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I do have to defend a 10-year-old here. LotR is so involved it is above many 10-year-olds. Not all, but most. The Hobbit is much more in line with with what a child that age could easily read. So she was right as well in a way. While Frodo was the ring BEARER, Biblo did have the ring-for a while anyway. I believe in cutting slack on kids with this.
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Well, you know I first read
The Lord of the Rings when I was nine, so I think that if you are going to get upset at thirteen-year olds, ten-year olds should not necessarily escape your wrath as well. I read
The Hobbit when I was eight and loved the books, so my dad gave me
The Lord of the Rings. I did not have any problems understanding the books at that time.
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Vanima, I agree that people who've just seen the movies are fine. I started out seeing just one movie, and didn't even know who Frodo was when I did. But those people who've only seen the movies and claim to be experts on all things Tolkien are another story....
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But then it goes back to the maturity issue. Usually people who claim to be experts are either rather immature or have littler self-worth. When it comes to the maturity thing, they just are not in a phase in their life when they can understand what they are reading. It can happen to eight-year olds and it can happen to fourteen-year olds. Often they feel as though this makes them inferior, so they claim to know a lot about a subject they do not. They think that by seeming to know everything about something like Tolkien's world, they will seem to be more mature than they actually are. The vast majority of the people that feel that way now will grow out of it by the time they grow up. Even if they are about fifteen now, when they are twenty-five, they may finally grow up. Everyone becomes able to understand different things at different times. I usually just prefer ignoring the people, or correcting them gently at the very least. If they don't believe me because they genuinely think they know what they are talking about, oh well. I'm not going to lose sleep over someone else's ignorance.