Elder Scrolls and Lord of the Rings : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Sat May 28, 2011 4:48 am

With anything in the genre "fantasy" its very hard not to rip off Tolkien in some way or another, the man basically invented it, or at least as the way we know it today, and people just arent that creative anymore.

And this after a post where I talked about Howard, Burroughs, Leiber, Anderson and others... Too sad.

Oh, and go http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Dying-Earth-Jack-Vance/dp/0312874561/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1212227869&sr=8-1 and tell me if it is, in any way, an uncreative rip off of Tolkien...

» Fri May 27, 2011 7:06 pm

Regarding the nice and lengthy post by Albides:

dwarves were dour and hardworking protestants (maybe),

If I remember correctly then Dwarves are Jews.
Their language is based on Hebrew and they also have various things in their apprearance that are based on the stereo-typical Jew.
They are also the proud warrior race which was a common conception of Gods Chosen People back in the old days.

» Fri May 27, 2011 8:21 pm

Okay, never read just one post in a thread Adanorcil links you to.

» Fri May 27, 2011 10:37 pm

I didn't mean impossible to be creative just difficult, and it seems MOST people are fine with settling for the same generic fantasy, there are some who try to break from that, but not too large a number. Elves for example, most everyone uses Tolkiens version of elves.

TES has changed up, or at least diversified such cliches, which is one reason I love it. (Pre-Oblivion TES)

» Sat May 28, 2011 11:44 am

Because LOTR was the first really well known and well spread book a lot of books where inspired on LOTR, then there came DnD (video games with paper) and extually every fantasy rpg is based on DnD thus on LOTR.

» Sat May 28, 2011 5:14 am

D&D's main inspirations were pulp novels and writers such as R.E. Howard, E.R. Burroughs, A.E. Van Vogt, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Jack Vance... From Tolkien, D&D only took a few elements: hobbits, wargs, ents and mithril are the only ones who were genuinely lifted from Tolkien (and they had to rename them halflings, worgs, treants, and mithral under pressure from the Tolkien Estate). Other stuff, like orcs or giant eagles or werebears, was in Tolkien, true, but he was hardly the source for them.

IIRC the giant goblins in Hammerfell came from Clark Ashton Smith..and the floating rocks in the Daedric realms are from an American author that I can't find.
There is also some Lord Dunsany influence.

» Sat May 28, 2011 10:22 am

IIRC the giant goblins in Hammerfell came from Clark Ashton Smith..and the floating rocks in the Daedric realms are from an American author that I can't find.
There is also some Lord Dunsany influence.

I don't see any Clark Ashton Smith influence on the goblins. They don't really need an influence.

MK's commented on Dunsany and Smith as an influence on him as a writer, but I think that's a little different from saying that the texts were themselves directly influenced, if you get what I mean.

» Sat May 28, 2011 6:54 am

^ Not so much the texts, but the world of Tamriel itself. Admittedly most of that (generic fantasy) influence is pre-MK.

MK did use Smith's snakemen as inspiration.