Why "of course"? I'll ask again: what facts are there behind Middle Earth? Or Oz? Aren't people capable of making things up? It's the assumption (that you have also made) that there must be facts behind stories and myths.
then there's your facts ...or to take things to another level, you could look at the "actual" things that influenced people to create fictions like that even if they are stories, there are facts in that influence the author (you might even call it "intellectual copyright")
hence my repeated, "depends what you would have us believe ...." that says absolutely nothing about the "facts" behind them
Obfuscation for the sake of it: no one has yet presented anything as a fact, let alone asked us to choose whether or not to believe them. Still wrong: did hodbits actually exist or are they a fiction?
when all else fails, try wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Location_hypotheses_of_Atlantis thats a question best answered by looking at the facts behind them (link provided in previous post)
I read it: not single mention of Zeus OR Medusa. Also wrong: that gives the facts behind his his invention of the story. not facts for the existence of hobbits.
my bad thought the subject had gone back to atlantis anyway, you can find similar pages about zeus and/or medusa on wiki too (the great reservoir of contention that it is) actually if you look at the link it refers to the title being derivative of an old english for "hole dweller", which certainly were factual, although I guess the issue ultimately rests on if one would have one believe positions such as this
So you did miss the point. And we're back to: there appears to be no factual basis for the stories. Oh, I guess you missed this bit: Or this from your latest link: And again, that would be people not hobbits...
well sure, according to who you would have us believe not sure what you are suggesting I missed since the whole article is about influences that contributed to the narrative which then would be the "facts" (according to certain people we are led to believe) behind hobbits, yes?
So there claims that there actually existed people with snakes for hair and whose gaze could turn you to stone? Interesting. The fact that "hole dweller" was an invented etymology. I.e. that isn't a fact either. No: Tolkien made up the "facts" and admitted they are inventions NOT facts.
not necessarily, but there is a broad category of literature (that isn't necessarily fictional) about other human civilization/aliens etc which, once again, says absolutely nothing about whatever (factual) experiences he had that influenced his story telling ideas
. i don't know, maybe since with their phylosophy, they thoght it must be there many gods for all the compicated things, also, maybe it had something to do with a king, or a lightning storm, people can get creative, Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! there was a myth, it's like that: a guy, was hundsome, was always looking at himslef in the water, all the time, and he loved his face, so when he dided near the lacke, there was the orchids, so they said that their god transformed him into orchid, cause that orchid is always, is liek it's looking at it's self in water, cause it's always facing the water, like a person looking at himself, Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! we just studied about it in the arabic class, (for a writer tawfik alhakim)
I don't think we can say as yet that there was an Atlantis, but it seems possible that the myth is based on a real event. I am sure the whole notion that it was a lost paradise is exaggerated. In the past, being accurate was not a virtue in storytelling.
yeah but a concept like Atlantis had to come from something, same as a concept of dragons that shows up in most myths on every continent of Earth Norwey dragon: http://www.odinsvolk.ca/dragon.htm Chinese dragon: http://djtravel.homestead.com/Souvenirs.html Mayan dragon: http://pictures.linkmesh.com/dragons/maya_dragons.php Egyptian dragon: http://dragons.wikia.com/wiki/African_Dragon
And it could have simply come from human imagination.That's the point I'm trying (and obviously failing) to make. Was Utopia based on a real place that operated like that? Or was it more a mix of imagination and extrapolation?
yes Utopia was based on an actual place! Refer to Bible mentioning the now gone place of garden of Eden between Tigris river and Euphrates river. A concept as powerful as this could not come have come just imagination, there must have been some sort of material/factual event/location.
No it wasn't. And the Garden of Eden is also a myth (and hardly constitutes Utopia since there's not much of a "society" with only two people). What evidence do you have for that supposition? Oh wait, the same evidence you have for god being real: i.e. he must be real because we couldn't have just imagined him. Does the same apply to Lord of the Rings? All of science fiction?