that lives essentially forever be declining in population. . . . How is that mysterious? They don’t reproduce often enough. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/164 "2015-01-28T23:21:11Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > or how a race that lives essentially forever be declining in population. The elves were gradually relocating to the West. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/165 "2015-01-28T23:25:33Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > The elves were gradually relocating to the West. There could be a rather sedate baby-boom in Valinor for all we know, frisky Noldor released from the Halls of Mandos etc. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/166 "2015-01-28T23:40:58Z")
> [@Nonsuch](#): > > I don’t buy this. You have to wear the Ring to wield its power. Frodo can dominate Gollum because Gollum perceives him as the Ring’s keeper, and Gollum is cagy enough to realize he has a better chance of recovering the Ring sticking close to Frodo. I don’t think this is the case: factually, merely carrying the ring, being the ring-bearer, appears to have an effect on a person, even if they aren’t actually wearing it (confering increased life, for example). Galadriel remarks on this to Frodo - who can see her ring, invisible to others, because he is a ring-bearer himself. In short, the ring appears to have certain active powers one needs to wear it to obtain, and other passive powers that one gets simply by virtue of ownership. > [@](#): > > Frodo’s failure to give up the Ring is inevitable. **There is no question of it.** Gandalf all but says as much: “[It is] so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him.” “A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it.” I could go on. But at least two keepers did abandon it in the book - Bilbo and Sam. So Gandalf wasn’t being accurate. > [@](#): > > Even as a kid reading the book for the first time, I knew Frodo would never — could never — simply chuck it into the fire and be done with it. He’s not seduced by the Ring, he’s beaten into submission by it. It is simply too powerful for him to resist. No one in his position could do so — not Aragorn, not Gandalf. This is why I liken Frodo’s ordeal and its aftereffects to torture: sooner or later, under torture, everybody breaks, but that doesn’t mean they become bad people, nor that they’ve chosen to give up being good people. Frodo’s actions at the Cracks of Doom are not a choice; they are foreordained, and completely defensible. This was always a weak point in their plan, admittedly. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure why this is such a contentious topic, or why people try to argue Tolkien achieves something that he plainly never set out to do. Tolkien was interested in myths and archetypes, and was not interested so much in his characters’ choices as in their nature: only a hobbit can carry the Ring to Mount Doom because only a hobbit lacks the greed, vanity and lust for power that makes the Ring so corrupting; Tolkien’s is fundamentally an essentialist vision. This moral simplicity is exactly what gives the book its epic sweep, as well as its enduring popularity. It is true that Tolkien was always interested in myths (and heroic poetry), but I do not see there as, of necessity, being a dichotomy between that and being interested in character choices - after all, the whole point in introducing Gollum into the mix of characters apperas to be exactly to demonstrate that choices matter: he’s a hobbit who made bad choices (namely, started off ownership of the ring with greed and violence), while Frodo made different choices (a hobbit who owned the ring, true, but only for good motives). In the book, Gandalf comments, for example, that Bilbo started his ownership of the ring with “pity” for Gollum - and this is why he suffered such little hurt from owning it. This was clearly a choice Bilbo made - he was tempted to stab Gollum and be done with him, but refrained. It was not inevitable. All three ring-bearers are hobbits - Bilbo, Frodo and Gollum - so share the same “essence”, but clearly, they made different choices - and so have different fates. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/167 "2015-01-28T23:42:14Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > It’s true that you have not offered criticism of any substance, nothing more than “I don’t like it so it sucks.” To be clear, in no way were my feelings or those of anyone else hurt by anything you wrote. Okay. However, my partially-trained “I don’t like it so it sucks” is very much like another’s “Tolkien was a pedantic bore, more interested in creating a world, and especially that world’s languages and history, than in creating a good book,” except shorter. And with fewer commas. > [@](#): > > _Beowulf_ is not dreck. It was and is remembered for some damn good reasons. The main one being that a copy survives. No joke; we have damned little of anything in Old English, so whatever its original value (probably considerable because the copy we have was written down some 300 years after it was composed) it is more valuable now. > [@](#): > > Similar to this is something like “only someone who encounters it before the age of 12 likes _The Lord of the Rings_.” Tell that to W. H. Auden. Tolkien, Auden, and Lewis were friends. That alters how much weight I give their opinions of each other’s writings. We can play Dueling Critics 'til the cows come home, but it gets boring. I’d rather hear other people’s ideas, as the Frodo hijack is doing nicely. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/168 "2015-01-29T00:49:40Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Indeed; If one expects realism, one might as well nitpick how there can be eagles big enough to carry human beings, or how a race that lives essentially forever be declining in population. And that’s leaving ASIDE all the “obvious” magic. > > Please check your “realism” nitpicks at the door. The Elves are declining in LOTR mostly because they’re leaving Middle-earth. It’s built into their nature that they’ll eventually want to go to the Undying Lands. Hell, we’re shown the very moment when that desire is awakened in Legolas. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/169 "2015-01-29T02:10:48Z")
I’m sort of in agreement with Hugo Dyson regarding the books. I know a lot of people like them, but like some others have pointed out, I find them overly long and tedious. Characters don’t speak, they declaim. There’s a never ending parade of characters, with ridiculous names, most of whom don’t really do anything of consequence or are important to the story. deus ex machina abound (“And then they were saved by, I don’t know, giant eagles or something.”) The work is incredibly inconsistent in tone. At the beginning you have Bilbo cracking wise at his birthday party and Tom Bombadil singing rhyming songs about his girlfriend, and then, by the end, everything is dark prophecy and war. And this is putting aside the reactionary politics. I’m not really a fan. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/170 "2015-01-29T03:17:22Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Okay. However, my partially-trained “I don’t like it so it sucks” is very much like another’s “Tolkien was a pedantic bore, more interested in creating a world, and especially that world’s languages and history, than in creating a good book,” except shorter. Indeed, neither has substance, insight, or value. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/171 "2015-01-29T03:46:35Z")
What would you consider has “substance, insight, or value?” Only positive pieces like those by Auden or Lewis? You and I disagree on an artistic work. This happens, and is the basis for many careers and catty letters to the editors of literary journals. Shit, this thread is young and has the potential to go on for centuries. But look at what many others have said, all along the lines of “Tolkien was a pedantic bore, more interested in creating a world, and especially that world’s languages and history, than in creating a good book.” He needed an editor to keep him on track, keep him telling the story, and slash and burn the weeds Tolkien loved too much to burn. Do not dismiss those views simply because you disagree with them, as your post demonstrates. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/172 "2015-01-29T04:10:14Z")
any would be minor and inconsequential. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/173 "2015-01-29T14:21:09Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > What would you consider has “substance, insight, or value?” Only positive pieces like those by Auden or Lewis? You and I disagree on an artistic work. This happens, and is the basis for many careers and catty letters to the editors of literary journals. Shit, this thread is young and has the potential to go on for centuries. But look at what many others have said, all along the lines of “Tolkien was a pedantic bore, more interested in creating a world, and especially that world’s languages and history, than in creating a good book.” He needed an editor to keep him on track, keep him telling the story, and slash and burn the weeds Tolkien loved too much to burn. Do not dismiss those views simply because you disagree with them, as your post demonstrates. Personally, I can’t really debate your opinions, of those of others who simply find the work boring. There is really no basis for discussion about that. Taste is what it is, you can’t make someone see value in a work if they do not. To my mind, and I know I’m not alone in this, the “weeds” you wish to “slash and burn” are _exactly_ the part that adds grandeur and grace to what would otherwise be simply an adventure story. Obviously you and others don’t see it that way, which is fine; personally, I think you are missing out; but then, there are plenty of works of literature I don’t “get” that others have lauded, despite trying (James Joyce springs to mind). No doubt I am missing out on those. ---
**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:** [January 29, 2015, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/174 "2015-01-29T14:28:23Z")
agreed and well put, Malthus. I don’t mind honest critiques of Tolkien. What I don’t like are those who dismiss his work out of hand as juvenile and not worthy of respect. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2015, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/175 "2015-01-29T15:19:45Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > Indeed; If one expects realism, one might as well nitpick how there can be eagles big enough to carry human beings, or how a race that lives essentially forever be declining in population. And that’s leaving ASIDE all the “obvious” magic. > > Please check your “realism” nitpicks at the door. The eagles are explicitly supernatural beings; they _are_ obvious magic. And Tolkien _did_ explain why the elves are not reproducing even at replacement rates – they only choose one partner for life, ever, and only have children during a relatively brief period of their immortal lives, anyway. The large number of children of Faënor and Nerdanel is an extreme outlier; most elves have only a few children, if any. Tolkien gave other seeming discrepancies at least minimal explanation – such as the squared off mountains of Mordor (unnaturally raised by Sauron). The underpopulation of Middle-Earth, however, is unsupported. It’s just an example of poor worldbuilding, albeit amidst a wealth of superb worldbuilding. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/176 "2015-02-04T06:38:03Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I’m sort of in agreement with Hugo Dyson regarding the books. I know a lot of people like them, but like some others have pointed out, I find them overly long and tedious. Characters don’t speak, they declaim. There’s a never ending parade of characters, with ridiculous names, most of whom don’t really do anything of consequence or are important to the story. deus ex machina abound (“And then they were saved by, I don’t know, giant eagles or something.”) This leads me to believe you had to _really_, _ **really** _ make sure you didn’t like it, namely by reading the entire epic. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/177 "2015-02-04T06:44:20Z")
I missed this the first time around… Someone calling themselves **Captain Amazing** complains about characters with ridiculous names? People do have ridiculous names. Mao Zedong, Henri Poincare, Enid Blyton, Joge Luis Borges. Not every book is full of people with names like Jack Ryan. (Ever read the Iliad? Now there’s a book full of people with ridiculous names!) ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/178 "2015-02-04T06:47:59Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > Frodo’s failure to give up the Ring is inevitable. There is no question of it. Gandalf all but says as much: “[It is] so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him.” “A Ring of Power looks after itself, Frodo. It may slip off treacherously, but its keeper never abandons it.” > > But at least two keepers did abandon it in the book - Bilbo and Sam. So Gandalf wasn’t being accurate. At the point when this dialog takes place, the episode in which Sam gives up the Ring is many months into the future. Obviously, Bilbo has already done so, and IIRC Gandalf does qualify his statement a little later in the same conversation–“In all its history Bilbo alone has surrendered the One Ring”, or something close to that. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/179 "2015-02-04T14:47:58Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > At the point when this dialog takes place, the episode in which Sam gives up the Ring is many months into the future. Obviously, Bilbo has already done so, and IIRC Gandalf does qualify his statement a little later in the same conversation–“In all its history Bilbo alone has surrendered the One Ring”, or something close to that. Yes, but the point is that Gandalf in this particular quote is not the best source for an accurate analysis of whether anyone could abandon it or not. We the audience are actually shown that it was possible - at least, to give it to someone else. After all, who else actually possessed it in its long history? - Sauron himself - Isuldur -Gollem -Bilbo -Frodo -Sam Ignoring Sauron, this means of the five who have ever actually been “ring-bearers”, no less than two would go on to abandon it. While it is true that Gandalf only knew about the one, why would his singularity be so remarkable? Bilbo was one of only three non-Sauron people to have it. ---
**Author:** ![Nonsuch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nonsuch/32/2922_2.png) [@Nonsuch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nonsuch)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676/180 "2015-02-04T17:19:34Z")
Pay careful attention to Tolkien’s language here: a ring-keeper “never _abandons_ it.” Bilbo is only able to rid himself of the Ring by entrusting it to someone else, and that only with great reluctance and much cajoling by Gandalf. Likewise, Sam doesn’t _abandon_ it, he gives it back to Frodo. Gandalf’s point is that the Ring creates too strong a bond for a keeper to simply lay it aside, and that it does not allow itself to come to harm by it’s keeper’s actions. Thus, as I said, Frodo’s failure to destroy it of his own volition is entirely predictable, and congruent with what we know of it through Gandalf. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tolkien-criticism/710676.md?page=10)