[ekianjo]

thats a little reductive.

Tolkien was influenced by many things, such as the rings of the nibelungen and other proto germanic stories, his studies of the english language especially in its older forms, christianity for core values, and indeed his experiences in ww1.

[ants_everywhere]

Yes, of course. Tolkien was massively well read and obsessively created whole worlds, as can be seen in things like The Silmarillion.

> thats a little reductive.

I prefer to think of it as dimensionality reduction :)