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middle-earth-mythopoeia · 1 year

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Yes, there are gay characters in Tolkien’s books

There seems to be an entrenched view among Tolkien fans that Tolkien did not write any gay characters, and that by interpreting any of his characters as gay you are going against what he would have wanted. Homophobes obviously believe this very strongly, and have always been hostile towards queer fans and queer interpretations of Tolkien’s works. Many members of the LGBTQ community also believe that they’re contradicting canon when they interpret Tolkien’s characters as gay—the only difference is they don’t mind doing so.

But is it so against canon to interpret any of Tolkien’s characters as gay? The assumption that Tolkien did not write gay characters hinges on his Catholicism, but I’m going to explain why this is flimsy reasoning.

First, it should be noted that Tolkien didn’t leave any writings expressing his views on homosexuality, so there is no evidence one way or another. But it seems relevant that Tolkien was good friends with W.H. Auden and corresponded with him over multiple decades. They first met when Auden listened to one of Tolkien’s lectures at Oxford and was inspired to learn Anglo-Saxon. Auden loved Tolkien’s poetry and prose and defended LOTR from critics at a time when it was seen as an unserious work in an unserious genre. Did Tolkien know Auden was gay? We don’t know for sure. But there’s at least a chance that he did: the secret of Auden’s homosexuality is one he “loosely kept”, according to an article in the Guardian.

So, Tolkien was friends with a gay man whom he may or may not have known was gay. But are there gay characters in Tolkien’s books? Unfortunately for the homophobes, even if you believe that Tolkien opposed homosexuality on principle, that still doesn’t mean no one in Middle-earth is gay. Actually, no one in Middle-earth is Catholic. I mean that literally, in the sense that Catholicism does not exist in the time period Tolkien wrote about, but I also mean it in the sense that Tolkien’s characters need not adhere to the tenets of his religion, even if it’s not named. Why would they?

It shouldn’t be controversial or surprising to point out that writers can, and often do, write characters that live very different lives from their own. Needless to say, Tolkien didn’t condone the actions of the antagonists of his work, but what about the protagonists? Are we to believe that all of them act in an unfailingly Catholic way at all times? In Laws and Customs of the Eldar, it is strongly implied that (especially in their younger years) Elves do have sex for pleasure and not just to beget children, something that is discouraged by Catholicism. That’s just one example.

(Please note that I’m not arguing that Tolkien’s Catholicism had no influence on his writings, because he explicitly said that it did. I’m saying that Tolkien’s characters themselves are not Catholic and do not necessarily behave like Catholics. So even if you think that all Catholics believe homosexuality is wrong, it has no bearing on Tolkien’s stories.)

Another line of reasoning goes that homosexuality is too taboo for Tolkien—but I have to wonder if people who believe this have read his books at all. The Silmarillion is full of taboo subjects. Túrin and Niënor marry, not knowing they are brother and sister; they find out the truth, and that she is pregnant, and they both commit suicide. Eöl’s relationship with Aredhel is one that, even if it didn’t start out as controlling and abusive—although I suspect it did—it clearly ended up that way, and depending on your interpretation of the text, he may have raped her. Celegorm attempts to force Lúthien to marry him, which would also involve rape, and there is a passage that implies that Morgoth also intends to rape Lúthien. Neither incest, rape or abuse are too taboo for Tolkien—neither are suicide, torture or mass murder, as the rest of the Silmarillion shows.

I don’t want anyone to take this in bad faith: I’m not saying that being gay is comparable to incest, rape or abuse, and I’m part of the LGBTQ community myself. What I am saying is that Tolkien clearly did not shy away from certain subjects, including sexual taboos, simply because they’re taboo. If you’re going to argue that none of Tolkien’s characters are queer because it wasn’t accepted at the time, that’s very unconvincing given the other subject matter in his books.

There is another reason why I think there are gay characters in Middle-earth, and it has to do with Tolkien’s inspirations. It’s well understood by Tolkien fans that you can see echoes of other mythologies in Tolkien’s works. But which ones? When Lúthien brings Beren back from the Halls of Mandos, there are obvious parallels with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice—though the genders are reversed, and Lúthien succeeds where Orpheus did not. There are parallels between Túrin and Kullervo. There are numerous examples of this kind of thing throughout the Silmarillion and LOTR. Even the name Middle-earth clearly has its roots in the Norse name Midgard. There are some influences that Tolkien explicitly acknowledged, like the Kalevala and the Völuspá, and some that Tolkien scholars have only theorized about. While there are some scholarly articles on Tolkien and the Aeneid, one thing I have never seen anyone discuss is the parallel between Beleg’s death and the story of Nisus and Euryalus.

In the Aeneid, Nisus and Euryalus are a pair of friends and lovers who are fighting for Aeneas in Latium. Nisus, the older of the two men, is said to be a skilled javelin-thrower and archer. Nisus proposes a night raid on an enemy camp, and Euryalus insists on going with him. During the raid they kill many men in their sleep, collecting some of their armor as loot, as was customary. But when they leave the camp, the glint of light on a helmet taken by Euryalus is seen by a group of enemy horsemen, who capture and kill him before Nisus can stop them. Nisus is distraught and kills many of them in retaliation, ultimately dying beside his lover’s body. (In some versions, it’s a stolen belt, not a helm—but the constant motif is the glint of light that reveals Euryalus to the enemy.)

There are so many similarities with Beleg and Túrin that it cannot be a coincidence. Beleg and Túrin also fight side by side, first on the marches of Doriath and later when Túrin is an outlaw. They are very loyal to each other, and clearly love each other. Like Nisus, Beleg is known to be a great archer. Meanwhile, although it does not feature in Beleg’s death scene, Túrin is associated with a particularly significant helm. There are differences too: Túrin’s captivity is the reason for Beleg’s raid on the Orc-camp, whereas Euryalus is captured after the raid; both Nisus and Euryalus are slain one after the other, whereas only Beleg dies in the raid on the Orc-camp. But there is still the overarching parallel of the night raid, in which the enemy guards are killed silently in their sleep; the raid’s connection with an attempted rescue; the chance moment that leads to the tragic death; the imagery of the flash of light; and the distraught reaction of Nisus and Túrin when they see that Euryalus and Beleg are dead. Tolkien read the Aeneid as a student and so would have been familiar with its contents.

There is also the fact that in some versions of the story Túrin kisses Beleg on the mouth in this scene. Although kissing someone on the mouth has not always been a romantic gesture in all cultures and time periods, the clear parallels to the scene in the Aeneid lead me to think that it is in this case. Whether you see the relationship between Túrin and Beleg as romantic is up to you—all that I’m trying to do is show that it’s a legitimate interpretation.

Ultimately, like I wrote here, I don’t think you need permission from anyone in order to interpret Tolkien’s stories the way you want to. If you want to interpret one of his characters as gay, you don’t need to cite obscure plotlines from the Aeneid to justify it. But I do take issue with the idea—which is so pervasive in the fandom—that Tolkien’s stories must not have gay, or bisexual, or trans people in them, and that any interpretations to that effect are against canon. At the end of the day, Middle-earth is supposed to be our world, and guess what? Queer people exist.

#lotr #tolkien #lord of the rings #silmarillion #my writing #Most of the people I encounter in the Tolkien fandom are either members of the LGBTQ community themselves or supportive of it #but once in a while the homophobes rear their ugly heads #I’ve been wanting to write a post about the Beleg/Turin/Nisus/Euryalus parallel for a while now #Plus I’m a Latin nerd myself and also studied the Aeneid in school!#For the record I call that plot line obscure because it’s obscure nowadays but I don’t think it would have been obscure to Tolkien #like I said in the post #and the parallel really adds to the romantic subtext between Beleg and Turin #I do believe it was intentional

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sweetdonutsart · 3 months

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Dom & Mor 🐈‍⬛🐍🥺💕✨

this was supposed to go up during the anniversary month but happy 1 year anniversary to my friend @dyemelikeasunset comic Dom & Mor! i found out about this comic and met them last year through instagram and they’ve been such a amazing and caring person to get to know and have been a big inspiration into getting me to try comic making! the first 1 is recent Christmas gift art and the last 2 are part of a commission for Naf circa July 2023. thank you for sharing your babygirls with the world and letting us see how brilliant and sweet they are as a couple 🥺💕💖

#my artwork #other people's ocs #dyemelikeasunset #comission #gift art #dom & mor #sapphic #lgbtq characters #i will scream from the top of the mountains for ppl to read this comic #it’s so sweet and also so in depth with nuance about the characters #seeing them unfold over time has been the highlight of my year last year #go support naf and their work!

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novelconcepts · 9 months

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Watching my mom evolve over the years has been such a fun experience. For context, she's got nine kids (at least five of whom have turned out to be queer; at least four of those have turned out to be non-binary), and for most of my life, she was just your average Gen-X Irish-Italian Catholic mom. She didn't really do vocal homophobia or whatever, but she also clearly didn't know how to handle it when her firstborn interrupted a Red Wings game to announce, "I think I'm gay." (Spoiler alert: that was me at fifteen or sixteen. In retrospect, of course the Tomboy For Life who had never been remotely interested in boys but was ALWAYS talking about actresses/female friends at school a bit too much wound up being gay. And announcing it. During a hockey game. Of course.)

She also didn't really know how to handle that same kid starting to date in college, bringing a girl home, and so on. She did a bit better when the next kid came out as a lesbian, but when that kid came out as non-binary (shout-out to that sib for doing some of the heavy lifting first), it was a whole new deal. It clearly had never crossed her mind before, that this might come up. Gay? She was figuring out gay. Gender stuff? Whew. A shiny new Pokemon of a situation.

The changed pronouns have been a bit difficult for my mom. The new names still get jumbled. (In fairness, the old names got jumbled, too--it was always a laundry list of names before she got to yours, no matter what you went by, because there were just so goddamned MANY of us.) It gets harder when she's stressed, and sometimes she just seems not to be getting it. I know it frustrates my siblings deeply. It can grate on me, too. You just want people to understand out the gate, to take you at your word, to shift gears without a slip-up. You don't want the awkward conversations, the painful skips, the rough patches. It's tempting to just give up on people if they don't stick the landing immediately.

But if you look a bit deeper, there's such a soft mama bear energy to my mom. Such a stubborn determination to get it right where it really counts. My mother, who never once skipped Sunday mass as I was growing up, has left the church completely because "they don't treat my family well." My mother, who once told me not to bring a girl home because it might confuse the youngest children, bought Converse sneakers expressly for my wedding to a woman. And my mother, who had never known the word non-binary, who didn't seem aware of the trans umbrella at all before her kids started huddling beneath it, keeps leaping to tell me all about the shows she's watching lately. The ones where "there's a non-binary character, and it's so cool that people can see that now!" The ones where "and this one is non-binary, and they're so great, and maybe it'll teach the shitty politicians of the world that they're just people, you know?"

Sometimes you just have to give people a little space. Let them stumble occasionally. They're going to. They're going to trip up. My mom hurt my feelings so many times when I was young, said so many of the wrong things right on the heels of the right ones, confused and upset me because I couldn't understand why she just didn't get it. But here she is, almost sixty years old, and so gleeful to tell me about the power of queer representation on TV. She doesn't always get it right, but goddamn, does she love her kids, and goddamn, does she want the world to love people like her kids, too.

#lgbtq #queer stuff #i love my mom #watching her go from an 'eh politics whatever' catholic to someone who actively pays attention #watching her and my dad put love is love signs up in their yard #watching them work to untangle decades of thought patterns to figure out how to support their kids and people like them #it takes time. it takes more time than you'd like sometimes. but it's been so reassuring #people change. they can grow. they can learn. and they can be powered by love above all else #that's just the fucking best #and so is my mom

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the-mountain-flower · 10 days

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Revisited a story that was very important to me as a child, and learned about the author being very vocal about the harm gender roles & stereotypes cause. I thought "oh that's great!" but was afraid. What if she only applied that logic to cis ppl?

I did some searching, and found out that not only does she support trans ppl, but has also spoken multiple times about how important it is to be able to see protagonists outside of the perceived norm. A.K.A., she doesn't see my very existence as wrong.

I let out a deep sigh of relief. I could continue to enjoy this thing that had been so important to me growing up.

But this isn't the first time something like this has happened. Too often I discover a new artist, or even be unsure of one I've enjoyed the work of for a long time up to the present; and I have to desperately search to know if I can enjoy their work. Either I am extremely relieved, or absolutely crushed.

This shouldn't be necessary. I shouldn't be feeling this deep fear that something so important to me, was created by someone who despises my very existence. That I, as a disabled queer femme ex-mormon Pagan witch who was raised like a girl, will be shoved off the emotional cliff of "this person you looked up to hates you for the same reason all bigots do".

I was so terrified that something that meant so much to me as a kid could've shattered me emotionally. Simply because I didn't know if the person who made it hates people like me.

We shouldn't have to live like this.

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thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai · 28 days

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Cherry Magic has graced anime fans with the first gay marriage in anime history. That coming from a country where same-sex marriage is still quite some lightyears away from becoming legal, is huge. The first spirtually recognised same-sex marriage in Japan dates back to 2016. Although society has becoming more accepting over the past few years and queer activists keep fighting for equal rights, queer people in Japan are still being discriminated (this Wikipedia article on LGBT rights in Japan is quite comprehensive about the legal situation). If you want to know what that's like, read Ryousuke Nanasaki's honest and down-to-earth biography Until I Meed My Husband--he's an LGBTQ+ activist and the lucky guy who, together with his partner, made history as the first gay couple getting married at a shrine.

At present, Japan is the only G7 nation that neither recognises same-sex marriage nor has a law to protect queer minorities. As of 2023, the current ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), regards homosexuality as a disorder and claims it can be healed with spiritual practices and therapy, and that same-sex unions should be discouraged because they destroy the traditional image of family and society.

Please let that sink in for a moment.

But then I see people (mostly on the bird site, I think) screaming "But my favourite gay anime should have been the first to have a gay marriage!!! LOOK WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US!!1!!111!!!1"™

Embarrassingly, most of these people are from my own fandom. And I'm seriously wondering whether these people are okay if this is all they care about.

YOI was very progressive for the time it was made in (it aired in the same year Ryousuke Nanasaki married his partner in a shrine). But when you start digging and read the interviews with the creators and put them into context with the reactions from Japanese anime fans, the reality of queers living there, and the obstacles the director had to overcome to make her vision reality, you can't unsee that YOI was too progressive for it's time.

Sometimes I wonder if growing up in a country that has estabilshed marriage equality years ago, makes people blind to overlook the systematic queerphobia queer people face in countries with a still mostly conservative collective mindset, even more so as seeing a country through the lens of fiction doesn't give a realistic picture of its society and the struggles its marginalised groups face (especially when these struggles aren't portrayed realistically in those works). And this is such a weird ironic since the queer stories we love with all our heart because they paint a the picture of a queer utopia are born from this society.

Progress isn't a linear process and it doesn't happen overnight. Two steps forward can mean one step back. If you push too far before society is ready for it, brace yourself for the backlash. No groundbreaking achievement has the power to tear down the walls of conservative stubbornness, it rather antagonises the people who have the means to thwart you.

If you struggle with accepting this, if you think that your selfish desire to get more of your favourite anime is more important than queer rights, if you are convinced that some animation studio owes you and make it the fulcrum of your very existence, I ask you politely and in all seriousness to please go touch some grass, educate yourself, and come back when you've found the plot again.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Japanese citizen and I don't live in Japan. I gathered these information from people living there (expats and natives), the Japan Times, Wikipedia, translations of interviews with the YOI staff, and my own research.

#jen's mind vomit #anime #lgbtq rights #marriage equality #japan #media literacy #watch Cherry Magic read the manga watch the live action #read until I meed my husband #please please educate yourself on the culture your favourite media come from #celebrate progress and support queer people everywhere #“BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU WEREN'T THERE WHEN YOI AIRED!1!!!!1”#I don't need to understand I get it completely #please look at the whole picture ffs

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shakespeare-official-account · 2 months

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I’ve been seeing a lot of posts regarding Nex Benedict, and I did some research on the topic (I hadn’t really heard a lot about it until it popped up on my dash) . What happened to him was absolutely disgusting, and in response to all the posts that are standing up for trans and nonbinary rights, I just wanted to say: thank you, good job and keep going. The fact that trans people have to fight for the right to simply live is one of the most horribly unfair, tragic and ridiculous things today’s world. LGBTQIA+ Community, please know that you deserve to live as yourself, and not what the transphobic assholes want you to be. It’s up to everyone else in this world, LGBTQIA+ or not, to make sure bullshit like this doesn’t happen ever again, to anyone. So, if you’re reading this, please do not hesitate to stand up for the rights of every queer person in the whole damned world. You can spread awareness, you can befriend and support your local nb kid, you can donate, you can protest against these homophobic/transphobic people you find responsible for things like Nex Benedict’s murder. Yes, it was murder, plain and simple, and I truly hope that this cold-blooded killing and hurting of LGBT children finally stops when people see the truth. Not only about Nex Benedict, but also about the fact that trans/nb rights are human rights, and the LGBT children we see deserve to grow up to be adults. Fly high, Nex.

#nex benedict #trans rights #transgender #lgbtq community #lgbtqia #please don’t hesitate to support trans people #Nex deserved to live #Edit: In response to a reply:#yes i knew that Nex was nonbinary

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gravehags · 6 months

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ghost fandom if you’re actively making and interacting with mlm ghost fic/content, but are “triggered” or “grossed out” by wlw fic and content i have nothing to say to you except choke. i know what you are.

#‘I’m a queer ally’ no you’re fucking not #’I don’t want to see that kind of content’ have you asked yourself why #you can’t cherry pick like that either you support the lgbtq community or you don’t and lesbians and bi people are apart of that #bye #the band ghost

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uncanny-tranny · 8 months

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So, so many queer people, I've noticed, can put themselves in precarious situations wherein they feel accepted by people and the queer person would do anything for those who accept them, even if it is harmful to them, even if it is scary. It feels like you are indebted to those who accept you because you know that isn't the case for every person you meet. To so many queer people, they are afraid to upset others who accept them (or "accept" them) because they are so scared of rejection. This is completely human and completely normal. But that doesn't mean you deserve to be taken advantage of. You deserve to be treated as an equal because you inherently are an equal - to everybody.

Please know that the people who truly, truly respect and care for you will understand when you can't do everything. They will still respect you, because you are a human being. Saying "no" is neutral at worst. You deserve to honour yourself, too.

#queer #lgbt #lgbtq #i felt this (and feel this) so hard as a trans person and i think that can easily become dangerous...#...because saying 'no' is vital i think. it's something i am so bad at in part because of my queerness and not feeling accepted by it...#...and yes we are responsible for this part of ourselves but also... it does make you vulnerable #genuine support is very important but that isn't the same as being indebted to people for being accepting you know?#i just worry for other queer people who also feel this way and i just want us all to feel more confident in our place and what we deserve...#...because we deserve good things! we deserve to let others down without worrying that we are terrible awful people who won't be accepted

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theforesteldritch · 4 months

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If you claim to accept genderfluid people while not understanding that for some people gender has changed and they’re now a trans man but were a girl or vice versa and trying to police how we identify ourself you don’t support genderfluid and trans people Im sorry. Some of us were always our gender, some of us used to be x and are now y, for some of us that changes regularly, for some of us we’re both but may lean one way or the other more or have that change and it still doesn’t invalidate that we’re both. Some of us are non binary and some of us aren’t. Some genderfluid peoples gender shifts relatively regularly and some multigender people do feel half man and half woman but that’s not a universal experience. I’m mostly genderfluid and sometimes feel my gender as more close to man or more close to woman and I’m mostly a trans man because of how my gender currently is but I’m bigender and transfemmasc because I’m intersex and bigender and my genders aren’t percentages, no matter how I feel aligned, I’m always fully a man and I’m always fully a woman. Just. People have gotta be better about multigender and genderfluid people and those of us where it might be complicated, or where it might not fit into your narrow understanding of genderfluidity or having multiple genders, because if your support for us ends with those of us that fit into your ideas of gender and fluidity it’s not support.

#‘Men and nonmembers are separate mutually exclusive categories and also sexuality is based on that dichotomy’#quick what’s your opinion on multigender and genderfluid people are you accepting of how we label our genders and sexualities?#Because you might say you’re supportive but I don’t think you are sorry #moth rambles #genderfluid #multigender #trans #lgbtq

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sirenium · 4 months

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Hey radinclus is NOT the same thing as radqueer please don't act like it is thanks

#yeah random rant yeah #'radqueer/radinclus' dear those are different things #one is inclusive of queer people (radinclus) and the other supports shit like transautism #the notion that you can transition into being autistic. and I'll say it #that is fucking weird as fuck #the radqueer community has also stolen terms like transabled from people with BIID #a mental disorder that causes dysphoria surrounding having eye sight or a limb etc #(we support those with BIID in this house)#they've also stolen transage from the chronosian community I think #radqueers harm already fucked over communities and to say being accepting of mspec lesbians is the same thing is #...awful. absolutely disgusting #radinclu #rad inclus #radinclus #lgbtq #lgbt #queer

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hole-therapy · 1 year

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For those who would like to see me put things inside of my butt or watch me touch myself, please visit the link below for directions on how to do so.

#Also please let me know specifically what you do/don't like!#I wanna make sure that I know what people respond positively to so that I can do more of it #I'd be open to doing custom videos for those who would be interested #I could really use the support this month #me #self #my body #gay #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #twink #slay #woof

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crvstybowlofcereal · 11 months

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Hey, I have a genuine question and I really don't want to come across as hateful or ignorant, but I am ignorant in a way and would like to learn!

Is aplatonic an LGBTQ+ identity?

It doesn't related to romantic or sexual attraction, nor gender identity, so I am unsure. I think the opinion of cishet people is not relevant to this conversation. I also think that the opinion of non-aplatonic people barely matters at all, and that the opinion of aplatonic people matters most.

So, as a non-aplatonic person, I want to know what you guys think!

PLEASE NO INVALIDATING APLATONIC PEOPLE

For that matter, no invalidating any identities that are not harming anyone.

#i may not personally fully understand aplatonisism but i still support you and you are valid!#aplatonic #lgbtq #lgbt #poll #please reblog #please tag aplatonic people #i want to know what yall think and learn from you guys!

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avi17 · 2 years

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Maybe I'm just seeing more of this than usual since I'm in my biggest fandom in a long time but like. I feel like the kids today have very much forgotten that you're allowed to just...ship a thing. You're allowed to think the characters had interesting potential and just. Do the thing. You don't have to dissect eye movement and body language and where people are standing and stuff to prove it's canon- that stuff is chemistry, and it can be real and present without it being intentional. Doesn't make it any less real, but also doesn't make it some kind of conspiracy- there are movies from 70 years ago where actors had interesting chemistry that comes off homoerotic, but that certainly doesn't mean they were playing it that way on purpose. You don't have to wildly skew stuff actors say in interviews either, putting words in people's mouths is actually a little creepy.

I think we're at the point with queer representation and canon queer ships where we've had enough of it turn out to be real that we want it to always be real, and we feel like we have to prove it is real to feel valid in shipping it. I'm here to tell you that you don't have to do that.

I'm not saying those ships SHOULDN'T be canon, I'd love them to be. In some cases the story would be way better if they were. But you don't have to prove they were Canon All Along to be allowed to enjoy them. And if you hinge your enjoyment of a piece of media made by cishet people on the idea that the actors are going to confirm your ship was canon, or feel like you have to validate your ship by insisting it will become canon, I feel like you're just gonna end up disappointed.

#stranger things #steddie #byler #stranger things 4 #st4 #like. guys #when Joseph quinn was asked about steddie he made a joke and then was like idk man people can dream #I'm glad he's not a homophobe and is cool joking about it but that doesn't mean it's canon or that he's the captain of the steddie ship #WE are the captains and that is totally fine #and the byler kids i just. i worry about you guys #i fully support you guys but i also just honestly don't think you're gonna get what you want and are so convinced will happen #and i feel like this fandom is gonna get NASTY on both sides at that point #i just. oof #queer shipping #lgbtq+#ok addendum I'm seeing this post being liked by mileven people who are being dicks to the byler people #and just so we're clear this is not for you either #the fact that your het ship is likely to be canon in a story written by straight people doesn't make it better and you are also being jerks #gonna put all you kids in time out like mama Steve

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