>>46245>Nobody said he invented fantasy, just that he influenced the whole genre.But he really didn't. In what way?
>The fixation on distinct fantasy races with their own cultures and languages was original to Tolkien. No it's fucking not. Of course every fantasy race has their own culture in every fantasy work. Look at the OZ series. Look at the books they say
<Tolkien stated in a letter to the novelist Naomi Mitchison that his orcs had been influenced by George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.[T 1] He explained that his word "orc" was "derived from Old English orc 'demon', but only because of its phonetic suitability",[T 1][17] and I'd say what was maybe new for him was he shifted the focus away from the traditional fantasy adventure format, where the hero, goes on journey, meets this strange creature, this magical character, etc. etc.(which The Hobbit fits more into that mold) and shifted the focus onto a large scale war. Like everyone says about the obvious WW2 allegory of LOTR.
>Elves and dwarves exist in earlier myth and fantasy but Tolkien was the one who spelled them with the v instead of the f and almost all contemporary elves and dwarves take more after Tolkien's races than mythical/fairytale creatures.<Minor spelling changeI wouldn't say that at all. His dwarves and orcs fit neatly with all previous portrayals and descriptions for the most part. And once again how silly it is to try and claim he has the trademark for what he tweaked from popular folklore and mythology.
And top of all that, not all fantasies are Tolkien inspired. There's a lot of fantasy out there. I won't repeat myself again but I hate this shallow media literacy that leads people to make grand sweeping statements about a genre they really know nothing about. Yeah it seems that way to you that the Beatles or Tolkien were completely original artists and all artists after them are copycats of them specifically, but if you had some media literacy you'd understand what work came out before them and at the same time as them, they were inspired by their peers, people today maybe more inspired by one of their contemporaries than them, but their work may share simila
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