What do you think of criticism of Tolkien that there isn't a 'realness' to his work?

ASOIAF fan that criticized Tolkien because of the lack of 'realness' in his works.

Eh, both gloss over how some things would function, the bloody scale distance wise between everywhere in ASoIaF... SUre maybe GRRM did better in this regard than Tolkien although from a purely creative standpoint I'd argue what the goals are but that isn't necessarily the point

Tolkien for his lack of feminism in his work

Meh, I have an incredibly low opinion of most peoples morality & politics, generally in my experience people fail at following through with the logical ends of the moralities they espouse at any given point in time, sure maybe they're just doing they're best.

Oh but wait, maybe Hitler was doing his best, maybe only from a very neurotic standpoint with morals utterly incompatible with most peoples, but frankly people are limited, terribly so, & whilst comparing anyone to Hitler might seem terrible, well everyone is terrible, congratulations you (probably [aren't openly]) a (torturous &) genocidal megalomaniac, do you really think that alone makes you a moral person?

So on another note maybe some people are worse than others even if noones perfect, but frankly is it a moral failing of someone if they don't see something beyond the religious/cultural/etc way of doing things? If they're education & imagination does not extend in any given particular way someone is doomed to miss something. Might not be on the same scale, bu frankly a lot malice is often argued to come from a standpoint of ignorance, misunderstanding, or other incompatibilities.

It's silly to go measuring everyone by the same yardstick. I'll do it anyway & think we're all monsters, some more than others, but I still despise how any given human being is so hopelessly limited.

Those are the immature arguments I would give to such insultingly versimple questions; if someone isn't going to try & refute their own standpoint (or if they tried & still failed so completely), then I'm not going to waste my energy trying to educate them.

People rarely are convinced they're wrong, people tend to get fanatical.

Move on, dealing with fandom wars is silly. I'll like both authors & their works thank you very much.

/r/tolkienfans Thread