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JaneDoe
Joined: 19 Nov 2003
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Location: My own little world
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 Posted: Wed Nov 24, 2004 8:54 pm Post subject: |
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| dolarabee wrote: | | I mean it would have been an important part of their makeup and development as characters so why would the author have left that out? |
I'll concede that Tolkien is a lot more realistic about certain things than people give him credit for. Considering the attitudes that people have toward homosexuality right now, let alone some fifty years ago, I don't think it's at all odd that he would omit that, especially since it would be viewed at best as a bad habit and at worst a perversion right up there with pedophilia, incest, and necrophilia. It's very likely that he categorized homosexuality as the same type of flaw as incest or adultery: inappropriate desire. Since he already wrote about Maeglin and his love for Idril, perhaps he thought it redundant to go over the same territory, especially since, in his view, the end of the story would be the same.
If there are gay characters in Tolkien's writings, they would definitely be in the closet. And stay there. Since Tolkien approached his works more like a historian than a novelist, the same tendencies we see in our own history could very well be reflected in Arda. A lot of stuff is simply not mentioned or unknown, partly to preserve the perceived nobility of the figures and partly because it was not important enough to mention in any obvious sense. The exception, of course, are Greece and Rome, and that's more because of other social dynamics than because of homosexuality itself. |
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Elvenesse
Joined: 03 Sep 2003
Posts: 82
Location: UK
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| Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 11:16 am Post subject: |
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I think slash is the same as Legomances, het and OCs - in that they all have to be well written and plausible to work, thus the reason for there being very many bad fics and only a few good ones.
I can recommend some good slash fics (imo, of course) if anyone likes.
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ghettoelleth
Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 1804
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| Posted: Thu Nov 25, 2004 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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I look at slash as I look at all things regarding the proctological arts. To quote Margaret Cho's mother:
"You ken not heb too much ess, you heb too much ess, eet no speshal no moe!" 
All things in moderation my friends.
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Ariel
Joined: 24 Apr 2003
Posts: 164
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:50 am Post subject: |
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I don't usually read these threads (snort!) but a friend thought I would find this interesting.
I think I got bored with slash as I was getting out of my previous fandoms 20 years ago. It wasn't new even then and, quite frankly, at that point in my life I was discovering relationships of my own and finding what people were writing about in slash had little or no bearing on real life. It sort of lost its glamour then.
Ningloreth wrote:
| Quote: | | But I am tired of being told, again and again, even by them, that a same-sex relationship has a special magic that a het relationship can never possess. Being excluded like that made me so fed up that I had to start writing myself, to set the record straight. |
Oh, absolutely! I found this to be very true too. I also got very tired of being treated like a second class citizen by kids young enough to be my children because I wasn't 'mature' enough to handle slash.  Sorry, kiddies, I was reading fanfic when Kirk/Spock was the rage. I've been there, done that and bought the T-shirt. Now I've moved on to something else. Unfortunately, since most of the LOTR fans I've run into had never heard of fanfiction or slash before three years ago, they thought they were being the avant-garde with their writing. It might have been easier to ignore if these folks didn't also tend to be aggressively militant about their preferences and openly prejudiced against anyone who didn't agree with them. The plain fact that this and Stories of Arda are two of the only non-slash public archives in a sea of slash should indicate that that attitude is very real.
Scribe wrote:
| Quote: | | I can only see it is a faux-Sue. |
Yeah, same here. I can think of only a few fics where it isn't. Considering the vehemence with which so many of these folks denounce Mary Sue's, it's always seemed to me a case of the pot calling the kettle...
Eyborg wrote:
| Quote: | | Nowadays people just don't seem to know any other kind of love but sexual love... .<snip> I mean, can't a person be single & live alone, without being gay? |
I find this also very true. But the paradox is, most of the folks I find who are writing fic (slash especially) ARE single and claim to be straight! How can they live a lifestyle they, on 'paper', seem to decry? If these folks are gay, more power to them! Come out of the closet and be embraced! But if they aren't, why do they minimalize love this way?
Filial, platonic and agape loves are as important and sometimes stronger, especially in the LOTR story, than sexual love. When writers reduce every loving relationship in it to a sexual one, all they are doing is diminishing an incredibly powerful story.
And for what? To get their jollies? What a waste.
One final point and then I will shut up. (hears crickets chirping, realizes no one is listening anyway, carries on as this is the usual case) I can't say I dismiss any fic type, het, NC-17, OFC, slash, mpreg. Just because a particular genre produces a lot of crap, it doesn't mean you should dismiss all its stories. That is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I've been writing het and NC-17 for a long time and have never had anyone complain that I was writing the same old same old. Maybe that's because I never write unless I have something to say - regardless of whether it has sex in it or not. IMHO, that is the defining factor, not the genre.
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Viv
Challenge Admin
Joined: 24 Apr 2003
Posts: 71
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:38 am Post subject: |
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| Ariel wrote: | | I can't say I dismiss any fic type, het, NC-17, OFC, slash, mpreg. Just because a particular genre produces a lot of crap, it doesn't mean you should dismiss all its stories. |
This is a really good point. Most of what I read nowadays is recommendations my friends make. Good stuff is good stuff, and if I happen to wade into an area I wouldn't normally enter (I read a really good let's-torture-Legolas! story a little while ago... that was a surprise), well, that's never a bad thing.
So maybe we ought to have specific subgenre rec threads here on the forum? Even a (labelled!) slash rec thread.  |
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DarkElfChilde
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 1013
Location: I'm located somewhere
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:47 am Post subject: |
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This is off topic, but seems to me that a lot of people enjoy torturing Legolas...poor elfie, he never gets a break. Er, wait...I'll be ending up torturing him a bit in my fan fic soon...I guess I'm one of those people.
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Ariel
Joined: 24 Apr 2003
Posts: 164
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:54 am Post subject: |
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I think people enjoy torturing all these characters.
If Frodo had actually lived through what most H/C fans put him through, he'd have been too much of a quivering wreck to even consider leaving the Shire.
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DarkElfChilde
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 1013
Location: I'm located somewhere
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:00 am Post subject: |
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So true, but every character wouldn't want to leave their homes if they knew what we put them through daily.
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JaneDoe
Joined: 19 Nov 2003
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Location: My own little world
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 11:45 am Post subject: |
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| Actually, I don't mind the sexualization of Tolkien characters. Really, I don't. If you want to celebrate sex through Tolkien characters (I know I do), that's wonderful as far as I'm concerened, but it's the cheapening of sex, of reducing it to nothing more than crudely physical, that I find somewhat offensive. It's a well-known fact that the mind is the most erogenous zone, so if I read a fic where the writer doesn't pay attention to what's going on upstairs or when the psychological element is not taken seriously (except in a humor fic), it doesn't do anything for me. If the characters are interchangeable in the bedroom, there is nothing exceptional about them. The only thing I'm left wondering is: Are you finished yet? |
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ghettoelleth
Joined: 06 Nov 2004
Posts: 1804
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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Good rule of thumb for choosing which stories I'll read. Never touch the ones that have:
1. Any typos in the 'good' parts: "He gently striked her clot."
2. Any mention whatsoever of his throbbing 'elfhood'
3. Naked Balrogs/wizards/Valar/Convenience store clerks
But man oh man, nekky Leggums, looking over his shoulder with tears in his eyes saying, "what are you gonna do to me lady?" Of course, after they've done the New York Times crossword puzzle together....in pen.
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Viv
Challenge Admin
Joined: 24 Apr 2003
Posts: 71
Location: Texas
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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| ghettoelleth wrote: | | 1. Any typos in the 'good' parts: "He gently striked her clot." |
Thanks. I needed that mental image. |
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Thuriniel
Joined: 29 Jul 2003
Posts: 665
Location: Watching the purple sky fly over me ...
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| Posted: Tue Nov 30, 2004 12:37 pm Post subject: |
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| ghettoelleth wrote: | | But man oh man, nekky Leggums, looking over his shoulder with tears in his eyes saying, "what are you gonna do to me lady?" |
Wow! I don't know if you meant it seriously, but that's quite the plot bunny  ...
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JaneDoe
Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 0
Location: My own little world
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| Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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| I agree with ghettoelleth that the words people use for the private parts can be both sterile and ridiculous. I decided to come up with some words myself for "Elwen," since it seems to me that using the Elvish words and euphemisms are more evocative than trying to insert normal English words and hope it makes sense. Even then, I was pretty careful with the meaning, since one thing I avoided was having Elves use weapon euphemisms for the penis and mouth euphemisms for vagina. I kept it close to nature, as it were. |
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BittenBuggy
Joined: 27 Dec 2003
Posts: 2108
Location: Busy Being the Queen Of Everything.. And Trying to Catch the Yoda-Copter
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| Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Viv wrote: | | ghettoelleth wrote: | | 1. Any typos in the 'good' parts: "He gently striked her clot." |
Thanks. I needed that mental image. |
Like a scab on her knee.
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JaneDoe
Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 0
Location: My own little world
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| Posted: Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:30 pm Post subject: |
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I really like it when a guy gently strokes my clot. *mad hyena-like giggle*
I'd better not write that too often, or it might become a habit when I least want it to. |
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