News and Views: Why Elf Slash?
Originally Posted March 6, 2002, Expanded June 15th, 2002
Gentle Readers,
It's a website, not least because of the beautiful Knives in the Dark art and the story The Thrall of Gondolin. The art is graciously provided by Nanyalin in Spain - praise her with great praise! At the time I created this site, The Thrall of Gondolin didn't seem to fit into any existing archives. Since then, the Tolkien fanfiction community has expanded to accept both darker stories and Silmarillion-based stories.
Most of the pieces on this site "slash", i.e., homoeroticize, the characters of Tolkien's elves. Why slash Tolkien's elves? Why a darker turn to several of these stories? Writing about Tolkien's elves provides a rich setting for fantasy-based erotic stories that deal with transgression, power, age differences, and sadness. I write as close to canon and as in-character as I possibly can, considering what I've got the characters doing.
The first slash story I did, Knives in the Dark, was written because I thought Haldir looked slappable in the Fellowship of the Ring movie. When I wanted to do a second slash, I started analyzing Tolkien's back-story to see if I could find or create any justification for S/M sex. I realized that Elves' long-term culture and sexuality are the best defined for any of the peoples Tolkien created in Middle-Earth.
There's a lot to work with, and plenty of inspiration for fiction to fill in the narrative and character gaps. Most of these stories lean towards slash because of the preponderance of male characters with interesting dynamics in Tolkien. I enjoy female characters and het stories, too, so some het material will appear from me, from time to time.
This writing has turned into a strange blend of character development and creative exploration of Middle-Earth. Including sexuality as part of that exploration completes the picture. I've been reading some of the folkloric material that inspired Tolkien, such as the Kalevala and medieval poems, and these old tales often have sexuality twined into their warp and weft. The sexuality in the "source materials" is often harsh and transgressive. I have tried to pull those folkloric threads into these fantasy stories. Epic, tragic sex is presented as a match for Tolkien's epic, tragic characters.
I hope you enjoy them. Please keep the feedback coming.