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Comment by npinsker | Hacker News Reader

I guess 'The Lord of the Rings' is a bad story then? After all it is exactly the kind of story this person is complaining about...

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It was a good story at the time; it created a genre and is indirectly responsible for many, many great works.

If it was created today, it’d be a generic high fantasy work.

LoTR's execution of the story is high quality though. There were fantasy stories before and after it, but most aren't remembered..

It would be generic high fantasy work maybe because it literally defined all the codes of this genre.

Blame everyone else who came after Tolkien.

That's exactly what GP is saying though?

There's a borges fake essay on exactly this topic: Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

No. One of the six things article complains about is repeating the same trick to death. Lord of the rings did not repeated the trick from other books, it created own.

It does not fit other points either. It does not uses meme humor. It does not allow you to ignore the story. It has individual human voice.

It does not fit the thing article is complaining about at all.

Can't remeber where I read it or if it's an original thought but reading lotr was like reading the main story, okay, but also sitting at the campfire and hearing about stories from before.

The whole book is as much about the fellowship's quest than the backstory of the whole world and that's what got me in when reading it. It's not about what's happening to our heroes but what happened to others before.

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