{"id":67863,"date":"2013-01-02T23:12:33","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T04:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/?p=67863"},"modified":"2013-01-02T23:12:33","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T04:12:33","slug":"critics-forget-how-fairytales-feed-our-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/2013\/01\/02\/67863-critics-forget-how-fairytales-feed-our-humanity\/","title":{"rendered":"Critics forget how fairytales feed our humanity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"intro\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/hobbit-Smaug-howe.jpg\" class=\"no-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www-images.theonering.org\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/hobbit-Smaug-howe-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"hobbit-Smaug-howe\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-66134 no-lazyload\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/hobbit-Smaug-howe-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/hobbit-Smaug-howe-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/hobbit-Smaug-howe-600x401.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/hobbit-Smaug-howe.jpg 1189w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a> Hobbits, notes Tolkien at the start of their eponymous story, are largely forgotten, easily missed and have little or no magic about them.<\/p>\n<p>Or not. In the 75 years since he penned those words, The Hobbit has sold more than 100 million copies. In its opening weekend, Peter Jackson&#8217;s first instalment of the movie version broke records around the world. Clearly there is something a little magical about Hobbits after all.<\/p>\n<p>The interesting question, however, is what that magic is. Why should an English boffin&#8217;s fairytale of elves, wizards and dragons continue to command such devotion? What craving does it satisfy?<\/p>\n<p>To its literary critics, The Hobbit&#8217;s success is simply a sign of widespread immaturity. The story, with its faux mediaeval cadences and reactionary archetypes, is mere escapism &#8211; intellectual comfort-food for the politically disengaged.<\/p>\n<p>[<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/opinion\/society-and-culture\/hobbits-critics-forget-how-fairytales-feed-our-humanity-20130102-2c5j5.html?rand=1357120238974\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hobbits, notes Tolkien at the start of their eponymous story, are largely forgotten, easily missed and have little&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":66134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7,4,153,148,152],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hobbit-book","category-hobbit-movie","category-tolkien-life","category-hobbit","category-tolkien"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/hobbit-Smaug-howe.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1tLoH-hEz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67863"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67866,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67863\/revisions\/67866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theonering.net\/torwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}