| October 5, 2007 |
 |
One new Lanugage fanon dealing with the use of elvish words in otherwise english sentences. |
|
Two new hobbits fanons. One dealing with the literacy of hobbits and the other dealing with the effect of the Ent draught on Merry and Pippin. |
|
All entries in this site are stored in a massive XML file that the software for the website manipulates. The XML file can be found here. You are free to use it but given that it took me months and years to build it up, I would like to be acknowledged. |
Before proceeding further, I suppose I should inform all visitors to the site what I mean by canon, fanon and all the likes in terms of Tolkien's work. Here goes,
Canon: For the purposes of this site, canon is anything that was published during Tolkien's lifetime; i.e. "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit". I am aware that Tolkien revised both of these books multiple times, "Lord of the Rings" twice and "The Hobbit" four times. I thought it only fair that just the final versions of these books be considered "binding canon", given that these revisions were decades apart and, in the mean time, the world of Arda took better shape in the mind of Tolkien; i.e. if you write a fanfic that diverges from the final edition then you should label your fic alternative universe (AU). You are of course welcome to disagree with me.
Quasi-canon: This is the material contained in "The Silmarillion", "Unfinished tales" and "History of Middle-earth". It is not quite canon because we have no idea what the final form these materials were to take since Tolkien himself never finished working on them. Also, some of the materials in these books contradict each other either explicitly or implicitly, but since ultimately the source of the material in these books is J.R.R Tolkien himself they cannot be disregarded entirely. Some, myself included, hold everything in these books to be canon and use whichever story arc catches our fancy and do not feel compelled to label our fics AUs, since strictly speaking they are not. Once again, I am certain many people will disagree with me.
Fanon: Fanon are inventions of fan fiction authors that for one reason or another appear to have taken the status of a canon within the Tolkien's fandom. I.e. it is believed that these ideas were put forward by Professor Tolkien himself, which of course is not the case.
Quasi-fanon: These are interpretations and extrapolations made by fan fiction authors based on material written by Tolkien himself. However, since the good professor did not make these conjectures, at the end of the day, they are still just fandom inventions.
The Tolkien fandom is one of the few fandoms where fanon is easier to define than Canon. To begin with, most fandoms do not have quasi-canons; moreover, Tolkien wrote his work from the perspective of a textual archaeologist who had discovered parchments, books of lore and the like, telling of a time long ago. Thus, often Tolkien makes only vague comments about his work, saying, "this is most likely what had happened", "he thinks this had happened", as opposed to stating, “this is how things unfolded”. As such, this site will be identifying and cataloguing fanon; i.e. ideas, concepts and terms that did not originate from Tolkien. The inspiration for this site came when I noticed that multiple authors were using the same fandom inventions. At first I paid it no mind but it soon became clear that some of these authors mistakenly believed that some of these fandom inventions were actually things that Tolkien himself suggested. This disturbed me, more so because I have read that Tolkien himself was opposed to groups of people imposing their views and interpretation of his world on others. As such the purpose of this site is only to identify fandom inventions that appear as though they are being adopted as the word of Tolkien. I will make every effort to withhold my personal views and keep my opinion from interfering, since I do not want to become a source of fanon myself. All I will do is provide you with information and direct you to the proper location so that you can make up your own mind.
So have fun and enjoy your stay!
-Tinni