[HPforGrownups] Tolkien vs. Rowling

[Ealasaid A. Haas]

No: HPFGUIDX 32220

*Delurking for a bit to respond here*

luminary_extraordinaire wrote:
> 
> The Lord of the Rings is at its best in imagining Middle Earth--its
> wonderous places and encounters.  J.R.R. Tolkien is a master in
> inventing the magnificient epic world, its races and creatures, and
> the histories and languages of its inhabitants.  However,
> characterization is NOT a strong point of Tolkien. With very few
> exceptions, Tolkien's characters rarely grow. 

I would argue vehemently against this.

There are a number of examples, beginning with _The Hobbit_.  Bilbo
Baggins begins the movie as a respectable, stay-at-home hobbit.  He's
got a little Tookishness to him, but is nonetheless respectable (a very
important concept for hobbits).  He is fearful and when the quest is
thrust on him he is initially very unwilling to go.  

Once he is out in the world, however, he changes a great deal, moving
from fearful to courageous, plump and sedentary to quick and
adventurous, and it is, if memory serves, stated at the end that
although he lost the respectability he once had, he gained a great deal
to replace it.  By the time _Lord of the Rings_ takes place, he is an
outlandish character by hobbit standards, telling stories of his
adventures and so on.

Frodo, similarly, goes from being a fairly normal hobbit (although he's
a bit too fond of Bilbo to be completely normal <g>) to finding the
courage to set out with only Samwise as his companion to the heart of
Enemy territory.  He has no expectation of surviving, and indeed, when
he is, he is so damaged by the expedition that he cannot remain in the
Shire, which he loved beyond all measure in the beginning.

To sum up a few more points:

Gimli moves beyond his extreme bigotry through his association and later
friendship with Legolas.

Boromir realizes that the strength of Men is not everything, and regrets
his blindness to the importance of other kinds of strength than physical
when he is tempted by the ring.

Arwen (in the index, admittedly) repents of her decision to remain in
Middle Earth with Aragorn, and regrets choosing a mortal life.

And so on.  Much is left out, of course.  We do not see Sauruman's
transformation from the wise wizard he was to the foolish, corrupted
wizard he is in _Lord of the Rings_, for example, we only know that it
happened.  But I would strongly argue that there *is* a great deal of
character development in Tolkein, just not of the necessarily obvious
kind.  The development is often very subtle, as befits narratives
involving characters who can live for hundreds, if not thousands, of
years.

> Harry Potter books, on the other hand, are better in
> characterization. 

I would contest this as well.  Rowling's imagination and ability to
create a world are wonderful, and I adore her characters.  However, it
must be noted that she makes heavy use of stereotypes (e.g., the
Dursleys).  Stereotypes are a useful tool in storytelling - Terry
Pratchett makes very effective use of them in his Discworld books, more
often than not using them only to explode or lampoon them later - but I
do sometimes find it difficult to defend Rowling's characterization to
my Literature teacher mother (who, it should be noted, also likes the HP
books a great deal).

Rowling is improving a great deal - beginning with PoA and particularly
in GoF.  I am looking forward a LOT to the coming novels.

However, I would also like to point out that comparing Rowling and
Tolkein is like comparing apples and bananas - all they have in common
is that they are fantasy (or, to continue my simile, fruit).  The shape,
texture, overarching POINT, and even such basics as setting and tone and
rhythm, are *completely* different.  I suppose you could compare _The
Hobbit_, which is aimed at younger readers, to Rowling's work, but _Lord
of the Rings_ is a grand, sad work about the end of an age, and was born
out of Tolkein's experiences in WWI and his loss of his son to (I
believe) the Boer war, and then the outbreak of WWII, which seemed to
negate everything they had fought for. 

I adore LotR, but it is such a *sad* book that I cannot bear to read it
more than once every couple of years.  HP, on the other hand, is NOT sad
in that deep, helpless, bone-aching way.  GoF comes close at times,
particularly near the end, but there is always that sense of hope behind
it all - whereas in LotR, if you are LUCKY, you die quickly and knowing
that you have done something worthwhile.  If you are unlucky, you live -
like Frodo of the Nine Fingers, who fights to save the Shire but cannot
live there himself when all is done because he is too damaged.  He loses
everything - friends, home, family, health, and peace of mind - in order
to save the world.  But even so, he doesn't save it perfectly - the
Third Age is ending, the Elves are leaving, and Middle-Earth will
survive, but in a much less magical form, and there is *nothing* anyone
can do about that.

I fell in love with Harry Potter's story because I loved the idea of a
parallel world of magic and the concept that one could rise above one's
miserable surroundings to join it.  Well, and Professor Snape is EXACTLY
my favorite kind of character for this sort of thing.  Rowling's writing
made me keep turning the pages even when I knew I should be sleeping or
doing homework.  Even now, I can't reread the books right before bed
without keeping a *very* firm hand on myself or I just keep reading
until I hit the end of the book (or my eyes simply stop focussing).

I fell in love with Tolkein because of _The Hobbit_ - the characters
(Gandalf, Bilbo, the dwarves) and the way he weaves his stories and
draws you in with such an *obvious* love of language.  Tolkein's words
are beautiful in and of themselves.  He creates characters that ring
incredibly true to me.

It frustrates me to see the comparisons people draw between Tolkein and
Rowling; they are at once ludicrous and inescapable.  One might as well,
as I said, compare apples and bananas.

Ealasaid (whose mother read her _The Hobbit_ twice and _Lord of the
Rings_ once before she was even in Middle School)
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