Shorty swing my way

[lunabee34]

I have been pondering interspecies relationships, specifically of the human/hobbit variety. I've been wondering how such a relationship might be regarded in Middle Earth and also how a writer might depict the relationship in fic.

First, let's say Aragorn falls in love with Frodo or Merry and Eowyn get married. How would their relationships be viewed (and would there be gender differences)? The hobbits are patronized and underestimated by almost every character in movieverse and book canon. Even the characters who admire their courage and respect their strength attribute those qualities to the hobbits' purity and child-like love and loyalty. Could Gondor accept Frodo, the Halfling Consort to the Heir of Isildur? Could the Riders of Rohan follow Meriadoc Brandybuck, King Consort to Queen Eowyn?

In terms of writing about a hobbit/human relationship, how do you handle the extreme size differential? Hobbits are not children, and while their bodies are smaller, they are proportionate. They might be the height of children, but they don't have the bodies of children. How do you write a hobbit/human sex scene, though, without fetishizing that size differential in an icky way or straying too close to kiddie porn territory? Is there a way to write an explicit hobbit/human sex scene that doesn't create those uncomfortable associations? Some obvious things like word choice come to mind (clearly, "Sam wrapped his tiny, tiny legs around Galadriel's waist, and she held him like a wee babe as they made sweet, sweet love" would not be the way to go), but how do you write an explicit sex scene that ignores such a great size differential?

I went through crack_van and found four human/hobbit recs:

Not In Vain by Lucy Hale
Boromir/Merry/Pippin, Merry/Pippin (Gorgeous canon-compliant character study of Boromir and of Merry. I was weeping by the end of this.)

The Last Night in the World by mollyringwraith
Eowyn/Merry (I love the parallels drawn between Eowyn and Merry here and the comfort they find as they ride toward Mordor.)

In the Wings of the Shadow by aprilkat
Frodo/Faramir (Frodo and Faramir carry so much guilt and loss between them. I love the OFC in this story.

one of which I haven't yet had time to read (The Roots of the Ivy by Aranel Took
Eowyn/Merry).

From what I can tell so far from this small sample, it looks like authors have chosen to mostly elide the sex, focusing on kissing with fades to black.

Anybody have any thoughts on this topic or any human/hobbit recs?

Comments

[ithiliana]

First, I adore Aprilkat's work (ALL of it, and there's not enough).

Um, I have a lot of Frodo/Faramir and (and other Frodo/man pairings)--and I don't elide the sex.

I feel sort of odd doing it, but can drop some links if you'e like!

*dashes back to journal*

[lunabee34]

I will have to dig for more of Aprilkat's work then because that was awesome.

Don't feel odd at all! I was hoping for some recs. Yay!

[ithiliana]

I found my links page for a lot of my fpf fics over in LJ:

http://ithiliana.livejournal.com/101056.html

I THINK I posted some of this at An Archive of Our Own, but haven't checked there in so long i's sort of embarassing.

There was a whole interspecies community on LJ: not too active, but I bet it's still there.

[ithiliana]

yep, some of my stuff is on Archive: can find under Ithiliana.

Here's the interspecies lj community: apparently back in the day of listservs, there was some extreme prejudice against hobbit/man fics (though not against Elf/man or Elf Dwarf), and so some of the interspecies authors set up a community early on in LJ

http://interspecies.livejournal.com/

[lunabee34]

*nods*

Good for them making a space for hobbit/man fic. :) I am certainly going to enjoy the fruits of their efforts. LOL

[ithiliana]

Think this is an icon I did for the Frodo/faramir fans....

[lunabee34]

Oh, cool! I wish I could make icons.

[lunabee34]

Sahweeeet! :)

I saw that interspecies comm mentioned, I think, in Aprilkat's post. I'll check that out too.

Thank you!!

[ithiliana]

Now to the meta portion: one of the reasons hobbit/man interspecies was looked askance at was the idea that there was no way to write it that wasn't verging or flat into pedophilia.

The height differential is often mentioned: I once saw an hour long argument over ARagorn's height (since Tolkien doesn't give feet/inches in height for anybody except hobbits, and that varies from 3'6" to 4'6"), the issue of how tall the men are is up for grabs. If you go by the armor from the medieval period which is one source for Tolkien, then the tallest of the Men might not be much more than 5'5" tall! The "tallest" man mentioned in the link below was 6" tall (that might work for Aragorn).

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/aams/hd_aams.htm

In terms of my own writing: in the book canon, I am a total Sam/Frodo fan. But in the film, 10000% Frodo/Faramir.

I have stories in the canon story, and alternate universe ones (some very alternate), some where Boromir takes the Ring, some where Aragorn does (don't think Faramir ever did, heh). Frodo/Faramir is about as close to an OTP as I get (meaning I love to write it). I have read some decent work with Frodo paired with others, but it doesn't really get to me most of the time.

The issue of "childlike" is in the works--and it arises in my fic. I tell the story usually from Frodo's point of view, and Frodo does not consider himself a child (I often keep the age he is in the book, 50! even if he looks younger since the Ring does keep its bearers looking young and book canon is that Frodo looks like a hobbit barely out of his tweens -- which would be late twenties? I forget the chronology, but hobbits live longer than most men).

And I'm only into slash--in my storyverse, Merry and Pippin are lovers, most of the time.

The marriage issue--well, I doubt that a Middle-earth kingdom would accept any same sex pairing--whether hobbit, man, or elf, since the main duty of a king is to provide an heir. I also squick out at the idea of a fake marriage--I have some fics where Frodo and Fararmir are together in Ithilien--and it's perfectly accepted, but there's no sense of a marriage as such (I am not a big fan of marriage in real life, so I don't write much of it in fic).

I think a lot might have to do with the authors' own views of hobbits--I don't share the feelings of the characters who view them as childlike (and that is canon--all the heroic/epic men say so!) (Eowyn is different of course, but then both she and the hobbits are considered to be NOT-warriors by the men).

I don't know if a reader might find my fic problematic: I assume that somebody who was totally turned off by the mere thought of hobbit and men sex wouldn't even read it. Like some of the other pervy hobbit fanciers, I tend to write the hobbits are enjoying life, food, and sex with great gusto--being very much the agents in their love life (i.e. if the man doesn't want to make the move, then Frodo, or Pippin, or Merry will make it).

(Reminds me I once read a Pippin/Gandalf fic that was pretty amazing, and a Merry/Pippin/Treebeard pollinating fic).

[lunabee34]

I certainly think there's a way to write it without verging into pedo-ness (as these wonderful stories linked here can attest!!), I'm just having trouble thinking about how *I* would personally do it given my own writing style and how I usually write sex scenes. I can imagine the debate that surrounded this issue, though.

It's been about ten years since I re-read the LotR trilogy. I just re-read The Hobbit like last week (and came away from that shipping nothing LOL). So my book canon knowledge is a bit hazy at this point. Overall, book and movie, I'm a Sam/Frodo girl through and through. But I can really get behind pretty much any pairing (whose names I recognize, LOL; that was one of the pitfalls of trawling crack_van; half the stories were about elves who aren't in the movies and are possibly only briefly mentioned in the books themselves).

I think you're absolutely right about the acceptance of marriage. I can't see a same/sex pairing or an interspecies pairing being accepted for royalty, particularly for Aragorn, because succession to the throne is so important. I tend to think of the hobbits as you do, being very earthy, and have no trouble imagining that they might be more accepting of same sex relationships (if not interspecies ones).

I am totally not turned off by hobbit/man sex and can't wait to start reading your fic! LOL

[torachan]

I certainly don't think it's impossible, but it seems like the pedo-ness is actually a draw for many in the fandom? At least a great deal of the fic I've seen goes out of its way to draw attention to the Hobbits childlikeness and fetishises the size difference.

[lunabee34]

*nods nods nods*

That makes a great deal of sense. I can see how that would be a kinky draw for a lot of writers and readers.

[wisdomeagle]

Caveat: it's been many years since I've read LotR.

But when I first did, I had instant human/hobbit OTPs because of the differential. Which didn't ping me as age, and certainly not height (I'm not a visual thinker at all), but the way that the hobbits fell in love with humans -- particually... I think Faramir and Pippin? The way Pippin reacts to Faramir with hero-worship hit every single one of my power/authority kinks. (Which is the same reason that I was head over heals ridic in love with Frodo/Sam).

Wow, I don't think that was at all helpful. But I'm trying to say more words on social media that aren't FB, so have some words.

Your words are yay

[lunabee34]

Oh yes. The power differential. That hits my kinks pretty hard too. I have got to re-read the trilogy myself so that I can read more fic. LOL Everywhere I turn there's some elf name in a fic summary I don't recognize.

[janne_d]

(here via Monanotlisa)

I read a fair amount of LotR fic back in the day and I have to say I did find quite a bit of the hobbit/human fic squicky, but not necessarily because of how the sex scenes were written. The issue for me was usually more that the hobbits general behaviour was written as childlike - I don't mean that it was explicitly described as so in the fic like your example above, but that to me it felt like the characters were sometimes not being written as adults in how they thought or acted. Those ones made me backbutton very quickly, whereas the ones that fetishised the physical difference without merging it with maturity differences did not. And there were also some that didn't focus on differences at all beyond the occasional mention of height and and feet but kept the relationships mostly equal.

So yes, it is possible to write hobbit/human sex without being fetishistic about size or evoking paedophilia - it's just that for a lot of writers, that seemed to be what they were after in the first place.

It's something that I can't help feeling has a lot more to do with the film canon than the book (though I may be wrong, I haven't read a lot of ship fic that was definitely not based on the film version). I don't think that Tolkien wrote the hobbits in LotR as being like children - Bilbo in The Hobbit was in many ways, but he largely dropped that style and reading LotR the hobbit characters don't feel childlike to me, they don't act childlike and their POV sections are definitely not written that way (though as you said they are often patronised by others). But then there was the film with Elijah Wood's big blue eyes and thirty years age difference with Frodo (hell, he was 18 when they started shooting), and Merry and Pippin's comedy scenes (which don't get me wrong, I totally adore those scenes) where they do tend to behave like kids... and fandom went "ooh, look at the cute" and then just took it to extremes.

How Middle Earth might view a hobbit/human relationship... I'm thinking not well. Lots of sneering, probably, and some of it based on class snobbery as much as physical prejudices.

[lunabee34]

whereas the ones that fetishised the physical difference without merging it with maturity differences did not. And there were also some that didn't focus on differences at all beyond the occasional mention of height and and feet but kept the relationships mostly equal.

Yes yes!

That's a good point and exactly what I'm looking for.

I just finished rereading The Hobbit last week, and while I found the writing to be aimed at children and much more elementary than I remember it being, I didn't find Bilbo childlike at all. He's such a stodgy old man. LOL But you are totally right about all the actors playing the hobbits in the movies--they're cherubic and ethereal and so so mischievous.

I just finished reading the story I linked in this post but hadn't read yet, and it is a fantastic exploration of how these relationship might be viewed both by Men and by the Shire. I'm about to make a rec post on it because it's a fantastic fic.

[janne_d]

I didn't find Bilbo childlike at all. He's such a stodgy old man

I was thinking more about how often he's described as "squeaking" or the times the narrator excuses something he does with an aside "he was only a little hobbit". It does decrease through the book as Bilbo's stock rises, but it always strikes me as a big difference in how Tolkien wrote about the bobbits between The Hobbit and LotR when I reread.

But you are totally right about all the actors playing the hobbits in the movies--they're cherubic and ethereal and so so mischievous.

And there are all those lovely extras so we got to know them all and so people mix the actors' traits back into the characters and it ends up being quite a long way from Tolkien!

I saw you commenting above about fanfics with lots of random Elves - I think that illustrates the difference between the pre-films fandom and post-films in a way. From what I remember, the pre-films LotR fanfic was written by fans who were there for the literature and my general impression was that if you hadn't read the Silmarillion or didn't know the appendices by heart, you wouldn't get very far. So the fanfic had a lot of Elves who never appear in LotR and was usually fairly literary in style. And then Peter Jackson came along and brought people from media fandoms and the whole thing exploded in a different direction. I think it is a bit like the difference between fandom for Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle, and the fandom for BBC Sherlock - there's obviously a bit of melting pot going on, but there is also a lot of ways that they don't overlap.

And now I'm trying to remember the Inkling who responded to one of Tolkien's reaings with something like "oh, not another fucking Elf" - it's not C.S.Lewis, but I never can remember who it was!

[lunabee34]

*nods*

I figured it was something like that.

I have read the four books proper multiple times (although I last read the trilogy more than ten years ago in prep for the movies), but I never read the Simarillion, and I have to confess that while I am more than happy to do research to WRITE fic, I do not want to read fic that requires research to understand. LOL

I am starting a book club style reread in the next week or so starting with The Hobbit if you're interested. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

[janne_d]

I tried to read the Silmarillion once. *groans* I think I made it through about 50 pages? Too many names, omg, too many names!

A book club reread sounds like a very cool idea - I will definitely keep an eye out for it.

[lunabee34]

Cool! Expect to see a post sometime this week. :)

[thelastgoodname]

If this is where your head is going, I can't wait to see what you say about the rest of it. Note: I haven't started yet, but don't wait on me to post, and I have a trip to the library scheduled for Wednesday (the local libraries are closed Sun-Tues this week for budget purposes. As in, there's no money to pay the librarians, the janitors, or the electric company).

[lunabee34]

I lament the loss of the public library, especially since they often provide the only access many in the community have to internet and other resources.

Expect to see a post sometime this week. I am woefully behind on grading. Woefully.