>>10286901yeah, knights, dragons, orcs, goblins, elves, and other fantasy shit existed, but they're all pretty different from how we know them today.
By the 1900s, they where kiddy shit, that lost a lot of the lore of when they were created. Tolkien brought back those darker elements.
Could another writer have researched old lore and written about then? Sure, why not, but would they have been as good as Tolkien's work? Probably not, judging by other fantasy authors from his era.
Plus, Tolkien mixed up a lot of lore together, creating that archetype D&D genre we know today. You had more generic humans fighting dragons in stuff like The Once And Future King, but no epic rivalries between elves and dwarves. There were wandering Kings without a kingdom like Elric, but no big bad evil raising an orc army to take over the world.
Of course, who knows if Elric could have even been published if it wasn't for LotR opening up the genre to adults. Fantasy was awfully niche for adults and kiddy shit ruled the shelves... sorta like today, but its' still big with adults anyway.
So LotR hitting it big raised awareness in many ways, not just in how it created copycats.
