Review: Disappointing Middle-Earth RPG tie-in novel
Craig Clark
J.R.R. Tolkien's _The Lord of the Rings_ is the second
`Middle-Earth' novel to be published under license to
GameQuest Inc., creators of the ever-popular _Realms of
Middle-Earth_ fantasy role-playing game system. Enthusiasts of
the game, many of whom were somewhat disappointed by the first
novel, _The Hobbit_, have awaited this long-touted `sequel'
with some anticipation: but unfortunately, _The Lord of the
Rings_ proves not to have been worth the wait.
For one thing, someone should point out to Tolkien that in
`series' novels of this type, readers get to enjoy a
particular cast of characters, and want to read more of their
adventures. Those who enjoyed Bilbo Baggins in the first book
will be disappointed early on: the titular hero of _The
Hobbit_ disappears out of the story about half-way through the
first chapter, and while he does make the occasional
appearance thereafter, he is in no way the hero of this one.
Nor are any of his dwarf companions from _The Hobbit_ much in
evidence: Gloin does make a brief appearance, but also not for
long, and in any case Gloin was never a particularly
interesting character in the first novel (where the adventure
party consisted of altogether too many dwarves, most of whom
were indistinguishable from one another).
The only characters who do provide any continuity between the
two novels are the slimy subterranean Gollum (whose character
has here undergone a major transformation); the half-elven
loremaster Elrond, as extraneous to this novel as he was to
the first; and Gandalf, the wizard who was mostly absent
throughout _The Hobbit_, and whose character is one of the
major faults of _The Lord of the Rings_.
Tolkien just doesn't seem to understand how characters
generated by a role-playing game system work, particularly
wizards. Gandalf has at his disposal precious few of the
spells detailed in the _Realms of Middle-Earth_ `Thaumaturge's
Tome'. Count them: he has two First-Level Wizard spells - a
Make Magic Fire spell, and a Strike Evil Forces With White
Lightning spell (both of which he uses twice - the only time
spells are used more than once); and two Second-Level Wizard
spells: a Reveal Secret Doors spell, and a Bind Great Horses
To Your Service spell. That's it: the sole sum of his magic,
it would appear. In particular, just about anyone who's ever
played a _Realms of Middle-Earth_ game will hope that Gandalf
has an Immunity From Corruption By Evil Magic Items spell,
particularly since that would make the plot so much simpler.
The story-line concerns the discovery that the magic ring
found by Bilbo in _The Hobbit_, and now belonging to his
cousin Frodo, is actually incredibly corrupt, and that it must
be destroyed before the Dark Lord Sauron gets hold of it. If
only Tolkien had read through the list of spells contained in
the `Thaumaturge's Tome', he could have given the ring to
Gandalf to destroy then and there, and thus spared us much of
the interminable plot which follows.
Hope in fact does flicker that Gandalf will learn a few useful
Third-Level spells when, a few chapters into the book, he sets
off to meet with Saruman, head of the order of wizards:
unfortunately, this turns out not to be the case. In fact,
Gandalf discovers that Saruman has turned traitor, and is held
captive by him; which raises another problem. Enthusiasts of
the role-playing game would be forgiven for thinking that
Gandalf was a Second-Level Wizard, just out of his
apprenticeship, but no: with blatant disregard for the rules
of the role-playing game, Tolkien expects us to believe that
Gandalf is not only a member of the White Council, but
ultimately a more powerful wizard than Saruman.
Unfortunately, this kind of silliness is compelled by
Tolkien's plot, which has been plagiarised, almost incident by
incident, from that masterpiece of modern fantasy, _The Blade
of Bannara_ by Jerry Crookes. In fact, the legions of Crookes
fans throughout the world will quickly be able to predict what
is going to happen on the next page of _The Lord of the
Rings_, because they've read it all before. The courageous
diminutive hero who flees his rustic home with his friends,
pursued by the servants of the Dark Lord; the enigmatic man
who helps them and who is revealed to be the heir to the long-
deserted throne of a great kingdom; the battle between the
wizard and an evil spirit of the underworld which ends in the
wizard's death (Gandalf is later resurrected, more powerful
than before - except, of course, in regard to the spells at
his disposal); even the sub-plot of the traitorous Saruman and
his downfall: all of these and many, many more are incidents
in _The Lord of the Rings_ which will provoke a feeling of
deja vu in readers of _The Blade of Bannara_.
There's nothing wrong with this, of course, if one is a writer
of the caliber of Jerry Crookes: unfortunately, Tolkien is
not. It is not only the conventions of the series novel, or of
the role-playing game tie-in, which Tolkien ignores: he writes
in total ignorance of the kind of thing which readers
throughout the world have come to expect from fantasy novels.
There are no voluptuous sword-maidens, for example. The only
two female characters of any note are an Elvish queen who
struggles valiantly against her desire for the magic ring; and
a gloomy mortal princess who falls chastely in love with the
King-to-be mortal hero, and then disappointingly weds someone
else. Though this latter character does get to trade blows
with an evil Wraith in the service of the Dark Lord, she does
so in drag, disguised as a male knight of Rohan: so there's no
real scope for descriptions of her nubile limbs and heaving
bosom during the battle. Adult fantasy fans will be profoundly
disappointed.
Tolkien also violates the cardinal rule of role-playing games
by dividing his adventure party, ultimately into three groups:
there's one that sets about the main quest, and two which go
off to sort out various complicated sets of business in the
kingdoms of Gondor and Rohan. Even so, it's mostly talk, and
not much sword-play: only three massed battles, and a couple
of skirmishes between the adventure party and various foes.
The shortage of magic has been noted already: how anyone could
hope to win a battle or skirmish without magic is not
explained. Instead of real excitement therefore we have a lot
of minor characters, and a whole lot of talk about the events
of a long-distant past; and lots of dull descriptions of
landscapes and characters' thoughts and feelings. To make
matters worse, Tolkien pads out the considerable length of the
book with extensive appendices. These are not even appendices
of the kind you could use to develop a good game scenario,
such as weapons statistics or encounter charts. Tolkien
supplies us with dull chronologies, and details of the
`languages' spoken by the different races of Middle-Earth. The
average _Realms of Middle-Earth_ ready-to-play scenario runs
to about one-tenth the length of Tolkien's appendices, and has
far more useful information.
Finally, there's little or no whacky humour, Jerry Cratchitt-
style. In fact, the novel is far too grim for anyone's taste,
and it ends on a depressingly down-beat note. The forces of
evil having been vanquished for the time being, readers have
come to expect their heroes to return to their homes to await
the next call to defend the world from the shadow of darkness
in the next book in the series. Instead of this venerable
convention, we have the hobbits returning to their native land
of the Shire, only to find that evil has sprouted there in
their absence. Absurdly enough, this evil resembles some of
the evils of our world (a nascent secret police, a remote and
autocratic bureaucracy, centralised and collectivised control
of the economy, a concentration camp system in its infancy) -
as if anyone wanted serious `social commentary' in a fantasy
novel! And even though they defeat this manifestation of evil
in a far-too-sombre penultimate chapter, Frodo is too
enervated by his struggle to be able to settle down and await
the next call to save the world. He and Gandalf (and the
Elves, whose powers are rather pointlessly `waning') depart
for some kind of Avalon across the seas where they can find
healing and rest from their labours. The only consolation in
any of this might be that we can expect no more dreary
sequels, but (judging by the end-papers of the book), Tolkien
has already got together a whole volume of `background
mythology' - expanding on those interminable appendices, no
doubt - which he's called _The Silmarillion_. Judging by that
title alone, I suspect a carbon copy of David Meddings' _The
Melgariad_ is coming our way.
A final note: the book is too long. There's so much good
fantasy out there that no-one's really going to want to wade
through a thousand-odd pages of this kind of second-rate
derivative stuff. It's hard to know who GameQuest Inc.,
thought would shell out money for this waste of good paper.
Fans of the _Realms of Middle-Earth_ game will find _The Lord
of the Rings_ too inconsistent with the role-playing system
they know and love, while those who don't know the game won't
be inspired to buy the rule-books. GameQuest Inc., if they
want this series to continue, should dump this Tolkien guy and
get one of the people who write for _WyvernSpear_ to do the
job instead.
Craig Clark
cl...@mtb.und.ac.za
Tony Zbaraschuk
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!
--
"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its
swiftness. I love that which they defend, the city of the Men of Numenor."
--- Faramir, _The Two Towers_
D. Beagley
--
********************************************************************
David Beagley * Learning Resource Centre
big...@bendigo.latrobe.edu.au * Latrobe University, Bendigo
* Victoria, Australia 3550
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"What!" Biggles exclaimed. "How am I going to get up there? I can't
fly higher than my Camel will go!"
Dermot
> Review: _The Lord of the Rings_ by J.R.R. Tolkien
>
Well done that man. As a role-player and Tolkien fan I found this 'review'
highly amusing. Just the sort of thing one often sees in the poorer class of
fanzine/magazine.
I'm just curious that no one took the bait and flamed the guy for such
'heretical' talk. Perhaps rec.arts.books.tolkien subscibers are more
intelligent than the average AOL'er? :)
Dermot
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kella
>I'm just curious that no one took the bait and flamed the guy for such
>'heretical' talk. Perhaps rec.arts.books.tolkien subscibers are more
>intelligent than the average AOL'er? :)
>
>Dermot
What good would that do? Obviously, the original poster took his message
Very Seriously. But am I going to be bothered that his opinion differs
from mine? I actually feel a little sorry for the guy-- he was so caught
up in the roleplaying aspects of LotR that he missed out on great
storytelling. I don't think I can force him to see the forest for the
trees. Of course, if the subject was eowyn/Nazgul, or Tom's age, things
_might_ get a little crispy.
regards
kella
Antti Rasinen
cl...@mtb.und.ac.za (Craig Clark) wrote:
> sequels, but (judging by the end-papers of the book), Tolkien
> has already got together a whole volume of `background
> mythology' - expanding on those interminable appendices, no
> doubt - which he's called _The Silmarillion_. Judging by that
> title alone, I suspect a carbon copy of David Meddings' _The
> Melgariad_ is coming our way.
Wonder, is it as bad as this book? When do we get a review of that
book?
RAMONA CLARK
: In article <clark.103...@mtb.und.ac.za>,
: cl...@mtb.und.ac.za (Craig Clark) wrote:
: >[long review of LotR deleted]
Is this a joke? More sex? Nubile maidens? Chop-battle-fight? "there's
not enough swords and sorcery"?
And on top of all this, JRRT was DEAD by the time _T_erry _B_rooks
wrote the _SWORD_ of _SHANNARA_, which is junk.
Enough said.
Ramona
Peter Payne
> Thank you for one of the best satires I have read in ages.
>
If it's a satire. I am suspicious...
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"If Frodo hung the Ring on a chain, why didn't the _chain_ turn
invisible?" -- O. Sharp (o...@netcom.com), from rec.arts.books.tolkien,
one of my favorite places to hang out on the net.
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David K. Wall
Did anyone save a copy of the original "review"? I missed it, and
it's no longer on my server. If you have it, could you mail me a copy?
(Now I'll probbaly get flooded with copies... oh, well)
------
David K. Wall dk...@nioshe2.em.cdc.gov, dar...@iac.net
"If art is communication, then Andy Warhol stutters." -- Me
My ramblings do not reflect official CDC/NIOSH policy.
David K. Wall
>D. Beagley <bea...@redgum.bendigo.latrobe.edu.au> wrote:
>
>> Thank you for one of the best satires I have read in ages.
>>
>
>If it's a satire. I am suspicious...
Hmmm. I tried to respond to this message, but never did see my response
appear here. Anyway, did anyone save a copy of this review? I was away for a
few days and missed it, and it's no longer even on my server. I hope I don't
get flooded with copies, but I guess that's better than not getting anything.
:-)
David K. Wall dk...@nioshe2.em.cdc.gov, dar...@iac.net
"If art is communication, then Andy Warhol stutters." -- Me
Non-NIOSH home page: http://www.iac.net/~darkon
DISCLAIMER: They told me to put a disclaimer here....