I give up. You win.

Still, some people here don't give Tolkien the credit he deserves and deny his influence on TES.

I could be wrong, But as far as I know, Tolkien was the first to write about Orcs as he created them, basically originating as Elves but turned bad. Which has been used in fantasy many times since... Including TES.

But this discussion is getting a bit ridicules and way, way to nerdy

Oh, well of course. There's absolutely no denying Tolkien's influence on the genre. The man was a genius, and his works are masterpieces that made fantasy what it is today.

All I'm saying is that just because TES has elfs and orcs and dwarfs and mithril doesn't mean it's a Tolkien rip-off. Hell, he shaped the genre so much that it would be almost impossible to avoid making a fantasy game without owing a debt to him. But what's great about TES is how wonderfully it subverts the cliches of the genre; taking well-worn concepts and making them something exciting and original.

Except that Skyrim doesn't have Dwarves, giant Eagles, or Hobbits. And LOTR doesn't have like 9 of the 10 races Skyrim does.

Really other than the generic magic/fantasy setting they aren't really that alike at all. There are MANY other games that are FAR FAR closer to LOTR. TES is actually unique is many ways and the people spent more than 10 seconds thinking up all the details...

Mac and others have written about Orks from being "monsters in folk lore" to almost their contemporary look and character. while Tolkien invented his own Orcs, he didnt create them.

I don't know anything about George Macdonald, but you're correct that Tolkien is attributed with the creation of the common modern concept of orcs.
The word has roots in old english and has been present in fairy tales since as long ago as Beowulf, but Tolkien gave the term its current connotations and association with that specific sort of creature.

Well, Skryim does have dwarfs, but they aren't Tolkien dwarfs by any stretch of the imagination. They aren't even short!

You've hit the nail on the head with "other than the generic magic/fantasy setting they aren't really that alike at all", and that's just because Tolkien's work shaped our understanding of the "generic fantasy" so strongly that almost any fantasy necessarily invokes the groundwork he laid down.

I think OP is just saying TES and LOTR have that similar western euro folklore. They do. Some of you are so nitpicky or clearly have something against LOTR, that you cant understand something so simple. Its like when people used to create "what movie to watch" threads in the Fallout forums that are similar to the game and Mad Max, Book of Eli, The Road, etc came up.. LOTR would easily come up for TES. Jeez. :facepalm:

They are both drawing water from the same well of mythology, I'd say it's more parallel.

I see more of an advlt Game of Thrones or Conan influence tbh.

Dumb answer.

World of Warcraft is modern fantasy, yet it doesn't resemble LOTR much at all.
Fable is modern fantasy, yet it doesn't resemble LOTR much at all.
Dragon Age is modern fantasy, yet it doesn't resemble LOTR much at all.
The Witcher is modern fantasy, yet it doesn't resemble LOTR much at all.

Skyrim clearly has more similarities with Tolkien's work than all of these games put together.

the tes series were released before tlotr movies

Dragon Age 2 might not, but the first one was pretty similar to Tolkein/Peter Jackson (superficially of course, I still think DAs lore is grossly underrated)




And as a reult Morrowind and Daggerfall were far more original than Oblivion (visually)

Dragonborn would wipe out the entire forces of Mordor alone.

Err, Daggerfall was about as typical medieval fantasy as it gets, visually.

Well everybody knows LOTR didn't exist until the movies.

I'm not picking at you, I just think your comment illustrates something I find rather humorous, that most of these posts are by people that never even heard of LOTR before the movies, or at least never read the books even if they had heard of them.

Fantasy is fantasy, and yeah a lot of it was popularized and mainstreamed by Tolkien and Lewis. That doesn't mean that everything is a copy of LOTR. Mainstreaming it simply made it okay to have fantasies and made it cool to be a nerd. Thank goodness, too, or else we wouldn't have these great games.

EDIT: I do think that Peter Jackson's vision of the LOTR did popularize depicting the epic scale of these fantasies, however, and probably forever changed what people will expect out of their RPGs and other games.

Sorry, by original I meant "not Tolkein" :hehe:

And stereo-typical medieval fantasy games aren't exactly the most common type of games.


I think it's more that any Tolkein inspired visuals wouldn't have instantly been recognisable as it's easier to identify pictures with pictures than text with images.

That's true.

I opened this thread thinking it would be some idiot complaining. The similarities are a good thing! :celebration:

Hmm this sounds suspicious.
Anyway ... it doesn't remind me of LOTR at all

Do you know who Lewis's best friend was? :whistling:

Could you imagine if Walt Disney or C.S. Lewis were the bnchmark of Fantasy?

Tolkein made fantasy for advlts, Lewis and Disney made fairy tales, Tolkein made fables.

Tolkien gets a lot less credit than he deserves. Long live LOTR. Long live Bethesda!

No, thankfully not...

Lewis did not make fairytales. He wrote one series of children's books, that's it. Not only is his other stuff much higher quality, they are not remotely "fairytales".

Edit: Also, I might remind you that the original book in the LOTR-universe was The Hobbit, a "fairytale" Tolkien wrote for his sons.

I wonder what Red Mountian resembles? bliviongate: