Maybe next time I should note that I have no irons in the fire, when it comes to Tolkien. He was a good read when I was 9, but I didn't stick around after that, so I'm not really qualified to speak at any length on his work. Okay, I recall enough to know where Jackson went really off the rails, but the books I read mostly for Gollum.
What I was really twigging on was that in the act of creating/continuing mythos that underpin popular fantasy (as in, the genre), I think it's worth noting that we're buying more than just the magic. The vast majority of high fantasy (a genre admittedly strongly influenced by Tolkein, right down to all the conlangs) focuses on, or contains, some kind of pre-ordained monarchy. I don't think readers (and many fantasy writers) give that assumption half the critical eye it deserves.
Whether or not that fantasy is complex, simplistic, or indifferent, or even whether or not that element of the fantasy remains. It's entirely conceivable that for a story, that element works. I'm just not one to care for an element remaining because it's status quo, but then, I question everything.
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Date: 21 Feb 2011 04:26 am (UTC)What I was really twigging on was that in the act of creating/continuing mythos that underpin popular fantasy (as in, the genre), I think it's worth noting that we're buying more than just the magic. The vast majority of high fantasy (a genre admittedly strongly influenced by Tolkein, right down to all the conlangs) focuses on, or contains, some kind of pre-ordained monarchy. I don't think readers (and many fantasy writers) give that assumption half the critical eye it deserves.
Whether or not that fantasy is complex, simplistic, or indifferent, or even whether or not that element of the fantasy remains. It's entirely conceivable that for a story, that element works. I'm just not one to care for an element remaining because it's status quo, but then, I question everything.