Board Thread:Fun and Games/@comment-25931200-20181001145153

I found myself thinking about this recently, it is undeniable that LOTR is the grandfather of modern fantasy genre, yet at it's core there is something different about LOTR, something that bridges the generation gap, and i think that is because JRRT was not in fact trying to write a fantasy novel, he was just writing. His influences range from fairy tales to myths to his own experiences, but in the end he really wrrites stories. THe problem with modern fantasy is that they are trying to hit all the flags, you got to have goblins, and orcs, and trolls, and some sort of macguffin. This tends to take precedence over world building, you have one fantasy world just like another, with very few variations, and that makes them blend together. Not in LOTR though, the fact that Tolkien was trying to write ME as something that happened in RL makes it feel more real. Most fantasy literature takes place in alternate universe, which gives the author more freedom but also makes everythign seem that much less real.

For example in most literature the main hero of te narrative is some kind of the chosen one, a great warrior who will fight the evil head on, not in LOTR, the main hero, if there even is one, is Frodo, a tiny, plump halfling with no special power whatsoever, who gets thrown into things way over his head. ANd while this is not at all unusual for the fantasy genre the truth is thst Frodo never transforms into the aforementioned great hero, most fantasy books seem to take the idea of "level grinding" as one of the core premises, the hero may start out as innocent and largely helpless youth but he eventually becomes a great warrior. Not Frodo, till the very end he and Sam have no chance against even handful of orcs. They do grow but in completely different way.

Anyway that's just something i was thinking about recently, i guess everyone here is a fan of LOTR in some way, so what do you think? 