A while back, an anon mentioned that they were scared to participate in the Silmarillion fandom. People hastened to assure them that we were a nice fandom! Friendly! Full of people to talk too! This is true. I think the problem is, though, that this is not the “Silmarillion” fandom. It’s the HoME fandom.
People are expected to know all sorts of things that aren’t in the Silmarillion, whether they create or consume. People have to know that Maedhros has red hair or that Amrod died at Losgar in some versions. People have to know Quenya names and the meaning of those names, as well as basic vocabulary (ata, ammë, elleth, etc), because they’re used often in fic. People have to know about the thorn, about Gil-Galad’s questionable parentage.
If you write something that is “wrong”, that is contradicted by something in HoME, people will correct you. Quickly. Kindly, but mercilessly. It’s not enough to have knowledge of just the Silm. It’s frightening. It shuts people out of the fandom, because they have to enter it with a huge amount of knowledge.
This is very fun. It’s very interesting and exciting. There is always more to know. Debates and all sorts of interesting headcanons go on. Politics! Economics! Morality! Mathematics! Transhumanism! Fictional theology! These are all very exciting. But the fandom can be intellectually elitist, sometimes. There is no room to really be a beginner. There is so much else going on.
lintamande was talking about feeling like an imposter, because she had only been in the fandom two years. I often feel like an imposter, because I haven’t read The Peoples of Middle Earth. I’ve only read eight out of twelve HoME books! I don’t know enough! I have lots of silm thoughts. Many I don’t type up. Some I don’t post. The ones I do post, I never tag. I am afraid that I will make a mistake, and people will Judge Me.
I read a story once, with a female Fingon. Her name was given as ” Fingwen”. I was horrified. How could this person do that? Gah! *linguistic sobbing* But really. The fic was good. Should this person be expected to know the elements were “Fin” and “gon” instead of “Fing” “on”?
Apparently, yes.Hahahaha MAN DO I DO THIS. Correct kindly (at least I try) but mercilessly, I do it all the time. But I’m like… happier, when I tell people about some knowledge they haven’t yet? I expand their views! They can be enthusiastic about minor details with me! I don’t even realise if I’m over-correcting. I try to make others see what I see, probably not always succeeding. But hey, sometimes I do. I had at least three people telling me “I hated Feanor but then I read your reply to my post and now I see him under a different light” and my reaction was “HELL YEAH HELL FUCKING YEAH”. I want to get that when I “correct” people.
I probably forgot how it may feel for a beginner. I don’t even know how to fix this issue because you can bet I will go on answering to posts with different theories, new informations and even with disagreement. But if it may help, I am theorically an “imposter” too. I only ever really read the parts of HoME that concern Feanor and the House of Finwe, and some other stuff here and there. The rest… lmao.
OP, that is pretty much the clearest identification of this fandom I’ve yet seen. XD Spot on, well done. Whether we like it or not, this corner of Tumblr really is the Tolkien Apocrypha fandom. More than half the stuff we take for granted as “true” about the Silmarillion was actually gleaned from H.o.M.E. or the Appendices or the exhaustive work of Tolkien scholars from across the decades. I don’t think I even remember finding out some of this stuff– I just absorbed it via tumblr-osmosis. 
And OH MAN, Hweanaro said it: I think if you really grilled most of us in the H.O.M.E. fandom, you’ll find that most of us are “imposters” in some way or another. XD
MOST of us have a niche. Most of us have an area or areas of expertise that we’ve expanded our knowledge on because we were restless and unsatisfied with the bare-bones information given to us in the Silmarillion-proper. I myself have read every passage that mentions either dark lord, but frequently have to look up the names of elves and UGH QUENYA, WHAT A PAIN I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU’RE SPEAKING YOU’RE ALL ORC PROTOTYPES. But the longer I stay here, the more I get excited about new topics and want to expand my information base, because other fans are super excited about their niches, and make me want to get into them! 🙂
…I’ve made a lot of friends here, and I’ve produced a lot of work here. I love this fandom and the people in it. –But I also know there are huge incompatible rifts in the fandom and all it takes is the “wrong” opinion voiced in front of a certain crowd for this oh-so-polite-and-friendly fandom to turn nasty real quick. We do tend to divide ourselves into different groups based on various polemic issues, some of them based in Tolkien Mythos and “canonicity”, and some of them based in more universal fandom topics like character diversity or female representation or problematic fetishization or responsible exploration of triggery subjects, etc. etc. etc…. THE LIST GOES EVER ON AN ON.
It is, as you say, Tremendous Fun! But it’s a prickly fandom, and the barrier to entry is high. 😦 And I wish it wasn’t! I really, really do try to be as inclusive and approachable as I can– I WANT new fans to come here and explore their ideas while they’re starting their journey, because that’s how we get NEW IDEAS, DAMNIT. And yet, I know that I’ve lost some perspective, just because this has been my exclusive fandom haunt for about two and half years now, and I’ve absorbed so much fandom opinion and canon alike that it’s quite difficult to remember what it was like before knew where all the wobbly steps were.
(…and take all this with a huge grain of salt because not only am I speaking from a limited perspective, but I have not eaten yet today),
If we are shutting out people who have only read the Silmarillion, we have a huge problem. New interpretations don’t come from just finding an Opinion Camp and settling down in it.
Getting pounced on for some canonical minutia when you’re just stretching your wings can be imagination death. There HAS TO BE some protective growth-room for new readers who want to share their ideas. If you find yourself getting ready to launch a diatribe against a new reader for an opinion they just formed about a character you’ve been stanning for years, GIVE THEM THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. And for fuck’s sake, give them TIME.
I managed to avoid the Silm Correction Death by joining the fandom pretty late in the game– I’d done a lot of reading and thinking before I joined. I’d already established a pretty firm idea of what MY Arda looks like, and what’s more, I joined with a very, very concrete goal in mind: I wanted to write and draw my comic, then share my comic, then retire.
…Ahahahaha. BUT SERIOUSLY–
When I want to connect with the material I love and find a new way to explore it, I MUST step away from the fandom. Things like my comic or my drabbles and my own headcanons have to happen with a modicum of isolation, or else they are blown away by the first passing whiff of judgment. (Or… that USED to be true, but now I live in a blissful, fuckless state, where I generally don’t care what people think :D)
An important bit of advice to new fans and old?:
The idea of having a “’Verse” has been crucial to my creative boundaries as a fan. As long as I keep my ideas as safe behind the impenetrable wall of “MY ARDA ‘VERSE”, I don’t have to take any guff from canon OR fanon. It’s My ‘Verse, my rules! And I also feel less inclined to criticize interpretations that don’t jive with mine! It’s their ‘Verse, their rules! It doesn’t infringe on mine.
The Wesley!Verse is a safe place for me to create, and get in touch with what my “original” ideas are– However, what I consider ““my”” Arda ‘Verse is totally riddled with cool ideas that other people have helped me arrive at, whole segments that were developed in tandem with fellow roleplayers, or were borrowed en-masse from someone who had better-developed ideas about certain places or characters than I did! It is GOOD to mingle, if only to break out of your own niche. 🙂 But the permeability of your ‘Verse is yours to decide– how much you want to let other people reach in is up to you.
I think, maybe, we would all benefit from treating each new fandom arrival and fandom veteran alike as a distinct, mutually recognizable, Arda-‘Verse-in-development.
That’s why I think it is important, when new fans ask my opinion on something or want to know if something is “true” or not, to make a clear distinction between what is “canon” and what is “real”; meaning, this is what Tolkien wrote, but whether or not it is “real” in your given ‘Verse is entirely up to you.
–Inform when solicited, but don’t “correct”. To “correct” assumes a level of cohesiveness in canon that we really, really don’t have? :
And anyway, canon or not, this is collective mythmaking. This is a book series with no agreed-upon visual designs, no Peter Jackson movies, and more contradicting and confusing sets of canon than the New Testament.
While there is a certain pedantic joy in sitting around like a bunch of old rabbis debating whether or not the author meant this-or-that, or whether or not ONE set of books is more canonical than another, or whether or not the editor obscured some passage’s original meaning, those debates are the privilege of people who have had the time/energy/enthusiasm to chew through a whole geological strata of tomes, some of which aren’t even in circulation anymore.
You don’t have to be a HoME veteran to have a really beautiful and unique vision of the text that’s worth sharing, but if we treat the value of a new interpretation based on its understanding of the, frankly, kabbalic expanse of canon, then we are doing it wrong. Silm fans -may- actually be different from HoME fans, but WHO CARES, we should NOT BE SCARING THEM AWAY.
I mean… I understand that it can be uncomfortable for someone who’s been in the fandom for years to interact with a fan who is just starting the Silmarillion. It’s like… watching a puppy go up stairs, or else it’s like watching an enthusiastic bull in a china shop: You either want to help them up to the good bits faster, or steer them away from the delicate bits that you worked so hard to arrange.
Sometimes the impulse to be a gatekeeper is strong. But what, and who are you keeping out? What are you keeping them from? If all you’re protecting is your sense of superiority, then nah friend, sit down.
Anyway, thank you OP for speaking up about this. I really want there to be a place for everyone in the Tolkien community.
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 