[Anguirel]

davem old fruit (no slander intended) I think you were exactly right to question the logic of gamers warping Middle-earth to advance a 21st century truism, the equal status of homosexuality. However, I think you're falling into a similar kind of historical trap yourself.

You're saying that Tolkien probably didn't intend his world to include homosexuality, and that that means homosexuality probably doesn't exist in Middle-earth. Not from a historian or a critic's point of view, it doesn't.

We're in a misleading zone already to talk about "homosexuality" as if it were a clear, uncomplicated subject. As you of course know that word is an ugly 19th century neologism. I shall refer to another ugly 19th century truism, homoeroticism, because it can't be turned into a noun/identity like "homosexual", and because "sodomy", the most contemporary and picturesque word, is probably slightly offensive.

Homoeroticism was not, in the mythic tales which influenced Tolkien - I'm thinking Homer especially, a less major influence but the one I know more about - a standard for a tribe. It was a pleasure/vice. Homoerotic activities did not turn one into a minority member repressing a dark side. It was part of the character and personality, the heroism or tyranny of whatever individual possessed it, like alcoholism, excessive anger, piety, beauty.

Because Tolkien draws on ancient themes, he inevitably invokes some of the homoeroticism of the ancients. Think of Maedhros and Fingon and the general fan reaction. Anachronistic, probably. Totally mistaken, probably not. The pair seem like the warrior and the youth of Classical legend, Achilles/Patroclus, Aeneas/Pallas. Make of that what you will - and many fans have. Whatever Tolkien thought, his motifs hark back to what Iris Murdoch jokily called "the excesses of the ancients".

And with the reader lies the power. If a reader thinks Maedhros homoerotic (the word "gay" certainly does not apply!), it shows perception of a sort, to look beyond the apparently clean Northern conventions and see an older past. Ditto, it must be said, Frodo/Sam.

Whether in the guise of angry Judaeo-Christian notions of sin, or heroic Classical notions of warrior love, (or heroic J-C or angry Classical, of course: David and Jonathan) homoeroticism is about in Tolkien, in both good and bad characters, and to deny its interpretation is as absurd as to say that no debt is owed by Tolkien to, say courtly love. I played a Lord of Umbar who was clearly pretty interested in chasing young male musicians in a RP a while ago, and I felt no contradiction with Tolkien's world, if some with the world the man himself might have envisaged.

In fact, I think a homoerotic character with a proper Sindarin name would be more in keeping with Middle-earth than a heterosexual character called James. That's how minor an obstacle it seems to me.