A Thread about Fandoms

[Boromir88]

So, I came across this very amusing meme on the internet today:



It got me thinking about not just these 2 fandoms, but many fandoms so I figured to make a thread all about fandoms. My immediate thought after a bunch of giggling is, I guess whoever made this wasn't a member of the Old Plaza to witness the fiery and fierce flame wars when the LOTR movies first came out? I recall quite a bit of anger towards PJ from the Tolkien fanbase for his treatment of the books.

What's interesting is The Hobbit trilogy never really sparked that level of hot tempers that the LOTR trilogy did, or at least it didn't seem that way to me. I was an inactive Plaza member when An Unexpected Journey came out, so perhaps members who were around at that time saw or experienced differently? Although, I do have a general impression that The Hobbit trilogy didn't get as hotly debated because the vast majority of the Tolkien fandom regards them as big piles of shire and not really worth getting too bent out of shape over. Where the debates with the LOTR movies could get far more heated, because they are entertaining films and in many ways made achievements in film that impacted the industry, but that is quite different from being "faithful" adaptations.

Also, I sort of think the top half of the meme is only the public perception of our fandom. At the heart of it we are fans of a philologist and the public face it appears our arguments lean more towards the academic side and thus look more tempered? I'd be curious to read what others think about our fandom and why there's a perception we don't get as "angry" as other fandoms, like the Star Wars fandom?

But I'm also curious about other fandoms as well? Really the only other one I have engaged in is with other Star Wars fans, but my involvement there doesn't come close to my Tolkien fandom. I typically like the sci-fi/fantasy genre, for instance I like watching all the Star Trek series, I liked Harry Potter and Game of the Thrones, but I don't think anyone would say I'm a Trekie or a Potterhead. I'm the casual fan who enjoys watching those, but I don't engage with their fandoms so I don't have any knowledge of how those fandoms reacted to those adaptations?

I've seen a little bit of the Star Wars fandom's negative reaction to Disney taking it over from Lucasfilm and I get some of it, but I wasn't all that upset with the recent Star Wars trilogy.

[Taethowen]

I think the meme is more the perception that the LOTR fandom is incredibly civil with *each other* not that we don't ever get angry about things.

I've been pretty involved in some other fandoms over the years, and I've witnessed some brutal disagreements, both being in the midst of a fandom and even just an observer of friend's fandoms.

One fandom I have first-hand experience with is Fullmetal Alchemist. The 2003 anime and subsequent movies have a pretty rabid fanbase. But those don't stay true to the manga plot because the manga wasn't finished when they were made, and many fans did not like how the author actually resolved the series. The 2003 anime introduced me to the franchise, and there were elements of it that I loved but when I read the manga when it finished, and then watched the anime reboot (Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood), that story and plot resolution won my heart. It was far more consistent with the world and the characters than the 2003 anime was (to me.)

But the rabid 2003 fans can get pretty nasty sometimes if you dare to disagree.

I have some friends involved in other fandoms, especially anime, and things can get pretty nasty across the board at times. Voltron and Naruto are two that spring to mind immediately based on regular commentary friends make. My husband is also pretty involved in the Star Wars fandom and he has fandom rants quite frequently as well.

So yes, overall, I'd say that the LOTR fandom tends to be more civil overall--especially to each other when there are disagreements--than most other fandoms that I've been involved in. Perhaps this is because we have such an extensive amount of behind-the-scenes knowledge that Tolkien left behind, and many other fandoms are left to a lot of speculation.

[Raisins]

Okay so AS a person that has attended Comic cons for over 10 years now... I can honestly say the LOTR fans are the most polite in their disagreements, some of it is indeed harshly worded especially on exasperatingly over done topics. When I've had LOTR based prints and cosplayers stopping by (lets face it pre - the hobbit 2010 was sort of barren for a lot of LOTR stuff at comic cons where LOTR actors weren't attending as guests) And the hobbit did get more art coming out but generally the cosplayers and fans were primarily from the original trilogy (mostly I think as has been stated the tolkienites all seem to agree PJ's the Hobbit was garbage for lore but another adaptation that brought more people to the fandom) and Ringers... well they're ringers lol (I have actually never met a person that thought the Hobbit trilogy was good I hope to continue that streak)

That said I have watched catfights because Star Wars and Star trek in front of my vendor table. And being friends with the con chair and security leads I'd literally send them play by plays for humors sake as they'd get heated, and be dumpster fires that look bad on the fandom but honestly not the worst and could be mildly entertaining as someone that believes in the We must all join together us space operas and take down Twilight)

But honestly the WORST fans I've ever met.... Steven Universe and My Little Ponies. Both of those are honestly flaming dumpsters for fandoms. If I see either of those guys get into it near my table it's not play by plays for fun It's video clips sent to them for identification purposes because some of them will all out brawl, others will start gaslighting and getting into slurs and horrible behaviour. which is hilarious given the nature of the two shows in question. I have had MORE fans from those two shows escorted out of cons (as a con chair myself now we actively watch people we know are fans of those shows a bit more, it's in our security brief so that they don't get out of control and have to ban people)

I swear the more wholesome the content the worse the fans are.

[Eldy Dunami]

While Tolkien fandom is certainly not 100% sunshine and roses, I don't think we've yet had anything quite like the sustained harassment that a certain subset of Star Wars fans directed against actors like Kelly Marie Tran (Rose Tico), Jake Lloyd (child Anakin), and Ahmed Best (Jar Jar Binks): hounding Tran off social media, contributing to Lloyd's decision to quit acting, and pushing Best to consider suicide. Part of it is undoubtedly a numbers game—Star Wars is so popular that it's practically guaranteed to have more terrible fans than smaller fandoms, even if they're a very small percentage overall—but it's a particularly ugly side of "geek culture" that Tolkien fandom has, I think, been fortunate to largely avoid thus far. However, there have already been worrying signs with the state of Discourse (tm) about the Amazon series over the past few years. There's a reason this is the only Tolkien forum I'm still active on, and we've already had at least one actor from the show publicly speak about the backlash over the series' casting choices thus far.

What's interesting is The Hobbit trilogy never really sparked that level of hot tempers that the LOTR trilogy did, or at least it didn't seem that way to me. I was an inactive Plaza member when An Unexpected Journey came out, so perhaps members who were around at that time saw or experienced differently? Although, I do have a general impression that The Hobbit trilogy didn't get as hotly debated because the vast majority of the Tolkien fandom regards them as big piles of shire and not really worth getting too bent out of shape over. Where the debates with the LOTR movies could get far more heated, because they are entertaining films and in many ways made achievements in film that impacted the industry, but that is quite different from being "faithful" adaptations.

To the best of my memory, the Hobbit films didn't spark a ton of discussion on the Plaza, period, probably for a few reasons. They didn't attract as large an audience as LOTR's; the Plaza itself was much smaller than it had been; and most members of the Plaza had been in the fandom a long time, and were thus in a "demographic" that tended to be lukewarm at best on the second trilogy. The Hobbit did attract a passionate, mostly younger following of its own, but you didn't find many of its members on forums other than TheOneRing.net (I was sporadically active over there throughout the trilogy's release and also ran the second-largest English language Hobbit forum, though it was a distant second to TORn). One of the more surreal things about that era of Tolkien fandom was the number of jilted LOTR movie fans who were shocked at how little they enjoyed the second trilogy and seemed to take that disappointment as a personal affront. I was distinctly unamused by the co-opting of the purist label by people who had previously lambasted old-school purists for criticizing LOTR, and who continued to insist that the flaws of TH were not continuations of observable trends in PJ's earlier work. In my experience, the most vitriolic critics tended to be those who were blindsided by the reality of the films, and this created a strange three-way dynamic of TH defenders vs TH critics vs TH & LOTR critics, rather than the binary division of the previous decade. But, while there were heated moments, I think it's fair to say they did not generally rise (sink) to the levels of the LOTR-era purist wars.

[Elenhir]

However, there have already been worrying signs with the state of Discourse (tm) about the Amazon series over the past few years. There's a reason this is the only Tolkien forum I'm still active on

As one of those who has been leading the charge rooting out racists, sexists, and bigots of all sorts from the fledgling subreddit for that show, the effort is looking less losable than it has at points in the past year.

[Boromir88]

Thank you all for the replies. It's exactly what I was interested in learning.

I have a friend who is definitely into the Star Wars comic cons and a few others for Star Trek, but I met them for our shared interests in Tolkien. So they all tend to stay away from the places like Reddit or other social media sites where people can be quite nasty and hostile. Unfortunately that seems to be the way of things for anything now, whether it's fan groups, or sports fans, or real life groups. It's crazy to hear about people fighting and getting bent out of shape, but I'm one of those who pretty much sticks to the rule of "don't read the comments." The stupidity would get my blood boiling.

The Star Wars fans seem mostly to get the angriest arguing which movies are good or not. @Eldy Dunami, I'm saddened that they've given some of the actors such a rough time that it seems to have ruined not only their careers by their lives. I haven't heard much from my friend about lore or canon arguments, although that's the advantage of Lord of the Rings. It was stories exclusively written by 1 person, for the most part, Christopher Tolkien took on the role of an editor and I don't believe wrote anything new.

I'm interested to see what comes from the Amazon series. My expectations are pretty low as far as faithful adaptations, but if they're aesthetically pleasing and the characters are interesting I would expect they get a better reception than The Hobbit trilogy.

[Androthelm]

I think another marked difference between LOTR and Star Wars, just as far as fandom-fights go, is that the issue of canon is handled vastly differently by the respective franchises. So, whereas LOTR fights tend to be in interpretation of unclear or changing texts (Where did the orcs come from? What can or can't a "wizard" do? I even remember getting into a disagreement with a friend right after the movies came out who thought that Sauron had spent the Third Age ... tracking down his own finger? Not the ring, but the finger? Because that contained part of his power, and the ring contained the rest??) Star Wars, a franchise which is fairly clear about when things are or aren't canon (consider: Disney cutting the entire extended universe when they got the rights) has a tendency toward the, shall we say, artistic dispute, not over whether or not something did happen but over whether or not it should have.

Which I guess is kind of the cost of having a franchise that's still in development -- although others are right to acknowledge that it's also come from a fairly dangerous racist, misogynist, and otherwise bigoted angle. It's certainly something the LOTR fandom should keep an eye on as the Amazon series comes out.

[Eldy Dunami]

As one of those who has been leading the charge rooting out racists, sexists, and bigots of all sorts from the fledgling subreddit for that show, the effort is looking less losable than it has at points in the past year.

It's been some time since I routinely visited any of the major Tolkien subreddits, but this is very encouraging to hear, particularly given Reddit's proportionally (even) larger role in online Tolkien fandom vis-a-vis traditional message boards this time around.

I haven't heard much from my friend about lore or canon arguments, although that's the advantage of Lord of the Rings.

I have a couple acquaintances in Star Wars fandom who are still salty about Disney tossing out the continuity of the old Expanded Universe (now termed "Star Wars Legends") in favor of constructing a new continuity that encompasses the sequel trilogy, though I personally don't think it would have been feasible to keep all the old stuff while creating a new, more or less stand-alone film trilogy. And despite my decidedly mixed feelings about the sequels, the new fluff gave us my favorite SW novel in either continuity, Lost Stars (the Galactic Civil War-spanning love story I never knew I wanted, also featuring lots of good worldbuilding), so I can't complain.

[Boromir88]

I'm reminded of something Leonard Nimoy said in 2009: "Canon is only important to certain people because they have to cling to their knowledge of the minutiae, open your mind! Be a 'Star Trek' fan and open your mind and say, where does Star Trek want to take me now?"

I'd be curious to know if this is accurate for the Star Trek fanbase? It would seem to me that they built a world that wanted to go where "no one has gone before" and really didn't have "canon" for purists acting as the gate-keepers of their fandom. Of course, I think it's evident every fandom has their own undesirably hostile fans, but there are unique differences. I could be wrong, but based on the Star Trek world-building, I think their fans would be less bent out of shape at having a female captain, or an african american female communications officer..etc

It sounds like this may be the biggest hurdle for the Amazon series, as Mr. Ismael Cruz Cordova spoke about.

[Raisins]

Hmmm yes that is true @Boromir88 . Mr. Cruz Cordova has made an excellent point that fantasy should not be the domain of all white characters. It's fantasy. I think we've had at least one? inappropriate meme on here? or our discord? I don't remember which I do remember being disappointed in seeing who had posted it and glad that it was gone before I could see how bad it was, regarding similar issues so while I'd say our lore and our cannon debate on actual points is certainly more civil, wasn't Plaza also one of the sites that made Liv Tyler cry because we were so against her being in Helms Deep? Like vocally rabid about it? I mean granted that was Arwen in Helms deep which was sooo out of place but I feel like we'd have done the same (hopefully to a lesser extent) even if it had been Eowyn who we KNEW was in Helms Deep - and canon wise we KNOW she knows how to fight.

So yes things like racism are going to be problematic especially with the new series, I clearly don't have enough gate-keeper tendencies because the algorithm when I search Cordova and LOTR is all excited chatter and news articles I get ONE thread if I really hunt were someone thinks he COULD be cast as Sauron and make an excellent villian but not that he has to be (that was literally the worst I found). So clearly I have a different set of parameters on my google searches which honestly makes it very very hard to find and help combat that sort of mentality (I've figured out the searches for facebook, tiktok etc for going in and being a wrecking ball on peoples pages full of garbage) but Google is very very good at keeping people in their own echo chambers so short of finding sites where that is rampantly happening it's hard to be an ally in the fight against bad LOTR-fans.

I guess it does mean that I tend to encourage diversity in my posts and searches and interactions than discourage it, and I hope that most Plaza members would have a similar issue to me in not finding the issues not because we don't believe they exist but because sometimes our echo chambers which are create by souless corporations tend over ride our desire to go out and smash white privilege

[Boromir88]

@Fuin Elda that wouldn't surprise me that Liv Tyler faced a lot of fan ire. I recall a lot of "XenArwen" jokes with the LOTR movies, but not a lot of comments directed personally at Liv Tyler. Although, I stayed away from most of the forums that skewed towards movie fans like theonering.net.

I would imagine The Hobbit actor who faced the biggest backlash was Evangeline Lilly. I do recall an aggressively rude fan (it wasn't on the plaza) that thought they were clever writing poems about Lilly being a "trollop" and allusions to the "whore of Babylon" and I never understood (nor do I think I will) fans who take movie adaptations THAT seriously.

I didn't like Tauriel, and didn't think much of Evangeline Lilly's performance, but my objections weren't that a female elf couldn't exist in Mirkwood. Even a female captain of the guard, but I wondered how giving her a Mary Sue character was better than not having any female characters at all?

[Eldy Dunami]

I'm a little unclear how the term Mary Sue applies to Tauriel. Insofar as the term has redeeming value as something beyond a shorthand for female characters people dislike—and, frankly, I don't think it does—it's generally applied to characters who are unrealistically competent for their age, who are consistently at the center of important story events even though it doesn't make sense for them to be there, and/or who are beloved by everyone they meet except obvious antagonists. (This is without getting into non-standard variants like the "Anti-Sue", villainous Sues, etc.) None of these traits apply to Tauriel, though. She's not unrealistically young for a captain of the royal guard, she's not at the center of all or even most important events in the story, and she's not universally beloved by other characters. The love triangle involving her is bad, you'll get no argument from me on that point, but I think the blame has to be laid equally at all three vertices.

I don't think the films were improved by Tauriel's presence, but that's primarily because she wasn't given anything interesting to do, not because the concept of her was inherently flawed. It's not hard to imagine a female captain of the Mirkwood royal guard with a plot-relevant, non-romantic role in the story, and Tauriel could fill such a role without any substantial changes to her backstory or characterization. That Tauriel's actual role in the films is superfluous is, in fact, a point against her being a Mary Sue. A Sue, more or less by definition, has to be the protagonist of a story, because she warps subplots and other characters' arcs around her like a neutron star warps spacetime. Tauriel is nothing so impactful as that; she's just an uninteresting supporting character. If she'd been male, people would have forgotten about her years ago.

[Raisins]

I'm not sure it it was Lilly's performance or just how badly written the character was I mean I'll admit I was a little mean when the actors for Kili and fili and radagast were at the local con. Someone asked if I wanted to get the dwarf autographs and I said they were as good of Tolkien dwarfs thanks to the writing as I'd make an elf. Honestly I can see the hobbit getting remade long before the original trilogy.

And mostly because the writing was... The while thing came across as Mary Sue/Gary Stu in terms of character development and plot. It wasn't even just the characters that were Gary stayed was the worst part. So much was so far from the source that as has been mentioned tolkienites in general have just chosen to ignore the hobbit trilogy (I legit dont own them)

As for Tauriel being a Mary Sue it was also originally an unnecessary love interest. And honestly her knowing how to do healing that she does on the one dwarf that is her love interest falls well into the Mary Sue realm