distortions in relationships in LOTR

hi I'm new here but I have been wondering about something and wondered whether anyone has thought this or has any comments on it. i am a big lotr fan and i enjoy the humor on this site and others as well. but some people seem to distort what tolkien has written, especially regarding the relationships between frodo and sam and even legolas and gimli. cant some people get that tolkien meant that frodo and sam were just exceptionally good friends? and not lovers or anything like that? i think that the most honorable type of friendship is one that one lays down his life for the other. im not homophobic or anything, but i tend to get frustrated when people dont understand it, because it is one of the reasons i like lotr so much. i realize that people just want to get a laugh, but it irritates me sometimes. does anyone have any comments on this?

[Imladris]

Dude, I feel the same way. You're right...they really don't have the right to distort the relationships. But on the whole, most people don't really do that here (at least, not that I've seen).

[Samwise]

I don't see it as MUCH here as I do other places, but I think the idea is horrid, and I agree, people can't just see Frodo and Sam's friendship for what it is, deep, caring, yes, LOVE. True friendship is nothing without love, but just because it's between two men/women (Hobbits) dosen't mean they're gay, but that unforturnately is how the world today thinks. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[Ophelia]

I really agree that it might get strongly annoying even though I haven't got the "pleasure" to see such jokes .
But if to look deeper into the book , friendship is the one that makes their way through ME (like friendship with Galdriel gave them refuge not death from a quick arrow , Bilbo'sand Frodo's friendship with Gandalf got the whole thing started and he led them far enough etc...) .

[Niluial]

Weird, I actually have never heard that before or thought that. Maybe I don’t get around much or pay much attention. I cant remember seeing that on this site… Maybe on other forums but not on BD!

But like you said they have no right to say things like that. A friendship is amazing! And people always look too far into things! And start seeing things which are not there.

Niluial

[Meela]

It doesn't appear much on this site, but a lot of people do distort relationships between all characters. I don't disagree with this, but I do understand that the relationships in the book are pure friendships and no more. But some people just like to create new character situations, and I have seen some superb fanfictions that explore further relationships between the characters- not slash, but really good stories about love, trust, betrayal, etc. It's just the way people like to imagine things. Sometimes they can really care about these characters and want them to have a new form of relationship. It's not meant to be disrespectful or anything.
Some people do like to have a laugh, even myself. But it's just fun. I like humour, we all like humour. Again, no disrespect.
And those people who mean to be disrespectful- that's just the way they are. Ignore them.

[Lord of Angmar]

I am (obviously) a huge fan of Professor Tolkien's works and am thus inclined to defend my opinions and his ideas regarding his works against misconceptions and derrogatory statements. I love the relationship between Frodo and Sam, and never once found it overdone to the extent that one could assume that they were lovers. It is a far more subtle relationship, and one that, I think, cannot be fully grasped and appreciated by today's younger generations. I think, in all honesty and with no intention of criticizing Peter Jackson or any actors in Lord of the Rings, that the way their relationship takes place on screen will inevitably lead mass audiences of Tolkien-ignorant youths to come to the conclusion that perhaps the relationship between Frodo and Sam is not simply one of friendship. Sadly, I can understand how several of the scenes between Frodo and Sam, particularly in the Two Towers movie, could be misconstrued as containing innuendo. I do not fault Peter Jackson, Elijah Wood, Sean Astin or Professor Tolkien for this, however, as their relationship is a very complex one and hard to fully convey on the big screen.

[Atariel]

I read something on an Orlando Bloom website which was a diary of practically everyone who has a main part in tLotR. As much as it was rather amusing, something that got to me was the fact that absolutely everyone was sleeping with absolutely everyone else. For example, Gimli had a thing with Legolas, Boromir and Galadriel, and Aragorn was frequently described as a 'pervy hobbit-fancier'.

Yes, this may be found funny by certain people, but it is rather insulting that Professor Tolkien's masterpiece is a) not taken seriously and b) parodied to the point that it is actually unsuitable for many of his fans to read.

[Luthien_ Tinuviel]

I read something on an Orlando Bloom website which was a diary of practically everyone who has a main part in tLotR.

Ah, yes, the Very Secret Diaries. Some people love them. I don't. Plain and simple: they're horrible. And the really sad thing is that they could be so good. The idea of creating a diary of one or all of the characters would enable people to further explore the minds of the charaacters, to try to grasp or create some of their likes and dislikes, their subtle character traits, and their wonderings. I think the idea could be done very well by the right person, but these are twisted and gross.

That's the really bad thing about most LOTR parodies. There are some really good ones (usually the ones which are directed more towards specialized audiences, like the Lord of the Floppies here on the BDs), but those are the ones which remain true to the essence of the characters. The bad ones, usually slash (which I detest), distort everything, especially the characters themselves. I don't mind parodies and stories in which the characters joke around, annoy each other,or do things they never actually did in LOTR or even could do (like disco [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] ), but I do mind when things get butchered, which unfortunately is what usually happens these days. I agree with you about friendship, Samwise, but people just don't seem to see that anymore.

[Galadrie1]

just because it's between two men/women (Hobbits) dosen't mean they're gay, but that unforturnately is how the world today thinks.

Yes, it's horrible. I read an article in which some people psycho-analyzed the characters of the Winnie the Pooh books, and they said that some of them were gay.... I mean, come on people, it's a kid's story! And in LotR, just because two people (or hobbits) are very close friends does not mean they're homosexual. My best friend and I deffinetly love each other, but that doesn't mean it's a physical sort of attraction. I don't really see why people can't understand that.

[Lyta_Underhill]

Yes, it's horrible. I read an article in which some people psycho-analyzed the characters of the Winnie the Pooh books, and they said that some of them were gay.... I mean, come on people, it's a kid's story!

Alas, Galadrie1, you have put your finger on a modernistic trend in literary, psychological, and every other kind of criticism out there today. I don't know much about it, but it is commonly referred to as "Queer Theory," and has been applied to just about every piece of literature known now. I believe it is about a decade or so old now. After I re-read "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," my husband told me about a literary critical article in the Queer Theory vein called, "Come Back to de raft, Huck honey," about the "relationship" implied between Huck and Jim. It is everywhere, and I just think of it as yet another way to turn things over from another point of view. I think criticism is like a poll: both can be used to prove absolutely any point the analyst wishes to make. I, personally, choose to see Frodo and Sam's relationship as a deep friendship in the style of those formed in the trenches of WWI, but with other dimensions to it as well. As Lord of Angmar said, the relationship is more complex than can be conveyed in such a short time in film, or in a short, reductive critical article, for that matter.

Cheers,
Lyta

[Arwen1858]

I agree completely! It's awful to see how people take it and distort it so much... they make it disgusting! They can't accept the fact that it was pure friendship. I think the problem is that many people in today's world don't understand true friendship, so seeing how close Sam and Frodo were, they think there had to be more to it. I wish people wouldn't do that. Th friendship between Sam and Frodo is wonderful! I wish people wouldn't distort it and twist it around.
Arwen

[ArathorofBarahir]

I agree totally. I can undertand altering the relationships a little bit, but the way they distorted certain relationships is unnecessary and uncalled for.

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Goodness. Such anti-slash feeling. I think that it's just misunderstood. I was asked by a current poster to address this question.

I am a slash writer, as well as a long-term (if inactive) member of the Barrow-downs. I mostly left the Downs because, after a year and a half, I found the discussions revolved through the same topics over and over again. I am very religious, but Buddhist, not Christian. Buddhism is a monastic religion and so has no rules about who you should or shouldn't sleep with -- since a Buddhist monk shouldn't sleep with anyone. The gay/hetero argument is irrelevant.

I write slash because it is outside of canon. It's a challenge for me as a writer to build plausibility for it, to keep true to the flavor and voice of Tolkien while ranging far afield.

It is so far "off the map" from Tolkien that I feel it is less intrusive on his vision. I'm on a completely different page, borrowing the world and characters and texture in much the same way that he borrowed from Beowulf (most here probably know Tolkien was a noted Beowulf scholar and began his lectures by quoting Beowulf in Old English; he's known for completely changing the view of that work with his essay The Monsters and the Critics).

I feel that to keep true to the flavor of Tolkien it's important to have a greater meaning, what Tolkien in his essay On Fairy Stories called a "piercing glimpse" beyond the fabric of story. But we are, fortunately, not restricted to the same themes as Tolkien.

The underlying theme of The Lord of the Rings is endings, death, and what lies beyond it. This theme is largely why the work has such spiritual meaning for many; (though if anyone asserts that the LotR is inherently Christian, I will bean them with the allegory stick - Tolkien's vision of fairy tales is both more general and more profound than any specific religious doctrine. According to Tolkien, indoctrination is the antithesis of the Fairy Story).

Endings, the afterlife and so forth are not the only themes for a fairy tale. Or for a Tolkienesque story.

According to Jung, mythological archetypal themes correspond to natural rites of passage, stages of life. Including the final stage into the next life - whatever that may be - which Tolkien addresses. Other main stages include crossing into adulthood, marriage, coming into one's inheritance or maturity. These are all troubled stages with no pat answers, thus the need for mythological archetypes (forgive me fellow non-Christians) to "work out your own salvation."

The romance contends with the theme of sacrifice and inter-dependence of relationships, and is a very important thread in the world of mythology and fairy tale. While it is appears superficial (like fantasy itself), in fact, the way a relationship subsumes the self is a very difficult and tangled matter. It is a crisis of identity, a negotiation of boundaries, and either taking ones place in the world of family, or acting against that role (such as in Tristan and Isolde, or the elven maiden Luthien). Anyone who believes romance does not belong in Tolkien's world needs to re-read the story of Beren and Luthien, and note what Tolkien has written on his gravestone.

Slash adds, for those who do not have doctrinal problems with it (note I do not say spiritual, as many Christians do accept homosexuality), an added degree of poignancy to this crisis of identity, boundaries, and ones role in society. Not to mention the confusion of ones role in an agrarian and feudalistic society of the majority of Middle Earth, and the complex class distinctions in the Shire. (I particularly am fascinated by the latter.) It takes the same fundamental questions of the romance and looks at them from another angle.

The vast majority of slash readers (and writers) are women, I think largely for the same reasons that little girls play house: relationships seem to be important to women. Men, regardless of their feelings about homosexuality, tend to be... uncomfortable with slash. Most are unable to bypass the visuals of two men together (let alone two hobbits) to even begin to deal with the theme. It doesn't have the same interest or impact. I'll confess that female/female slash makes me equally queasy.

But do not dismiss romance or slash as being automatically pornographic. There's a great deal of depth available in the subject, particularly if you have a perceptive author.

That said, much of fanfiction is really lousy, and slash is no exception. The LotR fanfiction tends to be worse than most because Tolkien's voice is unusually difficult to capture, and few people understand why the story is so powerful.

- Maril

[ninlaith]

I believe this is all a matter of ignorance. We have become such a warped society that everything is becoming taboo. Even things that are wholesome and have been held true for decades. Everyone searches for a deeper meaning that isn't there and should have never even been thought about. The basis of which LOTR is written is friendship. Friendship is everywhere. Absolutlely everywhere. Friendship, brotherhood, loyalty, trust, devotion, and love. Not all of these values have to be tied in with lust. They can exisit among friends as well. It outrages me that people think so harshly on such joyous matters always trying to twist them into evil things. If you read closely at tolkien interviews you can see that they major issue he's trying to convey is friendship. I believe that Tolkien wanted people to focus more on Sam than any other. Sam was full of loyalty and devotion. He felt all of this for his master and friend at all times. He loved him, they were best friends, they were more than friends but more than brothers. But there is no deeper meaning than best friends. It's disheartening that society or the new teenage generation would search for such vulgar deeper meanings. I think we sneer at the unrecognizable friendship instead of searching for a friendship like that for ourselves.We would rather kick people while they're down and leave them than help them up to complete the journey together.

[Isowen]

I have never seen an example of this on the Barrow-Downs and it seems ,yare nande, that you have read many more threads than I have here, though I usually stick to Novices and Newcomers. I think nobody has the right to distort relationships within lotr, but maybe it could be considered an opinion being voiced, rather than a distortion of relationships.

[Evisse the Blue]

I'll censor myself a little as not to sound accusing, especially with so few smilies at hand.
I have trouble understanding why anyone with writing talent and abilities and appreciation for Tolkien's words to boot would want to slash Tolkien's characters. I mean, why not create your own characters and slash them? If you agree that slash is not cannon then what you have is out-of-character writing: the characters may bear Tolkien's given names but they not their personality. In other words, why not create your own story, set in a fantasy world to explore the implications of slash on identity crisis, etc. Sorry of I appear to be picking on you particularly, Maril, but I am actually expressing a dissatisfaction with the slash fanfics I read. The badly written ones posed no problem to me as I left unfinished, the well-written ones were much worse because they seemed a paradox: it's plausible but it's impossible. Perhaps I should also add that cannon means a lot to me: Part of the charm of LOTR is that it's written by Tolkien: he was a talented, very learned man, and he has the ultimate say when it comes to his creation. At least that's how I see it. That's my opinion about all non cannon writing, be it slash or other unusual pairings.

About slash specifically, and why so many people are trying to reinterpret great works as containing same-sex relationships (especially when it's clear that the writer did not intend it) - I think it's part of this whole campaign of making homosexuality acceptable: let's associate it with a popular thing, even if it's only for laughs, people will come to tolerate gays more like this. Well, I don't know about others but I find myself much more tolerant toward gays when these tasteless jokes are not being made. If anything, it has the opposite effect...