The Lord of the Rings
Russian culture considers translated (I think) Shakespeare to surpass the original. We Israelis also had one of our more famous poets (Alterman) translate some Shakespeare but I'm not aware of the translation being considered a masterpiece on its own (personally it felt too archaic to appreciate). We have two translations of Lord of the Rings (Tolkien fans being one of the more picky bunches of book geeks here, I'll refer to it in depth.) The older one, by Lavnit, is considered more beautiful and poetic and flowing (my nick comes from it though I was never much of a Tolkien geek, just hung…
The Amazon Prime adaptation Rings of Power was an interesting (see: bad) case-study on what happens when you try to write Tolkien without him. It's perpetually insipid, like watching a puppet show try to adapt Shakespeare. So much is stripped off the bone that no story exists anymore, and all the characters and their motives blend into one another or aren't shown at all. > If Disney were to adapt The Lord of the Rings in 100 years to reflect new "lessons," I would be relieved to no longer be around to see it. What's funny is, these adaptations don't even do that. Peter Jackson's films are…
> unspoken "show-don't-tell" internal logic This is another axis separate or orthogonal to worldbuilding. Recent Marvel and Disney films, the Jurassic Park and Star Wars sequels, and most Godzilla / Kong slop doesn't build believable worlds. The writers don't spend any time writing the universe that the story takes place in. Lord of the Rings (the theatrical film trilogy), Game of Thrones (save for the last seasons), and Jurassic Park (1993) all build vast and credible worlds. Intricately detailed, living and breathing universes. Backstories, histories, technologies, warring factions, you…
Tolkien was initially critical of the Dutch translation of LOTR, complaining that many of the nonclemature were too localized to his original liking[0]. That said, from what I understand, Tolkien would later change his mind after the original Swedish translator took even more liberties, which provoked him enough to write an official translation style guide, and in retrospective light apparently the Dutch translation would mostly end up conforming to those guidelines. The entire thing is pretty curious given the fact that if you want to get down to it, the framing devices of Lord of the…
This is what the Game of Thrones TV show proved: overall the show should not be considered a masterpiece, even though the early seasons seemed good at the time, since the stories they were telling mostly led nowhere. Oh, for only you could provide that wonderful evidence of which you talk about -- that proof for the first half of this quote. If only you could enlighten us all, cast the drapes from our eyes, and elucidate what difference lies between the fact of merely hinting at plots, and having an ending written, versus having the plots written, but the ending languishing in…
I think you're using the term, masterpiece, too loosely. Martin's works are novels filled with stories, but there are not many interpretations of what he is describing. There are not layers upon layers of meaning, but instead, it simply is what it is, and there is little to no argument about what his words mean. J.R.R. Tolkien is a favorite of mine, but I would not talk about his writing skill, and what is fascinating about Tolkien has nothing to do with is writing but the world he created. I think Martin has similarities in this regard. But The Lord of the Rings has many interpretations. A…
> But I was, ironically, left with an impression that the Victorian era was more comfortable with male intimacy, and appreciation for male beauty, than our own. This might not be an entirely faulty perception. Wilde was, I think, aiming for plausible deniability. To hide the homoeroticism amidst the pretense of merely intense platonic love. Because in that time such expressions were often permissible. I've seen the theory phrased a few ways but here's one take. In sufficiently homophobic societies, the possibility that a man doing something we would perceive as homoerotic, is himself…
> but Tolkien was born in pre-war England where lifetime bachelors who weren't gay were a part of the usual society Suure those bachelors were all straight, there certainly weren't any gay ones who didn't dare to come out. Nothing to see here ;) IMO Sam & Frodo are at the very least intensely good friends, though I do have the strong impression that Sam is way more sacrificial than Frodo. Afair it's always Frodo who needs Sam to progress or save him - but Frodo's story doesn't have him do big efforts to accommodate/help Sam. It always felt a bit like a count to peasant relationship to me in…
| 'Here, spring was already busy about them; fronds pierced moss and mould, | larches were green-fingered, small flowers were opening in the turf, | birds were singing. Ithilean, garden of Gondor now desolate kept still | dishevelled dryad loveliness.' This is bad writing because of its use of cliches ('green-fingered' larches, for goodness sake); because of the way it lists facts ('birds were singing') with out really building up a picture, and because of its ham-fisted archaisms. It's one thing to use Latinate reversals when you describing a firey demon on a bridge ('a red…
> If being organized makes you feel good > If you are very OCD Please educate yourself, OCD is serious shit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive%E2%80%93compulsive_d... Some people with OCD literally starve to death, because they can't leave their house. Commonly you find those affected washing their hands repeatedly until they bleed... and then some more. It is absolute not a "what makes you feel good" kinda thing, it's a dysfunctional and irrational mental world model enforced by a crippling sense of doom, anxiety and shame, which will consume life (especially if "very OCD"). Most…