C'mon now, that screenshot of Whiterun with the woman looking at it from a distance could easily be mistaken for a shot of Eowin Looking at the City of Edoras in LOTR.

Tolkien Also invented Dark Elves and Orcs and the idea that both were Elves that fell from grace.

TES to me is a mish-mash of Tolkien and a handful of real-world ancient cultures (Roman, Mongolian, Persian etc.) albeit mixed creatively, but mostly borrowed.

I don't think it's a bad thing though, nothing is truly original, nor can it be, everything that people create is a product of things they've been exposed to.

^ This.

If Tolkein had never written his epics, there would be no modern Fantasy genre for anything. No D&D, no Table-top RPG's, No Fantasy movies, definitely no RPG games. Before Tolkein, there was nothing.

Completely untrue. There were several fantasy movies before Tolkien released his books, Indeed Snow White came out before Lord of the Rings.

Aside from that there were several famous fantasy authors before Tolkien who wrote in the same genre. For example. HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard.

Don't get me wrong, I have a deep seated Hero-worship complex with both Poe and Lovecraft. My point is that Tolkien perfected it. Every modern day fantasy story has more in common with Tolkien than any other fantasy author. Yes, the Call of Cthulu series of products is based off of Lovecraft, and Lovecraft's Necronomicon/Alhazred stories are nigh perfect. But most fantasy epics are based off of Tolkien.

Those Poe and Lovecraft (as well as Howard) definitely came before Tolkien, and they are my two favorite authors, but Tolkien created the standard of the day for modern fantasy.

I suppose I would agree with you in so far as he created the mythology on which much moden fantasy is based.

However, whilst I think Tokien was really impressive in the sense that he created that universe and setting, I think that many fantasy writers have written with more depth in regards to characters and ethics and philosophy than him, both before him and after him.

I know this is nitpicking, but whilst Tolkien invented orcs in the modern sense, he didn't invent dark elves. Dark elves were taken directly from norse mythology and in fact were staples of 19th Romantic fantasy.

That is true, but the Lord of The Rings is the story of the Hobbits, mainly Frodo and Sam, but in order to show the events in the other locations during the War of The Ring, he used the perspective of Merry and Pippin. This would explain the lack of character development for other characters. It also explains why the ethics and philosophy are not explained in depth, because the story is written through the perspective of the four hobbits, who have lived secluded in the Shire and don't know much about the outside world. The meaning of the story is meant to be interpreted by the reader, not described by the author.

The source from which Tolkien took the word 'orc' in Beowulf is what is known as a hapax legemenon, that is a word that only exists once in a written language or text. The word appears as orcnéas (nominative singular form, *orcné) which is a compound of 'orc' and 'né', a word meaning corpse.

Even though Beowulf is written in a Germanic language, Anglo-Saxon English (Old English), many etymologists consider the word in Beowulf, orcnéas, to be compound form consisting of orcus, a Latin derived word meaning demon or cthonic(underground) being, which would have been a familiar term to a scribe with a Christian education living in England at the time of the composition of the poem, and né, resulting in orcné, or demon corpse.

That spot of info in Beowulf is the total of all pre-Tolkien lore concerning the term orc. In other words virtually nothing.

What needs to be understood, however, is that in Germanic (Norse, Anglo-Saxon, continental Germanic) lore, there is a vast quiver of terms that exist to describe a number of malicious, sub-human beings: Troll, Thurs (giant), Alf (elf), Dvergr (dwarf), and germane to this topic, Orc, at least in its singular instance in Beowulf, were often used interchangeably.

For example, in an Old Icelandic saga, our hero could have disturbed a draugr who lived under a waterfall and in the succeeding paragraphs, the author might call the inhuman beast a draugr, a troll, and a thurs (giant).

In the world view of the ancient Germanic peoples, Troll and Thurs were super-classes which contained a bestiary of creatures.

What Tolkien did was take these old terms and create discrete species out of them with discrete characteristics and behaviors.

Ok, thanks for sharing these informations. It seems that my memory - my knowledge maybe - about that stuff is ... failing me.

@Venule : sorry, it seems you were right. My bad.

:foodndrink:

What isn't these days?

As much as I love Tolkien's work, I have to correct you on this. Tolkien did not start the genre. Even he built on what came before. There have been tales of elves, walking trees, goblins, giant spiders, Orcs, wizards, etc for thousands of years. He is undoubtedly the most widespread, famous author of fantasy fiction, but certainly not the first. Did he effectively revolutionise the genre? Yes! He is by far the best fantasy author to have ever lived in my opinion, but don't put him on a pedestal. He did not invent fantasy.

On topic, I can see elements of Tolkien's work in Skyrim. Considering his effect on the fantasy genre it's not surprising. I do think Bethesda have done a great job putting their own twist on things though. Can't wait to play a ne TES game.

TES doesn't have any dwarfs in that sense.

Game of Thrones! God I love that so much more than Lord of the Rings, just saying. With the upheaval of politics in Skyrim after the King dying it really does match up a bit.