As has been said one would suggest that there would be far more of an influence from Conanesque Sword and Sorcery and Lovecraftianism than IOTL. Possibly with the wo blurring together to form a world of swordsmen fighting eldritch horros to little avail. I think the fairytale stories would still exist, but without Tolkien they won't become codified into high fantasy and thus, I think, will be far less popular. Fantasy will certainly be a lot bleaker... perhaps OTL's "Grimdark" movement will be replaced with something propagating happier stories with the potential to end on a positive note...
JRR Tolkien dies in WW1. What does the fantasy genre look like today?
- Thread starter Victor Hatherley
- Start date
Not that different. Once read that Tolkien just poached in Central European & Scandinavian folklore and diced them together. Without him it is not unreasonable to assume that the same things are taken up by someone else.
Did he? I thought it was his encounter with Tolkein in 1926 that drive him back to xianity. Without that he might have remained an atheist.
Driftless
Donor
Good point on Alexander's works in total. They are aimed at adolescents, but there's an extra depth of character for many of his tales.
"It would be less serious and well-regarded. It was good for the genre to have an Oxford professor of his caliber as a 'founding father'. Expectt less academic rigor and less obsession with linguistics!"
I really think this nails it.
Now if the "serious person does fantasy but not Tolkien" scenario happens, you would have had Churchill or Sartre become the founders of the fantasy genre, but not done as much in their IOTL careers. Tolkien himself would have been better known for his academic and philosophic works. All this would have had massive butterflies.
But remove Tolkien and not replace him, no fantasy stuff. Also, sci-fi, the cousin of fantasy, probably doesn't survive any early loss of Asimov.
I really think this nails it.
Now if the "serious person does fantasy but not Tolkien" scenario happens, you would have had Churchill or Sartre become the founders of the fantasy genre, but not done as much in their IOTL careers. Tolkien himself would have been better known for his academic and philosophic works. All this would have had massive butterflies.
But remove Tolkien and not replace him, no fantasy stuff. Also, sci-fi, the cousin of fantasy, probably doesn't survive any early loss of Asimov.
Sorry, but that is like saying that without Tolstoy there would have been no Russian literature.
F. Anstey, E. Nesbit, Frank Baum, Lovecraft, Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Ernest Bramah, Dunsany. Branch Cabell, John Collier were all already publishing (several in fact had completed their careers and died) before Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and Lloyd Alexander more or less contemporaneously. Tolkien was accessible and created a monumental fictional universe, but he was neither the only talented nor the most imaginative fantasy writer. The same with Asimov -possibly the most accessible SF writer but nowhere near the best or the most imaginative -what about Poul Anderson, Clifford Simak, Robert Silverberg, Henry Kuttner, C.M. Kornbluth, Katharine Maclean, John Wyndham, Olaf Stapledon?
I am not sure that he was ever a full-blown atheist, just very heavily riven with doubt in the early 1920s. Agree that Tolkien's influence was a major reaffirmation of his early faith and helped him back to belief but Lewis was a man very strongly influenced by Christianity with a strong nuanced understanding/appreciation of the same. I suspect that even without Tolkien, he would have eventually returned to the fold. Probably we would be crediting Charles Williams, Stoddart Kennedy or Father Ronnie Knox instead of Tolkien but Lewis was a man who wanted to believe and insightful enough not to accept Communism or Fascism as a substitute faith.
It's been a while since I read a bio of Lewis (whom I don't particularly like and consider a rather misogynistic and grossly overrated author) but I thought he'd fully embraced atheism around 1913 though he may simply have abandoned theism rather than actively dismissed it.
A while for me too, but I recall that he said that Tolkien had helped him to hold on to faith. It certainly wasn't a conversion, Tolkien was RC and Lewis remained an Anglican. I suspect that he drifted into agnosticism rather a full blown atheism
Another impulse for fantasy would be Henry Rider Haggard - while much of his work is settled in the "colonial" universe, there are fantasy elements - including priests, rituals,,
Two that come to my mind are Eric Brighteyes and Cleopatra
Don't forget the "gothic" novels from Frankenstein to Dracula, or Walpoles Castle of Otranto
There were roots for fatasy well before tolkien (not to Mention the Artus legend, the Fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, even Robin Hood,
)
Two that come to my mind are Eric Brighteyes and Cleopatra
Don't forget the "gothic" novels from Frankenstein to Dracula, or Walpoles Castle of Otranto
There were roots for fatasy well before tolkien (not to Mention the Artus legend, the Fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, even Robin Hood,
)
and Ayesha
with all these in mind, i'd guess that, without Tolkien (and possibly Lewis) that maybe fantasy would be more "grounded", taking place more on Earth--if still in fictional locations--than in separate worlds, or if not then it'd be clarified that they're supposed to be the distant past of our Earth like the Conan stories. i imagine that, eventually, it would move to other planets as well a la Burroughs and Lovecraft, which would blur the line between fantasy and sci-fi
NapoleonCorinII
Banned
White influence on the chronicles was lewis' religion, which was their because of Tolkien, so probally no.
I would like to think of a world where Lewis's narnia is more popular than the hobbit.
Did Lewis ever share any of Tolkien's disdain of Disney's cinematic retellings of the old fairy tales?
NapoleonCorinII
Banned
Yes, Or at least I believe so, he was somewhat against tv, when a kid asked if they would make a narnia movie he said no and basically ranted about why.
Definitely, SHE is an excellent fantasy characterand Ayesha
with all these in mind, i'd guess that, without Tolkien (and possibly Lewis) that maybe fantasy would be more "grounded", taking place more on Earth--if still in fictional locations--than in separate worlds, or if not then it'd be clarified that they're supposed to be the distant past of our Earth like the Conan stories. i imagine that, eventually, it would move to other planets as well a la Burroughs and Lovecraft, which would blur the line between fantasy and sci-fi
Very likely, though Lewis was definitely on the High Church end of the Anglican spectrum, almost an Anglo-Catholic.
One big impact might be a much smaller emphasis on World Building - while we had settings ranging from Barsoom to Hyperboria to Narnia, none of them were fleshed out with the almost insane level of attention to detail that Middle Earth was.
cpip
Gone Fishin'
He was a battalion signals officer with the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers, at the Battle of the Somme in July of 1916. He absolutely could've died there.
For specifics I'd suggest Garth's book. Certainly Tolkien could have been killed at Ovillers on 14JUL1916, many of his battalion died during the attack when they found the barbed wire hadn't been destroyed by the artillery bombardment Plenty of opportunity during those three days for him to die. In October he was hospitalised with"trench fever" which continued to plague him throughout the remainder of the war.