JY vs JRR Tolkein

[LuNaR]

u know wat, we should have a time machine and go bak 50 years and hav jin yong wrestle tolkien in a wrestling match

[Allen D]

i just don't think it's right to compare Tolkiens characters with JY's characters. they're from 2 totally different universes.

[Yo Kang]

If this is a popularity contest. Tolkien would win. If you're comparing characters and stories, it's pretty hard to compare.

[Anonymous]

quote: i just don't think it's right to compare Tolkiens characters with JY's characters. they're from 2 totally different universes.
--- What!?! And you call yourself the "Sword Demon"? [j/k] How can we ever believe your 9th stance in DG9J (not to mention DG9J invincible!)?
.
Actually, I believe anything can be convertable, it just needs a good logical balance. (Tolkien's "Suspension of Disbelief" aka internal logical consistency)

[Lady Riddel]

I'm all for the wrestling contest! my money is on JY. He can probably use some of his kungfu knowledge to take Tolkein down. Let's see Tolkein try to use his magical knowledge to take down JY.

[Ardor]

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm?http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/b/balrogs.html

educate yourself. TOM BOMBADIL IS NOT MAIAR!!!!!! Tom Bombadil is an enigma.

and JY already won, tolkien died when he is 81 years old, JY outlived him.

[James Ko]

Originally posted by DuGu Qiu Bai
i just don't think it's right to compare Tolkiens characters with JY's characters. they're from 2 totally different universes.

I agree plus they both have different style and imagination... one take real history and adapt to the story... one take imagination and try to make history with it.

[Ken Cheng]

I would argue that Jin Yong's popularity and influence on Asian popular culture is just as profound as Tolkien's is upon the West. Tolkien merely has the advantage of having been a product of the West. For the past century, Western ideas have flooded into Asia while Asian ideas have only trickled into the West. The difference lies not in the quality of the two writers, but in the influence of their respective societies upon each other.

[sixdays]

i'd even venture to say that JY had an even greater impact, especially in hong kong. even though i moved to america when i was two, i was so involved in JY culture that as a little boy, i thought they were actually chinese legends. in any conversation on tv, people can randomly reference JY and most people will understand...say, if there was a situation where somebody suddenly won the lottery. the other guy would say, "wow, that's better than falling off a cliff and finding the 9yang" and everyone would know what he was talking about. it would be a bit nerdy, but still...

you can do the same thing with LOTR now, in that anyone can say "my precious" or "the ring", or "one ---- to rule them all" and people will understand. but was that because of the books? largely, no. it was because of peter jackson and his movies...in fact, most people don't know that arwen was only a side story in the trilogy, and not part of the actual 3 books. until the movies came out, i can say (as someone who grew up in california) that LOTR did not impact my life at all, and wasn't part of everyday speech. JY, on the other hand, was and IS the best storyteller in china, hong kong, and taiwan...the only other one that comes close is Gu Long, and beyond shiao li fei dao and "the duel" with andy lau & ekin, most people are lost.

JY (along with ROTK) is the literary voice of chinese CULTURE. the voice of AMERICAN culture, on the other hand...

GI Joe?

[TigerWong]

Originally posted by Ardor
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm?http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/b/balrogs.html

educate yourself. TOM BOMBADIL IS NOT MAIAR!!!!!! Tom Bombadil is an enigma.

and JY already won, tolkien died when he is 81 years old, JY outlived him.

Umm, I wouldn't go so far as to scream that Tom Bombadil is definitely not Maiar. The fact is no one really knows what he is, but many Tolkien experts believe he is Maiar. And I have heard the arguments on BOTH sides, including the ones found on that website you pointed out. Personally, the Maiar explanation makes the most sense for me. What you choose to believe is up to you, because it was never stated outright.

[Anonymous]

You gys sucks! No concrete evidence. Here's what the experts REALLY say about TomBombadil. hahaha.
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http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/theories/bombadil.htm
.
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Here's the main site:
http://flyingmoose.org/tolksarc/tolksarc.htm

[Ardor]

A dragon can fight and defeat an army, but Jin Yong fighters cannot. However dragons are weak in defence, 1 arrow can kill them if hit on the right spot and Smaug in particular had a body armour of gemstones. I believe XL18Z praticioners have an edge against dragons. After all, they do have the "Dragon Subduing" palm
But as you can see Dragons and above are able to defeat an army or armies.(something NO wuxia fighter can do alone)

TigerWong: The way you said it also sounded like you were pretty darn sure of Tom Bombadil as a Maiar.

[CC]

Originally posted by Ken Cheng
I would argue that Jin Yong's popularity and influence on Asian popular culture is just as profound as Tolkien's is upon the West. Tolkien merely has the advantage of having been a product of the West. For the past century, Western ideas have flooded into Asia while Asian ideas have only trickled into the West. The difference lies not in the quality of the two writers, but in the influence of their respective societies upon each other.

I feel that Jy has a lot more impact in the East then JRR had on the west.

Until the Peter Jackson movies came out, the average western citizen would not know who the hell Gandalf is or what a Balrog was. But the average eastern citizen would have heard of the Dragon Palms and XLN.

[TigerWong]

Originally posted by Ardor
TigerWong: The way you said it also sounded like you were pretty darn sure of Tom Bombadil as a Maiar.

Well, I AM pretty darn sure he is! Based on the evidence I've seen. But I recognize it hasn't been stated outright, and not everyone is convinced. Like how it never stated that XF was better than the Greats. Personally, based on what I see, I believe it but not everyone does.

Originally posted by CC
But the average eastern citizen would have heard of the Dragon Palms and XLN.

Is this really true? Or have our opinion become biased because we hang out with wuxia fans? Because I know some Asian people, especially girls, who wouldn't know who Xiao Feng or XLN are. (Also, while JY is more popular in general, I will argue that as far as main characters go, GL heroes such as Dagger Lee, CLH, and LSF seem more recognizable than most JY heroes amongst people who are not necessarily wuxia fans.)

However, I do agree that JY is more culturally popular in the East than Tolkien is in the West. But that's because many people grew up watching the adaptations. It seems like television shows in the East tell stories stretching across numerous episodes. Other than soap operas or miniseries, popular television in the West simply isn't rigged that way. But that's whats required for stuff like Tolkien. On the other hand, more popular fantasy icons like King Arthur, Merlin, etc. have been embedded in the culture because those stories can easily be broken out into smaller chunks.

[tape]

So what is more popular based on your opinion, JY for the average eastern citizen, or King Arthur for the average western citizen?

As much as I love JY, i think that King Arthur is relatively more recognizable/popular.

[Lady Riddel]

hmm but you go to admit, it's easier to hear about king arthur than about jin yong. Like king arthur's legend isn't that complex. It's about a dude with a sword whose best friend is sleeping with his wife.

Jin yong's stories are much more complicated and therefore much harder for the average person to know very well.

Anyway, personally I like jin yong much better than the arthurian legend or tolkien because jin yong is all about girl power. I mean instead of being some silly elf whose defining moment is when she dies passively and sadly or some queen whose defining moment in life is when she gets to sleep with the greatest knight in the land you have heroines who can kick your butts if you look at them twice. I mean jin yong's stories are about the values of intelligence power and willfulness in women. So I think personally that as a women, jin yong's stories have a lot more power as a fairy tale for me.

[CC]

Originally posted by tape
So what is more popular based on your opinion, JY for the average eastern citizen, or King Arthur for the average western citizen?

As much as I love JY, i think that King Arthur is relatively more recognizable/popular.

JY is for matching JRR only. To match King Arthur in popular culture the East needs Sun Wu Kong.

[TigerWong]

Originally posted by Lady Riddel
hmm but you go to admit, it's easier to hear about king arthur than about jin yong. Like king arthur's legend isn't that complex. It's about a dude with a sword whose best friend is sleeping with his wife.

Well, theres more to it than that...

I mean jin yong's stories are about the values of intelligence power and willfulness in women. So I think personally that as a women, jin yong's stories have a lot more power as a fairy tale for me.

What about the story of Beren and Luthien, Tolkien's favorite characters? Luthien (a silly little elf girl? ) forced Sauron to yield to her, destroyed his base with a spell, rescued her man, and did the unimaginable by confronting Morgoth (Sauron's master) in his own fortress. Sounds like girl power to me.

Originally posted by CC
JY is for matching JRR only. To match King Arthur in popular culture the East needs Sun Wu Kong.

True, King Arthur's been around for a long time. But my point was just to say that JY works were more easily shared with the general population due to the adapations. Whereas the way television tends to work in the West is not condusive to long sagas like Tolkien's. Even with the recent LoTR films, some people complain about it's length. The reason I brought up Arthur was that it was an example of something that has made it into the popular media because it doesn't rely on hours and hours of footage to make it work. You can just take one substory and build around it. And although the novel has been around for quite some time, I daresay that its inclusion in TV, movies, cartoons, comics, etc. has ingrained it in popular culture and not it's age (there are plenty of old folklore that aren't well-known).

[Lady Riddel]

Originally posted by TigerWong
[B]Well, theres more to it than that...



What about the story of Beren and Luthien, Tolkien's favorite characters? Luthien (a silly little elf girl? ) forced Sauron to yield to her, destroyed his base with a spell, rescued her man, and did the unimaginable by confronting Morgoth (Sauron's master) in his own fortress. Sounds like girl power to me.

from what I know of Middle earth, didn't this all happen because Aragorn was telling a story about the past? anyway it took up all of 2 paragraphs in the trilogy. I'm not saying that lotr perpetuates a image of weak women because galadriel is pretty godly. But as for a image of strong women that girls can relate to, that is really lacking. I mean you can't deny that it's much much easier for a boy to relate to frodo or aragorn or even sam simply because you become emotionally connected to their journey. It's rather hard for a women to look at Arwen or Galadriel and say "gee, that's me! I felt just like that the other day. Wow so nice to have someone in that book that understands me!" I mean, Arwen and Galadriel, as nice/strong whatever that they are, they are still rather flat and dull. I'm not saying that Arwen and Galadriel are complete downers for the women's movement I'm just saying that in comparision to women like Li yan zhi or Ren ying ying - Arwen and Galadriel just come out rather forgettable. I mean the message that Arwen and Galadriel seem to send out to women is "in the time of crisis, support a man to do the right thing!" I'm not saying that women in jin yong don't do that because they do, it's just that now and then they rescue their man so I think that's much better in comparison to the other women. As for Beren and Luthien, I'm not sure if there is a book solely about them or if the only literature we have on them is aragorn's flashback. Anyway, if we are talking about popular culture, I doubt if the millions of people who know about frodo has any idea who Beren and Luthien are.

[TigerWong]

Originally posted by Lady Riddel
from what I know of Middle earth, didn't this all happen because Aragorn was telling a story about the past? anyway it took up all of 2 paragraphs in the trilogy.
...
As for Beren and Luthien, I'm not sure if there is a book solely about them or if the only literature we have on them is aragorn's flashback

Nope, they had a entire story to themselves. Aragorn was recounting their story in LoTR because it happened in the past, but you should realize that LoTR was only a small part of the Middle Earth saga. It's like dimissing LOCH because OuYang Feng was briefly mentioned in DOMD. There is plenty of literature on Beren and Luthien and theirs is one of the richest and most moving stories Tolkien wrote. In fact, the characters were so close to his heart that he had Beren etched on his tombstone and Luthien etched on his wife's. He wouldn't do that if they were just under-developed "sidenote" characters.

I'm not saying that lotr perpetuates a image of weak women because galadriel is pretty godly.

You should see her when she was younger, she was like an amazon. And if anyone was the forgettable, puppet, supporting figure, it was her husband Celeborn.

I mean the message that Arwen and Galadriel seem to send out to women is "in the time of crisis, support a man to do the right thing!" I'm not saying that women in jin yong don't do that because they do, it's just that now and then they rescue their man so I think that's much better in comparison to the other women.

What about Eowyn?

Anyway, if we are talking about popular culture, I doubt if the millions of people who know about frodo has any idea who Beren and Luthien are.

I brought Luthien up in response to your statement that there are no strong women in Middle Earth, not as an example of popular culture. So we shouldn't confuse the issue. I have already stated my thoughts on Tolkien and popular culture and how it relates to JY's influence elsewhere.

Also, and I may be totally off so don't take this the wrong way, but I somehow get the vibe that you're a bit defensive about the whole JY vs. Tolkien thing. If this is going to drift off into a purely Tolkien discussion, I'd be happy to do it via. PM.

Personally, I hope we keep it an objective discussion (not saying that you're not, just a general thought) because I find the whole "rah-rah" mentality of cheering on our favorites and attacking the opponents (non-objectively) pretty ridiculous.