As I've probably said before, I discovered Tolkien's Lord of the Rings pretty late in the game. I saw the movies first; I just finished the extended versions, and now I'm just starting the books. I went to the movies knowing practically nothing of the story, and with little interest to learn it. As much as I've always enjoyed sci-fi, fantasy was another matter. I assumed that LotR was a story with a little person taking a journey through a magical land, encountering wizards and elves and whatnot, and all learn an important lesson, or somesuch. Stories about the days of yore and maidens and horses and men with flowing locks and forgotten languages and no electricity and magical creatures held no interest for me. LotR had all of those things in droves.
And yet, I found The Fellowship of the Ring to be absolutely spectacular. Epic in every sense of the word, sweeping and beautiful and exciting. And not just because of the badass medieval weaponry, which is far cooler than what we've got now. Far more personal, far more skill required. Additionally, the personal stories were excellent. But what really struck me were the themes of power, greed, ambition, manipulation, sacrifice, responsibility, love, and embracing one's destiny. While the story was certainly had its share of little people and annoying fantasy elements (particularly the ubiquitous fantasy naming - the _____ of _____. ie "the sword of Elendil," "the Watchtower of Weathertop," etc.), it was much darker and more exciting than I expected, with extraordinary characters, massive battles, and all beautifully-written.
In fact, for my tastes, I would say the story falls just short of perfect. The only overall story I would say I enjoyed as much was the Matrix trilogy. LotR was better written, certainly, and even more sweeping and epic, but the Matrix was more contemporary and urban, with a few mind-blowing concepts, without the fantasy elements I find annoying. However, I still find something about Revolutions to be disappointing, and the first half of Reloaded is admittedly slow, while each LotR installment is phenomenal. The slower-moving parts of LotR were far more satisfying because the story makes you care more about the characters. That way, when the action relents, you're still more engaged with the story.
About the only thing I can really point to in LotR about the story itself that I found somewhat lacking was the absolute dichotomy of good and evil. True, I love me some epic good and evil battles like you wouldn't believe. That's not the problem. What I find lacking is the almost complete lack of ambiguity, the "kill all evil without question" mentality. (The Matrix had this too, admittedly.) From what I could see, the only ambiguous character in the story was Gollum/Smegol, and true, there was Gandalf's excellent cautionary warning to Frodo that we should not be quick to judge others, and that we should not so blithely decide who should live and who deserves death. But the rest of the story - tens of thousands of orcs killed with no remorse. In the real world, the lines of good and evil are not so clearly drawn. As someone who will probably take a career in criminal law, I've come to terms with the fact that crime is not synonymous with evil, and real-life criminals are not like the villains of myth that should be locked up or killed for their crimes. Of course, LotR is fantasy, and in a fantasy we would like the satisfaction of standing up to evil and eliminating it once and for all, because we can't do that in real life. In real life, there are no easy solutions, no black and white decisions. Corruption and depravity linger, and no matter what measures we take to suppress or eradicate them, we never fully can. So I can't fault LotR for that; personally, I think the question deserves greater attention, but not every story can address every issue. It would be particularly silly to hold LotR accountable for this, considering the vast array of issues it does address, and often expertly.
The point of all this? Next I will review Christopher Paolini's Eragon, the book and the movie. Since LotR is the standard-bearer for all fantasy literature, I thought I should provide the framework I use for reviewing such a story.
3 comments:
Oh God no, stay the fuck away from Eragon. It is the very essence of shit. Take LotR setting and characters + Star Wars plot == Eragon. No more, no less. The writing blows (what did you expect from a 16 year old?), the movie sucks, the only redeeming quality about any of it is that Sienna Guillory is smoking hot.
Shame you don't read Chinese (or have a Chinese name for that matter), else there are definitely a couple more epic fantasy stories that could be placed up there with LotR (now with 25% more gray area!)
I'm sure you're aware of this, but the reason LotR is so stereotypically fantasy is because it started that genre almost single-handedly. It started the talk of elves, dwarves, orcs, wizards, and _____ of ______s.
On a different note, the absolute good-evil dichotomy never bothered me, although you're completely right--there are no ambiguous characters that I can think of. In all honesty, though, given that Tolkien was basically a linguist that decided that a good way to use his made-up languages was to tell some story, LotR holds up pretty well. And there's also something about the sort of epic storytelling he's doing that doesn't lend itself to moral ambiguity.
I look forward to your review of Eragon; I'm always looking for decent fiction.
New guy, nice to see you're staying true to your Mexican roots. I didn't think Eragon was absolute trash, but I found plenty wrong with it, which I will mention in my review.
AIM - you know, it makes perfect sense, but it didn't occur to me at the time I first saw the movies that the reason LotR has so many of those fantasy conventions is because it started them. The difference now, then, is that I still get annoyed with those conventions in works inspired by Tolkien because the stories are never as strong, and those things stand out more. Ie the writer copped the conventions but failed to get the most important part right.
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