In an introduction to the Gunslinger Stephen King recalls his love for the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and talks about how he always wanted to write an epic fantasy novel of his own. He wanted to write a story that would evoke the same emotion from his readers that The Lord of the Rings evoked in him, but he wanted to do it with characters and a setting that were his own. Rather than create a fantasy world full of elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins in a pastoral type of setting, he sets characters, humans and mutations of humans in a broken down version of what may have once been our modern world, and in our modern world.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy is comprised of three novels that follow heroic characters in their quest to save their world. The Dark Tower series, by Stephen King, when finished will be a series of six books that follow heroic characters on their quest to save all worlds. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien's works on the authors and their works that came after mainly by drawing a parallel between specific themes and scenes in The Fellowship of the Ring and The Gunslinger, but also by calling to attention characters and devices used by authors such as Robert Jordan, R.A. Salvatore, Terry Goodkind, and J.K. Rowling.
The basic themes of both series, normal people who have to persevere to overcome overwhelming odds to complete a task to assure the survival of their worlds as they know them, while at the same time the normal people become heroic, are themes that were not new to Tolkien or to King. Rather, it is of the setting and the circumstances of the actions that embrace this theme that Tolkien is a modern pioneer, and it is his vision that Stephen King borrows from for the Dark Tower series.
The Gunslinger, the first book in The Dark Tower series, introduces Roland and Jake, probably the two most important characters in the series. It starts with Roland in pursuit of his nemesis, Walter who flees from Roland across a vast dessert on a dying world. Roland encounters Jake, a boy who died in New York City and woke up alone at a way station in Roland's world, near the base of the mountains to which Walter fled. Roland will not leave the boy to die alone, and brings him along.
They enter the mountains through a tunnel and spend many days in the dark as they travel to the other side. They have no light and very little food, and the travel seems to go on for days. Along the way they are attacked by creatures called the slow mutants; creatures whose ancestors are human, but to whom they have very little resemblance due to radiation poisoning through many generations. As Roland and Jake near the end of the tunnel under the mountains they find an abandoned train station that must have served the railroad tracks they had been following. There they discover, by reading old newspapers that are barely legible and fall apart when they touch them, the history of the people who used to populate it. They leave the station to follow the tracks and come to an old, rickety railroad bridge that spans a chasm, and as they cross Walter, Roland's enemy, appears at the end of the bridge near the exit to the cavern, and at that moment Jake loses his footing and falls. Jake hangs on for his life, Roland makes his way back to him, and Walter gives Roland a choice; leave the boy to die and he will let Roland catch him, or save the boy and abandon the quest for the dark tower. Roland goes after Walter, and Jake, who Roland had grown to love falls, and falling says "Go then, there are other worlds than this."
Reading that scene is like reading about Frodo and company as they make their way through the mines of Moria. They must get to the other side of the mountains, and all the other passes are blocked. The mines are their only choice of passage, so they go and spend many days of travel in the dark. They are attacked by orcs in an abandoned dwarf city where their only clue to what happened to the inhabitants is contained in a badly damaged journal, and then Gandalf holds the bridge against the Balrog so his companions can reach the exit of the mines. Frodo and the rest know that they must either leave Gandalf to face the creature alone and continue with their quest which is much more important than one life, or try to help Gandalf and possibly die which will cause them to not accomplish what they set out to do. Gandalf falls, as does Jake, and the rest of the companions go on their way in sorrow. Whether or not Gandalf goes to other worlds as Jake does isn't clear, but he does pass through fire and water and comes back changed.
Walter and the Balrog are both creations of a greater evil, and must be defeated on the path to the accomplishment of the ultimate goal. They are also, in a way preparatory teachers that harden the characters for the dangers to come. Other interesting similarities are that in both books the parties are on quests to reach respective dark towers, one in Mordor beyond the Mountains of Shadow in middle earth, and one beyond the Thunderclap Mountains at the end of mid-earth. In both towers resides an evil power, the Crimson King in The Gunslinger whose sigil is a single staring eye, and Sauron in the Rings whose searching eye is seen by Frodo. Mountains are clear representations of the sheer size of the obstacles the parties both face, and are used more than once in both stories not only as representations of obstacles, but the passage through which, make them obstacles themselves. The progression from light to dark to light again is a theme important in both books. The scenes under the mountains show the growth of the characters through new experiences and realizations. The light at the end of the tunnel is never as bright, metaphorically, as the light at the beginning. The light at the beginning of the tunnel is an innocent light, and therefore brighter than the light at the end that is clouded by experience which may be called growth. Just by comparing the first books in each series it is easy to see the influence of Tolkien on Stephen King, and as the series' continue The Dark Tower includes less and less subject matter from Tolkien as the story becomes more King's own, but the shadow of Tolkien is still clear, as it is in the fiction of more of today's popular fantasy authors.
Robert Jordan is in the process of writing a series of books called "The Wheel of Time." As in the rings trilogy there is a dark lord that is poised to destroy the world, and it is up to a diverse cast of characters to combat the evil force. As did Tolkien, Jordan provides the reader with maps of the realm, which loosely resemble Tolkein's maps. He has the dark lord's realm separated from the rest of the world by mountains in a land from which many evil creatures come. There is a land much like Gondor on the border, and a city much like Minas Tirith from which men protect the rest of the land from the evil that flows from the dark beyond the mountains. Jordan has also come up with his own language, and includes a glossary at the end of each book to explain the terms. There is also lore from across the ocean, and people that come, as the elves did in the rings, from that land to change the culture, and bring new knowledge to the existing people.
R.A. Salvatore writes books for the Forgotten Realms that include much elf lore, and in a certain series of books, a dwarf character that could almost be Gimli, and a Halfling who could easily have been born in the shire. Actually, the story of the dwarf in the Dark Elf series, where he must reclaim his ancestral home from the dominion of the dark elves, can be associated with the story of Bilbo and the dwarves in The Hobbit with the Lonely Mountain, or the mines of Moria, but to talk about R.A. Salvatore and the Forgotten Realms is to talk about Dungeons and Dragons…
Briefly, an argument for the influence of Tolkien can also be made for J.K. Rowling. Rowling writes the Harry Potter series which contain a number of similarities to the ring separately, in each book, and overall, though this is perhaps more of a stretch. Lord Voldemort, he who must not be named, as to Sauron, and when throughout the rings trilogy people are warned not to speak of his name for it will bring evil upon them, particularly at the council of Rivendell. Also, the scar on Harry Potter's forehead marks him for the dark lord; as does the ring mark anyone who wears it.
All of the author's discussed here have clearly been influenced by J.R.R. Tolkien. Whether, as in the case of Stephen King and Robert Jordan, they intentionally include scenes and ideas close to scenes and ideas in the rings trilogy as perhaps a tribute, or they just borrow ideas or thematic elements, it is clear that J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy along with his other writings, has set the standard to which all other fantasy authors aspire.