The whole point to Lord of the Rings was that there was no way for people themselves to overcome evil. Frieren seems to push the idea that if you work hard enough, you can overcome anything. They're completely at odds.

You guys can worry about canon, I just wanna see Frieren getting finding/getting stuck in every mimic in Middle-Earth.

@boomersooner There mimic in Middle-Earth?

Steak said:

The whole point to Lord of the Rings was that there was no way for people themselves to overcome evil. Frieren seems to push the idea that if you work hard enough, you can overcome anything. They're completely at odds.

For all that Lord of the Rings is seen as the work that defined the fantasy genre, that influence tends to be in the more surface aspects. The philosophy underpinning Tolkien's work was heavily informed by his religious beliefs as a Catholic; a world whose existence is innately good but has been perverted from what it was supposed to be, the fallibility of mortals, and the need for salvation from a higher power. But a number of later fantasy writers, from Terry Goodkind to basically every manga, LN, anime, and JRPG writer in Japan today instead put focus on the hero being powerful enough to crush everything by themselves.

And it's a whole other spiel about how different Tolkien's elves are from everybody else's.

As I understand it, Galadriel's character arc tends to be downplayed or mispresented.

Even though she might have been one of the greatest elves to ever live, loved by many, she still came up short when compared to the Valar. She felt like a small fish in a big pond. Hence why she lead her people on a dangerous journey to Middle Earth where she could be a big fish in a small one. Although there was a degree of wanderlust that thread through them, hundreds would die for the sake of her vanity. Hence why her forsaking the Ring was significant, the one way she could continue on the path she'd set out on all those thousands of years ago.

It's her admitting she was wrong.

Steak said:

It's her admitting she was wrong.

One thing that struck me when I read the Silmarillion; Earendil was perhaps the greatest hero of the first age not because he was a great warrior or sailor - though he certainly could be - but because he was willing to swallow his pride and beseech the Valar for aid.