KaeYoss |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Todd Stewart wrote:Also see Terry Pratchett's Discworld books.Somebody help me out here since I'm a n00b that didn't play till 3e. What is seriously up with the sometimes obsession with dwarven women having beards or not?
Personally they'd look really silly -bordering on absurd- with them.
Yes, but Sir Terry really pulled it off, as always.
Disciple of Sakura |
At the chance of getting lynched. Hobbits, Bearded female dwarves and Angle/wizard not wizard things, along with immortal elves that sail away to elsewhere are on my list
They are cool as a unique world but should not be carried to everyworld just because he wrote them.
Also I am not a huge fan of his writing style to be honest
I'm glad to see I'm not alone in the last sentiment.
Let's not forget to add yellow booted nonces to our list of terrible ideas from JRRT.
ProfessorCirno |
LotR is actually really interesting when you look at it from the perspective of rural idealism and the experiences of a post-Great War veteran, as well as how it reflects back into tabletop gaming as a whole.
There's a reason most fantasy assumes small villages are good, and "empires" are always huge, monolithic, uncaring, and evil.
James Jacobs Creative Director |
Tolkein was a brilliant linguist and gifted world designer, but I agree that he wasn't a really good storyteller... his stories are poorly paced and they tend to lack a good variety of characters in them. I challenge ANYONE to tell me the differences between the dwarves that accompany Bilbo in the Hobbit, for example.
And of course the lack of female characters in his tales is another story entirely.
At least Peter Jackson and crew fixed a lot of those problems with the movies!
(prepares for internet backlash)
ProfessorCirno |
I think LotR is perfect for reading to kids, which was exactly where its roots lie :)
It's not a big overarching super awesome best fantasy anything ever. It's not meant to be. It's the story a linguist wrote after suffering through the abominations of World War 1, spawned from stories he'd tell a much younger generation, tied to rural idealism.
KaeYoss |
I challenge ANYONE to tell me the differences between the dwarves that accompany Bilbo in the Hobbit, for example.
Not fair. They're dwarves. They don't have individual personalities. They're all the same, all over the world, all over all the worlds.
Not even you guys could make them different or interesting.
Sibelius Eos Owm |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Female dwarves should have beards!
I come from the distant future year of 2022 with good news! Dwarf women can have beards if they want! I think it's mostly the 'Grondasken' mountain dwarves who wear them as a regular thing but there doesn't seem to be a reason to assume they couldn't all have beards if they chose (though some 'Ergaksen' surface dwarf cultures are completely beardless across the gender spectrum)
keftiu |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
darth_borehd wrote:Female dwarves should have beards!I come from the distant future year of 2022 with good news! Dwarf women can have beards if they want! I think it's mostly the 'Grondasken' mountain dwarves who wear them as a regular thing but there doesn't seem to be a reason to assume they couldn't all have beards if they chose (though some 'Ergaksen' surface dwarf cultures are completely beardless across the gender spectrum)
Further good news: Golarion has interesting dwarves now! It turns out the secret was making them literally anything other than dour little European miners.
Kobold Catgirl |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Tolkein was a brilliant linguist and gifted world designer, but I agree that he wasn't a really good storyteller... his stories are poorly paced and they tend to lack a good variety of characters in them. I challenge ANYONE to tell me the differences between the dwarves that accompany Bilbo in the Hobbit, for example.
And of course the lack of female characters in his tales is another story entirely.
At least Peter Jackson and crew fixed a lot of those problems with the movies!
(prepares for internet backlash)
As long as we're necromancing this thread I think the specific criticism of Tolkien's character work is a bad take. The dwarves in The Hobbit are same-y because The Hobbit isn't about the dwarves, it's a children's book about, well, a hobbit, and the dwarves and wizard are setpieces. Bombur is fat, Thorin is cranky, Balin is nice to Bilbo, Gandalf is mysterious, and that's all kids needed to understand.
LOTR's characters are nuanced and fascinating, with Frodo and Sam obviously getting the lion's share of the growth. I think adaptations just have a tendency to file the edges off of them. Gimli is canny and charming in the books, but the movies mostly fixated on making him cranky and funny. Legolas is whimsical and quirky in the books, but the movies mostly fixated on making him cool and sexy.
I'm not saying the movies are bad by any means (though the last two do mangle the books' core themes pretty badly), but movies are a different genre with their own narrative needs.
The rest of the criticisms hold up, though. :)
Freehold DM |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
James Jacobs wrote:Tolkein was a brilliant linguist and gifted world designer, but I agree that he wasn't a really good storyteller... his stories are poorly paced and they tend to lack a good variety of characters in them. I challenge ANYONE to tell me the differences between the dwarves that accompany Bilbo in the Hobbit, for example.
And of course the lack of female characters in his tales is another story entirely.
At least Peter Jackson and crew fixed a lot of those problems with the movies!
(prepares for internet backlash)
As long as we're necromancing this thread I think the specific criticism of Tolkien's character work is a bad take. The dwarves in The Hobbit are same-y because The Hobbit isn't about the dwarves, it's a children's book about, well, a hobbit, and the dwarves and wizard are setpieces. Bombur is fat, Thorin is cranky, Balin is nice to Bilbo, Gandalf is mysterious, and that's all kids needed to understand.
LOTR's characters are nuanced and fascinating, with Frodo and Sam obviously getting the lion's share of the growth. I think adaptations just have a tendency to file the edges off of them. Gimli is canny and charming in the books, but the movies mostly fixated on making him cranky and funny. Legolas is whimsical and quirky in the books, but the movies mostly fixated on making him cool and sexy.
I'm not saying the movies are bad by any means (though the last two do mangle the books' core themes pretty badly), but movies are a different genre with their own narrative needs.
The rest of the criticisms hold up, though. :)
points wildly
Kobold Catgirl! KOBOLD CATGIRL!
Freehold DM |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:Further good news: Golarion has interesting dwarves now! It turns out the secret was making them literally anything other than dour little European miners.darth_borehd wrote:Female dwarves should have beards!I come from the distant future year of 2022 with good news! Dwarf women can have beards if they want! I think it's mostly the 'Grondasken' mountain dwarves who wear them as a regular thing but there doesn't seem to be a reason to assume they couldn't all have beards if they chose (though some 'Ergaksen' surface dwarf cultures are completely beardless across the gender spectrum)
indeed.
Here's hoping we continue to get away from that.
hugs dark sun
CorvusMask |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
James Jacobs wrote:Tolkein was a brilliant linguist and gifted world designer, but I agree that he wasn't a really good storyteller... his stories are poorly paced and they tend to lack a good variety of characters in them. I challenge ANYONE to tell me the differences between the dwarves that accompany Bilbo in the Hobbit, for example.
And of course the lack of female characters in his tales is another story entirely.
At least Peter Jackson and crew fixed a lot of those problems with the movies!
(prepares for internet backlash)
As long as we're necromancing this thread I think the specific criticism of Tolkien's character work is a bad take. The dwarves in The Hobbit are same-y because The Hobbit isn't about the dwarves, it's a children's book about, well, a hobbit, and the dwarves and wizard are setpieces. Bombur is fat, Thorin is cranky, Balin is nice to Bilbo, Gandalf is mysterious, and that's all kids needed to understand.
LOTR's characters are nuanced and fascinating, with Frodo and Sam obviously getting the lion's share of the growth. I think adaptations just have a tendency to file the edges off of them. Gimli is canny and charming in the books, but the movies mostly fixated on making him cranky and funny. Legolas is whimsical and quirky in the books, but the movies mostly fixated on making him cool and sexy.
I'm not saying the movies are bad by any means (though the last two do mangle the books' core themes pretty badly), but movies are a different genre with their own narrative needs.
The rest of the criticisms hold up, though. :)
I've never read Tolkien's book so that was nice thing to learn about Legolas and Gimli :O