Tolkien fandom

Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. The concept of Tolkien fandom as a specific type of fan subculture sprang up in the United States in the 1960s, in the context of the hippie movement, to the dismay of the author (Tolkien died in 1973), who talked of "my deplorable cultus".^[1]

A Tolkienist is someone who studies the work of J. R. R. Tolkien: this usually involves the study of the Elvish languages and "Tolkienology".^[2] A Ringer is a fan of The Lord of the Rings in general, and of Peter Jackson's live-action film trilogy in particular.^[3] Other terms for Tolkien fans include Tolkienite or Tolkiendil.^[4]

Many fans share their Tolkien fan fiction with other fans. Tolkien societies support fans in many countries around the world.

Tolkien's The Hobbit, a children's book, was first published in 1937, and it proved popular. But The Lord of the Rings, first published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955, gave rise to fandom as a cultural phenomenon from the 1960s onwards.^[5][6]

Tolkien fandom began within science fiction fandom soon after The Fellowship of the Ring was published in 1954. Tolkien was discussed in science fiction fanzines and amateur press association magazines ("apazines"), both as single essays like "No Monroe In Lothlorien!" in Eric Bentcliffe's Triode, and in extended threads of comment such as by Robert Lichtman in his Psi Phi. Tolkien-inspired costumes were worn at Worldcons from 1958. An organized Tolkien fandom organization called "The Fellowship of the Ring" came together in Pittcon, the 18th World Science Fiction Convention in Pittsburgh on 4 September 1960. England's first Tolkien fanzine was Nazgul's Bane, produced by Cheslin. Many fanzines had little Tolkien content but Tolkien-inspired names such as Ancalagon, Glamdring, Lefnui, Mathom, Perian, Ringwraith, Shadowfax, and so on. Others had more meaningful Tolkien content. Ed Meskys' apazine Niekas turned into a full-fledged fanzine during this era. Pete Mansfield's Sword & Sorcery fanzine, Eldritch Dream Quest, included many Tolkien items.^[7]

Foster attributes the surge of Tolkien fandom in the United States of the mid-1960s to a combination of the hippie subculture and anti-war movement pursuing "mellow freedom like that of the Shire" and "America's cultural Anglophilia" of the time, fuelled by a bootleg paperback version of The Lord of the Rings published by Ace Books followed up by an authorised edition by Ballantine Books.^[8] The "hippie" following latched onto the book, giving its own spin to the work's interpretation, such as the Dark Lord Sauron representing the United States military draft during the Vietnam War, to the chagrin of the author who talked of a "deplorable cultus" and stated that "Many young Americans are involved in the stories in a way that I'm not"^[1] but who nevertheless admitted that "... even the nose of a very modest idol [...] cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!"^[9] Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory.^[10] This embracing of the work by American 1960s counter-culture made it an easy target for mockery, as in Harvard Lampoon's parody Bored of the Rings, where Tom Bombadil becomes "Tim Benzedrine", and Bilbo Baggins becomes "Dildo Bugger".^[11][12] The Lord of the Rings acquired immense popularity in the emerging hacker culture from the mid-1960s, and the technological subcultures of scientists, engineers, and computer programmers.^[13] It figured as one of the major inspirations of the nascent video game industry and the evolution of fantasy role-playing games.^[14]

Isaac Asimov, who had read The Lord of the Rings three times by Tolkien's death in September 1973, wrote a Black Widowers short story as tribute to the fellow author. "Nothing Like Murder" (1974) mentions college students forming Tolkien societies at Columbia and elsewhere.^[15]

Interest in The Lord of the Rings led to several attempts to adapt it for the film medium, most of which were largely unsuccessful. Filmmaker Ralph Bakshi succeeded in securing the rights to produce an animated feature film version, part one of what was originally planned as a two-part adaptation of the story. Bakshi produced the film using, among other animation techniques, rotoscoping, shooting a majority of the film in live-action first before transferring the live footage to animation. While the film had, and continues to have, a mixed critical reaction, it was a financial success, costing USD 8 million to produce, and grossing over USD 30 million at the box office. Despite this fact, United Artists, the film's original distributor, refused to fund a sequel, leaving the project incomplete.^[16]

The 1990s saw the conclusion of The History of Middle-earth series. A series of minor texts by Tolkien were edited in journals such as Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar, published by the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship since the early 1990s. In the 2000s, several encyclopedic projects have documented Tolkien's life and work in great detail, such as the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia (2006) and the twin volumes The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion and The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide (2005, 2006). The dedicated journal Tolkien Studies has been appearing from 2004.

Tolkien fandom changed in character with the release of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy between 2001 and 2003, attracting both a wide audience of existing fans ("book-firsters") and many people who had not read Tolkien's books ("film-firsters").^[17][a] The large audience made the artistic conception of Jackson's artists influential, indeed creating a stereotyped image of Middle-earth and its races of Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Hobbits shared by fans and artists alike.^[18] Some fans, known as Tolkien tourists, travel to places in New Zealand to visit sites where scenes in the films were shot.^[19]

A "Tolkien Reading Day", held annually on 25 March, an anniversary of the fall of Barad-dûr,^[20] was proposed by Sean Kirst, a columnist at The Post-Standard in Syracuse, New York, and launched by the Tolkien Society in 2003.^[21]

Tolkien discussion took place in many newsgroups from the earliest days of Usenet. The Tolklang mailing list was started in 1990. The alt.fan.tolkien and rec.arts.books.tolkien newsgroups have been active since 1992 and 1993, respectively.

Notable points of contention in online discussions surround the origin of orcs, whether elves have pointy ears, whether balrogs have wings, and the nature of Tom Bombadil. Following the announcement of Jackson's movies (from 2001), online fandom became divided between "Revisionists" and "Purists" over controversy surrounding changes to the novel made for the movies, such as those made to the character of Arwen and the absence of Tom Bombadil.^[22][23]

One of the most prominent fansites of Jackson's movies is TheOneRing.net, which was popular even with the cast and crew of the film. TORn, as it is called, was originally a small movie-news site that gained in prestige as movie-rumors became reality. The filmmakers put special effort into winning over the fans, not simply tolerating but actually actively supporting fansites for Ringers. The site was founded in 1999 by a group of Tolkien fans eager for the upcoming The Lord of the Rings film trilogy who were gathering information about the film. In 1998, Michael 'Xoanon' Regina and Erica 'Tehanu' Challis started a website using all of the information they could get related to the filming of The Lord of the Rings, including exclusive "spy" reports from Tehanu's visit to the New Zealand set. This activity first got her escorted off the set, and then invited back on to take an official look around and meet director Peter Jackson. In early 1999, a designer by the username of Calisuri came across the site and asked if they needed some design and technical help to grow the site and make it a central web location for other Tolkien fans. Calisuri's friend Corvar, who he was acquainted with from the Nightmare LPMud, was brought aboard to provide server and business help. Xoanon, Tehanu, Calisuri and Corvar then formed The One Ring, Inc. and are the sole owners/founders of TheOneRing.net.^[24]

The site is unique in that there was a mutual working relationship between the crew of TheOneRing.net and that of The Lord of the Rings films, and later The Hobbit films. This relationship enabled the site to bring its readers exclusive news from the set, as when Peter Jackson emailed TheOneRing.net in an effort to get his side heard when a lawsuit threatened his chance to film The Hobbit.^[25]

Like other fan sites, members gather in small groups called moots, form personal friendships (even marriages), hold extended online discussions with archives, and so on. In 2003 Cold Spring Press released TORn's book The People's Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien. Written by five major contributors to TheOneRing.net, it includes essays ranging from a spirited defense of fantasy as a genre, discussions of Tolkien's views of good and evil, an examination of cultural norms, and more.^[26] The foreword by the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey, author of The Road to Middle-earth and J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, says: "The Internet, the experience of continually answering questions and receiving comments ... give the organizers of TheOneRing.net a perspective which is uniquely broad, and uniquely full of surprises, some of which would have pleased Tolkien very much, but which he could not have expected." This was followed by More People's Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien in 2004.^[27] Over 1,500 "Ringers" (Lord of the Rings fans) from around the world came to the TheOneRing.net Oscar party at the Hollywood, American Legion on 28 February 2004. The event was attended by Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Elijah Wood and many more of the cast and crew of The Lord of the Rings, several of whom skipped the official New Line party that evening.^[28] On 2 September 2004, eleven commemorative kauri trees were planted in Willowbank Park in Wellington, New Zealand, Peter Jackson's home town. The number eleven represented the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring, plus one each for Peter Jackson and J. R. R. Tolkien. Coincidentally, eleven was the number of 2004 Oscars won by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Hundreds of TORn members contributed funds for the purchase of the trees as a tangible and lasting way to give thanks to Jackson and his team for their inspiring work.^[29] TheOneRing.net teamed up with Creation Entertainment to present The One Ring Celebration (ORC) in 2005,^[30] 2006, and 2007. Its sister convention, Eastern LOTR Fan Gathering (ELF), met in the eastern U.S. in 2005 and 2006.^[31] These conventions included panels and signings by members of the cast such as Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, and John Rhys-Davies. In November 2008 and December 2011, TheOneRing.net and Red Carpet Tours staged a cruise for 14 nights from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney (the 2011 cruise was Sydney to Auckland), including several short excursions to visit locations used in the filming of The Lord of the Rings.^[32]

TheOneRing.com (TORc), "The Home of Tolkien Online" is a Tolkien fan site that positions itself as catering more to the fans of Tolkien's literary works rather than Jackson's films. It was founded by Jonathan Watson, Ted Tschopp and David Mullich in April 1999. As of 2022, Watson has continued to run the website.^[33] The site was consulted by the Tolkien scholar Kris Swank for details of the etymology of the word lintips, which Tolkien used in his 1965 poem "Once Upon a Time".^[34]

The Encyclopedia of Arda provides a detailed online reference to Middle-earth, mirrored at GlyphWeb.^[35]

A fan edit of the theatrical cut of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers exists, called The Two Towers: The Purist Edit.^[36] Most of the changes in 2007 were incorporated into The Lord of the Rings – The Purist Edition, a fan edit which turns the entire trilogy into an eight-hour film without most of the changes.^[36][37]

Tolkienology is a term used by fans to describe the study of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien treating Middle-earth as a real ancient history, conducting research from an "in-universe" perspective. This differs from Tolkien studies in that it ignores the real-world history of composition by the author, and assumes an underlying internally consistent Middle-earth canon. Tolkienology may include:^[38][39][40]

• Tolkienian linguistics: Study of the most complete languages Tolkien designed for Middle-earth, (usually Quenya and Sindarin), study of the writing systems, the most known being the Tengwar, and possible reconstruction for everyday use, including by the Elvish Linguistic Fellowship.
• debate on the "true" nature of Tom Bombadil, of balrogs etc. and debate on the "real" motivations of characters in the stories
• Genealogies of Hobbit families and kings.
• The accuracy of Tolkien's calendars and how can they be used today.
• Reconstruction of history (of Elven kingdoms, Arnor and Gondor, Rohan or the more unknown lands).
• Morality issues such as whether an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent Ilúvatar (God) would destroy Númenor, if the 'bad' Dunlendings had any right rivalling the 'good' Rohirrim and if Gondor committed genocides.
• Possible census of population about each race.
• Astronomic descriptions in the books (moon phases, positions of stars), and what can be inferred about the geography of Middle-earth from them.
• Strategies of wars and battles, if they were right and what alternatives might have been.
• Possible folkloric impressions Hobbits had about places of the Shire and other whereabouts, determined by translating placenames.

The studies of Tolkien's artistic languages (notably Quenya and Sindarin) is a field where fandom and scholarly Tolkien studies overlap. The resulting friction between scholarly students of the languages focusing on their conceptual evolution and fandom-oriented students taking an "in-universe" view became visible in the "Elfconners" controversy of the late 1990s, involving among others the linguists David Salo and Carl F. Hostetter, the editor of Vinyar Tengwar.^[41][42] There is a "reconstructionist" camp, which pursues the reconstruction of unattested Elvish forms, and a "philological" or "purist" camp which focuses entirely on the edition of the fragments in Tolkien's unpublished papers. By its nature, reconstructionism aims for a "canon" of "correct" standard Elvish (Neo-Eldarin), while the philological study of the evolution of Tolkien's conceptions cannot assume that the languages had ever reached a complete or internally consistent final form. The "reconstructionist" camp is represented by Salo, who translated the poems in the libretto by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens for the Music of The Lord of the Rings film series, creating additional words in languages including Sindarin where necessary, while the "purist" camp is represented by Hostetter.^[43][44][45]

Tolkien fan fiction is fantasy fiction, often published on the Internet, by Tolkien fans. It is based either directly on some aspect of Tolkien's books on his fantasy world of Middle-earth, or on a depiction of this world, especially in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film series or other film depictions of that world. A wide range of types of writing have resulted, including homoerotic slash fiction and several strands of feminist storytelling.^[46][47][48]

Jackson's films made the work of the artists involved influential, indeed creating a stereotyped image of Middle-earth and its races of Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and Hobbits shared by fans and artists alike.^[49] Some fan artists draw inspiration from other sources; Anna Kulisz states that she based her painting of Arwen sewing Aragorn's banner on Edmund Leighton's 1911 painting Stitching the Standard.^[50] The German illustrator Anke Eißmann started out creating fan art,^[51] illustrating the German Tolkien Society's Der Flammifer von Westernis from 1991.^[52][53] She went on to make numerous paintings of scenes from The Silmarillion.^[54] Jenny Dolfen too has made paintings of scenes from The Silmarillion,^[55] making the transition from self-taught fan art to becoming a recognised and published artist.^[56]

Dedicated Tolkien Societies provide platforms for a combination of fandom and academic literary study in several countries.

• Tolkienmoot – a gaming convention
• Tolkien tourist – tourism related to Tolkien's books or Jackson's films
• Fantasy fandom – fan activity related to fantasy more generally

• Broadway, Cliff; Cordova, Carlene. Ringers: Lord of the Fans (2005 documentary; entry at IMDb)
• Burdge, Anthony (2006). "Gaming". In Michael Drout (ed.). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge.
• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) [1981]. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Coker, Cait (2022). "Fandom". A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 525–534. ISBN 978-1-119-69140-2.
• Foster, Mike (2006). "America in the 1960s: Reception of Tolkien". In Michael Drout (ed.). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge.
• Kohman, Catherine. Lembas for the Soul: How the Lord of the Rings Enriches Everyday Life (2005), ISBN 978-0-9740841-9-0.
• Spangenberg, Lisa L. (2006). "Technological subcultures, Reception of Tolkien". In Michael Drout (ed.). The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge.
• Sturgis, Amy H. (2006). "Reimagining Rose: Portrayals of Tolkien's Rosie Cotton in Twenty-First Century Fan Fiction". Mythlore. 24 (3). Article 10.
• Viars, Karen; Coker, Cait (2015). "Constructing Lothiriel: Rewriting and Rescuing the Women of Middle-Earth from the Margins". Mythlore. 33 (2): 35–48.

• Interview with Richard Plotz, New York Times, 1967
• Ed Mesky's Reminiscences of the early days of Tolkien fandom