In 2011 Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment will release The Lord of the Rings: War in the North, a co-operative action game set in Middle Earth. Here’s the trailer:
Looks cool, huh? I think so, but I also wonder if J.R.R. Tolkien would have approved. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably buy this and revel in all of its orc neck-slitting glory, but how much of this is in keeping with the author’s intent in writing The Lord of the Rings? Is this kind of ass-kicking ultra-violence a perversion of his vision? Does it matter?
I am at a loss to answer these questions as all of my Tolkien books are currently in storage, but I don’t recall Tolkien describing combat in graphic detail – although as a veteran he was undoubtedly familiar with its horrid reality. As a matter of fact, I don’t even remember there being a lot of fighting in the books; certainly not compared to the writings of a modern fantasy writer like, say, R.A. Salvatore. Am I remembering this right, readers? It has been about a decade since I read Tolkien’s trilogy, but I recall it as being more than just the swashbuckling adventure story War in the North appears to be.
How far can an artist deviate from his or her source material, in spirit or in fact, and still claim kinship with it? Is it acceptable to do so in the name of good entertainment? A game has certain requirements, the foremost of which is to keep the player’s attention. Constant action is a good way to do so, and even if the story that inspired the game isn’t jam-packed with action, one must make concessions to fulfill the needs of the player. Still, though, is this okay? Also, should a game or other derivative property be judged by the same merits by which one judges the original work that inspired it?
I don’t know very much about the game, but from what I’ve heard, and from what you’ve described, I don’t think this goes against the spirit of Tolkien’s original work too much, but nor does it embrace or enhance it. The closest we coe to this level of carnage in the books, I think, is in the Helm’s Deep sequences, and maybe in The Two Towers. Though it isn’t his focus, I think Tolkien accepted, tacitly at least, that the War of the Ring was a violent affair.
What WOULD signal a departure from Tolkien’s vision, I think, would be a shift in character development. If the heroes of the game are morally ambiguous, à la George R. R. Martin, or eager for violence for violence’s sake à la Richard K. Morgan characters. We could debate the relative merits of these types of characters in comparison to Tolkien, but they certainly aren’t what the author had in mind when crafting his work. So as long as the characters and overall themes of the world are intact, I don’t find the ultra-violence too incompatible, although as I said I don’t feel that it adds much to Tolkien’s world either.
The game looks like fun to me too. The ultra-violence isn’t an issue one way or the other, really, in so far as LOTR depicts pre-industrial war. Up-close, blood-soaked, whale on someone until they’re too damaged to fight. As you say, JRRT was familiar with this from his service, but more importantly (in some ways) is his knowledge of the various sagas and epics. He knew the reality of war; he just didn’t focus on the details of combat. So, different angle on the vision, but the same vision.
Some of the gymnastics in the fighting are over-the-top, even for elves, and it’s hard to tell from the angle whether the eagle-drop is plausible. All of those pale in comparison to the one big problem, though, and it’s been a problem for basically every game associated with LOTR: the overuse of magic. In LOTR, you’ve got (1) a very, very small number of people who can wield honest-to-Eru magic, and they are all (2) immortals, or nearly so, not part of a party of three adventurers, and (3) using said magic is incredibly taxing. None of those appear to be the case here. One could argue about weapons, armor, etc. but there’s a great gulf between, say, Anduril/Narsil (Aragorn’s sword) as represented in the story and some sort of quasi-Dungeons & Dragons weapon with special attacks, etc., etc.
As to derivative art, my favorite answer to that was the one Charles M. Schulz when people asked him about the commercialization of Peanuts: the original material is still there, and it’s still good, and it’s unchanged.
Letter #202:
“Stanley U. &: I have agreed on our policy : Art or Cash. Either very profitable terms indeed ; or absolute author’s veto on objectionable features or alterations.”
Tolkien ended up choosing the “Cash” option, and thus Tolkien Enterprises is a Saul Zaentz company.
I think in terms of the integrity of his creation, he probably would have been rather horrified at the glorification of war*, the bastardization of his setting, and so on and so forth. But he made his bed and chose to lay in it.
* Mind you, the novels are of two minds regarding warfare.
War is war as a space to prove one’s courage, a place where a dwarf and an elf can make a game of slaughtering orcs, where one of the most triumphant passages in the entire series is, “And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City. ”
But it is also a necessary evil, where the innocent are killed, where men may fight for no reason they know but only because they are told to (as the poor Southron man whom Samwise wonders at). As Faramir articulated: “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend…”
I read THE HOBBIT and LOTR every year, a tradition that has been unbroken for over 15 years now. When I argue with people about the movies one of their defenses is: The books don’t have a lot of action, a movie needs more action. Not true at all. There are plenty of scenes that are fairly graphic: Legolas shooting an arrow straight through a wolf’s throat as it was in mid-air, Gimli hewing the legs off an orc that jumped on Balin’s tomb, etc. So a graphic game would not be too far a detachment.
But as for what Tolkien himself would have thought? As much as I worship the man, he was a real fuddy duddy. He vehemently resisted the publishing of his books in paperback form. It wasn’t until a fiasco in the 1960’s where someone in the US re-wrote THE HOBBIT, printed it in paperback, began selling copies on university campuses and the publisher had to sue and all that did he finally concede. While he was alive all paperback versions had to have a personal message from him printed on the back cover about that book being the legitimate copy (my dad’s old copies have this message).
So no, I don’t think he would approve of this game, he probably wouldn’t approve of video games in general. But he would have had a bigger cow over the movies and how each printing of the novels since the movies came out omits two paragraphs, one of which specifically explained why THE TWO TOWERS is titled The Two Towers. Tolkien’s real reason for the title conflicts with the movies’ explanation for the title.
I agree with Glover’s comment on the over use of magic. He says it well. But I disagree with him about the violence. Although Tolkien’s books have violence, he generally portrays it in a negative way. Most of the really important accomplishments are achieved with maneuvers that sidestep combat. Those solutions that do rely on combat end with mourn rather than revel. Overall, both LOTR and the Hobbit have strong anti-war messages. So, I think Tolkien would not approve due to both the magic and combat.
But is that wrong? I don’t think so. We have the books. This is not the first time his setting got flooded with magic wielding adventurers. And his estate does not seem to be objecting to this revision; they are allowing use of the name after all. I think the more interesting question is whether a game that does reflect Tolkien’s view of magic and violence could be made. And would it sell?
We have the books. This is not the first time his setting got flooded with magic wielding adventurers.