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

[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. :)