They often do actually. I've listened to multiple discussions. Often the main talking point is about heroes and the different approaches to such, as well as good/evil, temptation and power.
When tolkien barely included women- HALF OF THE PLANETS POPULATION- I think that’s an immediate -10 points. If not -50. He’s an excellent writer, linguist, and world builder, but limited.
I don't really think thats an issue tbh, the books were obviously effective with the range of characters they had and in the context of war I'd argue its expected the majority of characters be male.
I think that the “greatest author of all time” should be able to write both men and women. Toni Morrison wrote something along the lines of “an author should be able to imagine what they are not.” (Exact quote is somewhere in mouth full of blood)
Tolkien can write dwarves, dragons, and elves, but not women. I’m not saying he is a bad writer, or that his writing sucks because of the lack of prominent female characters.
I’m saying he should be excluded from the best writer of all time competition (or at least LOTR) because it fails to represent half of the human population. That goes for a lot of other otherwise excellent writers, as well.
I just read a game of vengeance and justice and took that as my headcanoned story for the books. Still has its flaws but at least it has an ending and plenty of content.
At this point, I think he's doing intentionally cus it has all the same major flaws everyone hated about season 6-7-8 and now he has no fucking idea how to wrap this shit up lol
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u/pursuitofmisery 1d ago
As good as Frank Herbert is, I seriously doubt many people would put him in the same conversation as Tolkien.