The emphasis in his title is pretty undisputed at this level

It’s honest to say that The Lord of the Rings (and by extension, The Legendarium, a catch-all time period that covers J. R. R. Tolkien’s Center-earth works) is a big a part of my life. I’m scripting this now listening to the soundtrack of the Peter Jackson trilogy, after having come again from a four-player session of The Lord of the Rings LCG co-op card sport. Oh, and I went to a Tolkien-related tutorial convention this previous weekend: Mythmoot 2022.

It was there that I caught up with Dr. Corey Olsen, The Tolkien Professor (extra on that peculiar emphasis in a second) to speak about his involvement with the Return to Moria sport, in addition to some ideas on the upcoming Gollum mission.

For hardcore Tolkien followers, Dr. Olsen wants no introduction. However I’m going to do one anyway! Dr. Olsen has a PhD in medieval literature, and has risen the ranks as probably the most preeminent trendy Tolkien students worldwide. This got here to a head in 2012, when he based Signum College, a web based graduate faculty specializing in literature and philology. He additionally has performed session work for myriad Tolkien-related tasks (together with video video games), and hosts a complete podcast that not solely covers Tolkien, however academia on the whole. So about that identify. At a number of tutorial conferences I’ve attended on-line and in-person, the anecdote of disputing Olsen’s title of The Tolkien Professor is commonplace. However the story at all times ends the identical: they verify Dr. Olsen’s credentials, and submit that the moniker is legit. We even received one other a kind of tales from esteemed professor Michael Drout at this 12 months’s Mythmoot; jokingly stating that he referred to as his partner into the room to take heed to a rant, incredulous that anybody would name themselves The Tolkien Professor.

As you’ll be able to think about, sitting down to speak to Dr. Olsen is a deal with, and even after an intensive interview session, I felt like I may have talked to him for hours. One of many first issues I introduced up: his involvement within the Return to Moria sport, popping out in 2023 on PC. As Dr. Olsen places it: “It was a reasonably serendipitous connection. The sport director listens to my podcast, so he emailed me in the future with a random query associated to the sport. I received to speaking with him, and I had performed some sport consulting earlier than, so I used to be expressing enthusiasm…saying I had performed these things earlier than and it was actually enjoyable, and he was like ‘wait, actually?’ So he invited me in, and though I didn’t begin originally of the mission, mainly my function has been to…they produce the story and we talk about it.”

Dr. Olsen continued on, explaining how the mission excited him as a result of a lot of it lined “all the dwarf stuff that Tolkien didn’t write.” Then Dr. Olsen dropped a bombshell: “So far as I do know, that is the primary adaptation that takes place in the course of the Fourth Age.” What?! Ever since I talked with the LOTRO workforce I’m looking out for the phrase “Center-earth Enterprises.” I’ll spare you the authorized rabbit gap of complexity this journey took me on, however suffice to say this basically boils all the way down to the rights to make use of content material from the core ebook sequence. Plenty of previous tales, significantly ones from the First or Second Ages of the Legendarium (the core ebook sequence takes place in The Third Age), would want approval from the Tolkien Property. Typically talking, The Fourth Age is untouched, exterior of some parts of textual ruins from Tolkien himself.

So I requested, “How is Return to Moria overlaying The Fourth Age?” Nevertheless it dawned on me as quickly as Dr. Olsen began explaining it. The key sauce to unlocking the total potential of virtually each Tolkien-related mission: the appendices. For the uninitiated, the appendices are a portion of Return of the King that fill in a ton of element on different happenings in Center-earth. A few of it offers with what’s taking place concurrently in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Plenty of it offers with previous occasions. However in any case, it may possibly assist creators legally fill within the gaps or present plenty of information and content material to glom onto.

Dr. Olsen will get particular when it comes to what Moria is ready to contact on: “So the fragments that have been there, we all know what Gimli was as much as. Gimli goes on to change into the lord of the Glittering Caves…and we all know that the dwarves of Erebor helped restore the gates of Minith Tirith with mithril and metal. In order that’s somewhat bit to work with. The appendices do inform us some issues. And truthfully for this type of a narrative, it helps to supply the body in that means. It’s implied…when Gandalf reads the Guide of Mazarbul [editor’s note: this was the book Gandalf flips through in the Fellowship of the Ring film in Moria], he says ‘it was valiant however silly, the time had not but come [to retake Moria].’ Effectively that’s a enjoyable hook [laughs]. So by that token, the time will come!”

Dr. Olsen relishes the chance to inform most of these open-ended tales:

“It’s enjoyable to dramatize the tales that Tolkien depicted. However it’s much more enjoyable to develop the tales that Tolkien hinted at however by no means wrote. The Amazon Prime sequence is leaning into this…The Warfare of the Rohirrim [editor’s note: did you know there was a Lord of the Rings anime film coming in 2024? Wild roads ahead], for that we get an overview of the story of Helm Hammerhand within the appendices. For me, probably the most fascinating tales…and we solely get fragments of this, is Fram slaying Scatha the worm…and that’s after all the place Merry’s horn comes from, that he’s gifted.”

It jogged my memory of how typically, creators and fandom can take a person kernel of a narrative, just like the Jabberwocky in Alice in Wonderland, and type a complete mythos round that. Dr. Olsen and I went backwards and forwards a bit in regards to the normal nature of visible mediums, and the way they are often particularly troublesome to do “accurately” with the burden of Center-earth behind it. Generally, issues are so detailed that they’ve a transparent framework in thoughts, and in different cases, they’re barely defined. Dr. Olsen subsequently dug into this subject:

“Its actually exhausting, I imply Tolkien talked about that. He was considering primarily of stage performs, earlier than excessive results motion pictures have been even attainable. However he talked about, the way you learn a narrative, how you’ve got your individual psychological image. Not simply how Frodo regarded like, however think about the outline of what they ate on the Prancing Pony…you understand the cheese, the butter, the bread. What did that appear like? How a lot bread and butter are we speaking about? It’s very probably completely different for everybody…the way it pops in your head. However the individuals doing the difference must get a loaf of bread…and now that’s the bread within the scene. So I do assume diversifications like the cardboard sport, just like the tabletop role-playing sport, it leaves the reader’s creativeness far more free, not like if you’re watching one thing, or enjoying a online game.”

That stated, there may be one other facet of that coin, Dr. Olsen posits:

“Lots of people have a really simplified concept of what it means to hyperlink an adaptation to the textual content. By simplified I imply…in case you’re saying one thing that Tolkien didn’t say, or telling a narrative that Tolkien didn’t inform, it’s not an adaptation…properly it’s. It’s attainable to inform a narrative not associated in any respect to Tolkien…however that’s not what individuals do. When it comes to my expertise, so with Return to Moria, what does Moria appear like 50 years after the Balrog was defeated. So if you’re inventing tales to inform these gaps, it’s how these tales are associated to the textual content…what Tolkien themes you’re working with, and in some instances the way you’re paralleling the story indirectly. So there are methods I do know that the Amazon Prime workforce has been working with of their present, and ways in which the Moria workforce is doing that…that’s nonetheless a extremely fascinating type of adaptation. It’s a extremely enjoyable train.”

I do know precisely what he’s speaking about. Plenty of diversifications, whereas telling their very own tales, do keep true to the spirit of Tolkien. Some (Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of Warfare come to thoughts) don’t, however give their very own spin on the universe in flip. So far as the Gollum sport goes, Dr. Olsen expressed confidence in that workforce’s course as properly:

“Right here’s the factor that fascinated me most about what I noticed in regards to the Gollum sport. You’re actually enjoying a assassin…he killed and ate infants…[Sam was right! I interject]…it’s the primary ever, to my information, least-combat-intensive Tolkien online game I’ve ever seen. Even supposing you’re once more, enjoying a assassin, there’s much less violence. This isn’t an RPG the place you begin off as a low-level character and get weapons or powers.. So he’s powerful, he’s resilient, he’s agile.. However my query to the builders was ‘do your expertise change a lot?’ And so they stated ‘really no.’

So there are methods in which you’ll be able to change, however you’re Gollum, and his talent set is thought. There may be some fight, but when a patrol of orcs discovers you, you’re simply hosed, as a result of they’re larger and stronger and also you’re not. You should utilize stealth, however you’ll be able to’t simply exit and take them. I haven’t performed the whole factor, however what I noticed of the idea was actually fascinating.”

It was right here in our dialog that Dr. Olsen finally wished for a world the place we are able to “transcend motion video games.” He clarifies that he doesn’t imply “there shouldn’t be any motion” in a Tolkien-related sport. Generally, he loves enjoying LOTRO and taking out an orc camp of 30 orcs. However the motive he’s wanting ahead to Gollum fairly a bit is to see how they’ll pull that fantasy off, and doubtlessly remove the glorification of fight and conflict that many different Tolkien tasks depict (together with the mind-bogglingly R-rated uncut third Hobbit movie). To that finish, I requested Dr. Olsen if he’s noticed something egregious in the case of how previous diversifications have dealt with some Tolkien works (I threw anthropomorphic Shelob on the market, in addition to Celebrimbor manifesting within the type of an enormous anime explosion), and he had rather a lot to say:

“Effectively [long pause]…so courting again to the Peter Jackson movies, which after all set the tone for a lot afterwards. There are some methods through which the Jackson movies are delightfully true to the works in some ways. However there are a couple of through which they’re very very far. Not even plots and characters, however deeper thematically. The one largest factor I at all times level to is the de-mythification of the story. It’s not that I don’t perceive it. I’m not even arguing in opposition to it, I see the way it labored within the movie. In Tolkien’s world, our standpoint is the hobbits. They’re our body of reference for the whole story. You understand how the story at all times goes out of its means to supply a body of reference…we even break up up Merry and Pippin, so all over the place, Mordor Gondor…there’s a hobbit.

We even see The Journey of the Rohirrim by way of Merry’s eyes. There’s little or no through which we’ve got no hobbits in any respect. We don’t have a look at Aragorn, Gimli or Legolas shoulder to shoulder. We image ourselves with the hobbits being rescued by them. The digital camera angle because it have been, is three ft off the bottom. Which implies that large persons are Capital B large. We glance up at Aragorn. We don’t relate to him…we’re not meant to narrate to him in the identical means. Faramir, an much more dramatic instance. They’re not excellent…we glance up at Boromir [it’s here that I interject, and we subsequently agree that book Faramir is perfect]…we’re caught up within the adulation of the hobbits. So once I say the de-mythification I imply the tales are myths, and have the burden of that. You possibly can join with Aragorn, however not like that. The Jackson movies modified that reference. The obvious one is unsure Aragorn. It really works within the movie in methods. To me that method is probably the most egregious change…foundational change. That you simply take it from basically…it’s not an epic anymore.”

We talked a bit about Shadow of Mordor, a standard instance of probably the most contentious methods to deal with Tolkien’s work. Dr. Olsen continues his thesis on how diversifications can train a level of freedom, to a degree:

“I wouldn’t robotically dismiss a shapeshifting Shelob. In concept. The query is now what do you do with that. What are you getting at. And because of this, and I don’t prefer to make statements about Shadows of Mordor, however from every little thing I’ve seen they usually’ve talked about…the premise of, Sauron has performed unsuitable to me and I wish to take vengeance on Sauron however getting a hoop of energy to dominate my enemies, as a premise, I actually can not…In my thoughts that’s like a laboratory building of probably the most alien-to-Tolkien-concept I may probably think about. To me that’s what issues. What are the themes that you simply’re getting at, that’s the place you actually hit bedrock of if it’s true to Tolkien or not.”

I used to be in a position to sit in on a number of talks at Mythmoot this 12 months that touched on these matters: and all of those new diversifications must tackle that gargantuan duty, too. It seems like there’s been an explosion of tasks currently, maybe finest typified by the Amazon present. So why are there so many diversifications on the horizon? Dr. Olsen lends his ideas, spurred by my query of whether or not or not there’s a future the place the Tolkien Property opens the floodgates to First and Second Age tales wholesale: “I do consider that the impetus behind this new wave is mainly from the property. I imply they did open up issues already to an extent…we are able to see that within the Gollum sport, the Amazon present, the Rohirrim mission. If the storyline of the Moria sport succeeds…I hope we are able to accomplish the flexibility to seize the mythic parts of Tolkien.”

Hopefully we see that magic distilled in online game type as quickly as this 12 months with Gollum, and in 2023 with Moria. Till then, I’ve lots to ponder because of Dr. Olsen’s interview, and the various gifted shows at Mythmoot 2022.

Chris Carter

Critiques Director, Co-EIC – Chris has been having fun with Destructoid avidly since 2008. He lastly determined to take the subsequent step, make an account, and begin running a blog in January of 2009. Now, he is workers!