Odola
Well-Known Member
Yeah, but still she found the body-binding effects of it unberable in the long run...
Inclusion of queer characters?
- Thread starter MithLuin
- Start date
Yeah, but still she found the body-binding effects of it unberable in the long run...
Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
So, here is my only commentary on this subject because I don't have a "dog in this fight" so to speak. There are some storytelling issues with including queer characters in adaptations of pseudo-historical works which did not themselves include them. Mostly, these issues surround the reactions of other characters. Is this a culture which is completely permissive towards that sort of thing? Because that ... looks weird. And it does actively erase the struggles of people in history who went through persecution in the past. @Haerangil is saying something quite similar as I type.
Is the culture antagonistic towards expressions of queer behaviors but all of our protagonists are fine with it, so we don't hate them? That's also weird, because we are saying that you can't be a sympathetic person who isn't a "queer ally".
If only a few characters are on board, that is less problematic, but then that becomes our story, and the queer characters are only existing to be queer, which I think we are in general agreement is also a problem.
Anyway, that is all.
Is the culture antagonistic towards expressions of queer behaviors but all of our protagonists are fine with it, so we don't hate them? That's also weird, because we are saying that you can't be a sympathetic person who isn't a "queer ally".
If only a few characters are on board, that is less problematic, but then that becomes our story, and the queer characters are only existing to be queer, which I think we are in general agreement is also a problem.
Anyway, that is all.
Odola
Well-Known Member
I agree - and am of the opinion that the win for the story must outweight the problems it creates to make it be believable in the story's setting.
Rob Harding
Well-Known Member
Yeah precisely that. I don't think anything in the 1st age should be a utopia. That's very much not the world the characters live in. Nor do I think we need to make anything solely sexual. People seem to be under the impression that me advocating for homosexual inclusion is somehow not advocating for epic romance. Or mundanity.
I just think we can tell those stories (without it all being closeted single people in an attempt to weave around established canon). I think we can tell interested, nuanced stories with queer characters having as much richness and depth as any other character. Great epic heroes, tragic figures, schemers and dreamers and poets and politicians. Like there have always been. Frederic the Great or Stage-Coach Charley or Anne Lister or Njinga or Julie d'Aubigny. I just think, to pretend there 'never were' any homosexual people in Middle Earth also feels weird. Unless we are creating a fantasy world in which homosexuality doesn't exist...which would be a whole thing. I just think it allows us to open up other storytelling opportunities, to build out a world and to create what would be a realistic pitch for a TV show (the entire premise). And really, why would we not want to? Complexity is half the fun of creativity anyway.
I just think we can tell those stories (without it all being closeted single people in an attempt to weave around established canon). I think we can tell interested, nuanced stories with queer characters having as much richness and depth as any other character. Great epic heroes, tragic figures, schemers and dreamers and poets and politicians. Like there have always been. Frederic the Great or Stage-Coach Charley or Anne Lister or Njinga or Julie d'Aubigny. I just think, to pretend there 'never were' any homosexual people in Middle Earth also feels weird. Unless we are creating a fantasy world in which homosexuality doesn't exist...which would be a whole thing. I just think it allows us to open up other storytelling opportunities, to build out a world and to create what would be a realistic pitch for a TV show (the entire premise). And really, why would we not want to? Complexity is half the fun of creativity anyway.
Last edited:
Odola
Well-Known Member
Cannot really see how this should work, as serial relationships - which signify "inconsistency" = unfaithfullness and "lack of honour" and "not being true" - are seen as a weakness in Tolkien's work - they do not fit the romantic ideas of ME where true love is eternal and crosses even the gates of death - otherways both Luthien's and Arwen's sacrifices make no sense, as there is neither corporality nor sensuality outsite of Arda... Neither Don Juan nor Julie d'Aubigny would fit in ME, and if, then only as servants of Melkor. Introducing such ideas to ME would destroy its core and would introduce the very "gross" Tolkien explicitly wanted "purged" from it.
Last edited:
Rob Harding
Well-Known Member
At no point did I say serial relationships. I am talking about meaningful loving relationships. Honestly, the letters written by Frederick the Great to Algorotti are full of passion and fire and beauty and longing. They are profoundly romantic and speak of a true love.
And, hey, you know what, serial relationships too. Those characters can exist as well. Without having to take a moral stance. They can simply exist in this world.
I'm not saying we include those specific real-life examples, by the way. Obviously. Or even stand-ins. I am saying people of queer identity have always existed. I'm also not that we need to trawl history looking for people to claim as potential icons, but rather that there are clear examples of clearly homosexual people throughout history. To put that argument to bed, I cited a few who have epic stories.
But this is just semantics at this point.
And, hey, you know what, serial relationships too. Those characters can exist as well. Without having to take a moral stance. They can simply exist in this world.
I'm not saying we include those specific real-life examples, by the way. Obviously. Or even stand-ins. I am saying people of queer identity have always existed. I'm also not that we need to trawl history looking for people to claim as potential icons, but rather that there are clear examples of clearly homosexual people throughout history. To put that argument to bed, I cited a few who have epic stories.
But this is just semantics at this point.
Last edited:
Haerangil
Well-Known Member
Or king Ludwig of Bavaria!
Haerangil
Well-Known Member
Oh, but i could totally see some numenorean or gondorian or even arnorian nobleman as a don juan character, i just doubt that in a tolkienian context he would be portraied as a very likeable character... most likely not.
Last edited:
Rob Harding
Well-Known Member
This is the other thing, we should have a whole range of characters. In general. So we can certainly have a Don Juan type. Again, I don’t want portray only one kind of homosexual relationship in the same way I don’t want to see only one type of heterosexual romantic/sexual relationship
Odola
Well-Known Member
o.k. Still he was not constant to anyone.
But that is a problem. The core of Tolkien's idea of romantic love is its eternity. [Beyond the whole Catholic significance of romantic love as a cipher for the bond between God and His People/Church]. You cannot sactifice this main idea - that true love is necessary constant - just to introduce "queerness". You might not share this idea yourself, still it is one of cornerstones on which Tolkien's world is build. The whole of Tolkien's world would unravel... If you introduce "querrness" it has to follow that main pattern - that the eternity of love is the ideal and all deviation of it are the results of the marrying of Arda and bring tragedy...
Last edited:
Rob Harding
Well-Known Member
I’m literally not disagreeing this
Odola
Well-Known Member
O.k. But I still do not see how forcing such a story into ME would advance the whole. It seems to me just "tokenism" - a thing for a thing's sake.
E.g. for sure there were some highly technically skilled people who invented technical stuff e.g. the loom the hobbits used - still as technology is not a thing Tolkien is interested in we never hear details about it - as we do not about the banking sector, economy, husbandry or taxation - while we hear about jewel-making, smithing, gardening and mushroom or pipe-weed growing. So making a whole plot about technological innovators and inventors and their struggle for recognition would seems completely out of place in ME. Similarly imho would be with exploring various shades of sexuality for its own sake in a ME setting - strange, confusing and out of place - not what the story is about.
Haerangil
Well-Known Member
Like i said: You need to come up with a good story.You can try to include lgbtq characters IN the story, but it has to be about the story, not about queerness as a central thing. That would feel forced and most likely not be a good story.
Therefore i think it is important for us to get a picture of how the situation of possible lgbtq characters might have been within that fictional world and its societies. When we have a clearer picture of that then we'd know how lgbtq characters could be included into a possible story and feel natural fitting into that world.
Therefore i think it is important for us to get a picture of how the situation of possible lgbtq characters might have been within that fictional world and its societies. When we have a clearer picture of that then we'd know how lgbtq characters could be included into a possible story and feel natural fitting into that world.
I think what is important to me, as with many other adaptation choices, is to examine what we take for granted, and maybe sometimes see if we can stretch outside of those boundaries from time to time. I'm not just thinking of "do we tell these stories, do we have these characters" but also "do we simply assume every place in Beleriand conforms to the somewhat simplified image we have of "past mores" This happens to us even in our world, that we ascribe to the past just an understanding of "like today, but worse" instead of "different in many complicated ways" This doesn't mean imagining it a utopia from our viewpoint, but not defaulting to our "vanilla medieval starterpack" so to say.
It's a bit like with witches, they only really were a big boogieman for the church in the reformation period, with burnings and beheadings and everything, and while the church never much liked ppl practicing rituals outside its own practices, the term of witch and the specific practice of hunting them simply didnt exist before. But we tend to project them over the entire middle ages, because it seems to make sense with how we imagine them.
But unlike witches, queer ppl much much before the reformation, and we have evidence of them even finding each other some times. We simply do not know anything about their private lives, their surroundings, so a lot of that is a black box. So even if we base Beleriand mores on something historical, I just think we shouldn't extrapolate from the general societal attitudes to all individuals without occasionally questioning that.
It's a bit like with witches, they only really were a big boogieman for the church in the reformation period, with burnings and beheadings and everything, and while the church never much liked ppl practicing rituals outside its own practices, the term of witch and the specific practice of hunting them simply didnt exist before. But we tend to project them over the entire middle ages, because it seems to make sense with how we imagine them.
But unlike witches, queer ppl much much before the reformation, and we have evidence of them even finding each other some times. We simply do not know anything about their private lives, their surroundings, so a lot of that is a black box. So even if we base Beleriand mores on something historical, I just think we shouldn't extrapolate from the general societal attitudes to all individuals without occasionally questioning that.
Odola
Well-Known Member
No completely so. We have anti-magic and anti-magicians laws already in the pagan 12 Tables of Roman Law (https://www.jstor.org/stable/283219) and anti-witchcraft burials from even older times until recently in rular areas. So the anti-magic certainly very old an pre-Christian.
But by doing so we distroy Tolkien's setting.
The whole idea about taking the chivalrous honour code literaly and to extend it to the whole culture (from the Valar to even the orcs to some extent) is one of the element of what makes out part of ME's appeal. I we chip around on it, it might break down on our story making it meaningess.
The issue is that according to chivalrous honour code once a character declares himself/herself in love s/he should be (ideally) stick with it - feel honour-bound to his/her own decission. This is why Turin rejects Fnduilas. She was commited to her fiance Gwindor by her own will and chice but then after he returned dimished and altered after his captivity she transfered her affection to the young and stil pretty Turin - as such she has lost Turin's respect from the very start - as this was not a noble thing to do.
Last edited:
Ange1e4e5
Well-Known Member
So would this be a reason why Túrin hesitates from rescuing Finduilas (minus the hypnotic dragon)?
Odola
Well-Known Member
No, Turin was obliged to save her if only he could - and having her former fiance's (who has died in the meantime) blessings it should have been o.k. even if he had married her later - still the issue was: Turin did not respect Finduilas for having changed the object of her affection - and no marriage can work if you have no genuine respect for your partner.
But what I want to draw attention to here is that any romantic relationship has to be measured - in its success or failure - against the romantic rendition of chivalrous honour code which says hat it you consider youself in love the commitment should be permanent or you are disgracing yourself and do act against your own honour - you are failing in being a noble person.
Last edited:
Yes precisely, we have anti-magic, anti occult laws, because there was always superstition and scary myth, but the character of the witch and the practices around witch-hunts were very specifically manufactured in a time of great anxiety around religion (the reformation) from those earlier magic tropes and the fear of conspiring, anti-christian dissidents, into the figure of a witch allied with the devil to interfere with "the correct way of things"
What I mean is, extrapolating from "there was fear of magic in much earlier times" to "witchburnings was a popular practice in the early middle ages" is a step that happens easily, especially because of the way we tell and imagine history.
I don't disagree that a certain societal code is integral to Tolkien's stories. But a) the societal standard doesnt lose its narrative powers if not a 100% of the populace conform, (societal standards are just that after all, standards, and not laws of nature) and b) we are pretending to make a longer form adaptation here. So we are expanding a collection of often very shortened, abstracted tales into a live action, detailed plot. This plot necessarily contains more things that are omitted by the narrator of the shorter tale, and shorter story styles tend to automatically become more strictly themed. More long form stories can stand more nuance and variation without losing focus on the central theme.
Odola
Well-Known Member
Of course, Finduilas does not and suffers a gruelsome death. 😉
And in Tolkien most of the norms are akin to laws of nature, the reason some men do not follow them is because they are alienated from their own nature and from the nature surrounding them - elves usually naturally do follow them - except if overshadowed by evil or burdened by some oaths/curses - and when they do not - it usually ends badly relatively quickly.
Last edited:
Rob Harding
Well-Known Member
Why can this not be true of a homosexual character? A person can fall in love and stay true to that person AND the person be the same sex or gender as them.
Can I just express, I dislike the implication expressed here that homosexuality is somehow unnatural or a corruption and wouldn't want that to be something that forms part of our worldbuilding, regardless of whether its possible to read this from the source material (which I don't think it is) or Tolkien's own opinions (which I don't see value for in this context).
Last edited: