# Why has Middle Earth not gained/held the same cultural cachet that Star Wars has? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth\ **Created:** [September 23, 2019, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697 "2019-09-23T13:04:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/121 "2019-10-03T03:45:23Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > I think there’s confusion here that stems from your lumping “the books” together as a single unified creation, when Tolkien’s correspondence and interviews over many years show that they were quite different strands of his lifelong “Middle-earth” worldbuilding, emerging at quite different times. I think the confusion involves you taking a phrase out of context. If you read the lines before and after the phrase and the letter in response to that and Tolkien’s follow-up, you will see that he was clearly referring to the length of the material in terms of typing costs (he even talked about how much he had spent so far) and how he had become tired concerning the whole project. In fact, you did not even provide the whole phrase: “unfit for children (if fit for anybody)”. > [@](#): > > To summarize very briefly: Tolkien began constructing his imaginary languages and a mythical realm for their context during his late adolescence. This was the background that ultimately grew into what was published posthumously as _The Silmarillion_ and all the other supporting “tales” of Middle-earth. Nothing about it was originally intended for children: in fact, Tolkien was rather fiercely antagonistic to the Victorian notion that “Faerie” or fable containing what we now refer to as “fantasy” should be relegated to kiddie-lit. That’s because he saw children in a special way. From the article I mentioned: > [@](#): > > Instead of creating a story just for children, Tolkien had a deep respect for his own children and children in general. He even let his son, Christopher, help construct the story while growing up. Further in the New York Times interview, Tolkien said, “Children aren’t a class. They are merely human beings at different stages of maturity. All of them have a human intelligence which even at its lowest is a pretty wonderful thing, and the entire world in front of them. It remains to be seen if they rise above that.” In short, the works are meant for everybody, especially children. The claim that he did not have children or even young adults in mind is questionable. > [@](#): > > According to [Tolkien himself](https://www.tolkienestate.com/en/writing/letters/letter-163-to-wh-auden.html), when he spontaneously started the story of _The Hobbit_ in deliberately “kiddie-lit” form as a family man in his thirties, it took him a while to figure out that it could actually be part of his far more complex and erudite Middle-earth storyverse: > > This is only partly true, in that Tolkien had children (especially his own, along with a received idea of what a “children’s story” should be like) in mind when he wrote _The Hobbit_. He began the overall worldbuilding of Middle-earth decades before _The Hobbit_, and did not have children in mind as a potential audience at all. He originally attempted to get these earlier legends published as his proposed sequel to _The Hobbit_. And he completed LotR decades after _The Hobbit_, deliberately choosing to make it “not addressed to children at all”. There is nothing in the complexity of the work that makes it unfit for children, unless particular kids can’t handle long works. As for dark themes, I recall one reviewer correctly point out that the works hardly contain themes concerning sex and religion, at least in contrast to [much older works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien%27s_influences) that inspired Tolkien. > [@](#): > > :dubious: I don’t see how you can look at the words “complex, rather bitter, and very terrifying” in that sentence and say that it’s not making a point about the content. Because I read the words before the line, the ones that came after “children,” and the rest of the letter. > [@](#): > > And if you look at the rest of what Tolkien wrote about his work (especially his letters), it’s quite clear that he **did** consider, and **intend** , the content of LotR to be fundamentally unsuitable for children. So far, I’ve seen only the quote you provided, but he never talks about those “dark themes” in the letter, and the entire phrase is “quite unfit for children (if fit for anybody)”. The phrase continues where he states that LOTR isn’t even a sequel to _The Hobbit_ (which implies that the sequel should also be considered). In the next sentence, he states that the whole thing is around 600,000 words long, and one typist insists that it is much more (in the sentence right before what you quoted, he wrote that he had already spent around L100 for typing costs, and he could barely afford them). That’s why he finds the project “impracticable” and that he is “tired.” In the P.S. to the letter, he even feels sorry that “Rayner” had read LOTR, but not to the “bitter end” because he had finished the last “book” only recently. In response to that, the publisher asks if the length of the two books might be solved by separating them into three or four “self-contained” volumes." So, you see, you took the phrase out of context. Tolkien and his publisher were not at all concerned with the unsuitability of the material for children but that the work was too long and too tiring and too expensive for the author. BTW, “Rayner” refers to Rayner Unwin, Sir Stanley Unwin’s (the publisher) son. He served as a test reader for the publishers and gave a favorable report on _The Hobbit_ at the age of 10. What about LOTR? They rejected it because “[Unwins felt that [LOTR] had got out of hand as a children’s book and turned down the offer.](https://www.noted.co.nz/archive/archive-listener-nz-2012/he-looked-at-what-hed-written-and-thought-ah-i-must-find-out-what-a-hobbit-is)”. It was accepted later but divided into three parts. So, you see, the work was never intended to be for adults only or kiddie lit. Rather, it was meant for young and old, and with Tolkien’s view of children (see above). What’s more interesting is Tolkien’s view of the modern world, especially one where his work received a cult following, especially in the U.S. For details on that, read the article above. > [@](#): > > So getting back to your original claim: > > He was definitely inspired throughout by European epics and legends, and you can argue that there’s a sense in which the “children’s story” genre of _The Hobbit_ is “watered down somewhat for kids”. But that does not at all apply to the rest of the stories, most of which were originally conceived long before _The Hobbit_. To recap, the quote you gave is taken out of context. He was referring to the length of the work, and the tone of the letter implies that he was tired of having to spend on it. The context of the letters themselves (see the last article linked above) reveals that it was also the length of the work (600,000 words, and up to a million with _The Silmarillon_) that did not encourage the Unwins to accept the work. There is nothing in what you presented that shows that LOTR is unsuitable for children. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/122 "2019-10-03T04:02:39Z")
FWIW, I read LotR when I was 8, and enjoyed it immensely. ---
**Author:** ![BeagleJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5daacb/32.png) [@BeagleJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeagleJesus)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2019, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/123 "2019-10-03T12:44:05Z")
> [@Brayne\_Ded](#): > > Well yes, the film does veer towards being pretentious and self-important, but unfortunately any sport of quest story quickly goes that way because that quest is so _important_. It’s. like, they’re saving the world, man. Even the best-intentioned film strips away away the philosophical musings of the book, which is a complex and multi-layered work. Most folks I know are not LOTR fans because they felt it was too much for a movie about elves and dwarves and magic and stuff. I haven’t read the books but I very much enjoyed the films as I thought they did a good job of bringing Tolkien’s world to life and making you care about a ring that doesn’t really do anything. However, with every subsequent viewing I start to see why others think it’s a bit over the top as it feels like the less capable actors in the film (I’m looking at you Elijah Wood) are doing their best to give an overly dramatic reading of The Charge of the Light Brigade and failing miserably. ---
**Author:** ![ralfy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ralfy/32/600_2.png) [@ralfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralfy)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2019, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/124 "2019-10-04T00:30:53Z")
From what I remember, LOTR had a cult following among adults during the 1960s, and one Tolkien biography reports that Lucas cites LOTR as one of the works that influenced SW, although I cannot find the interview. The connections between Lucas and Joseph Campbell are very obvious, though, and Campbell’s view of the hero and a journey can be seen in both LOTR and SW. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2019, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/125 "2019-10-04T00:43:04Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > What was so dark about 1977? Disco, certainly. Anything else? things like the son of sam … the unemployment rate/inflation the general decay of the big cities the cynicism after watergate there was just an air of doom and gloom throughout a lot of the country y … ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2019, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/126 "2019-10-04T15:08:29Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > (Oh, and the others/white walkers aren’t all that different from the wraiths in the barrow downs, if you want to look at the bad guys.) The wraiths were the Nazgûl. The Barrow-Downs were haunted by wights. \*Wraith \*means ‘twisted’ (related to “writhe”). Gollum was partway toward being a wraith. Even Frodo got a push in that direction from the attack at Weathertop. \*Wight \*simply means ‘entity’, something that exists. It’s a term even vaguer than “creature.” When something is so strange you can’t define what it is, all you can say about it is that it exists, an “entity” (or “wight”). Tom Shippey gave some valuable insight into the terms in his _Tolkien: Author of the Century_ book. As a philologist, Tolkien was closely attentive to etymologies, one of the things I love about him best. > [@EllisDee](#): > > The point is that part of the Tolkien legacy is DEPICTING non-human societies. We meet the hobbits, and learn all about their houses, social interactions, and society as a whole in loving detail. I have a doubt about classifying Hobbits as non-human. Tolkien said they are close kin of ours. I think of them as more like a human subspecies, perhaps _Homo sapiens hobbitus_ (or _floriensis_). ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2019, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/127 "2019-10-04T19:00:46Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > How many kids dressed as Saruman do you see at Halloween? He looks like Gandolf. > > I rest my case. > > 🙂 Now I’m wondering what I’d have to do to make a costume of stone-cold badass Christopher Lee. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 2019, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/128 "2019-10-04T20:14:54Z")
> [@asterion](#): > > Now I’m wondering what I’d have to do to make a costume of stone-cold badass Christopher Lee. You just need a [white suit and gold painted water pistol](https://jamesbond.fandom.com/wiki/Francisco_Scaramanga_(Christopher_Lee)). ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2019, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/129 "2019-10-05T00:52:49Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > \*Wight \*simply means ‘entity’, something that exists. It’s a term even vaguer than “creature.” When something is so strange you can’t define what it is, all you can say about it is that it exists, an “entity” (or “wight”). Tom Shippey gave some valuable insight into the terms in his _Tolkien: Author of the Century_ book. As a philologist, Tolkien was closely attentive to etymologies, one of the things I love about him best. In one his essays, C.S. Lewis wrote about talking to what was then the younger generation (just post-WW2) about teaching Christianity and discovering to his surprise that there was a substantial language barrier between how Lewis had been taught to use the English language and how common usage had changed since his school days. For example, in Lewis’s day ‘gravity’ meant seriousness, importance; while the younger generation took it to mean “the force that pulls objects to the ground”. Regarding creature, it was originally that which a creator makes- a “create-ture”; whereas the younger generation took it to mean thing, monster. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/130 "2019-10-09T02:16:51Z")
C.S. Lewis’s Studies in Words is filled with philologies like that. He went into considerable depth on the word _nature_ from Latin and its English cognates _kin_ and _kind_. To be kind to someone etymologically means to treat them (ideally) like kin. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/131 "2019-10-09T08:34:19Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > For example, in Lewis’s day ‘gravity’ meant seriousness, importance; while the younger generation took it to mean “the force that pulls objects to the ground”. So what word did Lewis use to mean “the force that pulls objects to the ground”? It was nearly three hundred years since Newton, after all. Or is it just that, being very much an “arts” type rather than a scientist, he didn’t think much about that kind of stuff? ---
**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:** [October 9, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/132 "2019-10-09T12:12:15Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > So what word did Lewis use to mean “the force that pulls objects to the ground”? It was nearly three hundred years since Newton, after all. Or is it just that, being very much an “arts” type rather than a scientist, he didn’t think much about that kind of stuff? I vaguely remember the essay that **Lumpy** refers to, but it’s been awhile since I read it. Assuming there’s not some context he’s leaving out, I’m pretty sure that Lewis meant that the use of “gravity” to mean seriousness had become far less common, so that “nowadays” anyone hearing the word would automatically think of the scientific sense of the word. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697/133 "2019-10-09T19:12:00Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I vaguely remember the essay that **Lumpy** refers to, but it’s been awhile since I read it. Assuming there’s not some context he’s leaving out, I’m pretty sure that Lewis meant that the use of “gravity” to mean seriousness had become far less common, so that “nowadays” anyone hearing the word would automatically think of the scientific sense of the word. Ah – thanks. This as explained by you, strikes me as a bit of a fatuous observation on the learned religious gentleman’s part: but I’m biased – that guy just annoys me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-middle-earth-not-gained-held-the-same-cultural-cachet-that-star-wars-has/840697.md?page=6)