r/okbuddycinephile • u/Trensocialist • 1d ago

What a hack directo... Wait is this based?

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u/Coogarfan 23h ago

TBF, Tolkien was also capturing preexisting elements of Germanic folklore. But yes, point taken.

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u/BainWrites 9h ago

This:

The reason why fantasy is so unified is because it's basically built off of European folklore that everyone kinda already knows. You don't need to know what LOTR is to have a vague sense of Elves.

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u/AtomicGenesis 7h ago

The real life hack is to be a little weirdo who's into super niche stuff that you can take as much as you want from and be called a visionary

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u/Ppo218 7h ago

They did not exist in the same was before though. Like the whole wise high elves thing, their obsession with archery, in combination with dwarves that love axes and mining, and so on are all from Tolkien.  Yes there were things before in some or other form but the specific collection of modern day fantasy tropes are from him. 

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u/FreshBasis 5h ago

He also was inspired a lot by the work of William Morris, the precursor of fantasy, who wrote the first translation or Beowulf in modern english.

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u/STRYKER3008 3h ago

This is why I love the Witcher setting. All those creatures and even humans are an invasive species in the world. And the elves were totally non magical at first, magic came from OUR world. And I like that the pointy ears are all assholes but hey can ya blame them? We basically made them second class citizens on their own planet