Rethinking the Ents and Entwives

I wish to propose a radical re-thinking of the history and fate of the Ents, based on a re-interpretation of the Song of the Ents and Entwives sung by Treebeard to Merry and Pippin. I think our conventional understanding of the Ents falls short by taking the song at face value.

According to the song, the Ents are fading because the male Ents have lost contact with the female half of their race, the Entwives. The two genders had irreconcilable differences over the sorts of landscapes they loved best – sublime wilderness for the Ents, cultivated gardens for the Entwives. Going their separate ways, they now found themselves unable to reproduce, and thus the Entish race must inevitably die out. Most readers take this as a straightforward description of Entish history.

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My Statement on Tolkien 2019

It has been incredibly difficult for me to speak on my experiences regarding my experiences of hostility and othering in spaces that I loved and still hold dear to my heart, and for that reason I have been silent. That is until now. 

I have decided that now is the right time for me to come forward with my experience and statement regarding my negative experience as a person of colour engaging in Tolkien spaces. 

I want people involved in the wider Tolkien community to reflect on their roles in the specific spaces they inhabit, and how you can foster a better environment for marginalised groups to interact and engage with those spaces in a safe and inclusive manner. 

Take your time to listen and put effort into listening to fans of colour when they are speaking about their lived experiences and their grievances especially when they are speaking about a topic as personal as racism. Being critical of a work you love and the media surrounding it is not easy thing, but we need to recognise that these criticisms are valid and deserve to be taken seriously when it affects a collective of people across different backgrounds. 

I want to preface this by stating that I am speaking only for myself and my own lived experience as a vocal young non-black POC in a predominantly white space. I acknowledge that my experience is by no means universal or indicative of all POC in Tolkien fandom spaces. 

I also understand that real life interactions differ widely from interactions on online fandom spaces, but there are disturbing similarities across both online and real life spaces with specific regard to the environment and treatment of vocal POC in both. 

The tragedy is many people do not realise their impact not only on the individuals involved, but on the wider attitude towards POC voices in fandom when the topic of racism is discussed. We need to build safe environments where critical discussions of diversity and race from the people most affected by them are taken to heart, not invalidated or spoken over as targets of microaggressions. 

To give a bit of context, Tolkien 2019 was an in person conference organised by the Tolkien Society (which I was a member of at the time). The official website for Tolkien 2019 has been taken down but the Tolkien Society has a nice summary written in August 2018 breaking down the event here. 

I was approached by the Education Secretary at the time about my possible involvement in a panel discussing the history and future of the Tolkien Society which I elaborate on further in my statement. It was the first time I had felt that I had a platform where I could freely express my voice as a diverse reader and consumer of Tolkien media who held diversity in Tolkien as a core value in the wider Tolkien brand. 

I felt that as the only non-white member on the panel I had an obligation to speak out on the topic of diversity when it was raised. I tried to speak briefly about some of the points and discourses I had heard on portrayals of diversity in Tolkien media with as much nuance as I could manage at the time. In response to some points I had made I was met with vocal disapproval by some audience members and visible signs of disapproval and hostile body language from others. 

This was made even more jarring when later during the course of the event when two white creators hinted at vague notions of diversity were met with a far greater degree of approval. The former instance was during the context of a panel regarding the upcoming LOTR on Prime series, and the latter was during a talk presented by the chair of the Tolkien Society.

I felt intimidated and reluctant to involve myself any further in the Tolkien fandom, especially in real life spaces as my experience at Tolkien 2019 had only solidified and reaffirmed my fears and unease I had engaging in a predominantly white fandom with few visible POC members and creators who tackle topics of diversity and racism in both the community and source texts.

Following this event I was approached by an affiliate of one of the attendees who very kindly took the time to listen to me and suggested that I should write a statement in response to my experience. To my knowledge, my statement has not been shared or published on any platform yet and this will be the first time I have ever spoken about it publicly. 

Since then some of my thoughts and opinions on certain aspects of Tolkien fandom and meta have shifted or evolved which I will hopefully expand on in the future, but I wanted to share my initial unchanged statement I wrote reflecting my immediate reaction to my experience. 

I want to be seen as a Tolkien creative and critical thinker above anything else, but I cannot move forward with my work without speaking about my lived experience in a space which has been consistently hostile to me and so many others across different Tolkien spaces for so many years starting with my account of this one experience.

I hope my statement finds itself in good hands and I will always be willing to engage with others about my experiences so long as you engage with me in good faith. 

The statement I wrote on 25/09/2019 is as follows:

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Let the Memorial Hill Remember

by Yehuda Amichai

Let the memorial hill remember instead of me, that’s what it’s here for. Let the park in-memory-of remember, let the street that’s-named-for remember, let the well-known building remember, let the synagogue that’s named after God remember let the rolling Torah scroll remember, let the prayer for the memory of the dead remember. Let the flags remember those multicolored shrouds of history: the bodies they wrapped have long since turned to dust. Let the dust remember. Let the dung remember at the gate. Let the afterbirth remember. Let the beasts of the field and birds of the heavens eat and remember. Let all of them remember so that I can rest.

lúthien, fairest of the elves

listen i cackle like a madwoman every time i see this post, so i just had to draw it

‘Flowing, Fanciful White Dresses’

Eniola Abioro, Chinasia Celestin & Sophie Ming for T Magazine — October 2018.

Photographer: Jonas Lindstroem

Stylist: Carlos Nazario

HairStylist: Benjamin Muller

Mua: Susie Sobol

Manicurist: Dawn Sterling

nytimes.com

Sindar!!

aredhel ar-feinel (+ huan)

WIP

I’m in love with @flurgburgler Slavmarillion and especially with Eowyn! Many thanks from Ukraine <3

Eowyn - Lady of Rohan

Finally it’s finished! little apology: on phone screens this apparently looks wayyy greener than it was on my laptop screen while coloring ^^’

anyway, I’m still proud of this, I’ve always loved Eowyn’s character ^^

— J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. (via fyrgenstream)

Continuing on from that thought but book!Boromir really is the common sense filter for the fellowship. The aggressively un-mystical one in this mish mash of wizards and prophetic kings and elves and poetic dwarves and the like. ‘I dont know about kings but if you’re gonna help with the war then great’ ‘Its cold on the mountains we should take firewood’ ‘if I look at Moria on a map it’s just giant bolded letters saying IT’S A TRAP!’ ‘why didn’t you tell us before that you didn’t know the password Gandalf!!’ ‘I’m literally just trying to get home so of course I’m going to keep going’ like he really is the Patrick Dempsey from Enchanted of this story.

#oh shit and this is a big part of the reason he gets suckered by the ring too....it's SO LOGICALLY SOUND but fuck u wut's logic#logic can't do stuff all on its own in a world made out of enchantment until the enchantment consumes itself @vardasvapors

@officialtolkiensecretsanta gift for @aowyn !

Elrond in the second age looking at a map that no longer includes Beleriand

Hey, it’s that thing I made!