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Originally Posted by Rikae
But perhaps; if it is not only a fiction created by one man, but truly a mythology, it can be legitimately "extended" by anyone by tapping into the collective unconscious? Are myths discovered or written?
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This is the issue. Of course we have the oft quoted letter where Tolkien writes of 'other hands' taking up his mythology & contributing. At the same time he didn't consign his works to the public domain & allow a free for all.
The question is, how much freedom should contributors have? I suppose another question is, to what extent does what happens in this 'official' game reflect on Tolkien? I think its clear that tehre are some players who have only joined up because they like the movies & wanted to kill Orcs & fight Balrogs, & who have absolutely no interest in the morality or metaphysics of Tolkien's work.
Of course, one can argue that if something is logically possible within Tolkien's world it should be allowed with the game. It is logically possible for every Elf to marry a human, but that would trivialise the unions. Its possible for every woman in Rohan to go into battle, but that would trivialise Eowyn's act. At some point, simply allowwing everything which is logically possible will completely transform Tolkien's world into a Warcraft clone. At some point, it stops being Tolkien's M-e & becomes something else.
Seems to me that this is the problem with the whole idea of this game, & Rikae is right - to enter M-e with the attitudes, values & sensibilities of a twentieth century person is to change it. One has to adopt a certain mindset, behave & think in a certain way, or one is going to destroy the world. Homosexuality/same sex unions may be logically possible in M-e, but they do not happen in Tolkien. Same with most kinds of interracial marriage. I'm sure that a game like this has potential, as Bb suggests, to explore different possibilities within Tolkien's creation, but I fear that the more likely result will be a trivialising of the creation due to a lot of petulant foot stamping: 'I paid my dues to be an Elf & I want to marry that Hobbit 'cos he's my boyfriend in RL!'.