Lore and Fictional History

PeteAtoms

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What franchises, settings, etc., do you find the most interesting in terms of the lore that has been developed behind the scenes.

Lord of the Rings
Star Trek
Star Wars
The Elder Scrolls (the one I personally enjoy)
And many many more.

You know the drill. The lore behind some works of fiction even include fully developed languages and cultures. It's really impressive (sad or otherwise) the extent to which people create their worlds and the extent to which fans commit this information to memory and argue the more ambiguous points endlessly.

So what are your favorite settings in this regard? Which do you know the most about or took the time to research/learn?

A couple of threads I saw on the front page prompted my creating this topic. Fan-fiction is definitely related to this subject, as well as "what if" questions (Han Dynasty in Middle Earth).
 
I don't think i am familiar with any of it, and also i think i am against it on principle. From the little that i know about the Necronomicon, for example, it became a farce and not all what Lovecraft wrote about. There is the notable (although again not very Lovecraftian) exception of H.R.Giger's take on it, but other than that it seems to have done nothing good for the Old Ones pantheon.
 
Well I can't blame any of the non-authors (original author I mean) that feel like expanding the setting in a non-official capacity. But sometimes fan-fiction is so good, it is adopted by other fans. So I don't have an issue about that kind of thing and you know, as long as it is recognized as non-official canon.
 
If we are looking at what the creators actualy established and what is considered canon, I would have to say Lord of the Rings with Star Trek coming in a distant second with Star Wars barely passing the starting line.
 
The warhammer verses have always been pretty awesome (if not a tad shallow) due to their mish mash of almost all conceivable tropes. Hell, its all that keeps their crappy rulesets afloat.
 
If we are looking at what the creators actualy established and what is considered canon, I would have to say Lord of the Rings with Star Trek coming in a distant second with Star Wars barely passing the starting line.
"What the creator(s) actualy [sic] established" and "what is considered canon" are two different things with Star Wars. Doesn't necessarily make it any better - lots of dross, a few gems, just like most shared universes. (The way not to run a shared universe is the way Lovecraft did, namely "I love any of the contributions anybody else is going to make, even if they're complete crap".)

Most of the fictional settings I'm most interested in, like Mass Effect and Avatar (TLA/TLOK, not the blue-skinned freaks), don't really have a colossal, well-developed setting. The only IP I'm familiar with that has a lot of lore is Star Wars, and I'm not into it for the lore. :p

I think LotR's lore and storyline are uninteresting, but linguistically, it's probably the best-developed IP out there.
 
The Fallout franchise is my favorite. When you subtract the silly Easter egg things like Skynet and the aliens, it ends up being a sophisticated exploration of human nature concerning conflicting political and ethical ideologies.
 
The Might&Magic 6-8 + Heroes 3 part of heroes franchise. (i used to know a lot about those universes)

The Fallout 1-2 universe (used to know a lot)

Might post some more later.
 
I don't see how any of the mentioned IP can stand up to Tolkien as far as impressive lore goes. He's got everything from a couple of fairly complete languages (and fragments of many more) to different calendars running concurrently, detailed histories, truckloads of poetry in various languages, a fair bit of mythology, you name it. And he was the first to attempt something like that. Everyone else who tries is just imitating. The only thing missing is religion.

When I was younger I was very impressed with the world-building of the Dragonlance books: the cultured seemed very real to me, with details such as burial customs that would be mentioned in passing, giving a really strong sense of reality. There were also some nice exotic touches such as the language of magic being based on Indonesian.
 
I'm not extremely familiar with Star Wars EU compared to those who might be considered real fans, but it might easily take the top place for most extensive universe creation by fans and later authors. Relative to what was laid out by the Star Wars films themselves the number of characters, stories, and all types of media in books and games is massive. Other major franchises either have much lower levels of total depth even in fan creations, say for example comparable science fiction in Battlestar Galactica doesn't have literally thousands upon thousands of side characters and stories and books stretching over decades, or if the universe is significantly in depth (like LOTR) the original author and works established much more of it, it wasn't a thing driven by fans and later authors.

I actually agree with Kyriakos here that the Lovecraft mythos share strong similarities on this. Not necessarily good or bad, just how much was developed completely independently of the original author and works.

Generally many roleplaying settings and games, less so video games but a few, are notable for what the OP mentions, fictional universes created by or at least continually developed by collaborative effort of tons of people far exceeding the scope of the original work. (eg. D&D settings or Warhammer)
 
Why did Tokein not put religion on LOTR?
 
What? Tolkien was a rather devout Catholic and it shows on all occasions in the LotR universe, especially in the Silmarillion, but in the LotR books themselves as well.

Tolkien later even regretted he drew such a heavyhanded connection with Gandalf's whole death-and-resurrection.

Now for the topic, I actively loathe extended universes with a passion. But Star Trek's is a lot worse because even the official canon is not that good most of the time, it shows that the universe wasn't laid out in advance even for one show alone, and the writers made things up as they went along (notable exception: Deep Space Nine, which can't be praised enough for its continuity, both internal and with its precursors). And don't even get me started on "Enterprise". :rolleyes:

So far I've found nothing that's comparable to Tolkien's world building and the associated mythology.
 
No, I don't mean comparrisions to our real world religions.. but unless im mistaken (probably) the different races of LoTR didn't seem to have religions?
 
That's right, there is much religious imagery and parallelism in Tolkien's works, but religion as a social phenomenon is almost entirely absent from his world. His characters never attend religious services or pray or do anything religious at all. I know of only one explicit reference to religion in The Lord of the Rings, and it is oblique and rather mystifying.
 
Of course they do. The Elves and the Númenorean humans have the Valar pantheon as Gods, the Dwarves have Aule/Mahal, and the other human peoples we see seem to view Sauron as their God. I don't know about the Rohirrim, but at least they seem to have some kind of a concept of ancestral spirits.

It's partially true that this isn't particularly prounounced within the books, we don't see religious rituals etc., but that Tolkien was rather awkward in describing the everyday life of his world is nothing new really.

Edit: crosspost with Plotinus. Again, I stress that outside of the Shire, Tolkien didn't seem to care much for the actual lives of the people there. And who knows, maybe the practice of religion in Middle Earth is rather mystified and unritualized. That wouldn't make it any less of a religion.

Edit2: I just remembered that for example the Hobbits hear some elves singing songs to praise Elbereth on their road to Bree/Rivendell (don't remember exactly).
 
Of course they do. The Elves and the Númenorean humans have the Valar pantheon as Gods, the Dwarves have Aule/Mahal, and the other human peoples we see seem to view Sauron as their God.

I disagree: the Valar and related beings certainly seem obvious candidates for "gods" on a cosmological level, but I don't think they function as "gods" on a religious level at all. People don't worship them. They exist basically as very powerful entities but don't have a religious function.

I'd say that Tolkien's world is one that has gods but no religion (as opposed to religion but no gods, which one might think is the case with the real world, but let's not get into that).
 
Edit2: I just remembered that for example the Hobbits hear some elves singing songs to praise Elbereth on their road to Bree/Rivendell (don't remember exactly).
Yep, that was when Frodo encountered Gildor Inglorion and they were singing praise of Elbereth Gilthoniel. Elbereth was one of the Valar who (IIRC) created the stars over Middle Earth. I for one don't see it as worship as the Elves lived among the Valar during their time in the Undying Lands and knew what they did. Ancestor Worship would probably be the closest analogy I can think of. That said, the Northmen and Dunadain did seem to practice a pseudo-Ancestor Worship quite a bit with the veneration of Eorl and Helm amongst the Rohirrim and the great Kings of Gondor for Gondor.
 
I disagree: the Valar and related beings certainly seem obvious candidates for "gods" on a cosmological level, but I don't think they function as "gods" on a religious level at all. People don't worship them. They exist basically as very powerful entities but don't have a religious function.

I'd say that Tolkien's world is one that has gods but no religion (as opposed to religion but no gods, which one might think is the case with the real world, but let's not get into that).
Okay, one might argue this way.

It really comes down on how we define religion, I'd say. Middle Earth is in many ways not comparable to the real world. Most important, even in the Third Age there are many elves around who have actually seen the Valar and lived in their equivalent of paradise, like Galadriel. They know how the "Gods" are like, and know that there's no eschatology like in Christianity for example, no desire to be worshipped, so they don't. The question is, can it be religion without worship?

My above example and the way they're referenced in poems like Alátariello Nainie Loriendesse shows that Elves treat them quite similar to how, say, Greeks treated their pantheon. A collection of powerful beings who have no particular relationship with humanity/elvenity.


By the way, the Númenoreans are described to worship Ilúvatar and have a religion based around him in the Akallabeth. Which is quite ironic because while he is the being that comes closest to the biblical God in the LotR world, it's also the only being that can't interfere with the physical world at all.
 
it's also the only being that can't interfere with the physical world at all.
I thought Eru Illuvatar sank Numenor at the request of the Valar who feared the Numenoran fleet of Ar-Pharazon?
 
Right. But that had a whole reshaping of Arda as its consequence so maybe if he does something, it doesn't work without collateral damage?
 
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