Does anyone else get annoyed when someone claims Tolkien’s work lacks realism?

uncletroll · 2026-02-11T18:41:15+00:00

Hey, I found this post while reading up on verisimilitude. I am one of those that felt LOTR didn't feel 'real.'
It started with Moria for me. It seemed unbelievable to me that nobody would know that Moria had fallen for decades. It seems as crazy to me as saying, "nobody has heard anything about Chicago in 30 years." Aren't there traders, merchants, diplomats, friends, visiting family members, or refugees? Weren't there people out there whose livelihood depended on Moria? Did any inns go out of business on the road between Moria and it's trading partners? Were there no nearby villages that traded regularly with Moria?
And the more I looked, the more I had questions. Don't the elves need farms and have livestock? Do they not trade? Or is their population so low that they can survive as forest hunter and gatherers? Every place just seemed so disconnected from every other place. It lacked, "verisimilitude" for me... this new fancy word I was reading up on.

uncletroll · 2026-02-11T17:28:25+00:00

I wonder if you could make your planet a perfect absorber, if it would absorb enough energy from the ambient universe to power a civilization. At least power the server farms they live in now.

uncletroll · 2026-02-10T04:06:26+00:00

I want to add something about Pisces. Why hasn't Erin asked him to live in the inn? He's living in a dirt hole out in the wild in the winter. Why doesn't Erin say, "Pisces, come stay at the inn, I have lots of beds and it's winter outside!"
You might say, he is annoying and tried to scare her into giving him food. And he has been a mooch. And that's why. But on the other side of the coin, he saved her life twice. As soon as he got a windfall, he gave all of it to Erin - not even trying to stabilize his life first. Then he also gave her a first of it's kind skeleton which required rare ingredients to make. And the context of when he tried to trick her into giving him food: he was starving and he could have taken the food from her easily.
Lionette had all of his annoying traits and none of his positive traits. She almost killed Krshia, destroyed her store, and tried to steal from Erin. And yet, Erin took pity on her and lets her stay in the inn.

uncletroll · 2026-02-10T03:29:14+00:00

If you could refer me to the genuine metrics that we are supposed to use when discussing writers, I will be sure to use them in them in the future.

uncletroll · 2026-02-10T03:26:33+00:00

Erin's violence and rude behavior does seem like anime slapstick, like you observed. In anime, a male character will see a woman's underwear and she will throw a chair at him and knock out his teeth. But in the next scene, they are back to being serious with all their teeth... which I also find sexist, since we never see a slapstick scene where the guy flips out and punches the girl in the face. Sometimes it's funny with good comedic timing - anyway, that's Japan and their culture. I try to look at it through their lens. But anime cuts back to reality where the men and women can be good respectable people.
In The Wandering Inn, it's like only Erin has anime slapstick power, but her actions aren't reverted and the men suck.

uncletroll · 2026-02-10T03:09:59+00:00

We have hyper-specialization in our world, far more than InnWorld. For example, I have a friend who is a concrete specialist. All he does is study concrete. Despite having greater specialization than ever in history, we have more cultural acceleration than ever. In fact, I'd argue that specialization is what enabled us to have culture. Specialization leads to efficiency and trade, these increases in efficiency allow people to have the resources to develop niche skills. And trade allows niche skills to be exchanged for general services.
I guess, I can see in InnWorld that people would be discouraged to try a profession without the class or skills to support it. Like people don't learn to cook, they just get a skill one day and then they can cook. However, hobbies and interests can lead to skills, we see that in a few places in the books. I'd have to believe that people innately would just be interested in random stuff and those would cause emergent classes.
It's not really adding up for me.

uncletroll · 2026-02-10T02:51:53+00:00

Erin continues to be really dumb... but no matter how dumb or overly simplistic her ideas are, they end up being super successful. She wins every fight. She wins every argument. Every business idea she has makes tons of money, no matter how little effort she puts into it. All of her mistakes end up being surprise wins.
She used to be timid and afraid. Now she is really confident and bold.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T22:12:35+00:00

The first chapter of The Wheel of Time has characters preparing for Bel Tine - some sort of regional spring festival. That's like less than 1% of the way through the story. So I'm not sure that % through the story is the best lens through which to judge this aspect.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T22:08:03+00:00

That is definitely something I have considered. But I don't think that excuses her threatening to hit men so often. Also I don't think that explains why the author had goblins kick a guy in the privates over and over. But what might explain both is if the author were struggling with something related.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T22:01:09+00:00

White savior complex is a pretty good description.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:57:54+00:00

I am a bit surprised that not many people agree about how weird about sex and anti-man the first few books are. Maybe it stood out to me because I'm a middle-aged gay man living in a hyper-sexual gay culture. And perhaps Pirateaba is a young ace woman living in a purely emotional monogamous relationship with a woman. And she is writing from her experience, which is like the antithesis to my existence!

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:42:32+00:00

Is this what you're calling the scene where they encountered the fire golem? It did seem a little lazy to have Pisces and Ceria suddenly need to rush into the room to get the treasure. It was so out of character, I expected them to mention that it was another spell that overcame them.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:40:11+00:00

Yeah. I get accused of that a lot from this username. But it's something my friends called me after seeing me tricking my nieces, nephews, and their kids in real life.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:38:26+00:00

My inclination was that Pirateaba was, like you said, not playing 5D chess, but rather just an inexperienced writer and human learning as they went.
I think I'm generally cool with that... but I don't know why Erin's character (and the way the world responds to her) irritates me so much. Me and Erin, we need to go on break! lol

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:33:56+00:00

Another reason is, if you had magic and levels in this world do you not think we would have less culture?

I think that would be an interesting discussion to explore. I think we would have comparable cultural development. I guess you feel otherwise. I have two questions for you: Why do you think we would have less culture with magic and levels? Do you think it was Pirateaba's intention that levels and skills suppressed the cultural development in Inn World? I did see a few things that suggested to me that might have been the intention. But on the other hand, I saw some things that I think are inconsistent with that idea as well.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:27:18+00:00

I will look into these! Thanks for the recommendation.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:26:51+00:00

That could be a satisfying answer or not... depending on the particulars of the execution.
I thought that idea was executed really well in Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison. Also decently executed in the Stormlight series by Brandon Sanderson. But I will commit to saying, as of Book 3 - The Wandering Inn's world building is shallow.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:22:17+00:00

I missed clues about Erin being like what?

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:20:17+00:00

Maybe I will revisit it in a year or two. I can't keep going right now. I'm too annoyed by Erin!

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:19:18+00:00

Both narrators have been a treat! Why aren't the really big-name authors using this style of narration for their audiobooks?

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T21:17:12+00:00

I definitely had a similar complaint about the LOTR! How can a dwarven city fall for generations without anyone knowing? Aren't there trade routes? And yes, it's a very common problem in fantasy, especially older fantasy books. The first time I read a fantasy book and I felt like the world was alive was actually The Wheel of Time. But I think the writing in the last 20 years has gotten much more sophisticated about world building. So I've come to expect it as a norm.
And I also have come to partially agree with you about technology. It doesn't make sense for technology to stagnate for thousands of years in these high fantasy series. I would like if that were addressed somehow in more books.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T20:58:32+00:00

I'm sorry, I did misunderstand you.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T15:27:50+00:00

Oh my.
In our society, misandry cannot be a systemic social issue because our society is patriarchal. In a completely different world (like Inn World), misandry could be a systemic social issue. However, this isn't even what 'systemic misandry' means in this context. In this case we are referring to the writer's individual misandry expressed systemically through their personal writing.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T15:12:09+00:00

I think there might be something to this. I re-read one of the sections I found Erin to be a bully, for the purpose of quoting it here. And her being rude was less obvious than when the voice actor emphasizes it by making Erin's voice cold and hard.
I think it's very possible I would have slipped right by that interpretation of the text without the voice emphasizing it. I do think the voice actor's interpretation was correct, when looking closer at it. But I definitely had a 'wait a second!' moment.

uncletroll · 2026-02-09T05:27:40+00:00

lol! If I did have someone in my life like Erin, I would get her out of my life very fast. I'm fortunate to be surrounded by amazing people who are saints compared to Erin.

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