distortions in relationships in LOTR

[Lyta_Underhill]

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.

Ever a controversy, isn't it? My own personal view is that if one were to "slash" Tolkien's characters and stay true to Tolkien, there would still be the absence of the lust factor. The friendships would remain, and the rest would be perhaps implied but not explicated. If anyone has seen the outstanding film "Gods and Monsters" with the inimitable Sir Ian McKellen (one of his finest roles!), you might remember James Whale's flashbacks to World War One and how the element of his homosexuality was intertwined with his hectic friendships in the thick of battle, how the images came back to him at the end, etc.; I think such an element is present but suppressed in the everyday, a sort of subtext for life. Only a few choose to make it a theme. With Frodo and Sam, this is not the theme. It is the friendship and sacrifice which is stressed foremost. But I don't fault anyone for wishing to explore this hidden theme, however absent it may be in Tolkien's focus in Lord of the Rings. But, as we say over in the 'Canonicity' thread, it ain't canon! (One might argue that such a theme is a subtext of the cultural history of British Public School, but it is probably not good to go there, especially since I'm not British--I did read an interesting overview of this 'culture' in an autobiographical work of C.S. Lewis' once, though, so it isn't illusory!)

Cheers and Tally-ho!
Lyta (NOT a Brit, but occasionally mistaken for one)