The Examples of Dumbing - Down

[Eurytus]

Perhaps it would be easier for me to summarise my point of view like this. The major thing a book needs to contain is believable characters.<BR>Any book that spends more time describing the landscape than it does the main characters feelings, viewpoints and trials has a major problem. Frodo and Sam apart you very rarely get any real insight into what makes these characters tick.<P>Ask yourself this. Aragorn's love for Arwen is one of the major things that drives him on. He wins a kingdom, in part to satisfy her father's condition for winning her hand. Tell me, in all 1,000 plus pages of LOTR, do we have find out anything of value about WHY Aragorn loves her? What he really feels about their relationship? This relationship is a VERY important part of the build-up of one the main characters psyche and yet is it given less word-count than the description of Tom Bombadils House.