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Reading Tolkien's letters atm.
Didn't realise before that the modern 'Fantasy' genre exists because Tolkien won the argument that 'Fairy Stories', as he still called Lord of the Rings, were not just for children, in fact by making such a success of LotR.
Didn't realise before that the modern 'Fantasy' genre exists because Tolkien won the argument that 'Fairy Stories', as he still called Lord of the Rings, were not just for children, in fact by making such a success of LotR.
He made the same argument in the academic sphere, where he shifted scholarship on Beowulf from focus on the political struggle between tribes, to the confrontation with the Monsters Grendel & the Dragon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf%3A_The_Monsters_and_the_Critics?wprov=sfla1
In both cases he argued 'realistic' human stories were not intrinsically more serious;
Because 'mythological' actors could personify wider existential themes - power, greed, fate, the fear of death, etc - and so sort of bridge the gap between allegory and small-scale realism.
Because 'mythological' actors could personify wider existential themes - power, greed, fate, the fear of death, etc - and so sort of bridge the gap between allegory and small-scale realism.
In that sense, 'Game of Thrones' really is the successor to Tolkien's vision.
It goes large on the dynastic human conflict, but this is always framed by the looming mythological, existential threat on the horizon, the White Walkers and Dragons, the Song of Ice and Fire.
It goes large on the dynastic human conflict, but this is always framed by the looming mythological, existential threat on the horizon, the White Walkers and Dragons, the Song of Ice and Fire.
