Christopher Tolkien has no room to talk about other people modifying his father's work to make money. A man who has little talent of his own(Beyond cartography) riding the coat tails of his father's success. He's not been publishing all the stuff his father refused to publish, due to it being little more than old unfinished notes Tolkien himself didn't want published, because fans wanted it. He published it because he knew if he did we'd buy it.

The Movies didn't "betray" anything any more than the Children of Hurin did. That's always been a BS argument, the books are still there, you can still read them. Of course the movies weren't the books... They're movies. people need to stop being butthurt. No one's making you consume anything you don't chose to.

I don't agree with the stupid Denny's thing but if you think Peter Jackson had any hand or say in it you don't understand how film marketing works.

I love the Silmarillion, but a Silmarillion RPG would be the most bloated, unplayable game ever made.

@lucyfersam - might I ask you to explain further the comment (emphasis mine):

The reason I ask is that I fully agree that Tolkien wanted to write a mythology but, it seems it was to be (or, become) his own private vision of (mainly) Germanic (in the sense of "Germanic" languages) folklore. Clearly, I realize he made this "public" by simply publishing his work (and, accepting money for it, thereby transforming, willingly, the stories into a product for consumption).

However, noting how jealous (if this is a fair description) Tolkien was, during his lifetime, and the family estate has been since his death, I think it's fair to state that he, in no way, ever intended his mythology to be used to sell breakfast sausages. Nor, I think it can be argued, would his private vision benefit from being co-opted by third parties to turn his vision into commercial symbols - that right seems to me uniquely his (given he didn't sign them completely away in the underlying licensing agreement).

Those points could probably be argued all day (and, certainly will be soon by folks better able to articulate them than I) so, my main question really is, was there a quote where Tolkien himself explained that he wanted his mythology to be, as you say, a living, breathing thing?

Let me say, I do like your points, and they have given me something to think about with regard to mythology, symbols, and the stories we hold in common and/or transmit across our culture(s). Seems, though, the way these particular stories have been guarded (not to mention, even presented - e.g., as The Red Book of Westmarch) almost sets them up as museum pieces, i.e. to be displayed but not touched, rather than as folkloric elements to be re-imagined or re-tooled until the meaning is quite different or lost altogether.

Ha, perhaps, this is a fan-created expectation?

@Tensen01 - alright, I'll bite, since I'm responsible for dragging PJ into this discussion (although, now, I wish I hadn't since a.) the films have been subjects of debate, ad nauseum, for 10 years or more and, b.) my main point was about commercial tie-ins with The Hobbit and the merits of the suit, rather than with the LotR trilogy).

However, while I understand your sentiment concerning Christopher Tolkien, I might avoid questioning the man's intent concerning publishing some of his father's unfinished works. Perhaps he did do it just for the money, I don't know (unless he's quoted somewhere explaining that was his clear intent). But, by the same token, neither can you know this for certain, and to malign him seems to me a bit unfair.

Regardless, beyond what the community thinks, pro or con, the fact remains that the works are his family's birthright, whether he/they are deserving of them or not, in our own estimation. And, honestly, Tolkien himself is to blame for ever licensing the content in the first place, whatever his intent in doing so (even though my childhood would've been much poorer for the lack of the Rankin Bass and Bakshi animated films!).

I, for one, am glad he decided to publish Unfinished Tales as I really think they do flesh out some of the back-story (speaking in particular of "The Disaster of the Gladden Fields," "Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan," "The Quest of Erebor," and "the Hunt for the Ring,"), whether one wants to claim them as canon or not. And, selfishly, they sate that ever-present need for "moar Tolkien," that I always feel when putting down a book (Bout of Madness?).

Not having read them, I can't comment on The History of Middle-Earth series, except to state that I've purposefully kept my distance as, unfortunately, reading about the evolution of the stories has always dissatisfied me . . . I like to think, although I know it's an illusion, that Gandalf, Faramir, Durin, Thingol, and Bilbo all sprouted fully-formed upon the page, rather than existed as multiple iterations of various ideas. But, that's just me.

Evocatus,
I'll try to find the exact reference when I can, but I think it was in the introduction to the Silmarillion saying he was trying to create a Mythology for England- though I may be using a very different definition of that goal than he was. Tolkien himself definitely would not have wanted his work used to sell breakfast sausages or online gambling, or really anything. If I remember correctly he even had significant reservations about the books being published in the US because American's wouldn't properly understand or appreciate them. I, however, have very pre-Disney views on copyright and don't really think that his or his estates opinion of how his works should be used should have any bearing at this point.

Just a few thoughts...

I see a lot of people getting upset (not just here) about how Tolkien's legacy is being messed with. I don't like the idea of fruit machines covered in Hobbit and LOTR, but that's merchandising for you. Tolkien sold (film) rights to his books to get money quickly for a family need - try looking at that from two angles - 1) His family comes first not his books and 2) He was willing to pass on his story to someone else and I don't believe he stipulated what they did with it in term of presentation. Tolkien would not have liked much that has happened with his stories - from film, paintings, rpgs, etc. He didn't really care for all that. The stuff we play here would have maybe annoyed him. He just wasn't into that side of things. He was even confused by the interest in his own stuff.

One thing that is confusing me - ME Enterprises has rights to films not books. The books are under the protection of the Tolkien Estate. ME-E and the TE are not linked as far as I understand. So (and this is shooting myself in the foot) where do we stand with TOR and also stuff like LOTRO and LOTR LCG (by FFG) - which are based on the books themselves and are not linked with the films nor the license as this whole issues seems to suggest for ME-E? I'm totally confused on what is going on now - ME-E don't own the book license, they own a license to make films based on the books and also merchandise based on the films they make.

Yep, in the biographies for Tolkien it discusses that Tolkien felt England was missing it's own mythology prior to the Middle Ages and he wanted to create something solid - he looked at Norse and Germanic traditions. The idea was that an English sailor discovered the last elves and learned the history of the world. I believe this was dropped when he eventually placed Middle Earth away from Earth - it wasn't a previous age of mankind.

You hit the nail on the head. I am wondering about that too. MEE (and in its TE incarnation in former years) has been licensing Middle-earth RPG products (based on The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) for exactly 30 years now (the license that led to MERP was acquired by ICE in 1982) and find it hard to believe that MEE should have had no legal base for that right from the start.

And I find it even harder to believe that they got away with it for three decades before the Estate became aware of this breach. Really hard to believe IMHO.

Perhaps part of the contract is ambiguous and interpreted differently (nowadays) by the parties involved.

Cheers
Tolwen

At least until 1958 (see Letter #211) Tolkien still upheld the idea of "his" Middle-earth being a mythic past of our real world. In said letter, he sets the "gap" between the fall of Barad-dûr and his own time at about 6,000 years and sees this as sufficient for literary credibility on the matter.

Cheers
Tolwen

Interestingly (and possibly coincidentally), that would set ME at around the time of the Creation of the Earth (4004 BC) as calculated by Bishop Ussher

"Interestingly (and possibly coincidentally), that would set ME at around the time of the Creation of the Earth (4004 BC) as calculated by Bishop Ussher."

If that is the case then the tech levels, particularly that of Men, are way off. Unless we are saying that Numenorians were in fact super advanced Atlantians? Narsil should have been a bronze khopesh, rather then a European manufacture iron (steel) long sword.

I don't doubt he was trying to make a mythology for England that he felt sorely lacking, but trying to put a date on the actual age doesn't make sense to me.

Tolkien had intended Númenor to be an allusion to the legendary Atlantis....

After its destruction the land is stated to have been usually called Atalantë "the Downfallen." Tolkien described his invention of this additional allusion to Atlantis as a happy accident when he realized that the Quenya root talat- "to fall" could be incorporated into a name referring to Númenor, although some suspect that the name was intended as an elaborate pun the whole time.

Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Númenor

I don't think it was meant to be an exact correcpondence, just allusional. And alluvial, in the case of Numenor. I really wouldn't worry about the tech levels...

"I really wouldn't worry about the tech levels..."

Sorry, my education is in Classical History and Archaeology...I kinda have to.

Exactly this dating from Bishop Ussher was used as well in my article about the Fourth Age in Issue 9 of Other Minds and a possible solution for blending in this artificial in real myth (so to say).

Cheers
Tolwen

I presume therefore that you are also worried about the existence of hobbits, dragons, wizards, gods, magic rings, elves, giant sun-like illuminating orbs, talking animated trees, giant spiders, etc,etc?

Hurrah! Great minds and all that...

"I presume therefore that you are also worried about the existence of hobbits, dragons, wizards, gods, magic rings, elves, giant sun-like illuminating orbs, talking animated trees, giant spiders, etc,etc? "

Not that this is the place to discuss this but:

-What is so hard about believing in a community of little people?
-I personally have a theory that all dragon myths are based on the finding of dinosaur fossils, so in a sense they did exist.
-Wizards-you mean the scientists and naturalists of the Ancient World?
-God(s) I suppose we have another athiest in the house?
-The other points are of course story points in a book.

But, yes having plate armour and medieval class weapons being around when the pinnacle of weapons tech would have been a stone headed axe, or perhaps bronze blade is a little hard to swallow. Though I suppose the intervention of the Istari, Elves, and Numenourians in combination could have catapulted the Stone Age ME Men up the evolutionary scale quite abit.

I don't want to get into a row, however, some of you postulate that the goodly prof did not want to interp Middle-earth as our own prehistoric earth. You are correct in that he debated the issue & had to make the subsequent books fit his original publications, but he continued the theme. For example, note this entry:

Those days, the Third Age of Middle-earth, are now long past, and the shape of all lands has been changed; but the regions in which Hobbits then lived were doubtless the same as those in which they still linger: the North-West of the Old World, east of the Sea.

The Lord of the Rings. 50th Anniversary Edition. Prologue, 2.

He made a number of such references throughout his work, & the Hobbits compiled Bilbo's & the other's adventures into the Red Book of Westmarch & additional MSS, which Tolkien discovered & translated for us (in his cosmology)

We're still talking about a Law Suit, right?... right?

/wolf

We certainly can get back to it.

And my over ruling question is; does this have anything to do with the gaming world (ie TOR or other ME RPGs)? If not why do we care who sues whom, or the outcomes? Surely, someone around here has the necessary legal background to answer this?

Personally, I'm only worried about TOR and LOTRO. The FFG / Sophisticated Games Board Games are nice, but I'm more interested in the RPGs. If those are safe, then the lawyers can go wild on the rest. Just as long as the RPGs don't get caught up in the feeding frenzy.

Oh, and can we have our PDFs back please.

Makes me wonder though.... if C7 had approached TE to acquire the rights for the RPG.... would we then have seen a Law Suit the other way around?

A very hypothetical question, I know, but it's compelling just the same.

/wolf

Unlikely to have got it. An RPG would most likely have been deemed "unworthy" as it's populist. It's not an academic tome or Christopher Tolkien's own work on his father's notes. The Guide to Middle-earth or the maps seem to have got through, and biographies or other analysis works.

Shame, I would like to have seen TE accepting and vetting a sort of "expanded universe" - with other authors being allowed to submit further novels not directly related to the Lord of the Rings story.

I'd be interested in that. I always wondered why there hadn't been any side stories published over the years. So, Christopher Tolkien has a bit of a stragnle hold on his fathers creation does he?

You're probably right. Shame though. That they are so stupid.

I regard TOR as being much more a Promotion for the books than the Movies though. (As opposed to the last RPG incarnation of this world, being a strictly Movie-product)

/wolf

All literary works would need to go through the Tolkien estate. Only Christopher Tolkien's books have been published, other than select guides and maps. Note that even Children of Hurin was "JRR Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien". No new novels have been published that are not based on the notes of JRR Tolkien. Make of this what you will. It could be that other authors are not interested in writing for the Middle-earth setting, but I would find this hard to believe.

If anything happens to TOR line and even before I could get my screen I would pour benzin upon my body and burn myself.

That ought to get their attention. I commend your dedication to the cause.

"I regard TOR as being much more a Promotion for the books than the Movies though. (As opposed to the last RPG incarnation of this world, being a strictly Movie-product)"

Actually, Dec.'s LoTR RPG is still my favourite out of all the ME RPGS. Yes, the pics were all from the movie, but I found the information in the book reflected the world of ME very well.

I love the movies and I love the books too! I think Peter Jackson does an incredible job with his films. I know he changed some really important scenes and excluded some characters, but I think he kept enough of the heart and feel of Tolkien's work to engage our emotions and stir our thoughts. The books obviously teach us more and provide the lessons that the professor wanted us to learn about moral victory, etc.

Decipher's roleplaying books were cool, but the CODA System was terrible when it came to defense and combat in general. The concepts were good, but character creation allowed for unbalanced starting characters. A couple of Hobbits could take down a Troll in a matter of rounds without being hit themselves because of size difference. I tried and tried to like the system, but I could never figure out how to have a game where the mechanics made sense.

And no one would ever answer me or give me a lesson when I asked.

I know this is slipping off topic again, but... I have never been able to understand most peoples lack of understanding on the fact you can't take a book and directly convert to a movie. In particular I heard, at the time, a lot of complaints about the fact that Tom Bombadil wasn't in the movies. To which I have to ask what did the character actually contribute to the story? The scene would have weighed the movie down for no returns what so ever. Something just don't translate to the big screen.

Though I only ran a partial PbP game of Decipher's game I thought it was a solid system, I had no problems with it. When you are dealing with Tolkien's characters, particularly the Elves, you can't have balanced characters. I never ran into the problem with two Hobbits taking down a troll, but it makes sense to me. Two really quick smart ( and small) fighters up against a slow, stupid troll should eventually be victorious (a death of a thousand cuts)...if they are careful.

Everything I have seen has portrayed (movies, games, etc.) Tolkien's work in the best possible light, I am not sure what all the fuss is over. Probably greed in general.

"And no one would ever answer me or give me a lesson when I asked. "

if i was around I would have done what I could to help.

People used to say that about LotR as a whole. I'm not saying there was a way to keep Tom Bombadil, but you never know how far you can go until someone actually goes there.

I enjoyed the films, but I don't love them and I've never taken the time to see the third one. I'd rather see a TV show that's less about action and more about characters. A TV show would have time for Tom. But I don't think that's going to happen in my lifetime...

"A TV show would have time for Tom. But I don't think that's going to happen in my lifetime... "

Yeah, and with a TV version you could producer 6 or more eps for the price of one movie, but that doesn't mean it will be 100% true to the original material. Look at how HBO mishandled GoT (IMO).

From what I've heard the GoT tv series was done really well. I've not seen or read it, so this isn't a first hand opinion, but all my friends say it's very true to the books

Wow... I'm just beginning to think you don't like anything.

Critically and fan-acclaimed, one of the highest rated shows of the last 10 years with a viewership that goes UP not down, approved by(And a few episodes written by) the author and increasing sales of the book... Yeah, so mishandled.

First, let me say that I am hoping that roleplaying games are categorized by the lawyers as just that - games, which they consider tangible merchandise. That would secure everything and I suspect that is the case. There is the "book" aspect of the game, however, that may be touchy for the Tolkien Estate. I don't know. That is the part that makes me nervous. But, I am resting easy and believe it will all be okay.

Beran, I am totally committed to TOR right now and probably won't go backwards and play a CODA game, but...maybe you could PM me with a quick synopsis of how combat actually works? I've read the core rules over and over and what makes no sense at all is weapon skill versus defense. For example, Sword (Long Sword) +6 (which is really Long Sword +8) versus a Defense of 12 or 14 (which doesn't really get any higher than that, but weapon skills can get ridiculously high). Rolling 2d6 and adding +8 is going to yield a 15 average, which means a starting character hits most anything by rolling a 4 or higher. What happens when he has Long Sword +10 or higher. He never misses anything, ever? Powerful enemies never miss him either?

PM me. Sorry to the rest of you for the off-topic remarks.

Oh MAN that would be horrid.

Gotta say, I'm with Christopher Tolkien on that one. If the authors are good, let them make their own worlds to play in.

Well call me a Purist, but I loathe the thought of Middle-Earth being treated like the Star Trek universe (250+ novels) or the Warhammer Fantasy universe (225+ novels).

If the Tolkien's (son and grandson) are preventing this, they have my full support.

HBO's version of GoT's is the exception to the rule. In fact, their version is how the editors should have treated the books, instead of kow-towing to Martin and allowing them to be released in the oversized, sprawling mess they are.

They are so bloated and meandering it is rumored they were only proofread and not edited at all.

Martin: "Here's the first draft. It's 1050 pages."

Publisher: "We'll run it through spell-checker Tuesday and send it to the printer on Wednesday."

"In fact, their version is how the editors should have treated the books, instead of kow-towing to Martin and allowing them to be released in the oversized, sprawling mess they are.'

Actually, I was referring to the invention of the prostitute character (Roz?) so they could insert a number of soft core porn scenes that had nothing what-so-ever to do with the over all story line.

As to the writing and editing...Meh, there is nothing new in them. The only reason I started to read the first book was for background info for a possible ASOIF RPG I was planning to run. I laughed quite heartily when I read some reviewer call Martin the American Tolkien---HA!

The people with the power of Tolkien's estate could limit the number of novels put out, in fact they could select writers themselves and only allow them to write new novels. It wouldn't have to end in the deluge that is the Star Trek and Star Wars universes.