"the construction of elaborate and consistent mythology (and two languages) rather occupies the mind, and the Silmarils are in my heart. So that goodness knows what will happen. Mr. Baggins began as a comic tale among conventional Grimm's fairy-tale dwarves, and got drawn into the edge of it - so that even Sauron the terrible peeped over the edge. And what more can hobbits do? They can be comic, but their comedy is suburban unless it is set among things more elemental."
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937 letter to Stanley Unwin on the topic of a Hobbit sequel, as cited in The History of Middle-Earth
I just realized why I've never particularly liked superheroes: they're hobbits!
Wait, let's back up a bit.
I recently commented elsewhere that a dungeoneering webcomic overlaps with adventuring in general, be it high fantasy, urban fantasy, SciFi, anything outside our plains-ape dating dramedy lowest common denominator, but looking back I conspicuously omitted horror or superheroes. And I still would.
While superheroes owe their (now almost forgotten) distinction from old-timey demigods and other magical heroes to their 20th-century superscience origins, they remain a representation of the daring prince or plucky small-town lad who finds magic <ITEM> and defeats <MONSTER> to reinstate the status quo. They so unequivocally dominate pop culture precisely for reassuring the brain-dead majority in their inertia that they deserve to be protected by their betters or that mundane desires somehow go hand-in-hand with transmundane ability.
Adventuring though (and especially Science Fiction in its better moments when it's not caveman science fiction) has inherited another take on heroics from industrial era exploration stories. Here the gentleman adventurer, the independent scientist of peerless intellect, has discerned a wondrous <NOVELTY> which he will risk life and limb to unveil. The status quo was never truly in peril... but it is insufficient.
Hobbits' comically exaggerated parochialism lends itself to neither avenue. Both Bilbo and Frodo's company are called to adventure by outside forces and their charm comes from their status as unlikely heroes. They mostly act the part of everyman viewpoints among larger than life forces, suburban comic relief dotting a more elemental drama several ages in the making.
Superheroes tend to stop at the suburban part, and not particularly comic at that.
Even X-Men's supposed message of embracing change, couched in the larger theme of "acceptance" boils down to "we just want to be beer-swilling, sitcom-watching deadheads like the rest of you" and the less said about mad scientist villains and treating any scientific achievement as world-shattering malice, the better.
It's an old observation that anyone with at least half a brain tends to identify with the villains in superhero stories, the thinkers who analyze, plan and invent, not the dumb jocks who win out every time by punching the problem, or in newer versions by squinting real hard and defeating those threatening outsiders by sheer force of will.
I suppose I always liked Middle-Earth partly because it allowed me to honestly root for the nominal good guys despite its luddite undertone and conventional saving of the conventional day. Bilbo's "Tookishness" leads him over the misty mountains cold and long before bearing a ring Frodo studied elvish, unlike any of the woolly-toed schlubs around them. They transcend their hobbitude. The proudful Noldor, for whom paradise itself was not good enough, recall the gentleman scholars of past ages, diminished and weary of their exile as they may be after having struck outward into the primitive Great Lands. Probably most importantly, Frodo's climactic battle with himself shows simpleminded force of will (important as it was) as ultimately insufficient. Wheels within wheels, plans within plans, intellects far beyond that of the plucky small-Shire lad, outmaneuvered the villains into LotR's Pyrrhic victory.
How often do superheroes win via strategic positioning?
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