Why does so much fantasy derive from Lord of the Rings? Why not other sources?

I think it a really good mix between classical myths, especially Greek, Sword and Sorcery and Tolkien.

It usually pulls the Orc-Elf-Dwarf (and often Halfling too) from LotR, then fudges it together a ton of mythical creatures from real sources (minotaurs, nagas, phoenixes, etc).

They do it because a) they're lazy and b) grogbeards lap that shit up. Seriously, just try and get a bunch of neckgrogs interested in a non-generic fantasy setting and it won't be two minutes before one of them asks "so are there any elves? XDDD" with a hopeful look on his fat chops.

They rip off the highlights of Tolkien elves.

In particular you'll note that the names are very Tolkienesque, only without the depth of having a legit language developed behind it. Not that I'm saying PnP settings need that level of detail, but it does show how DnD elves are even more of a cheap knockoff.

As well as that there's the usual shit: long-lived, beautiful, smart, fading glory, a sylvan-dwelling variety, good archers, etc.

most of stuff you're thinking of is derived from D&D, which is only partially derived from tolkien.

Like what? Robert E. Howard? Poul Anderson? H.P. Lovecraft?

>creation isn't just ripping off other things

/v/ plz leave

>asking people to write about stuff they don't give a fuck about

Do you even know how creation works?

>responds with a meme to challenge accusations of being creatively bankrupt

Literally no sense of irony. Thanks for that user, I laughed at you pretty hard.

Lord of the Rings was really really really really really really really popular

>creatively bankrupt is actually a thing
>creativity is a resource that can be measured in things
>throws in pointless insult

/v/ plz leave

>creativity is a resource that can be measured in things
That's not at all what that means. It's figurative language.
Similarly, a writer's block is not a physical object in their way preventing them from writing.

>throws in pointless insult
He's right, you really don't have a sense of irony. It's kind of amazing.

>/v/ plz leave
You should probably spend some time off of Veeky Forums if you can only interact with people as if they were avatars of board subcultures.

With all the shitposting I've been seeing you up to, in such a variety of threads, I'm compelled to ask: Do you even play any tabletop games? I've never seen you actually interact with someone in a way that was remotely on topic.

You see, the problem with the /v/ermin is that they use every advantage they can to win an argument. They say nothing and are constantly fluid in their nothingness to maximize appearance of intelligence while also minimizing having to make any claim.

For example, should the person be a /v/ermin, I wouldn't be surprised if you were the same user, taking on a different guise. I personally feel this is the truth since I would be surprised if anyone wanted to defend a random user asshole this bad. Unless /v/ermin stick together

>I've never seen you actually interact with someone in a way that was remotely on topic.

...how would you be able to tell? Am I namefagging? I'm assuming here that you are coming to the conclusion that I am the only person saying "/v/ plz leave" and are also somehow assuming that those are the only posts that I make. Which is pretty insane desu.

>As well as that there's the usual shit: long-lived, beautiful, smart, fading glory, a sylvan-dwelling variety, good archers, etc.

But that isn't something tolkien came up with, he more or less copied from scandinavian folklore.
And I think even in british folklore there are human sized elves that are pale, beautiful, living in the forest and all that stuff.

You're really not changing my mind on that 'needs to get out more' thing.

And you also didn't answer my question.

>why does so much fantasy derive from an extremely popular body of works that has deeply ingrained itself into English literary canon and popular culture? why not from random shit like my setting about sentient jellyfish in medieval Azerbaijan?
there are so many people on Veeky Forums who want their fantasy based on traditional mythology and fairy tales, but if you think about it, Tolkien's works are just legends of our times. it's like compaining that Homer based his poems on Greek mythology

also people really really undersell sword and sorcery, aside from certain elements like orcs, elves and hobbits the genre is a bigger influence on modern fantasy than Tolkien

I don't care about changing your mind and I don't care about answering your question :/

If you think I need to get out more then go ahead.

If you aren't sure that I play tabletop then go ahead.

You are free to live your life and think what you want about whoever you want based on however you interpret them. You aren't even remotely close enough in my life for me to give the remotest fuck about what you think about me.

Because in the 60's everyone was crazy for LotR, so in the early 70's when Gygax wanted to make money selling fantasy games he threw in some LotR shit and, when other people saw how successful he was, they followed suit.

Yeah, "originality" is really overrated. It's all about telling awesome stories with awesome shit.

Yet you're declaring that people need to vacate a board you don't seem to give much of a fuck about, as if your opinions and catty greentext is supposed to mean something to anybody but you. As if you have some sort of authority over who gets to interact with what boards, and we all must defer to that.
Do you not see how ridiculous and self-important all of that is? Do you not see how *everybody*, including yourself, benefits from you not posting stuff with the singular goal of being an anonymous dickhead?

And beside all of that, let's not ignore the fact that you're responding at all. Obviously you care to some extent or you never would have addressed anything anybody says, and just kept on slinging drive-by belligerence at a board that I'm now, at this point, convinced you do not now or will ever care about.

>to vacate a board you don't seem to give much of a fuck about

...wait are you the physical embodiment of Veeky Forums? I thought you were a random user. Because I'm pretty sure you are a random user.

Because it made a lot of money, entertainment is a business, and business is about making money.

To be fair we're about to see a huge generation derive from A Song of Ice and Fire

Pretty much all of it will fail at court politics though

Ugh. Can't wait to see the next mediocre YA fiction.

He specifically said a GOOD fantasy series.

>Why not other sources?
He was an academic with a fetish for travelogue porn, versed in European myth. Have you ever read Journey to the West? It's pretty much The Fellowship of the Sutras.

Anyway the answer is familiarity. The same reason harlequins follow a formula, yet demand never abates. The same reason for Taco Tuesdays.

Because Tolkien is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for the modern fantasy genre. Not only did he revive both ancient and modern folklore and legend, he created his own and brought the concept of High Fantasy into the mainstream media. Not that Tolkien himself didn't derive his work from past works, but those works were only well-known by the scholarly. Tolkien brought its popularity to the general public.

>The Fellowship of the Sutras

heh

The Belgariad was "inspired" by the Lord of the Rings in that David Eddings was at a bookstore, went "This shit still sells?" and decided to try his hand at writing fantasy.

Two things:
A: Lord of the Rings was really big in the late 60s early 70s because a copyright mixup allowed an American publisher to put it out for really cheap right about when the "back to nature" shit started taking off. At the same time "Hero of a Thousand Faces" became a meme and writers decided to try their hand at it intentionally.
B: Gygax intentionally copied Lord of the Rings for D&D because he knew it was popular. A shit ton of fantasy novels are actually fixups of people's D&D campaigns. (Malazan Book of the Fallen and the original Dragonlance series, for example.)

>Carolingian
To be fair, the original D&D alignment system was pulled from Three Hearts and Three Lions, which was Carolingian in nature.

>Half the stuff on there is satirical, cynical, or otherwise some sort of light fantasy.
>Everybody always acts like D&D is serious business.