WoT pwns LotR

[trench]

I think this thread has gone a little far into left field if were now comparing apricots to oranges, we will never corectly determine if LotR pwns WoT. We must begin comparing Clementines to Honey Crisps (not the inferior Red Delicious) if were going to get anywhere.

[randsc]

You people are all insane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peaches rule.

[fikkie77]

You people are all insane.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peaches rule.

Peaches are poisonous in Randland...

[Elgee]

What Fikkie said. *nods*

[Mulk]

Correction to an above post: Arnor went to Isildur, Gondor to Anarion. :) Anarion died in the siege of Barad-dur in the Second Age and his son Meneldil became the next king. Isildur left to take up the High King-ship of his father, but never got there, being ambushed on his way home. The two kingdoms had little to do with each other until near the ending of Arnor. The last king of Arnor wed the daughter of the king of Gondor at the time, and he claimed the kingship of Gondor when that king died without a son. The Dunedain of the South refused the claim, opting in favor of Earnil, a war-captain who was also of the royal house and descended from an earlier king. Earnil's son Earnur was stupid and went to Minas Morgul to fight a duel with the Witch King, who now ruled that city, and was never heard from again, which is how Gondor wound up without a king. No one was left of clear royal line in the south, and the claim of the north line was forgotten.

 

The movies really gloss over that. It's not clear that the Gondorians (aside from Denethor) had any clue who Aragorn was in truth in the books.

 

Yes, I am a total LOTR nerd. I prefer LOTR, but WOT is good in its own right. If it seems to borrow, well, the "pattern" in Fellowship is a common pattern in fiction - the unassuming hero, the wise man to guide him, etc etc.

 

if we're talking fruit: bananas

 

if we're talking pies: chocolate cream

 

if we're talking dessert: cheesecake. Or maybe oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

 

:D

[Beidomon]

In my humble opinion, WoT is way better than LoTR. I mean, really, just 3 lousy books? WoT has 14 (16 if AMoL is split into an additional 3 volumes)!! Tolkien should have added at least 3 or 4 books in the middle where nothing really happens except for a lot of awesome dialogue. Also, there were far too few women characters in LoTR, and there was not nearly enough bickering between said women. Again, several books just devoted to women bickering about plots that would ultimately amount to nothing would have greatly improved "the greatest fantasy series ever written." Sadly, I cannot describe a single one of Arwen's dresses, nor do I recall her ever smoothing them, or her being spanked. Speaking of characters, there jsut weren't enough characters in LoTR in general. I was never once confused by hundreds of minor characters with similar names. Where's the fun in that? And don't get me started with pacing! Everything just felt very rushed in LoTR. Like when Frodo was captured by the orcs. I mean, come on! He was free again in, what 2 chapters?! Could have easily stretched that captivity through at least 4 books.

[Krakalakachkn]

I sense sarcasm

[randsc]

In my humble opinion, WoT is way better than LoTR. I mean, really, just 3 lousy books? WoT has 14 (16 if AMoL is split into an additional 3 volumes)!! Tolkien should have added at least 3 or 4 books in the middle where nothing really happens except for a lot of awesome dialogue. Also, there were far too few women characters in LoTR, and there was not nearly enough bickering between said women. Again, several books just devoted to women bickering about plots that would ultimately amount to nothing would have greatly improved "the greatest fantasy series ever written." Sadly, I cannot describe a single one of Arwen's dresses, nor do I recall her ever smoothing them, or her being spanked. Speaking of characters, there jsut weren't enough characters in LoTR in general. I was never once confused by hundreds of minor characters with similar names. Where's the fun in that? And don't get me started with pacing! Everything just felt very rushed in LoTR. Like when Frodo was captured by the orcs. I mean, come on! He was free again in, what 2 chapters?! Could have easily stretched that captivity through at least 4 books.

 

This says it all, I think.

 

Rock and Roll may be great, but it doesn't "pwn" rhythm and blues, cause onacoounta there would never have been rock without blues.

[Mulk]

I sense sarcasm

 

I spell that sarCHasm now, because of the vast gulf between what is said and what is meant...

 

and that was Grand Canyon level SARCHASM

[Agelmar]

Did Adam throw away immortality for an orange? I think not.

 

As has been repeatedly mentioned, the Lord of the Rings and the Wheel of Time are so different as to be almost impossible to judge against each other. Tolkien managed to tell the biggest story that could ever be told in a beautiful manner in only three short books. It's not perfection, but it's damn close. The prose had a lyrical quality that the Wheel of Time cannot begin to match. It also essentially a genre--before the Lord of the Rings there was mythology and folklore, Tolkien took hammer to anvil and left fantasy.

 

The length of the Wheel of Time, on the other hand, allowed Jordan to touch on far more plot points and engage in more characterization. In my opinion, it benefits greatly from being almost entirely about humans. In most fantasy we wind up a very one-dimensional people.

[Evoke]

Looks like some at least know about the Hero Quest.

[Beidomon]

I sense sarcasm

 

Just poking a little fun. I actually kinda prefer WoT to LoTR in most respects, but I'm not so blind to WoT's faults that I'd ever say it "pwns" the grandaddy of em all.

[Krakalakachkn]

The 3 book aspect of LotR (actually 4 if you count the Hobbit, which happens to be my favorite of the series) actually works in its favor, in my opinion. The characters stay interesting, there's no needless scenes or dialogue, and you don't have 3-4 books that are akin to grinding out yet another dungeon to gain experience in [insert generic rpg here]. I also love the incredible mythology that Tolkien created, something Jordan didn't have to do because he never goes beyond a Creator and Dark One.

[Beidomon]

The 3 book aspect of LotR (actually 4 if you count the Hobbit, which happens to be my favorite of the series) actually works in its favor, in my opinion. The characters stay interesting, there's no needless scenes or dialogue, and you don't have 3-4 books that are akin to grinding out yet another dungeon to gain experience in [insert generic rpg here]. I also love the incredible mythology that Tolkien created, something Jordan didn't have to do because he never goes beyond a Creator and Dark One.

 

I don't recall LoTR have any deeper mythology than WoT. It's still good versus evil. Not sure whether this counts as mythology, but one of the aspects I enjoy the most about WoT is that it has such a deeply developed history. The turning of the Wheel, Age of Legends, Heroes of the Horn, Hawkwing's Empire, transformation of the Aiel, Traveling People, Old Tongue, etc. It's beautifully complex.

[Krakalakachkn]

Not in LotR specifically; he created a bunch of books that furthered the differing stories of middle earth and created a whole mythology and language. Taken as a whole, Tolkien's works in middle earth are far larger than the WoT

[htarcan]

Ok if we judge them by their lenght and pace, Lotr is more like a movie. It aims directly to the final. You know Tolkien intended to publish it as one book, but it was the publishers decision to seperate it to make it readable (They thought it wouldn't be read??).

 

While, WoT is like a tv series. The chain of events are set to allow the story and the characters to have more detail and each book has its own climax at the end. This form is quite similar to an episode of a tv show.

 

Lotr books don't have their own climax at their end. Actually they almost end like in the middle of a chapter. You have to check to make sure you don't have missing pages.

[Beidomon]

Ok if we judge them by their lenght and pace, Lotr is more like a movie. It aims directly to the final. You know Tolkien intended to publish it as one book, but it was the publishers decision to seperate it to make it readable (They thought it wouldn't be read??).

 

While, WoT is like a tv series. The chain of events are set to allow the story and the characters to have more detail and each book has its own climax at the end. This form is quite similar to an episode of a tv show.

 

Lotr books don't have their own climax at their end. Actually they almost end like in the middle of a chapter. You have to check to make sure you don't have missing pages.

 

And yet, LoTR worked well as three movies. By contrast, you cannot possibly translate WoT into one movie/TV season per book. Some books would be very difficult to pack into a single movie. Other books are so boring they would never be produced.

[moratcorlm]

LoTR worked well as three movies.

 

I'm not sure you're disagreeing with Master Hasan of Bolu, though. And even so, most of the "boring" books deal primarily with characterization, which is very limited in TV and movies in any case. Whole chapters would be simplified to a 20-second shot with a line of dialogue and a change of expression. In any case, I have no more desire to see WOT made into a visual production than I did LOTR.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

Did Adam throw away immortality for an orange? I think not.

 

 

we don't know. the hebrew words can't been that specifically translated ("p'ri etz-ha'gan" = "fruit of the tree of the garden," no apples mentioned, just a fruit of a tree that grew in the garden of eden) it could as easily have been a quince or an extinct species or anything else. but it was the knowledge that did him, and all the rest of us, in, so the fruit wasn't as relevant to genesis as it is to this thread.

 

the person who brought up honeycrisps had a point - they are, objectively, among the best 5 apple varieties available today. second to the winesap, i believe.

 

but still, oranges are better than apples.

 

and both tolkien and jordan wrote great, but flawed, books. i could go on, but it doesn't matter. i love them both. and, ok, i love apples. but oranges are better, and love is blind and stupid. something i think RJ knew better than JRR, actually. ah, there i am, going on. must stop now.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

btw, is there a recipe forum?

[capuga]

btw, is there a recipe forum?

 

There is a general discussion forum where you can talk about anything you want with fellow WoT fans.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

i was hoping for something more permanently devoted to recipes. . . so when i inadvertently threadjack something over into the fruit aisle, i'd have somewhere more appropriate to type. the threads move around too quickly for me to keep track of if i'm not on all week.

 

i guess i'll have to try to live with my own tangentiality.

[Jon Paul]

Not sure whether this counts as mythology, but one of the aspects I enjoy the most about WoT is that it has such a deeply developed history. The turning of the Wheel, Age of Legends, Heroes of the Horn, Hawkwing's Empire, transformation of the Aiel, Traveling People, Old Tongue, etc. It's beautifully complex.

 

Glorfindel > everything you just listed.

 

I don't actually think I need to list a point-for-point argument for why Tolkien's legendarium is much better developed. From the The Music of the Ainur to the War of the Ring is's non-stop epic. And lets be honest the Old Tongue is basically a few phrases strewn out across 13 books. It doesn't touch on Tolkien's Elvish languages.

[Evoke]

What I don't understand though is how you state that the Wheel of Time gets long winded in descriptions while Lord of the Rings is a nice short, three book story. If there is one thing that Tolkien does it's descriptions. Of Everything. I don't care about that boulder they walked by before crossing the stream! Frodo was hardly out of the Shire before I gave up. The Hobbit was almost as bad but bearable.

[Jillain Sanche]

There is no question that Jordan was a fan of Tolkien; he does now and then insert the little tribute reference to Middle-earth into Randland.

 

Tolkien was The Master of the genre, but Jordan is also A Master of fantasy. I have been reading fantasy since I was 8 (or 4, if you count Greek mythology), and have been a life-long Tolkien fan since then, and Jordan is the first of I don't know how many fantasy authors I have read over the decades whom I appreciate anywhere near as much. And I know that both these authors will give me so many more years of reading pleasure.

 

Both authors mined the treasure hoards of ancient mythologies, maybe more the Norse mythos in both cases though I believe Jordan more widely sampled concepts and references from myths around the world.

 

Tolkien was the only author to create a world in which his invented languages would live with cultural and historical backgrounds.

 

Jordan is the only fantasy author whose work is like a "War and Peace" for the grandest cast of characters in terms of sheer scale. I can remember most or all of the characters I have read in The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion and many more from HoMe.

But for WoT, I cannot yet do that. (But I must admit, I read LotR 43-44 times and I am only in my third reading of WoT.)