The Lord of the Rings takes place in a world thatās analogous to Medieval England, and yet thereās New World crops like potatoes and tobacco. Thatās not actually a plot hole: Tolkien himself explains, in the prologue to Fellowship, that pipeweed has been brought from overseas by Numenorians, it follows that hobbits came by potatoes the same way.
But the Hobbit and the early chapters of Fellowship contain much more jarring and numerous anachronisms than post-Columbian-exchange plants. There are metaphors referring to gunpowder, guns, a train engine and express trains! There are commodities that are from the Old World, but were not widespread in Medieval Europe, such as coffee, tea and fireworks. Even silk might be a bit of a stretch. And then there are tons of things that could or technically did exist Ā in a medieval world, but we definitely associate them with later eras: top hats, public museums, clocks small enough to put on a mantelpiece, football, golf, mothballs, umbrellas, metal pens, water bottles instead of waterskins, Christmas crackers, and then thereās the entire question of the hobbitsā written culture. Paper appears widely available and cheap, not everyone is literate but there seems to be a large literate middle-class that owns multiple books, has long legal battles with paperwork involved, sends tons of letters, sends written party invitations, uses anachronistic pre-cut envelopes. Letters aren't carried by random servants, there's an official postal service and a post office: this all implies a level of literacy and written culture more typical of an Early Modern-ish setting. Or Regency? Or Victorian? But definitely super not Medieval.
Conclusion one: when Tolkien started writing The Hobbit he very much did not know where he would end up, which is thematically appropriate.
Conclusion two: Tolkien semi-intentionally wrote the Shire as low-tech but still very recognisably similar to modern England, so that the hobbits leaving its safety to enter an Actual Fantasy World would feel more relatable. (LOTR is a portal fantasy.)
Conclusion three: these are not the aspects of worldbuilding that actually matter, it is actually good that Tolkien is obsessed with mythology and linguistics and only sketches the rest of the worldbuilding out as far as it's necessary for the plot, no need to sweat the small stuff. You should only write about agriculture and taxation if you care about them as much as Tolkien cared about unhinged comparative linguistics.
Conclusion four: in a Watsonian sense, we can take on the conceit that Tolkien didn't write the books, only translated them from a real source, the Red Book of Westmarch. We may then proceed to blame any perceived inconsistencies on his translation.
pixelskylines
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
andulkaphoto
yousharknotpass
kaledo-art
