c/worldbuilding · by NickEast_IndieWriter@mastodon.art · 169d

One of these is better than the others... you know the one I mean 😁

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115 points · 24 comments · view on lemmy.world

24 Comments

starlinguk@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 169d (8 replies)

Tolkien pilfered that universe from already existing myths and legends.

AudaciousArmadillo@piefed.blahaj.zone · 22 pts · 169d (4 replies)

True, but I don't know why people look down upon such inspiration. I think it's really cool.

Goodeye8@piefed.social · 17 pts · 169d

Taking real world history and adapting it into your world is also cool but the meme still looks down on GRRM.

early_riser@piefed.social · 8 pts · 169d (1 reply)

I read a quote somewhere that "creativity is the art of hiding your influences." The scene in The Hobbit where Bilbo steals the goblet from Smaug is yoinked straight out of Beowulf. There's a good reason Germanic mythology sounds so Tolkienesque to someone who first read LOTR. I don't think there's any shame in that. Nihil sub sole novum.

My own worldbuilding can be summed up as "That sounds cool, but it would be even cooler with mechs."

Limerance@piefed.social · 1 pts · 168d

Tolkien took several names straight from the Edda. Gandalf is the most famous, but several dwarven names as well.

starlinguk@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 168d

I'm not looking down on it, but other people are looking down on other writers for doing the same thing.

emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 169d (2 replies)

So did pretty much every myth and legend. And religions for that matter. That's how stories are built, it's putting the pieces together in a new interesting way that makes a good one.

Don_alForno@feddit.org · 2 pts · 169d (1 reply)

So why is it "stealing" from real life history then?

kurwa@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 168d

It's a meme

glimse@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 169d

Our Glorious Inspiration

Their Barbaric Theft

crouton@aus.social · 12 pts · 169d (4 replies)

@NickEast_IndieWriter @bookstodon @books @worldbuilding @humor@fedigroups.social @humor@lemmy.world @aiop

I loved the *idea* of the Silmarillion. I don't think I even made it to 10% before I went into a brief coma.

Xaphanos@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 169d (2 replies)

It was never turned into a consistent storyline. He partially rewrote it several times, and never completed any one of them. Each section (Gondolin, Luthien, Turin, etc.) was still in draft mode when he died, and his son was left to try to make sense of it.

early_riser@piefed.social · 14 pts · 169d (1 reply)

IMO that makes it even better. It's not meant to be a single coherent narrative in-universe either. It's a collection of texts on different subjects written by different authors at different times. Granted I don't blame anyone who can't sit through it for that very reason. Perhaps approaching each section as its own story would make it more palatable.

dustyData@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 169d

I love it because it is akin to studying ancient texts. Commercial publishers put out highly curated versions of the popular classics that rewrite or reconstruct most of it. But studying the actual text, or as close as one can, in archeology books that contextualize the texts and annotate what we know and what we assume, and the different sources of each piece. It is so fascinating how much is like detective work. Lots of things are incomplete or only make sense by using assumptions from elsewhere in historical evidence. That's my approach to the Silmarillion.

SteveClough@metalhead.club · 1 pts · 168d

@crouton @NickEast_IndieWriter @bookstodon @books @worldbuilding @humor@fedigroups.social @humor@lemmy.world @aiop I have read the Silmarillion. Unfinished Tales. The entire History of Middle Earth (all 12 volumes).

What, nerd? Me?

VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 168d

To be fair, The Hobbit didn't start as a Middle-earth story and was retconned into being one after he started writing the sequel. Which is why the only mention of Hobbits in The Silmarillion is a line at the very end about Frodo destroying the One Ring even though The Shire either was a client state of Numenor before it sank or is the last remaining part of the Numenorean government.

raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie · 1 pts · 169d

@NickEast_IndieWriter @bookstodon @books @worldbuilding @humor@fedigroups.social @humor@lemmy.world @aiop
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/game-of-thrones-george-rr-martin-winds-of-winter-b2901719.html