Why J.R.R. Tolkien is No Longer Relevant

“There is far too much moral clarity in The Lord of the Rings for the story to feel authentic and relatable.”

“Fantasy has evolved significantly since Peter Jackson, with the best stories often being the most subversive. Game of Thrones stole LOTR’s crown, almost immediately by depicting a complex world with a diverse range of values and moralities. House of the Dragon followed the same trend, effectively reflecting the real world through fantasy narratives.” CBR.com

Not to state the incredibly obvious but A Song of Ice Fire is and will almost certainly remain an unfinished work. That passage is clearly based on stuff that was scraped off reddit referencing the TV series.

This article is mostly a retread of another article CBR did three years ago when Rings of Power first blighted my existence. The rest are common complaints about the Jackson movies: too much CGI, important stuff from the books was left out, and the women weren’t turned into girl-bosses.

Yeah, it’s AI slop.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to occasionally question long held assumptions. When I was in college the Lord of the Rings had been around since before I was born, and it was generally viewed as the kind of thing that would still be read alongside Shakespeare in a hundred years.

The problem is a lot of the stuff in Appendix N felt the same way at the time. But today Appendix N is slowly becoming a literary graveyard:

65% of Appendix N is easily obtainable - that’s good but that number should be higher

20% is niche - but findable!

15% is becoming genuinely obscure – Don’t say the internet never forgets, it absolutely does forget.

A lot of appendix N is moving from actively read and discussed to archival presence.

• A thin academic layer

• A small collector market

• A handful of writers who still study a given author

That’s how you get someone like Lord Dunsany: Hugely influential in his day, barely read outside specialists now

Let’s look at another example; Roger Zelzny

In his prime, Roger Zelazny wasn’t some niche cult figure, he was one of the biggest names in speculative fiction, standing shoulder to shoulder with the New Wave heavyweights of the 1960s and 70s. His novel Lord of Light is often remembered as his breakout, and it was certainly his most decorated, winning the Hugo (when it meant something) and cementing his reputation, but Zelazny’s real impact was broader and more sustained. He was a constant presence in the major magazines, a multiple Hugo and Nebula winner, and one of the few writers equally comfortable blending myth, science fiction, and fantasy into something distinctly his own. By the time The Chronicles of Amber hit in the 1970s, he wasn’t emerging… He was already established, and Amber became the work that proved he could translate that critical acclaim into lasting popular success.

Except it didn’t last.

Roger Zelzney’s old hard covers frequently go for three digit figures and I’m not talking Easton Press editions either. But his works are mostly published directly by his estate on Kindle.

Roger Zelzny is moving from the thing everyone knew about to the guy who is studied by writers. Most of his works have six figure sales ranks on Amazon.

And when Gen X is gone, he’ll be forgotten.

He’s not the only one on that list in that position.

Granted, Zelzney’s lot might change. Since January of 2023 Nine Princes in Amber has been in development as a TV series by… sigh… Stephen Colbert.

Which brings me to Tolkien.

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Colbert is currently writing a script for Peter Jackson; Shadow of the Past. It’s a lot of the stuff that got cut from the Fellowship of the Ring - the Barrow Wights, Tom Bombadil, and if you’ve read the books you know what got cut. And if you know anything about filmmaking you know why it was cut.

Stephen Colbert is a noted Tolkien nerd. He’s read all the books repeatedly and frequently spouts quotes that are reasonably accurate. He is however, very political, and he’s been that way for better than 20 years. If his name shows up on anything, half the audience won’t.

If I was tapped to write a Tolkien, I would start by reading literally everything tolkien wrote, then spend at least 60 hours with Tom Shippey or a similar scholar of his standing, then I would establish a guidance committee with the power of review and veto if the majority agreed I’d got it wrong.

But then I care and this is the kind of thing you do if you value the legendarium as a treasure… And not a franchise that needs to be milked or the rights revert to the Embracer Group – And I honestly don’t know which would be worse.

My point is this, every Rings of Power, every War of the Rohirrim, every Shadow of the Past - diminishes public perception of Tolkien.

And here is the critical thing.

Relevance is not a natural state—it is something that must be actively maintained.

The fact that you love it a whole lot doesn’t mean it gets to stay relevant.

Yes, my title was a little click-baity – Hi, how you doing? – but the point is a real one, because while Tolkien is not irrelevant, he is being made irrelevant.

Zelazny faded after this death because there was no one maintaining him.

After his death J.R.R. Tolkien had his son Christopher maintaining him. But Christopher Tolkien is gone and Simon Tolkien, who thinks Sauron should be a Walter White figure, couldn’t be a worse guardian of his grandfather’s legacy.

Lord of the Rings is being processed, adapted, reinterpreted, modernized and expanded, plus folded, spindled and mutilated along the way. The Lord of the Rings is being sanded down until it means nothing. That’s how something loses relevance in a modern age.

“Too much moral clarity,” is not a valid criticism, but it is an absolutely stellar confession. It’s another way of saying, I have no morality and I reject good and evil as categories so I can do whatever I want without guilt.

Boromir’s fall. Denethor’s despair. Gollum’s divided soul. Frodo’s ultimate failure at the Crack of Doom. This not moral simplicity… It. Is. Moral. Structure.

Modern fantasy doesn’t reject Tolkien because it is more sophisticated. It rejects him because:

It cannot operate inside a universe where good and evil actually exist.

Which brings us to Game of Thrones.

If Tolkien is wrong, then Game of Thrones works.

If Tolkien is right, then Game of Thrones is just a very expensive pornographic Lemony Snicket with extensive body horror.

Roger Zelazy is facing genuine obscurity.

In seventy years, George RR Martin will be less relevant than Lord Dunsany.

But Tolkien is facing something far worse… Being remembered incorrectly. The Lord of the Rings risks becoming a foundational text that no one reads. A museum piece cited, referenced but not understood.

Yes, Tolkien will still be read in a hundred years.

The question is, will anyone reading him still recognize what they’re looking at?

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