5 popular franchises that owe a debt to JRR Tolkien and 'The Lord of The Rings'

JRR Tolkien's first installment of 'The Lord of the Rings', 'Fellowship of the Ring', was made into a film by Peter Jackson in 2001.

July 2023 marks 69 years since the publication of JRR Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of the novelist’s epic Lord of the Rings (LOTR) series — arguably, the book that established the ‘high fantasy’ genre as one of the mainstays of the publishing world. In the decades since Tolkien first unleashed the world of Middle Earth, LOTR has inspired some superhit franchises across different kinds of media (including books, movies, TV shows and, of late, especially video games). Here are five such globally popular franchises that owe a debt to Tolkien and LOTR.

The Wheel of Time

Robert Jordan began this series of high fantasy novels in 1990 with The Eye of the World, originally intending to make it a six-volume series. However, the series grew to a total of 14 novels, plus a prequel and two companion volumes. The last three books in the series were completed by acclaimed fantasy author Brandon Sanderson based on the late Jordan’s notes (Jordan passed away before he could finish the series). It’s difficult to summarise this wildly expansive universe, but the main strand of stories follows the Aes Sadai, a group of magical women around the world who channel “The One Power”, the force of good that’s keeping The Dark One (this universe’s supreme evil being) at bay. The Aes Sadai are in search of ‘The Dragon Reborn’, a prophesied super-being who can either rebuild the world — or destroy it with its unmatchable power. Jordan acknowledged Tolkien’s influence in several of his interviews, including modelling certain scenes after corresponding ones in LOTR (the Shire’s opening scene between Bilbo and Gandalf, for example).

Having sold over 90 million copies worldwide, The Wheel of Time is now an Amazon Prime Video series, too, and later this year, its second season will be released.

A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones

George RR Martin has spoken about Lord of the Rings at length in several interviews, and the influence of Tolkien is not difficult to spot in both the books and the HBO series Game of Thrones. Samwise Gamgee from LOTR and Samwell Tarly from Game of Thrones are very similar characters, for example — genteel, good-hearted ‘companions’ whose unconventional heroism and devotion to the classical ‘hero type’ (Frodo in LOTR, Jon Snow in Game of Thrones) is unshakeable. Jon Snow and Aragorn are also extremely similar — beginning the series as ‘tragic heroes’ and outcastes, they discover the truth behind their lineages as the story progresses. Both of them regain their rightful kingdoms through displaying their valour on the field of battle. The dynamic between Game of Thrones’ Tywin Lannister and his sons Jaime and Tyrion is very similar to the one between LOTR’s Denethor and his sons Faramir and Boromir.

The Witcher

The Witcher is an oddity among contemporary media franchises because while it began life as a series of high fantasy novels (by Polish writer Andrzej Sapowski), the sheer popularity of the video games (75 million copies sold worldwide so far) meant that most lay-people associate the brand name with the video games and not the books. And now, with A-list star Henry Cavill headlining the Netflix series, the franchise is at the peak of its global popularity.

The entire premise of the series — magically enhanced monster-hunter wanders the globe killing monstrous creatures on a freelance basis — is extremely Tolkien. And just like Tolkien explored various kinds of antagonistic non-human beings in his novels (orcs, dragons, talking trees, the Balrog), The Witcher’s protagonist, Geralt of Rivia, also encounters a mouth-watering spread of very similar creatures. The ‘good magic/bad magic’ duality represented by Gandalf and Saruman in LOTR is replicated here with Geralt and Stregebor (played by Lance Henriksen in the series).

Warcraft

One of the highest-grossing video game franchises in the world (over $14 billion gross revenue till the end of 2022), Warcraft is a series of video games that includes ‘RTS’ (real time strategy) as well as ‘MMORPG’ (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) titles. The best-selling game within the series, World of Warcraft, is an example of the latter kind, where players across the globe control their own customised player avatar in an open world — exploration, monster-hunting, political or military alliances and much more is on the menu.

The games themselves are set in a mystical world called Azeroth (even the name is extremely Tolkien) and involves a range of creatures that would be very much at home in Lord of the Rings — trolls, dwarves, orcs and so on. Dragon-flight is also a crucial element in the gameplay and it adds another LOTR-like dimension to the overall storytelling. In 2016, the film adaptation Warcraft was released to mixed reviews.

Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons, referred to as ‘D&D’ by fans, is arguably the world’s most famous fantasy tabletop game. It is widely acknowledged as the precursor to all role-playing games in the world. One player takes on the duty of ‘Dungeon Master’ while others create their own magical or super-powered characters, all wandering the same landscape. They can either collaborate on missions or fight each other as the situation arises. A single game or quest often spills over to multiple meetings, gaining ‘experience points’ for players—it is basically gaming’s answer to the novel or the longform TV series, an ongoing, addictive engagement based on storytelling (the Dungeon Master is responsible for the storytelling and moving the game forward).

The creators of D&D, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, have pointed out the various ways in which their universe has been informed by Tolkien’s writing —‘hobbits’ become ‘halflings’ here, for example. In a similar vein, Tolkien’s ‘ents’ become ‘treants’ here and the Balrog becomes ‘balor’. In fact, they had to change a couple of names because of the threat of a lawsuit from the Tolkien estate.

With the success of the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie (as well as Stranger Things, where the main characters are big D&D fans), starring Chris Pine and Hugh Grant, the franchise has experienced a resurgence in interest worldwide.