Fuck Tolkien.

A statement that will probably invoke the ire of quite a few, should they ever read this, but one that I am quite certain I will stand behind.

This is not to say that I think Tolkien was not a good author. He was an exceedingly talented and meticulous writer with a dedication to languages that is likely unmatched in recent history. He also deserves credit for starting the trend of creating formally established worlds for fantastical stories. My problem with Tolkien’s works is that I consider them a huge waste of potential.

And let’s dispel one common myth right away: The myth that Tolkien was original. No, he wasn’t. There. Done. Oh, you want to know why? Fine…

First off, his world is very explicitly based on a Catholic world-view. You have this omni-god on top, angels (like the Istari), the Fallen Angel (Morgul/Satan), Jesus-figures(Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn). To name a few. You could go on for quite a while, if you cared to. I don’t.

Secondly he plays a lot on mythological themes that had existed for thousands of years, like elves, dwarves, giants, talking animals, nature being alive, vengeful spirits, shapeshifters, corrupted humans and so on.

Granted, this does not make his writings bad by themselves. But it does mean it is not original. Thus the “he was original” argument in his defense is invalid.

My problems with Tolkien comes from, to begin with, the Catholic-based world he created. I am sorry to say it, but I find it really fucking boring. Make the world as internally consistent as you like, but that will count for naught if I am not the slightest bit interested or intrigued. Fine, his theology regarding an all-powerful(or as close as can be) god makes more sense than the traditional Christian views (which make no sense at all, so good job beating no competition at all), but that does not make it good literature.

This would not have been a problem for the stories themselves if it was just something kinda looming in the background, but it isn’t. Tolkien’s meticulous nature works against him here, as it does tend to play a role in his stories. Most known among these is The Lord of the Rings, which I will largely stick to in this article. Simply because it is the most famous of his works.

For those who have only seen the films, you might be a wee bit surprised, because the LotR films tell a very structured story with few, if any, distracting elements. Yeah, because Peter Jackson and his team knew how to tell that story better than Tolkien did.

Tom Bombadil and the Istari are cases of the world-building fucking with the story, as I see it. The former because the reason why he can’t help solve the One Ring problem is “writing myself out of a corner 101” (he can’t because he “doesn’t care” as a Tolkien-fan I know summed it up as). The latter because they are supposedly so mind numbingly powerful that Sauron isn’t even a threat to them, at which point the “problem of evil”-apologetic Tolkien subscribed to comes into it. That is to say that the Istari (angels) intervening in human affairs would be a misuse of power and would have dire consequences.

And, fine, if it was just Gandalf that was an Istari playing part in this story, I could buy it. But Saruman is an Istari too and one that has already overstepped his boundaries as “guides” for humanity (and elves and dwarves, I guess) by ruling Isengard. And further overstepped his boundaries as he begins to cooperate and compete with Sauron.

It makes no sense to me why Saruman, which is supposedly exceedingly more powerful than Sauron, holds back. He already decided to take his own course apart from his given role, so why not? And this is apart from me thinking that it is really fucking stupid to have so powerful being in the world and story to begin with.

Luckily Peter Jackson and his team saw this tiny, winy flaw at the size of a small country and 1) cut out the 2 chapters or so wasted on Tom Bombadil, and 2) made the Istari less powerful than Sauron. Heck, Gandalf even says he isn’t as powerful as the Witch-King of Angmar, whom is a mortal man with a Ring of Power and slave to Sauron.

Don’t get me wrong, I love world building. I consider it so important that I will rate a stale, shallow game (Morrowind) higher than a game that has actually a resemblance of enjoyable gameplay (Oblivion). But that means good world-building. A work that (mostly, until it turned into an idiot-plot and the world collapsed in on itself towards the end) does have a lot of good world-building is the Lies of Locke Lamora. Even though a lot of that work is just building the world, it was actually interesting to read. I don’t consider Tolkien’s world to be interesting or good. Written meticulously and with extreme dedication, sure, but spending a lot of time and effort on something does not automatically improve something.

The other flaw, besides that I really hate the way Tolkien built and handled his world, is his writing style. Grammatically good and all of that, sure. Still boring as fucking hell, because I don’t have a fetish about how the landscape looks. If you cut out all but the necessary descriptions, I have to wonder how long his writings would actually be. Pretty sure you could cut LotR in half.

Third major flaw is pacing. There is building up to a story and then there is wasting my time. LotR in particular is in the latter category. If Tolkien spent less time on the descriptions and more on, say, exploring the characters and their relationships with one another, maybe I would like it more.

In short, I think that Tolkien is one of the most overrated authors in human history. And that is the last I am going to waste on that for the time being.