Was Tolkien a hack?

Was Tolkien a hack?

Other urls found in this thread:

tolkiensociety.org/2014/04/grrm-asks-what-was-aragorns-tax-policy/
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

No

Your parents were hacks 'cos they couldn't do better than you.

No, and your thread is a bullshit argument starter.

Tolkien was a good writer who had a very divisive style.

No he was an author and cartographer. Also retired soldier.

And a linguist and literary scholar.

Make sure to keep posting this every day so we can keep having the same arguments, you troglodyte.

A devoted father, a much loved teacher, a doting husband.

No but he was more of a worldbuilder than a writer, his prose is very dry and often meandering.

No.

He wrote for the love of writing and was on no timetable other than his own. His written works were not his main stable source of income and he could have told his publisher and entire fanbase to piss off an it wouldn't have impacted his life one jot.

A Hack Author is someone who gets paid by the book and operates on the timetable of the publishing company to churn out books.

For good old Tolkers the story was a distraction from the epic crafted world he was making.

No

Go back to bet George.

>WHY DOESN'T TOLKIEN WRITE ABOUT ARAGORN'S TAX POLICIES OR GOBLIN GENOCIDE A BLOO BLOO BLOO

Context:
tolkiensociety.org/2014/04/grrm-asks-what-was-aragorns-tax-policy/

He was a linguist and cartographer who wrote a story that emphasized those subjects because those were what he liked. The story was original for its time, but he tended to meander and carry on a bit, and was better at worldbuilding than plot.

The story, despite being original at the time, has been copied and hacked to pieces countless times to the point of banality since its creation because originality is hard, to the point that many people who look back on it now think it cliche and hackneyed.
Also it's verbose as fuck.

So, basically, Tolkein was a pretty cool guy and a huge influence just by doing what he loved, but history's development has not been particularly kind to his memory.
People are in no way required to like his work, but assuming that he was not talented or influential is unwarranted.

Sounds like a fair criticism of the countless derivation of what has been generally accepted to be a quite abused vision of good vs evil, many here are constantly trying to come up with subversions of this for a reason.

As for the rest, it's just a case of them having different styles of writing, and he himself says that he admires Tolkien in the first place. Just the usual instance for LOTRfans to whine about something I guess?

Why is he obliged to write anything other than an epic conflict for civilisation between Good and Evil?

The King being good and the land prospering implies and includes successful domestic and foreign policy. It's a flimsy criticism asking for something that would have wasted the story's time.

>Why is he obliged to write anything

He's not, looks to me like martin just pointed out that he didn't, and he criticized more the endless streams of tolkien wannabes that came up after him with the same simplified theme

>Sounds like a fair criticism of the countless derivation of what has been generally accepted to be a quite abused vision of good vs evil
>Writer is a guy who made the edgiest fantasy this side of a 13 year old emo kid that goes absolutely fucking nowhere besides dicks dicking dicks dickign dicks while raping dicks and cutting off dicks to be a dick while some fantastic stuff was talked about and coming to fuck them but lets get more on dicking dick dicking.

Yeah, subversions are great.

Tolkien's not being "obligated" to do anything, Gurm is just explaining why he's using a different approach by telling his own story were that kind of petty details is the focus. IMO he's bitten more than he can chew but the original creative decision is sound.

It's also kinda funny to see anons bitch at him for disrespecting the Professor when he's been a massive Tolkien fan for longer than most of them have been alive.

>reality wasn't like that ;((((
What a complete idiot. The fantasy story is not real enough? Did he completely miss the point of Tolkien writing this? Does he not understand what fantasy is? Sure gurrmmm, write all about rape tax and medieval politics, but this has nothing to do with lotr, and was never a valid critique. This is him trying to justify his own work by badmouthing Tolkien, which is completely deluded and uneccessary. Rather he should say: I want to write about rape, dickless men, and stunted aspirations, something which Tolkien did not.

Oh and lets throw in some uninspired ice zombies, dragonborn, and pygmies so we can call it fantasy. :))))

Not to mention GRRM's understanding of medieval politics and medieval life is some 1800s level "knight had to be hoisted with a rope on to horses because of how heavy their armor was" levels of stupid and misinformed.

You've confused GRRM for Richard Morgan.

Was OP a shitposter?

If he wants realism so much, why invalidate it with magic and dragons? If he wanted fantasy, how magical can a tax policy be? He is clearly undecided on what he wants his books to be, and in trying to mix both the result is shallow. He does have a knack for writing banter though, even if it is not quite on the level of terry pratchett, since it relies too heavily on obscenities