[Halfwest]

Are there any characters in all of the Tolkien books who you feel have been overlooked by fandom in general? Here's your chance to give them some publicity. Tell us a story, precious.

I'll rant about my babydoll Gorlim after a few other people have had their turns.

[sheraiah]

As anyone who reads my fics can see, I'm a Thranduil fan. Poor elf gets such a bum rap from a lot of fic writers. My first LOTR fic was a knee-jerk reaction to seeing far too many fics that portrayed him as an abusive, drunken rat bastard.

[Tripsoverhercats]

Gimli also tends to get the very short end of the stick, as dwarves aren't the most attractive fellows to human eyes. Much of the time he ends up being Legolas' slash buddy.

Completely agree about Thranduil, he's all alone up in the north end of Mirkwood, with Dol Guldur to the south, and Smaug to the east (for a few hundred years) and he manages to keep his people safe with no Ring of Power. After re-reading the Hobbit, Thranduil is a pretty upstanding fellow, he just doesn't appreciate intruders. And who can really blame him?

[Viv]

No one ever pays enough attention to the "bad" guys. Am currently writing Sauron fic. And waiting patiently for maram's Ringwraith muse to kick in.

[Gaslight]

I'm personally fond of Denethor. So many fics have him crazier than an outhouse rat and he just isn't. The chapter on Palantiri in the Unifinished Tales clearly states that he was able to withstand Sauron for years until the despair finally got to him. Portraying him as some easily influenced nut is just wrong. And having him abuse his sons is even worse.

If I cared for elves as much as I do for Gondor's ruling family, no doubt I'd be as steamed about the perversion of Thranduil's character, but I don't know that much about him. What I have seen is simply awful, however. A stray comment by Tolkien that he liked jewels and wine, and he becomes in the minds of many fic authors a greedy, unredeemable bastard.

[Roisin]

In our fic (Sindohte and myself) we portray Thranduil as eccentric, but not a bad guy, which is what I got from The Hobbit. At least that's how we're TRYING to write him, lol.

I mean, he's a little paranoid, but he has reason to be.

I also have a theory that they kept the spider population under control but didn't actually eliminate them b/c they made a good natural defense against intruders.

Roisin

[Hathor]

[Roisin]

My impression was that Smaug was the last of the dragons. It's entirely possible there could be a few lurking around in the hinterlands I suppose.

Roisin

[Hathor]

[Roisin]

Speaking of hinterlands, that's a fertile ground to explore in fanfic it seems. What goes on off the map?

Roisin

[Gaslight]

Isn't the heroine of "Mother of Horsemen" from way up north in the wastelands? I don't really remember, though I recall her looking like some Clan of the Cave Bear type, or a 18th century trapper. I read the first few chapters months ago and never finished it. That's the only fic I've seen that is from the "unpopular" regions of Middle Earth, apart from the occasional fic with someone from Harad (like Meldisse's Shadowlands and DJ Caligula's Not Worth More Than Rubies -- both abandoned!! Grrrr!)

[Roisin]

Well there's Melia from Far Harad, too.

Roisin

[sindohte]

I would have to cast my vote for King Thranduil as one of Tolkien's underappreciated characters. One of my fanfic peeves, which I mentioned on another thread, is when Thranduil is portrayed as some insane, abusive father. I am sure that living in a cave and having scary ole black spiders traipsing around is bound to make a person a little bit crazy. However, it is not going to turn an Elf into Middle Earth's version of Daddy Dearest.

And what about all of the absentee mothers in Middle Earth? If you take a look at the 9 members of the Fellowship, how many of them had mothers that were around long enough to raise their sons to maturity?

Aragorn's mother - dead
Frodo's mother - drowned
Boromir's mother - dead
Legolas mother - Undying Lands

That only leaves us with Gimli, Sam, Merry, and Pippen. Gandalf doesn't count because he is a supernatural entity cloaked in human flesh.

The fanfic world is just crying out for a good story about the mother of one of these poor motherless boys. Okay, time for me to jump off my soapbox.

[Roisin]

The hobbits mothers were dead too, I believe, at least in the book. Of course, the hobbits were much older in the book so it made some sense that their parents would have passed on by that time.

We never hear about Gimli's mom.

Eomer and Eowyn, also orphans.

Roisin

[sindohte]

My gawd, the entire Fellowship is filled with nothing but a bunch of motherless men. Like a good psychologist to be, I have to wonder about the psychological implications of that little fun fact. Any psych majors out there who want to give their 2 cents worth? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you know who I mean!