Tolkien fandom
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Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion.
There are heavily contrasted internal divisions within the current "movement", which have racked the fandom up to the present day and show no signs of reconciliation at any point in the future. Written preference for any one of a pair of two diametrically opposed internal factions can be met with swift reprisal, although the differences are not necessarily or in all cases divisive.
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[edit] Terminology
There are many different terms used to describe the various kinds of Tolkien fans. Whereas nearly every Star Trek fan is willing to be called a Trekker (though they might find the older Trekkie offensive), not all Tolkien fans agree on the designations of the groups.
The term Ringer refers to a fan of The Lord of the Rings in general, and of Peter Jackson's live-action film trilogy [1] in particular; it was coined because of the latter. It is somewhat in the same line as fanboy, fangirl, otaku, and Trekkie/Trekker.
The term is sometimes extended to mean all Tolkien fans, but there are some "Ringers" who consider themselves fans of The Lord of the Rings but do not find the posthumously published works of Tolkien like The Silmarillion or The History of Middle-earth interesting. In contrast, many Tolkien fans do not necessarily call or consider themselves "Ringers"; in part due to the "Jackson film-specific" connotations the term brings, ignoring all the other adaptations of Tolkien's work to date, and as the term itself ignores the existence of other Tolkien writings, such as the above.
A Tolkienist is someone who studies the work of J. R. R. Tolkien: this usually refers to students of the Elvish languages (see Tolkien research). A Tolkienist can also be described as a hard-core fan of Tolkien's work, one who studies the work with the same amount of interest (or more) that others study non-fictional subjects. Many fans prefer this term, as it is not limited to The Lord of the Rings. As with the term "Ringer", there is no group consensus on this designation.
There are also other, less widely used terms describing Tolkien fans, such as Tolkienite, Tolkienophile or Tolkiendil (an Anglo-Quenya compound, meaning "Tolkien-lover"). Long-time readers of Tolkien's works have also described themselves as Tolkienians or simply, Tolkien readers and aficionados. A very early term which was never widely adopted was LotRían.
There are also Tolkien fans who reject complicated designations, and simply appreciate his writings and and its adaptations.
[edit] History
[edit] Mainstream and Media Fans
The major divisions can best be explained in a chronological context.
Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings was first published in 1954 and The Hobbit prelude in 1937, and bootleg paperbacks eventually found their way into colleges in the U.S.A. in the 1960s. The "hippie" following latched onto the book, but a great many did so for possibly misguided reasons; some openly stated that they felt the Dark Lord Sauron represented the United States military draft during the Vietnam War; an impossibility given the fact that the work was written by a British World War I veteran during World War II and published over a decade before escalations in Vietnam. This led to "mainstream" groups to label The Lord of the Rings as some sort of "hippie book", which was simply not the case: even Tolkien called them The Deplorable Cultus, stating that "Many American fans enjoy the books in a way which I do not".
Still, many people throughout the world simply fell in love with the book (as it has been translated into numerous languages), and although not everyone agrees that The Lord of the Rings actually created the entire fantasy genre of novels, it was certainly and undeniably a profound influence. It formed almost a "Myth of Er", in that it created a new genre where there was none before. Many fantasy series such as Terry Brooks' Shannara books and Dennis L. McKiernan's Mithgar books were created by fans of The Lord of the Rings.
Interest in the book led to several attempts to adapt it for the film medium, most of which were largely unsuccessful. Filmmaker Ralph Bakshi succeeded in securing the rights to produce an animated feature film version, part one of what was originally planned as a two-part adaptation of the story. Bakshi produced the film using, among other animation techniques, rotoscoping, shooting a majority of the film in live-action first before transferring the live footage to animation. While the film had, and continues to have, a mixed critical reaction, it was a financial success, costing $8 million to produce, and grossing over $30 million at the box office. Despite this fact, United Artists, the film's original distributor, refused to fund a sequel, leaving Bakshi's vision forever incomplete. However, the film did help introduce many more fans to the book, including a young Peter Jackson, who would eventually direct his own adaptations of The Lord of the Rings.
Translated into dozens of languages and spread across the globe, The Lord of the Rings has never been out of print since its publication. The existing fanbase in the mid-1990s consisted of devoted fans, completely unused to having truly new material or any sort of mass-media acknowledgement, who paid strict attention to detail and continuity within the legendarium.
However, The Lord of the Rings gained a much broader audience with the release of Peter Jackson's live-action movie adaptations. These were released serially in three successive years, from December 2001 to December 2003. Since then, a large number of fans have also arisen who have not read any of the books, and have been only exposed to Tolkien through the films and its merchandise.
[edit] Organized Tolkien Fandom
Although there were active Tolkien enthusiasts within science fiction fandom from the mid-1950s, true organized Tolkien fandom only took off with the publication of the second hardcover edition and the paperbacks in the 1960s. Although there are numerous Tolkien societies in different countries today, it should be noted that they are not endorsed or even authorized by the Tolkien Estate.
Articles on The Lord of the Rings appeared regularly in the 1960s fanzine Niekas, edited by Ed Meskys. The first organized Tolkien fan group was "The Fellowship of the Ring", founded by Ted Johnstone at Pittcon, the 1960 Worldcon. They published four issues of the fanzine i-Palantír before the organization disbanded.
The Tolkien Society of America first met "in February, 1965, beside the statue of Alma Mater on the Columbia University campus," according to a 1967 New York Times interview with Richard Plotz, the Society's founder and first Thain. By 1967, Meskys had become Thain and the society boasted over 1,000 members, organized into local groups or smials, a pattern that would be followed by other Tolkien fan organizations. The society published a newsletter, Green Dragon, and The Tolkien Journal (edited by Plotz). In 1969, the society sponsored the first Tolkien Conference at Belknap College. The Tolkien Conference was not a "science fiction convention" but rather a scholarly event.
The University of Wisconsin Tolkien Society was founded in 1966, and is best known for its journal Orcrist (1966-1977), edited by Richard C. West.
Across the continent, Glen GoodKnight founded the Mythopoeic Society in California in 1967 for the study, discussion, and enjoyment of fantastic and mythic literature, especially the works of Tolkien and fellow-Inklings C.S. Lewis, and Charles Williams. The society held its first Mythcon conference in 1970, which featured readings, a costume competition, an art show, and other events typical of science fiction conventions of the day. The society's three current periodicals are Mythprint, a monthly bulletin; Mythlore, originally a fanzine and now a peer-reviewed journal that publishes scholarly articles on mythic and fantastic literature; and Mythic Circle, a literary annual of original poetry and short stories (which replaced the Society's earlier publications Mythril and Mythellany).
Orcrist and The Tolkien Journal published three joint issues (1969-1971). The Tolkien Journal and Mythlore published several joint issues in the later 1970s and eventually merged.
The Tolkien Society (U.K.) was founded in the U.K. in 1969, and remains active as a registered charity. The society has two regular publications, a bi-monthly bulletin of news and information, Amon Hen, and an annual journal, Mallorn, featuring critical articles and essays on Tolkien's work. They host several annual events, including a conference held at Oxford, Oxonmoot.
Both the U.K. Tolkien Society and the Mythopoeic Society were and remain organized into "Special Interest Groups", focusing on one area such as languages, and into local or regional groups who continue to meet on a regular basis. The journal Parma Eldalamberon, founded in 1971, is a publication of one such special interest group of the Mythopoeic Society.
There is also a long tradition of organized Tolkien fandoms in Scandinavia. The Tolkien Society Forodrim was founded in Sweden in 1972, and has an especially active group interested in Tolkien's languages, Mellonath Daeron. Arthedain, the Tolkien Society of Norway, founded in 1981, issues the journal Angerthas.
[edit] Internal categories
[edit] Jackson movies
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The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
Tolkien fans may be classified based on the Jackson trilogy. In no particular order, they are:
- Fans who read the books before the Jackson movies were released (or buzz about their release started in 2000), or at least not as a result of the ensuing hype.
- Fans who read the books after the first movie was released.
- Fans of the movies who have never read the books.
Fans who read the books before the movies came out fall into two or three categories:
- The Purists (sometimes called The Old Guard) are fans of The Lord of the Rings who felt the movies strayed too far from the books, and dislike them for it (some of these fans prefer the 1978 animated film, which is sometimes considered to be more faithful to the books).
- There are also fans of the books who also like the Jackson movies, and may prefer some of its changes (in which case they are called Revisionists).
- Others may like the books more, and dislike changes made in the movies, but on the whole justify them for the medium of cinema and are willing to accept them on condition.
Further, there is a new wave of fans that did not read the books beforehand, but after hearing about or seeing the movies, have read the books. Some of these may then prefer the book over the films, and vice versa.
Finally, there are the fans of the movies who have not read the books. Some have just never had the time to read such a long work as the Lord of the Rings, but nonetheless understand that the movies are only adaptations. Many are (and are treated as) quite respectable fans. There are, however, exceptions.
There are also those who are typically attracted to the characters, or rather to the actors and actresses portraying them, most notably Orlando Bloom/Legolas; there are also those who typically watch the films for their battle scenes. While of course some degree of overlapping occurs between fan "types", some of these people are quite separate from the readers of the books.
[edit] Books
One division of those fans that have read the books is:
- Fans who have read only The Lord of the Rings (and probably also the Hobbit)
- Fans who have also read some or all of the additional material such as The Silmarillion and the long series of uncompleted writings starting with the Unfinished Tales and culminating in The History of Middle-earth series.
This second group can be further divided:
- Those who accept The Silmarillion as canon, and quantify or ignore the rest
- Those who see The Silmarillion as faulty in many parts, and who see stories from UT or the HoME as canon.
- Those who accept that the mind of Tolkien was never fixed on a particular version, and who are happy to do without any "canon".
See Middle-earth canon for an extended discussion on this second split.
[edit] Languages
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The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
There is also a subcategory, called 'Tolkienian linguists', which are people who are interested in Tolkien's fictional languages, mainly Elvish. These people study seriously the languages as if they were real ones (much as how Tolkien himself made them, with a virtual yet realistic etymology, evolution, grammar, vocabulary and alphabets).
A notable division occurs in that field among the
- scholars and the
- reconstructionists.
[edit] Purism
The scholary view (also called 'purist' by the other fraction) is that Tolkien's languages, however sophisticated and well-made, are not intended to be regularised for practical use, but only scholarly study can be done on them. To the scholars, expansions or elaborations of Tolkien's languages beyond Tolkien's explicit statements are sometimes frowned down upon since they are confused with Tolkien's own inventions, and they consider such attempts of systematisation and posthumous elimination of inconsistencies futile. Scholars accuse reconstructionists of trying to systematise everything according to (a custom-made) logic and fit everything in their theories, and thereby coming to hasty and biased assumptions that often contradict Tolkien's writings. The purists also prefer to regard all the forms of Tolkien's languages as conceptual evolution of a single creation - all of which are of equal scholarly value - and are against the 'distillation' of Reconstructionists who prefer forms of the languages after a certain time period and reject the earlier ones that aren't compatible with the LotR canon (see below). Notable purists include Carl F. Hostetter, the editor of Vinyar Tengwar.
[edit] Reconstructionism
The viewpoint labelled "reconstructionism" is actually a spectrum of views, and represents a fusing of at least two distinct trends. The first trend, which might be called 'practical reconstructionism', results from attempts to use Tolkien's languages (particularly Quenya and sometimes Sindarin) to write letters, poetry, and songs. As Tolkien's languages do not have very large vocabularies, people attempting to use the languages in this way soon discovered that they would have to create new vocabulary in order to express themselves; the result was the creation of as many new dialects of Quenya and Sindarin as there were corresponding communities -- or even authors.
The second trend, which might be called 'theoretical reconstructionism', arises from the observation -- not necessarily apparent at first sight -- that Tolkien's languages exhibit a high degree of consistency, and that a thorough understanding of the principles by which the languages were constructed would enable one to fill in gaps in grammar and vocabulary, and even discover errors in published texts, and suggest corrections. To the theoretical reconstructionist, Tolkien's editorial comments on his own languages represent only one source of knowledge; the words and texts of the languages themselves constitute another source, and it is the task of the theoretical reconstructionist to come up with linguistic theories and rules that will adequately explain the observed data, and that these theories and rules can be valid even if Tolkien never explicitly states them. A theoretical reconstructionist would, for instance, not have a problem with using linguistic techniques and models developed since Tolkien's death to describe the syntax or phonology of an elvish language.
The two trends overlap in the attempt to create a consistent grammar for any stage of any one of Tolkien's languages. Such a grammar is, of course, impossible from a purist point of view; the best that could be done would be an indexed listing of all of Tolkien's specific statements about his languages, perhaps with illustrations, but with no attempt to prioritize or validate those statements. A reconstructionist grammar, on the other hand, must grapple with changes in both the realization and the underlying conception of Tolkien's languages. To form a consistent grammar out of conflicting data and statements requires some level of prioritization. Different students of the languages may have different criteria, but two common rules of thumb are that the later has priority over the earlier and the more consistent has priority over the less consistent. That is, when two forms or rules come into conflict, the one that was set down later is generally to be preferred; and that form or rule is to be preferred which is most well attested (even if it conflicts with later attestations) with all the other known data about the language.
One consequence of this approach is that the earliest forms of Tolkien's languages, Qenya and Goldogrin, must be treated as languages different from Quenya and Sindarin, because the number of inconsistencies between the languages is too great to be reconciled -- though Qenya and Goldogrin are certainly suitable for study in their own right. On the other hand, Noldorin and Sindarin, despite considerable divergences, can be considered as variant forms of a single language, and information about one can, with some caution, be applied to the other. It must be noted that some words from Qenya are 'borrowed' or 'updated' in order to fill some gaps in known Quenya vocabulary. See Neo-Eldarin for a fuller discussion of post-Tolkien attempts to cultivate his languages.
Notable known reconstructionists include David Salo, the linguist who had primary responsibility for the reconstructed Quenya, Sindarin and other Tolkien languages in the movies.
[edit] Effects of the Jackson films
The number of fans (and the number of people who will admit in public to being fans) has increased enormously due to the benefits of mass media and advertising, as has the number of people who have read of or at least heard of the books.
However, since these new "Tolkien fans" who have not (yet) read the books owe their first impressions to these movies, which in parts are at odds with Tolkien's actual writings, they may believe things that contradict the written canon. For example, movie fans might think Arwen is a warrior, while Arwen's strength in the book is emotional and possibly spiritual (though female Elves fighting is not out of the question in Middle-earth). Also, these fans may think that Elves have blue eyes,[2] while in the books grey eyes are mostly mentioned.
Many of these new fans are then inspired to write fan fiction, some of which Tolkien might have disapproved of — notably slash fiction, often about homosexual pairings; Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and the religion considers homosexual acts (though not orientation or tendencies) sinful. Tolkien-related fan art is also widespread on the Internet. Both fan art and fan fiction have increased due to the films.
Tolkien-related games, especially computer and video games have also increased in number and in popularity. Pop culture references to Middle-earth have also increased, as well as satires and parodies of it.
[edit] Highly debatable issues
Then there are the divisions inherent to the story; the "Do Balrogs have wings?" debate had reached legendary (and to outsiders often comical) proportions. The books are ambiguous on the matter, but the movies follow the interpretation that they did have "wings of shadow". Could they fly? Did they even need wings to fly? The bad blood (and bad jokes) caused by this debate persists to this day.
Other popular debates include "Do Elves have pointed ears?", "Who or what is Tom Bombadil?", and anything to do with any change or adaptation made for the movies.
Smaller internal divisions (some would say "spirited discussions") of this nature have fueled the online community for as long as there have been online communities. Tolkien discussion took place in many newsgroups from the earliest days of Usenet and an alt.fan.tolkien group was created in 1992, followed by rec.arts.books.tolkien early in 1993.
[edit] Fans today
One of the most prominent fansites is TheOneRing.net, which was very popular even with the cast and crew of the film. TORn, as it is called, was originally a small movie-news site that gained in prestige as movie-rumors became reality. The filmmakers put special effort into winning over the fans, not simply tolerating but actually actively supporting fansites. Of these, TheOneRing.net is the most well-known and is probably responsible for popularizing the term Ringers. Fans who have avoided the hype surrounding the movie therefore may not use the term, so it is probably preferable to say "Tolkien fans" or "Lord of the Rings fans" when in doubt.
There are also many conventional literary societies with an interest in Tolkien. Most prominent are The Mythopoeic Society in the USA and The Tolkien Society, UK-based but with a worldwide membership. The Forodrim in Sweden are also notable for the amount of work they put into their gatherings.
Most fans (though not all) have welcomed Peter Jackson's trilogy. Currently some fans are pushing for another adaptation of The Hobbit prelude as a live-action feature film, although this may not start for another five years at least. After that, there is a strong drive to have The Silmarillion adapted, although the Tolkien Estate has not sold the film rights. The Silmarillion could provide enough material to easily create two more trilogies*… at least, but is especially troublesome as it is not a single story.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Strictly speaking, The Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy but rather a single book that, for purposes of publication, is divided into three volumes. This is another issue of frequent debate. It can also be seen as six books since there are two "books" in each volume.
- ^ One of the items in a test purportedly measuring "Tolkien fanhood" is "You buy blue contacts to look more Elvish". Retrieved on 16 September 2006.
[edit] External links
- TheOneRing.net
- TheOneRing.com
- Minas Tirith - Spirited discussions of Tolkien's works and that which it has inspired.
- Tolkien News - Constantly updated current news surrounding Tolkien's works.
- TolkienGateway.net - Tolkien information and resources.
- Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza ~ Large fansite devoted to both the movies and books
- Interview with Richard Plotz, New York Times, 1967
- Ed Mesky's Reminiscenses of the early days of Tolkien fandom
- History of Fandom, Chapter 6: Where No Fan Has Gone Before...
- The Tolkien Sarcasm Page - A Tolkien humor site predating the Jackson movies by years, thus illustrating the "old" fandom.
- The Tolkien Society site
- The Mythpoeic Society site
- Arthedain site (in English)
- Forodrim site (in English)
- Elfenomeno.com
- Tolkien Gateway - Currently the largest Tolkien encyclopedia with over 4,000 articles.
- Unfinished Tales - Website for the Wargaming and Roleplaying Smial of the Tolkien Society - Unfinished Tales
- HonorTolkien.org The Virtual Middle-earth :: Dedication to Tolkien's works on Middle-earth
- Tolkien Geek Blogging J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and Other Aimless Pursuits
- LOTR Plaza A place of forums where one can role play a Middle-earth character
