Why is LOTR the best fantasy novel of our time?

[Lanniae of the Axe]

Peonydeepdelver - don't feel bad, I know a bunch of people who don't like the books either. I think they're all uncultured pigs, really, that are just too wussy or too stupid to read and comprehend LOTR. Yeah, too bad for them, pray for 'em, that's all you can do.

I mostly brought this up so that I could help myself cope with all the Harry Potter hype. I'm trying to tell everyone LOTR could beat HP with its hands tied behind its back, and telling them JUST WHERE Rowling got her stuff, but no one listens. I just wanted to make sure there are other people out there who agree with me.

I dunno, I'm a purist I guess. Any other fantasy novel is either crap because it tries to be like LOTR and isn't, or it IS too much like LOTR and then I accuse them of plagerism. So the poor fantasy writers get no sympathy from me. At all. It's LOTR all the way, baby! Everything else is blasphemy!

At least, that's how I see it.

And thanks guys, for all your deep input! YOu guys are putting words to all the feelings I have about LOTR. I can't really describe how it... its closer, and yet more vague. I think Tolkien was just setting us up. I like his vagueness sometimes. I mean, he'll go and describe a countryside with accurate precision as if you're THERE, and then he'll fall to describing the people and their interaction more as a distant history. They almost aren't as vivid. It's like gives you a taste and just when you're yearning for more he fades back. Does anyone even know what I'm saying?

Cuz see that's what some people can't stand. The "uncultured pigs" who can't sit through LOTR, I mean. They have to be TOLD exactly what's going on. They have ID. Imagination Disorder. It's a terrible handicap. The only fantasy novels you can enjoy, if you have ID, are the ones with the graphic illustrations on the front featuring scantily clad women and men gloriously brandishing their blood-drenched swords. The ones that are way too physically stimulating. Almost as bad as watching a movie, they tell so much. People with ID wouldn't give the original Red Book of Westmarch a second look if it was thrown in their face by a hobbit!

--Lanniae the Axe