What is 'lore'?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

[Romeran]

I know you might have been joking a bit with OP but I actually think this is a rather interesting question. What do we mean when we say lore?

We can obviously start with dictionary definitions, this one seems the most likely:

lore1
/lôr/
noun
a body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group, typically passed from person to person by word of mouth.
"the jinns of Arabian lore"
Similar:
mythology

Although I did learn that 'lore' also apparently refers to a part of a bird:

lore2
/lôr/
noun (ZOOLOGY)
the surface on each side of a bird's head between the eye and the upper base of the beak, or between the eye and nostril in snakes.

In any case I think as far as Tolkien Lore at least the first part of the first definition makes some sense: "a body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group."

So this includes Knowledge: "facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject." but also Tradition: "the transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way.".

It's slightly different because we're talking about fiction rather than reality, but I think there can still be a similar notion, in particular we're often talking about the in-world lore, that is the 'lore' as if Middle-earth were indeed real. But from @Troelsfo's post on canonicity we know that this can be a particularly difficult thing to nail down.

On the other hand Tolkien 'lore' forums often discuss the 'lore' of Middle-earth from an external perspective as literature, this I think is quite different from the usual definition of 'lore' and tends towards 'literary analysis/criticism'. So, at least in my reading, 'lore' would refer to discussion of in-universe facts/traditions/information about the world (middle-earth) as if it were reality, and so consequently discussing for example how Tolkien created the mythology or inspirations for it is not strictly 'lore'. In some sense perhaps it's 'meta-lore' that is, lore about lore, as it's knowledge and traditions about how the in-universe lore was developed.

[Winddancer]

Romeran adequately definied what lore means. But if you are asking what is Lore, as in what is the Lore forum here well then I would say it is a place where people from all walks of life, young and old, rich and poor can come and discuss the books and all they entail regardless of race, gender, religion or even opinion. Lore is for all, for the silly, the serious and the technical. None is more important than the other as they are all important as whatever has us talking about Tolkien's books in whichever way chosen, surely is the whole purpose of even being here. But it is also not a lawless place, there are rules and if broken will have consequences. But they are not dictarorial rules, you will find those rules out in the real world too.

But then, I have no way of knowing if that is even what you were asking. I thought I would make sure both were covered though, just in case

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I was not joking but was deliberately leaving things open so people can take the question where they want. But to clarify what prompted the question, it was this statement from @Winddancer on another thread:

I know Gondors sewer system isnt important lore wise,...

I am not sure that that is so. Why is not important? That was the train of thought that led to the question.

[Romeran]

I was not joking but was deliberately leaving things open so people can take the question where they want. But to clarify what prompted the question, it was this statement from @Winddancer on another thread:

I know Gondors sewer system isnt important lore wise,...

I am not sure that that is so. Why is not important? That was the train of thought that led to the question.

I think it's important ( ) that in none of the definitions of 'lore' or my imposed 'meta-lore' is there a value statement on whether something needs to be "important" in order to be considered "lore". Nothing we do here is saving people's lives so how can we really say that one discussing one thing is important lore-wise but, rather arbitrarily, something else is not important lore-wise. Some things may be more or less interesting but that's a very subjective stance as what is interesting to one person may be drivel to another.

[Winddancer]

Well it was important to me. Though to most others it isn't. But see that is what makes Lore so special, it means different things for different people. To me I couldnt care less why Tom Bombadil wore yellow boots and what that could potentially signify. I mean to me it just signifies that he has poor taste in clothes :P

I however like to make the world work, make it believable, make it a place that could actually exist. And to do that, well you do need to know if Gondor had sewer systems as that IS an intergral part of daily life. Who emptied the outdoor toilets, or was there some deep hole it fell into as that can be important to the story you are telling. If it is one, then you could have a worker whos sucky job it is to empty them all, if it is the other, well tunnels under Minas Tirith provides a myriad of stories where the sewers could be used from anything from smuggling to escaping prisons.

But I like to ask as I dont really like RP'ing something and then being told psh that is so not what it was. But that is just a me thing, like I said I like to keep it as true as I can to the world, even though WD is far from it lol.

And as for your thread being a joke, it does prove a good discussion can come from a silly thread

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Winddancer: If you have it over the sewer system in Minas Tirith I get a vivid image in my mind you've a great imagination about it and like to write some exciting posts with smuggle and escape.

Lore comes to me as something personal than general. What is it doing to you when you read a text and analyses it? What do you embrace? What do you reject?

[Elenhir]

To me I couldnt care less why Tom Bombadil wore yellow boots and what that could potentially signify.

I dropped a class in college because the syllabus included a lecture in week three or four titled something along the lines of 'Tom Bombadil and the significance of the color green'. I remain completely unapologetic.

[Winddancer]

[Romeran]

I dropped a class in college because the syllabus included a lecture in week three or four titled something along the lines of 'Tom Bombadil and the significance of the color green'. I remain completely unapologetic.

Maybe it was good that I never took that Tolkien class in college...

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Elenhir & Romeran: Ah well you had the choice to say no against such classes. Tolkien was never offered when I was in college. In a sense I am bit jealous, because I would have chosen it I guess. Just for pure pleasure and little else, than all other serious lessons.

[Romeran]

I honestly don't remember precisely why I didn't take the class, I think it was more to do with not being able to sign up for it / it not being in my area of study by the time the class was offered.

[The Good Hunter]

To me I couldnt care less why Tom Bombadil wore yellow boots and what that could potentially signify.

This is why high school English teachers have such a hill to climb to be taken seriously.

[Fuin Elda]

To me I couldnt care less why Tom Bombadil wore yellow boots and what that could potentially signify.

I dropped a class in college because the syllabus included a lecture in week three or four titled something along the lines of 'Tom Bombadil and the significance of the color green'. I remain completely unapologetic.

There was a Tolkien class in my University but it only ran every 4 years so I didn't get to take it though I probably would have hated it it would have been all that sort of nonsense. Goodness knows my highschool teacher was bad enough for that sort of nonsense.



I quite enjoy the more offbeat lore topics - the discussion and the attempt to find meaning and quotes and the arguements back and forth of the merits of the idea. (My Immortal/Magical Orcs was similar to Windy's Sewer systems really in it's original intent and yet it sprouted into a far deeper discussion than I had intention)

[Boromir88]

Well it was important to me. Though to most others it isn't. But see that is what makes Lore so special, it means different things for different people. To me I couldnt care less why Tom Bombadil wore yellow boots and what that could potentially signify. I mean to me it just signifies that he has poor taste in clothes :P

Ahh brings back fond memories of English classes and a film analysis class, where we had to analyze practically every shot in a film, to try to figure out the director's intended meaning. It actually lessened the entertainment value of movies when I had that class, because the teacher couldn't let a bird just be a bird. It had to mean something.

So, I guess, lore is kind of similar. I'm reminded of Gandalf's conversation to Saruman, when Gandalf is captured:

"White!" he sneered. "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed, The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."

"In which case it is no longer white," said I. "And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." (Fellowship of the Ring: The Council of Elrond)

Lore is part of the enchantment. That is, as @Romeran describes the in-world lore. It's the backstory, the history of Middle-earth and its people. This lore adds layers to the world Tolkien created, because a lot of the times it is "according to the Eldar," or "the records of Men," or "appears/seems" are often used. I don't know how many times, but "according to the Eldar" (and similar phrases) are very prevalent in The Silmarillion. This adds layers to Middle-earth, creating an in-world lore, and casts an enchantment (at least on me!) Because Tolkien's characters can be wrong, the records may be inaccurate or biased, which adds depth to the in-world lore that makes it seem more real.

Then there is an external-lore, but is literary analysis/criticism "lore?" I suppose it would be to those who do it. And that's not to degrade people who are passionate and great at literary analysis. I don't think one is better than the other, but like with my film analysis class, it's just not my cup of tea. Breaking down something into parts to understand it and find out what it means, breaks the enchantment. I guess you could say from The Gandalf-Saruman conversation I quoted, Saruman would be the literary critic and what would Gandalf be, a lorist, scholar?

Edit: simul with Fuin.

[Romeran]

Then there is an external-lore, but is literary analysis/criticism "lore?" I suppose it would be to those who do it. And that's not to degrade people who are passionate and great at literary analysis. I don't think one is better than the other, but like with my film analysis class, it's just not my cup of tea. Breaking down something into parts to understand it and find out what it means, breaks the enchantment. I guess you could say from The Gandalf-Saruman conversation I quoted, Saruman would be the literary critic and what would Gandalf be, a lorist, scholar?

In my post above I called this "meta-lore", at least in the context of Tolkien, when we're discussing the creation of the lore, i.e. the lore of the lore, it is the knowledge and traditions about how the in-universe lore was developed. This is especially true when looking at early drafts of Tolkien's work as in HoME. In a very real sense the Drout lecture I posted/summarized here is exactly this "meta-lore". I enjoy both forms of Tolkien lore.

[Eldy Dunami]

The standard terminology for this divide (as seen in, for example, Michael Drout's introduction to the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia) is "Tolkien studies" and "Middle-earth studies". Tolkien studies is literary scholarship, while Middle-earth studies is analysis of the Secondary World itself—what we call Lore. I'm sympathetic to Drout's argument that the two disciplines support each other. I came up very firmly on the Middle-earth studies side of things (my academic background, to the extent that I have one, is in the social sciences, not literature), but I've made a few deliberate attempts to get out of my comfort zone, read further in the literary criticism side of things, and even try writing a bit on such topics. I found doing so helped me learn more about the legendarium as a whole, which is always a good thing for a Lorist, though I still feel like a visitor in that arena sometimes.

In years past, it was somewhat disillusioning—but, in all honesty, simultaneously ego-boosting—to discover how many (to me) really basic errors about the Secondary World you can find in published Tolkien scholarship, including peer-reviewed publications. My completely subjective sense is that I think Tolkien studies as a field has gotten better with this in recent years, perhaps thanks to the efforts of Drout and others to ease the stigma against Middle-earth studies. Hopefully those of us on the Lore side can return that favor someday.

[Fuin Elda]

@Boromir88 it's okay my post was a useless one in the grand scheme of this discussion.

That said I do like the break down between literary critique/discussion and a lorist or middle Earth analysis vs Tolkien literary studies. I'd never really separated the two perhaps because I've never sought out true academic papers in either field outside of OPs scholars forum- content with published books which I'd dare say are hardly peer reviewed. (If I can tell they are poorly written in terms of lore it is an ill omen lore wise for the book though the one I give it leeway as it's not an official book so they may have needed to change it to escape the harsher gaze of the Tolkien Estate)

[Romeran]

The standard terminology for this divide (as seen in, for example, Michael Drout's introduction to the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia) is "Tolkien studies" and "Middle-earth studies". Tolkien studies is literary scholarship, while Middle-earth studies is analysis of the Secondary World itself—what we call Lore. I'm sympathetic to Drout's argument that the two disciplines support each other. I came up very firmly on the Middle-earth studies side of things (my academic background, to the extent that I have one, is in the social sciences, not literature), but I've made a few deliberate attempts to get out of my comfort zone, read further in the literary criticism side of things, and even try writing a bit on such topics. I found doing so helped me learn more about the legendarium as a whole, which is always a good thing for a Lorist, though I still feel like a visitor in that arena sometimes.

In years past, it was somewhat disillusioning—but, in all honesty, simultaneously ego-boosting—to discover how many (to me) really basic errors about the Secondary World you can find in published Tolkien scholarship, including peer-reviewed publications. My completely subjective sense is that I think Tolkien studies as a field has gotten better with this in recent years, perhaps thanks to the efforts of Drout and others to ease the stigma against Middle-earth studies. Hopefully those of us on the Lore side can return that favor someday.

I think that makes sense as a division, although personally I find that those labels "Tolkien-studies" vs "Middle-earth studies" to be poor names. For one thing "Tolkien-studies" implies that we're studying Tolkien himself (like in an biographical sense) but most papers in Tolkien-studies are really literary analysis of Tolkien's work (but also include some biographical work) and by contrast there's plenty of literary analysis which focuses on aspects of Middle-earth. So it's non-obvious to me that "Tolkien studies" refers to literary scholarship and "Middle-earth studies" refers to analysis within the Secondary World, without you having told me that in the first place. By contrast the word "lore" itself must refer to the study of the secondary world itself due to the definition of the word "lore". But this is all a (yet another!) rather useless semantics discussion on my part. I enjoy a lot of Drout's work (I posted a summary of a lecture he gave about reading Tolkien like a philologist which I found to be thoroughly interesting).

I too have spent most of my interest with Tolkien/Middle-earth as a "lorist" treating the Secondary World itself as "real" and examining it almost as someone who lived in the world would. But like you recently I've been trying to push myself to read more literary criticism and "Tolkien-studies" (or "meta-lore" if you ask me ). And regarding your last point about Drout & Co easing the stigma against Middle-earth studies I completely agree and there is evidence of such Middle-earth studies articles in the Tolkien Studies journal, I think this article A defense of Boromir is a good example of this type of middle-earth studies being featured in a "proper" academic journal.

[Eldy Dunami]

I assume the field of Tolkien studies was named as such by analogy to other author-specific subfields of literary criticism (i.e., study and analysis), such as Joyce studies and Faulkner studies. I'm not particularly invested in the name, but it's widely used and, I think, has a well-known meaning among people in the field, so I use the term for the sake of clarity. Though I suppose this thread is a good illustration of how clarity is subjective.

I've not read the Boromir article before, but I like the Journal of Tolkien Research. It's a newer publication than Mythlore or even Tolkien Studies, but I think they have a good range of articles on interesting topics from quality scholars.

[Romeran]

I'm not particularly invested in the name, but it's widely used and, I think, has a well-known meaning among people in the field, so I use the term for the sake of clarity. Though I suppose this thread is a good illustration of how clarity is subjective.

Yeah my own field (statistics) has a large number of naming conventions which are common but when inspected by an outsider make very little sense but they persist precisely for the reason you list

I've not read the Boromir article before, but I like the Journal of Tolkien Research. It's a newer publication than Mythlore or even Tolkien Studies, but I think they have a good range of articles on interesting topics from quality scholars.

Indeed! I enjoyed the article but also I'm a big fan of the sons of Denethor anyway. I wish I had more time to read all of the work in Tolkien and Middle-earth studies! Maybe when I retire...

[Chrysophylax Dives]

The standard terminology for this divide (as seen in, for example, Michael Drout's introduction to the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia) is "Tolkien studies" and "Middle-earth studies". Tolkien studies is literary scholarship, while Middle-earth studies is analysis of the Secondary World itself—what we call Lore. I'm sympathetic to Drout's argument that the two disciplines support each other. I came up very firmly on the Middle-earth studies side of things (my academic background, to the extent that I have one, is in the social sciences, not literature), but I've made a few deliberate attempts to get out of my comfort zone, read further in the literary criticism side of things, and even try writing a bit on such topics. I found doing so helped me learn more about the legendarium as a whole, which is always a good thing for a Lorist, though I still feel like a visitor in that arena sometimes.

In years past, it was somewhat disillusioning—but, in all honesty, simultaneously ego-boosting—to discover how many (to me) really basic errors about the Secondary World you can find in published Tolkien scholarship, including peer-reviewed publications. My completely subjective sense is that I think Tolkien studies as a field has gotten better with this in recent years, perhaps thanks to the efforts of Drout and others to ease the stigma against Middle-earth studies. Hopefully those of us on the Lore side can return that favor someday.

Just to throw in some of my thoughts on this and the subsequent discussion.

So here 'Lore' = analysis of the Secondary World, and is distinguished from 'Tolkien studies'. This division was at the back of my mind when i posted because i'm very aware how my own perspective - which is biographical - often conflicts with 'Lore' as so conceived. Just for example, last time i looked there was no entry for 'magic ring' on Tolkien Gateway - instead you are directed to 'One Ring'. This is part of the reason why The Hobbit is rarely considered in and of itself. Indeed, when I asked about goblin front porch and Eldy pointed out about the Orc spells of opening I was initially taken aback, simply because i do not think of the goblins of The Hobbit as necessarily the same as the orcs of LOTR (not saying they are not, just illustrating how i look at things).

To be clear, I do not object at all (quite the opposite) to Lore as so conceived. Just pointing out that such a perspective entails presuppositions that can clash with the biographical perspective. And this, by the by, is i think one reason why so little has been mined from the early drafts of LOTR - i think it is almost impossible to get much out of them if you approach from this Lore perspective (and I'd hold up 'Peeling the Onion' as a prime illustration).

Nevertheless, I find myself almost equally alienated by what counts as 'Tolkien studies' because - as noted above - most such work is not biographical but literary, and as such employs a framework that is quite alien to Tolkien's own thought. Tolkien employed the notion of 'intentions' in his reading of Beowulf, and I employ the same notion as I try to make sense of Tolkien's stories, but literary theory today spurns such a notion. (There is an editor of a small Tolkien periodical who stopped talking to me when, on a G+ discussion, he told me that 'the author is dead' and i suggested that his literary practice must therefore be an instance of necromancy - i naively thought that might start a good discussion but he inexplicably got very offended.)

There is also another problem with Tolkien studies as an academic exercise. I make my living as a freelance academic editor and after ten years of such work I tell you this: most papers and books in the humanities are not worth the paper they are printed on. The basic problem, it seems to me, is that academics are after quantity of publications and sacrifice quality to achieve it - so often when i edit something i think 'if only the author spent another year thinking about this it might be quite good'. The contrast here with lorists who pursue their interests purely for passion is very striking.

But I'd also like to raise the contrast between lore (broadly conceived, that is, with my perspectives included) and fan-fic. A primary reason I like the plaza is because it houses people who do fan-fic. To my mind Tolkien was an academic scholar who thought primarily in stories. If you approach him purely from the point of view of scholarship you are going to miss something. Dawn Felagund of the Silmarillion Writers' Guild is exemplary here, in my opinion. She is one of the very few who use fan-fic and scholarship together. I don't have the creative abilities to do that, but it is to my mind the ideal.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Thanks for Eldy to point out Tolkien studies and Middle Earth studies. There is a signifant difference indeed. Since my last post I have been mostly reading and reviewing what has been said. I can't add much that is really significant.

Chrys posted: Nevertheless, I find myself almost equally alienated by what counts as 'Tolkien studies' because - as noted above - most such work is not biographical but literary, and as such employs a framework that is quite alien to Tolkien's own thought. Tolkien employed the notion of 'intentions' in his reading of Beowulf, and I employ the same notion as I try to make sense of Tolkien's stories, but literary theory today spurns such a notion.

You don't stand alone in the feeling of being a visitor or even alienated. To discuss in the true sense of lore I always knew it was not simply putting on just some clothes, but a gala dress instead (as I am a girl). I tell sometimes offline people about what we discuss here and which level, and what we agree on or not, and most reactions are 'uh how can you (im)possibly discuss literature in English?' and all attention veers away in 'academic nonsense', 'Tolkien ugh?' and 'don't you like sport instead?' But I have alas no interest in physical sport and love mental sport instead. As Eldy I have a social study as well, but even in that are overlapping areas with other academic disciplines. In arts class we had to recite a poem from memory. Almost everyone chose something existed. But me? Nah, I wrote one myself, recited that and even my performance was not fluent, I got an extra point because it was my own creation. I wanted something original.

I have been flushing out my own perspective on things, I take a biological approach to analysis with an accent on what is evolutionary. This perspective returns in all my 'lore' posts I have written by far. I couple it back to myself as well, but I am not autobiographical. Simple how came something to what it now is? And what has the journey been from the start? What do I learn fom it? And it has been quite educational. Able to discuss an analysis from Tolkien Studies, aye I need bit more scholar training for that.

Chrys said: "....The contrast here with lorists who pursue their interests purely for passion is very striking." I have no doubt that at all. I hear similar sounds around. Writing fanfic is for me to discover the deeper myriads in the tales Tolkien wrote. It is a literary multi leveled work, but also inside the world of Middle Earth this multi level (for example) from the Seen and Unseen world returns. Most creatures cannot access it, but the Ainur and the Elves can. It is for me a way of deeper understanding.

To Romeran's remark, I love Boromir for his passionated character and his sadly demise.

[Eldy Dunami]

It's interesting to hear your take as someone more involved with the academic side of things, @Chrysophylax Dives, iconoclast though you may be. While I've tried in recent years to keep an open mind about the value of various approaches—and I appreciate you mentioning your biographical approach; I've really enjoyed your papers that I've read!—I've had similar observations of the ... somewhat lacking minimum threshold for publication, no matter how high the ceiling might be.

I appreciate you mentioning the hybrid creative–scholarly approach. That's something the creators of MERP (Middle-earth Role Playing; the original Tolkien tabletop game adaptation) were excellent at—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the scholarly credentials of some of the contributors to MERP supplements. People working in the MERP tradition are still carrying the torch long after the original game ceased publication, through venues like Other Minds magazine. But it wasn't until I ventured into Tolkien Tumblr about five years ago that I really grasped the potential of this approach.

For a long time, I hadn't paid much attention to the fanfic side of Tolkien fandom, but in the past couple years I've primarily devoted my own energies to the hybrid approach. I like to think I came in with a strong foundation of Middle-earth knowledge, but I've learned a ton just in the course of doing background research for my own creative writing projects, despite working exclusively in the realm of Alternate Universe fics which diverge from Tolkien's writing in sometimes radical ways. I think fostering the mentality of questioning the texts can be more conducive to developing a deep understanding of them than is the "curative" approach of simply assembling and organizing unquestionable knowledge, which doesn't always lead to much analysis.

And Dawn is wonderful—I met her on Tumblr several years ago and then in person at the 2016 New York Tolkien Conference. After the event ended, I went out for drinks with her and a few other people from the SWG, and ended up having probably the best conversation I've ever had about Tolkien (among many other topics) in a face-to-face setting.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I appreciate you mentioning the hybrid creative–scholarly approach. That's something the creators of MERP (Middle-earth Role Playing; the original Tolkien tabletop game adaptation) were excellent at—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the scholarly credentials of some of the contributors to MERP supplements. People working in the MERP tradition are still carrying the torch long after the original game ceased publication, through venues like Other Minds magazine. But it wasn't until I ventured into Tolkien Tumblr about five years ago that I really grasped the potential of this approach.

I never even heard of any of this, so thank you very much for the tip. I will look into it.

On Dawn, I only know her through her (old?) blog 'heretic loremaster' and a couple of interactions on the comments. The idea of 'heretic lore' is perhaps germane to this thread.

I may quite possibly have got the wrong end of the stick, but on one discussion in the comments i got the impression that the very idea of heretic lore was formed in opposition to the invocation of intentions - as in, it is an idea of lore that is explicitly sundered from what Tolkien might have thought (though taking its cue from what he wrote). If I get this right, I see it as throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I think that Tolkien not only employed the idea of intentions in his own reading of old stories (like Beowulf) but also thought about the very idea of intentions quite profoundly, not least what it meant to read the intentions of those who are now dead. This is part of what we see, I think, in the Seeing Stones (and so, by implication, at the top of a tower), a fantasy born out of a meditation on the limitations of attempting to read the intentions of another, a fantasy of a more perfect communication (and its magical uses). It is quite correct that one person can never know the intention of another, but a main road into Middle-earth of the late Third Age is this fantasy of elvish instruments and mirrors of intention. Discarding the concept/category of 'intention' runs the danger of talking about Middle-earth while we are actually standing at the border looking out at our own world.

Rant about intentions over. Thank you for saying you enjoyed reading something i wrote. :)

Edit: I do get why the move to prohibit intentions was made - it frees the mind from tiresome prejudices mindlessly repeated in different guises. I do get that. I'm just saying that I find something unthought out in the end position that lends itself to a certain blindness to what is in front of our eyes in the secondary world.

[Eldy Dunami]

I can only speak for myself, but I like to think our understanding of Middle-earth can be enhanced by drawing on all the different approaches we've described. I think there's a lot of value to examining Tolkien's intentions, though my own inclination is more towards the story-internal approach. When it comes to "The Silmarillion" in particular, one can't really make sense of the posthumous texts without understanding their relations to each other, which necessitates considering the story-external perspective.

An awareness of Tolkien's influences and interests also helps us understand the significance of various events in the legendarium. The fact that the First Age ends with three tribes of men leaving the mainland to found an island kingdom and merge into a single nation takes on a different resonance when you realize this is equally true of the Edain/Númenóreans in "The Silmarillion" and of the ancestors of the English in The Book of Lost Tales. And our understanding of the three unions of the Eldar and the Edain can only be improved by considering them in light of Tolkien's views on asterisk-stories and Primary World legends of men who marry elves and/or goddesses (something you've written about far more eloquently than I am here). But I think Númenor especially is also a prime example of how the story-internal perspective is equally crucial, for example in realizing that Tolkien undercut the idea of Númenórean racial and moral superiority, something a worrying number of readers completely miss.

That said, I also understand why some people might want to focus (nearly) exclusively on one approach, particularly if they feel it has been unfairly neglected or denigrated. I think those people play an important role in raising awareness of the many different prisms through which we can view the legendarium, even though I prefer to blend the approaches.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Yeah, we each of us are ultimately focusing on our one approach, and as we grow older hopefully learning from recognizing other approaches. things only go wrong, maybe, when combinations or foundations that are appropriate for one thing are projected onto others...

My own focus, i suppose, has become a fixation with the border and with what i learn about the primary world from the various writings of this very odd Professor. I've got to the point of thinking that he saw something magical in a certain way that words work in our language without our quite understanding that or how this is so. Which is to say, I've got to the point where sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, i can almost glimpse this magic at work in the world around me.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

I am wondering myself what is really being discussed. I don't get it what 'other approaches' might be. What is really that special about Numenor or fascinating about that island? The line of kings and queens in the appendices impressed me mostly as a summing up and the most significant persons got a good text and a story in the Lost Tales book. Maybe my failing to understand is that my primary focus are the Eldar in Valinor and their descendents in the Third Age, and their resilience to darkness?

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Aiks, thank you for asking. I can only answer for myself and explain how what i call a 'biographical approach' differs from a more conventional Lore approach.

About seven years ago i started reading Return of the Shadow, the Home volume with the early drafts of the first part of LOTR. I will confess that a primary motivation was simply that i have read LOTR (far) too many times and this felt like a way of re-reading the same material all over again. However, it soon sank in that the making of the story of LOTR as revealed in these drafts requires a different mindset, what i think of as a historian's mindset.

So, to begin with. You cannot understand quite what Tolkien is doing as he places the magic ring at the center of his new story unless you have clear in your mind the first edition story of The Hobbit - the second edition, where Bilbo does not win the magic ring (and the version everyone knows) had not yet been written. If you do not have this clear from the start much of what Tolkien is doing with the Ring and finding an heir for Bilbo just passes you by.

Or again, The Hobbit is vaguely set in what we call Middle-earth, but it was composed before the 1936 'Fall of Númenor', which introduced the great division in time between Myth (days of the flat earth) and History (days of the round world). So from the start of a new hobbit story the author had to decide which side of this division the new (and old) hobbit stories were set. When you pay attention to this in reading the early drafts of LOTR there seems good reason to believe that prior to arrival at Bree Tolkien placed the story in the days of myth; but then, as i mentioned above, as they approach Weathertop the hobbit named Trotter (who would become Strider) refers to the Last Alliance - and the story is definitively situated after the drowning of Númenor.

As I said, I engaged in this kind of reading in the first instance simply as an excuse to enter the world of LOTR in a new way. But such an approach has by now deeply coloured how i read the published story. The apparent step from mythical to historical setting after Bree, for example, seems to illuminate something of the way that Bombadil and Goldberry exist in a different kind of world than everywhere else (Lorien half excepted).

The main lesson of all my historical reading - building up a picture of how the world of the new story was imagined - is an obsession with Moria and the Doors of Durin, which I am convinced mark a turning point, the moment where the sequel to The Hobbit became The Lord of the Rings. This transformation connects to external events - the lecture On Fairy-stories and the advent of WWII - but also to the internal stories: the Doors of Durin bring together as one the two doors that frame The Hobbit (marked and hidden) while within Moria we have a sort of reworking of everything - with a Balrog now replacing Gollum at the roots of the mountain.

However, now I have a growing fascination with the 2nd Age, the great part of which was imagined through the Doors of Durin and subsequently. The 2nd Age provides the great backstory of LOTR, and i feel in my bones that it provides some vital keys to the whole.

Does this make sense of a different approach?

[Romeran]

I too dug into that book when I was writing my essay on Faramir @Chrysophylax Dives as I had learned from a letter that Tolkien “accidentally” wrote Faramir (which is where the title of my essay came from). I found it an interesting perspective to read the lord of the rings as a function of its own creation with respect to time. Sort of like adding a “time” dimension to an otherwise static published novel, watching it as it “evolves” with Tolkien’s changing perspectives.

I confess it’s one that I’ve not assigned sufficient attention and one that I hope to rectify in the future. Growing up I was always obsessed with the “Lore” (of the Middle-earth studies variety) but which is concerned with some notion of internal “cannon” largely from some youthful desire to be “right” mixed with arguments from RP. But this caused me to ignore the early draft works to my detriment. And as is covered nicely in this thread search for this form of cannon is unattainable and in many ways prevents a wholistic understanding of Middle-earth and Tolkien’s changing perspective of it.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

@Romeran - yes. I think the publication of the Home series has unsettled the very idea of a Canon and with it the old Lore approach. 'Peeling the Onion' (one of my standard points of reference) shows the uneasy way in which the 'evolutionary' picture was undermining the old ways, without, i think, a full consciousness of how this was happening.

Aiks, in my post above i sidestepped some real difficulties, which were behind my rant about intentions (which was not really called for, and @Eldy Dunami correctly, but politely shot down). If I understand rightly (I may have it a bit wrong), the idea of 'heretic lore' arose (on another site) as a response by those who engaged in fan-fic and were fed up with being told that Tolkien's world had no place for non-hetrosexual love, little place for women, and even no good place for non-whites.

By placing so much focus on Tolkien's intentions I am committing myself to establish 'what Tolkien really thought' on these and related matters. Now, while I could certainly argue that on certain things, such as race, Tolkien was not exactly the reactionary that people seem to assume, the fact of the matter is that the worldview and values of a Roman Catholic Professor at Oxford who was born at the end of the 19th century do not coincide with all of those of his readers today.

So behind my rant about intentions is an attempt to articulate - or begin to articulate - a position that does not abandon the idea of discovering what Tolkien thought and meant in his stories, but nevertheless is prepared to say 'no' or insist on a revision when called for. This is not an easy position to find. The best that I can say is that I believe we have to face the truth before we can find a better place, as in, for example, not pretend that the characters of Galadriel and Éowyn somehow mean that women really do have a place in Tolkien's vision of a story-world.

I'll just add, and this is going closer to the heart of things than I am usually comfortable doing, but the wider world of Tolkien studies has somehow contrived to establish a discussion of Tolkien's Germanic mythology that is rarely if ever compared to what was going on with such myths in Germany in the 1930s (the closest you ever get are discussions of Tolkien and Wagner). No doubt this was a healthy wall - because, really, one wants to enjoy LOTR without having to think about the horrors of the 20th century. But as a matter of fact, LOTR became the story we know in the midst of World War II and Tolkien was keenly aware of what Hitler had done with the tradition that Tolkien loved. I believe that at the heart of the new imagination that arose after 1939 is a profound meditation on this wider context and that we do not fully understand the story without taking this on board.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Chrys: We can only speak for ourselves. Thanks for the trouble explaining. It is very helpful! I know the small unfinished tale of Return of the Shadow, taking place in Eldarion's reign. True, a historian's mindset is different from the common reader/writer. What all is history to us, were actual events when Tolkien wrote. The Gulf Wars were actual events for me, for my (4 years) niece she will learn those wars as history from a book. I gather up you have really read everything on different story drafts and such, I see. Part of my ignorance here. I should have realised that fact from the hundreds of quotes you're using, as lot of other people around. You can call yourself a loremaster, or I think is what you are then. Cool! Yes, your approach makes sense to me.

I never concerned myself in the early days with lore or the understanding of it. My dear dad is a bit the cause of that, because he once tried to read the book of the letters, but quitted it because it was utterly boring to him. And he said to me, just read Tolkien's stories, they were magnificent to him. And that has been my entrance in the world of Middle Earth. As a reader however you adopt the tale in the book and make it your own. When sixteen years old I was vulnerable for all sorts of views. So my Hobbits wore all shoes, because wearing no shoes stood for me being poor and you can't afford them. On the first time I read Hobbit and Lotr Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin wore all socks and shoes in my imagination. Dad tried to reverse that, but that was in vain. Four years later at the Social Academy I didn't think like that anymore. However I never found Hobbits adorable, as Tolkien wants us to believe that. The Shire from historical perspective is countryside England, but it is not home for me. From the Hobbit I came to admire those thirteen Dwarves, with thirteen different characters, from the Ered Luin and claiming back their old home Erebor.

Chrys, I'll be curious when your bones do find the vital keys to the whole. In your last added post, aye I didn't miss what you expressed but as Eldy already responded, it was not my place to add something as well. All I can tell is that I have a (Hindustani) brother and sister-in-law. Both faced at young age that elements from their culture they can't express publicly in Holland, because of the whole WOII. I can understand the pain they feel because of that. It is eighty years now, allmost all 'actors' have passed into history and my sister and I only have still the stories once told to us by our grandparents. What I am aware off is that I belong with the first generation born after the war, just as my mother's younger sister (1951) and we have no conscious memories. I read always the stories without the historical background they were written against. Middle Earth is Tolkien's imagined historical epoch. I rather try to paste it somewhere in what our (Stone Age) prehistory is.

[Boromir88]

This may be a bit of a ramble, but I hope others find it useful to this discussion.

The discussion about different approaches to lore, reminded me of another interest of mine...I'm the weirdo who likes reading US Supreme Court cases and the written opinions of the judges. Because justices have different approaches to their duties of interpreting laws and determining the constitutionality of laws. I won't bore you with all the different approaches, but basically you have: "Originalists" who interpret laws as they were originally intended when written, "Textualists" who interpret the laws as they are written (what the text "says") and "Living Constitutionalists" who interpret the constitution as a "living" document that grows and adapts as a society changes. I believe it's good for a judicial branch to have different approaches, and while I disagree with decisions that have been made with each judges' approach, I can still often respect the different approaches. Personally, I'm most inline with a textualist, because I don't see a point in trying to interpret what dead Lawy McLawmaker Faces intended when they passed a law 50, or 100 years ago. There is value in believing laws are living documents that have to adapt to society, but there also comes a point when the lawmakers have to do their responsibility, make new laws if the old laws are no longer relevant, and stop passing off that responsibility to a different branch. Anyway, not to get onto a tangent here, in a serious matter of determining the constitutionality of laws that govern a society, I'm more in line with the textualism approach, "interpret the laws as written."

On the Old Plaza, I was very much a textualist, in my approach to Tolkien. I wanted to know everything that Tolkien wrote about Middle-earth, to learn clear and plain facts, facts that would "prove" my arguments were right. I remember one of the first lore threads on the NuPlaza, @Eldy Dunami describing having a "hobbitish impulse." I won't forget it, because I think it fittingly describes that approach:

When I was first getting into Lore as a teenager, I really wanted to have a single, internally consistent version of Arda to mentally explore. Call it a Hobbitish impulse ("they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions"; LOTR, Prologue).

I can only speak for myself, but I had the same hobbitish impulse, and that's probably one of the reasons I left the Old Plaza. Once I got outside The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and started reading Tolkien's other Middle-earth stories, I didn't enjoy them. I was reading them to mine for facts and to prove being "right." Which was making me increasingly frustrated because it's impossible to have a "single, internally consistent version of Arda." This approach broke my enchantment with Tolkien, because I believe it's limiting. There's only so many times you can answer questions like "Why didn't the eagles fly the ring into Mordor?" until it becomes stale, because I was limiting myself to the minutiae. I left the Plaza, didn't read the books or watch the movies for several years. The enchantment was broken.

I'm not sure if it was just having a significant break, or whether I was a different person reading the books again in my 30s than in my teens and 20s, or probably a combination...but I was re-enchanted. I wasn't reading the books to mine it for facts. I just wanted to read a good story and they captivated me again. Disappointed that when I found the old LOTR fanatics facebook group that the Old Plaza was lost, but I lurked around and jumped in as soon as I saw Narv created the NuPlaza. For the last 4-5 years that my passion was re-ignited I would describe my approach to Lore as a "Living Tolkienist" (to come full circle with my opening paragraph ). That is, Tolkien's stories can change and adapt to the current times. They can be relevant in a woke society (I don't use that word to inflame, or cause any offense. I just can't think of better one to describe we are living in much different times than the one Tolkien was writing in.) It's a spirit and approach to lore I've tried to embrace on the NuPlaza. I want as many people to enjoy and appreciate the author and the stories as possible, even the ones writing Legolas Love Letters on the OP.

Because at the end of the day, Eldy is right, there is value in learning Tolkien's intentions and motivations, but I don't want anyone to forget what seemed to be his primary intention:

The Lord of the Rings has been read by many people since it finally appeared in print; and I should like to say something here with reference to the many opinions or guesses that I have received or have read concerning the motives and meaning of this tale. The prime motive was the desire of a tale-teller to try his hand at a really long story that would hold the attention of readers. amuse them, delight them, and at times maybe excite them or deeply move them. (Foreword to the Second Edition)

[Eldy Dunami]

On the Old Plaza, I was very much a textualist, in my approach to Tolkien. I wanted to know everything that Tolkien wrote about Middle-earth, to learn clear and plain facts, facts that would "prove" my arguments were right. I remember one of the first lore threads on the NuPlaza, @Eldy Dunami describing having a "hobbitish impulse." I won't forget it, because I think it fittingly describes that approach:

I'll add for posterity that the post in question also described my present view that the "Hobbitish impulse" is detrimental to a deep understanding of the legendarium.

For the last 4-5 years that my passion was re-ignited I would describe my approach to Lore as a "Living Tolkienist" (to come full circle with my opening paragraph ). That is, Tolkien's stories can change and adapt to the current times. They can be relevant in a woke society (I don't use that word to inflame, or cause any offense. I just can't think of better one to describe we are living in much different times than the one Tolkien was writing in.) It's a spirit and approach to lore I've tried to embrace on the NuPlaza. I want as many people to enjoy and appreciate the author and the stories as possible, even the ones writing Legolas Love Letters on the OP.

Because at the end of the day, Eldy is right, there is value in learning Tolkien's intentions and motivations, but I don't want anyone to forget what seemed to be his primary intention:

Using your typology, I think I fall into different categories in different contexts, though the distinctions have become fuzzier—or I've become more comfortable shifting back and forth rapidly—over the years. Earlier today, I was in a discussion on another forum about who spoke Sindarin in Númenor, and the bulk of my post was a description of the textual situation, comparing different statements made by Tolkien in various works, and arguing some of them could not be reconciled with each other. At that point, I was in what you might call "originalist" mode, because my argument was that trying to paper over the differences between sufficiently divergent ideas obscures our understanding of each text individually. But having made this point, I switched gears towards the end of the post to describe what I think we can extrapolate from the texts if we know which ideas we want to retain. One could describe this as "textualist" mode: having ruled out the possibility of divining a common Tolkien-intended meaning underlying these different versions, I was willing to contemplate ideas I know are nowhere to be found in the Tolkien corpus, in order to construct a consistent narrative that incorporates all the ideas I personally find most interesting, regardless of where in the corpus they're found.[1] This produced far more radical results than my conversation partner's self-described "cake and eat it" method—though the post was already about 1600 words long, so I didn't elaborate much.

I think it's very important to be clear what you're doing, though. When somebody asks where Orcs came from, it's safe to assume they're asking where Tolkien thought Orcs came from, not what fanon people have constructed to try to make sense of a problem Tolkien himself was unable to solve.[2] I'm very firmly against people trying to pass off their own ideas as Tolkien's, but I think that kind of radical speculation is a legitimate avenue for Lore, and helps foster the kind of critical, analytical approach that helps Lore discussions stay fresh despite the lack of new material being published (NoMe was the first major expansion to the Middle-earth corpus in 14 years, and it could easily be the last). A friend of mine who I know across several forums often speaks of "personal legendariums," constructed by each reader from the ideas they like. In my personal legendarium, the world was always round, Finwë had two daughters, Gil-galad was the grandson of Angrod, and post-imprisonment Húrin wrecked Brethil in misguided vengeance for his children. All of those ideas can be found in Tolkien's writing, and all are at odds with the 1977 Silmarillion. But the personal legendarium approach easily blends into full-blown Alternate Universe construction. In my Middle-earth, Bëorian commoners adopted the Sindarin language in the First Age, unlike their Hadorian counterparts (an idea from Tolkien), but I want to know why. I have an elaborate explanation built in part from fleeting hints found in Tolkien's writing, but deliberately assembled in a way that reflects my personal taste, and taking inspiration from other stories to help flesh out the details.

This, I think, might be describable as a "living legendarium" approach, but I'm not entirely sure where to draw the line between that and the "textualist" approach. Or, to put it another way, when something stops being an interpretation of Tolkien and becomes a transformative work. (I have definitely passed that point, but I can't say precisely when.) That uncertainty hasn't stopped me from finding great enjoyment in this endeavor over the past couple years, and from publicly sharing some of my ideas in the past couple months, but I've tried to be clear about which ideas do and don't come from Tolkien, and where people can find the sources for those in the former category. It's been a really mentally stimulating blending of Lore and creative writing, and as I mentioned upthread in one of my replies to @Chrysophylax Dives, I've learned a ton about the legendarium in the process. 10/10, would recommend.

---

[1] The topic in question was the population transfer of Faithful Númenóreans (mentioned in the Akallabêth) and how big a deal it would have been if it meant removing hundreds of thousands if not millions of natively Sindarin-speaking commoners from Andustar (reflecting an idea found in Aldarion and Erendis).

[2] Tolkien tried and failed to reconcile the idea that Melkor couldn't create sentient life (a concept not in place when he first wrote about Orcs) with his belief that God is fundamentally good and wouldn't provide souls to a race of evil monsters bred by the Devil. This problem disappears if you don't believe Eru is fundamentally good.

[Romeran]

It’s interesting @Boromir88 you describe a similar transformation in my own approach of the books too. I loved the lord of the rings and the hobbit and also the Silmarillion. But I too had the hobbit desire to lay down the facts squarely without any contradictions. When I first tried reading the book of lost tales as a way to learn more so that I could have more facts and show off my knowledge on the plaza I hated it. How could any of this help me prove things when the Nolder are Gnomes and Tuor slays five balrogs with his ax. The later texts then contradicted with the 1977 Silmarillion which meant I was completely lost. I have since grown to appreciate it for what it is as a growing and changing conception. I’ve also found myself more intrigued by Tolkien’s attempt to explain things and make them fit (like the VY to SY conversion with the tale of years in mind in NoME) whereas this before would have infuriated me.

@Eldy Dunami is there a difference between personal legendarium and “headcannon” as I see this term thrown around a lot for what I think you’re describing. But I may be missing something.

I’ve also learned a lot about Tolkien in my attempt to write FA fiction and RP here on the plaza. I admit that at first I mostly participated in the RP side of the plaza and it was a good time before I felt comfortable enough to post in the scary lore threads

[Eldy Dunami]

@Eldy Dunami is there a difference between personal legendarium and “headcannon” as I see this term thrown around a lot for what I think you’re describing. But I may be missing something.

I'd say the main difference is that "headcanon" is a term in common usage in many fandoms, whereas I'm not sure anyone but me has adopted my aforementioned friend's usage of "personal legendarium" or "personal Silmarillion" in this sense. Moreover, when headcanon is used as a noun, it tends to refer to fairly specific ideas. You can adopt another fan's headcanon about, say, a particular character relationship without necessarily sharing their views on other matters. A personal legendarium is a much larger-scale endeavor, a whole complex of headcanons. The goal is often to choose and follow through on consistent principles—for example, always using the chronologically latest text on a subject that you can find—though over the years I've come to prefer taking things on a case by case basis.

The basic concept is not so different from fan attempts at creating their own edits of The Silmarillion, making different decisions about what to include than Christopher Tolkien did. There was a large collaborative effort at this on the Barrow-Downs forum many years ago, though I've never actually read the product of their work. Even "serious" Tolkien scholars have weighed in on the debate about which texts Tolkien would or should have put in a hypothetical "Silmarillion" in his lifetime. Charles Noad wrote a famous essay on it, published in the collection Tolkien's Legendarium (ed. Flieger and Hostetter), and Doug Kane wrote an entire book on the subject, called Arda Reconstructed (which was itself born from a forum thread before getting picked up by a university press).

In the past, my personal legendarium was very much focused on trying to be like I imagined Tolkien wanted "The Silmarillion" to be late in his life, but the more time I spend playing in my sandbox full of offbeat ideas—like the commoner population of Andustar being linguistically and religiously distinct from the aristocratic Faithful (who speak a different dialect of Sindarin; there is actually some circumstantial evidence in NoMe for that bit)—the less inclined I am to try to posthumously read Tolkien's mind. There's the texts as they exist, and there's my Alternate Universe where I can blend my own ideas with my interpretation of Tolkien, but my personal legendarium which lies somewhere in between has become rather neglected.

I’ve also learned a lot about Tolkien in my attempt to write FA fiction and RP here on the plaza. I admit that at first I mostly participated in the RP side of the plaza and it was a good time before I felt comfortable enough to post in the scary lore threads

I'm glad you made the jump! I know a lot of my friends on the OG Plaza avoided posting in Lore because they felt intimidated or it was just too extra for them, which I regret in retrospect. There's a lot about my old posts as a Lorist that I'm not proud of, but then again, I could say that about most things I did when I was 14–17. In any event, I like to think the NuPlaza is a more laid back place in general, and I'm delighted that people with a variety of fannish backgrounds are contributing to Lore.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I'm glad you made the jump! I know a lot of my friends on the OG Plaza avoided posting in Lore because they felt intimidated or it was just too extra for them, which I regret in retrospect. There's a lot about my old posts as a Lorist that I'm not proud of, but then again, I could say that about most things I did when I was 14–17. In any event, I like to think the NuPlaza is a more laid back place in general, and I'm delighted that people with a variety of fannish backgrounds are contributing to Lore.

It is really important to me that everyone feels comfortable posting in Lore. And i know that my long erudite posts may contribute to putting people off, but i don't know what to do about that because part of my own deal with the more laid back nuplaza is a determination that, for once, i am not going to hide my own scholarly interests and obsessions.

Anyways, I actually jumped in here with an autobiographical observation. Unlike old plaza, on this site I feel old, as in i must be one of the few (there are others - Aiks ) whose Tolkien obsession predates not only the movies but even the publication of The Silmarillion - it came out towards the end of my early LOTR obsession, I purchased it with anticipation and then, after several pages about the creation of the world went wtf and did not pick the book up again for two decades.

Some years later I did a PhD on a late Victorian economic scientist, named Alfred Marshall, who wrote what was long the textbook in economics, Principles of Economics, first published in 1890 but then going through 8 editions, over the course of which much of the book was substantially rewritten. The result is that in the small academic world of 'Marshall studies' you cannot say anything without someone else saying 'Ah, but you have not read the 3rd edition of Principles', or 'My dear chap, you are confusing the positions of editions 4 and 7' or such like.

When i encountered the old plaza i felt a deep sense of recognition, and also understood that this urge to pump your own authority by putting other people down by way of showing off obscure textual knowledge is not confined to academia! It seems to be a universal tendency whenever a group of people engage with 'canon'.

Incidentally, the parallels to my mind go much further. Nearly all who write on Marshall today are economists, while I came at him as a historian. I asked questions like 'How did Marshall's crisis of religious faith impact his economics?' and 'What is the relationship between the economics that Marshall developed and his earlier readings in psychology and history?' These questions were largely unintelligible to the economists, whose preferred method is translating the arguments of the Principles into mathematical formula in the image of today's economics. I see the economists as traditional lorists who would have felt very much at home on the old plaza. Hobbits indeed!

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Chrys: You are as you are, and if you feel comfortable about a long post, it is worth for the others to sit down and read it quietly. So I do constantly, picking up terms I never heard off, but can very well relate to. I am a transformative writer, in the case of what I am doing here right now to allow Legolas tell everything. I started on 11 March and still I have a lot to post yet. In the books he was such an elusive character, never really present, so there rose the itch with me, why is he constantly leaving and not keeping to the Fellowship? Perhaps it is a very long Love Letter?

As Eldy further says, I am one of those avoiders to Lore in the past, where 90% of my 22.000 points (2004 - 2018) were earned from roleplay, and not from discussing lore. Or making a try to. I wanted it initially, but gave up as I felt largely ignored by what I tried to contribute. I was extra sensitive at the time in June 2004 (28 years old), having lost my mother to cancer in Nov 2003. I couldn't cope with being ignored and switched to RP that was appreciated very well. My main base was first Imladris and later Lothlorien.

The link further digs up: "A story from Voldemort's perspective is transformative." Well what would you feel from Draco's perspective, instead Harry at Hogwarts? I did that as well, after having roleplayed his character on a Potter site for some time. The site is since a week all of a sudden complete out of the air, just as the Old Plaza. I won't say that I have an obsession with Tolkien, there are enough moments in the day I am not thinking of it at all. I would call it more as a genuine love, than being a fanatic. In the same sense I like a good discussion, or a good book to read. Unlike Boromir or Eldy, I don't think I have a textualistic approach. I love to shuffle with words, so it is not a copy/paste thing. And becomes something of my own creation. Allowing Legolas to tell everything, forced me to shift in great details through the books and the movies, searching for nuances of the Ring at work, I never considered before. Things that Jackson added in the movies to various relations between the members of the Fellowship, I omitted out because the books got another telling and is storywise more consistent. Sorry I haven't been around much this week, uploading is a lot of work.

Eldy: Now you mention it about your own Alternative Universe. What are your stories in there?

[Eldy Dunami]

Eldy: Now you mention it about your own Alternative Universe. What are your stories in there?

Thanks for asking! The main period I'm working with is the Númenórean civil war alluded to in the LOTR Appendices, during the reign of Tar-Palantir, though I'm starting a few years in advance to cover the run-up. It's chock-full of original characters, which I know get a bad rap in the fanfiction community sometimes, but are inevitable due to the limited source material. Plus, I don't want to write a story where all the major characters are royalty or high nobility, which is the case with the Akallabêth. One of my goals is to show a broad view of Númenórean society, across the spectrum of class, religious, and ethnic groups (Númenor was not "racially" monolithic even at its founding, as mentioned in NoMe, and even less so after centuries as a colonial empire). Not all my interests and aversions overlap with Tolkien's, so my AU Númenor developed modern technology, and religion is not kept in the background so much. Also, this is an LOTR/Naruto fusion fic, which means aspects of Naruto worldbuilding are worked into the setting (magical ninja powers and elements of Japanese culture), but there's no meeting of characters from different fictional universes.

I know this doesn't really answer your question about the story as opposed to the setting, but after several attempts at writing this post I am evidently incapable of discussing the characters without getting vastly more verbose than is appropriate for a digression to an unrelated thread. (It would be easier if they were canon characters that people already had a basic understanding of, but even the names in the Akallabêth are mostly without characterization.) I'll just note that some of the main themes which have emerged during the writing process are family, found or otherwise; and gender roles, expression, and identity. The characters are from a range of backgrounds and have widely varying views on both subjects, and also on the religious and political disputes driving Númenor into civil war. I'm fascinated by the interplay of people's political views and personal lives, and it's pretty much inevitable that comes up in a story about a civil war. The war in question being fictional affords me a bit more freedom than if I was trying to do justice to a real conflict, but I'm not sure how far it lets me push my luck in discussing religion and politics on forums that discourage doing so. :V

Anyway, I decided early on that I wasn't going to post the story as it was being written, which turned out to be a good decision because of how many early ideas I've changed or abandoned. As a result, I've only recently mentioned this project in more than generalities to anyone outside a small circle of friends, so I'm afraid my enthusiasm gets away from me a bit. But at least I wrangled this post down to a manageable size.