[ SECRET POST #2980 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2980 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Lots of multiple secrets in one comment this week, throwing off the count!

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 083 secrets from Secret Submission Post #426.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Your Favorite Worldbuilding; Your Own Worldbuilding

[(Anonymous)]

I think you have a failure of imagination then. I'm sure that Tolkien certainly could've put in details like that if he had wanted to and made them interesting. I believe that Tolkien created exactly as much of a world as he needed for the stories he was telling and that's all you really need for worldbuilding. BUT, Tolkien went beyond that too. If you look at all the external stuff that's available, he does have answers to questions that aren't in the main books (because they're unnecessary in the books but they just seemed to interest him).

But, with regards to story, I feel like some of the questions raised aren't just purely an exercise in curiosity. Like, I don't know if I can buy that the Mirkwood Elves are the largest population of Elves but they don't farm or produce anything of their own. That's what it says in the book. So, are they really able to get enough food just through hunting? And if they don't produce anything, how can they pay for food to come in? A question like this can be jarring when considering the realism of the rest of the world -- the tone of the book. Another example, if the Dwarves must import all their own food, then Thorin's decisions regarding Bard and the debate at the gate could have disastrous consequences for the future of his people if Dale would end up providing such a crucial element for Dwarvish existence. That could impact how you read Thorin's character and understand the conflict that's going on.

Worldbuilding is often in the background. For instance, in LOTR, Tolkien only hints at the vast history that he set out in the Silmarillion. But you feel the weight of that history and that makes the world feel real. In another kind of story, knowing how they farmed and used money wouldn't be as big a deal. But, in such a nitty-gritty world as Tolkien's -- who does account for trade in Gondor and the feeding of Mordor's armies -- it just begs questions for the parts he didn't get to.

Re: Your Favorite Worldbuilding; Your Own Worldbuilding

[cushlamochree]

Well there's a few different points here I guess.

First, I can imagine circumstances in which some of those questions would have interesting stories attached to them. But I can't imagine them being interesting in themselves, or a consistency between them mattering.

Second, I don't care about realism. I care about emotional realism, I guess, and things like that, but ultimately, I don't care about realism or whether Tolkien's world really could exist. And I think, in regards to your example, that the consequences are already so weighty and immediate in that situation that a more ground-level explication of the economic situation there doesn't actually add anything. We know that this is tremendously important for many reasons already. I know that's just an example, but in general, I don't find this kind of thing compelling.

Third, to the point about the weight of the history - I think that's compatible with my point. Because the existence of these legends, and of some kind of broader history, is important to Tolkien's literary aims and to the aesthetic of the work. But a detailed, comprehensive working-out of those legends, I would argue, is unimportant. It's not necessary for the legends to all make sense and leave no unanswered questions for them to do what they need to do. In the same way that I don't think the details of orc society add much to the story.

Of course, Tolkien did do quite a lot of worldbuilding. But to me much of that worldbuilding is fairly separate from the reasons that LotR is good.

Re: Your Favorite Worldbuilding; Your Own Worldbuilding

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, I don't think you have any understanding of world building at all then. Every detail Tolkien adds brings weight and beauty to his work. It adds to the characters and the plot. The world building is crucial to his story. You can't separate it out. Aragorn wouldn't be the strong character he is without the world building of his Numenorean ancestry and all that entails for him. Gondor wouldn't be in such dire straights without the world building of its long slow decline.

When I talk about realism, I mean that for Tolkien's world, realism is a big selling part for him. For Harry Potter, for instance, I would not expect such details because Rowling's world is kind of a mess and doesn't feel like it could really sustain itself. It might have your "emotional realism" but it's not a "real" world and that's fine. But Tolkien was going for a history. He originally intended his world would be the mythology for England. So, when something happens that's counter to that (like the Mirkwood Elves), it throws me out of the story. Putting it back in line with the rest of his works makes it less jarring.

I don't personally need all the extra stuff. The thread asked what did you wish was included -- I like this extra stuff. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you need to shit on someone else's interests. I find that all these little details adds to the characters and helps enrich the story. You may not feel that it's necessary or that it couldn't be put in in a way that added something but I disagree. There are lots of details that are already in the books that you are clearly ignoring as uninteresting to you but that helped to set up the world that existed in the book and had an effect on how you viewed it, whether you realized it or not.

Re: Your Favorite Worldbuilding; Your Own Worldbuilding

[nyxelestia]

Anon, I'm absolutely with you on day-to-day matters being the best part of worldbuilding...but I don't think cushlamochree is 'shitting on' anything. Both mythical legends and down-to-earth details add depth to a story in different ways, it just depends on what you are reading a story for/what you look for in a story.

Re: Your Favorite Worldbuilding; Your Own Worldbuilding

[cushlamochree]

I do apologize if I'm coming off harsh; I don't mean to (and, reading back, I think my second post is where I think I might have failed in that, so sorry about that).

But I do think, for me, realism is not at all a selling point in Tolkien, and I don't think he is particularly realistic. Fascinating yes, realistic no. I think - just for me - that what adds to Aragorn's character is the basic weight of what Numenor was and what it represents, and the idea of a lost kingdom, and a long time in exile, more than the historical basis of it. And the more that you get down to the nitty-gritty, the more consistency you demand, the more and more you lose me. I'm not trying to shit on it, and I apologize if it came off that way.

But worldbuilding, and especially the idea of consistent, realistic worldbuilding, is a huge part of a lot of modern fantasy that honestly just really loses me.