Tolkien, His Gnarly Canon, and His Authority by Dawn Walls-Thumma

Back in March, I considered the question of canon and authority through Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data, specifically looking at three groups of participants and how they handled questions of authority in their fanfiction. What emerged was the complex ways in which different fans regard the authority of Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien, scholars, filmmakers, and fellow fans. This month, I want to drill down into how fanfiction authors regard Tolkien's authority.

As I wrote in the last article, Western culture has come to regard some people as having more authority over a creative work than others. The original creator would certainly be in this group—though not without caveats, as adaptations of books that flout the author's intentions don't generally raise much hullabaloo. This is because we have also come to see "rights"—which can be purchased—as granting the authority to change a text. People who deeply engage with and care about a text—fans, in other words—are not typically seen as having this authority. If you've ever read through a comment section that leans anti-fanfic, you'll be familiar with the arguments that liken fanfiction writers to all sorts of scoundrels and criminals.

Fan studies scholars, on the other hand, typically theorize that fanworks creators see authority differently. They do see themselves as having the authority to change another creator's published work for any reason at all, with the assumption that fanfiction writers do exactly this. Fan studies scholarship abounds with examples of fans flouting the original creator's authority for reasons noble and profound (e.g., centering the perspectives of characters from marginalized groups) to simple wish fulfillment (e.g., putting two characters in bed together who aren't involved in the original text). What is less often explored is the ways that fanfiction writers simultaneously make fanworks and are constrained by authority: appropriate ways to use the original texts and what changes it is acceptable to make.

But in my almost two decades in Tolkien fanfiction fandom, I've never believed it is that simple for Tolkien fandom (and others as well). Most of us respect Tolkien's authority to some degree. While some fanfiction writers would agree with the statement, "I'm willing to change anything about Tolkien's works that I want," most would not. The Tolkien Fanfiction Survey, which I ran in 2015 and 2020, the latter in collaboration with Maria K. Alberto, looks at three of these possible constraints: facts, morality, and Tolkien's inferred approval. The survey included writers and readers of Tolkien-based fanfiction, though I'm just looking at results from authors this time. Most items offered five possible responses: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree, or No Opinion/Not Sure. When I use the small-a "agree," I include respondents who chose Agree or Strongly Agree, and similarly for small-d "disagree." In the 2015 survey, there were 1,052 participants, 642 of whom were fanfiction authors, and in 2020 there were 746 participants, 496 of whom were authors.

Canon Is Gnarly

Our most recent Fandom Voices article asked fans—and fanfiction writers specifically—how they define "Tolkien's canon." Coming out of that research, the word that came first to mind was gnarly. Not only does the tree (canon) have lots of branches (considerations), those branches overlap and entangle with each other. They are sometimes infested with problems that make them less stable than we'd like—sometimes apt to collapse entirely. (But they grow leaves and sometimes fruit, which might germinate into new gnarly trees!)

First of all, the corpus of Tolkien's writings is vast and complex. Most fans have not read all of Tolkien's books, most of which were posthumously published. They do not form a linear narrative but, for the most part, either illustrate how Christopher Tolkien constructed the (posthumous) Silmarillion or offer texts—some of them finished essays, some of them scrawls on scraps of paper—that build on previous texts. Most of this material was in draft form and shows a writer at work in the pre-digital age, i.e., it consists of various drafts with varying degrees of legibility, layers of revisions on a single document, and often uncertain dateability. Christopher Tolkien could not possibly represent all of this information (though he did a commendable job in giving us access to as much as he could). All of these texts show the changes and contradictions familiar to a writer coaxing out a story. Even when the dates—or at least the order of composition—of these texts can be determined, a "final word" doesn't make something established canon. Many writers—and Tolkien appeared to be among them—play with ideas that they later decide not to use, which may or may not be changed in the writing itself.

The texts themselves pose numerous difficulties as well. As most literature does, they offer a limited point of view, and some respondents to the Fandom Voices survey mentioned narrative bias in particular. Tolkien also cared deeply about achieving accuracy in scientific topics like botany and astronomy. At what point can we assume scientific facts from our Primary World apply equally in Middle-earth? Can we extend this to disciplines Tolkien didn't necessarily consider to the same extent, such as psychology, economics, and political science?

Add to this the dozens of adaptations of Tolkien's work (the two film trilogies, most famously, but also games, animated films, radio plays, art, collectibles, and now the Rings of Power show) that, for some fans, form part of their canon. Finally, all this making-of-fanworks typically happens in fan communities that are constantly discussing and interpreting the canon in a collective and collaborative manner. In the Fandom Voices survey, several fans mentioned difficulty discerning when fact shades into inference into interpretation. Communities shape these discussions and when "interference" or "interpretation" may shade into "fact." In one community, the Fëanorians are misguided freedom fighters; in another, they are war criminals. What is "canon" is shaped here by the social milieu. Finally, fans develop their own ideas, called headcanons or verses, which sometimes gain traction within their community and become fanon: fan-generated ideas that carry some of the force of canon. When does any of this become canon? Does it ever?

Just the Facts?

Given all of this, teasing out "the facts" from the canon is probably doomed to fail. Nonetheless, most Tolkien fans begin with a set of character, setting, and plot points that they assume as factual within Tolkien's world. How important is it, when writing fanfiction, to adhere to those facts in your stories?

Facts don't get into the thornier territory of morality that historically have been a part of canon discussions in Tolkien fandom. They are what happened when and where and to whom: the most basic elements of the story, devoid of moral judgment or evaluation. (Of course, given the multiple competing drafts, even this can become complicated, but let's leave that aside from now.) This is a basic level of authority: that the story, as written by the original author, will be retained by fan authors who follow and embellish upon that story using the author's foundation of facts.

In 2015, an even half of fans agreed with the statement, "When writing fanfiction, it is important to me to stick to the facts that Tolkien gave in his books," and only about one in three would have disagreed. In 2020, we see this shift: now the same number of authors (44%) agree as disagree with the statement.

However, a plurality of participants chose "Agree," which shows the importance of details to the books to many Tolkien fanfiction writers. Anecdotally, many writers report doing research—sometimes extensive—on characters, events, or settings they have never written about before, and if you spend any amount of time among fanfiction writers in discussion with each other, checking in about the correctness of various canon facts is a common topic. (The SWG's Discord server has an #ask-a-loremaster channel for exactly this purpose, and it is one of our busier channels.)

At the same time, the number of participants who agreed with the statement dropped by six percentage points in five years. This could be a loosening of the reins where Tolkien's perceived authority is concerned. (This would not be the first time I wished for a time machine to go back to 2005 and give this survey because I do think this is part of what is happening.) It could also be explained by the historical context of the two datasets. The 2015 data was collected at the end of the Hobbit film trilogy, and major media adaptations of Tolkien have never failed to provoke a reactionary response among some fans, where a major means of engagement with the Tolkien fandom comes through opposing the "uncanonical" aspects of an adaptation. The 2015 survey may be picking up this frustration post-Hobbit trilogy among some fanfiction authors. 2020, on the other hand, occurred during a media lull, when the Hobbit films had largely faded from popular culture but the hype around the Rings of Power show had not yet begun. The 2020 data, then, may represent the attitudes of bookverse fans who are conversing primarily with other bookverse fans—not fans of media adaptations—who share the same set of "facts" as them rather than the defensiveness that tends to arise when fans of adaptations take details from those adaptations (not the books) as the canon for their fanfiction.

Seeking Approval

Perhaps nothing better exemplifies respect for the authority of the original creator than to aim for that creator's hypothetical approval of the stories you write. One survey sought to document the extent of this phenomenon among Tolkien fanfiction authors: "It is important to me to write stories that I think Tolkien would have approved of." In both 2015 and 2020, about 15% of authors agreed with this statement.

This is clearly a minority, but yet … it's nonetheless 15%. Put another way, get together with six fanfiction writers, and one of them will value Tolkien's perceived approval (and will presumably make choices around canon, interpretation, and writing in line with that perception). This is a minority, yes, but not an insignificant subset of Tolkien fanfiction authors.

Furthermore, the two other datasets under consideration in this article show a decrease in consideration of Tolkien's authority from 2015 to 2020. Here, they do not. This made me wonder if what we are seeing is a core group of Tolkien fanfiction writers who exhibit both a high regard for Tolkien's authority and an above-average commitment to the fandom, including longevity that has allowed them to carry forth attitudes about authority from an earlier generation of fans.

In order to test this hypothesis, I took a closer look at demographic data for this group of fans in the 2020 dataset. On average, authors were a median age of twenty-seven years and had been writing Tolkien fanfiction for a median of five years. Among those authors who agreed with this survey item, the median age was twenty-nine years with a median eight years writing. This group of fans, therefore, had participated longer in the fanfiction fandom than the average author.

In addition, this group of authors showed a higher degree of attachment or commitment to the Tolkien fandom relative to other fandoms than did authors overall. The survey asked three questions about participation in fandoms other than Tolkien:

• Do you write fanfiction for other fandoms?
• If you write fanfiction for other fandoms, would you define the Tolkien fandom as your primary fandom?
• Was Tolkien-based fanfiction the first kind of fanfiction that you wrote?

Authors in this group are monofandom at about the same rate as authors as a whole: 25% were monofandom compared with 23% for authors overall. The other two items show significant discrepancies between the two groups, however. Multifandom authors who agreed that they strive to write stories they think Tolkien would approve of identify Tolkien fandom as their "primary fandom" 62% of the time, and for 46% of them, Tolkien fanfiction was the first fanfiction they wrote. Authors as a whole only consider Tolkien their primary fandom 51% of the time, and Tolkien fanfiction was their first fanfiction only 38% of the time.

Putting all of these data together, a possible picture emerges. Many of these authors began writing fanfiction before the Hobbit films and migration to Tumblr resulted in cultural shifts within the fandom. They were more likely to be a part of discussions that elevated Tolkien's authority, insisting that "respect for Tolkien" and his perceived intent was a part of being an ethical writer in the fandom. They were possibly part of communities on more insular platforms like LiveJournal, Yahoo! Groups, and Tolkien-specific archives that were in wider use in the early 2010s and allowed smaller groups of fans to socialize (in contrast to the Agora-like Tumblr that rose in prominence in 2012). For many, this would have been their first exposure to fanfiction, and they didn't have the moderating influence of more progressive (usually media) fandoms to offer an alternate approach. Furthermore, even when participating in other fandoms, most of their time was spent in Tolkien fandom, again increasing exposure to ideas that privilege Tolkien's authority, possibly in communities where those ideas were normalized.

I pulled another set of data for this subset of authors that I considered might provide some insights about these small but intriguing group of fans. In my Tolkien Society Seminar presentation Stars Less Strange: Fanfiction and Representation in the Tolkien Fan Community, I found that perception of marginalization due to a fan's identity was the best predictor that that fan would write fanfiction representing the perspectives of that identity group. For example, a nonbinary author who perceived they were marginalized due to their gender identity would be more likely to write stories that address gender in the legendarium. Historically, this type of "reparative" writing—indeed, any social justice-based critique of Tolkien—has been given the side eye in some fandom communities. Often, these critiques are couched in terms of respect for Tolkien—in other words, suggesting that Tolkien's authority to depict Middle-earth in a particular way (heterosexual, white, cisgender, male, able-bodied) takes precedence over the legendarium's potential as a means to comment on or critique questions related to gender, race and ethnicity, disability, and sexual orientation.

Given this, I wondered if the opposite might also be true. Did authors who placed a high value on Tolkien's authority perceive marginalization similarly to the rest of the fandom? The answer, simply put, is no. When presented with the question, "Do you identify as part of a marginalized group?" these authors answered "No" 42% of the time, compared to 23% of all survey participants. Furthermore, in nearly all categories—religion and socioeconomic status were the exception—this group reported less perceived marginalization than survey participants overall.

If perception of marginalization is a driving force behind reparative writing, the lack of this perception seems to allow this group of fans to focus on different priorities in their fanfiction—namely, regard for Tolkien's authority in their fanfiction.

In short, this group of authors appears steady across two datasets due to longevity in the fandom and life experiences that cause them to focus their fanfiction differently than fans for whom the experience of marginalization is part of their lives. They are a minority, however, and a small one. Those fans who disagreed with the statement did show a shift from 2015 to 2020: the number of respondents who strongly disagreed with the statement increased significantly, by fourteen percentage points. This suggests that while there may be a core group of authors to whom Tolkien's hypothetical approval matters, the fandom at large is moving away from high valuation of Tolkien's authority.

Moral Minority

Along the same lines as Tolkien's hypothetical approval (at least in my mind, when I designed these survey questions back in 2014) was the item about morality: "It is important to keep my stories consistent with Tolkien's moral beliefs." I certainly knew authors who made choices in their fanfiction (and sometimes opposed the choices made by other authors) on the basis of alignment with their perception of Tolkien's moral beliefs. The anti-slash movement used this argument: that their objection wasn't to queer characters per se but to their perception that Tolkien's morality wouldn't have allowed room for queer characters.

I was surprised, therefore, in both 2015 and 2020, when more authors agreed with this item than the item about Tolkien's approval: 22% in 2015 and 16% in 2020. This perhaps reveals my own bias, generated from my personal history in fandom, where fans making arguments about religious morality were prominent. Moral beliefs, though, aren't solely religious in nature, and there are moral beliefs found in Tolkien's work that are less cringe-inducing than the anti-slash contingent: the value of loyalty and sacrifice, stewardship of nature, and service to a higher calling are all examples that don't walk hand-in-hand with the marginalization of real people.

As with the "stick to the facts" item, authors in 2020 expressed less support for consistency with Tolkien's morality than in 2015. While two years of data are not enough to proclaim a pattern, there is certainly the suggestion that, as the fandom matures, Tolkien's authority becomes less important to fanfiction writers. Leaving aside the hypothesis that the 2025 data will continue to show this trend, there could be various explanations for this. As noted above, 2015 fell at the tail end of the Hobbit film trilogy, where 2020 occurred in what will likely be a rare "medialess" lull. It is possible that fans in 2015 were responding to the films or the film fandom in asserting the importance of Tolkien's authority.

2020, on the other hand, saw increasing attention paid to the depiction of marginalized character groups in Tolkien's legendarium (and to marginalized Tolkien fans in the fandom) concomitant with social justice-oriented discussions happening in Western society at large. Within this context, it is possible that adherence to the status quo—Tolkien's authority—seemed less appealing than it had in previous years, when fans were less aware of some of the issues around race, gender, sexuality, and ability with the legendarium that were now being more regularly discussed.

Conclusion

One of the major reasons I began engaging in fan studies research in the Tolkien fandom was because of my sense that we didn't quite work with the texts in the same way that media fans—the main subjects of fan studies research—do. As a Tolkien fan and fanfiction writer before I adopted the label "independent scholar" for myself, I was a part of many fandom discussions that I would later file under the category of "authority": What is the correct, respectful way to use Tolkien's books to make new creative works? All fandoms debate canon (though to varying degrees), but the respectful bit is what seemed to distinguish us. I knew authors who took this very seriously (and authors who didn't care a whit for it at all), but it was in the air, so to speak, in many Tolkien fandom spaces in my early years. In 2019, Janet McCullough John and I presented at the New York Tolkien Conference about the cultures of Tolkien fanfiction archives, and a prominent idea was that fans tended to divide into communities on the basis of how they treated Tolkien's authority in their fanworks. This is likely related to what we see in the small but steady 15% of authors who consider Tolkien's approval when writing their stories.

Two years of data suggest that, as a group, Tolkien fanfiction writers might be changing in how they view Tolkien's authority in light of their fanfiction. As noted above, 2015 and 2020 were very different years in the fandom—one of them closing out one of the most prominent media adaptations of Tolkien and one of them almost entirely devoid of prominent discussions of Tolkien-based media at all—and those facts can't be overlooked. The 2025 data, coming as it will a few years into the Rings of Power show, will offer interesting insights here. But the data do show less regard for Tolkien's authority over time.