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JRR Tolkien--Lord of the Rings

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien Source: John

It's a problem with all fantasy races, i.e. Elves, Hobbits, Klingons, etc. that they don't have enough internal variation when compared to humans. They always reflect some subset of human cultures.

Tolkien's world is stagnant; there is no innovation. Rather than inventing new technologies, they are learned from someone else who simply "has" them, and races are limited to the abilities they were created with. I submit that this is necessary for concepts of good and evil. In a changing, evolving world there would be no constants which could be easily identified as good or evil.

Tolkien's races are the reverse of those in the bible (I forget the word for when one person is used to represent a whole race); he personifies them, giving them individual-like personalities and talking of their "youth". This implies indirectly that people, like his races, are stagnant and unable to change, a rather pessimistic viewpoint I believe.

Furthermore he seems to think that modern times have not changed much (necessary for consistency). I.e. most changes are insignificant, at some level everything is the same, or flows in cycles. Perhaps most people can be categorized into those that either believe time brings progress, i.e. has direction, or flows or persists in some periodic or fixed state.