"Tolkien’s Map and The Messed Up Mountains of Middle-earth" Article at Tor

[Mark Oliva]

Elements in fantasy works which are just wrong often shatter the suspension of disbelief

This is an argument that I've read often, but I've also seen little to support it other than that this is the way that the person making the comment sees things. That's all right. But the argument may at best be nothing more than a truism. I would argue (but can't prove, of course) that there are more people on the face of this Earth who love Prof. Tolkien's maps than there are those who love all of the maps of all of us here at the guild combined. And I personally doubt that more than a minuscule number of the Tolkien map lovers ever even has thought about whether the Mountains of Mordor make sense. So ... yes ... I see things more the way that LadieStorm does.

I think a fairly good maxim for helping achieve that balance would be: Make things as they would be in reality, unless you intentionally mean them not to be.

That, on the other hand, I consider to be a good guideline but also something less than a rule. When one makes things that are unreal, it can baffle the person being addressed, because it doesn't make sense. There are some things that might need to be done then to address this unreality. But it is not always necessary. One's fantasy world can have something like the Mountains of Mordor in it, because if one's point is to illustrate a story, as Tolkien's was, only a minuscule number of the readers will notice that such mountains are unreal and many of them would need an explanation of why they are unreal, because they lack such knowledge of mountains. For them, Tolkien's unrealities by no means shatter the suspension of disbelief. Nor do rivers that split, for that matter.

However, there is a point when one can use unreality in such a way that it will shatter the suspension of disbelief of almost anyone that encounters the map. There are few maps that can have all of the rivers flowing uphill and across mountains without providing the user with a lot of help. In that case, to avoid shatter(ing) the suspension of disbelief, the map maker and author of the work or RPG game needs to create a virtual reality for their own world. They need to do more than to merely say that things are different in their world or to cop out by saying abracadabra, magic! They need to define in an understandable and credible manner why things are different within their virtual reality than they are in our reality and how those things can work.

[Mark Oliva]

Bringing the discussion back to Tolkien, when I look at his map of Middle Earth, I realize right away that this isn't a map of our Earth, because there is no area on the map that meets with up our world.... no recognized continents or regions. It may be called Middle Earth, but it isn't Earth. This doesn't make the story any less 'real' to me.

Originally posted by Redrobes:

(After quotes from Tolkien) So I think its a given that it was a fantasy based on Earth but at a different time to any known written history.

In other words, Prof. Tolkien agrees that the basis was Earth but being from a different time to any known written history, it's pure fantasy and a chunk of Earth that existed only in his imagination, where, like in the good ol' Mickey Mouse Club Days, any day can be anything-can-happen-day.

[playest]

I think that to "shatter the suspension of disbelief" you have to believe something. What I mean is that since most readers (myself included) don't know much about tectonic plates they won't be bothered by those mistakes.

Another point: I remember when my geology teacher showed the class an old video (with an actual film roll) about the tectonic plates and the knowledge when have about them seems to have greatly improved in those 60-70 years. Maybe the mountains locations were realistic at the time of the writing/drawing.

[Straf]

"In a world where talking dragons steal gold, a giant flaming eye-onna-stick, with the help of some undead horsemen (who later on gain the necessary XP to upgrade their mounts to 'flying'), manages to convince a high wizard to set up a factory beneath his tower to manufacture an army consisting of several races of hybrid hominids, plus all of their steel weapons. These then go out on a quest for world domination but are thwarted by a small group of miscreants assembled by a hedge wizard whose speciality is fireworks. Among the miscreants are several different hominid species, one of whom turns out to be a king who enlists the aid of an undead army.

"Yes I can buy all of that but this geology isn't very realistic is it?"

[Falconius]

Yeah, that's why I was talking about intent.

[Mark Oliva]

Ditto and ditto. Sometimes if we reach downward far enough, we can get our feet back onto Terra Firma, can't we?

[rdanhenry]

(a) The maps predate fully developed and scientifically accepted tectonic plate theory. There was not adequate science to say such formation were impossible at the time (and they still aren't necessarily impossible on a world with different geological processes -- given that there is a huge hexagon at one pole of Saturn, don't extrapolate too much from Earth). This is unlike the river situation, where we have pretty much always known that water falls downwards.

(b) While the origins of the mountains of Mordor are less clear, the Misties were thrown up by Morgoth as a deliberate barrier to travel east-to-west. "A god did it" is legitimate in fantasy. And unlike reverse rivers, once you raise those mountains supernaturally, they'll naturally just very, very slowly erode like any other mass of stone. As for Mordor, I do think some allowances for some form of unusual formation should be allowed in a setting where there have been multiple massive-scale supernatural upheavals (off the top of my head: the fall of the Lamps, the sinking of Beleriand, and the destruction of Numenor and reshaping of the world; I may be forgetting a couple). While Professor Tolkien showed a tendency late in life to want to reedit his world away from its mythic roots to something more "realistic", Lord of the Rings is a setting of fading magic tending into a more modern and realistic world, but still with much the feel of medieval romance and with a background of epic mythical proportions. If you criticize Greek myth by asking "how can Atlas hold up the sky when its just made of gas", you're just not getting the spirit of the thing.

(c) But, yeah, don't copy those square corner mountains unless you're deliberately going for either supernatural or very alien mountain development. They do jump out at you.

[waldronate]

(a) The maps predate fully developed and scientifically accepted tectonic plate theory.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse!

[Mark Oliva]

Ignorance of the law is no excuse!

That's true Joe, but laws are valid only within their own jurisdictions.