Lack of objectivity.... LOTR is of course a masterpiece when it comes to world building... When it comes to deep lying plots Harry Potter beats LOTR heads over feet. I already confronted a few LOTR fans with the deep lying development behind Snape, the character nobody knew where it was going, and the revelation at the end was really surprising. LOTR doesn't have those kinds of mysteries. A Song of Ice and Fire (a sage incorrectly known as "Game of Thrones" which is merely the title of the first book, but I guess HBO took that over the entire series), also has a lot of plot lines of which you sometimes wonder where things are going, with the ultimate question: Who is the mother of Jon Snow? Now I already know who Jon's mother is, but this was one of the deepest mysteries ASOIAF hides.
Now I also found some LOTR fans who are bashing down franchises where Elves with pointy ears are part of the story, as "Tolkien never said Elves had pointy ears". Point is Tolkien never created the Elves in concept, as Elves are creatures from millennia old folklore, and yes in folkloric images they are often depicted with pointy ears.
Now I also found an article somewhere where all stories where either dragons, elves, dwarves, and wizards take place (that is basically most of the entire fantasy genre) a fan fiction of Tolkien, totally neglecting that none of those things were new when Tolkien wrote about them. The only race credited to Tolkien are the hobbits, and even the hobbits are debatable, as they have many similarities with many creatures from Irish folklore (I've been in Ireland once, and I must say, the hobbits do remind me of Ireland).
It's not that I don't appreciate what Tolkien did. I am a fantasy author myself, and Tolkien is one of my great examples, along with J.K. Rowling and George Martin (the author of ASOIAF), and well many more. Tolkien triggered me to work out my world out very far. In writing style... then Rowling and Martin are more coming to my sight.
Oh, by the way... I've had a semi professional reviewing training on a website where I worked as a reviewer. I know one thing... If the administrators back then saw his article, his reviewer account would be suspended on the spot. It's not a review... it's a troll. "Nobody cares about your opinion". Well, judging his "review" I wonder if he's smart enough to understand what Tolkien was doing when he wrote the middle-earth saga. Perhaps he should aim a little lower. Maybe Sesame street?
