Tolkein's template of Human, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf, Goblin, Dragon, Demon is absolutely pervasive in in the fantasy game world, and from there it's the standard in fantasy video games, anime, and manga.
Idk if this is a hot take or not, but I'm rather tired of the tropes/stereotypes where the elves are often forest-dwelling hippies and the dwarves are drunkard fools and blacksmiths. Although from what I've heard, that dwarf one might stem more from the LOTR movies than anything from the books.
@@BradTheAmerican Yeah. The High Elves in the Lord of the Rings were very mighty and proud, yet also gay and merry. They were also skilled craftsmen, and delighted in all forms of art. The dwarves were very serious, and they weren't actually better craftsmen than the Elves.
Tolkien's strength is that he genuinely loves language, and the material that inspired him to write a mythological love letter to the Anglo-Saxon people. Tolkien's command of the English language, and the way he wrote, it's truly BEAUTIFUL. A work of art.
One of the things that I've seen in a few other post-Tolkien fantasy series is that they often now include both maps and pronunciation guides for all of the unfamiliar places and names and words you might encounter. But I haven't yet encountered anyone who is quite as complete (detailed) or naturally skillful in conjuring up new words or names that are intuitively easy to understand and just 'feel right'. At least for native English speakers.
Tolkien explicitly stated that LOTR and his works while originally he thought to make them that, he changed his mind and made it a unique work. While he said it was impossible to not be inspired by what you know he in no way wanted it to be analogous to Anglo-Saxon mythology.
10:00 A writer named Jo Walton once said, "The books won't be judged by what the critics say about them; the critics will be judged by what they say about the books."
I love seeing how his publishers took a risk with the Lord of the Rings even though they didn’t know how it would fit anywhere or if it would sell, and as a result it sparked a whole new genre and way of storytelling. Just goes to show how publishers (and authors) have to be willing to take risks every now and then for us to discover new classics.
As an aspiring fantasy writer (debut is with an editor as we speak) I have to acknowledge that Tolkien and LotR are still the standard that all other fantasy is compared to. If you even mention that you write fantasy most people will usually say "Oh, like Lord of the Rings". In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that. He did a lot that I liked, but also some things that I didn't like. So I write my story accordingly, and acknowledge his influence.
When I was young I remember the knock offs, and MOST of them openly said "yeah, this is a cheap knock off of Tolkien". I've read better 'stories', and better dialogue. But it cant be helped, its always going to be a knockoff.
Thank you so much for featuring the Mount Fuji quotation (that I had not previously encountered) from Sir Terry Pratchett - I miss him even more now...
@@Jess_of_the_Shire As soon as you mentioned the three categories of how Tolkien has influenced writers, I thought of the Mt. Fuji quote. Glad you included that!
I’m a PhD researcher primarily studying Sir Terry Pratchett. Just discovered this channel and that line has been running over and over in my head. Loving the videos by the way. (Funny how both Tolkien and Pratchett experienced shady early paperback publishing overseas. His original German publisher slipped an advert for tinned soup into Equal Rites).
As always, very thoughtful commentary. I think one additional factor to consider is how genre fiction in general has become more mainstream with time. With the partial exception of mysteries, a lot of genre fiction was dismissed as adolescent trash for decades. I know it was when I was in high school in the very early 1980s. By the time I was in grad school, I was attending conference presentations on "Dune" and Machiavelli, 1950's alien invasion films, and the politics of "Star Trek". One panelist even presented a paper on the social allegories in "Gilligan's Island". Academic books on the Planet of the Apes and Godzilla soon followed. I even teach my own course on science fiction now. Fantasy, science fiction, supernatural horror, and superheroes are no longer relegated to the cultural fringe. I think you are absolutely right that Tolkien and Tolkien fandom helped all this happen. Thanks again for another great video!
This is a great observation! I'm so glad that the mainstreaming of fantasy fiction means it gets talked about more in academic settings. There's such a wealth to learn from it. Thank you so much for watching!
The book 'Nightmare Fuel' by Nina Nesseth has a chapter on the history of horror that at one point nicely covers the sociological aspects of 1950's alien invasion films if you're at all interested. If you need some solid video analyses of Godzilla then I recommend watching 'Godzilla's Weird Journey' by @ProperBird and 'HOW GODZILLA CHANGED | The many faces of Godzilla | monsterverse' by @spookyastronauts at some point.
Haha, I knew that would be a controversial take, but I really think it comes down to taste. Some people aren't going to prefer Tolkien's particular type of fantasy, and that's just dandy.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire just wanted to say your leaf by niggle reading is amazing. Had a family death a while back and wanted to listen to it on the drive, but the other one disappeared. I own several physical copies and should probably buy the audio, but honestly, yours was better. Anyway... it helped and I thank you.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire And there are those who love his stories and world-building, but aren't the biggest fans of his overall writing style. Tolkien definitely had a particular form of prose.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I do think that also leads in a bit to the discussion of, what do we mean when we say "the greatest"? It usually isn't about taste, and doesn't mean "what we like the most", although that is always going to play into our judgements! But like... if someone posits that Romeo & Juliet, or MacBeth, are "the greatest" tragic dramas in English, I'm not going to argue with them -- even though I personally hate them (as stories). I can prefer other types of stories, but still recognize what qualities people are talking about in a work that they're putting forward as a superlative of the genre.
My neighbour knocked on the door today with an unexpected diagnosis of throat cancer. I bought her some roses later because I honestly didn't know what to do. Thank you for you essential compassion. I have found in life, however much lucky in love, that a man should always remain a gentleman. You are clearly a lady and I follow you with best interest and astonishment. Today this offers some relief from an unfortunate horror which has been less than rewarding. Thanks for what you do. The internet can be a dreadful thing but equally can offer a charming, if occasional repose. With best wishes madam and thank you. You are a lady and deserving of the respect of what I have always been, Happily an Englishman . I shall quietly respect you as a gentleman should.
"The Earthsea Trilogy", by Ursula K. LeGuin seems to have been influenced by Tolkein. Also, Michael Moorcock's Elric books took place in a masterfully crafted world, with a detailed pantheon of gods, and a lot of history. It is a world of demons, sorcerers, and swords. One could possibly argue the same for Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, set a million or so years in the future in a world rich with geography, vast ancient history, magic and sorcery, and bizarre creatures.
I think Elric is more directly a response to Robert E. Howard than Tolkien, but I suppose that the Melnibonéans can be seen as a commentary on Tolkien's elves, or at least a statement that more of them would probably be like Fëanor than the ones that the Hobbits meet.
@@FaoladhTV Let's be real Michael Moorcook fashioned the Melniboneans as a commentary on the UK in the 60s. Dying colonialists island-Empire overtaken by hedonism and drugs and all.😅 But the Melniboneans basically went on to become the Targaryans as well (whitehaired incestious dragon-riding royals from a fallen island).
@@DesignatedMember The Numenoreans were a grand colonial empire colonizing Middle Earth until their collapse and brief resurgence under Aragorn but how long is that really going to last?
I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on the works of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. Their work also resurfaced in the late 60's among the hippy-ish circles, probably riding the Tolkien/fantasy train that got moving again at that time.
Yeah, there are even traces of Dracula in Tolkien, the council of Elrond seems directly taken from the chapter in Dracula where the 'team' is assembled to take on Dracula.
Well done, and yes you are only scratching the surface. I don't think Robert E. Howard & Edgar Rice Burroughs get the credit they deserve for world building. Long before Peter Jackson Tolkien broke into pop culture. In the 70s you got Led Zeppelin's Tolkien inspired lyrics, Rank & Bass' "The Hobbit" & Ralph Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings". The 80s was a decade of Sword & Sorcery with Dungeons & Dragons, films like Conan the Barbarian, Excalibur, Krull, Legend, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth & Highlander. The Japanese started producing Manga like "Berserk" & anime like "Record of Lodoss War" & "Ninja Scroll". Blind Guardian's concept album "Nightfall in Middle-Earth" inspired by the Similrilian came out in the 1990s along with the impact of Square Soft with the Final Fantasy video games, Chrono Trigger & Secret of Mana. If people are borrowing from Tolkien it is only fair to point out that he "borrowed" quite a bit from Celtic, Welsh & Germanic myth. I would be lying if I didn't think Arthurian Literature & Richard Wagner's "The Ring Cycle" had something to do with LOTR.
I'd disagree about Wagner's operas having something to do with LotR, at least in the sense that they inspired Tolkien. They merely share a source of inspiration.
The two comments are gone from this, but reading Wagners "Opera and Drama", his notion of musical motifs personifying people and ideas is literally flipped on its head in Tolkiens creation myth to the gods almost BEING 'music'. I would recommend people read that, because while its not often mentioned by Tolkien, his notion of 'creation' being 'musical' is something that makes for an interesting new way of looking at Lord of the Rings and the history of middle earth. I think the closest we get is that when Aragorn is with the hobbits around the fire I think he sings the story that he tells them or at least 'drones' it. I remember an interview with a musician who said the singing is almost like another instrument to him. When they are attacked, Frodos saying 'elbereth gilthoniel' is said by Aragorn to have been the main thing that drove off the ringwraiths. Not exactly 'music' but a similar vein.
I wish you'd have addressed Michael Moorcock. He's very distinctly in the second camp of fantasy writers, but his fantasy is deeply influential to future fantasy authors. You should check out his Elric Saga. It's nuts.
I really enjoy the way you present the material and the amount of research that you do to make these videos. I discovered Tolkien in middle school in the mid 70s. I've been hooked on fantasy novels ever since. I'm really looking forward to the Discworld series, I adore Terry Pratchett's books.
Great synopsis on the effect Tolkien had on the genre! I recommend the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher as an amazing example of contemporary fantasy that definitely takes inspiration from JRR’s world building; in that The Dresden Files lore is based heavily on classical fantasy and myth, creating an in-depth world worthy of the expectations of Tolkien fans. Thank you for the videos! I always enjoy your takes on JRR’s works and the genre at large.
Good insight there, I really liked the trope of "Farmboy meets wizard who sets him on a quest with a group of others, which has been used for ever! I know you would need the length of The Lord of The Rings to cover everyone but one of my favorites didn't make the cut and that was L.Frank Baum. I guess you could say he was the threashhold from Childrens to adult fantasy. I got started with the Ballentyne books years ago, I was one of the few in my rural area who took the novels so seriously that we learned the languages as far as we could. And yes, the paperbacks really opened the worlds to us. I don't think the movies really pushed the fantasy genre so much as introduced the genre to a whole new generation with the difference in how we take in info. To the future, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on Discworld! Granny Weatherwax being a favorite! "I ain't ded yet!"
Baum is often unjustly neglected in discussions of the history of fantasy literature. The Oz books are, as far as I know, the earliest example of a series of fantasy adventure novels set in the same magical world, and I loved them when I was a kid.
Another great video Jess. Absolutely fascinating review of Tolkien's pivotal influence on modern fantasy, including discussion of some of my favourite authors.
Another group of writers that deserve mention were those who had already made a reputation writing in other genres, especially science fiction, and found in the rising popularity of fantasy a new way to express ideas that they wanted to explore.
On days when things are rough and i dont feel well, i genuinely go the end of any video and reminded myself to try and have a "Happy, Hobbity day" and it really helps
So you're asking, what came first? The Author or the Story? Ah, the age old question. Is the Author merely a tool of a Higher Power? Tolkien certainly seemed like he believed it!
I was listening to a comedian do a bit about how Harry Potter was just a rip off of Luke Skywalker with crappy swords... he couldn't make the connection that both (and Aragorn) were modeled on King Arthur.
In addition to his talent, no other author ever had the tools that Tolkien had. The early 20th century college education. The expertise in languages and the early stories of Northern cultures. Then you add that he worked on his world in his head and on paper for, what, fifty years? He is in a class by himself.
“January 4, 1937: Tolkien has recovered from the flu and is redoing the illustrations for The Hobbit. September 21, 1937: The Hobbit is published. The reviews are glowing, the sales are brisk, and as a result, the readers are restless. The book is selling so well that Stanley Unwin does what publishers always do: he demands a sequel. October 15, 1937: Tolkien says no. He complains, “I cannot think of anything more to say about hobbits.” December 16, 1937: Tolkien relents. He promises to try to write something more about hobbits and manages to draft three chapters of a new story. March 4, 1938: He shows the early chapters to C. S. Lewis and also to his son Christopher Tolkien. They like it very much. April and May 1938: Unwin keeps pestering Tolkien for more chapters. Tolkien just ignores him. June 4, 1938: Tolkien sends Unwin a brief progress report. He hems and haws and finally confesses, “I have not had a chance to touch any story-writing since the Christmas vacation.” “Christmas vacation? That means he hasn’t touched the book in more than five months. If that sounds like bad news for a publisher, the rest of the report is even worse. Tolkien tells Unwin that instead of drafting more material, he has decided to start over and rewrite the first three chapters. “What motivated Tolkien to go back and start the whole thing over again? He says he has been thinking about the “excellent criticism” he has received from his readers. C. S. Lewis is one of those readers, and Lewis has complained that there is too much dialogue, too much chatter, too much silly “hobbit talk.” According to Lewis, all this dialogue is dragging down the story line. “Tolkien grumbles. “The trouble is that ‘hobbit talk’ amuses me … more than adventures; but I must curb this severely.”” - Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings by Diana Glyer a.co/3meujsB
Wow. You mentioned the Kinks as part of the first wave of the British lnvasion bands. True enough. And now l have an image in my mind of Ray Davies, with his torn allegiance between traditional England--the Shire!--and something New and Beyond, as the ultimate representation of Frodo Baggins. Syd Barrett was surely Bilbo-hear "The Gnome" from Pink Floyd's first album-and for Frodo, it's Ray all the way.
I would love to see you expand your repotoire and cover other fantasy books such as : The Riddle Master of Hed ( by Patrica Mckilliop ) the Sword of Shannara , the Black Company . Thanks for sharing your knowledge of the Lord of the Rings. I love your videos ! Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas ! 🤶🎁🎄☃️🦌⛄🎅💚❤️✨❄️🧊🥶🌨️
Oh man, I would love for her to cover the Shannara series! While, yes, the primary impetus for the journey in Sword was basically the same from LOTR, I love the way Brooks slowly peppered in random things that all rolled into the eventual realization that the story was set in a post-apocalyptic future. I read the books young, so I didn't really cotton on to that point until 'The Druid of Shannara', but when I did... 🎉 It's one of the coolest twists to a fantasy world I've ever read. To be fair, Robert Jordan did a similar thing with The Wheel of Time, but Brooks came first. 😂
Jess - you have brought back my joy in discovering Tolkien in the 1960s! I had the Houghton Mifflin paperbacks with the original artwork on the covers, and read and reread those books. My English teacher asked us to bring in what we were currently reading when I first started the LOTR, and was quite enthusiastic about my book choice.
It's hard to believe that it was only about 10 years or so, from when my 7th grade teacher gifted me his copy of the Lord of the Rings paperbacks, until the Peter Jackson movies came out. It seemed like FOREVER that we didn't have a decent video portrayal of that story. Then again, I thought it was a long time between Back to the Future and the sequels, and it was only about 4 years. I guess time seems longer when you're young.
Great job, Jess! I took a sci-fi fantasy literature class back in college, and it was essentially about how Tolkien defined the genre. This feels like some of the essays I wrote…. I’ve been noticing the Dune tomb behind you. Can’t wait ‘til you tackle that.
My first introduction into the Lord of the Rings came in the late 80's. As a teenager a friend of mine had named his dog Frodo. I asked where he got that name from and he showed me the Ralph Bashki animation. Needless to say that led me down the proverbial "hobbit hole." I guess my point is that the name Frodo is what introduced and stoked my interest in the lord of the Rings.
In 2004 there was a TV show series here in germany called "Our Best" modelled after "100 Greatest Britons", starting with a show "The Greatest Germans" and then becoming a series by doing a popular vote about certain things, including one about german's favorite books. 3rd place: The Pillars Of Earth, 2nd place: the bible. Winner : The Lord Of The Rings.
Tolkien’s best defense of LotR should have been for him to look out from below those bushy eyebrows and say: "This is the ancient pre-history of the British Isles. Prove me wrong . . ." I believe he did say at one point that his goal was to write just that. When I think of LotR and the Hobbit, I try to look at it from that POV, and it works for me. It's the ancient pre-history we never knew Britain had. And a glorious one, at that.
So, that topic is somewhat complicated. In fact, he never said that in so many words, and the most popular quotation about "a mythology for England" isn't a quote of Tolkien, but rather, of one of Tolkien's biographers, characterizing what he thought Tolkien's goal was. For some more recent analysis of this (based on Tolkien's writings/letters), see the link at the end of this comment. I do think it's fair and accurate to say that Tolkien was trying to attain the feeling of something mythical that "belonged" to the northwest of Europe, and trying to find a way to navigate between the actual Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Nordic heritages that did exist. (Tolkien himself, having produced a still-used translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, was hardly unaware that the British Isles already had a rich foundational "mythology" in things like the Arthurian sagas.) If anything, though, I think that he was less trying to suggest a previously-unknown pre-history, and more trying to suggest an ancient mythology. But by the time of actually writing LOTR, it's unclear that that was still his goal. See: luke-shelton.com/2022/02/12/why-calling-tolkiens-work-a-mythology-for-england-is-wrong-and-misleading/ (which is kind of a harsh title! but an interesting read)
@@gryphonvert Yeah, the fact that middle earth isn't actually an island is a clue. But poeple exist in a culture, his was the dying days of a word superpower, so thats certainly reflected. Certainly its 'very british'. Many female readers I've spoken to thought Frodo and Sam were gay, because they couldn't get that level of intimacy in a 'master-servant' relationship. But thats very 'british' that notion of a 'superior culture' and inferior servitude.
According to Hammond and Scull, by the time the third volume of LOTR was to be printed, Stanley and Unwin more than doubled the print run from the first two volumes, because of the increased demand. It's true that it was not the sensation it would later become, but I don't think it debuted with a whimper.
G.R.R. Martin is an exceptionally skillful writer, but his Song of Ice and Fire books are so dark and depressing that I really don't feel compelled to re-read them more intently. If I wanted to dwell on such depressing darkness, I'd tend to just watch the news.
Absolutely understandable. I have yet to read ASoIaF, since grimdark leaning things aren't my preference, but other darker series I've read (like The First Law) have been painful but rewarding to read. I have to be in the right mood for them, for sure
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I bought his books at the height of the TV show's popularity and sped through them, expecting the series to be finished soon, and then I'd re-read them more slowly when the story was complete. The story is incomplete so far, and in the meantime, I've decided that burning people, incest, etc. just isn't my cup of tea. I've always read books to escape ugliness or boredom. Martin seems to dwell in and create ugliness. It's all too much. Hope you have Happy Holidays.
My biggest gripe with GRRM is that he basically merged Dune with the history of the war of the roses, slapped some paint on it, added tits and incest, and sold it fans (who he detests and has nothing but contempt for) and everyone applauds him like some literary goliath. He'll never finish the series, and doesn't give a shit about gaslighting his fans to con them out of another dollar. GRRM is the Morgoth of the fantasy genre.
Today hasn't been particularly interesting or thrilling for me, so thanks for uploading this, Jess! A video on D&D's impact on fantasy and SFF world-building in general could be cool. Speaking of which, I am so glad that you addressed how modern audiences are so obsessed with world-building despite it being, like you pointed out, a more recent aspect and unofficial rule of fantasy. It reminds me of a monologue that @donnycates wrote for Loki in his run on Doctor Strange: "I've been thinking about this for some time now. This business about magic always having some sort of 'cost'. Some sort of 'price'. It's quite silly, is it not? I think it's time we reexamine the rules a bit, yes? I am not now, nor have I ever been fond of 'the rules'. Call me old fashioned, but I tend to think that you fair witches and warlocks should have the freedom to go about your duties without killing rodents and vomiting everywhere, don't you? I mean, honestly. Magic by its very nature is the antithesis of 'rules', yes? The 'rules' say that there's no rabbit in the hat. And yet poof! Here is a rabbit! So, where am I going with this? How about no more rules. How about no more 'price'". A very interesting case of Tolkien having influenced the works of others is definitely The Stand by Stephen King seeing as it was planned by King as an epic The Lord of the Rings-type story in a contemporary American setting: "For a long time-ten years, at least-I had wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting. I just couldn't figure out how to do it. Then . . . after my wife and kids and I moved to Boulder, Colorado, I saw a 60 Minutes segment on CBW (chemical-biological warfare). I never forgot the gruesome footage of the test mice shuddering, convulsing, and dying, all in twenty seconds or less. That got me remembering a chemical spill in Utah, that killed a bunch of sheep (these were canisters on their way to some burial ground; they fell off the truck and ruptured). I remembered a news reporter saying, 'If the winds had been blowing the other way, there was Salt Lake City.' This incident later served as the basis of a movie called Rage, starring George C. Scott, but before it was released, I was deep into The Stand, finally writing my American fantasy epic, set in a plague-decimated USA. Only instead of a hobbit, my hero was a Texan named Stu Redman, and instead of a Dark Lord, my villain was a ruthless drifter and supernatural madman named Randall Flagg. The land of Mordor ('where the shadows lie,' according to Tolkien) was played by Las Vegas." PS there's a book called 'The Medieval Worlds of Neil Gaiman: From Beowulf to Sleeping Beauty' by Shiloh Carroll that you might take interest in and @Dominic-Noble has a video on Discworld that's a lot of fun to watch.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the video! Glad I could make the day more interesting! And as much as I love worldbuilding because it was a standard I grew up with, there comes a point where the magic is lost a bit for the sake of following rules. I haven't read much Stephen King, but this is a super interesting insight! And thanks for the recommendations! I'll check both of those out!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Thank you, Jess, I can always rely on your content! I definitely hope you enjoy the recommendations and find something of interest in them. The thing about world-building is that it's ultimately supposed to enrich a story, not take precedence over it, so it's definitely best not to go overboard with details that potentially derail the plot. If you're interested in exploring Stephen King then I definitely recommend The Dark Tower given how Mike Flanagan's tv adaptation is in development. The works of Stephen King that tie into it include Salem's Lot, The Stand (recommend the uncut edition), The Talisman (mainly its sequel), The Eyes of The Dragon, It, Insomnia, Black House (the sequel to The Talisman), Hearts in Atlantis, and Everything's Eventual ("The Little Sisters of Eluria" is part of The Dark Tower series). Speaking of which, we've had two miniseries adaptations of The Stand and it would be cool to hear your thoughts on them if you decide to ever discuss the novel. The 1994 version is vastly superior and the one episode from the 2020 series that people actually like is the final one that King wrote himself and continued beyond where the book originally ended (the wholly new material happens after the title cards appear so about 9 and a half minutes in if I remember correctly). Also, it's worth noting that in a conversation with GRRM King had mentioned that he couldn't get into The Wheel of Time series haha.
I just discovered your channel via one of your Dune videos. And I'm not the biggest Tolkien fan nor have I the biggest knowledge on his created world, but I think I've watched several of your videos for the whole day and it's just fun listening to you talk. Your videos feel so well-written and well-researched that it's just so easy to watch, listen, and lay back to.
Funny timing of this video, coming out only a few hours after Weird History dropped a video citing all the sources he borrowed from, or was inspired by
Terry Brooks brought his own unique spin on the fantasy genre though that I feel like would have been fun to see you touch on more. The fact that his world is post apocalyptic with each "mythical race" (except elves) are just humans mutated by the fallout, the dragons are autonomous war machines and other relics of the old world.
Good account of the genre’s different manifestations and how they largely proceeded as different reactions to Tolkien. And of course different authors are trying to say different things. Tolkien was deliberately trying to resurrect “fairy tales” as a respectable genre for thoughtful adults. And he was deliberately endeavoring to build a viable-or for himself, a personally satisfying-mythology for England (not the Britains). In that respect I think he was the “father” of that kind of fantasy: a mythology with the type of “power of myth” Joseph Campbell talked about.
Just got to the end of your video, and I am extremely excited for the Discworld video you mention. These are fantastic vids, really enjoying watching my way through them.
Regarding the accusations of LOTR as childish, I’m reminded of John Rogers’s comment in 2009: “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Excellent video, IMO. I was given the Hobbit by an aunt sometime in 1970 or '71. It was probably still '71, or early '72 when I received the Lord of the Rings (from the same aunt). I am pretty sure I had already read it when I started high school in the fall of 72. I don't remember ever hearing of it before, and neither did anyone I knew at school, including teachers. So I don't know how big a take up really happened in the '60s. I remember being most impressed by two things: the Council of Elrond, and the appendices. Elrond may be my favorite Tolkien creation to this day.
I think that "huge" is always a relative term when you're talking about genre fiction and fandom in the 60s. The books WERE best-sellers in the U.S. when they arrived in the mid-60s, and became particular favorites of the counter-culture in both the U.S. and the U.K. But that doesn't mean they were universally known or loved, the way we think about big media sensations today. The bias against the idea of genre fiction, and especially scifi and fantasy, during the 60s and 70s means that a huge bestseller *in a particular genre* was still a relative secret from the culture at large. LOTR was big enough *in certain circles* that it could inspire that new Dungeons & Dragons game in the 70s, but that too was more of an underground hit than anything mainstream, and it would ONLY receive mainstream attention in the mid 80s because of Satanic Panic (and not because of an appreciation for fantasy fiction or its LOTR roots). And, you have to wonder how many U.S. fans of Led Zeppelin recognized the LOTR references in some of their songs, as big as the band was. I wonder if your teachers not having heard of it was partly a product of the idea that people who were teachers in 1972 were a little too old to have been part of the then-recent counter-cultural movement of the mid to late 60s, and whose educations would have been steering them away from the genre fiction thought of as "for children" (or worse, for "delinquents") prior to or around the same time as LOTR was coming out in the U.S. (I'd also wonder a bit whether the people going into teaching in the 60s and even early 70s were either not at all a part of counter-culture thinking, or who were careful not to display that side of themselves, as the teaching profession itself was still subject, on the hiring level, of a lot of scrutiny for "respectability" at the time. (It wasn't even until the passing of the Civil Rights Act in '64 that discrimination against female teachers who simply *got married* ended.) Which isn't to say that you didn't find some teachers willing to challenge a lot of the social and pedagogical status quo; but it might not have been related to the subject of literature that was considered "for kids" or "trash" at the time by a still-large portion of the culture at large.) I'm a good 10 years younger than you are, so while I first encountered The Hobbit and LOTR in the mid to late 70s, I was hitting high school in the early 80s. At that point, I did have *some* teachers who were on the younger side, who still showed the influence of having been hippies (mostly art teachers and English teachers, come to think of it; sometimes History teachers). I had an English teacher who liked to tell the story that he missed being at Woodstock because his car broke down on the way (real story, or joke? either way, a teacher who was enough a part of the counter-culture in the late 60s to have plausibly wanted to have gone to Woodstock). In the late 70s or early 80s, you could see the way younger teachers were deviating from the mold of respectability that had been a lot more strict in the 60s. While I had teachers who would point me towards scifi and fantasy books in the late 70s and the 80s, I did still have the feeling at the time that being a huge fan of LOTR was kind of flying below the radar. It was NOT widely known by others in my high school. I really only knew a few people who read scifi or fantasy books at all. Going to a science fiction convention and being around hundreds of people (mostly adults) who knew all of these books and also loved them felt like entering a whole other world than the regular mainstream one we occupied day to day. At the time, what I most remember was the way that mainstream journalism grappled with trying to talk about the huge cultural presence and broad appeal of something like "Star Wars", or the growing number of hit movies that had some kind of scifi element -- how they still wanted to regard all of these works as "for kids", even while it was clear that there was a pretty significant interest amongst adult audiences for them. I guess this is getting away from me a bit, and just trending into general musing. But what I'm saying is that I don't think the idea that there was *an* explosion of popularity for LOTR in the U.S. in the 60s is in contradiction with the idea that for a very long time, LOTR itself appealed to what we'd call a niche audience. I feel like the general history of the regard for and bias against genre fiction in the U.S. and elsewhere explains a lot of that. Right up until the end of the 90s, LOTR was still regarded as a thing that only nerds and geeks were interested in. It was the movies that truly exploded that and made them basically a household name. (Which is why that Waterstones survey from '97 that's mentioned was so notable.)
To be fair to both Brooks and Jordan, Shannara and WoT, whilst both starting in a familiar place, are not just copying Tolkien even then, but carefully using the tropes he created, not just regurgitating them. I haven't read as much Brooks, but Jordan definitely likes to play with those tropes and apply them in ways that invert them or turn them around in some way, and occasionally just to show the silliness of some of them. Theirs is less transliteration and more tranformation than I think you gave them credit for.
Great video, and a really interesting discussion. I'm very much enjoying this series so far. One thing which I think you should dive deeper into regarding the origins of modern fantasy though is the "weird fiction" published in the pulp magazines of the early 20th century. I feel as though this is in some ways a separate thread to the evolution from fairy stories to Tolkien, but a lot of the modern tropes do find their footing there. You talk about world building and how LoTR pioneers doing that seriously while earlier works were looser in their approach to canon, but that isn't really true. Authors like Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Catherine Moore, Clark Ashton Smith et al., were all publishing in pulp magazines at the same time Tolkien was conceptualizing middle earth, but before the publication of the Lord of the Rings. Their works are replete with obsessive world building, albeit not achieved with the same finesse. They were drawing on similar inspiriations from the 19th century, but took things in a very different direction, which while less literary than Tolkien still had a huge impact on what came after. That canon of work also formed as much of a background to why literary fantasy wasn't taken seriously as the children's stories did. Fantasy wasn't just seen as childish, but also as puerile, the stuff of trashy magazines and penny dreadfuls. However, the pulps would see a renaissance in appreciation in the subsequent waves of fantasy authors trying to set themselves apart from Tolkien (e.g. Moorcock et al.). Sword and Sorcery reemerged from the desire to hearken back to those older pulp roots. While many pulp works don't really hold up by today's standards (especially Lovecraft), they remain an important part of the story.
It says a lot that Martin has yet to answer himself some of the questions he asks about Middle Earth. For all his work on Westeros, he has yet to provide anything more than the basest idea of currency.
Ok, so the longer this went on, the more interested I became, firstly by guessing (mostly correctly) what authors/worlds you were going to give in each category, most of them (apart from Pullman) I have. The one I was a little surprised you didn't mention was the Belgariad series by David Eddings, which is an intriguing example: he wrote an interesting 'how to write' book where he makes clear his disdain for Tolkien, but it's clear he misunderstands tLoTR to a large degree. For example he writes in the chapter on religion contrasting monotheism with pantheism remarking that "Papa Tolkien chose Pantheism"... Finally I didn't realise till now that you were such a Pratchett fan (like myself I might add) and that quote of Pratchett regarding Tolkien and Mt Fuji is my favourite about the impact of Tolkien, especially the last phrase: "or is in fact standing on Mt Fuji". Always makes me smile 😃
My introduction to fantasy was books from the forgotten realms franchise in the late 80s, beginning of 90s. I read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings later. I found much inspiration from Tolkien in the fantasy I was reading. And world building and languages were large parts as well. There is no question that in many ways, Tolkien is the Father of modern fantasy. Not that everyone copies him, but his work was opening up a whole new genre to be explored. Fantasy stories for children of all ages. ( Children as still having their inner child intact ). Becoming an adult is still something I have postponed.
Edmund Wilson praised James Branch Cabell's "Poictesme" series, as well as The Hobbit, so he wasn't hostile to fantasy or even to Tolkien. He just didn't like Lord of the Rings.
Pratchett is da bomb and his analogy of Mt Fuji is apt. Tolkien's template of orcs, elves, dwarves and so on is so ingrained, that people have copied it into homogeneity. And some authors looked to break it - one such is Tad Williams with his Dragonbone Chair trilogy. He rebelled against the sameness in fantasy, and was quite influential. Martin's Iron Throne was inspired by the Dragonbone Chair. "As I recall the main inspiration was me wondering what happens after a mythical Great King like Arthur or Charlemagne dies. That started me on thinking about the two brothers, then the story just started to accrue ideas. There was also an entire level of my commenting on Tolkien and post-Tolkien epic fantasy, but that's a long answer just by itself." Tad Williams
Might it be, Jess, that the Ring (a relic of the Dark Lord's.} became more? Sauron's ultimate boon. And that make the Nazgul the Knights in search of the Ultimate Boon, the heroes turned inside out. After all, who would ever think of destroying Excalibur? Well, and this Tolkien knew very well, . In lesser known - Welsh traditions - Arthur killed young children (he wanted to kill Mordred). Arthur, you see, is the villian, Mordred the hero to whom destroying Excalibur (or using it against Arthur, if it could be stolen) makes complete sense. Tolkien took the minority view of ultimate boon as a great aid to the Heroine and turned it on its head. Brilliance. Beautifully sublime. And the above leads to the question, for the Hobbits, and the 9 walkers, what was the ultimate boon? I am certain you know the answer.
at 20:30 you delve into something I find to be super fascinating, and I think it may even be you who I first heard speak of this, that Tolkien is to Western Fantasy what Mt. Fuji is to Japanese Artists. Its place in a painting, the amount space it takes up, and the possible absence of it alltogether, are all very telling about the artist's intentions. Both are such omnipresent juggernauts in their respective fields, that it is all but impossible not to be influenced by them in some way. Edit: Well I'll be. Seems it was Sir Prachett who did that thing first.
I'm a little late to this week's installment, but as always, never disappointed by your thorough presentation. Your account of the cultural conditons that allowed for Tolkien to gain success should be helpful for anyone who may wonder why this particular work is seen as foundational for the genre, establishing its conventions, defending its value, and giving it credibility. And may I add that, while it can be interesting to see later fantasy authors' critiques and often self-serving reactions to Tolkien's work, they are all doing so using the language he created.
I'd enjoy it immensely if you read the Eternal Champion works of Michael Moorcock particularly those dealing with Elric of Melnibone and give us your take. Thanks in advance.
Jess, do you know how looked down upon LOTR was is 1970? It was considered a "Hippie" book and all I knew was that I loved it while I had come home from a useless war it was a force for getting out of this world. I carried one or two of the books hiking up in the High Sierra and there was always someone who would trade their part 3 for my part two, always. Of course Aragorn killed off the Orcs including those baby ones on the dirty floors of orc caves, but no need to speak of them.
I must admit I'm a little surprised you didn't mention Harry Potter when speaking about Tolkien's influence on modern fantasy writing. I so often hear the two compared even character names get confused by new readers, as in Gandalf being called Dumbledore, or when the One Ring is compared to a horcrux.
On the subject of world-building, while JRR Tolkien created the world of Middle Earth, an entirely different author created a world for his stories. Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry wrote the Railway Series stories about Thomas, Edward, Gordon and all their friends on their own little railway, but never really set down the railway's location. Eventually, Awdry decided to set the stories on a fictional island: The Island of Sodor. With help from his librarian brother George, Wilbert took bits of English history during the Viking and Norman ages to craft the history of the island, writing it all down in a companion book called The Island of Sodor: Its People, History, and Railways. Although the book is long out-of-print and tough to find, PDF copies have circulated their way online.
Is he the father of fantasy? No. But I recognize him as the father of the RPG. Role Playing Game. Tolkien added so much detail to Lord of the Rings that you feel like you're actually there. Or... That you are role playing as a character in Middle Earth. And that is the definition of a Role Playing Game. You grade an RPG on how well you feel that you are part of this world. The best RPG make you feel like you are there. The worse makes you feel like you shouldn't or want to be there. Tolkien is the father of detail. And although I bet he'd hate playing Final Fantasy or Elder Scrolls or Dungeons and Dragons, his eye for detail is what makes the RPG possible. So I tell others he's the creator of the RPG. Fantasy existed millenia before Tolkien. The RPG came after.
To be fair to Robert Jordan, it was the publisher who forced him to rewrite the first Wheel of Time novel as a Lord of the Rings knockoff because they insisted that there was no other way to sell a new fantasy series.
Thanks for this. I had plenty of ideas to share but you covered most of them quite well. I’ve always enjoyed the interlocking ideas of fantasy and science fiction across multiple forms of media. Tolkien was one of the greats in my youth along with Gygax, Asimov, Lee and Kirby. To misquote and probably misrepresent Newton, a good part of their greatness was the broad shoulders that later authors and/or artists stood upon.
Just one comment on the idea that Tolkien created or popularized the "Quest" trope. In the 1930s, Joseph Campbell, after the publication of The Hobbit, but long before Tolkien began writing The Lord of the Rings, outlined exactly what both the purpose and the way the Quest should proceed - which maybe why Tolkien didn't end TLOTR in Gondor, because, according to Campbell, the Quest only ends with the return to Home of the Protagonist. Undoubtedly, there are issues with Campbell and Tolkien did absolutely change Fantasy, but, Tolkien was also, as we saw in the earlier video, building on other Fantasy writers....
Among other things, I think we always have to remember that Tolkien was very well aware of the Arthurian legends and their structures. His translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one still highly regarded today. If we want to look anywhere for a common origin amongst more modern fantasy writers for the quest trope, I think we can't ignore Arthuriana.
Could you perhaps do a follow-up to this, focusing on the contributions of female authors and worlds in which cultures are not heteronormative? - e.g. le Guin, Robin Hobb, N K Jemisin, Samantha Shannon, Tamsyn Muir.
Well written piece. I wonder how you feel about David Eddings. I remember reading that he was very much inspired by Tolkien (obvious when you read him), but he wanted a more earthy feel. I think he found the women in Tolkien a little too much like Goddesses on pedestals and the whole thing a little too whimsical. I love the character based humour in Eddings's books, and although where the books are going is not a surprise, I enjoy the ride to get there. Thanks for your channel and all your hard work.
Maybe it's a weird comparison, but I love the world building of Archie Sonic for the same reason as Lord of the Rings. It had a massive world with so many characters, connections, and locations. It felt like an entire living, breathing, world.
Recently discovered your channel and it’s very enjoyable. Sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, but have you heard of Evangeline Walton’s Mabinogion Tetralogy? Both the books and authors would be fascinating subjects.
Really interesting video. I wish I could contribute more to the conversation but I rarely read fiction these days -- though I've read a lot of Tolkein over the years. Anyways, good work!
"And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are: Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth." - Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood
I would love to hear your thoughts on Wheel of Time more in depth. I am a huge fan of the books, and always like hearing what other people think of it.
Would be cool to hear your thoughts on The Inheritance Cycle. Grew up reading them before I read Tolkien. It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on the world-building and prose and the criticism it received as well as why it was loved by many.
God, I'm so thankful we live in a time when fantasy and other fiction isn't solely relegated to children's books. Don't get me wrong, I have an addiction to learning too... But without the counterbalance of fantasy and other great fictional characters, stories, and worlds... Would anything else even matter?
I stumbled upon your channel couple of hours ago and I've been binge-watching (well, binge-listening to be precise) ever since. I really appreciate the depth of your research and the contextualisation of Tolkien's works in terms of times and culture. It is very interesting and I think needed in the larger realm of LOTR related youtube. It's also quite wonderful to see a woman in this area as it seems to me that most Tolkien channels are made by men. I hope your channel will keep on growing, you deserve many more views. As a side note, Edmund Wilson sounds like a really miserable chap. I kind of feel sorry for him for not being able to enjoy the world of fantasy ;)
I am so very behind in my reading, I need to finish a short story book before I can move on to the Codex Alera, but man, I REALLY need to read discworld and HHGtG. I at least need to read the rincewind stories....
The position of the Lord of the Rings in the counterculture is so interesting and oft overlooked. I think a lot of them picked up on the anti-imperialism.
I agree with your conclusions in these origins of Fantasy story telling, actually they're great. However Robert E. Howard seems missing in the list - I'm sure Tolkien red some Conan stuff. If you are curious I suggest 'People of the Black Circle' (1936) His 18 Conan stories Howard pioneered so many of LOTR's themes.
Tolkein's template of Human, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf, Goblin, Dragon, Demon is absolutely pervasive in in the fantasy game world, and from there it's the standard in fantasy video games, anime, and manga.
It's hilarious to contemplate what Tolkien would be like as a DM when you think about it.
Idk if this is a hot take or not, but I'm rather tired of the tropes/stereotypes where the elves are often forest-dwelling hippies and the dwarves are drunkard fools and blacksmiths. Although from what I've heard, that dwarf one might stem more from the LOTR movies than anything from the books.
@@BradTheAmerican I'm sure I was seeing it everywhere from D&D to Warhammer long before then.
@@BradTheAmerican Yeah. The High Elves in the Lord of the Rings were very mighty and proud, yet also gay and merry. They were also skilled craftsmen, and delighted in all forms of art.
The dwarves were very serious, and they weren't actually better craftsmen than the Elves.
@@catfinity8799In some ways they were not better craftsmen, but in others, they were.
Tolkien's strength is that he genuinely loves language, and the material that inspired him to write a mythological love letter to the Anglo-Saxon people. Tolkien's command of the English language, and the way he wrote, it's truly BEAUTIFUL. A work of art.
One of the things that I've seen in a few other post-Tolkien fantasy series is that they often now include both maps and pronunciation guides for all of the unfamiliar places and names and words you might encounter. But I haven't yet encountered anyone who is quite as complete (detailed) or naturally skillful in conjuring up new words or names that are intuitively easy to understand and just 'feel right'. At least for native English speakers.
Tolkien explicitly stated that LOTR and his works while originally he thought to make them that, he changed his mind and made it a unique work. While he said it was impossible to not be inspired by what you know he in no way wanted it to be analogous to Anglo-Saxon mythology.
Tolkiens command of the English language is truly beautiful, a work of art.
@@Claego Tolkien's
10:00 A writer named Jo Walton once said, "The books won't be judged by what the critics say about them; the critics will be judged by what they say about the books."
I love seeing how his publishers took a risk with the Lord of the Rings even though they didn’t know how it would fit anywhere or if it would sell, and as a result it sparked a whole new genre and way of storytelling. Just goes to show how publishers (and authors) have to be willing to take risks every now and then for us to discover new classics.
I always imagine his publisher calling him and going "um, an appendix....really? NOBODY puts an appendix at the end of a novel".
We'll never know how much we've lost because no publisher was willing to take the risk...
Something the LotR has in common with Huckleberry Finn is that both are sequels to children's books, but are not children's books themselves.
"The author has indulged himself in developing the fantasy for its own sake." How is that not a compliment??
As an aspiring fantasy writer (debut is with an editor as we speak) I have to acknowledge that Tolkien and LotR are still the standard that all other fantasy is compared to. If you even mention that you write fantasy most people will usually say "Oh, like Lord of the Rings". In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that. He did a lot that I liked, but also some things that I didn't like. So I write my story accordingly, and acknowledge his influence.
When I was young I remember the knock offs, and MOST of them openly said "yeah, this is a cheap knock off of Tolkien". I've read better 'stories', and better dialogue. But it cant be helped, its always going to be a knockoff.
Thank you so much for featuring the Mount Fuji quotation (that I had not previously encountered) from Sir Terry Pratchett - I miss him even more now...
It's one of my favorite quotes from him! The whole essay is a work of art.
His nonfiction collection 'A Slip of The Keyboard' is definitely worth reading and recommending to those who want to write fantasy.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire As soon as you mentioned the three categories of how Tolkien has influenced writers, I thought of the Mt. Fuji quote. Glad you included that!
I’m a PhD researcher primarily studying Sir Terry Pratchett. Just discovered this channel and that line has been running over and over in my head.
Loving the videos by the way. (Funny how both Tolkien and Pratchett experienced shady early paperback publishing overseas. His original German publisher slipped an advert for tinned soup into Equal Rites).
@@pootsydoodle2326 Dominic Noble has a video on Discworld that's a lot of fun to watch.
As always, very thoughtful commentary. I think one additional factor to consider is how genre fiction in general has become more mainstream with time. With the partial exception of mysteries, a lot of genre fiction was dismissed as adolescent trash for decades. I know it was when I was in high school in the very early 1980s. By the time I was in grad school, I was attending conference presentations on "Dune" and Machiavelli, 1950's alien invasion films, and the politics of "Star Trek". One panelist even presented a paper on the social allegories in "Gilligan's Island". Academic books on the Planet of the Apes and Godzilla soon followed. I even teach my own course on science fiction now. Fantasy, science fiction, supernatural horror, and superheroes are no longer relegated to the cultural fringe. I think you are absolutely right that Tolkien and Tolkien fandom helped all this happen. Thanks again for another great video!
This is a great observation! I'm so glad that the mainstreaming of fantasy fiction means it gets talked about more in academic settings. There's such a wealth to learn from it. Thank you so much for watching!
The book 'Nightmare Fuel' by Nina Nesseth has a chapter on the history of horror that at one point nicely covers the sociological aspects of 1950's alien invasion films if you're at all interested. If you need some solid video analyses of Godzilla then I recommend watching 'Godzilla's Weird Journey' by @ProperBird and 'HOW GODZILLA CHANGED | The many faces of Godzilla | monsterverse' by @spookyastronauts at some point.
"Couldn't be argued that since its publication works have come out that eclipse Tolkien's?"
"No"
Great video anyway 😆
Haha, I knew that would be a controversial take, but I really think it comes down to taste. Some people aren't going to prefer Tolkien's particular type of fantasy, and that's just dandy.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire just wanted to say your leaf by niggle reading is amazing. Had a family death a while back and wanted to listen to it on the drive, but the other one disappeared. I own several physical copies and should probably buy the audio, but honestly, yours was better.
Anyway... it helped and I thank you.
@@radagast7200 I'm so glad it helped! It's a beautiful story.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire And there are those who love his stories and world-building, but aren't the biggest fans of his overall writing style. Tolkien definitely had a particular form of prose.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I do think that also leads in a bit to the discussion of, what do we mean when we say "the greatest"? It usually isn't about taste, and doesn't mean "what we like the most", although that is always going to play into our judgements! But like... if someone posits that Romeo & Juliet, or MacBeth, are "the greatest" tragic dramas in English, I'm not going to argue with them -- even though I personally hate them (as stories). I can prefer other types of stories, but still recognize what qualities people are talking about in a work that they're putting forward as a superlative of the genre.
Brilliant. Really looking forward to the Discworld episode.
My neighbour knocked on the door today with an unexpected diagnosis of throat cancer. I bought her some roses later because I honestly didn't know what to do. Thank you for you essential compassion. I have found in life, however much lucky in love, that a man should always remain a gentleman. You are clearly a lady and I follow you with best interest and astonishment. Today this offers some relief from an unfortunate horror which has been less than rewarding. Thanks for what you do. The internet can be a dreadful thing but equally can offer a charming, if occasional repose. With best wishes madam and thank you. You are a lady and deserving of the respect of what I have always been, Happily an Englishman . I shall quietly respect you as a gentleman should.
You, sir, are indeed a gentleman. Yours faithfully, a fellow Englishman.
"The Earthsea Trilogy", by Ursula K. LeGuin seems to have been influenced by Tolkein. Also, Michael Moorcock's Elric books took place in a masterfully crafted world, with a detailed pantheon of gods, and a lot of history. It is a world of demons, sorcerers, and swords. One could possibly argue the same for Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, set a million or so years in the future in a world rich with geography, vast ancient history, magic and sorcery, and bizarre creatures.
LeGuin absolutely drew from Tolkien! She write beautifully.
I think Elric is more directly a response to Robert E. Howard than Tolkien, but I suppose that the Melnibonéans can be seen as a commentary on Tolkien's elves, or at least a statement that more of them would probably be like Fëanor than the ones that the Hobbits meet.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I love her "Lathe of Heaven." Not Tolkien influenced, but very good.
@@FaoladhTV Let's be real Michael Moorcook fashioned the Melniboneans as a commentary on the UK in the 60s. Dying colonialists island-Empire overtaken by hedonism and drugs and all.😅
But the Melniboneans basically went on to become the Targaryans as well (whitehaired incestious dragon-riding royals from a fallen island).
@@DesignatedMember The Numenoreans were a grand colonial empire colonizing Middle Earth until their collapse and brief resurgence under Aragorn but how long is that really going to last?
I would love to hear your thoughts about how the original fandom evolved through the decades before the movies, and then with and after the movies.
I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on the works of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft. Their work also resurfaced in the late 60's among the hippy-ish circles, probably riding the Tolkien/fantasy train that got moving again at that time.
Yeah, there are even traces of Dracula in Tolkien, the council of Elrond seems directly taken from the chapter in Dracula where the 'team' is assembled to take on Dracula.
Well done, and yes you are only scratching the surface.
I don't think Robert E. Howard & Edgar Rice Burroughs get the credit they deserve for world building.
Long before Peter Jackson Tolkien broke into pop culture. In the 70s you got Led Zeppelin's Tolkien inspired lyrics, Rank & Bass' "The Hobbit" & Ralph Bakshi's "Lord of the Rings".
The 80s was a decade of Sword & Sorcery with Dungeons & Dragons, films like Conan the Barbarian, Excalibur, Krull, Legend, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth & Highlander.
The Japanese started producing Manga like "Berserk" & anime like "Record of Lodoss War" & "Ninja Scroll". Blind Guardian's concept album "Nightfall in Middle-Earth" inspired by the Similrilian came out in the 1990s along with the impact of Square Soft with the Final Fantasy video games, Chrono Trigger & Secret of Mana.
If people are borrowing from Tolkien it is only fair to point out that he "borrowed" quite a bit from Celtic, Welsh & Germanic myth.
I would be lying if I didn't think Arthurian Literature & Richard Wagner's "The Ring Cycle" had something to do with LOTR.
Labyrinth has been one of my absolute favorites since 2nd or 3rd grade!
I'd disagree about Wagner's operas having something to do with LotR, at least in the sense that they inspired Tolkien. They merely share a source of inspiration.
The two comments are gone from this, but reading Wagners "Opera and Drama", his notion of musical motifs personifying people and ideas is literally flipped on its head in Tolkiens creation myth to the gods almost BEING 'music'.
I would recommend people read that, because while its not often mentioned by Tolkien, his notion of 'creation' being 'musical' is something that makes for an interesting new way of looking at Lord of the Rings and the history of middle earth.
I think the closest we get is that when Aragorn is with the hobbits around the fire I think he sings the story that he tells them or at least 'drones' it. I remember an interview with a musician who said the singing is almost like another instrument to him. When they are attacked, Frodos saying 'elbereth gilthoniel' is said by Aragorn to have been the main thing that drove off the ringwraiths. Not exactly 'music' but a similar vein.
That quote from Terry Pratchett is GOLDEN
I absolutely love it when I get a notification of a video... I am sure this is going to be great😊
I wish you'd have addressed Michael Moorcock. He's very distinctly in the second camp of fantasy writers, but his fantasy is deeply influential to future fantasy authors. You should check out his Elric Saga. It's nuts.
I really enjoy the way you present the material and the amount of research that you do to make these videos. I discovered Tolkien in middle school in the mid 70s. I've been hooked on fantasy novels ever since. I'm really looking forward to the Discworld series, I adore Terry Pratchett's books.
Great synopsis on the effect Tolkien had on the genre!
I recommend the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher as an amazing example of contemporary fantasy that definitely takes inspiration from JRR’s world building; in that The Dresden Files lore is based heavily on classical fantasy and myth, creating an in-depth world worthy of the expectations of Tolkien fans.
Thank you for the videos! I always enjoy your takes on JRR’s works and the genre at large.
Good insight there, I really liked the trope of "Farmboy meets wizard who sets him on a quest with a group of others, which has been used for ever! I know you would need the length of The Lord of The Rings to cover everyone but one of my favorites didn't make the cut and that was L.Frank Baum. I guess you could say he was the threashhold from Childrens to adult fantasy. I got started with the Ballentyne books years ago, I was one of the few in my rural area who took the novels so seriously that we learned the languages as far as we could. And yes, the paperbacks really opened the worlds to us. I don't think the movies really pushed the fantasy genre so much as introduced the genre to a whole new generation with the difference in how we take in info. To the future, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on Discworld! Granny Weatherwax being a favorite! "I ain't ded yet!"
Baum is often unjustly neglected in discussions of the history of fantasy literature. The Oz books are, as far as I know, the earliest example of a series of fantasy adventure novels set in the same magical world, and I loved them when I was a kid.
Another great video Jess. Absolutely fascinating review of Tolkien's pivotal influence on modern fantasy, including discussion of some of my favourite authors.
Another group of writers that deserve mention were those who had already made a reputation writing in other genres, especially science fiction, and found in the rising popularity of fantasy a new way to express ideas that they wanted to explore.
On days when things are rough and i dont feel well, i genuinely go the end of any video and reminded myself to try and have a "Happy, Hobbity day" and it really helps
So you're asking, what came first? The Author or the Story? Ah, the age old question. Is the Author merely a tool of a Higher Power? Tolkien certainly seemed like he believed it!
I was listening to a comedian do a bit about how Harry Potter was just a rip off of Luke Skywalker with crappy swords... he couldn't make the connection that both (and Aragorn) were modeled on King Arthur.
In addition to his talent, no other author ever had the tools that Tolkien had. The early 20th century college education. The expertise in languages and the early stories of Northern cultures. Then you add that he worked on his world in his head and on paper for, what, fifty years? He is in a class by himself.
“January 4, 1937: Tolkien has recovered from the flu and is redoing the illustrations for The Hobbit.
September 21, 1937: The Hobbit is published. The reviews are glowing, the sales are brisk, and as a result, the readers are restless. The book is selling so well that Stanley Unwin does what publishers always do: he demands a sequel.
October 15, 1937: Tolkien says no. He complains, “I cannot think of anything more to say about hobbits.”
December 16, 1937: Tolkien relents. He promises to try to write something more about hobbits and manages to draft three chapters of a new story.
March 4, 1938: He shows the early chapters to C. S. Lewis and also to his son Christopher Tolkien. They like it very much.
April and May 1938: Unwin keeps pestering Tolkien for more chapters. Tolkien just ignores him.
June 4, 1938: Tolkien sends Unwin a brief progress report. He hems and haws and finally confesses, “I have not had a chance to touch any story-writing since the Christmas vacation.”
“Christmas vacation? That means he hasn’t touched the book in more than five months. If that sounds like bad news for a publisher, the rest of the report is even worse. Tolkien tells Unwin that instead of drafting more material, he has decided to start over and rewrite the first three chapters.
“What motivated Tolkien to go back and start the whole thing over again? He says he has been thinking about the “excellent criticism” he has received from his readers. C. S. Lewis is one of those readers, and Lewis has complained that there is too much dialogue, too much chatter, too much silly “hobbit talk.” According to Lewis, all this dialogue is dragging down the story line.
“Tolkien grumbles. “The trouble is that ‘hobbit talk’ amuses me … more than adventures; but I must curb this severely.””
- Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings by Diana Glyer
a.co/3meujsB
Wow. You mentioned the Kinks as part of the first wave of the British lnvasion bands. True enough. And now l have an image in my mind of Ray Davies, with his torn allegiance between traditional England--the Shire!--and something New and Beyond, as the ultimate representation of Frodo Baggins. Syd Barrett was surely Bilbo-hear "The Gnome" from Pink Floyd's first album-and for Frodo, it's Ray all the way.
I would love to see you expand your repotoire and cover other fantasy books such as : The Riddle Master of Hed ( by Patrica Mckilliop ) the Sword of Shannara , the Black Company . Thanks for sharing your knowledge of the Lord of the Rings. I love your videos ! Hope you and your family have a wonderful Christmas ! 🤶🎁🎄☃️🦌⛄🎅💚❤️✨❄️🧊🥶🌨️
Oh man, I would love for her to cover the Shannara series! While, yes, the primary impetus for the journey in Sword was basically the same from LOTR, I love the way Brooks slowly peppered in random things that all rolled into the eventual realization that the story was set in a post-apocalyptic future. I read the books young, so I didn't really cotton on to that point until 'The Druid of Shannara', but when I did... 🎉
It's one of the coolest twists to a fantasy world I've ever read. To be fair, Robert Jordan did a similar thing with The Wheel of Time, but Brooks came first. 😂
Jess - you have brought back my joy in discovering Tolkien in the 1960s! I had the Houghton Mifflin paperbacks with the original artwork on the covers, and read and reread those books. My English teacher asked us to bring in what we were currently reading when I first started the LOTR, and was quite enthusiastic about my book choice.
It's hard to believe that it was only about 10 years or so, from when my 7th grade teacher gifted me his copy of the Lord of the Rings paperbacks, until the Peter Jackson movies came out. It seemed like FOREVER that we didn't have a decent video portrayal of that story.
Then again, I thought it was a long time between Back to the Future and the sequels, and it was only about 4 years. I guess time seems longer when you're young.
Great job, Jess! I took a sci-fi fantasy literature class back in college, and it was essentially about how Tolkien defined the genre. This feels like some of the essays I wrote…. I’ve been noticing the Dune tomb behind you. Can’t wait ‘til you tackle that.
My first introduction into the Lord of the Rings came in the late 80's. As a teenager a friend of mine had named his dog Frodo. I asked where he got that name from and he showed me the Ralph Bashki animation. Needless to say that led me down the proverbial "hobbit hole." I guess my point is that the name Frodo is what introduced and stoked my interest in the lord of the Rings.
Really appreciate you daring to share your passion on camera and cover such an important topic.
In 2004 there was a TV show series here in germany called "Our Best" modelled after "100 Greatest Britons", starting with a show "The Greatest Germans" and then becoming a series by doing a popular vote about certain things, including one about german's favorite books. 3rd place: The Pillars Of Earth, 2nd place: the bible. Winner : The Lord Of The Rings.
Tolkien’s best defense of LotR should have been for him to look out from below those bushy eyebrows and say: "This is the ancient pre-history of the British Isles. Prove me wrong . . ." I believe he did say at one point that his goal was to write just that. When I think of LotR and the Hobbit, I try to look at it from that POV, and it works for me. It's the ancient pre-history we never knew Britain had. And a glorious one, at that.
So, that topic is somewhat complicated. In fact, he never said that in so many words, and the most popular quotation about "a mythology for England" isn't a quote of Tolkien, but rather, of one of Tolkien's biographers, characterizing what he thought Tolkien's goal was. For some more recent analysis of this (based on Tolkien's writings/letters), see the link at the end of this comment. I do think it's fair and accurate to say that Tolkien was trying to attain the feeling of something mythical that "belonged" to the northwest of Europe, and trying to find a way to navigate between the actual Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, and Nordic heritages that did exist. (Tolkien himself, having produced a still-used translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, was hardly unaware that the British Isles already had a rich foundational "mythology" in things like the Arthurian sagas.) If anything, though, I think that he was less trying to suggest a previously-unknown pre-history, and more trying to suggest an ancient mythology. But by the time of actually writing LOTR, it's unclear that that was still his goal.
See: luke-shelton.com/2022/02/12/why-calling-tolkiens-work-a-mythology-for-england-is-wrong-and-misleading/ (which is kind of a harsh title! but an interesting read)
@@gryphonvert Thank you for your excellent comment, correction and additional reading material. I shall endeavor to investigate further!
@@gryphonvert Yeah, the fact that middle earth isn't actually an island is a clue. But poeple exist in a culture, his was the dying days of a word superpower, so thats certainly reflected. Certainly its 'very british'. Many female readers I've spoken to thought Frodo and Sam were gay, because they couldn't get that level of intimacy in a 'master-servant' relationship. But thats very 'british' that notion of a 'superior culture' and inferior servitude.
According to Hammond and Scull, by the time the third volume of LOTR was to be printed, Stanley and Unwin more than doubled the print run from the first two volumes, because of the increased demand. It's true that it was not the sensation it would later become, but I don't think it debuted with a whimper.
G.R.R. Martin is an exceptionally skillful writer, but his Song of Ice and Fire books are so dark and depressing that I really don't feel compelled to re-read them more intently. If I wanted to dwell on such depressing darkness, I'd tend to just watch the news.
Absolutely understandable. I have yet to read ASoIaF, since grimdark leaning things aren't my preference, but other darker series I've read (like The First Law) have been painful but rewarding to read. I have to be in the right mood for them, for sure
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I bought his books at the height of the TV show's popularity and sped through them, expecting the series to be finished soon, and then I'd re-read them more slowly when the story was complete. The story is incomplete so far, and in the meantime, I've decided that burning people, incest, etc. just isn't my cup of tea. I've always read books to escape ugliness or boredom. Martin seems to dwell in and create ugliness. It's all too much. Hope you have Happy Holidays.
My biggest gripe with GRRM is that he basically merged Dune with the history of the war of the roses, slapped some paint on it, added tits and incest, and sold it fans (who he detests and has nothing but contempt for) and everyone applauds him like some literary goliath. He'll never finish the series, and doesn't give a shit about gaslighting his fans to con them out of another dollar. GRRM is the Morgoth of the fantasy genre.
@@wvhoipolloi7035 🙂👍👍👍
I highly recommend watching 'Trope Talk: Grimdark' by Overly Sarcastic Productions sometime!
Today hasn't been particularly interesting or thrilling for me, so thanks for uploading this, Jess! A video on D&D's impact on fantasy and SFF world-building in general could be cool. Speaking of which, I am so glad that you addressed how modern audiences are so obsessed with world-building despite it being, like you pointed out, a more recent aspect and unofficial rule of fantasy. It reminds me of a monologue that @donnycates wrote for Loki in his run on Doctor Strange:
"I've been thinking about this for some time now. This business about magic always having some sort of 'cost'. Some sort of 'price'. It's quite silly, is it not? I think it's time we reexamine the rules a bit, yes? I am not now, nor have I ever been fond of 'the rules'. Call me old fashioned, but I tend to think that you fair witches and warlocks should have the freedom to go about your duties without killing rodents and vomiting everywhere, don't you? I mean, honestly. Magic by its very nature is the antithesis of 'rules', yes? The 'rules' say that there's no rabbit in the hat. And yet poof! Here is a rabbit! So, where am I going with this? How about no more rules. How about no more 'price'".
A very interesting case of Tolkien having influenced the works of others is definitely The Stand by Stephen King seeing as it was planned by King as an epic The Lord of the Rings-type story in a contemporary American setting:
"For a long time-ten years, at least-I had wanted to write a fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, only with an American setting. I just couldn't figure out how to do it. Then . . . after my wife and kids and I moved to Boulder, Colorado, I saw a 60 Minutes segment on CBW (chemical-biological warfare). I never forgot the gruesome footage of the test mice shuddering, convulsing, and dying, all in twenty seconds or less. That got me remembering a chemical spill in Utah, that killed a bunch of sheep (these were canisters on their way to some burial ground; they fell off the truck and ruptured). I remembered a news reporter saying, 'If the winds had been blowing the other way, there was Salt Lake City.' This incident later served as the basis of a movie called Rage, starring George C. Scott, but before it was released, I was deep into The Stand, finally writing my American fantasy epic, set in a plague-decimated USA. Only instead of a hobbit, my hero was a Texan named Stu Redman, and instead of a Dark Lord, my villain was a ruthless drifter and supernatural madman named Randall Flagg. The land of Mordor ('where the shadows lie,' according to Tolkien) was played by Las Vegas."
PS there's a book called 'The Medieval Worlds of Neil Gaiman: From Beowulf to Sleeping Beauty' by Shiloh Carroll that you might take interest in and @Dominic-Noble has a video on Discworld that's a lot of fun to watch.
I'm so glad you enjoyed the video! Glad I could make the day more interesting!
And as much as I love worldbuilding because it was a standard I grew up with, there comes a point where the magic is lost a bit for the sake of following rules.
I haven't read much Stephen King, but this is a super interesting insight! And thanks for the recommendations! I'll check both of those out!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Thank you, Jess, I can always rely on your content! I definitely hope you enjoy the recommendations and find something of interest in them. The thing about world-building is that it's ultimately supposed to enrich a story, not take precedence over it, so it's definitely best not to go overboard with details that potentially derail the plot. If you're interested in exploring Stephen King then I definitely recommend The Dark Tower given how Mike Flanagan's tv adaptation is in development. The works of Stephen King that tie into it include Salem's Lot, The Stand (recommend the uncut edition), The Talisman (mainly its sequel), The Eyes of The Dragon, It, Insomnia, Black House (the sequel to The Talisman), Hearts in Atlantis, and Everything's Eventual ("The Little Sisters of Eluria" is part of The Dark Tower series). Speaking of which, we've had two miniseries adaptations of The Stand and it would be cool to hear your thoughts on them if you decide to ever discuss the novel. The 1994 version is vastly superior and the one episode from the 2020 series that people actually like is the final one that King wrote himself and continued beyond where the book originally ended (the wholly new material happens after the title cards appear so about 9 and a half minutes in if I remember correctly). Also, it's worth noting that in a conversation with GRRM King had mentioned that he couldn't get into The Wheel of Time series haha.
Oh, for sure. Fantasy today wouldn't be like it is without Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, any more than without Tolkien.
To get an idea of the low opinion of paperbacks, read the lyrics to the Beatles “Paperback Writer”
All those "false starts" have since become part of the canon. You go, Farmer Giles, etc.!
They're such delights to read!
Another great one Jess, let's talk about Bakshi and the Jackson triology too, yes
I wondered if you were going to cover Dune, since it's been sitting on the book shelf for months.
I just discovered your channel via one of your Dune videos. And I'm not the biggest Tolkien fan nor have I the biggest knowledge on his created world, but I think I've watched several of your videos for the whole day and it's just fun listening to you talk. Your videos feel so well-written and well-researched that it's just so easy to watch, listen, and lay back to.
Funny timing of this video, coming out only a few hours after Weird History dropped a video citing all the sources he borrowed from, or was inspired by
These videos help me get through a tough day's labour. Thank you.
Michael Moorcock's Elric Of Melnibone had quite the impact on Fantasy too. Dark Fantasy to be specific.
Thank you for including Terry Pratchett! I've just started re-reading "Wee Free Men" :) I'm looking forward to your Discworld video!
Terry Brooks brought his own unique spin on the fantasy genre though that I feel like would have been fun to see you touch on more.
The fact that his world is post apocalyptic with each "mythical race" (except elves) are just humans mutated by the fallout, the dragons are autonomous war machines and other relics of the old world.
Good account of the genre’s different manifestations and how they largely proceeded as different reactions to Tolkien. And of course different authors are trying to say different things. Tolkien was deliberately trying to resurrect “fairy tales” as a respectable genre for thoughtful adults. And he was deliberately endeavoring to build a viable-or for himself, a personally satisfying-mythology for England (not the Britains). In that respect I think he was the “father” of that kind of fantasy: a mythology with the type of “power of myth” Joseph Campbell talked about.
Great work. I especially loved your sepia tone bit of the English reaction to this new upstart was just grand.
Just got to the end of your video, and I am extremely excited for the Discworld video you mention. These are fantastic vids, really enjoying watching my way through them.
Regarding the accusations of LOTR as childish, I’m reminded of John Rogers’s comment in 2009:
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Excellent video, IMO.
I was given the Hobbit by an aunt sometime in 1970 or '71. It was probably still '71, or early '72 when I received the Lord of the Rings (from the same aunt). I am pretty sure I had already read it when I started high school in the fall of 72. I don't remember ever hearing of it before, and neither did anyone I knew at school, including teachers. So I don't know how big a take up really happened in the '60s. I remember being most impressed by two things: the Council of Elrond, and the appendices. Elrond may be my favorite Tolkien creation to this day.
I think that "huge" is always a relative term when you're talking about genre fiction and fandom in the 60s. The books WERE best-sellers in the U.S. when they arrived in the mid-60s, and became particular favorites of the counter-culture in both the U.S. and the U.K. But that doesn't mean they were universally known or loved, the way we think about big media sensations today. The bias against the idea of genre fiction, and especially scifi and fantasy, during the 60s and 70s means that a huge bestseller *in a particular genre* was still a relative secret from the culture at large. LOTR was big enough *in certain circles* that it could inspire that new Dungeons & Dragons game in the 70s, but that too was more of an underground hit than anything mainstream, and it would ONLY receive mainstream attention in the mid 80s because of Satanic Panic (and not because of an appreciation for fantasy fiction or its LOTR roots). And, you have to wonder how many U.S. fans of Led Zeppelin recognized the LOTR references in some of their songs, as big as the band was.
I wonder if your teachers not having heard of it was partly a product of the idea that people who were teachers in 1972 were a little too old to have been part of the then-recent counter-cultural movement of the mid to late 60s, and whose educations would have been steering them away from the genre fiction thought of as "for children" (or worse, for "delinquents") prior to or around the same time as LOTR was coming out in the U.S. (I'd also wonder a bit whether the people going into teaching in the 60s and even early 70s were either not at all a part of counter-culture thinking, or who were careful not to display that side of themselves, as the teaching profession itself was still subject, on the hiring level, of a lot of scrutiny for "respectability" at the time. (It wasn't even until the passing of the Civil Rights Act in '64 that discrimination against female teachers who simply *got married* ended.) Which isn't to say that you didn't find some teachers willing to challenge a lot of the social and pedagogical status quo; but it might not have been related to the subject of literature that was considered "for kids" or "trash" at the time by a still-large portion of the culture at large.)
I'm a good 10 years younger than you are, so while I first encountered The Hobbit and LOTR in the mid to late 70s, I was hitting high school in the early 80s. At that point, I did have *some* teachers who were on the younger side, who still showed the influence of having been hippies (mostly art teachers and English teachers, come to think of it; sometimes History teachers). I had an English teacher who liked to tell the story that he missed being at Woodstock because his car broke down on the way (real story, or joke? either way, a teacher who was enough a part of the counter-culture in the late 60s to have plausibly wanted to have gone to Woodstock). In the late 70s or early 80s, you could see the way younger teachers were deviating from the mold of respectability that had been a lot more strict in the 60s.
While I had teachers who would point me towards scifi and fantasy books in the late 70s and the 80s, I did still have the feeling at the time that being a huge fan of LOTR was kind of flying below the radar. It was NOT widely known by others in my high school. I really only knew a few people who read scifi or fantasy books at all. Going to a science fiction convention and being around hundreds of people (mostly adults) who knew all of these books and also loved them felt like entering a whole other world than the regular mainstream one we occupied day to day. At the time, what I most remember was the way that mainstream journalism grappled with trying to talk about the huge cultural presence and broad appeal of something like "Star Wars", or the growing number of hit movies that had some kind of scifi element -- how they still wanted to regard all of these works as "for kids", even while it was clear that there was a pretty significant interest amongst adult audiences for them.
I guess this is getting away from me a bit, and just trending into general musing. But what I'm saying is that I don't think the idea that there was *an* explosion of popularity for LOTR in the U.S. in the 60s is in contradiction with the idea that for a very long time, LOTR itself appealed to what we'd call a niche audience. I feel like the general history of the regard for and bias against genre fiction in the U.S. and elsewhere explains a lot of that. Right up until the end of the 90s, LOTR was still regarded as a thing that only nerds and geeks were interested in. It was the movies that truly exploded that and made them basically a household name. (Which is why that Waterstones survey from '97 that's mentioned was so notable.)
To be fair to both Brooks and Jordan, Shannara and WoT, whilst both starting in a familiar place, are not just copying Tolkien even then, but carefully using the tropes he created, not just regurgitating them. I haven't read as much Brooks, but Jordan definitely likes to play with those tropes and apply them in ways that invert them or turn them around in some way, and occasionally just to show the silliness of some of them. Theirs is less transliteration and more tranformation than I think you gave them credit for.
Great video, and a really interesting discussion. I'm very much enjoying this series so far. One thing which I think you should dive deeper into regarding the origins of modern fantasy though is the "weird fiction" published in the pulp magazines of the early 20th century. I feel as though this is in some ways a separate thread to the evolution from fairy stories to Tolkien, but a lot of the modern tropes do find their footing there. You talk about world building and how LoTR pioneers doing that seriously while earlier works were looser in their approach to canon, but that isn't really true. Authors like Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Catherine Moore, Clark Ashton Smith et al., were all publishing in pulp magazines at the same time Tolkien was conceptualizing middle earth, but before the publication of the Lord of the Rings. Their works are replete with obsessive world building, albeit not achieved with the same finesse. They were drawing on similar inspiriations from the 19th century, but took things in a very different direction, which while less literary than Tolkien still had a huge impact on what came after. That canon of work also formed as much of a background to why literary fantasy wasn't taken seriously as the children's stories did. Fantasy wasn't just seen as childish, but also as puerile, the stuff of trashy magazines and penny dreadfuls. However, the pulps would see a renaissance in appreciation in the subsequent waves of fantasy authors trying to set themselves apart from Tolkien (e.g. Moorcock et al.). Sword and Sorcery reemerged from the desire to hearken back to those older pulp roots. While many pulp works don't really hold up by today's standards (especially Lovecraft), they remain an important part of the story.
It says a lot that Martin has yet to answer himself some of the questions he asks about Middle Earth. For all his work on Westeros, he has yet to provide anything more than the basest idea of currency.
Ok, so the longer this went on, the more interested I became, firstly by guessing (mostly correctly) what authors/worlds you were going to give in each category, most of them (apart from Pullman) I have.
The one I was a little surprised you didn't mention was the Belgariad series by David Eddings, which is an intriguing example: he wrote an interesting 'how to write' book where he makes clear his disdain for Tolkien, but it's clear he misunderstands tLoTR to a large degree. For example he writes in the chapter on religion contrasting monotheism with pantheism remarking that "Papa Tolkien chose Pantheism"...
Finally I didn't realise till now that you were such a Pratchett fan (like myself I might add) and that quote of Pratchett regarding Tolkien and Mt Fuji is my favourite about the impact of Tolkien, especially the last phrase: "or is in fact standing on Mt Fuji". Always makes me smile 😃
My introduction to fantasy was books from the forgotten realms franchise in the late 80s, beginning of 90s. I read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings later. I found much inspiration from Tolkien in the fantasy I was reading. And world building and languages were large parts as well. There is no question that in many ways, Tolkien is the Father of modern fantasy. Not that everyone copies him, but his work was opening up a whole new genre to be explored. Fantasy stories for children of all ages. ( Children as still having their inner child intact ). Becoming an adult is still something I have postponed.
Edmund Wilson praised James Branch Cabell's "Poictesme" series, as well as The Hobbit, so he wasn't hostile to fantasy or even to Tolkien. He just didn't like Lord of the Rings.
He probably just didn't like Hobbits.
A lot of people, even Tolkien's friends, found them irritating.
Pratchett is da bomb and his analogy of Mt Fuji is apt. Tolkien's template of orcs, elves, dwarves and so on is so ingrained, that people have copied it into homogeneity. And some authors looked to break it - one such is Tad Williams with his Dragonbone Chair trilogy. He rebelled against the sameness in fantasy, and was quite influential. Martin's Iron Throne was inspired by the Dragonbone Chair. "As I recall the main inspiration was me wondering what happens after a mythical Great King like Arthur or Charlemagne dies. That started me on thinking about the two brothers, then the story just started to accrue ideas. There was also an entire level of my commenting on Tolkien and post-Tolkien epic fantasy, but that's a long answer just by itself." Tad Williams
Hate Tad Williams with a passion that will never die.
Pratchett 's discworld is hands down the best fantasy out there.... my completely unbiased opinion
Might it be, Jess, that the Ring (a relic of the Dark Lord's.} became more? Sauron's ultimate boon. And that make the Nazgul the Knights in search of the Ultimate Boon, the heroes turned inside out. After all, who would ever think of destroying Excalibur? Well, and this Tolkien knew very well, . In lesser known - Welsh traditions - Arthur killed young children (he wanted to kill Mordred). Arthur, you see, is the villian, Mordred the hero to whom destroying Excalibur (or using it against Arthur, if it could be stolen) makes complete sense. Tolkien took the minority view of ultimate boon as a great aid to the Heroine and turned it on its head. Brilliance. Beautifully sublime. And the above leads to the question, for the Hobbits, and the 9 walkers, what was the ultimate boon? I am certain you know the answer.
at 20:30 you delve into something I find to be super fascinating, and I think it may even be you who I first heard speak of this, that Tolkien is to Western Fantasy what Mt. Fuji is to Japanese Artists. Its place in a painting, the amount space it takes up, and the possible absence of it alltogether, are all very telling about the artist's intentions. Both are such omnipresent juggernauts in their respective fields, that it is all but impossible not to be influenced by them in some way.
Edit: Well I'll be. Seems it was Sir Prachett who did that thing first.
Thanks Jess!
I always love your analysis, it helps to think of new perspectives on Tolkein.
Great podcast, Jess! One can't think of dragon stories without paying homage to Anne McCaffrey and the world of Pern.
Your videos are so good. So well researched well written and explained. Excellent work!!
I'm a little late to this week's installment, but as always, never disappointed by your thorough presentation. Your account of the cultural conditons that allowed for Tolkien to gain success should be helpful for anyone who may wonder why this particular work is seen as foundational for the genre, establishing its conventions, defending its value, and giving it credibility. And may I add that, while it can be interesting to see later fantasy authors' critiques and often self-serving reactions to Tolkien's work, they are all doing so using the language he created.
I'd enjoy it immensely if you read the Eternal Champion works of Michael Moorcock particularly those dealing with Elric of Melnibone and give us your take. Thanks in advance.
Jess, do you know how looked down upon LOTR was is 1970? It was considered a "Hippie" book and all I knew was that I loved it while I had come home from a useless war it was a force for getting out of this world. I carried one or two of the books hiking up in the High Sierra and there was always someone who would trade their part 3 for my part two, always.
Of course Aragorn killed off the Orcs including those baby ones on the dirty floors of orc caves, but no need to speak of them.
I must admit I'm a little surprised you didn't mention Harry Potter when speaking about Tolkien's influence on modern fantasy writing. I so often hear the two compared even character names get confused by new readers, as in Gandalf being called Dumbledore, or when the One Ring is compared to a horcrux.
Once again, you knock it out of the park! Great video, I love learning stuff. :)
On the subject of world-building, while JRR Tolkien created the world of Middle Earth, an entirely different author created a world for his stories. Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry wrote the Railway Series stories about Thomas, Edward, Gordon and all their friends on their own little railway, but never really set down the railway's location. Eventually, Awdry decided to set the stories on a fictional island: The Island of Sodor. With help from his librarian brother George, Wilbert took bits of English history during the Viking and Norman ages to craft the history of the island, writing it all down in a companion book called The Island of Sodor: Its People, History, and Railways. Although the book is long out-of-print and tough to find, PDF copies have circulated their way online.
CS Lewis described it a "....bolt of lightning out of clear blue sky!"
Is he the father of fantasy?
No.
But I recognize him as the father of the RPG. Role Playing Game.
Tolkien added so much detail to Lord of the Rings that you feel like you're actually there.
Or...
That you are role playing as a character in Middle Earth.
And that is the definition of a Role Playing Game. You grade an RPG on how well you feel that you are part of this world.
The best RPG make you feel like you are there. The worse makes you feel like you shouldn't or want to be there.
Tolkien is the father of detail. And although I bet he'd hate playing Final Fantasy or Elder Scrolls or Dungeons and Dragons, his eye for detail is what makes the RPG possible.
So I tell others he's the creator of the RPG. Fantasy existed millenia before Tolkien. The RPG came after.
Ironically, Gary Gygax was not much of a fan of LOTR, and based D&D far more on the works of Robert E. Howard, Jack Vance, and Poul Anderson.
@@SonofSethoitae Neither was I till the films. But I knew it's importance in developing realistic worlds which RPGs depend on in order to be good.
To be fair to Robert Jordan, it was the publisher who forced him to rewrite the first Wheel of Time novel as a Lord of the Rings knockoff because they insisted that there was no other way to sell a new fantasy series.
Thanks for this. I had plenty of ideas to share but you covered most of them quite well. I’ve always enjoyed the interlocking ideas of fantasy and science fiction across multiple forms of media. Tolkien was one of the greats in my youth along with Gygax, Asimov, Lee and Kirby. To misquote and probably misrepresent Newton, a good part of their greatness was the broad shoulders that later authors and/or artists stood upon.
Just one comment on the idea that Tolkien created or popularized the "Quest" trope. In the 1930s, Joseph Campbell, after the publication of The Hobbit, but long before Tolkien began writing The Lord of the Rings, outlined exactly what both the purpose and the way the Quest should proceed - which maybe why Tolkien didn't end TLOTR in Gondor, because, according to Campbell, the Quest only ends with the return to Home of the Protagonist.
Undoubtedly, there are issues with Campbell and Tolkien did absolutely change Fantasy, but, Tolkien was also, as we saw in the earlier video, building on other Fantasy writers....
Among other things, I think we always have to remember that Tolkien was very well aware of the Arthurian legends and their structures. His translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one still highly regarded today. If we want to look anywhere for a common origin amongst more modern fantasy writers for the quest trope, I think we can't ignore Arthuriana.
@@gryphonvert Or for that matter, the Grail legendarium, which actually originated in France...
Tor Fantasy and the works of various D&D authors like Weis, Hickman, and Salvatore would provide a wealth of material for future content.
Could you perhaps do a follow-up to this, focusing on the contributions of female authors and worlds in which cultures are not heteronormative? - e.g. le Guin, Robin Hobb, N K Jemisin, Samantha Shannon, Tamsyn Muir.
I'd like to see you compare Neil Gaiman to Tolkien. I'm very curious about what you said, and I'd like to hear that in more depth.
The Mt. Fuji analogy is wonderful. Is that yours? I know you do a lot of research for these.
Well written piece.
I wonder how you feel about David Eddings. I remember reading that he was very much inspired by Tolkien (obvious when you read him), but he wanted a more earthy feel. I think he found the women in Tolkien a little too much like Goddesses on pedestals and the whole thing a little too whimsical. I love the character based humour in Eddings's books, and although where the books are going is not a surprise, I enjoy the ride to get there.
Thanks for your channel and all your hard work.
Maybe it's a weird comparison, but I love the world building of Archie Sonic for the same reason as Lord of the Rings. It had a massive world with so many characters, connections, and locations. It felt like an entire living, breathing, world.
Like Platonism, LotR is a touchstone, which everyone will henceforth be seen as moving toward or away from. tavi.
Recently discovered your channel and it’s very enjoyable. Sorry if this has been asked elsewhere, but have you heard of Evangeline Walton’s Mabinogion Tetralogy? Both the books and authors would be fascinating subjects.
The “Breakin it” reference 😭😂👏🏻
Really interesting video. I wish I could contribute more to the conversation but I rarely read fiction these days -- though I've read a lot of Tolkein over the years. Anyways, good work!
"And for adults, the world of fantasy books returns to us the great words of power which, in order to be tamed, we have excised from our adult vocabularies. These words are the pornography of innocence, words which adults no longer use with other adults, and so we laugh at them and consign them to the nursery, fear masking as cynicism. These are the words that were forged in the earth, air, fire, and water of human existence, and the words are:
Love. Hate. Good. Evil. Courage. Honor. Truth."
- Jane Yolen, Touch Magic: Fantasy, Faerie & Folklore in the Literature of Childhood
I would love to hear your thoughts on Wheel of Time more in depth. I am a huge fan of the books, and always like hearing what other people think of it.
Would be cool to hear your thoughts on The Inheritance Cycle. Grew up reading them before I read Tolkien. It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on the world-building and prose and the criticism it received as well as why it was loved by many.
DUNE?!?!!?? I can't wait!
God, I'm so thankful we live in a time when fantasy and other fiction isn't solely relegated to children's books. Don't get me wrong, I have an addiction to learning too... But without the counterbalance of fantasy and other great fictional characters, stories, and worlds... Would anything else even matter?
I stumbled upon your channel couple of hours ago and I've been binge-watching (well, binge-listening to be precise) ever since. I really appreciate the depth of your research and the contextualisation of Tolkien's works in terms of times and culture. It is very interesting and I think needed in the larger realm of LOTR related youtube. It's also quite wonderful to see a woman in this area as it seems to me that most Tolkien channels are made by men. I hope your channel will keep on growing, you deserve many more views.
As a side note, Edmund Wilson sounds like a really miserable chap. I kind of feel sorry for him for not being able to enjoy the world of fantasy ;)
Recently discovered (rediscovered?) Prachett. Not sure how I missed him all these years.
I am so very behind in my reading, I need to finish a short story book before I can move on to the Codex Alera, but man, I REALLY need to read discworld and HHGtG. I at least need to read the rincewind stories....
The position of the Lord of the Rings in the counterculture is so interesting and oft overlooked. I think a lot of them picked up on the anti-imperialism.
I agree with your conclusions in these origins of Fantasy story telling, actually they're great.
However Robert E. Howard seems missing in the list - I'm sure Tolkien red some Conan stuff.
If you are curious I suggest 'People of the Black Circle' (1936)
His 18 Conan stories Howard pioneered so many of LOTR's themes.
These videos are excellent. Great work.
"People can think only in images. If you want to be a philosopher, write novels." - Albert Camus