The Lord of the Rings

In 1954-55 J.R.R. Tolkien published his epic fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings, divided into three books: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.Wikipedia:The Lord of The Rings
==Tolkien's View on Fandom==
He wrote of a "deplorable cultus" of fandom, and stated that "Many young Americans are involved in the stories in a way that I'm not. Quoted in Time Magazine, 2002-12-02 He was referring to the "Go Go Gandalf" and "Frodo Lives" buttons and stickers that had cropped up on many American college campuses. 
In the foreword to The Road Goes Ever On: A Song-Cycle, a collaboration with Tolkien to set his best poems to music, composer Donald Swann wrote:
==Book Fandom==
Letters to and from Tolkien after publication show that many readers became fans very quickly, asking questions about Middle-earth, the characters, and so on.Letters of JRR Tolkien. In the 1960s, many people involved in the hippie counter-culture found resonance in LOTR, and it became not just a best-seller, but a part of the generational identity.Wikipedia:Tolkien fandom#1960s USA Groups of Tolkien admirers formed, including the Mythopeic society, The Tolkien Society, and shorter-lived gatherings, such as the Tolkien Fellowship at Michigan State University.Personal communication, 2008-10-12
Many words invented or adapted by Tolkien have become part of fannish vocabulary, including moot, mathom, pipeweed and smial. Fans used LOTR and Tolkien's later publications including the Silmarillion to teach themselves various of Tolkien's Elvish and Dwarvish languages and scripts. Elvish Linguistic Fellowship Ardalambion, The Tolkien Language List
The novel Bored of the Rings, a parody by the co-founders of National Lampoon, was published in 1969, suggesting that anti-fans were also quick to seize on the book.
===Music Fandom===
Tolkien's writings inspired hundreds, perhaps thousands of musical compositions, from classicalFor example, see The Tolkien Ensemble and Johan de Meij's Symphony No. 1 "Lord of the Rings" to death metal, perhaps most famously by Led Zeppelin.tolkien-music.com Works Inspired by JRR Tolkien - Music Rush's Geddy Lee and Motorhead's Lenny Kilmister both appeared in the Ringers documentary, talking about Tolkien's influence on them. In 2006, the Lord of the Rings Musical played in Toronto, moving to London for 2007-2008, but was not considered a success. Wikipedia:The Lord of the Rings (musical)
* Tolkien's songs & poems set to tunes
**Starlit Jewel: the only U.S. authorized recording of songs from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings
**The Road Goes Ever On: a song-cycle, Donald Swann collaboration with Tolkien (Ballantine, 1975).
* Filk
** Filthy Pierre's Microfilk included several LotR songs
** Tolkien Filk
===Aca-fen and Academic Analysis of LOTR===
* University professors and other academics became enthusiastic about Tolkien and his works and began writing literary papers on them. Some were granted access to Tolkien's unpublished papers, with a resulting conflict between them and those who were not.Wikipedia:Elfconners.
* other stuff here?
* lit crit and college classes?
* Semi-pro fans like Michael Martinez
* Fellow professional authors:
====The Line Between Tolkien Fandom and "Serious" Scholarly Studies====
Partly because Tolkien himself was a university professor, some of the most enthusiastic fans are those writing the serious scholarly works about him. Tom Shippey, who for several years occupied Tolkien's chair at the University of Leeds and is on the editorial board of Tolkien Studies, is among Tolkien's most enthusiastic fans and himself a professional fantasy author. 
Some feel it lies with those who embrace the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy but have little awareness of Tolkien's lesser and posthumously published works of both fiction and non-fiction.
===Online Book Fandom===
* online fandom started early, by 1993: alt.fan.tolkien and rec.arts.books.tolkien
* 1992 bibliography
====Book Web Sites====
* Languages and Elves
* The Thain's Book (LotR encyclopedia
* The Tolkien Society
* Encyclopedia of Arda
* Tolkien Gateway
* Council of Elrond
* WarOfTheRing.net
* The One Ring.net (TORn)
====Book Archives====
*Elf Fetish 
* The Silmarillion Writers' Guild
*Silver Tree
*The Trees Remember
*Valar Guild
(see also :Category:Lord of the Rings Archives)
==Film Fandoms==
* The zine Triode #18 (May 1960) contains a letter from J. R. R. Tolkien in response to Arthur Weir's essay "No Monroe in Lothlorien". Weir speculates on things like locations and casting for a film version (the "Monroe" refers to Marilyn, as Weir is vehemently against any "super-mammary Americans" in any of the female roles; he wanted Greta Garbo for Galadriel). Tolkien responds that based on his experience with scripts and 'story-line' he feels that "only an overwhelming financial reward could possibly compensate an author for the horrors of the conversion of such a tale into film." (Hammond and Scull, The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide - Chronology, p. 557).
===Pre-2000 films===
Rankin-Bass: Hobbit and Return of the King: Animated television movies
* Wikipedia Hobbit 1977
* Wikipedia Return of the King, 1980
Ralph Bakshi: The Lord of the Rings Animated film, only the first part was produced
* Wikipedia 1978 film page
* Ralph Bakshi site, Lord of the Rings page.
* Hobbits on Film: Ralph Bakshi's unfairly maligned Lord of the Rings By Glenn Gaslin, Slate, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2001
===The Lord of the Rings films (2001-2003)===
A huge amount of fandom activity is based on these films
The main web site: The One Ring.net (TORn)
Before and during filming
* April 2000 TheOneRing.net started up (my guess, based on their preview page)
* fans worried beforehand, secrecy made it worse The Fellowship of the Ring by Erik Davis, Wired, October 2001.. 
Fan response to films
* line parties for FOTR, inspired by Star Wars 
* FOTR comes out, the hoyay is fabulous, and Arwen rides with Frodo, departing from the book
* Lord of the Rings FPF fanfiction ramps up
* New Zealand fandom site tours start?
* Extended DVDs with Fellowship of the Cast and commentaries
* Actor slash: RPS! much shipping! Lotrips
* The Two Towers, definitely line parties
* TORn party #1
* Tinhats
* Collectormanias and Comic Cons, Ring*Con and cons all over the world
* Fellowslash
* The Return of the King film comes out, yet more line parties, premieres, most of New Zealand
* TORn party #2
* Victoria Bitter and the Bit of Earth scandal
* a zillion Oscars (Seventeen in all, most winners in safe categories like makeup, visual effects, costuming and music. Nominated for thirteen others. The Return of the King won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay in addition to the former; it was understood that these applied to the trilogy as a whole.List of accolades received by The Lord of the Rings film series on Wikipedia.)
* Fan tourism
: The LOTR movies were filmed in New Zealand with special effects by Weta Workshop. After The Hobbit movies, the Hobbit Smials from the Shire were rebuilt, and this set was also opened up for tourism. Many fans go on pilgrimages to see the set, the Weta Workshop museum (?) as well as visiting sites from the film.
Continuing Fandom Activity
* yet more conventions
* trilogy showings
* 2005 Ringers documentary
* Middle Earth News, which comes out three times a week, includes information about book fandom, movie fandom, and fanworks, both FPF and RPF (Lotrips).
* movies of The Hobbit from 2012 to 2014
==Pairings and Relationships==
See: :Category:Tolkien Relationships.
==Fanwork Tropes==
* Girl Who Falls Into (a Real World Crossover, an original female character from modern times finds herself in Middle-earth)
* Kidnap Family, specifically the relationship and family life between Maedhros, Maglor, Elrond and Elros.
==Challenges and Exchanges==
*Legendarium Ladies April (prompt challenge on AO3)
==Some Fanworks== 
The Lord of the Rings has inspired a very large and creative fandom. LOTR creativity long predates the Internet, but many thousands of new fanworks, based on either the book or the films, can be found online.
===Fanart===
Fanart includes:
* Amon Hen: the Bulletin of the Tolkien Society
* Council of Elrond fanart
* LotR_FanArt group on Yahoo
* Photo manipulations or manips - The Theban Band (includes naked men and slash)
* The Broship of the Ring - series of Human AU sketches by gingerhaze (2011-2012)
* art by Suzan Lovett
* DM of the Rings, a webcomic
* The Master of the Rings (doujinshi, 2002)
* Menegroth Revisited (fanartist's page of gen and slash fanart, ca. 2005-2006)
* by jjpeabody
* by direimpulse
===Fanfiction===
:See The Lord of the Rings Fanfiction for more discussion.
The two broadest categories of fanfiction are FPF (fictional people fiction), about characters from the books and movies, and RPF (real people fiction), also known as LOTR RPS or Lotrips, stories written about the actors. Although some archives, communities, and challenges include both and some fans read and write both, many fans consider them to be separate fandoms.
The Fellowship of the King: The War of the Rings is a a fanfic series by Demetrious Polychron. The author is currently attempting to sue both Amazon and the Tolkien Estate for copyright infringement, claiming that The Rings of Power plagiarises aspects of his fic which was left at JRR's grandson's house in 2019.
====Fanfiction Communities====
These are some communities that encompass both RPF and FPF. See those pages for more community listings.
* Middle Earth News, LiveJournal announcement community begun in October 2004, formerly only for news about FPF fandom but includes some RPF news since April, 2008.Announcement that RPF news will be included, March 27, 2008. (Accessed October 24, 2008.) 
* I Nili o i Ardanole Newsletter (2003-2005)
* Lord of the Rings Fan Fiction Recs
* Sons of Gondor
* list of Tolkien LJ communities - moderately active & focused on Tolkien, rather than actors compiled in 2004
====Fanfiction Archives====
See Category:Lord of the Ring Archives for more.
*Khylea's Writings (2005-2007): Slash, het, and gen fics.
*Lord of the Rings fan fiction (ca. 2003-2005, Wayback captures): Het.
*Reprobate (ca. 2003-2005, Wayback captures): Slash, both FPF and RPS.
*Sen O Gwend (ca. 2003-2004, Wayback captures): Gen, movieverse.
*Silver Glass (ca. 2004-2008, Wayback capture): German-language FPF and RPF.
*The Woodland Chronicles
*Hidden Archives of Middle-Earth (2002 - 2003)
*The Realm of the Shrew (2004)
*Braided Light (2006-present)
*Come Away With Me... (?-30 April 2003)
*Middle Earth Romance Fan-Fiction
*The Barrow-Downs
*Lord of the Rings Scrapbook
*Mela Tindome (2005)
*Stories of Arda (2003-present): No slash.
*Henneth Annûn Story Archive (2002-2015): The collection was imported on AO3.
*Even If (2002-2005): Aragorn/Legolas fanfiction, among others.
===Fanzines===
While the Lord of the Rings movie fandom is primarily an online fandom, it has seen a fair share of print fanzines along with a robust amount of Doujinshi. You can find listings under List of Lord of the Rings Fanzines as well as by clicking on the :Category:Lord of the Rings Zines category and the LOTR Doujinshi Category.
===Fanvids===
Following the Peter Jackson films, making fanvids was a popular fan activity. Examples:
* Different Light | Lord of the Rings Fanvids (defunct multifandom website)
* They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard 
* No Bravery
===== Video Awards =====
* Fellowship Music Video Awards
* Lord of the Rings Music Video Awards
===Mailing Lists===
See List of Lord of the Rings Mailing Lists.
===Games===
* Middle Earth Role-Playing Game (also known as RPGs)
* Tolkien computer games listing
* Wikipedia:Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien#Games
* Dungeons and Dragons - may or may not be directly inspired by LOTR
===Filk===
* Lord of the Rhymes
===Miscellaneous===
*The Lord of the Peeps: The Fellowship of the Peep - re-creation of the Peter Jackson film using marshmallow animals and still photography
*Grond - the fandom associated with Grond, the siege weapon at Helm's Deep.
==Meta/Further Reading==
* , by Thevina (2003)
* Constructing Lothíriel: Rewriting and Rescuing the Women of Middle Earth from the Margins, Cait Coker and Karen Viars Mythlore 33.2, Spring/Summer 2015
* by Martin Wettstein
==See Also==
*Timeline of Tolkien Fandom
*Oboebyrd's Guide to ChatRoom Etiquette by Oboebyrd (2002)
==Resources==
*LOTR Costume, a costume research website for LOTR fans
* LotR Fandom Wiki
* Tolkien Gateway
== References ==
*LOTR