Tolkien Purist: I’m not even sure what a “Tolkien Purist” really is, I assume this is another word for “Tolkien Police” which means certain people who think they know everything there is to know about every word that has been published by J.R.R. Tolkien. Who decides what I don’t know, but there are so many ‘societies’ of ‘official’ sounding self-titled people that you can’t really trust them. These are not the same people as “The Tolkien Estate” nor are they their spokesmen or lawyers even though they may sound like they want to be. This is more of a nebulous accusatory term than an actual name of any people, and is usually of a negative connotation.
Reader: a reader is simply the humble person who buys one or more of the books and reads them. They may or may not have seen the movies, but as time goes on more and more people have seen the Peter Jackson films, it is inevitable, but the reader ultimately goes on to read the books anyways. The readers read, it’s what they do, and they would choose to read more than to play games.
Shippers: These are people who usually express themselves with memes and often fan-fiction, but not necessarily only fan-fiction. They create web pages, websites, Facebook pages and make gaudy photoshops featuring unlikely ‘romantic’ pairings of different characters of the movies and books. I cannot imagine what causes people to do this, but it happens in every other fictional ‘franchise’ and in my opinion, the people who do this miss out on what’s really there in the actual books.
Fetishists: These are people who go way beyond fan-fiction and shipping all the way to creating pornographic materials based on Tolkien’s works, and photoshop weird scenes involving characters from either the movies or the books. They sexually fetishize fantasy creatures and write pornographic ‘fan-fiction’ and hyper-sexualize everything that takes place in the books and films.
Fan-fictioners: These are people who are either not satisfied with how the actual stories went, or they want to make imaginary ‘sequels’ or try their hand at pretending to be the original author, or they can’t seem to create their own characters or fictional places so they use those created by the original author. You will find them in every other fictional franchise as well. Not necessarily to be confused with ‘shippers’ though ‘shippers’ may in fact write their own fan-fiction. Also, many of these people simply like to put themselves into the fictional universe and this is part of a fantasy or role-play.
Role-Players: Not to be confused with Gamers or even Role-Playing Gamers. The role-player is someone who goes online and engages in the strange activity of pretending to be a character in Middle Earth, but in an un-structured way. They either pretend to be one of the original characters, but sometimes make up their own. (For example: Legolas Evenstar or Gandalf Half-Elven or Sauriel). They create ‘avatars’ and find other like-people and often end up engaging in both ’shipping’ and ‘fan-fiction.’ I don’t know exactly what causes people to do this but I believe it comes from the same impulse that causes them to play video games and role-playing games. These people seem to either want to live some part of their life in Middle Earth, or wish they could be because their own lives are simply lacking in something.
Role-Playing Gamers: These are people who either invent their own games or play already-invented ‘games’ which feature the characters and places and situations in the books and movies. They either make up rules or ‘play’ by accepting previously existing ‘rules,’ of many different types of ‘role-playing games.’ They do not necessarily ‘dress up’ but sometimes they do (see LARPers and CosPlayers). These seem to be people who fail to assimilate the ideas that exist in the ‘literature’ which has been written and like fan-fictioners, shippers, and role-players, are not satisfied with how their own life engages with the material in the books. For the most part, in my observation, role-playing games are a contest of dominating personalities rather than winning ‘games.’ RPGs are a means for sociopaths to assert themselves and it doesn’t really matter which context, which ‘franchise’ they operate in (Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc.)
Gamers: These are people who may end up in many categories, they may be role-players, role-playing gamers, fan-fictioners, etc, but mainly, they play video games. There are various “Lord of the Rings” video games in existence, and the video games offer them even a way to waste their time asserting themselves and engage in fantasies which are provided with a wealth of rules and systems which give the impression of an ordered ‘alternate’ reality or experience of life, one that seems to be arbitrary, but still offers the same situations as the role-playing games. What appears to be a ‘contest’ of skill or memorization ends up being another contest of asserting dominant personalities. If they play video games against the computer, it mainly serves as an alternate reality-play and creates a fantasy of ‘being in Middle Earth’ as much as technically possible.
Cosplayers: To be honest, I still haven’t figured out what a cosplayer really is. This isn’t necessarily “Live Action Role Playing” or is it? Cosplayers either buy or create their own costumes, show up at conventions, but do they really ‘role-play’ is it a ‘game’ or is it simply ‘role play?’ Is it sexual fantasy, or is it actually like kids dress up and ‘pretend’? I haven’t a clue, but it would seem that “LARPers” are in a sense ‘cosplaying,’ but at the same time ‘role-playing,’ but at the same time ‘gaming.’ The mutations of ‘fantasy’ on all these levels really gets confusing, and what motivates these people is likely, they fail to see what is there, and cannot process or assimilate information or ideas which are presented in the books the way “readers” do or others…
LARPers: I believe these people not only dress up but create literal actual ‘games’ with some sort of structure, but I find it hard to believe that anyone carries out such activity in the modern world. It seems like an awful lot of work for ‘fantasy’ play, but then again, I imagine they still exist… Many of these people are ‘re-enacters’ who often are obsessed with medieval weapons, swords, costumes, and medievalism, and show up at ‘renaissance festivals/fairs’ and assert their sociopathic personalities upon other people by playing certain roles. They are often loud, obnoxious people whose fantasy ‘roles’ are always boisterous, invade the personal space of other people, and ignore the boundaries of others. They do not “LARP” or role-play characters which are quiet, introspective, or reserved.
Medievalists: These people usually end up engaging in LARPing, and role-playing games, but also likely play video games, and consume a lot of other ‘fantasy’ novels, movies and ‘franchises.’ They often combine them all, and assimilate them all into one view of all of them which they draw from in their lives. They also like weapons, heraldry, anglophilia, and sometimes dream of living in a feudalistic society, and the works of Tolkien are really not deeply contemplated. They like the structure, and the ‘idea of the ideas’ but not the ideas themselves. They often like to try to make Tolkien’s writings seem like they are promoting the things they like to believe in, and are most attracted to the macho-fantasies which certain characters and groups of people in the books most personify. These are people more interested in Knights, armor, and catholic style archaic military fantasy. These are not necessarily people who would end up becoming ‘neopagans’ or wiccans, but they might end up becoming ‘racists’ and fascists. They see Tolkien’s works as re-arrangements of their favorite myths like Beowulf or Wagner’s ring cycle. Medievalists also may or may not be Christians, may or may not be cosplayers, in that they spend a lot of time perhaps engaged in real-world activities like making swords, knives, or selling armor or medieval products.
Neopagans: These are people who see elements of Tolkien’s works as being derived from ancient ‘pagan’ mythology and become obsessed with the details and concepts which only appeal to their belief that Tolkien was promoting paganism. They are obsessed with the calendars, the Valar, and any mention of magic or sorcery, and they always like to dig up whatever myths they believe Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion are based upon. They can be ‘wiccans,’ or consider themselves ‘ritual magicians’ like to spell ‘magic’ differently, and sometimes, but not always, become interested in herbalism, but not necessarily for any actual physiological health benefits. They like ‘spells’ and ‘magic’ and ‘the occult’ and other things which many people see as ‘more fantasy.’ They may or may not be “Odinists” and be obsessed with Norse mythology.
Christian Evangelists: These are people who emphasize the ‘catholicism’ of J.R.R. Tolkien and often bring up “C.S. Lewis” all the time. They see the Lord of the Rings and the works of Tolkien as ‘christian allegory’ and often dig into the personal past of J.R.R. Tolkien, World War I, and his other life experiences to ‘prove’ that he was promoting a christian view of the world. They see Frodo as Christ, Sauron as Satan and view the writings of Tolkien as purely a “christianized” literary creation. They like to downplay anything that doesn’t serve this view.
Otherkin/Otherkind: These are a stange bunch of people who like to believe they are reincarnations of “elves,” “werewolves” and “vampires” and have basically become unhinged not only from ‘fantasy franchises’ but reality itself. They may also take part in any of the above, and can be everything from shippers to neopagans, medievalists to gamers, and while for Tolkien, likely are most interested in ‘elves’ but whose ‘beliefs’ most often would not ‘adhere’ or line up with anything Tolkien himself wrote, not simply in terms of ‘canon’ but in terms of characterization.
Experts: These are people who are self-titled ‘authorities’ on the names, places, situations and everything that can be memorized and while may eventually be considered ‘purists’ this is not necessarily the case. Many of the ‘experts’ will serve as marketing tools for the filmmakers, sell their own weird ’Tolkien Institutes’ and promote all kinds of shit that you have to pay for. They write books about Tolkien himself, they try to explain where it all came from, and often have lots of letters following their names, and have degrees in folklore, literature, english, linguistics, and call themselves “professors.” They may become what we call ‘the Tolkien Police,’ but usually it is the followers of these kinds of people who become ‘the Tolkien police’ citing their works as ‘authority’ when trying to criticize people’s notions about Tolkien and his writings.
Peter Jackson Fans: Movie fans of the adaptations of Tolkien’s works tend to mostly not read the books and likely will not make it through ‘the Silmarillion.’ They enjoy fart jokes, Tauriel, Radagast, and other absurdities in the movies and regard them as being more ‘realistic’ than the books. However, there are many ‘experts’ which have expressed the fact that they liked the Hobbit movies better than the book because it is ‘more epic.’ Any of the above, with the possible exception of ‘readers’ may be Peter Jackson fans. Sometimes ‘Peter Jackson Fans’ seem to be schizophrenic when it comes to liking the books and movies, selectively choosing for themselves which is more appealing, and can even be ‘offended’ by some things which they experienced in the movies, while still praising them above the books. Peter Jackson Fans always revere the films above the ‘boring, tedious and hard to follow books.’
Spinners: Often, ‘spinners’ are people with academic credentials, or are in the process of writing university thesis or obtaining degrees, but sometimes they are simply authors, writers or call themselves ‘experts’ and have websites. They may or may not be medievalists, neopagans or christians, but like to write lengthy essays about some subject or another which pretends to be about Tolkien or his writings but in fact are actually the promotion of a religious or political idea. They may post them on the internet for free, or try to sell them to you, they are not necessarily the for-profit ‘experts.’ They concoct highly footnoted screeds about how Tolkien was promoting Norse mythology, or the Bible, or some little detail of paganism or that he was a racist, or promoted fascism, or that he was writing about World War II, or World War I, or that it was an allegory against communism, or that it was promoting Anglo-Saxon culture, or any number of other pet-obsessions that are political or personally religious to the spinner. They generally try to connect different ideas, stories or concepts that can be found in the Silmarillion, Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit to their pet-theories and attempt to use it to promote their personal agendas. Spinners are in fact the worst of all of these denizens of Middle Earth because they clearly do not ‘enjoy’ Tolkien nor read what is actually there, but rather use his writings to make people believe in whatever crap they believe in that has nothing to do with his writings at all. Many spinners are also ‘cash grabbers.’
Cash Grabbers: These are people who attempt to ride the coat-tails of the success of Tolkien’s books and more recently, the movies, and create all kinds of bizarre schemes to hook people into buying their products, they make podcasts, write pointless diatribes about ‘where Tolkien got his ideas’ and publish all kinds of materials which offer no greater understanding of the books of J.R.R. Tolkien, most often under the guise of ‘scholarship.’ They also may create worthless books with lots of illustrations based upon the works of Tolkien, and manufacture and sell all kinds of trinkets and junk ‘inspired by Tolkien’ and endlessly network and market their bullshit across the internet. Some may consider themselves ‘experts,’ others, ‘neopagans,’ others sell Evangelist books hoping to hook you into their church, some create fan-films, and others make jewelry and weapons. They create ‘online games,’ and find virtually any and all means to ‘create a product’ which somehow they can market through the ‘fans of J.R.R. Tolkien.” These people are the Orcs of this little universe, but their schemes come and go all the time, while the Spinner’s garbage continues to resurface over and over again causing strife and debate amongst the fans, pitting one group against another, and engaging people in petty religious feuds over nothing.
The Members: These are people who belong to various “Tolkien” fan organizations who try to dictate from their long-standing memberships and ‘investments’ in time and money and relationships with these organizations, to fans and try to sell them ‘memberships’ and other services which only seek to perpetuate these hierarchies from which they can continue on their pedestals. They create new organizations all the time and can also be ‘Tolkien Police’ and ‘experts’ as well as ‘cash grabbers’ and ‘spinners,’ and are often very much like ‘role playing gamers’ in that they rather enjoy asserting their personalities and gain their satisfactions not from Tolkien material but in dictating, denouncing and asserting themselves on ‘fans’ of Tolkien. Their main objective is simply to enjoy the power to be considered an authority, though they may not necessarily know very much. They are not necessarily ‘purists’ but they may seem to behave as such. They generally elevate their organizations above all other ‘denizens’ and if they happen to be of some stature in those organizations or the founders they often make their ‘pronouncements’ as though they were coming straight from the “Tolkien Estate” themselves, though never stating it as such.
So why point all this out? Is playing a game based on Lord of the Rings a bad thing? Making your own costume? Writing a fan-fiction? Writing an essay? Belonging to a “Tolkien Organization”? Publishing a book about Tolkien? Are these all bad things, and am I acting in a way as ‘the Tolkien Police?’ The answer is not necessarily at all, but what I would like to suggest is how far have you gone to becoming one of these people? No sociopath in the world would admit it, and all of them would have an absolute visceral reaction to reading the above entries if their subconscious recognized themselves as being one of them. They will attack and defend their egos like cornered wild animals, and then everyone else is left with the question, what are you in fact pointing out here, and why, and what are YOU promoting, Misfit of Mirkwood?
I point these things out simply because I have noticed them, but also because I have rarely noticed something else: rarely do I see an individual write something which is entirely about the material itself. It almost seems taboo. You will be attacked by every one of these folks, short of perhaps fan-fictioners who don’t really care to adhere to any sort of ‘rules’ as passed out by any of these other individuals, content to remain in their own fantasy worlds…but without referencing Anglo-Saxon culture, or paganism, or one of the ‘experts,’ or directly linking something with Christianity or fascism, or anti-fascism, or anything else, rarely do I see anybody write what reading the Silmarillion ‘makes them feel,’ without citing and referencing all these other things. What about the material itself, and how does it affect your ‘real life’ deeply, personally, and effectively in real ways? Is it all just fantasy? Why do you have to bring up what you’ve heard about archaic religions and medieval practices? Why do you have to cite Tolkien’s personal life? Why do you feel you need to adhere to the hierarchies and rules created by gamers, societies, clubs, and experts? What about the material itself? Does it speak to you at all without all those other things? I am one of the few people that I know of, a freak, that seems to gain something from the material and is inspired soley by what actually seems to be written by itself, and I don’t need to engage in all these other things. I am a freak.
Are you a freak? Can one express anything outside these strange social conventions? Can one go beyond ‘reader’ and not become one of these other types of people? Can one become interested in concepts expressed by Tolkien about Elves and Eä and so forth without becoming a crazy “Otherkin” or a neo-pagan? Can one do this without becoming one of the “Tolkien Police” or by creating yet another ridiculous ‘hierarchy’ of more experts, more rules, or more silly games? Will they all burn me at the stake for saying such things? Is there something to be gained from the actual works by J.R.R. Tolkien in real life that doesn’t involve all these distracting surrogate activities and consumption of products? The answer, I assert is yes. One can creatively cite Tolkien without role-playing, and behold and summon the terms and phrases of Tolkien without becoming fan-fiction, nor treading upon copyright or assailing ‘canon.’ If you can entertain this thought, perhaps we can now, finally, take this to a whole new level, which can leave all this nonsense behind, not for all of us, not for the world, these people will all still be out there, and I have no desire to change their minds about anything they do—I am not the Tolkien Police…
There is something out there, deep in Mirkwood, some strange ‘ideas’ which come straight from the books, and they reside in the unusual realm where poetry was born, which have been hidden, seemingly for a long time, but may in fact be uncovered if you look for them, but they cannot be found in video game levels, nor in the rantings of podcasters, or the lectures of experts, nor in the bowels of romantic fan fiction, nor in the cgi of movies, nor in the libraries of occult books, Anglo-Saxon histories, nor even in other old folktales.
For I am actually suggesting that Tolkien said something ‘new’ that isn’t in all those other things. I’m saying he did something ‘novel’ and expressed something ‘different,’ that he wrote something ‘unique’ and something ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary.’ He actually pointed to something that nobody else managed to express, the dream of course of every writer. I’m saying by engaging in all these other things, you might miss it. It isn’t just me, who is going to point it out, there’s much more in there than I’ve located, Mirkwood is deep, and rich and full of things that nobody has yet uncovered, that you can also uncover. However, these things in there, I’m saying that they ‘mean something’ and are far more useful and profound than what people seem to be really finding, and in order to reach them, you have to reach beyond all those other things… Tolkien left an ‘artifact’ on our doorstep which is far richer than ‘source material’ for a movie franchise… it is far more than a re-arrangement of old myths, it is far more interesting than religious beliefs, far more applicable to life than politics, far more of a gift than you might have ever really imagined.
Other writers have given us other unique gifts, Tolkien isn’t the only one, and he’s not the savior, but what I’m going to do here is look closer… can you? The real question for the Tolkien Police is whether or not “I’m saying that he said it” or whether or not he really “said it.” The true test is the high value of what the material gives you, in realms beyond the usual mundane stuff that the internet is full of. There’s some pretty ‘out-there’ ideas in the Silmarillion… and if Tolkien believed that the old Norse myths were ‘telling it’ the way he saw it, he’d have been satisfied with them and not spend over half his life writing about this ‘other thing’ that he saw. What people are ‘debating’ isn’t about what’s there, they’re debating whether it’s “christian” or “pagan,” whether it’s “fascist” or “anti-communist,” whether it’s “anti-capitalist” or “monarchist,” or whether it’s “based on” this or that or the other thing, they’re not really discussing the ideas themselves and how they relate to them. And if they can only relate to them through paganism, christianity, racism, fascism, politics or as the ‘residue of the personal life of the author,’ well… continue on with your clubs, your games, your money-making schemes, your conventions and your propaganda because you obviously don’t even want to look.
Let go of the ‘narratives’ that you’ve been exposed to ‘about Tolkien’ coming from DVD Special Features… from History Channel documentaries, from Hollywood adaptations, and from the many books out there written by so-called experts, and open the original books again. You don’t need “Tolkien Police” or “Tolkien Purists” to tell you what to think about what you’re reading. The books do reach out to the modern person, and their thoughts, feelings and do have the power to affect your real life, and you don’t need footnoted analysis from professors to explain it to you… I’m asking you to think, and I’m asking you to tell me what YOU think… because these books can have a much greater and more profound impact on your life than you might imagine… if you go outside the boundaries of the gate-keepers and into the text itself, and into your own personal life. What does it mean to you, not them, what does it say to you, not them, what does it imply to you, not them, and what does it make you then see, outside, in real life, not in virtual reality games, or movies, or the confines of rigorous footnoted books about history and comparative mythology… it’s more important than all of that.
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