[quote=@POOHEAD189]
[@Odin] You said you'd like to meet someone who enjoyed the Hobbit. The sarcasm bit was for your previous statement unless I was mistaken, and I assumed the sarcasm was at the gatekeeping comment and not the fact you enjoyed Children of Hurin. Also why would you find Turin both boring and your fave character? Usually if a character bores me that's a no go. [/quote]

I mean, I do think people who enjoy the Hobbit enjoy it because it's the flagship Tolkien book and not necessarily because it's actually better than the other books. But it's a great book and if someone told me why they liked it, it'd be a much better answer than those who like it because it's Tolkiens famous work.

Kinda like saying oh I like Harry Potter novels -- it's a bog standard answer with no real flavor to it. Hobbit is that but for fantasy, imo.

As far as Turin Turambar goes, he's incredibly boring as a personality, dude does basically nothing but try and exact vengeance upon those who cursed his house. He has a fucking awesome adventure but remains this sort of stoic personality that never really reacts to anything in a way that [i]isn't[/i] stoic. So, Penny words it really well -- his saga is extremely cool and the adventures he experiences are tragic and interesting, but he himself is... not really all that interesting.

Which imho is a strength -- insofar as Middle Earth goes, Turin Turambar kind of shows that even ordinary or uninteresting people can experience and do great things, and I definitely appreciate how boring and stoic he is, but I also think it's not exactly the most interesting personality to read, and if it weren't for his adventures, it'd probably not be that interesting to read about him.

[quote]Also while Tolkien is the 'father' of modern fantasy, his characters are not high octane action heroes like most characters in fantasy today so I can definitely see why his prose might bore a few people.[/quote]

Just the whole boring prose of his works is something that really makes me enjoy his works -- it makes it more relatable I guess because real life equivalents are, often, incredibly interesting but also incredibly boring and non-super hero. Compare it to, say, Warhammer which is high-octane action hero tier shit (which is enjoyable for different reasons) and super over the top, Tolkiens work feels more grounded, realistic and, well, like a real world that could exist. That's just how I see it though -- I also enjoyed reading the Silmarillion thoroughly so maybe I am just a Tolkien-circlejerker, because Silmarillion is [i]definitely[/i] not an incredible action packed gripping story, lol. :lol