I think it's pretty clear that Tolkein is being used as inspiration, not setting -- unless you're playing FAAngband of course. D&D's also an inspiration, and arguably a bigger one.
Copyediting Angband
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What, you don't remember Gandalf casting Magic Missile on the Balrog? Or Pippin finding the Palantir via Detect Treasure?Comment
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Since the link doesn't go directly to it:
Tolkien and his poor writing
by Chris Kern
It seems that Tolkien has not thought very clearly before writing his books. He really needs to think things through before even putting pen to paper. Some examples:
Beren goes through all the trouble of having Luthien put Morgoth to sleep, sneaking in, etc. All he has to do is read some glyph of warding scrolls and shoot him with some bolts. He should have found some if he went down to level 100 of Angband. And how did he get down so low with only Angrist? This story is obviously not well thought out.
Hurin manages to slay Mim, and the story makes to mention of his stuff getting disenchanted. I guess mabye he didn't have magical things, but Tolkien could have given us a little clue.
According to Unfinished Tales, in the final days before Hurin's capture he would not wear his iron helm. Why the hell not? Didn't he notice when he put it on there was magic light and he suddenly could see all the monsters around him? No wonder he got captured.
Gothmog fails to summon anything in his fight with Echtelion, even though there is no mention of an anti-summoning corridor.
Turin somehow manages to use Mormegil, with its huge minuses, to off Glaurung in one blow. I don't think so. Glaurung also has "Gothmog syndrome" when he doesn't summon any ancient dragons. "Father of Dragons" indeed.
Excuse me, Mr. Tolkien, it's "Mugash" not "Muzgash", and he's a kobold, not an orc. Geez.
It is impossible for Bard to kill Smaug with one arrow using the Long Bow of Bard, unless our redoutable human has hacked the source code. One wonders exactly what the "black arrow" is.
This could be attributed to luck, but while in Moria the party manages to completely avoid the Evil Iggy. Gandalf also uses an unorthodox strategy of beating the Balrog which involves no invulnerability potions.
Okay, I thought Gandalf was supposed to be honorable. But he had cheat death on! Glorfindel also uses cheats.
Is Samwise Gamgee at some kind of negative level? Sting provides at least 3 attacks, but he only makes two seperate swipes against Shelob. Also, Shelob exhibits "Gothmog Syndrome" when she fails to summon even one spider.
Okay...how did Aragorn turn a Broken Sword into Anarion? The book mentions "forging". Nice euphemism for "hacking"; he obviously went to the Forge of Hex Editing. I think he took cheating lessons from Gandalf.
Gandalf was putting on a show for the Fellowship. With Narya and its immunity to fire, he had nothing to fear from Muar. He obviously had some ulterior motive, probably to cover up the fact that his Cheat Death option is on.
Beren somehow gets the Iron Crown of Morgoth even though he doesn't slay the evil fiend. There's some heavy duty cheating going on here....
Tolkien overestimates the power of the One Ring. Sorry, but "Control Ringwraith", "Resurrection", and "Rule the World" are not innate powers of the ring, nor are they in the list of "Bizarre Things" that it activates for. Perhaps Tolkien misread the spoilers?
After slaying Muar, Gandalf does not pick up Calris. (Or maybe he didn't read the spoilers to find out that it was good; although this is unlikely given his other cheating.)Comment
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