Talk:Tolkien fandom

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Article policies
To-do list for Tolkien fandom: edit  · history  · watch  · refresh
  • Check for copyvio
  • Wikify, wikify, wikify
  • Organize into coherent sections
  • Clean up formatting, esp. on blockquote
  • Disambiguate? I can think of a couple other meanings for the term "ringer", but they may not merit an entire article by themselves. (No longer called "Ringer".)
  • Provide clearer comparison/contrast to other areas of fandom (Trekkies, otaku, etc.)
  • Cleanup to remove POV.
  • "Arwen's strength in the book is emotional and possibly spiritual, and the feeling of many new fans that she must also be a strong fighter (in order to be a "worthwhile female character") is counterproductive, actually weakening the character." This is an opinion, not a fact. This should be altered to reflect neutrality.
  • Review "Languages: Purism" and "Languages: Reconstructionism" for accuracy and POV in light of Aelfwine's comments in the discussion page. Prefer "Scholars" and "Speakers" as NPOV terms.
Priority 6

Well, as for the check for copyright violation, I wrote the entire thing from memory. Wikify and formating would be a plus, but I wouldn't know where to begin. I purposely avoided a blow-by-blow comparison to other fandoms because as the article says, Ringers are such a motley group that they defy comparison. Namarie. - Ricimer 2:06, 12 Mar 2004 (EST)

So you're User:130.64.139.68, then? If so, I'd suggest you head to Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit so you can earn a little Wikilove for your efforts.
I'm also at a loss on where to start in formatting and sectioning. That's why I posted the To-Do list - so that someone else can come through and get the ball rolling. Wikification is fairly easy, though - it boils down to finding places in the text that could benefit from linkage, and adding such links.
And I didn't mean that the article necessarily needs "blow-by-blow" comparisons — I was thinking more along the lines of the occasional "Ringers generally X, unlike Y fans who generally Z". - jredmond 15:09, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

I intend to start contributing to the effort. This is interesting information that is worth compiling! I think I'll start with some links and breaking off into sections.

Some thoughts:

  • The bell-ringers I know generally refer to themselves as "bell-ringers" or "bell players" or "change-ringers" or "pealers", depending on what kind of bells they play, but "ringer" is a perfectly acceptable word used by many people (in, say, the article on bellringing).
  • Where did this term originate? First of all, it's not a universal term like "Trekkie" that covers the entire fan base. My impression has been that it has been popularized largely by theonering.net [1] and I'd like to see this information included (once I can verify it, of course). Aranel 18:59, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Shouldn't it just be merged with Tolkienist? Ausir 19:22, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Sure, but "Ringer" is the more common term. And anyway, I'm currently mid-edit. It's a long edit. Don't do anything drastic. Aranel 19:27, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Some changes:

  • I dispute the notion that prior to the movies, most fans were young obsessive-compulsive male geeks. The fans I knew prior to the movies were of a wide range of ages and plenty of them were female (we were, however, definitely obsessive-compulsive geeks). The majority might have been male, but then, the majority of internet users at that point was also male.
  • I worked on the part about Arwen. I hope that it now simply illustrates the point, but I could use someone who's not already biased to tell me if it works or not. Because I am most definitely extremely biased. I tried in generally to make the whole thing sound less like it was written by one of the die-hards, but as I am one of the die-hards, I can't really judge this.
  • We still need to establish the history of this term. When I say "we", maybe I mean "I". Certainly "someone".
  • Where does the "Deplorable Cultus" reference come from?
  • If anyone disagrees that it's generally better to use the (safer) "Tolkien fans" or "Lord of the Rings fans" when in doubt, I'd like to hear what you have to say. I, personally, am too much of a purist to call myself a "Ringer", but maybe it doesn't matter to most people.
  • I don't thnk that Rhys-Davies or Christopher Lee fangirls are nearly as significant (or as annoying to die-hard book purists) as Orlando Bloom fangirls. If you disagree, you can put them back in.
  • The Silmarillion is only technically a prequel. In my infinite obsessive-compulsiveness, I removed that reference, since actually the Silmarillion material predates LotR significantly, although Tolkien never published it.

Aranel 20:16, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Moving this page

Why don't we move stuff from both ringer and tolkienist to Tolkien fandom? I have certainly never heard of the term "ringer" before reading this article, while I've certainly heard of "tolkienist". Ausir 23:24, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Good call. As a self-professed "Tolkien fan" (and not a "Ringer") I fully approve. The Tolkien fan community (as if it were, in fact, coherent enough to refer to as one communtiy) does not have any sort of overall consensus on self-designation. This way, we can happily disagree on terminology. :) --Aranel 02:10, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] D&D

"Dungeons and Dragons" and many other fantasy series such as "The Sword of Shannara" were created by fans of LOTR.

Actually, Dungeons & Dragons was not created by fans of LotR. Here's a quote from a recent interview [2] with Gary Gygax:

GameSpy: How profound an influence was Tolkien on the creation of the world?

Gygax: Not that much, although he certainly assisted in popularizing it because I did put Tolkien-esque things in there. I'm not a big Tolkien fan, though. I did love the movies, but I yawned through the books. I found them very droll and very dull. I still don't give hoot about Hobbits.

Hmm, that'd be why the very first edition of the game inlcuded Hobbits as a player race then. Lovingboth 08:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Gary Gygax was at pains to distance himself and D & D from Tolkien, but LOTR's overwhelming influence on the game is obvious and crystal clear, to say nothing of the game's popularization by LOTR fans. Gygax's orcs, dwarves, and halflings are directly lifted from LOTR, and his elves bear a much closer resemblance to the Fair Folk of Middle-earth than those found in other legendaria. No shame on Gygax-- He created a great fantasy game, and tapping into the greatest work of fantasy literature ever was inevitable and adviseable. But he was far too defensive about it. TexxasFinn 11:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)TexxasFinn

Yes, Gygax has been very disingenuous about the extent of Tolkien influence on early D&D. While there are countless examples my favorite has always been the 'inexplicable' special proficiency with crystal balls of the Ranger class in 1st edition AD&D. :] --CBDunkerson 12:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] POV?

This needs editing by someone neutral to the book fans/movie fans bit. I can't be certain my POV on Jacksonites does not slip in my edits. [[User:Anárion|Image:Anarion.png]] 21:27, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'll second that. --[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 22:39, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I fixed a bit, but not comprehensively and anyway I'm not unbiased. I also tried to clear up the Ringer definition, since I was confused, but maybe that's POV, I don't know. It was worth a shot. -Salli 00:10, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Films?

isn't the role played by Jackson's films completely overblown in this article, considering the 50 years history of Tolkien fandom? In my view, there is a long and involved history of reception of Tolkien's books, partly divided between Britain and the USA, and even more complicated in other countries, because of the history and quality of different translations vis-a-vis the original English, that is also very much received in many countries (notably Scandinavia). And then, as it were as a postscriptum, there are some people who have seen and liked the films – that's hardly a schisma, in my view, but rather a side issue, best delegated to Jacksonites or similar. And also, sorry to invoke a cliche, but the article is "totally" US-centric, Jackson or no Jackson. dab 11:30, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The Jackson films are vastly important, in that now for the first time we have a large group of self-proclaimed "fans" who are completely ignorant of the actual works. This is a first: before the major split was between those that had only read the Hobbit+LOTR vs those that had also read the Silmarillion (and probably also UT and HoME), now the split is primarily between the literate and the illiterate.
The US-centricism is hard to work around: not only is a large part of the annoying Jacksonites formed by USians, but due to the technological divide the US part of the fandom is most notable (and notorious). {Ανάριον} 13:24, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
(technological divide? we have the wheel, in Europe, you know ;-) dab 14:55, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
(I'm European myself) You cannot deny the Anglo world has an immense advantage when it comes to the internet — if only because local phone calls (and thus relatively cheap 'net access) typically are free there. And of course the first public internet access was there. {Ανάριον} 14:59, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The "Anglo" world naturally dominates 'Tolkianism' because JRRT was himself Anglo(-Saxon). And USians dominate the anglo-world by numbers, by connectivity and by assertiveness, no doubt. Still, this article could be arranged "geographically" or "historically" (starting with Tolkien's earliset fans etc.)
Agreed there, but where would one start historically? Tolkien was a rather famous children's book author after the Hobbit (the impact of the book was of Harry Potter proportions), but I think it would be mistaken to force a link between Tolkien as a children's book author and the later, largely unrelated, Hippie LOTR fan culture. Modern Tolkien fandom grew — in the US — out of the Hippies that embraced the LotR, and in the rest of the world from what mainly was a fresh appreciation to the LotR without (much) prior knowledge of the Hobbit. However bad the Bakshi movie and the RotK animations were, they did bring new fans, however, unlike the Jacksonite fangirls these could read, and the Zaentz movies were rather a result of than a cause for fandom prevalence. {Ανάριον} 15:22, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Much of the discussion relates to internet communities, which tend to be international. Personally, I know plenty of annoying movie fangirls from Australia, Canada, and the U.K., and they are no less annoying than their American counterparts. The beginning of the "History" section does relate to only the U.S., probably because nobody from elsewhere has come to add the history in their region. The bigger problem may be that there is no mention of non-English language fans. This article is far from complete. One starting point might be references in Letters, from which the existence of various early fan groups can be deduced. [[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 14:19, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
good idea. but then I have a strong tendency to historically structured articles, sometimes to the annoyance of other editors. Still, to me, an article is like a story, telling how a certain phenomenon constituted itself. It is almost always a good idea to start at the beginning and work your way through time. I'm not trying to censor the Jacksonite schisma, I just don't think it should determine the article's structure, but rather get a section near the end of the article. This is only a suggestion, I will not interfere with how you organize the article. dab 14:55, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Basically there is hardly a split in fandom outside the literati ("book fans") and illiterati ("Jacksonites"). As the primary division in current Tolkien fandom it should get the focus of any discussion on the schism. {Ανάριον} 14:59, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I hardly take notice of the "Jacksonites" (and I'm not sure they even qualify as "Tolkien fans"), so I don't necessarily agree they dominate anything (google hits, maybe, but so what). They deserve a paragraph, to be sure, but the brunt of their exploits could be borne by Jacksonites :o) // PS.// sorry, that's not properly replying to your point. Of course, in discussing a schism, they are probably central. It was just not clear to me that "Tolkien fandom" should primarily address schisms between fans. Btw, since "fandom" itself is probably very much US coinage, US-centrism is probably ok, too. dab 15:15, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Agreed there, they don't dominate anything per sè, but they do give the more serious fandom a bad name. (not really a reply anymore, hurray for edit conflicts!) {Ανάριον} 15:22, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] History of Tolkien Fandom

I've added a large section on organized Tolkien fandom. To preserve what was under "history" I labeled that "Mainstream and Media Fans" - that seems like a reasonable way to differentiate the '60s hippie fans from the Tolkien fans that arose out of sf fandom and the like in the same decade. Hope no one finds the distinction offensive - not my intention (been active in fandom since 1970, love the movies). There's a lot more history that could be added; will do some as time permits. PKM 04:02, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Added more early history of Tolkien fandom and related links. PKM 01:17, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Languages: "Purism"

Certainly, there are many who call those who champion the integrity of Tolkien's art-languages "purists", but that is in fact a POV term. The article itself claims that "purists" view the languages as "only for scholarly study", and so a less POV term would be "Scholars" (i.e., of Tolkien's languages).

That being said, it is untrue that these scholars consider Tolkien languages as intended "only for scholarly study". It is obvious that Tolkien did not intend them only for such: in fact, his intent in his languages, as he states explicitly in his lettes, was to give expression to his linguistic aesthetic. PERIOD. (See my "Tolkienian Linguistics FAQ" at <http://www.elvish.org/FAQ.html> for this and other quotes showing Tolkien's purposes and methods.) So this is also POV. It is plainly and demonstrably true from these same quotes that Tolkien did NOT intend for his languages to be spoken by others ("practical use"); but that is NOT the same as saying that they are only INTENDED for scholarly study. They are SUITED to it by their very nature (sc., their pseudo-historical relationships to one another and their phonology-driven derivation), but that is quite a different matter from Tolkien's INTENT, which was purely personal and aesthetic.

It is also POV to say that "expansion" etc. of Tolkien's languages is "frowned down upon". No one is trying to stop others from doing what they enjoy. The issue is that the _products_ of this "expansion" NOT be confused with Tolkien's OWN inventions, and (as in fact often happens, for example in David Salo's _A Gateway to Sindarin_) are passed off silently as actual evidence. At stake, in other words, is a _distinction_, not an effort to quash any activity.

"Purists accuse reconstructionists of trying to systematise everything according to logic": what does "according to logic" even MEAN? All _systems_ are "logical": that's why they can be said to be systems. The issue is better expressed in the part that follows: "coming to hasty and biased assumptions that often contradict Tolkien's writings". That is not even a matter of debate: it is demonstrable and even admitted by the chief "reconstructionists" (as you call them).

"The purists also prefer to regard all the forms of Tolkien's languages as conceptual evolution of a single creation." Well, this "chief purist" certainly wouldn't describe them in those terms, so I don't know what this is based on. IN FACT, Tolkien's languages are a successive series of conceptual stages. PERIOD. "evolution" implies that these changes were made in pursuit of some end or refinement, which is NOT the case, as can be seen from Tolkien's own statement on his purposes. Rather, as he says, the changes in his languages reflect changes in his aesthetic over time: this does NOT indicate that one stage is "better" than another, only that it is different. Further, without explaining what is meant by "single creation", the term here is meaningless at best and misleading at worst. Clearly, each conceptual stage IS different from every other. The question is, TO WHAT DEGREE, and IN WHAT FEATURES. The problem is that the "reconstructionsists" (as you call them) tend to throw everything before a certain stage out, without consideration, as though NOTHING in them was reflective of Tolkien's later conceptions: but already even the "reconstructionists" are seeing that this is NOT true. The other problem is that they at the same time regard the data of early conceptual stages as OF A PIECE with later stages, which is ALSO not true, and leads to circular reasoning and misrepresentation of the langauges. Thus, for example, Noldorin of the 1930s is considered to be essentially the same as Sindarin of the 1950s and beyond: but that's because what they consider to BE Sindarin is mostly defined _on the basis of the Noldorin evidence_ (which to date is vastly greater than the actual Sindarin evidence). That is circular reasoning, and has led to numerous false assertions about Sindarin that cannot be supported by the existing data. (See my _Tengwestie_ article "The Past-Tense Verb in the Noldorin of the Etymologies" <http://www.elvish.org/Tengwestie/articles/Hostetter/noldpat.phtml> and Thorsten Renk's article on "The Sindarin Verb System" <http://www.phy.duke.edu/~trenk/elvish/verbs.html> for examples of this phenomenon.)

What the so-called "purists" REALLY "stand for" is the belief that ALL of Tolkien's languages, at ALL of their conceptual stages, are worthy of study in their own right, not (as the "reconstructionists" have it) only for whatever can be taken from them for utlilitarian purposes; that they ALL reflect Tolkien's thoughts about language in general and his languages in particular, and are thus worthy of appreciation as the products of one of the great linguistic intellects and languages aesthetes of all time; and that to summarily dismiss whole swathes of Tolkien's conceptual creations out of hand is guaranteed to lead to erroneous notions and descriptions of his languages.

cfh

[edit] Languages: "Reconstructionism"

"'theoretical reconstructionism', arises from the observation -- not necessarily apparent at first sight -- that Tolkien's languages exhibit a high degree of consistency" -- this is POV, and another symptom of circular reasoning. Tolkien's languages are not NEARLY so "consistent" as the "reconstructionsists" portray them to be: that in fact is the heart of the problem! They _appear_ to be highly conistent only because the "reconstructionsists" present them as being such; and they guarantee this appearance of great consistency by discounting or simply hiding the parts that AREN'T as "consistent" as they want the languages to be (highly regular languages being the most utilitarian for auxiliary/artificial language purposes, a la Esperanto and Klingon). To pick just one example: David Salo asserts that Sindarin has plural gerunds: he does this by _making up_ plural gerund forms, without inidicating in any way that they are solely HIS inventions, and by hiding the fact that not a single plural gerund form is attested for Sindarin OR for Noldorin OR for Gnomish OR for Quenya, and the fact that many real languages do NOT in fact have plural gerunds, e.g. Latin and German. He WANTS there to be plural gerunds because it makes them just like any other noun in Sindarin, and thus makes their "use" highly regular. The result being that Salo's "Sindarin", like Helge's "Quenya", is in fact much more _artificial_, i.e. much less like _real_ languages, than Tolkien himself created them to be.

"and that a thorough understanding of the principles by which the languages were constructed would enable one to fill in gaps in grammar and vocabulary" -- again, this is POV, and begs the question. Neither this nor the previous statement are "observations", they are _assertions_. As phrased, this article makes it sound like these are dispasstionate objective facts, which is NOT the case.

"To the theoretical reconstructionist, Tolkien's editorial comments on his own languages represent only one source of knowledge; the words and texts of the languages themselves constitute another source," -- this is equally true for the scholars of Tolkien's languages, and not at all a unique characteristic of ths "reconstructionsists". The real distinction between the two is that scholars recognize that our understanding of Tolkien's languages is necessarily limited, and that what Tolkien says about his languages is by definition true of his languages at least at the stage at which he says it -- his descriptions of the features of his languages obviously DEFINING what the language is at each stage -- but need not be true of the language at any other stage, althoug of course it may in fact be true at other or even all stages: and it is the job of the scholar to determine which is the case, to the best of our ability and necessarily limited knowledge: and further, if we just approach both types of evidence with an open mind, rather than simply discounting or discarding Tolkien's statments when we can't at first glance reconcile them with what we think is true, then that can lead us to new insight and deeper understanding of the languages. "Reconstructionists" will have none of that, but simply assume that if Tolkien says something that they can't reconcile with their theory of Tolkien's languages, then Tolkien made a mistake. (David Salo has in fact claimed to "know Tolkien's languages better than he did", which gives you a much better portrait of how he and his brand of "reconctructionsists" actually treat his statements, and the extent to which they are willing to assert their own necessarily limited understanding of the langauges over Tolkien's obviously vastly greater and more comprehensive understanding. See for example his claim that Tolkien made a mistake in writing "bo Ceven" 'in Heaven' instead of **"bo Geven" in the Sindarin "Pater Noster" SOLELY because that does not fit David's assertion that objects following "bo" _must_ show lenition: never mind that there are PLENTY of grammatical and even phonological reasons why this need not be so, and never mind that Welsh, upon which Sindarin is based in phonology and grammar, is not NEARLY so slavishly "regular" in this regard as Salo would have Sindarin be; and never mind that Salo cannot produce even ONE other example showing lenition after _bo_. Salo simply wants lenition to be completely regular and phonologically predictable, and so sets aside Tolkien's own clear statement in letters that this is NOT the case, and then "corrects" Tolkien's "mistake" (with a bonus lie about the supposed similarity of Tolkien's G's and C's as "support").

"One consequence of this approach is that the earliest forms of Tolkien's languages, Qenya and Goldogrin, must be treated as languages different from Quenya and Sindarin, because the number of inconsistencies between the languages is too great to be reconciled" -- again, this is exactly the position of scholars, and so is NOT a unique characteristic of "reconstuctionists" -- in is a plain and objective fact.

"On the other hand, Noldorin and Sindarin, despite considerable divergences, can be considered as variant forms of a single language" -- there we have it. In fact, Noldorin and Sindarin ARE ALSO _different languages_. It is that "reconstructionists", in pursuit of an artificial "consistency" that Tolkien himself did not intend or put into his languages, who are _inconsistent_ in their approaches and rationale, not the scholars. And it is the "reconstructionists" who are willing to distort, hide, and even lie about Tolkien's own creations and pass them off as their own, and then present themselves as the rational, reasonable ones, as in this entirely POV portion of the article.

cfh

EDIT By Lidless: You mention that TORn is currently the most active fansite. This is not the case.

Please note that at the time of the movies TORn was indeed the most active, mainly because it had more spoilers than anyone else. Since that time of frenetic activity before and during the movie releases, all fansites have been in decline and TORn more than most. In terms of current posts per day, the most active fansites, in order, are:

www.theonering.com www.warofthering.net www.ringbearer.org www.theonering.net www.imladris.net

[edit] POV problems

There is some extreme POV in this article, not to mention a lot of original research. For instance, the sections that talk about Ralph Bakshi's adaptation of the book need to be completely rewritten. They are overtly negative towards the film. As far as I can tell, except for a few people on the Internet Movie Database, NO ONE refers to the 1970s as the "Dark Times," as phrased in this article, and very few people are as negative towards the Ralph Bakshi film as the person who wrote the sentence on it. I mean, come on: "The problems that serious fans have with this movie cannot be fully listed"? WHAT? It's not Wikipedia's policy to adhere to a specific point of view. Someone needs to rewrite everything that concerns the film adaptations, and make the parts about Ralph Bakshi's film less negative. (Ibaranoff24 21:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC))

  • Fixed some of the POV problems I had complained about. However, there are still other POV problems that haven't been fixed, and the article still contains a lot of original research. Take some time to work this into an enyclopedia article. (Ibaranoff24 22:19, 9 August 2006 (UTC))
    • Of course the Bakshi mentions were negative: it's kind of hard to explain "people were way of doing this new Jackson trilogy because the Bakshi films were one of the worst film adaptations ever made" in nice wording. --Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici 08:37, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
        • But it isn't "one of the worst film adaptations ever made," nor is it considered to be. Besides that, this talk page is for discussing changes to the article, not for minor opinions that don't matter. (Ibaranoff24 21:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC))
      • Incidentially, did you know that The Lord of the Rings (1978 film) is now a featured article? Carcharoth 09:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Purists" and POV

I've added external links to my two chief articles that present my actual views on "Neo-Elvish", in the hopes that they will be used to flesh out, balance, and greatly improve the presentation of the positions and criticisms of those dismissed in this article simply as "purists". cfh 15:37, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the article presents anything resembling 'criticism' or 'dismissal'. If you don't like it, why don't you improve it? Pictureuploader 23:30, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
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