The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum - View Single Post - Are There Any Valid Criticisms? (aka Kalessin's Rant)

Estel the Descender · 04-11-2002, 03:52 AM

I remember a time when works made by Tolkien and others were read only by 'nerds' or people obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons. But even then they do not really read them in the sense intentended by the author/s.

The modern Fantasy genre was pioneered by JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis with their LotR and Chronicles respectively. Both liked fairy tales but did not like Walt Disney. Anybody who has read the original 'Little Mermaid' by Hans Christian Andersen and liked it find it very hard to accept the Disney version (yes, I know Walt Disney was already dead by then, but ol' Disney changed Pinoccio, too, and it was not like the original). Lewis thought that Disney made the dwarves (of Snow White) 'vulgar' or silly. That Tolkien made the dwarves in his mythology a noble race shows that he probably had the same opinion as Lewis.

There is another trend today, however. For those who watched the movie 'Grimm's Snow White' and read the original Grimm Brothers' 'Snowdrop' will see that the movie and the original are completely different. Unlike Disney, the movie-makers decided to make the story as gritty as possible, plus a little social commentary. If Disnay made the dwarves silly, the movie made them non-existent. It seems that for the fantasy genre to be respectable, it has to be 'logical' from the modern point of view, i.e., there are no 'real' dwarves and yada-yada.

I hope nobody even THINKS of doing that to Tolkien or Lewis. Well, there is that silly Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit and Return of the King. But should the modification happen (forbid it!) why would anyone modify the stories? The same reason they modified Snow White and the Little Mermaid: to 'Disneyfy' it would make 'kids' like it better, while to 'de-mythologize' it would make it more acceptable to 'adults'.

That is why I asked if anyone ever played the Final Fantasy series. Here are games which departed from the usual save-the-princess and kid-becomes-special formulae. All that magic, all that fantasy was intended as a setting for the character development of the 'heroes'. The same goes for the Tolkien books. We do not find long explanations on 'dragons are an ancient and mysterious race' or 'the spell for casting is "laiant, corvee, lammao!' Tolkien actually in a sense 'belittled' magic. Like in The Hobbit where Gandalf tried to open the Troll cave with magic but was unable to until Bilbo produced the troll key. And the famous Door of Durin scene where Gandalf's fancy Sindarin is unable to open the passage until a simple word ('Friend') does the trick. Compare THAT with, 'Windgardium leviosa!' and screaming mandrakes and all that D&D preoccupation with magic weapons and armor and tools and. . . well Bilbo, Thorin and Gandalf did have magic weapons but their value was primarily 'historical' in the narratives. People think that in the fantasy genre its the magical element that is the most important. The reason why Star Trek lasted so long was that in their episodes they concentrated more on storytelling than on sci-fi technology.

I have always associated the modernist and postmodernist attitudes as either 'Disneyfying' or 'de-mythologizing'. Given Tolkien's stance towards literature being more or less historico-grammatical (or in his case, historico-philological) as well as his Romish dislike for 'allegory' I am fairly sure that he would have rejected such attitudes. To quote Kalessin, "human (ie. artists) cannot be divorced from the art. . . therefore the purpose of the artist is part of the 'true' aesthetic". Tolkien made his stories so that the languages he composed can have a setting for their development as well as to provide 'entertainment' (yeah, I know some of you guys out there hate this word, but entertainment need not be connected with capital gain; I mean entertainment to mean 'providing enjoyment' to whatever target audience). To interpret his work contrary to his intention is indeed to divorce the art from the artist. No hidden meanings, no moral lessons, no socio-political commentary, no nothing!

Meneg Suilaid,
Estel Ohtarion

P.S.
I admit it. . . I AM A HISTORICO-GRAMMATIST!!! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HAAA!!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

04-11-2002, 03:52 AM	#79
Estel the Descender Haunting Spirit Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 55	I remember a time when works made by Tolkien and others were read only by 'nerds' or people obsessed with Dungeons and Dragons. But even then they do not really read them in the sense intentended by the author/s. The modern Fantasy genre was pioneered by JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis with their LotR and Chronicles respectively. Both liked fairy tales but did not like Walt Disney. Anybody who has read the original 'Little Mermaid' by Hans Christian Andersen and liked it find it very hard to accept the Disney version (yes, I know Walt Disney was already dead by then, but ol' Disney changed Pinoccio, too, and it was not like the original). Lewis thought that Disney made the dwarves (of Snow White) 'vulgar' or silly. That Tolkien made the dwarves in his mythology a noble race shows that he probably had the same opinion as Lewis. There is another trend today, however. For those who watched the movie 'Grimm's Snow White' and read the original Grimm Brothers' 'Snowdrop' will see that the movie and the original are completely different. Unlike Disney, the movie-makers decided to make the story as gritty as possible, plus a little social commentary. If Disnay made the dwarves silly, the movie made them non-existent. It seems that for the fantasy genre to be respectable, it has to be 'logical' from the modern point of view, i.e., there are no 'real' dwarves and yada-yada. I hope nobody even THINKS of doing that to Tolkien or Lewis. Well, there is that silly Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit and Return of the King. But should the modification happen (forbid it!) why would anyone modify the stories? The same reason they modified Snow White and the Little Mermaid: to 'Disneyfy' it would make 'kids' like it better, while to 'de-mythologize' it would make it more acceptable to 'adults'. That is why I asked if anyone ever played the Final Fantasy series. Here are games which departed from the usual save-the-princess and kid-becomes-special formulae. All that magic, all that fantasy was intended as a setting for the character development of the 'heroes'. The same goes for the Tolkien books. We do not find long explanations on 'dragons are an ancient and mysterious race' or 'the spell for casting is "laiant, corvee, lammao!' Tolkien actually in a sense 'belittled' magic. Like in The Hobbit where Gandalf tried to open the Troll cave with magic but was unable to until Bilbo produced the troll key. And the famous Door of Durin scene where Gandalf's fancy Sindarin is unable to open the passage until a simple word ('Friend') does the trick. Compare THAT with, 'Windgardium leviosa!' and screaming mandrakes and all that D&D preoccupation with magic weapons and armor and tools and. . . well Bilbo, Thorin and Gandalf did have magic weapons but their value was primarily 'historical' in the narratives. People think that in the fantasy genre its the magical element that is the most important. The reason why Star Trek lasted so long was that in their episodes they concentrated more on storytelling than on sci-fi technology. I have always associated the modernist and postmodernist attitudes as either 'Disneyfying' or 'de-mythologizing'. Given Tolkien's stance towards literature being more or less historico-grammatical (or in his case, historico-philological) as well as his Romish dislike for 'allegory' I am fairly sure that he would have rejected such attitudes. To quote Kalessin, "human (ie. artists) cannot be divorced from the art. . . therefore the purpose of the artist is part of the 'true' aesthetic". Tolkien made his stories so that the languages he composed can have a setting for their development as well as to provide 'entertainment' (yeah, I know some of you guys out there hate this word, but entertainment need not be connected with capital gain; I mean entertainment to mean 'providing enjoyment' to whatever target audience). To interpret his work contrary to his intention is indeed to divorce the art from the artist. No hidden meanings, no moral lessons, no socio-political commentary, no nothing! Meneg Suilaid, Estel Ohtarion P.S. I admit it. . . I AM A HISTORICO-GRAMMATIST!!! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HAAA!!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] __________________ Qui desiderat pacem, præparet bellum. E i anîra hîdh, tangado an auth.