The depth of the world that JRR Tolkien created to me is the most important part of it and this creates the appeal. I have always enjoyed real-world mythology (Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Chinese etc.) and those myths were built upon the history of their people, when you read them they did not seem transposed. For instance, the writers of those eras didn't just take myths and write ignore the original ideas (basing it off of their history), they incorporated the history of their people.
What Tolkien did was of true genius, instead of writing a mythology based on an already existing history and people he created his own. Mr. Tolkien managed to create an entired universe that was so real and full of depth that people would think it was an actual mythology found in an ancient manuscript. (Well maybe not exactly, that would be one detailed manuscript [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img])
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"It needs more to make a king than a piece of elvish glass, or a rabble such as this."
-the Mouth of Sauron
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