Rereading LOTR after exposure to TOR

[Southron]

I just wanted to say that I started rereading LOTR and have found that after being exposed to TOR, it makes me realize how well most of the system is designed , rereading with game mechanics in mind is interesting, but combining both it seems that in many ways LOTR/TOR is fantasy horror.

[Finrod Felagund]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but I would guess it's inevitable that an RPG can't completely slavishly follow the books, no more than the films could. In any RPG where you are taking on evil, there will always be horror surely?

I reread the books a couple of months or so for the first time in about a decade. It struck me how much they were an element of the time Tolkien was writing in i.e. the complete absence of women, Samwise as Frodo's servant and not a friend, all dark-skinned people were evil, the importance of noble blood etc. I could see why more modern writers would want to move beyond this. They were still brilliant though, and I'm not saying that he personally believed this stuff himself by the way.

[Southron]

I'm not entirely sure what you mea In any RPG where you are taking on evil, there will always be horror surely?

Just fighting Orcs, Trolls, and Dragons, though they possibly could have an element of horror, that IMO is more action based. Considering the Barrow Wights, the Deadmen of Dunharrow, The Dead Marshes, the taint of Mirkwood due to Dol Guldor, the Nazgul etc... These have the element of horror.
It is also possibly the Professor's writing style. Martin has undead, but Tolkien's description of the supernatural fear is more tangible to me.

[Southron]

Maybe the issue is I wasn't thinking of horror as in "the horrors of war" but more along the lines of supernatural horror.

[Otaku-sempai]

I reread the books a couple of months or so for the first time in about a decade. It struck me how much they were an element of the time Tolkien was writing in i.e. the complete absence of women, Samwise as Frodo's servant and not a friend, all dark-skinned people were evil, the importance of noble blood etc. I could see why more modern writers would want to move beyond this. They were still brilliant though, and I'm not saying that he personally believed this stuff himself by the way.

I can see how some elements of the books could seem dated, but you exaggerate and oversell your points.

A complete absence of women is a fair cop only for The Hobbit. Past that, we have: Lobelia Sackville-Baggins; Rosie Cotton; Goldberry; Arwen; Galadriel; Éowyn; Shelob (if we can count her); and Ioreth (plus any I've missed). And there is Princess Mee, Fíriel, the Shadow-bride and others from The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and other works published within Tolkien's lifetime.

Samwise does indeed start out as Frodo's gardener, but it is apparent even before the Hobbits leave the Shire that he is also a friend. As LotR progresses Frodo and Sam's friendship becomes much more important than their relationship as master and servant.

Even your contention that "all dark-skinned people are evil" in LotR is undermined by Sam's contemplation of the dead Haradrim in Ithilien, in the peace that is forged in later years with many of the peoples of Rhûn and Harad, and the story of Aragorn's travels in Appendix A. The charge doesn't really apply meaningfully at all to The Hobbit. And it is not as though Tolkien portrays all light-skinned people as good either (Saruman and Worm-tongue, for two).

[Cawdorthane]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean, but I would guess it's inevitable that an RPG can't completely slavishly follow the books, no more than the films could. In any RPG where you are taking on evil, there will always be horror surely?

I reread the books a couple of months or so for the first time in about a decade. It struck me how much they were an element of the time Tolkien was writing in i.e. the complete absence of women, Samwise as Frodo's servant and not a friend, all dark-skinned people were evil, the importance of noble blood etc. I could see why more modern writers would want to move beyond this. They were still brilliant though, and I'm not saying that he personally believed this stuff himself by the way.

How utterly opposed the above perspective is to my reading of LotR. We seem to have read the same text and left with a diametrically opposite understanding.

The complexity and depth of the book still never ceases to amaze me. It starts with the bookish dreamer Frodo as the "hero", but slowly and progressively the role of the main hero shifts to the more seemingly simple Samwise Gamgee, whose real depths gradually emerge as he alone overcomes despair, and it is Sam, not Frodo who ends the 3 books and it is Sam, not Frodo who voluntarily gives up the Ring. To the contrary, it is the triumph of Everyman and not that of the blue blood! The interplay between Gimli and Legolas gently exposes the folly of racial prejudice (but I have to work to get that stupid PJ Scotish accent out of my head though....), showing the Professor was way ahead of his own times and class. Aragon's seemingly hopeless if requited love for Arwen is set up against the seemingly more achievable if unrequited love of Aragon by Eowyn. The way that it is the "humble" virtues of friendship, decency and loyalty which ultimately triumph over baser but more seemingly noble and more grandiose motives which is to my mind timeless. IMHO the work is as fresh and meaningful now as it was when it was written.

I could not disagree more with a view that it is somehow twee, stale or dated. That my wife and so many of our female friends love the book as much as me suggests that with great writing and a grand vision, you really need not have a female central character nor a cast based on some uber-Nanny's type casting view of what a homogenous society ought to be, to appeal to a wide reader base.

cheers
Mark

PS I know Finrod was not intending to give the LotR a spray but I think his summary missed way, way too much.

[Havinor]

I think it's one of the many great things about these books is the way that different readers can read the same text and extract entirely different conclusions. I guess this is what Tolkien meant by 'Applicability'. It's interesting to see what people take from the books.

I totally agree with the OP though. It's really ineteresting re reading the books after reading TOR. You can easily see where the mechanics of the game fit with the world. Brilliant

[Lifstan]

I totally agree with the OP though. It's really ineteresting re reading the books after reading TOR.

That's for sure! Working on the "Darkenning of Mirkwood" campaign on one side and re-reading (first time in English!) the books on the other, I love the books way more because this time I get all the small details that are in there. TOR make me love way more Lord of the Rings.

[Cawdorthane]

Indeed, I could not agree more that TOR has achieved an amazing degree of connection with and respect for the LotR. And all that without dictating or imposing the rpg author's own views. It truly is the Château Margaux's 2000 vintage of rpgs!

cheers
Mark

[Stormcrow]

For me the effect happened in reverse. Since I have read Tolkien many times over, including recently, when I first read The One Ring I was mentally checking off various features of Tolkien as they came up.