> pick one

>> pick one

The bible

Only 3 of them were once books and only one of those is actually good.

J.R.R Tolkien absolutely shits on everyone else in that pic. It's not even a competition. If we're going to forget Tolkien is in it because it's just so outrageously unfair then probably Star Trek.

Agreed on Tolkien -- he pretty much invented the genre/practice of world-building itself (and still did it at a higher level, and, with the exception of his son Christopher's additions to the posthumous books, did it alone).

Most of Star Trek's world-building didn't come from Roddenberry at all, but from many others, from Gene Coon, Dorothy Fontana, down through concept/production designers like Matt Jeffries, Herman Zimmerman, Andrew Probert, Michael Okuda, et al.

The same goes to a lesser extent to George Lucas, who at least did some very loose sketches at the beginning and had a clear hand in supervising the artists on Star Wars.

How is any of this a contest? Only one of these people was an acclaimed professor from Oxford whose entire fantasy work encompasses more knowledge on european mythology than most people ever have?

Where did you find this image from, Tumblr?

>putting an obvious winner like Tolkein in there

kek. Why not throw in someone like Robert Jordan for a meek competition?

id smash rowling

tolkein is objectively the better world builder but I like star wars the most out of everything in that pic but I'm a legendsfag

Tolkien. The rest rank below the worlds created by Edgar Rice Burroughs and E.E. Doc Smith.

And where the Hell is Frank Herbert? Obviously Tolkien is light years above him too, but Herbert's certainly more accomplished than any of the others (and a clear direct influence on Lucas).

Lucas wasn't influenced by Herbert. It seemed that way because Lucas was influenced by the same pulp Herbert was.

GRRM is the surrogate for Herbert since he strip-mined Dune for Song of Ice and Fire.

Herbert himself certainly felt Lucas was (he commented that Lucas at least owed him a dinner or something). Terms like "sandcrawler" and other things are direct lifts (or nods) to Dune, and there are other elements that are similar (though you're right, they also shared influences from other pulp works).
Lucas was also influenced by Jodorowsky's unproduced Dune adaptation, which obviously veered away from Herbert's book.

Iain M Banks isn't in that list, so it's automatically shit.

yeah, Lucas was too busy stealing aliens and ship designs from Christin and Mezieres, and Moebius, to be bothered with pulp sources.

I really hate how in star trek all the aliens are just people with at most some weird quirk

Lucas took plenty from the Barsoom series as well as the Lensman seres.

They do that because Star Trek is mainly about how civilizations and cultures meet, interact and coexist as well as a bit of intergalactic politics. It would be a bit hard to pull this off if all the aliens were actually alien.

At least they explain it though since you find out all the humanoid species are descended from a common ancestor.

>childish good vs bad shit inspired by Jewish fairy tales while pretending to write new mythology for the West
>good
Nah. His world might be done with much more love than "merchandise-sales-slash-self-insert" from Lucas or "our-world-but-with-wacky-magic-shit" like Rowling or Martin but it's the most stale and lifeless of them all.

Take your shit over to /sffg/ and stop clogging up the board.

>Because there are clearly defined good guys and bad guys it is stale and lifeless
Why?

Not exactly "because" but shit like that takes a lot meaning away from the smaller characters and their world, there is no need to question anything either, since good and bad are clearly defined, and good/bad actions cause good/bad events in the end. The world is controlled by these rules, leaving not much room for something as beautifully chaotic as life. It's like a fucking video game basically.

I don't really think it does though, even though the morality of the world is clearly defined the world itself is still very well developed with a lot of depth to be found in itself and its characters. Not mention the morality of the world is more of a backdrop to the story than a guiding principle for the characters, often characters in LOTR are morally ambiguous and cross the line between good actions and bad ones during the course of the story. Like Boromir, Gollum and (to a fairly minor extent, but increasingly as the story goes on) Frodo. Of course we know why these characters are doing this, it's because they're being corrupted by Sauron's influence. And that is part of why the unambiguous backdrop of good vs. evil is actually helpful to the story, it creates an environment where good characters may be developed in the depiction of their struggle against the seductive forces of the world. Which is particularly important when you consider the mythological influences of the book.

Art doesn't necessarily need to copy life, it can at times be better to take a departure from realism as realism is just as much of a device as fantasy is - they're tools for the author to use in how he articulates his themes and ideas. If LOTR was more like ASOIAF for instance and the world was chaotic and all the characters were morally grey it would not be possible to communicate the kind of ideas that JRR Tolkien was trying to. If the moral backdrop of the story was grey there would be no stakes involved in how the characters went about their own internal moral struggles or indeed their broader overarching mission(which is a problem I'd identify in ASOIAF), it wouldn't matter if the fellowship of the ring lost and Sauron engulfed the world because it's just going to be more of the same. It wouldn't matter that Saruman betrayed his role as a wizard because the wizards weren't necessarily to begin with.

It's the kind of world, and JRR Tolkien is the kind of writer, that hinges on clearly defined morals. It's not supposed to be like real life, it's supposed to be like mythology.

Unironically Rowling. I like Tolkien, but LOTR is boring shit and Harry Potter is probably the greatest Bildungsroman of our time and a great comedy of manners to boot.

I don't know about universe, but Lucas is the second greatest artist there.
People are very slowly coming to realize this.

Disney Star Wars is drastically improving opinions of Lucas.

No competition whatsoever.

Moral relativists, please go and stay go.

>world itself is still very well developed with a lot of depth to be found in itself and its characters.
Yeah definitely, and specially Boromir is a great example. Frodo ... well, by the very end he counts. Gollum is pretty overrated though, it's your usual antagonist with a tragic backstory, sure he technically qualifies as morally ambiguous but still feels like a cardboard cutout. Just a pretty one that appears to be more than he really is.

>it creates an environment where good characters may be developed in the depiction of their struggle against the seductive forces of the world.
But due the world being the way it is, their success comes bit cheap and lack of realism takes away from the struggle too. Do the right thing and right things will happen to you. For me, it being so far removed from the life as we know it, kills the connection to it all. There is no need to be overly realistic but entire Ea is just so too far removed for my suspension of disbelief, and the stakes for the world, I couldn't care about what happens if Sauron wins any more than what happens if the Others win, though at least with the Others there is still some room for something surprising and interesting to happen (although unlikely if the show really follows his notes). Only the Hobbit was a book that didn't cause that apathy due the more limited scale. Middle-earth is a lovely place to visit from time to time but feels more like watching a very pretty live wallpaper instead a living, breathing world.

Also the greyness of Martins characters is a bit overstated too, most are but Jon is your typical hero. I don't see why a grey moral backdrop would affect the stakes so much either, there are different scales of greyness to balance it out. Oh, and my memory may be lacking but did it really matter when Saruman betrayed his role for anyone but himself? As far as I recall he got dealt without too many issues both times. Saruman was such a fun character, and it'd be even more fun if he had any chance but in Tolkiens world there was no option but failure for him.

>It's not supposed to be like real life, it's supposed to be like mythology.
Sure but IMO many mythologies feel similarly limited and suffer from the same staleness. They are well crafted and pretty interesting for a while but hard to get too invested in and feel so meaningless.

Rowlings humour really doesn't get enough credit, but her world just falls apart so bad when you stop for a second and think. As boring as Tolkiens world is, it does feel like a place, not quite a real one but still a place. World of HP is too gimmicky.

One thing about Rowling that is underappreciated is her slice of life stuff.
Just the kids in apparating class trying to pop into hoops a foot away is the comfiest shit.

Of those Tolkien, no contest.

Why the fuck is Dragonball on there?

It has space adventures and shit, but it doesn't exactly 'world-build' like the others in that picture. It's just a comedy/action pulp comic.

And as pothers have said, Tolkien by a country mile.

Should be replaced by One Piece which blows everyone else away.

Wan Piss is a rip off of Pirates of The Caribbean.

...

this

1/2
>Gollum is pretty overrated though, it's your usual antagonist with a tragic backstory, sure he technically qualifies as morally ambiguous but still feels like a cardboard cutout.
You're right but the thing about Gollum, and the reason I included him, is that he's two characters at once. Gollum and Sméagol are two completely different personalities that often interact with each other as if they belonged to independent people. The dialectic between them does get a lot of hype but it does deserve to be said that it's one of the better in-story illustrations of the overarching theme of good vs. evil and how this conflict manifests itself in the characters. It itself Gollum is a straight-forwardly stock evil character, and in itself Sméagol is a straight-forwardly stock tragic character. But the way in which they coexist in one person and how their interactions in the world may empower one over the other (like how when Frodo lets him get captured the Gollum personality takes over fully) is a pretty clever story-telling device.

>Do the right thing and right things will happen to you.
While that's true in the grand scheme of things from the beginning of the story to the end of the story (something I'd say is inherent to mythology in general) it's not necessarily the case in the linear sequence of events. A large part of the conflict of the story is characters suffering in the name of what is right and characters being seduced by the rewards of what is wrong. Gandalf for instance spends much of the story either in prison on Isengaard or being dead and he's one of the most, if not the most, absolutely good characters while Saruman spends most of the story winning his war until giant sentient trees fucked his shit up. But the best example of all would be Sam, as during the later parts of the story when Frodo is heavily under the influence of the ring he has to do the good thing without ever being rewarded or even acknowledged (if not punished) for it but he must persist anyway because one of the moral themes is that struggling for the sake of good is itself valuable even if it means lots of suffering. Which is think is significant given it is a theistic universe and ties in with the semi-Christian undertones, the most righteous among the characters are going to have to do the lions share of the suffering and Eru Iluvatar will only directly intervene in minor ways when absolutely necessary. As it is up to the characters to follow their own journey and make their own decisions with all the uncertainty and hardship that this may entail.

Tolkien by far. All memes aside Star Wars has okay worldbuilding, but it is still superficial if you ignore the EU. All others are not even worth mentioning.

2/2
This means that at the end of the book when we see Middle-Earth has been restored to a bucolic utopia while Mordor has been utterly crushed this was not because of the inherent rules of the universe, it is thanks to the struggles and righteousness of the characters we've been following. In many ways the peace and prosperity we see at the end nicely book-ends the journeys we read within, they made these good things happen with their actions and decisions more than they were cosmically gifted (though Eru did nudge the story in the right direction at times).

>Oh, and my memory may be lacking but did it really matter when Saruman betrayed his role for anyone but himself?
It mattered for Rohan and The Shire because he took them over and killed the heir to Rohan. He also invented Urak-Hai who would feature prominently in basically every battle.

It's also worth noting that Saruman's betrayal is what kicked off the story. It's after this that Frodo and the other hobbits had to leave the shire while the Ringwraiths started their pursuit.

>Sure but IMO many mythologies feel similarly limited and suffer from the same staleness.
Mythologies as a kind of literature are inherently limited but this is something the author is in control of as they're able to construct their own moral and theological boundaries. They are going to have to construct them somewhere in order for this kind of story to work but there is a reasonable degree of freedom in doing it and what kind of values they want the world to be oriented around are going to decide the rest of the story. Tolkien, being Christian, of course would opt for fairly conventional morals but you can also see other influences seeping in like his environmentalism and anti-authoritarianism - in that way mythological stories are a very intimate insight into the author.

Pirates of The Caribbean is Monkey Island script that George Lucas pasted on to film Nigger in Planes.

>inspired by Jewish fairy tales
Jesus, you can't be this stupid.

u wot

>Filler: the anime

LoTR > Star Wars > Star Trek > Dragon Ball > GoT = Harry Potter

They're all bad.

4u

lotr > star trek > dragon ball > star wars > got > harry potter

1/2
>Gollum
Yeah, agree with pretty much everything. Mentioned the hype only because it feels like he got a bit too much of it compared to others, say Frodo, whose development feels very underappreciated, at least by the mainstream audience. Didn't spent too much time in the community outside of LOTRO if that even counts.

>As it is up to the characters to follow their own journey and make their own decisions with all the uncertainty and hardship that this may entail.
True but in the end it still all feels given that they will overcome their struggles due the rules being overly emphasised, which takes away a chuck of empathy away from it, at least for me. Any other outcome felt impossible despite the odds. Making it "well, shit sucks now and will suck even more but obviously they will be fine" kind of story. And there is nothing wrong with that but getting invested into something so predictable is hard, as is getting into a world where you know that certain behaviour which one expects to be rewarded, will indeed be rewarded. Maybe not right away, but in the end doing good with triumph. Takes quite a bit pathos away too. Even Jesus had the decency to go back pretty fast after his resurrection, making it feel more impactful than Gandalf kicking the bucket, people singing and singing and singing and then him leveling up and helping to safe the day, and then going back to Gandalfing.

It makes sense in the story and it makes sense for the story Tolkien wanted to tell ... but caring about a world like that? Nah, can't do. It's probably even worse with Sam, Frodo was a dick to him and when he told him to go back, it was a damn great moment, until one remembers what kind of world it is. There was no chance in hell that it'll have a long lasting impact, so an amazing scene starts to feel like a wacky misunderstanding in a rom-com. And sure, they all had to struggle, overcome a lot, specially the hobbits seen some shit totally contrasting their known world, but after a shitty half a year it went to mostly normal with all of them getting what they want and their struggles seemed relatively minor given what they were up against. Harry probably lost more in the second half of one book, and HP is a damn crappy example for an impactful story.


>actually watching the anime
I know it's 4chain but are people really that masochistic? They began to drag it to incredible levels after time skip. Just follow the manga and fight suicide every two weeks when Oda works himself into semi coma.

2/2
>they made these good things happen with their actions and decisions more than they were cosmically gifted
I do agree with that but, the fact that good things happen because of good actions, is still part of the rules, not exactly direct divine intervention but a higher unwritten law of consequences. Oh, and their mistakes were kinda trivialised. Take Pippin peeping on Saruman. In Martins world a mistake like that would have the consequences of the entire party getting raped by big black uruks, graphically. In middle earth he got called names and separated from the group for a while. Frodos "betrayal" triggered Gollum back (which was great stuff) and while it caused a lot of problems and the rift with Sam, it didn't change anything for the big picture. To be fair, the Gondor-Denethor II plotline was some good stuff. I just wish more of that would be the case for the main characters.

I feel like it'd be a stronger story if the "good deeds cause good things to happen in the end" would've been subverted with "most of the time". I'd still be true to what it wants to say but doing it in a way not as disconnected.

>anti-authoritarianism
For that the "restoring old order and know your place" theme is too strong. Eowyn being the prime example but pretty much everyone else went to doing what they were supposed to do according to the rules with very few characters going against that. Shakespeare wrote more anti-authoritarian works centuries before Tolkien so I don't think "but the times" counts either.

Anyway, it's refreshing to actually discuss books without the usual Veeky Forums autism. Not sure if I'll find the time to respond again, the stuff got damn big, so thanks for your posts in advance. Who knows, I might've enjoy rereading lotr a bit more in the future afterwards.

God of course

GRRM obviously, since the characters that populate his universe are the most three dimensional and interesting.

Would you let your kids consume their works?If so at what age?
I started with HP at age 8, watched star wars when i was 9, read lotr when i was 14 and watched dbz when i was 11-12.

a manga is a book per definition so it's 4 not 3

I choose William Gibson.

You, but you haven't tried.

wtf I love me now

Rings
Wars
Ball
Trek
Potter
>Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelt fouler. By the time the moon came up, she was shitting brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she....

Warcraft universe

Christie Golden a shit

obvious bait, no one in their right mind could think that Warcraft has good worldbuilding

I know grrm is pretty bad writer but you gotta admit he puts autistic levels of effort into building a believable world.

>No Ursula LeGuin