I think the fantasy genre would be about the same even if Tolkien had only just now written the ME stories.
I notice that most of the fantasy I read has elements of various mythologys.
The idea of trolls, and dragons, and many other such creatures was already around when Tolkien wrote his stories. Of course Tolkien did give us a view on Elves as something other than short punny creatures that help Santa, and as far as I've ever been able to tell the Rangers are 100% his idea. But over all, in my opinion, fantasy is really just the authors own slant an various myths, legends, and old wives tales. And as such if Tolkien hadn't written his books, then someone else would have made the fantasy genre popular, it was only a matter of time.
But thats just my opinion,
-Nightwind
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