The Lord of the Rings

Fandom
Name:	The Lord of the Rings trilogy: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King
Abbreviation(s):	LotR, LOTR; FOTR, TTT, ROTK
Creator:	John Ronald Reuel (J. R. R.) Tolkien (1892-1973)
Date(s):	books: 1954-1955, films: 1978 (Bakshi); 1980 (Rankin-Bass); 2001-2003 (Jackson)
Medium:	book, film
Country of Origin:	England, UK, Middle-earth, New Zealand Subpages for The Lord of the Rings: The_Lord_of_the_Rings has no subpages to list.
External Links:	Encyclopedia of Arda Tolkien Gateway Council of Elrond WarOfTheRing.net The One Ring.net (TORn)
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

In 1954-55 J.R.R. Tolkien published his epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, divided into three books: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.

Tolkien's View on Fandom

He wrote of a "deplorable cultus" of fandom, and stated that "Many young Americans are involved in the stories in a way that I'm not." He was referring to the "Go Go Gandalf" and "Frodo Lives" buttons and stickers that had cropped up on many American college campuses.

In the foreword to The Road Goes Ever On: A Song-Cycle, a collaboration with Tolkien to set his best poems to music, composer Donald Swann wrote:

Along with many others I often found myself desiring to vanish into Middle Earth, to escape utterly into fantasy! On the other hand this was a temptation making one unfit to live in this earth at all; on the other, the phrase Middle-Earth is but a medieval way of describing our own world poised between Heaven & Hell. Is Tolkien’s world of fantasy an escape at all, or do we therein meet ourselves, with all our problems? His books, as those of C.S. Lewis, include well-nigh perfect creatures, Elves, eldila, great lords & magicians. These heroes, I decided, were but paradigms of humans with a sense of destiny & purpose; & Frodo, the central hero, carries mortality in the shape of a lasting wound. The heroes of Greek legend were often real people of a past time, only with wings drawn in. To sum up this paragraph, I used to feel that the Tolkien dimension was almost a danger. I then went against this, & decided I would enter it at any time I chose, but with this golden rule (with this phial glowing on my desk?) that I must be able to emerge, to shut the book, & get up from the chair. If I can’t, I will earn the disapproval of the author. He was an upright man in the real world, & had no intention of casting a spell on anyone. I told him once of a young man who thought he was Frodo. 'I've ruined their lives.' he said disconsolately.

Book Fandom

Letters to and from Tolkien after publication show that many readers became fans very quickly, asking questions about Middle-earth, the characters, and so on.. In the 1960s, many people involved in the hippie counter-culture found resonance in LOTR, and it became not just a best-seller, but a part of the generational identity. Groups of Tolkien admirers formed, including the Mythopeic society, The Tolkien Society, and shorter-lived gatherings, such as the Tolkien Fellowship at Michigan State University.

Many words invented or adapted by Tolkien have become part of fannish vocabulary, including moot, mathom, pipeweed and smial. Fans used LOTR and Tolkien's later publications including the Silmarillion to teach themselves various of Tolkien's Elvish and Dwarvish languages and scripts.

The novel Bored of the Rings, a parody by the co-founders of National Lampoon, was published in 1969, suggesting that anti-fans were also quick to seize on the book.

Music Fandom

Tolkien's writings inspired hundreds, perhaps thousands of musical compositions, from classical to death metal, perhaps most famously by Led Zeppelin. Rush's Geddy Lee and Motorhead's Lenny Kilmister both appeared in the Ringers documentary, talking about Tolkien's influence on them. In 2006, the Lord of the Rings Musical played in Toronto, moving to London for 2007-2008, but was not considered a success.

• Tolkien's songs & poems set to tunes
  • Starlit Jewel: the only U.S. authorized recording of songs from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
  • The Road Goes Ever On: a song-cycle, Donald Swann collaboration with Tolkien (Ballantine, 1975).
• Filk
  • Filthy Pierre's Microfilk included several LotR songs
  • Tolkien Filk

Aca-fen and Academic Analysis of LOTR

• University professors and other academics became enthusiastic about Tolkien and his works and began writing literary papers on them. Some were granted access to Tolkien's unpublished papers, with a resulting conflict between them and those who were not..
• other stuff here?
• lit crit and college classes?
• Semi-pro fans like Michael Martinez
• Fellow professional authors:

The impulse is being called reactionary now, but lovers of Middle-earth want to go there. I would myself, like a shot. For in the end it is Middle-earth and its dwellers that we love, not Tolkien's considerable gifts in showing it to us. I said once that the world he charts was there long before him, and I still believe it. He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers -- thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams."

The Line Between Tolkien Fandom and "Serious" Scholarly Studies

Partly because Tolkien himself was a university professor, some of the most enthusiastic fans are those writing the serious scholarly works about him. Tom Shippey, who for several years occupied Tolkien's chair at the University of Leeds and is on the editorial board of Tolkien Studies, is among Tolkien's most enthusiastic fans and himself a professional fantasy author.

Some feel it lies with those who embrace the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy but have little awareness of Tolkien's lesser and posthumously published works of both fiction and non-fiction.

Online Book Fandom

• online fandom started early, by 1993: alt.fan.tolkien and rec.arts.books.tolkien
• 1992 bibliography

Book Web Sites

• Languages and Elves
• Thain's Book (LotR encyclopedia) via the Wayback Machine
• The Tolkien Society
• Encyclopedia of Arda
• Tolkien Gateway
• Council of Elrond
• WarOfTheRing.net
• The One Ring.net (TORn)
• Elfenomeno.com

Book Archives

• Elf Fetish
• The Silmarillion Writers' Guild
• Silver Tree
• The Trees Remember
• Valar Guild

(see also Category:Lord of the Rings Archives)

Pre-Jackson Film Fandoms

• The zine Triode #18 (May 1960) contains a letter from J. R. R. Tolkien in response to Arthur Weir's essay "No Monroe in Lothlorien". Weir speculates on things like locations and casting for a film version (the "Monroe" refers to Marilyn, as Weir is vehemently against any "super-mammary Americans" in any of the female roles; he wanted Greta Garbo for Galadriel). Tolkien responds that based on his experience with scripts and 'story-line' he feels that "only an overwhelming financial reward could possibly compensate an author for the horrors of the conversion of such a tale into film." (Hammond and Scull, The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide - Chronology, p. 557).

Pre-2000 films

Rankin-Bass: Hobbit and Return of the King: Animated television movies

• Wikipedia Hobbit 1977
• Wikipedia Return of the King, 1980

Ralph Bakshi: The Lord of the Rings Animated film, only the first part was produced

• Wikipedia 1978 film page
• Ralph Bakshi site, Lord of the Rings page.
• Hobbits on Film: Ralph Bakshi's unfairly maligned Lord of the Rings By Glenn Gaslin, Slate, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2001

The Lord of the Rings films (2001-2003)

Fan Response to the Films

There was much anticipation before the release of the first film. In April 2000 the web site TheOneRing.net started up, most likely in response to the upcoming films, and was the main website for the film fandom in the beginning. There was much discussion among fans beforehand, with many worried that the films would not live up to the books. Fans' anxiety may have been made worse by the high level of secrecy surrounding the film before it's initial release.

When Fellowship of the Ring was released the majority of fans were overjoyed with how well it was done and how it adapted the books. The film also brought a whole legion of new fans into the Lord of the Rings and greater Tolkien fandom.

Fandom

A huge amount of fandom activity is based on these films.

Because the film fandom began in the early 2000s there was a variety of ways that fans connected with each other and shared fanworks online: there were a great number of fansites and LOTR specific archives, and webrings to help fans find them; there were dozens of LOTR mailing lists; and there were numerous LOTR LiveJournal communities, along with forums. All of these could vary from a broad fandom wide scope to being focused on specific characters or ships. On top of this there were multifandom sites, like FanFiction.net, and multifandom communities where fans could share their fanworks.

Line Parties

For the release of the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring, line parties were organized, either formally or informally, where fans could meet and have fun while waiting in line to enter the movie theatre. Fan Garfeimao, from TheOneRing.net, discusses their organization of a line party for FOTR:

I immediately formed a Line Party event for the Irvine Spectrum, in Southern California after having spoken with the local Theater manager and promotions people. I wanted to make sure I understood the rules about costumes at this large shopping center (no weapons), how long they would let people line up (they preferred no overnights, but when the Star Wars fans began joining our lines for ROTK, that rule vanished) and what activities I could do. I invited someone from Decipher to come down and do a Card Game demo and keep people entertained. I did trivia questions and had a small costume contest

The line parties continued for the Two Towers and The Return of the King, and only grew larger and more expansive each time.

Watch Parties

Fans will have watch parties where they watch either one film, or more commonly the entire trilogy. These are usually in person with small groups, and, because the length of time it takes to watch all three films, there is often much discussion about what to plan to have for meals and snacks, with some fans planning full themed menus. More recently, with the use of services like Zoom and Discord, fans that don't live close to each other can have online watch parities.

Oscars Watch Parities

All three times the films were nominated for the Oscars fans organized Oscars watch parties. TheOneRing.net organized large Oscar night LotR fan parties in Los Angeles in 2003 and 2004.

Conventions

After the success of the films several LOTR focused conventions were organized, including:

• Collectormanias (2002-2004)
• Fellowslash (2002-2004)
• Ring*Con (2002-2015)

Fan Tourism

Fan tourism to New Zealand, where the films where shot, started almost immediately after the first film's release, which was helped along by campaigns by New Zealand's tourism board, and the site tours that become very popular In fact when most countries saw a sharp decline in tourists following 9/11 New Zealand was the exception and bolstered by fan tourists. The LOTR movies were filmed in New Zealand with special effects by Weta Workshop. After The Hobbit movies, the Hobbit Smials from the Shire were rebuilt, and this set was also opened up for tourism. Many fans go on pilgrimages to see the set, the Weta Workshop museum, as well as visiting sites from the film.

Controversies

Main article: Thanfiction

The fan Thanfiction (who was known as Victoria Bitter at the time) was the founder of Bit of Earth and was involved in several scandals, including not raising money for charities like they claimed and a failed convention. See the main artilce for further details.

The Hobbit film

Main article: The Hobbit (film series)

Much of the fandom was reinvigorated with the release of The Hobbit films from 2012-2014. See the main article for more infomation about The Hobbit fandom.

Ringers Documentary

In 2005 a documentary, Ringers: Lord of the Fans, was released. It covers LOTR fandom from the release of the book The Hobbit in 1937 to the Peter Jackson trilogy, and was produced in association with TheOneRing.net.

Pairings and Relationships

See: Category:Tolkien Relationships

Shipping in the early book fandom seems to have been exceedingly rare. Although, there were early readers who picked up on the possible queer sub-text between pairs like Frodo/Sam, one of which was the actor Sir Ian McKellen, who mentioned in it interviews. Pre-internet Tolkien zines, and even very early internet fandom, seemed to be focused more on gen fanworks that explored world-building and centered the platonic or familial relationships between characters. This trend has continued into modern fandom with a moderate portion of fanworks still being gen, often focused on friendships between different members of the fellowship.

It wasn't until the release of the first film in the Peter Jackson trilogy that shipping exploded in popularity. The most common ships are slash pairings, with some of the most popular being Frodo/Sam, Gimli/Legolas, Aragorn/Legolas, Aragorn/Boromir, and Merry/Pippin. The most popular het ships are Aragorn/Arwen, Éowyn/Faramir, and Sam/Rosie, who are all canonical endgame couples. Femslash ships are very rare, with Arwen/Éowyn being the only pair with any significant amount of fanworks, and even then the number of fanworks is tiny compared to the slash and het ships in the fandom. Poly ships also tend to be somewhat rare, with Frodo/Rosie/Sam being the most popular triad.

RPF and Lotrips

Main article: Lotrips

After the release of the Peter Jackson films, along side the rise of fictional person ships, was the rise of Lord of the the Rings RPF, better known as as Lotrips. This was helped along by the extensive press coverage of the cast interacting while promoting the films and the extended DVDs with Fellowship of the Cast and commentaries. Some of the more popular ships are Billy Boyd/Dominic Monaghan, Sean Bean/Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom/Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin/Elijah Wood, and Dominic Monaghan/Elijah Wood, among others. Creating fanworks for these pairs was mostly a way for fans to have fun and be creative, but there was also some tinhatting. See the main article for further details.

Common Tropes in Fanworks

• Girl Who Falls Into: a Real World Crossover, an original female character from modern times finds herself in Middle-earth.
• Kidnap Family: specifically the relationship and family life between Maedhros, Maglor, Elrond and Elros.

Challenges and Exchanges

For a full listing of Fanlore articles on Lord of the Rings and related fandom challenges see Category:Tolkien Challenges

Since the early 2000s the Lord of the Rings fandom has had a history of fandom challenges, such as gift exchanges, fanweeks, fests and kink memes. Some examples being:

• Back to Middle-earth Month (2006-present)
• Legendarium Ladies April (prompt challenge on AO3) (2014-2020)
• The One Ring Challenge (2002)

For perspective on the depth of past, and current, challenges see the List of Tolkien Challenges.

Example Fanworks

The Lord of the Rings has inspired a very large and creative fandom. LOTR creativity long predates the Internet, but many thousands of new fanworks, based on either the book or the films, can be found online.

Fanart

• Council of Elrond fanart via Waybak Machine (2000s)
• LotR Fan Art via Wayback Machine (2002-2014)
• Photo manipulations or manips by The Theban Band (includes naked men and slash) (early 2000s)
• The Broship of the Ring - series of Human AU sketches by gingerhaze via the Wayback Machine (2011-2012)
• art by Suzan Lovett (early 2000s)
• DM of the Rings, a webcomic (2006-2007)
• Menegroth Revisited (fanartist's page of gen and slash fanart, ca. 2005-2006)
• Middle Earth, ^{Archived version} by jjpeabody (2013)
• The Gates of Umbar, Harad, ^{Archived version} by direimpulse (2014)

Fanfiction

See The Lord of the Rings Fanfiction for more discussion.

The two broadest categories of fanfiction are FPF (fictional people fiction), about characters from the books and movies, and RPF (real people fiction), also known as LOTR RPS or Lotrips, stories written about the actors. Although some archives, communities, and challenges include both and some fans read and write both, many fans consider them to be separate fandoms.

The Fellowship of the King: The War of the Rings is a a fanfic series by Demetrious Polychron. The author is currently attempting to sue both Amazon and the Tolkien Estate for copyright infringement, claiming that The Rings of Power plagiarises aspects of his fic which was left at JRR's grandson's house in 2019.

Fanfiction Communities

These are some communities that encompass both RPF and FPF. See those pages for more community listings.

• Middle Earth News, LiveJournal announcement community begun in October 2004, formerly only for news about FPF fandom but includes some RPF news since April, 2008.
• I Nili o i Ardanole Newsletter (2003-2005)
• Lord of the Rings Fan Fiction Recs (2004-2012)
• Sons of Gondor (2003-2018)
• What Couldn't Be: Grima/Eowyn Fanfiction Archive (2003-2005)
• Tolkien LJs, ^{Archived version} a list of Tolkien LJ communities moderately active & focused on Tolkien, rather than actors compiled by espresso_addict in 2004

Fanfiction Awards

• Flame of Anor Awards
• Golden Mushroom Awards
• Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards
• Mithril Awards
• My Precious Awards

Fanzines

While the Lord of the Rings movie fandom is primarily an online fandom, it has seen a fair share of print fanzines. You can find listings under List of Lord of the Rings Fanzines as well as by clicking on the Category:Lord of the Rings Zines category

• Amon Hen: the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society (1972-present)

Doujinshi

See Category:Lord of the Rings Doujinshi

LOTR fandom had a robust amount of Doujinshi being produced in the early 2000s. Some examples:

• The Master of the Rings (2002)
• Teotoriatte (2002)
• killing me softly (2004)

Fanvids

Following the Peter Jackson films, making fanvids was a popular fan activity. Examples:

• Different Light | Lord of the Rings Fanvids (defunct multifandom website)
• They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard by Erwin Beekveld (2005)
• No Bravery by Frodolyn (2006)

Video Awards

• Fellowship Music Video Awards (2004-2005)
• Lord of the Rings Music Video Awards (2004)

Games

• Middle Earth Role-Playing Game (also known as RPGs)
• Tolkien computer games listing
• Wikipedia:Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien#Games
• Dungeons and Dragons - may or may not be directly inspired by LOTR

Filk

• Lord of the Rhymes

Miscellaneous

• The Lord of the Peeps: The Fellowship of the Peep - re-creation of the Peter Jackson film using marshmallow animals and still photography
• Grond - the fandom associated with Grond, the siege weapon at Helm's Deep.

Meta/Further Reading

• Does Gender Matter? Women, Tolkien and Fanfiction, ^{Archived version}, by Thevina (2003)
• Constructing Lothíriel: Rewriting and Rescuing the Women of Middle Earth from the Margins, ^{Archived version} by Cait Coker and Karen Viars, Mythlore 33.2, Spring/Summer 2015
• Norse Elements in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, ^{Archived version} by Martin Wettstein (unknown date)

See Also

• Timeline of Tolkien Fandom
• Oboebyrd's Guide to ChatRoom Etiquette by Oboebyrd (2002)

Mailing Lists

See List of Lord of the Rings Mailing Lists

The early 2000s saw a plethora of online mailing lists created in the Lord of the Rings fandom, from the more general to ones focused on specific characters and ships. These were spaces where fans could have discussions, share fanworks, and where early fanwork challenges were hosted. The majority of these lists were on Yahoo! Groups and have since gone defunct with that site's closure. Here are a few examples:

• All LotR Fic (2002-2006)
• LotR_FanArt (2002-2019)
• LotR GenFic Community (2007-2019)
• Tolkien-Darkfic (2002-2007)

Archives and Communities

• r/lotr

Fanfiction Archives

See Category:Lord of the Ring Archives for more.

• The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Jackson Movies), and The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types tags at Archive of Our Own
• Lord of the Rings category at FanFiction.Net
• Longing... (2000s): Hobbit slash.
• Khylea's Writings (2005-2007): Slash, het, and gen fics.
• Lord of the Rings fan fiction (ca. 2003-2005, Wayback captures): Het.
• Reprobate (ca. 2003-2005, Wayback captures): Slash, both FPF and RPS.
• Sen O Gwend (ca. 2003-2004, Wayback captures): Gen, movieverse.
• Silver Glass (ca. 2004-2008, Wayback capture): German-language FPF and RPF.
• The Woodland Chronicles (2003-2009)
• Hidden Archives of Middle-Earth (2002-2003)
• The Realm of the Shrew (2004)
• Braided Light (2006-2018)
• Come Away With Me... (?-30 April 2003)
• Middle Earth Romance Fan-Fiction (2004-2007)
• The Barrow-Downs (?-2004)
• Lord of the Rings Scrapbook (2001-present)
• Mela Tindome (2005)
• Stories of Arda (2003-present): No slash.
• Henneth Annûn Story Archive (2002-2015): The collection was imported to AO3.
• Even If (2002-2005): Aragorn/Legolas fanfiction, among others.

LiveJournal Communities

• ardaslash (2004-2017)
• green_dragon (2003-2008)
• the_grey_havens (2002-2008)
• hobbit_art (2004-2013)
• hobbit_het (2004-2007)
• hobbit_slash (2003-2011)
• Hobbit Smut (2004-2006)
• laughlorien (2001-2008)
• lordoftherings (2001-2007)
• lotr_art (2003-2009)
• lotrart (2003-2006)
• lotr_fandom (2004-2008)
• lotr_fanfiction (2004-2017)
• lotrfangirls (2002-2012)
• lotr_fic_recs (2003-2010)
• lotr_graphics (2003-2019)
• lotr_mpreg (2004-2015)
• lotr_poetry (2002-2011)
• middle_earth_ (2003-2006)
• Middle Earth News, was a thrice weekly newsletter, that included information about book fandom, movie fandom, and fanworks, both FPF and RPF (2004-2024)
• toilanddrouble - for double drabbles (2005-2009)
• tolkienart (2003-2010)
• tolkien_elves (2001-2012)
• tolkien_podfic (2008-2014)
• wee_hobbits (2006-2017)

Challenge Communities

• b2mem (2012-2020)
• hobbit_ficathon (2004-2011)
• lotr_community (2008-2018)
• tolkien100 - weekly drabble challenge community (2004-present)
• tolkien_weekly - was a weekly challenge community (2004-2022)
• waymeet (2005-2017)

Icon Communities

• endof_allthings (2004-2005)
• fellowship_hush (2004-2011)
• icontest_lotr (2007-2008)
• lotr_awards (2004-2010)
• lotr_ic (2004)
• lotricontest (2005-2009)
• lotrth20in20 (2014-2016)
• lotrstillness (2004-2008)
• lotrladiesstill (2009)
• lotr_elite (2006-2010)
• lotr_lims (2006-2010)
• lotricons (2002-2016)
• onering_stills (2009-2010)
• shire_icontest (2012-2017)

Resources

• LOTR Costume, a costume research website for LOTR fans
• LotR Fandom Wiki
• Tolkien Gateway