characters
 

did tolkien ever use characters from other fantasy series because many other series have used his

He did not, simply because no other fantasy series existed at the time. The genre pretty much begun with the writing of the Lord of the Rings.

However, he did draw inspiration (and use names) from a great many mythological sources. I believe the name 'Gandalf', along with the 13 Dwarf names in The Hobbit, were all originally from the same mythological work.

-Voronwe

Tolkien relied heavily on NOrse mythology...a lot of dwarve names of the 13 were norse..not sure about Gandalf's origins.

I'm pretty sure i read somewhere that dwarf runes are based on Norse runes. But like someone already said, there really wasn't any fantasy series that existed before Tolkien so there really was nothing to borrow from. I suppose you could consider ancient mythology a kind of Fantasy work though.

In highschool I did my OAC (Ontaio Academic Credit) english essay on LOTR and spent the majority of the time showing the parallels between his works and the Norse mythology.
I still have a copy of that essay too.
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It's my pride and joy as pathetic and laughable as it is now.
hehehe

He must have used some things from English mythology eg. Beowulf.

yes he did use some things from diferant mithalogies. i mean what aurther hasn't?
this isn't the movie board but o well.
they did use sertian carecters from a couple of vidio games and other sorcess. for instence. When Saruman whached his orcs dig out a human/orc inbread. the creater was the last boss from was craft 2.
the balrog was very similar to the daemon in fantasia and a devil from south american lore.
but back to the did he origanly coppy things from mythology. Wargs and orc are the obvius ones but the balrog in the cave of moria was also a mythilogical creater.

sorry for the bad spelling and grammer.

Well Im confused about the above comment, are you saying that "In the movie", the balrog is similiar to a video game charator. Or are you saying that in the book, Tolkien, got his idea about his "creations" from a video game. I sure hope that your not! I think that Tolkien passed away in the early 70's way before Atari was even around.

I may not just be understanding what your trying to imply though, but I would bet money that NO video game has anything to do with Tolkien, when he was still alive!

Gandalf is derived from the ancient Scandinavian word "Gandalff" meaning "sorcerer elf"

-The Languages of Tolkien's Middle Earth
by: Ruth S. Noel

No I'm not saying he did that's imposible.
I'm saying he didn't copy any carectors from any other book.
But i was just comenting that in the movie they used vidio game carectors for how some people or things looked.
If i worded it weard so it coudn't be read very easily than I'm sorry.
ryan
(skippy-Tarrhosion) [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

And the dwarf name is not just norse...but swedish to...just wanted you to know! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Wasn´t Gandalf someone there in the swedes´ "believe of the nordic gods" if ya understand me..? Or am I wrong?