Canon and Fanfiction: Imagination vrs. Respect

[Ithilwen]

I agree that "canon-friendly" is a better term when it comes to describing fanfics than "canon", especially since there ISN'T a single, consistent authoratative text for many of Tolkien's important First Age stories (unlike the LoTR), and some aspects of his later writings contradict elements in LoTR. And I'm not sure how important being "canon-friendly" is in fanfiction, since it's purpose is to entertain, and some stories do that extremely well even though they have obvious AU elements. But for my part, I try diligently to stay within the bounds set by the published works (and regard the works published during his lifetime as more authoratative than ones published posthumously); if there are contradictory elements (such as the parentage of Gil-galad), I generally go with Tolkien's later choice unless there is compelling reason to do otherwise, and I stay consistent once I've made my choice. But I don't use "would Tolkien have approved of this" as a guideline, both because it's impossible to know what he would have approved of, and because I'm often dealing with emotions and situations that Tolkien seemed uncomfortable discussing; I don't see why I should allow his limitations as an author to influence me unduely. That being said, I don't think I'm twisting his characters into unrecognizable caracatures; I'm trying to provide plausable reasons for why those characters act as they do (I write Silmarillion fanfiction - and frankly, NONE of the characters in the Silmarillion are as fully-developed as the major characters in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings). It seems to me that that's the best any author can do - approach the texts with respect, but remember that ultimately you as the author have to decide what works for the story you're trying to tell.