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From: MDP@SU-SCORE.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: SF-LOVERS Digest   V8 #17
Message-ID: <3333@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Jul-83 04:02:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.3333
Posted: Fri Jul 22 04:02:38 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Jul-83 18:53:31 EDT
Lines: 41

From:  Mike Peeler 

Dear /amqueue (Anne Marie Quint),

    Hold your horses!  Myths always borrow from the existing
body of mythology.  This was the central theme of a course
on Tolkien I took, so it must be true, right?  Seriously,
all folk tales draw from a similar repertoire of characters
and plots--you might like to look up one of the books we
used, titled The Morphology of the Folk Tale.  Think about
it.  Shakespeare did not exactly come up with the story of
Romeo and Juliet all by himself--we appreciate him for his
craftsmanship, not for his originality.  I would not say
that parallels between the works of different authors is a
sure sign of evil.  When I read Donaldson, I had fears that
it would be a cheap rip-off of Tolkien, but I soon felt
these fears had been allayed.

    To get more particular:  I do see the parallel between
the Ranyhyn and the Ramen, although the former are the
beasts and the latter the riders.  Were they stolen, er,
borrowed?  I'd say, yes, probably.  If borrowing like this
occurred throughout the work, I'd call it damning.  So what
about the ravers and the balrogs?  Well, gee, aren't the
balrogs just like a lot of other fairy tale demons?  Sauron
has the Palantir, and can keep track of the Ring like Foul
kept track of Covenant through his boots--and TV cops have
electronic tracking devices.  It is not as if these ideas
were so original that Tolkien can be thought of as having
exclusive rights on them in any sense.  As for "orcrest",
Donaldson's word for Earthstone, being taken directly from
"orc", the word for "heart" in Quenya, the language of the
High Elves, I have my doubts.  I had always understood it as
"or-crest", "or" being a romantic-tongue root for gold.

    I think I still have a book on Elvish lying around in my
closet.  If you like, I can go look up the title for you.

					Cheers,
					Mike
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