The Snowflake Challenge; day 11

[scripsi]

I fell behind on the challenge, but I’d like to finish it anyway. But for some reason Day 10 is taking forever for me to get done, so I jump to 11.

Day 11

Share a book/song/movie/tv show/fanwork/etc that changed your life. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

When I was eight my father started to read Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings for me. Both my parents read aloud for me, and before Tolkien my father had read all the Narnia-books for me, which I had loved. LOTR was something else. Before I had often re-enacted favorite stories with my toys, taking care to mimic the book as close as i could. LOTR opened up my imagination in a completely new way. I don’t know why; perhaps it was the sense of an universe which expanded far beyond the books. And there was Strider who at first was so ambiguous and mysterious. Before he and the hobbit’s had reached Rivendell, my imagination was working overtime, and I thought of what I hear din a new way.

For ten years I reread the trilogy over and over again, a well as everything else I could find by Tolkien. And I made up stories. Lots of stories. If I found Tolkien lacking in anything, it was the absence of female characters, so at the beginning I simply made up an extra in the fellowship who could be Legolas sister or a hobbit girl, who basically just followed along. Then they started to get their own storylines. I remember one about a young Dunadan woman who never was directly involved with the fellowship, but still was affected by the events. I’m afraid there was a number of stunningly beautiful elf maidens with silver hair and purple eyes. I distinctly remember one with eyes that changed colour after mood too.

I never wrote any of these stories down, apart from short synopsis, but it was certainly fanfiction. Hopelessly Masry Sue-ish fanfiction, I’m sure. But LOTR was for me the book which made me realise you could take a finished work and create something new out of it. Even if it took me another 20 years, or so, before I actually started to write. And by then i had long left Tolkien behind. I haven’t read the books since I was around twenty. I still know them by heart, though.

Comments

[spikedluv]

What a lovely story! Thank you for sharing it. ♥

[scripsi]

Thank you!

[oldtoadwoman]

I haven't re-read these in years. I think I was about 11 when I first tried to read Lord of the Rings, but I didn't have the attention span to get very far. At some point, I read The Hobbit and I think I was about 16 when I actually read LOTR for real. I remember feeling absolutely betrayed when I got to the end of the first book and it was a cliffhanger. Up until that, my experience was with series where you just had recurring characters in otherwise stand-alone stories. I didn't grasp ahead of time that the trilogy was one single story that was broken into parts mainly because you couldn't lift the thing if it was all one volume.

The odd thing is that at the time I didn't even notice the lack of female characters. (It wasn't until the films came along that it struck me.) It goes a long way in demonstrating how even female readers are accustomed to normalizing male as the default. I love that it prompted you to create your own characters. And if any universe could get away with stunningly beautiful elf maidens with color-changing eyes, Middle Earth would be it. :-)

(I used to draw alien women--sometimes blue, sometimes with cat ears--and my classic Mary Sue was a space smuggler who dressed in a Han Solo vest, but had long dark braids like Princess Leia.)

The thing is... we've all been sort of trained to look back at our "terrible Mary Sue stories" as bad when there are so many less-probably male characters out there. And usually, the main thing that was bad about them was just that we were young and inexperienced and if we wrote them now they'd be lovely. But as we mature as writers, we make a conscious effort to avoid anything that might be seen as "just a Mary Sue" story, which means fewer kick-ass original female characters in those male-centric universes that could really use a few more female characters. (When I look at my own fanfic, it's embarrassing how few have any significant female characters at all.)

[scripsi]

I haven't re-read these in years.

I really should read them again- in English. I’ve actually only read the first Swedish translation. It is, in it’s own way, spectacular, but, well, the translator, Åke Ohlmarks, had some very odd ideas. He actually re-wrote several passages, as well as making other changes. In the end he quarrelled with both Tolkien as well as Christopher Tolkien and wrote a revenge book where he accused Tolkine of a number of unsavory things. Ohlmark’s was a respected professor, which I guess is why it was published, but it’s actually inase gibberish. And i digress. Anyway, My interest in the books had waned by the point my English was good enough to manage reading it in its original language.

The odd thing is that at the time I didn't even notice the lack of female characters. (It wasn't until the films came along that it struck me.) It goes a long way in demonstrating how even female readers are accustomed to normalizing male as the default.

It does. :) But the lack of female character never sat well with me- even as a child. I loved fantasy, which was really hard to find in Sweden in the late 70’s/early 80’s, and I remember how satisfied I always felt when I found any where the main character was female.

(I used to draw alien women--sometimes blue, sometimes with cat ears--and my classic Mary Sue was a space smuggler who dressed in a Han Solo vest, but had long dark braids like Princess Leia.)

Sounds awesome!

The thing is... we've all been sort of trained to look back at our "terrible Mary Sue stories" as bad when there are so many less-probably male characters out there

You are right. A lot of heroes out there are clearly wish-fulfillments. I was a shy teenage who had any confidence about my looks bullied away, and it was such a relief to imagine up someone who was everything I wasn’t. And a Mary Sue doesn’t necessarily have to be badly written- even if she often is. As you say it’s probably a matter of age- a lot of the bad Mary Sue-fic I have read seems to have been written by young and inexperienced writers. And in truth, a Mary Sue isn’t necessarily an OC, it is as likely named after a canon character, but the writer lacks the skill to write them in character.

(When I look at my own fanfic, it's embarrassing how few have any significant female characters at all.)

I’m the opposite- virtually every fanfic I have written have significant female characters. :D

[thenewbuzwuzz]

That's wonderful ^^

[scripsi]

Thank you!

[motodraconis]

Ah yes, I had a similar love of LOTR, I think I started reading it at 12, and I kept it by my bed for several years. Loved my Tolkien Bestiary and got into drawing endless super-scaly dragons like the one on the cover.

Less keen on it now, the lack of decent female characters and the super-perfect in every way precious elves get on my tits. (Why do they get to live forever looking perfect in perfect land while the humans get the shitty end of the stick?)

[scripsi]

Oh yes- I loved the Tolkien Bestiary too! And drawing dragons. :)

The Elves are annoying, aren't they? And I also preferred ambigious Strider with green Eyes over perfect hero Aragon whith, inexlicable suddenly grey eyes, later in the trilogy.

[chelseagirl]

I just decided that Merry was female. Later on I discovered that quite a few other women I knew had done the same.

[scripsi]

As a Child I though Merry was a girl as his name read female to me. i was very disappointed when I realised she wasn't.

I remember a column I once read where a woman decided to read Bilbo for her son with making Bilbo female. It worked very well. :)

[dragonyphoenix]

Oh, that's a lovely story. Thanks for sharing.

[scripsi]

Thank you for reading!

[thisbluespirit]

Aww, that's very cool. :-)

[scripsi]

Thank you!