Well... that's in the eye of the beholder, I guess. I read the books and I never considered Saruman, Gandalf, Theoden or Boromir anything else but one-dimensional. There was absolutely nothing in these characters that wasn't perfectly obvious right from the start. There was no twist or character developement happening for any of these characters.
Especially in case of Boromir, who blatantly states at the second they hire him that he wants to use the ring for his people. Why would you even let someone like him travel with you in the first place, knowing about the corrupting powers of the artifact?
Which is fine, I guess. After all, Tolkien more or less "invented" these fantasy tropes, so there's no need to blame him for being... trope-y as hell.
I'm just evaluating this from a modern perspective. LotR just wouldn't live up to present-day standards if we compare it to newer releases. It was genius for it's time, though.
You make some good points. But I do think that you are mis-using the word one-dimensional. What you are describing are predictable characters, which is very much different from a one-dimensional character in my book.
As you said yourself, Tolkien invented the fantasy tropes, so back then they were not predictable. Now they are. I'm all for judging past works from a present-day perspective. For example, I hate when people call Mario the best game of all time, since there are a lot of games that it simply can't keep up with.
But calling the characters in LotR black-and-white or one-dimensional is a poor choice of words in my opinion, since it's one of the few things that they are not.
I was never talking about Sauron; since Sauron is not really a character (and so are Kil-jaeden, Archimonde or Mannoroth). Granted, they all have a physical form, but they are more what I would consider a "force of nature" than a character. Kind of an obstacle or plot device for the heroes to overcome, not a true character you can actually explore.
Hmm, agreed. But I do think that the fantasy genre should get over using these kinds of villains all the time, as it's very much possible to create a villain with actual depth and still have him be an obstacle.
True indeed. Then again, in any store with more than 10 characters, you'll eventually find a Mary Sue if you look hard enough. People tend to scream "Mary Sue!" immediately nowadays when a character is simply lawful-good by design or the creator's pet character.
Even in franchises that are critically acclaimed for their diverse and unique characters like Harry Potter, you'll find Mary Sues if you break it down too hard (Even Dumbledore qualifies as a Mary Sue when you think about it).
A Mary Sue is not a 100% good character nor is it a very powerful character. To be a Mary Sue you need to have no character flaws whatsoever.
It's hard to name one real flaw in Rhonin, Turalyon or Thrall (At least now, his character was best in Christie Golden's Lord of the Clans)
Villains can be Mary Sues as well, it's just most people see being evil as, well a flaw.
Dumbledore is certainly powerful, but he is not a Mary Sue. We see many human flaws in him, especially in the last book.
So yeah, the people screaming "Mary Sue!" at everything are misunderstanding what a Mary Sue actually is.
Nobody denies Tolkien of his achievement...
LotR basicly created the fantasy genre we know today (if we count out the bible or Homer's odyssey, that is). It's just that it won't hold up to modern standards anymore - especially when it comes to the depiction of female characters or overall character developement.
And this is what I think multi-dimensionalism is about, not neccesarily the trope they play on. It's important to see how the characters actually progress through their hardships; and while Thrall might be one of the more one-sided characters here (as you brought up the "green jesus" thing), we have characters like Sylvanas on the other side, who had plenty of developement in her story and actually multiple points of interest along the road. Illidan is also pretty interesting; as he has many roads to go throughout his story (his love and obedience towards Tyrande, despite her obvious hostility against him, his inner demons corrupting him, his hate-love for his sworn enemy Arthas, etc.).
Hehe, Arthas, Sylvanas and Illidan are probably the 3 most interesting characters. At least in the game itself.
As I said you make some good points. But I still think the word you're looking for it predictable.
LotR can be called boring, predictable, badly written etc etc. And I think all of this applies. But calling the characters one-dimensional or black-and-white are one of the few things I think LotR is
not guilty of, even by today's standards.
Seeing as Tolkien invented many of the widely used fantasy tropes in use today, being predictable is pretty much unavoidable. So when the guys at Blizz are writing their lore, yeah they'll add in a few twists to appear original. But that doesn't mean that their characters have more depth, since at their very core they're basically still based on many of the tropes that Tolkien himself created.
TL;DR Predictable characters are not the the same thing as one-dimensional characters. At least not in my opinion
The story of Thrall is partly based on Spartacus
True, although I think Thrall had more noble goals than the real Spartacus did
