Was tolkien gay
It was inevitable that the LGBT movement would eventually claim J.R.R. Tolkien. Those cultural figures too towering to be toppled and too beloved to be cancelled must be co-opted to attend the new governing ideology: their perform misinterpreted; their lives pored over for the slightest hint of anything that can be called “queer”; their perform forcibly mutated beyond all recognition. In short, they must transition. Truth no longer matters because we can now identify things precisely as we choose.
Thus, the process of queering Tolkien has begun, especially as Amazon prepares to launch their unused series based on his work (into which they own already sunk hundreds of millions of dollars). One journalist penned a lengthy essay last year insisting that Sam and Frodo were gay, which is perhaps inevitable in a world that is increasingly incapable of distinguishing intimacy from sex. (Sam’s marriage to Rose and their thirteen children is, apparently, irrelevant, as is the noticeable truth that Tolkien would not own included, even covertly, a gay passion, being as he was, a traditionalist Catholic with views on sexuality are precisely what you’d expect them to be).
Over at T absynthe--minded asked So why can’t elves be gay? thranduil-blog So first of all, J.R.R Tolkien was a VERY solemn Catholic. In the bible it says: Leviticus 20:13 “If a man practices homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman, both men own committed a detestable act. They must both be put to death, for they are responsible of a capital offense." In England, until 1960, being homosexual was considered as a mental illness. Tolkien died 1973, which means he grew up around the thought that being homosexual was a mental illness. Plus he was raised by a Catholic priest since age 12, when his mother died. He distributed the same beliefs, and would never consider making any of his characters homosexual. According to Tolkien’s biographer, he did not even know the word “homosexual” until he was 19. He read Greek and Celtic mythologies so obviously knew that queer people existed. And even if he read them that does not mean he FULLY enjoyed them. For example, can you imagine Manwe cheating on Varda and impregnating a million girls?! There is no way for homosexual Elves to get married. Even if homosexual Anonymous asked: unpopular opinion: tolkien knew about gay people and deliberately put them in his books (Unpopular Opinions meme!) strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree As a gay(tm) who has loved Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit since I was a babey, I have very Complicated emotions about this lol. On one hand: yes, Tolkien knew and venerated many of his queer contemporaries, and a lot of the homoeroticism in his books is based on legends/folklore that were Even More homoerotic. The idea that Tolkien just didn’t know homosexuality existed because gay people were apparently invented in 2003 is ridiculous. Etc, etc. And I deeply empathize with the desire to verify that the gay subtext in the original books was intentional. Like: there's a bit in the commentary of the PJ films where gay performer Ian McKellan talks about how he deliberately tried to ensure the homoerotic elements of the novel were preserved, like the scene in Rivendell where Frodo wakes up and Sam immediately rushes over to take his hand. And when I first heard that bit of the commentary, it changed the scene forever for me? There was something really special about knowing thatIP: build.mcmiddleearth.com
This is a topic that has been hotly debated both in-game and on Discord, and a few weeks ago I found myself in just such a debate. (This is how it went down: one party made a joke about homosexual Elves. Another party immediately took offence and insisted that the mere notion of gay Elves breaks canon. And so an argument began.) The debate seemed to conclude on the decision that Elves can only be heterosexual because they are (to simply matters) biologically primed to conform to Tolkien’s orthodox Catholic views. However, the arguments given never sat well with me, so I wanted badly to revisit this topic, and this time in a setting much more controlled and easy to hold track of: the forums. (It only took me so long because I had builds to work on.)
What I will be doing in this upload is to quote all the relevant arguments, and contradict them as optimal I can, and concede where I can’t. So-doing I will attempt to demonstrate how, despite whatever Tolkien’s retain views may include bee