SWG News

New Challenge: Rejects

Posted by SWG Moderators on 15 April 2023. Last updated on 15 May 2023.

Not every idea makes it into a finished piece in its original form! J.R.R. Tolkien worked on his legendarium for decades, and while a few things didn’t change much, over that time some of the early ideas were altered considerably. In this month’s challenge, we invite you to consider some of the rejected concepts from the early legendarium.

Prompts for this challenge can be used in any way that you want. You do not have to create something about the specific "rejected canon" that is in the prompt. You could consider another character's perspective if this canon detail was true, or you could consider what happened in the story on either side of the event: the history leading to the rejected canon, or the history that came after it. The prompt can factor in to your fanwork as much or as little as you would like. If a prompt is not a good fit for you, let the mods know, and we'll pick something new for you.

To receive a prompt, comment on our Dreamwidth, send us an ask on Tumblr, post in the the #monthly-challenges channel on our Discord, or message us through the SWG site.

In honor of Poetry Month, we will have a special stamp for fanworks that are or include poetry. In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 May 2023. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.

Many thanks to Zdenka for creating this month's banner and stamps!

Character of the Month: Salmar-Noldorin

Posted by SWG Moderators on 8 April 2023. Last updated on 5 May 2023.

Salmar is only mentioned once in the published Silmarillion, but it was not always that way. As our Character of the Month for April, Salmar shines brightest in his earliest roles in the legendarium, which were a muddle of ... almost everything. He was a sea god, a musician, a mentor to the not-easily-educable Noldor, and a warrior-bard. Perhaps this was the reason that Tolkien quickly dismantled Salmar's character, passing off his various roles to other characters in the legendarium (there are even germs of the stories of Maglor and Fingon in Salmar's earliest histories!) but retaining him as the character who made the sinister and powerful Ulumúri. (Although the Ulumúri, too, changed as Tolkien's writing evolved.)

You can read Dawn's biography of Salmar-Noldorin here.

Cultus Dispatches: Who Gets to Say? Canon and Authority

Posted by SWG Moderators on 26 March 2023. Last updated on 22 April 2023.

If you write Tolkien-based fanfiction, you've probably thought about and likely discussed questions about canon and authority. Do you give preference to the Silmarillion or the History of Middle-earth version when they differ? Do you go with Tolkien's "final word" or the version he appeared to have thought through and developed most carefully? And where do the various adaptations—the film trilogies, the new show, the decades-worth of Tolkien-inspired games—fit in?

Over the next several months, our Cultus Dispatches column will be looking at issues of how Tolkien fans define and use canon. This month's column by Dawn Felagund looks at Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data around five possible canon authorities: Tolkien himself, other fans, scholars and experts, Christopher Tolkien, and Peter Jackson and other filmmakers. What emerges from looking at these five survey items is that the matter of canon and authority is complex. Fans vary—and widely—in who they regard as an authority and how that impacts their practice, but a few trends emerge, which Dawn looks into in some detail.

You can read the column "Who Gets to Say? Canon and Authority" here.

We are also collecting responses on the question "How do you define Tolkien's canon?" for our Fandom Voices project. You can learn more about the project and contribute your response here.

How Do You Define Canon?

Posted by SWG Moderators on 25 March 2023. Last updated on 22 April 2023.

How do you define the canon of Tolkien's world?

This question forms an undercurrent throughout the Tolkien fandom, not only shaping individual fans' responses to the texts but forming the basis for communities within the fandom, which often differ in their approach to Tolkien's canon.

Fandom Voices is a project that is part of our monthly Cultus Dispatches column where we ask fans to contribute their views and experiences around a topic. For an upcoming column, we will be looking at how fans define canon in Tolkien's world.

All Tolkien fans are welcome for this project, whether or not they create and read/view fanworks, though there is a special section for fanworks creators. You can write as little or as much as you'd like. Responses will be published in an upcoming Cultus Dispatches column. You are of course welcome to remain anonymous if you prefer.

If you'd like to share your views on how to define canon, you can find the response form here.

Tolkien Fanartics: Interview with ArlenianChronicles

Posted by SWG Newsletter Staff on 18 March 2023. Last updated on 29 April 2023.

This week, we are thrilled to introduce our newest newsletter column, Tolkien Fanartics, which will focus on everything that is art-related to do with Tolkien. For the inaugural article, the column's lead writer, Anérea, had the chance to chat with the artist ArlenianChronicles (Cassandra) about her artwork, her approach to her work, and her journey to becoming an artist.

If you've spent any time in the #silmarillion tag on Tumblr, you've seen Cassandra's art: its vivid, luminous quality fairly leaps from the screen, and her willingness to tackle some of the most emotionally fraught scenes in the legendarium gives her work a narrative quality that invites contemplation of the stories and relationships behind her characters. You can read Anérea's interview with ArlenianChronicles here.

New Challenge: Middle-earth Is Multitudes

Posted by SWG Moderators on 12 March 2023. Last updated on 15 April 2023.

In notes to W.H. Auden's review of Return of the King, Tolkien wrote, "The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live ..." Middle-earth, being a world much like our own, is home to a wide range of characters. In addition to fantasy peoples and creatures that populate Tolkien's imagined world, because Middle-earth is an analogue of our Earth, there would have been diversity within those groups as well, much like in our own world. This month, we’re shining a spotlight on as many character groups as we can fit in—and to be honest, we ran out of space. We hope there is something for everyone in this month’s prompts!

The Middle-earth Is Multitudes challenge will feature two new prompts every day, recognizing the diversity of the people who inhabit Middle-earth. One prompt will focus on a group within Middle-earth, while the second prompt will focus on additional identities or characteristics.

• You do not need to complete a prompt on the day it is featured.
• You can complete one prompt or both, and you can combine prompts from different days.
• Fanworks can but do not need to center on the character's identity; the bigger aim of this challenge is to include more diverse characters in our fanworks in a variety of roles, not only in fanworks that focus on that particular identity.
• We expect there will be overlap between prompts and want to encourage participants not to overthink if a particular character meets a prompt. If you think a person belongs in a particular group, that is good enough for us.

Several other Tolkien fandom events are or will be running while this challenge is active. With this in mind, we've intentionally designed this challenge so that it is easy to combine with other prompts from other events.

You can find the Middle-earth Is Multitudes prompts and prompt calendar here.

In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 April 2023. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website. Many thanks go to Ettelenë for creating this month's stamps!

New Column: Tolkien Fanartics

Posted by SWG Moderators on 11 March 2023. Last updated on 18 March 2023.

Starting next week, we are excited to introduce a new column in our newsletter: Tolkien Fanartics. This art-oriented column will take a closer look at Tolkien fan art, featuring interviews with artists, analysis of Tolkien's art, fan art studies, inspiration, tips and techniques, and more. We very much encourage guest writers and/or artists as well. Anérea is running the project, so reach out to her if you'd like to contribute, or see a particular artist or topic featured. The first feature will be an interview with the artist behind ArlenianChronicles, so watch for it in the March 18 newsletter!

If you'd like to get our weekly newsletter in your inbox with articles and news from in and beyond the SWG, you can subscribe to the newsletter here.

Character of the Month: Maglor

Posted by SWG Moderators on 2 March 2023. Last updated on 8 April 2023.

"Maglor," polutropos begins in this month's character biography, "is a character of contradictions, conflicts, and mystery. It is no wonder that this second son of Fëanor has captured the imagination of so many readers of The Silmarillion."

This is, if anything, an understatement. With 736 fanworks about him, Maglor is the second most written-about character on the SWG, exceeded only by Maedhros (with 804 fanworks). What accounts for this popularity? He's not the only musician (Daeron) or warrior (Fingolfin). He's certainly not the only tragic figure (Túrin fills an actual book).

In this month's biography, polutropos peels away the many layers that make Maglor such an intriguing character. As she notes, he is full of contradictions: one of the Noldor's consummate poets and most fearsome warriors, joining a kinslaying to only moments later take pity upon its orphans. But it's not just Maglor's character arc that makes him so intriguing to Silmarillion fans. As polutropos also illustrates, he contributes to some of the most important themes in the early legendarium: music, exile, and oaths. He is also the rare character where we receive glimpses of his inner life, showing the emotional impact of his rollercoaster life.

Beneath all of this is a textual history at least as complicated as Maglor himself. Undaunted, polutropos unfolds the evolution of Maglor's character across decades, from his first mention (and immediate demise) in the Lost Tales to his tangled history alongside Maedhros, where they frequently traded roles as the merciful and repentant.

You can read polutropos' biography of Maglor here.

Cultus Dispatches: Femslash Is a Political Act

Posted by SWG Moderators on 20 February 2023. Last updated on 25 March 2023.

Fans who have been reading and writing Tolkien-based fanfiction for more than ten years quite possibly remember a time when "femslash" wasn't even a term. While slash sites nominally accepted it, it really wasn't being written, and it's no wonder: As the last several Cultus Dispatches columns in our series on writing about women in fanfiction have detailed, the Tolkien fandom went through a pair of phases where writing about women and writing slash were controversial acts. Caught in the crosshairs of this dual intolerance (it was about ladies! and it was gay!!!), femslash really didn't stand a chance.

But, as we also detailed in last month's interview with Elleth, a concerted effort by fans to not just normalize but celebrate writing about women—and femslash in particular—has pushed back the tides of intolerance and introduced a whole new genre to the fandom. This month's column Femslash Is a Political Act (and Other Observations of Tolkien Fandom's Genre Non Grata) by Dawn Felagund looks at Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data about femslash: how many people write it, how many people read it, and who exactly are among those groups. The results show that femslash has skyrocketed in popularity among readers in recent years, portending that maybe it won't always be the new genre on the block (much less a "genre non grata"), possibly due to its use as a political expression by fans who feel marginalized based on gender, sexual orientation, or both.

Read & Review: The Fall of Númenor

Posted by SWG Moderators on 16 February 2023. Last updated on 8 April 2023.

Lyra opens her review of The Fall of Númenor with the observation that "Tolkien's literary legacy truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Whenever you think that your collection is finally complete, a new publication is announced." The question is, though, is The Fall of Númenor a worthwhile addition to your already groaning Tolkien bookshelf?

In our latest Read & Review column, Lyra reviews The Fall of Númenor, touching on its contents (and what it leaves out), its structure, and the artwork it contains by Alan Lee, concluding that "it is ... an immensely useful publication." You can read Lyra's complete "Review of The Fall of Númenor" here.