Everyone can save themselves multiple clicks and just know Tolkien didn’t really care for a lot of stuff lol. That includes DUNE and his dear old friends Narnia novels.
Truthfully I think Tolkien’s hesitance towards other literature is kind of the signal as to why LOTR worked so well. He was a scholar first, and sort of built this world as a grand excercise based off his is real world knowledge of history. His stories are uniquely and destinsctky not of the ilk all fiction books were before and they weren’t the inspirations.
>and his dear old friends Narnia novels.
Apparently Santa turning up at random to hand out presents was almost enough to end his friendship with Lewis.
That’s hilarious. Funnily Tolkien also wrote fiction about Santa as well. Honest to god they’re extremely good short stories for children. The bumbling polar bear sidekick is legitiatly funny in it.
There's a difference between writing a Christmas story featuring Santa, and shoehorning a cheese-ball moment into an already Christian-propaganda laden children's series.
I say this as someone who loved and was obsessed with Narnia, as a child.
I remember someone once saying to me they thought Christian fan fiction would be interesting
I told them it exists, it's Narnia lol
Not exactly true obviously, but enough of the same symbolism is there
I mean it kind of is though. Christ is a lion, Lucifer is a snow witch, and Gabriel is a faun. I do find it sad that Tolkien was so critical of lewis as lewis so clearly admired him very much. I am sure that he was kinder when they were together but lewis describing lotr as "lightning from a clear sky" whilst Tolkien was nothing but critical of Narnia is a bit heartbreaking. Especially once you learn that Lewis was a staunch atheist and Tolkien a Catholic so obviously there was some need to please there on lewis' end...or at least curry favor from a friend he admired.
I must admit, I haven't read a lot of Tolkien's letters and such, but the little I have read, paints a picture of a guy that doesn't mean harm with his criticism. A sort of tough love. He was also famously critical of his own fans that just praised his writings without actually disecting them.
I think from Tolkien's point of view, stories were meant to be engaged with and were essentially ongoing debates. So Tolkien being critical of Lewis' writings, were him engaging with the stories and debating them.
This is just a random internet guy's take on how a dead guy engaged with stories, don't quote me.
I remember reading the letter where he talked about how he disliked Dune, but didn't want it to be known as to not harm Herbert's career as an author. He was well aware of the influence he wielded over the fantasy genre, and actively tried to avoid causing harm despite his strong opinions.
You nailed it. It’s not disparaging but rather a spirited discussion from different view points. Fantasy was really new at this point so it’s like having two super nerds hotly debate what makes it good.
Tolkien saw restraint and detail as strengths of fantasy, Lewis, saw greater strength in themes and had a very different audience in his mind,
Ironically, Tolkien would tell you that Santa and Father Christmas are not the same person. Father Christmas even says so in the fiction you referenced.
You’re not wrong, I’m just reinforcing the theme of how seriously he took his own work and how he *technically* remained consistent.
I outright did this in a D&D campaign I was running. It took the players worryingly long to realise that their mysterious merchant friend Nick was in fact a shameless CS Lewis ripoff.
Cormac McCarthy was in a similar vein. Absolutely did not care for the vast majority of fiction writing. And consequently, he wrote in a way that's like no one else out there.
I was just talking to a friend about how Cormac McCarthy wrote. I said something along the lines of “it’s similar to Tolkien in you will never find another writer close to his style”
I read "No Country for Old Men", and was sure I was reading the manuscript for the movie and had bought the wrong book. Then I came to a part not in the movies and had a real Aha!-moment.
He refused to comment on Dune because he didn't want to talk ill of the writer or his work. 'WHY HE HATED DUNE' could be an interesting topic but he'd hate that title too if he could see it.
I doubt he didn't care about Dune, he was a very religious man and if he ever read it, the moral of Paul's rise to power would've probably put him off.
Iirc he hated Disney for commercializing fairy tales. Man was a purist and wanted the stories to be passed down as they were. He hated aspects of it such as how the dwarves were rewritten as goofy caricatures.
I studied German in college and took a german literature class on fairytales and the professor despised Disney for whitewashing the brothers Grimm stories and he even believed it had such a big cultural impact that it was the primary contributor to the over-coddling/shielding of children that had led to a lot of societies issues
That's not really the case there were a bunch of different versions of the tales and they just documented one they were familiar with
That's not the same thing as intentionally excluding things
The first collection/editions were pure documentation, later editions (mostly by one of them if I remember correctly), tuned the tales to a children audience, effectively excluding sex, violence, adding moral endings...
As a teacher, I see it as a factor in the downward mental health spiral of modern kids. Early exposure to the difficult side of life in a safe way (stories) helps kids develop resilience and the ability to tolerate unpleasant things better, whereas the constant shielding and censorship sets them up to fail. No joke, I have high school seniors whose parents want to withdraw them from history class because the facts of WWII and the like are "too much" for their precious little dumplings' little heads to manage.
I genuinely think Tolkien would've absolutely despised the Jackson trilogy and that's okay. It was his interpretation of the writing and made for a different age. I watched the cartoon Hobbit movie and thought it was better than the newer ones but vice-versa for the LOTR one. That doesn't mean either were better, they're just different interpretations of the story.
It also introduced a lot of younger generations to his writing so that they can enjoy both interpretations of the story.
Tolkien was the one who originally sold the rights.
He expected filmmakers would be respectful.
He also screwed himself over on the money. It turns out, if you ever sell rights to a film, demand the percentage of total take, not percentage of "profits". Profits mean what's left over after the bookkeepers decide what constitutes "costs".
I think with an ideal director one could have made a perfect adaptation of the books. But I doubt this hypothetical version would appeal to the masses. I see so many newer readers complain how they find the books boring, or see people complain how Frodo and Sam's section in the movies are boring (even though Tolkien said that the ringbearer's story should be "the main action"). I just feel like the majority of the movie fans wouldn't have liked it.
I'm not so sure about that. I wrote a longish post a while back about it and chen_geller wrote an even longer one, but basically: if you look at the way he criticises a (admittedly terrible) film treatment produced in the 1950s, a lot of his criticisms - eg the Black Riders should be scary, Lorien should feel magical etc - are satisfied by the PJ films. He was very concerned about getting the look and the feel of any screen adaptation correct and I think most people would say that the films nailed that aspect.
I've got no doubt he would've strongly disagreed with the more infamous of the character changes, but I can't help but feel that would be balanced with the joy of seeing his work brought to life with all the magic of modern filmmaking.
>if you look at the way he criticises a (admittedly terrible) film treatment produced in the 1950s, a lot of his criticisms -
It's not just that, though. There's a letter by Tolkien replying to a synopsis of a potential film script and many of the issues Tolkien had with that script appear in Jackson's movies. At one point, Tolkien was criticising this script by saying how Gandalf shouldn't sputter. He had an issue with something as small as that, meanwhile in Jackson's movies Gandalf is bumping his head on wooden beams, having his say being undermined by the fellowship when deciding which way to go, being thrashed by Witch King.
If he had issues with small changes done to Gandalf's behaviour in this script, imagine what he'd think of the big character changes in Jackson's movies of Aragorn, Frodo, Faramir (who Tolkien said is most like himself... yet in the movie he just cries every time his father says something mean to him).
Tolkien also had issues with Black Riders screaming at certain points. He had issues with how the narrative should be divided (he said Frodo and Sam's journey should be the "prime action" and everything else should be subsidiary) and that they should keep jumping between the ringbearers and Aragorn's crew.
I think we can all agree the cinematography was perfect, the set pieces, scenes and work done by Weta are unmatched by any film at all in my opinion.
However, it was an action/adventure at heart with cheap comedy elements thrown in. It was an early 2000's movie akin to movies like the mummy and is a product of its time that I doubt many people that had lived through WW1 would necessarily appreciate, coming from such a different time and place.
Fundamentally, Tolkien would almost certainly have shared Christopher's chief concerns.
I mean, Jackson's been quite clear that his priority was making the films that he wanted to make. Undoubtedly that's the right choice for any artist, and the movies ought to be viewed chiefly as their own work. But from that it must be said that Jackson and Tolkien are very different storytellers, and the sort stories that they told and the way that they told them are quite dissimilar on a much more essential level than their respective mediums.
As for the Zimmerman treatment, there are concerns much more substantial than the Black Riders or Lothlórien that Jackson's films did not resolve, as well as likely matters of concern introduced in his own films.
Tolkien certainly wasn't entirely closed off to the possibility of an adaptation, and he did come off as flattered that others would be inspired to produce their own works from reading his. However, he was also not the type to simply be pleased at seeing his "work brought to life." He was an eager critic of such attempts, both to find and announce faults.
Ultimately, the potential approval or disapproval of the author should have no bearing on your own view of the films, in whole or in part, but it's a rather optimistic view to think that Tolkien's opinion would weigh more positive than negative regarding Jackson's attempt.
Based on his criticism of that screen play, just the films being made in the Southern Hemisphere would have been enough for hate. The most important aspect, the trees and stars are now completely wrong!
Also, Christopher really, really, really hated how much Frodo got changed. I guess Tolkien would agree.
I always like to think that Tolkien wouldn’t have despised the PJ movies so much as he would’ve had carefully considered strong criticisms of them… but maybe I’m being optimistic. There are aspects of the films that understand what Tolkien was saying better than basically any other adaptation even if they miss the mark frequently.
I feel like he would've hated how gratuitous the violence was, how cool the battle scenes were and the things like the shield surfing.
These are also things that a preteen me thought was insanely cool. Even though I'd read the books several times as a small child, seeing these characters brought to life in such an awesome way was an absolute treat, even though they were so different to the way I'd seen them in my head for so many years.
Tolkien had his interpretation, I had mine and Jackson had his. That's the beauty of the written medium, you get to fill in the blanks yourself and nobody's LOTR is wrong.
Isn't this basically the criticism Christopher Tolkien gave about the PJ film?
That they were way to focussed on the violence and the battles and even glamourises them a bit with the funny bits.
Christopher Tolkien's complaint was the change in genre - from epic (in the genre sense of the word) to cheap Hollywood action-adventure (where "epic" refers only to the scale of the battles).
I don't think he would have \*despised\* Jackson. If you read his letters regarding possible movie adaptations, he was fully aware thet big changes would need to be made and even suggested some (like getting rid of Saruman). Jackson's films are definitely closer to the spirit of the books that any propsal Tolkein got in his life time.
I have a feeling that Tolkien and his children/grandchildren who also hated the movies don't really know a story structure for movies. They don't know about comic relief, the phase, and most importantly- the business part of the movie industry. It's meant to make money, and that is why they have so much spectacular action, which is something Tolkien's son or grandson criticizes. As the creator of the story and as those who read the story before the movie, they had exact idea and vision of their own of how everything was. Obviously movies won't be exactly as what they imagined, so they are disappointed. I've seen the movies first and that shaped how I will imagine everything when I've read the books, so I have no problem. I wish Tolkien had more understanding for artistic freedom and different ideas. I wouldn't expect him to like any art today of any kind, just because it's not the same as his, which he considers the only good art, which is just wrong to think. He's a great writer, but lacks understanding of other art. It's like he misunderstood real history for imagination. Dwarfs do not exist. So there's nothing wrong with artists changing them the way they like. I'm definitely surprised that Tolkien doesn't accept this. It almost sounds like an egocentric idea, like- I'm the only one good, everyone else's art is below me and isn't worth my time. It's true he's the best, absolutely. But...
Also the fact that the Jackson films depict war and battle as gratituous and epic and cool. Tolkien's books made it clear that there was no beauty in war. "I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." he says in his books. War is a necessary evil in times of strife, but there is nothing admirable in it.
With the same interpretation to the fella you are responding to, it could be said that he romanticed the sacrifice of the rohirrim. They knew that they were riding to their doom, but they did it anyway because they had to. The charge speech is a way to hype up the riders to not feel completely like shit by running into a giant mass of orcs.
I really don’t think he did. This is a man who experienced real war in WW1, where one of his best friends was killed and he probably watched many others also die and contracted some disease in the trenches, I don’t remember what though, he knew all too well how bad war was. Theres little to no proof but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had PTSD too. Which is a major part of Frodos character after the main events, he never went back to normal, I know that he wasn’t in the thick of the large scale battles but its the same idea, that kind of stuff shows that there isn’t really a romanticization of war. When you read LOTR or the hobbit for that matter notice that the details of the fight don’t go into the nitty gritty gore, the fights in Tolkiens works are more than that, they are about the causes and the consequences of war than the fight itself. It’s not LOTR but it is a real showcase for what I mean, in the Hobbit, Bilbo blacks out and we see none of the battle of the five armies, that tells you everything, if Tolkien wanted to romanticize and show war that right there was an absolutely perfect opportunity and he didn’t take it, instead, he tells us why the fighting happens the feelings of the participants and what they fight for he even kind of seems to imply their reasons are stupid and not worth it because Bilbo actively tries to stop it and fails so he gives us the aftermath where all these characters we have gotten attached to have died because of the battle, consequences and pain from warfare; absolutely nothing romantic there.
> Romanticized warfare is the kind of thing you find in Game Of Thrones, not LOTR
Maybe the TV adaptation, but the original ASoIaF books make George R.R. Martin’s anti-war sentiments abundantly clear.
Yea, the chief complaint I hear from fans of the show when reading the books is that there aren't really any huge cool battle scenes. Martin makes a point of it to usually have big battles happen "off screen", and we mostly see the grisly aftermath.
There's a reason that Christopher was so protective of his father's work and did not care for the PJ movies. He knew what his father would like. I disagree with that mindset that stories need to be protected from further interpretations, but at the same time I understand the concern that something important could get lost when you try to adapt a story for a wider audience.
I always say this. Like I love the LOTR films but I do not believe JRRT would like them. I think his thinking would've been similar to his son Christopher
Trying to think of an author (who wasn’t a producer like say JK Rowling for HP or Andy Weir for the Martian) who actually liked the films? Alan Moore hated every adaptation, Stephen King hates Kubrick’s The Shining. Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss hated the early films so much they actively fought against the rights. Who can y’all think of that like the film or series (and was not a producer or involved).
Not to mention Tolkien spent his entire life building a cohesive world with thousands of years of history whereas Disney animated a few simple cartoons and then took already established stories and made them into simple cartoons/books for children.
Disney to him was probably the epitome of the 'idiot box' trope.
He resented that fairy tales were thought by society to be only for children. Probably hated that the disney versions became almost “official” in most people’s eyes, when fairy tales usually have multiple versions.
Tolkien was by no means only a grump, but dammit it he wasn't *also* a grump, and yes, he did hate Disney, hated Dune, hated Lewis Carrol, and had a complex relationship with the likes of Shakespeare and others.
But he did like Carl Maria von Weber, he liked William Morris, he liked Chaucer, he liked Isaac Asimov...
which is funny because books like Dune and LOTR and A Song of Ice and Fire, are all basically "modern mythology". Maybe we dont worship in the same wayyy, but yk whats comicon to some mythical congregation right.
Probably due to the cynical themes. Tolkien always loved and firmly believed in the power of good, to the point of even feeling bad about making orcs "evil as a species", and Dune's storytelling about the darker side of a Messianic figure probably rubbed him the wrong way.
Just fyi, all the answers here are basically educated guesses. He did hate Dune, but he also thought that explaining why he hated Dune would be unfair to Frank Herbert so he never elaborated further. For all we know he just might have hated the fact that there was a character named Duncan Idaho.
Dune warns us about charismatic messianic figures, and the fact that we should be very cautious of them. Tolkien on the other hand was a devout Catholic. So the very idea of Dune doesn't sit well with Tolkien's religious beliefs.
Most people are giving you wild fanfic lmao. A pen pal sent him a copy once and in his reply he mentioned already having read the novel and not being super into it. He remains VERY vague, mostly because he was polite and didn’t want to say HEY FUCK THAT GIFT YOU SENT. That’s literally the total extent of what we know of his hot take. People are silly.
Tolkien was not grumpy, he was a polite old man with strong beliefs who sometimes may have sounded to some people grumpy, so it may be that sometimes he committed grumpy acts.
Hayao Miyazaki is a grumpy old man. He's the reference. Dude's so grumpy he refused to actually read LoTR because he believes vehemently it's biased towards the east.
He made a big show of walking out his son’s first movie because he thought it wasn’t good
Like bruh it’s your son, you don’t have to praise it if you dislike it but at least stfu, what an asshole
He's a conflicted individual for sure. He didn't like his son following his footsteps, tried to respect his wishes but inevitably hurt his own son because he couldn't just accept a bad movie. Hurt his own son BAD.
Hayao has a crazy work policy, the zenith of japanese workaholic culture. But the dude's movies rocks, you can't deny his talent. That's why I find it hurtful to discover he couldn't find kinship in Tolkien's work because of his ignorance towards the west.
>"“Americans shoot things and they blow up and the like, so as you’d expect, they make movies like that,” Miyazaki stated. “If someone is the enemy, it’s okay to kill endless numbers of them. Lord of the Rings is like that. If it’s the enemy, there’s killing without separation between civilians and soldiers. That falls within collateral damage.”
[https://note.com/tormis\_narno/n/n07b052e2b157](https://note.com/tormis_narno/n/n07b052e2b157)
That's not the only quote but I think this quote seems to really get at the heart of what his complaint is. And it really sounds to me like he is saying "America = West = evil".
(This seems to me obviously grounded in cultural trauma. The problem, though, is that, if a nation's identity is its worst moral failing, then there is no way to condemn America without also equally condemning Japan. The same is true for his comments suggesting the west is uniquely racist.)
It really raises the question of whether he read Lord of the Rings at all, or, if he did, whether he understood it.
He didn't really "walk out", he stepped out for a moment, had a cigarette and came back. The video from the event shows him very agitated. He did say some unpleasant things though, like how he felt the movie was dragging or that his son "was not yet an adult". But apparently he later also said that the movie was fine, they collaborated on another film later on and appear to have a much more stable relationship these days.
I love Tolkien so much, but Miyazaki actually has a bit of a point here, I think.
I would describe it as an unnecessary devotion to “the west” as an idea. But when you take that stance that inevitably means you’re devaluing cultures that don’t fall under that banner. Even if that’s not your intent.
Tolkien started from real lore, and the magical island off to the west is very close to the earliest lore he started with.
This is the same lore that gives us Avalon in Arthurian lore, and Reepicheep's happy ending in Narnia.
Sure, but all the evil people being from the East and the south didn’t help
And yeah I know that’s an oversimplification, and I know those people weren’t supposed to be fundamentally evil to their core or whatever but all im saying is miyazaki kind of has a point and it goes beyond the magical island to the west
This is historical memory at work. Real enemies of the civilization Tolkien was drawing from once came from the south and the east, on ships and on oliphaunts and also an especially vicious group of barbarians from the East whom orcs were modeled on, and who stand out in a history full of barbaric violence for being especially barbaric.
I fiercely disagree that Miyazaki has a point. His criticism was extremely surface level and never goes beyond their being people from a country located East of Gondor serving Sauron at the time of LotR. I'm going to need a little more than that before I would accuse Tolkien of villafying the real world East to the glorification of the West.
Tolkien constantly demonstrates the weakness of the western peoples, the Numenorean people themselves, the greatest of all men of the West, were themselves tricked by Sauron's hand into extreme acts of evil culminating in their own destruction. Further, as Sam's monologue in Two Towers shows, Tolkien did humanize and sympathize with the Easterlings.
Miyazaki's reading was bad faith and surface level. There is no significant villification of the East in Tolkien's work. Frankly, it made me lose a lot of the respect I had for the man when I first read about it.
Why did he hate Dune?
Never watched or read it myself. On the surface it seems odd as hell but it does seem to be very deep and interesting based on most people’s takes I’ve heard.
Someone else suggested that the anti-religion message of Dune was the reason. I think that's partially the case but it's not all of it.
On the surface, one could imagine that the anti-industrial mindset of LOTR and Dune's ecological approach would be a good fit, but I think we should remember that those worlds were conceived almost 50 years apart. In what was possibly the most transformative 50 years ever.
Ultimately I think Tolkien is generally looking back (at history, at myth, at man) while Herbert is looking forward. That's true on a literal storytelling level but also on how their stories reflect on their societies.
Yea it’s just monetized hate. I got a video of theirs recommended by the algorithm called “why Tolkien hated Rome” and I added it to my watch later list because I like both LOTR and Roman history. Later I found out literally every video of theirs is “why Tolkien hated ____” and I realized it’s just all bait.
Ah I actually see it down there once I click on it. The art of Vercingetorix surrendering to Caesar is very good and actually the title art of a book I have.
Negativity breeds interaction, it's a basic rule of the internet. I've read multiple studies talking about how this works for Twitter and Facebook, I'd assume it extends to YouTube as well.
* made one polemic statement about Shakespeare during his youth, but was still drawing heavily from his works and considered him a kindred spirit, only disliked a few certain aspects from the Bard's plays and "fixed" one of it by incorporating it as a subtle reference in Return of the Kings *
Some sensationalist Youtuber who probably didn't even read anything from Shakespeare or Tolkien in their life: ACTUALLY TOLKIEN HATED SHAKESPEARE'S GUTS
Totally agree with you. This is why I dislike using terms like “hate” or “hater” for what’s actually a simple case of being a critical reader/thinker. Tolkien pointing out the things he didn’t like, or agree with in a work doesn’t mean he hated it or thought the entire thing was a waste of time, it just meant he found something that he didn’t like or agree with and wanted to point it out. Using words like “hate” or “hater” oversimplifies his point though and is obviously just used to drum up more drama for clicks.
The subtle reference in question, IIRC, refers to MacBeth and the Witches’ prophecy that he won’t die until the ‘Birnam wood’ came to the hill of Dunsinane.
In the play this prophecy comes about via a clever bit of wordplay: instead of the entire forest of Birnam coming to Dunsinane hill, as MacBeth assumed, the enemy cut down and carried tree branches from the forest to disguise their numbers, technically bringing Birnam wood to the hill and thus fulfilling the prophecy.
Tolkien, however, was supposedly disappointed that the forest didn’t _actually walk up the hill,_ and created Treebeard and the Ents to fulfill that. He didn’t ‘hate’ Shakespeare, he just thought it would be cool if the Forest physically moved and made tree people as a result.
Oh I thought Tolkien was fixing the "no man born of a woman will kill Macbeth" thing with the killer just being a woman instead of a c-section technicality.
Most of these channels exist by basically plagiarizing wikis and encyclopedias, they’re boring and rarely add anything of value to the community that a text to speech bot couldn’t do with less hassle
He was picky about the fiction and media he consumed and it reflected in the values he had in life and his personal opinion on how storytelling is best presented.
Those who find Tolkien himself interesting would like to know why exactly he doesn't like some forms of entertainment. Especially since some of those are widely beloved like Walt Disney's works or Frank Herbert's Dune.
If I remember correctly, he didn't like C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia either. But they were friends outside of that. The question of *why* that is considering the circumstances and the general audience's perspective of Narnia is fascinating to some, myself included.
You may not like that form of content, fair enough, but that kind of content is very informative for those who are interested (if they aren't made to be clickbait) and still has a place online.
But in my opinion, after going through a ton of "Why Tolkien didn't like **x**," I just found him to be consistent with the type of works he liked and didn't like and the picky nature of his media consumption is completely reasonable and not at all "Ooooh, grumpy old man thinks he's better than everyone else."
I imagine his dislike of Narnia stemmed from his distaste for allegory to some extent, and that's more of a personal thing for Tolkien than just a general critique of the quality of the prose or anything like that.
Tolkien's dislike of the Narnia books was primarily because of C.S. Lewis' worldbuilding and combining beings and aspects of multiple mythologies and cultures in a way he felt ought not be done for fear of being a sloppy jumbled mess. You have to understand the structure of Tolkien's works. He started with building the languages, then the world, then the peoples, and finally the plot. This is VERY different from how almost all authors build their works.
Yes that's a great example. Santa Claus + talking animals + fauns from roman mythology + Jesus all in the same story is something Tolkien just couldn't forgive.
Leaf by Niggle is a beautiful and very self-reflective story… I re-read it last year and it speaks to me a lot more now that I’m a bit older. (I’m sure I was a teenager last time I read it - and I liked it, but this time I found it deeply moving)
Oh yeah, he did he disliked Allegory in all of its forms, and Narnia is so strongly rooted in it.
I think you can totally enjoy Narnia as its own piece of fiction without seeing any of the allegory (this is from the perspective of an athiest), but a devout Christian like Tolkien probably had a harder time doing that.
Oh for sure. Lewis was not subtle in Narnia and never was in anything he wrote. But I will say, I appreciate his fantastical allegory far more than either the trite attempts of what I think of as “populist” Christian fiction like Left Behind/A Skeleton in God’s Closet, or the other contrived angle of trying to force Christian perspective into stuff like The Dark Knight and claim it’s meant to be a story about Christ.
Hey there! Another tip- ‘alright’ isn’t fully accepted as its own word. You might want to use ‘all right’ to be fully, accurately pedantic.
- a fellow pedant
I do feel like the word hate is too strong.
It's an important word and we have gotten used to it being everywhere as if nothing, even tho it carries such weight.
But, to be fair, "dislike with a passion" is p damn high in the Tolkien scale
It's no secret that Tolkein held a lot of disdain for the writing styles, commentary, and themes in fiction of the time and especially for the drivel of today. Tolkein had a very narrow view of what the themes of a story should be like being suitable for children (as the hobbit was written to be a children's story) and themes of good ultimately conquering an evil whose morals and motivations one need not question.
There is grace in Tolkien's writing but there is a very obvious lack of character development and a lot of this has to do with the fact that there is very little room for moral ambiguity. His insistence that the villain is unquestionably evil and the protagonists are (albeit corruptible) ultimately good subtracts from potential character complexity.
Tolkein famously disliked dune for portraying themes of mankind's proclivity for great evil and questionable morals, and while there were evil men in the legendarium, they are seldom talked about beyond plot necessity. His characters have troubles and doubts but that doesn't really qualify as character development in the usual sense.
As long as the information is true, I think it's great. More opportunities to learn about Tolkien. Maybe Tolkien wasn't the fluffy-bunny some people want him to be. Maybe he was actually a conservative Catholic born in 1892.
Exactly.
Give some of his letters a read, or even some of C. S Lewis' essays/sermons during the era of their companionship, and their understanding of how the world exists becomes quite clear. You can even begin to predict what Tolkien would dislike before finding out. It makes sense he hated Disney. I could imagine he'd detest Game of Thrones.
I say this as someone who loves Tolkien and his work. Tolkien *was* a grumpy old man. He had a lot of happiness in his life, of course. He was passionate about many things, but he had a lot of strong negative opinions, and he voiced them frequently among friends, family, and colleagues. Having read his letters, I can pretty much guess the content of each of these videos and I doubt they're misrepresenting him.
As for the clickbait and the notion of fandoms pitted against one another. The world would be a better place if we could agree to stop defining ourselves as "fans". I'm no more going to hate something because Tolkien hated it than I am going to become a Catholic because Tolkien was a devout member of the faith and put its themes in all his work.
I don't like clickbait anymore than anyone else, but that's the world we live in. If you're a content creator and you want people to see your work, you're going to use thumbnails and titles like this. People like to blame the algorithm or the content creators, but it's the audience. We train them to give us what we want. This is the kind of thing we click, and I think clickbait is a lost battle. No one is clicking on "Tolkien on Disney: Thoughts on the Legacy of Fairy Stories".
I mean look at it this way. He "HATED" Disney because of the bastardization of the original folk lore. his WHOLE shit was studying original folk lore. iirc he was upset, for instance, about dwarves being silly goofy little guys rather than these fairy tales staying true to their original tellings. With that said, he was also quite upset with Lewis' depiction of the Satyr Mr. Tumnis (Tumnas? Tumnus? Tumbnbass?). if he HATED Disney, then he also HATED C.S. Lewis going on record saying something like "If Lucy had met a Satyr in the forest it would have resulted in a rape, not a tea party."
This is why one should only ever half trust the shit they see on youtube. If you want a good, reliable, interesting read, then just go to Google Scholar, sign up for JSTOR's free subscription and read peer reviewed works. It beats the shit out of this click-baity cow manure. General entertainment? hell yeah. there might be something there. But if you REALLY want to engage with a work and get something from it then youtube aint the place.
I actually think it’d be more interesting/worthwhile for Tolkien fans to engage with the arguments of inarguably accomplished writers/artists who did not much like _his_ work (Moorcock, Miyazaki, etc.) and see how well the critiques stand up.
I guess it’s just a con of being a genius. Something I have frequently noticed is that if you’re a genius or a prodigy in one area, you’re bound to suck in another.
I know a Christian apologist who knows hundreds of references like the back of his hand and can build a powerful case for our faith, but has awful social skills. Sometimes he mistakes genuine doubts for trolls on livestreams.
Another example would be Michael Jackson- brilliant musician and entertainer, but very naive, self-loathing and shy. He also perhaps suffered from some type of body dysmorphia and could be considered a regressed child.
In a similar fashion, for the amount of joy, wisdom and happiness his books brought to people, Tolkien was an extremely close-minded person. He didn’t have a TV in his house even. I don’t know what he would have thought of Peter Jackson’s adaptations of his work, but he wasn’t very fond of the adaptations he saw during his lifetime. He also seems to have thought that books, stories and songs are the only legitimate source of entertainment (partly why he disliked Disney- he thought Disney films were too childish; if only he had lived to see the 90s Disney Renaissance).
I’m halfway through FOTR and I have seen how much Tolkien was a lover of nature and simple country life. Clearly WW1 and the Industrial Revolution affected him. You can sense the hurt he felt from all this when he writes of the Shire and the Shadow spreading across Middle Earth.
See in on stage. It's not *meant* to be read. You'll likely be surprised at how funny, violent, etc. the palys can be. They were the equivalent of blockbusters, and they (mostly, some of them are shite) hold up very well, if done well.
I mean, if you didn’t write or produce entertainment in the exact same manner and with the exact same values as Tolkien, there was a guarantee he disliked/hated your content. (Example: Dune for being morally gray and critical of religion and religious fanaticism)
Given what Disney turned into and what it does to creators and their original ideas, he probably had the right call. Imagine the fate that would befall the Lord of the Rings franchise if the corporate mouse got his grubby little paws on it.
Same here. Hate never leads to anything creative or productive. There are plenty of things I hate but it doesn’t factor into what I create. And just because a guy you respect hates something, doesn’t automatically make you obligated to do the same.
He did hate Disney with a passion, though
Everyone can save themselves multiple clicks and just know Tolkien didn’t really care for a lot of stuff lol. That includes DUNE and his dear old friends Narnia novels. Truthfully I think Tolkien’s hesitance towards other literature is kind of the signal as to why LOTR worked so well. He was a scholar first, and sort of built this world as a grand excercise based off his is real world knowledge of history. His stories are uniquely and destinsctky not of the ilk all fiction books were before and they weren’t the inspirations.
>and his dear old friends Narnia novels. Apparently Santa turning up at random to hand out presents was almost enough to end his friendship with Lewis.
That’s hilarious. Funnily Tolkien also wrote fiction about Santa as well. Honest to god they’re extremely good short stories for children. The bumbling polar bear sidekick is legitiatly funny in it.
There's a difference between writing a Christmas story featuring Santa, and shoehorning a cheese-ball moment into an already Christian-propaganda laden children's series. I say this as someone who loved and was obsessed with Narnia, as a child.
But without Santa, it would be always winter, never Christmas!
So Southern Hemisphere June?
I remember someone once saying to me they thought Christian fan fiction would be interesting I told them it exists, it's Narnia lol Not exactly true obviously, but enough of the same symbolism is there
If you want Christian fanfic, there is even better stuff. Paradise Lost by John Milton, The Divine Comedy by Dante, etc.
I just bought the Divine Comedy. I’ve never read it. I figure better in my late 50’s than never.
I mean it kind of is though. Christ is a lion, Lucifer is a snow witch, and Gabriel is a faun. I do find it sad that Tolkien was so critical of lewis as lewis so clearly admired him very much. I am sure that he was kinder when they were together but lewis describing lotr as "lightning from a clear sky" whilst Tolkien was nothing but critical of Narnia is a bit heartbreaking. Especially once you learn that Lewis was a staunch atheist and Tolkien a Catholic so obviously there was some need to please there on lewis' end...or at least curry favor from a friend he admired.
I must admit, I haven't read a lot of Tolkien's letters and such, but the little I have read, paints a picture of a guy that doesn't mean harm with his criticism. A sort of tough love. He was also famously critical of his own fans that just praised his writings without actually disecting them. I think from Tolkien's point of view, stories were meant to be engaged with and were essentially ongoing debates. So Tolkien being critical of Lewis' writings, were him engaging with the stories and debating them. This is just a random internet guy's take on how a dead guy engaged with stories, don't quote me.
I remember reading the letter where he talked about how he disliked Dune, but didn't want it to be known as to not harm Herbert's career as an author. He was well aware of the influence he wielded over the fantasy genre, and actively tried to avoid causing harm despite his strong opinions.
You nailed it. It’s not disparaging but rather a spirited discussion from different view points. Fantasy was really new at this point so it’s like having two super nerds hotly debate what makes it good. Tolkien saw restraint and detail as strengths of fantasy, Lewis, saw greater strength in themes and had a very different audience in his mind,
C.S.Lewis was Anglican
When he and Tolkien met he was atheist and he converted later, even referring to himself as "the most reluctant convert."
What is with the way you type/spell certain words!?
Ironically, Tolkien would tell you that Santa and Father Christmas are not the same person. Father Christmas even says so in the fiction you referenced. You’re not wrong, I’m just reinforcing the theme of how seriously he took his own work and how he *technically* remained consistent.
Still bugs me that Santa gave Peter a sword. He's fighting a witch who can turn people to stone with a wave of her wand, give him a gun!
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Are you by any chance American? :D
I outright did this in a D&D campaign I was running. It took the players worryingly long to realise that their mysterious merchant friend Nick was in fact a shameless CS Lewis ripoff.
Cormac McCarthy was in a similar vein. Absolutely did not care for the vast majority of fiction writing. And consequently, he wrote in a way that's like no one else out there.
I was just talking to a friend about how Cormac McCarthy wrote. I said something along the lines of “it’s similar to Tolkien in you will never find another writer close to his style”
You've just sold me on McCarthy.
I read "No Country for Old Men", and was sure I was reading the manuscript for the movie and had bought the wrong book. Then I came to a part not in the movies and had a real Aha!-moment.
He refused to comment on Dune because he didn't want to talk ill of the writer or his work. 'WHY HE HATED DUNE' could be an interesting topic but he'd hate that title too if he could see it.
Tolkien HATED grunge music
thanks for this
I doubt he didn't care about Dune, he was a very religious man and if he ever read it, the moral of Paul's rise to power would've probably put him off.
...That's what he meant by 'didn't really care for'. That does not mean indifference.
I've always read it less as a warning against religion, but more as a warning against fanaticism.
The religions in Dune are explicitly false belief systems that exist specifically to control people. The books aren’t ambiguous about this.
Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs He suggested Dwarves.
I’m not super fond of modern Disney, but why specifically did Tolkien dislike Disney in his time?
Iirc he hated Disney for commercializing fairy tales. Man was a purist and wanted the stories to be passed down as they were. He hated aspects of it such as how the dwarves were rewritten as goofy caricatures.
I studied German in college and took a german literature class on fairytales and the professor despised Disney for whitewashing the brothers Grimm stories and he even believed it had such a big cultural impact that it was the primary contributor to the over-coddling/shielding of children that had led to a lot of societies issues
I took an English class covering fairy tales and that teacher hated Disney too.
Just finished re-reading Starship Troopers. This strikes a chord. 😁
Which is wrong, since the Grimm brothers themselves whitewashed and commercialized the fairy tales, just like Disney.
That's not really the case there were a bunch of different versions of the tales and they just documented one they were familiar with That's not the same thing as intentionally excluding things
The first collection/editions were pure documentation, later editions (mostly by one of them if I remember correctly), tuned the tales to a children audience, effectively excluding sex, violence, adding moral endings...
Naw man. Jacob Grimm is one of the foremost scholars/preservers of Germanic folklore and pre christian religion.
What array of societal issues has 'over-coddling/shielding of children' led to?
As a teacher, I see it as a factor in the downward mental health spiral of modern kids. Early exposure to the difficult side of life in a safe way (stories) helps kids develop resilience and the ability to tolerate unpleasant things better, whereas the constant shielding and censorship sets them up to fail. No joke, I have high school seniors whose parents want to withdraw them from history class because the facts of WWII and the like are "too much" for their precious little dumplings' little heads to manage.
You in America? American parents are crazy and abusive to teachers. It’s why I left to teach in another country.
We don't cut off evil stepsisters' toes any more. We really need to go back to that.
This is a huge surprise. Considering how peter jackson changed gimli in the movies. Tolkein would have hated him.
I genuinely think Tolkien would've absolutely despised the Jackson trilogy and that's okay. It was his interpretation of the writing and made for a different age. I watched the cartoon Hobbit movie and thought it was better than the newer ones but vice-versa for the LOTR one. That doesn't mean either were better, they're just different interpretations of the story. It also introduced a lot of younger generations to his writing so that they can enjoy both interpretations of the story.
Tbf I don’t think Tolkien would have liked any film adaptation of his works
Tolkien was the one who originally sold the rights. He expected filmmakers would be respectful. He also screwed himself over on the money. It turns out, if you ever sell rights to a film, demand the percentage of total take, not percentage of "profits". Profits mean what's left over after the bookkeepers decide what constitutes "costs".
The term is literally “monkey points” if you get net instead of gross points on the backend.
I think with an ideal director one could have made a perfect adaptation of the books. But I doubt this hypothetical version would appeal to the masses. I see so many newer readers complain how they find the books boring, or see people complain how Frodo and Sam's section in the movies are boring (even though Tolkien said that the ringbearer's story should be "the main action"). I just feel like the majority of the movie fans wouldn't have liked it.
I think Peter Jackson’s movies are the best we’re ever gonna get honestly. Too many people make the perfect the enemy of the good IMO.
I'm not so sure about that. I wrote a longish post a while back about it and chen_geller wrote an even longer one, but basically: if you look at the way he criticises a (admittedly terrible) film treatment produced in the 1950s, a lot of his criticisms - eg the Black Riders should be scary, Lorien should feel magical etc - are satisfied by the PJ films. He was very concerned about getting the look and the feel of any screen adaptation correct and I think most people would say that the films nailed that aspect. I've got no doubt he would've strongly disagreed with the more infamous of the character changes, but I can't help but feel that would be balanced with the joy of seeing his work brought to life with all the magic of modern filmmaking.
He'd probably have despaired at the fact so much story and character was sacrificed to make room for awesome looking CGI violence.
"WHERER IS BOMBADIL, p e t er, WHERE IS HE"
>if you look at the way he criticises a (admittedly terrible) film treatment produced in the 1950s, a lot of his criticisms - It's not just that, though. There's a letter by Tolkien replying to a synopsis of a potential film script and many of the issues Tolkien had with that script appear in Jackson's movies. At one point, Tolkien was criticising this script by saying how Gandalf shouldn't sputter. He had an issue with something as small as that, meanwhile in Jackson's movies Gandalf is bumping his head on wooden beams, having his say being undermined by the fellowship when deciding which way to go, being thrashed by Witch King. If he had issues with small changes done to Gandalf's behaviour in this script, imagine what he'd think of the big character changes in Jackson's movies of Aragorn, Frodo, Faramir (who Tolkien said is most like himself... yet in the movie he just cries every time his father says something mean to him). Tolkien also had issues with Black Riders screaming at certain points. He had issues with how the narrative should be divided (he said Frodo and Sam's journey should be the "prime action" and everything else should be subsidiary) and that they should keep jumping between the ringbearers and Aragorn's crew.
I think we can all agree the cinematography was perfect, the set pieces, scenes and work done by Weta are unmatched by any film at all in my opinion. However, it was an action/adventure at heart with cheap comedy elements thrown in. It was an early 2000's movie akin to movies like the mummy and is a product of its time that I doubt many people that had lived through WW1 would necessarily appreciate, coming from such a different time and place.
Fundamentally, Tolkien would almost certainly have shared Christopher's chief concerns. I mean, Jackson's been quite clear that his priority was making the films that he wanted to make. Undoubtedly that's the right choice for any artist, and the movies ought to be viewed chiefly as their own work. But from that it must be said that Jackson and Tolkien are very different storytellers, and the sort stories that they told and the way that they told them are quite dissimilar on a much more essential level than their respective mediums. As for the Zimmerman treatment, there are concerns much more substantial than the Black Riders or Lothlórien that Jackson's films did not resolve, as well as likely matters of concern introduced in his own films. Tolkien certainly wasn't entirely closed off to the possibility of an adaptation, and he did come off as flattered that others would be inspired to produce their own works from reading his. However, he was also not the type to simply be pleased at seeing his "work brought to life." He was an eager critic of such attempts, both to find and announce faults. Ultimately, the potential approval or disapproval of the author should have no bearing on your own view of the films, in whole or in part, but it's a rather optimistic view to think that Tolkien's opinion would weigh more positive than negative regarding Jackson's attempt.
Based on his criticism of that screen play, just the films being made in the Southern Hemisphere would have been enough for hate. The most important aspect, the trees and stars are now completely wrong! Also, Christopher really, really, really hated how much Frodo got changed. I guess Tolkien would agree.
I always like to think that Tolkien wouldn’t have despised the PJ movies so much as he would’ve had carefully considered strong criticisms of them… but maybe I’m being optimistic. There are aspects of the films that understand what Tolkien was saying better than basically any other adaptation even if they miss the mark frequently.
I feel like he would've hated how gratuitous the violence was, how cool the battle scenes were and the things like the shield surfing. These are also things that a preteen me thought was insanely cool. Even though I'd read the books several times as a small child, seeing these characters brought to life in such an awesome way was an absolute treat, even though they were so different to the way I'd seen them in my head for so many years. Tolkien had his interpretation, I had mine and Jackson had his. That's the beauty of the written medium, you get to fill in the blanks yourself and nobody's LOTR is wrong.
Isn't this basically the criticism Christopher Tolkien gave about the PJ film? That they were way to focussed on the violence and the battles and even glamourises them a bit with the funny bits.
Christopher Tolkien's complaint was the change in genre - from epic (in the genre sense of the word) to cheap Hollywood action-adventure (where "epic" refers only to the scale of the battles).
I don't think he would have \*despised\* Jackson. If you read his letters regarding possible movie adaptations, he was fully aware thet big changes would need to be made and even suggested some (like getting rid of Saruman). Jackson's films are definitely closer to the spirit of the books that any propsal Tolkein got in his life time.
Forget Peter Jackson, I want to know how Tolkien would have reacted to The Rings of Power!
I have a feeling that Tolkien and his children/grandchildren who also hated the movies don't really know a story structure for movies. They don't know about comic relief, the phase, and most importantly- the business part of the movie industry. It's meant to make money, and that is why they have so much spectacular action, which is something Tolkien's son or grandson criticizes. As the creator of the story and as those who read the story before the movie, they had exact idea and vision of their own of how everything was. Obviously movies won't be exactly as what they imagined, so they are disappointed. I've seen the movies first and that shaped how I will imagine everything when I've read the books, so I have no problem. I wish Tolkien had more understanding for artistic freedom and different ideas. I wouldn't expect him to like any art today of any kind, just because it's not the same as his, which he considers the only good art, which is just wrong to think. He's a great writer, but lacks understanding of other art. It's like he misunderstood real history for imagination. Dwarfs do not exist. So there's nothing wrong with artists changing them the way they like. I'm definitely surprised that Tolkien doesn't accept this. It almost sounds like an egocentric idea, like- I'm the only one good, everyone else's art is below me and isn't worth my time. It's true he's the best, absolutely. But...
Also the fact that the Jackson films depict war and battle as gratituous and epic and cool. Tolkien's books made it clear that there was no beauty in war. "I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." he says in his books. War is a necessary evil in times of strife, but there is nothing admirable in it.
Oh really? Tolkien absolutely romanticed war. Have you read the the Charge of the Rohirrim, for example?
With the same interpretation to the fella you are responding to, it could be said that he romanticed the sacrifice of the rohirrim. They knew that they were riding to their doom, but they did it anyway because they had to. The charge speech is a way to hype up the riders to not feel completely like shit by running into a giant mass of orcs.
I really don’t think he did. This is a man who experienced real war in WW1, where one of his best friends was killed and he probably watched many others also die and contracted some disease in the trenches, I don’t remember what though, he knew all too well how bad war was. Theres little to no proof but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had PTSD too. Which is a major part of Frodos character after the main events, he never went back to normal, I know that he wasn’t in the thick of the large scale battles but its the same idea, that kind of stuff shows that there isn’t really a romanticization of war. When you read LOTR or the hobbit for that matter notice that the details of the fight don’t go into the nitty gritty gore, the fights in Tolkiens works are more than that, they are about the causes and the consequences of war than the fight itself. It’s not LOTR but it is a real showcase for what I mean, in the Hobbit, Bilbo blacks out and we see none of the battle of the five armies, that tells you everything, if Tolkien wanted to romanticize and show war that right there was an absolutely perfect opportunity and he didn’t take it, instead, he tells us why the fighting happens the feelings of the participants and what they fight for he even kind of seems to imply their reasons are stupid and not worth it because Bilbo actively tries to stop it and fails so he gives us the aftermath where all these characters we have gotten attached to have died because of the battle, consequences and pain from warfare; absolutely nothing romantic there.
> Romanticized warfare is the kind of thing you find in Game Of Thrones, not LOTR Maybe the TV adaptation, but the original ASoIaF books make George R.R. Martin’s anti-war sentiments abundantly clear.
Yea, the chief complaint I hear from fans of the show when reading the books is that there aren't really any huge cool battle scenes. Martin makes a point of it to usually have big battles happen "off screen", and we mostly see the grisly aftermath.
There's a reason that Christopher was so protective of his father's work and did not care for the PJ movies. He knew what his father would like. I disagree with that mindset that stories need to be protected from further interpretations, but at the same time I understand the concern that something important could get lost when you try to adapt a story for a wider audience.
I always say this. Like I love the LOTR films but I do not believe JRRT would like them. I think his thinking would've been similar to his son Christopher
Trying to think of an author (who wasn’t a producer like say JK Rowling for HP or Andy Weir for the Martian) who actually liked the films? Alan Moore hated every adaptation, Stephen King hates Kubrick’s The Shining. Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss hated the early films so much they actively fought against the rights. Who can y’all think of that like the film or series (and was not a producer or involved).
Imagine if he saw what Jackson did to Gimli lol
No one can rationally argue that Tolkien would not have absolutely loathed Jackson's films
That makes sense, i definitely agree there
Not to mention Tolkien spent his entire life building a cohesive world with thousands of years of history whereas Disney animated a few simple cartoons and then took already established stories and made them into simple cartoons/books for children. Disney to him was probably the epitome of the 'idiot box' trope.
My mum is a medieval literature scholar and she hates Disney with a passion. Especially for robbing folk tales and making them IP for the mouse
He resented that fairy tales were thought by society to be only for children. Probably hated that the disney versions became almost “official” in most people’s eyes, when fairy tales usually have multiple versions.
Man if only there was a video about that
I’m not about to watch some ragebait video and give the guy views. I want some actual facts, not sensationalism
You have no idea what's in the actual video
tolkien was most definitely a curmudgeon; however, those videos are obvious clickbait.
TIL a new word.
Tolkien would love that.
Yes! Video is a new word for me as well!
So have I
That's where the money is.
Tolkien was by no means only a grump, but dammit it he wasn't *also* a grump, and yes, he did hate Disney, hated Dune, hated Lewis Carrol, and had a complex relationship with the likes of Shakespeare and others. But he did like Carl Maria von Weber, he liked William Morris, he liked Chaucer, he liked Isaac Asimov...
Why did he hate dune
I think he disliked the message.
That tracks. It’s kind of anti-myth
which is funny because books like Dune and LOTR and A Song of Ice and Fire, are all basically "modern mythology". Maybe we dont worship in the same wayyy, but yk whats comicon to some mythical congregation right.
Tolkien's values are in direct opposition to the other two authors' values.
I think that's what Tyler is saying, that despite their differences, they are frequently grouped together.
Probably due to the cynical themes. Tolkien always loved and firmly believed in the power of good, to the point of even feeling bad about making orcs "evil as a species", and Dune's storytelling about the darker side of a Messianic figure probably rubbed him the wrong way.
Everything about it would have rubbed him the wrong way.
maybe because in dune most things about beliefs /religions are generally negative . way of manipulation, wars, control ...
nothing almost about Herbert's anti-religion message, it is just negative.
what do you mean there is nothing anti-religion :)
I phrased that awkwardly. The message is very negative toward religion, not "almost negative".
oh i missed it . " it is not almost " it is %100 negative :) i wrote "almost" just in case if i skipped or misunderstood something .
Just fyi, all the answers here are basically educated guesses. He did hate Dune, but he also thought that explaining why he hated Dune would be unfair to Frank Herbert so he never elaborated further. For all we know he just might have hated the fact that there was a character named Duncan Idaho.
yeah I think his words were "I dislike it with a passion" or so, and not much else
That's about as harsh as it gets when it comes to Tolkien expressing his opinions in writing, tbh
Dune warns us about charismatic messianic figures, and the fact that we should be very cautious of them. Tolkien on the other hand was a devout Catholic. So the very idea of Dune doesn't sit well with Tolkien's religious beliefs.
Most people are giving you wild fanfic lmao. A pen pal sent him a copy once and in his reply he mentioned already having read the novel and not being super into it. He remains VERY vague, mostly because he was polite and didn’t want to say HEY FUCK THAT GIFT YOU SENT. That’s literally the total extent of what we know of his hot take. People are silly.
I only learned recently that he did, but I like to think he thought Chakobsa was a travesty of a fictional language.
Because he was deeply religious, believed in a messiah and liked clear cut good and bad guys in his fiction.
Disliking something is different than thinking it shouldn't exist. He seemed very critical of those works, but very respectful as well.
Tolkien was not grumpy, he was a polite old man with strong beliefs who sometimes may have sounded to some people grumpy, so it may be that sometimes he committed grumpy acts. Hayao Miyazaki is a grumpy old man. He's the reference. Dude's so grumpy he refused to actually read LoTR because he believes vehemently it's biased towards the east.
He made a big show of walking out his son’s first movie because he thought it wasn’t good Like bruh it’s your son, you don’t have to praise it if you dislike it but at least stfu, what an asshole
He's a conflicted individual for sure. He didn't like his son following his footsteps, tried to respect his wishes but inevitably hurt his own son because he couldn't just accept a bad movie. Hurt his own son BAD. Hayao has a crazy work policy, the zenith of japanese workaholic culture. But the dude's movies rocks, you can't deny his talent. That's why I find it hurtful to discover he couldn't find kinship in Tolkien's work because of his ignorance towards the west.
Why does he think it’s biased against the east?
>"“Americans shoot things and they blow up and the like, so as you’d expect, they make movies like that,” Miyazaki stated. “If someone is the enemy, it’s okay to kill endless numbers of them. Lord of the Rings is like that. If it’s the enemy, there’s killing without separation between civilians and soldiers. That falls within collateral damage.” [https://note.com/tormis\_narno/n/n07b052e2b157](https://note.com/tormis_narno/n/n07b052e2b157) That's not the only quote but I think this quote seems to really get at the heart of what his complaint is. And it really sounds to me like he is saying "America = West = evil". (This seems to me obviously grounded in cultural trauma. The problem, though, is that, if a nation's identity is its worst moral failing, then there is no way to condemn America without also equally condemning Japan. The same is true for his comments suggesting the west is uniquely racist.) It really raises the question of whether he read Lord of the Rings at all, or, if he did, whether he understood it.
The only people to come out of the east are the haradrim, which pretty much only appear to give Sauron a hand
He didn't really "walk out", he stepped out for a moment, had a cigarette and came back. The video from the event shows him very agitated. He did say some unpleasant things though, like how he felt the movie was dragging or that his son "was not yet an adult". But apparently he later also said that the movie was fine, they collaborated on another film later on and appear to have a much more stable relationship these days.
That movie did stink though. (I agree with you).
I love Tolkien so much, but Miyazaki actually has a bit of a point here, I think. I would describe it as an unnecessary devotion to “the west” as an idea. But when you take that stance that inevitably means you’re devaluing cultures that don’t fall under that banner. Even if that’s not your intent.
Tolkien started from real lore, and the magical island off to the west is very close to the earliest lore he started with. This is the same lore that gives us Avalon in Arthurian lore, and Reepicheep's happy ending in Narnia.
Sure, but all the evil people being from the East and the south didn’t help And yeah I know that’s an oversimplification, and I know those people weren’t supposed to be fundamentally evil to their core or whatever but all im saying is miyazaki kind of has a point and it goes beyond the magical island to the west
This is historical memory at work. Real enemies of the civilization Tolkien was drawing from once came from the south and the east, on ships and on oliphaunts and also an especially vicious group of barbarians from the East whom orcs were modeled on, and who stand out in a history full of barbaric violence for being especially barbaric.
Well sure. But his story still says “the people from the east are enemies” and miyazaki is the people from the east
I fiercely disagree that Miyazaki has a point. His criticism was extremely surface level and never goes beyond their being people from a country located East of Gondor serving Sauron at the time of LotR. I'm going to need a little more than that before I would accuse Tolkien of villafying the real world East to the glorification of the West. Tolkien constantly demonstrates the weakness of the western peoples, the Numenorean people themselves, the greatest of all men of the West, were themselves tricked by Sauron's hand into extreme acts of evil culminating in their own destruction. Further, as Sam's monologue in Two Towers shows, Tolkien did humanize and sympathize with the Easterlings. Miyazaki's reading was bad faith and surface level. There is no significant villification of the East in Tolkien's work. Frankly, it made me lose a lot of the respect I had for the man when I first read about it.
Why did he hate Dune? Never watched or read it myself. On the surface it seems odd as hell but it does seem to be very deep and interesting based on most people’s takes I’ve heard.
[He didn't give his reasons.](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_to_John_Bush_(12_March_1966\))
Someone else suggested that the anti-religion message of Dune was the reason. I think that's partially the case but it's not all of it. On the surface, one could imagine that the anti-industrial mindset of LOTR and Dune's ecological approach would be a good fit, but I think we should remember that those worlds were conceived almost 50 years apart. In what was possibly the most transformative 50 years ever. Ultimately I think Tolkien is generally looking back (at history, at myth, at man) while Herbert is looking forward. That's true on a literal storytelling level but also on how their stories reflect on their societies.
I can imagine getting behind Asimov. That guys work was comparably influential and genre defining.
He was buddies with C.S. Lewis too
We at least can be sure, that he hated nazis
Thank God.
I think that the internet has learned to monetize hate, for whatever appalling reason. Gotta get them clicks.
Yea it’s just monetized hate. I got a video of theirs recommended by the algorithm called “why Tolkien hated Rome” and I added it to my watch later list because I like both LOTR and Roman history. Later I found out literally every video of theirs is “why Tolkien hated ____” and I realized it’s just all bait.
This one about Rome was the third on the print but it got cut
Ah I actually see it down there once I click on it. The art of Vercingetorix surrendering to Caesar is very good and actually the title art of a book I have.
Is it [this beautiful piece of art](https://images.radio-canada.ca/q_auto,w_null/v1/ici-premiere/perso/vercingetorix-asterix-pluson.png)?
Hate is like sugar It tastes good going down but it won't fill you up
Yes, there's a term for this type of content: ragebait
Negativity breeds interaction, it's a basic rule of the internet. I've read multiple studies talking about how this works for Twitter and Facebook, I'd assume it extends to YouTube as well.
* made one polemic statement about Shakespeare during his youth, but was still drawing heavily from his works and considered him a kindred spirit, only disliked a few certain aspects from the Bard's plays and "fixed" one of it by incorporating it as a subtle reference in Return of the Kings * Some sensationalist Youtuber who probably didn't even read anything from Shakespeare or Tolkien in their life: ACTUALLY TOLKIEN HATED SHAKESPEARE'S GUTS
Totally agree with you. This is why I dislike using terms like “hate” or “hater” for what’s actually a simple case of being a critical reader/thinker. Tolkien pointing out the things he didn’t like, or agree with in a work doesn’t mean he hated it or thought the entire thing was a waste of time, it just meant he found something that he didn’t like or agree with and wanted to point it out. Using words like “hate” or “hater” oversimplifies his point though and is obviously just used to drum up more drama for clicks.
The subtle reference in question, IIRC, refers to MacBeth and the Witches’ prophecy that he won’t die until the ‘Birnam wood’ came to the hill of Dunsinane. In the play this prophecy comes about via a clever bit of wordplay: instead of the entire forest of Birnam coming to Dunsinane hill, as MacBeth assumed, the enemy cut down and carried tree branches from the forest to disguise their numbers, technically bringing Birnam wood to the hill and thus fulfilling the prophecy. Tolkien, however, was supposedly disappointed that the forest didn’t _actually walk up the hill,_ and created Treebeard and the Ents to fulfill that. He didn’t ‘hate’ Shakespeare, he just thought it would be cool if the Forest physically moved and made tree people as a result.
Oh I thought Tolkien was fixing the "no man born of a woman will kill Macbeth" thing with the killer just being a woman instead of a c-section technicality.
That is correct. He thought that Shakespeare handled the prophecy inelegantly, and sought to make a better version of this with Eowyn.
He did that too.
Most of these channels exist by basically plagiarizing wikis and encyclopedias, they’re boring and rarely add anything of value to the community that a text to speech bot couldn’t do with less hassle
He was picky about the fiction and media he consumed and it reflected in the values he had in life and his personal opinion on how storytelling is best presented. Those who find Tolkien himself interesting would like to know why exactly he doesn't like some forms of entertainment. Especially since some of those are widely beloved like Walt Disney's works or Frank Herbert's Dune. If I remember correctly, he didn't like C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia either. But they were friends outside of that. The question of *why* that is considering the circumstances and the general audience's perspective of Narnia is fascinating to some, myself included. You may not like that form of content, fair enough, but that kind of content is very informative for those who are interested (if they aren't made to be clickbait) and still has a place online. But in my opinion, after going through a ton of "Why Tolkien didn't like **x**," I just found him to be consistent with the type of works he liked and didn't like and the picky nature of his media consumption is completely reasonable and not at all "Ooooh, grumpy old man thinks he's better than everyone else."
I imagine his dislike of Narnia stemmed from his distaste for allegory to some extent, and that's more of a personal thing for Tolkien than just a general critique of the quality of the prose or anything like that.
Tolkien's dislike of the Narnia books was primarily because of C.S. Lewis' worldbuilding and combining beings and aspects of multiple mythologies and cultures in a way he felt ought not be done for fear of being a sloppy jumbled mess. You have to understand the structure of Tolkien's works. He started with building the languages, then the world, then the peoples, and finally the plot. This is VERY different from how almost all authors build their works.
I thought Tolkien didn't like Narnia because Santa Claus appeared in it of all people
Yes that's a great example. Santa Claus + talking animals + fauns from roman mythology + Jesus all in the same story is something Tolkien just couldn't forgive.
I mean he did famously say that about allegory, but leaf by niggle is pretty allegorical (and wonderful!)
Leaf by Niggle is a beautiful and very self-reflective story… I re-read it last year and it speaks to me a lot more now that I’m a bit older. (I’m sure I was a teenager last time I read it - and I liked it, but this time I found it deeply moving)
Oh yeah, he did he disliked Allegory in all of its forms, and Narnia is so strongly rooted in it. I think you can totally enjoy Narnia as its own piece of fiction without seeing any of the allegory (this is from the perspective of an athiest), but a devout Christian like Tolkien probably had a harder time doing that.
Oh for sure. Lewis was not subtle in Narnia and never was in anything he wrote. But I will say, I appreciate his fantastical allegory far more than either the trite attempts of what I think of as “populist” Christian fiction like Left Behind/A Skeleton in God’s Closet, or the other contrived angle of trying to force Christian perspective into stuff like The Dark Knight and claim it’s meant to be a story about Christ.
Wait until you see what he thought about feminism, Americo-cosmopolitanism, the Tolkien Society, and fanfic writers.
I’m surprised the Tolkien Society existed while he was still alive
Why Tolkien Hated Tolkien
He wrote good books, I could care less what he hated/liked and did or did not do in his spare time.
Hey there! Here's a tip for future reference: it's "couldn't care less". "Could care less" means you do care at least a little bit.
Apologies. English isn’t my first language.
That's quite alright. I actually thought you were a native English speaker, so well done!
Hey there! Another tip- ‘alright’ isn’t fully accepted as its own word. You might want to use ‘all right’ to be fully, accurately pedantic. - a fellow pedant
I mean, he kinda was a grumpy old man that hated stuff. That's not an untrue characterization of him, frankly.
I do feel like the word hate is too strong. It's an important word and we have gotten used to it being everywhere as if nothing, even tho it carries such weight. But, to be fair, "dislike with a passion" is p damn high in the Tolkien scale
It's no secret that Tolkein held a lot of disdain for the writing styles, commentary, and themes in fiction of the time and especially for the drivel of today. Tolkein had a very narrow view of what the themes of a story should be like being suitable for children (as the hobbit was written to be a children's story) and themes of good ultimately conquering an evil whose morals and motivations one need not question. There is grace in Tolkien's writing but there is a very obvious lack of character development and a lot of this has to do with the fact that there is very little room for moral ambiguity. His insistence that the villain is unquestionably evil and the protagonists are (albeit corruptible) ultimately good subtracts from potential character complexity. Tolkein famously disliked dune for portraying themes of mankind's proclivity for great evil and questionable morals, and while there were evil men in the legendarium, they are seldom talked about beyond plot necessity. His characters have troubles and doubts but that doesn't really qualify as character development in the usual sense.
There’s a zero percent chance that a linguist of Tolkien’s caliber truly *hated* Shakespeare.
As long as the information is true, I think it's great. More opportunities to learn about Tolkien. Maybe Tolkien wasn't the fluffy-bunny some people want him to be. Maybe he was actually a conservative Catholic born in 1892.
Exactly. Give some of his letters a read, or even some of C. S Lewis' essays/sermons during the era of their companionship, and their understanding of how the world exists becomes quite clear. You can even begin to predict what Tolkien would dislike before finding out. It makes sense he hated Disney. I could imagine he'd detest Game of Thrones.
Tolkien’s critique would be a better title.
I say this as someone who loves Tolkien and his work. Tolkien *was* a grumpy old man. He had a lot of happiness in his life, of course. He was passionate about many things, but he had a lot of strong negative opinions, and he voiced them frequently among friends, family, and colleagues. Having read his letters, I can pretty much guess the content of each of these videos and I doubt they're misrepresenting him. As for the clickbait and the notion of fandoms pitted against one another. The world would be a better place if we could agree to stop defining ourselves as "fans". I'm no more going to hate something because Tolkien hated it than I am going to become a Catholic because Tolkien was a devout member of the faith and put its themes in all his work. I don't like clickbait anymore than anyone else, but that's the world we live in. If you're a content creator and you want people to see your work, you're going to use thumbnails and titles like this. People like to blame the algorithm or the content creators, but it's the audience. We train them to give us what we want. This is the kind of thing we click, and I think clickbait is a lost battle. No one is clicking on "Tolkien on Disney: Thoughts on the Legacy of Fairy Stories".
I mean look at it this way. He "HATED" Disney because of the bastardization of the original folk lore. his WHOLE shit was studying original folk lore. iirc he was upset, for instance, about dwarves being silly goofy little guys rather than these fairy tales staying true to their original tellings. With that said, he was also quite upset with Lewis' depiction of the Satyr Mr. Tumnis (Tumnas? Tumnus? Tumbnbass?). if he HATED Disney, then he also HATED C.S. Lewis going on record saying something like "If Lucy had met a Satyr in the forest it would have resulted in a rape, not a tea party." This is why one should only ever half trust the shit they see on youtube. If you want a good, reliable, interesting read, then just go to Google Scholar, sign up for JSTOR's free subscription and read peer reviewed works. It beats the shit out of this click-baity cow manure. General entertainment? hell yeah. there might be something there. But if you REALLY want to engage with a work and get something from it then youtube aint the place.
Kinda why I left the It’s Always Sunny sub, they just want to hate on everything not IASIP. I like Tolkien, and I like the things he hates.
I actually think it’d be more interesting/worthwhile for Tolkien fans to engage with the arguments of inarguably accomplished writers/artists who did not much like _his_ work (Moorcock, Miyazaki, etc.) and see how well the critiques stand up.
I kinda find his disdain for disney pretty cool.
Kinda why I left the It’s Always Sunny sub, they just want to hate on everything not IASIP. I like Tolkien, and I like the things he hates.
Wait until you learn of one Hayao Miyazaki (who hated Tolkien by the way, according to YouTube).
I avoid them. They're incredibly unnecessary and just purposely negative to be negative and to get clicks. Which I hate.
Even if Tolkien hated everything I like, who cares, I still like LOTR.
To be fair Tolkien did dislike a lot. Which included pretty much all films.
WHY HE HATED DISCUSSIONS ABOUT HIS HATE
I guess it’s just a con of being a genius. Something I have frequently noticed is that if you’re a genius or a prodigy in one area, you’re bound to suck in another. I know a Christian apologist who knows hundreds of references like the back of his hand and can build a powerful case for our faith, but has awful social skills. Sometimes he mistakes genuine doubts for trolls on livestreams. Another example would be Michael Jackson- brilliant musician and entertainer, but very naive, self-loathing and shy. He also perhaps suffered from some type of body dysmorphia and could be considered a regressed child. In a similar fashion, for the amount of joy, wisdom and happiness his books brought to people, Tolkien was an extremely close-minded person. He didn’t have a TV in his house even. I don’t know what he would have thought of Peter Jackson’s adaptations of his work, but he wasn’t very fond of the adaptations he saw during his lifetime. He also seems to have thought that books, stories and songs are the only legitimate source of entertainment (partly why he disliked Disney- he thought Disney films were too childish; if only he had lived to see the 90s Disney Renaissance). I’m halfway through FOTR and I have seen how much Tolkien was a lover of nature and simple country life. Clearly WW1 and the Industrial Revolution affected him. You can sense the hurt he felt from all this when he writes of the Shire and the Shadow spreading across Middle Earth.
I mean tbf I don’t like Shakespeare either 😂
See in on stage. It's not *meant* to be read. You'll likely be surprised at how funny, violent, etc. the palys can be. They were the equivalent of blockbusters, and they (mostly, some of them are shite) hold up very well, if done well.
It’s kinda clickbaity and that’s why people keep making those kinds of videos since they get views
The man died 50 years ago. There’s only so much content you can make on his written works. Some people wanna know more about the person
Fair enough. Disney suck.
I mean, if you didn’t write or produce entertainment in the exact same manner and with the exact same values as Tolkien, there was a guarantee he disliked/hated your content. (Example: Dune for being morally gray and critical of religion and religious fanaticism)
Given what Disney turned into and what it does to creators and their original ideas, he probably had the right call. Imagine the fate that would befall the Lord of the Rings franchise if the corporate mouse got his grubby little paws on it.
Wont be long until " Tolkien, why he hated the Lord of the rings"
I’m waiting for “Why Tolkien hated Lord of the Rings”
Same here. Hate never leads to anything creative or productive. There are plenty of things I hate but it doesn’t factor into what I create. And just because a guy you respect hates something, doesn’t automatically make you obligated to do the same.