I think you've misunderstood me. The Lord of the Rings has authenticity as one of its main themes. This is part of the work itself, not to do with its provenance.

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semiquaver 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What does it mean for a thing to be “authentic”? Tolkien hasn’t created anything since he passed away. I hear they used computers to some extent when making the lord of the rings movies, something Tolkien certainly would not have done. Should we thus criticize the movies on the basis of their authenticity?

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Peritract 13 hours ago | parent [-]

Again, I think you've misread the parent comment here. The Lord of the Rings--the actual books, the content of the work--is partially about authenticity, in the same way that Spiderman is about power and responsibility.

I'm not talking about the provenance of the work, but the content of it.

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semiquaver 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I have not misread anything, my comment still stands.

	▲	Peritract 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure, but it's not relevant to the discussion or as a reply to me.

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bcjdjsndon 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

But an AI can create that same authenticity, if it doesn't matter about the actual provenance then

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Peritract 15 hours ago | parent [-]

We're still not talking about provenance. Where something comes from is not the same as what it is.

The people who want LotR merchandise do so because they care about LotR.

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bcjdjsndon 13 hours ago | parent [-]

> We're still not talking about provenance. Where something comes from is not the same as what it is.

Either define what you mean by authentic, or let us assume that it's a synonym for "something I like"

	▲	Peritract 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm honestly not sure how much more I can break this down for you. I'm not trying to be difficult here, but you keep on misreading and objecting to things I have not said. The Lord of the Rings is about lots of things. Some of those things are orcs. When I say that The Lord of the Rings is about orcs, I'm not saying it's made by orcs, or that orcs were used to distribute it, but that orcs are something discussed within the text. Similarly, when I say that The Lord of the Rings is partially about authenticity, I'm not talking about the way in which it was written, but the contents of the work. Authenticity is a theme in the books, discussed within the text.