Anachronism in Middle-earth
Theme in Tolkien's fantasy writings / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anachronism, chronological inconsistency, is seen in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth in the juxtaposition of cultures of evidently different periods, such as the classically-inspired Gondor and the medieval-style Rohan, and in the far more modern hobbits of the Shire, a setting which resembles the English countryside of Tolkien's childhood. The more familiar lifestyle and manner of the hobbits, complete with tobacco, potatoes, umbrellas, and mantelpiece clocks, allows them to mediate between the reader and the far older cultures of Middle-earth. They were introduced for The Hobbit, a children's story not planned to be set in Middle-earth; their anachronistic role is extended in The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien's books are at once medieval in style and modern in many ways, such as appealing to a diverse modern readership and possessing a modern novelistic "realism". The One Ring, too, embodies a strikingly modern concept, that power corrupts; in medieval thought, power just revealed how a person already was. The combination of medieval and modern is echoed in Peter Jackson's films of The Lord of the Rings, introducing further anachronistic elements such as skateboarding during a battle scene.