I now pronounce you Dwarf & Hobbit...oops!

[Lalwendë]

I'm just laughing a bit about what the game designer says:

"Tolkien was a conservative Catholic," said Davidson. "He went out drinking with C.S. Lewis every night, and the two of them had a worldview that was -- well, let's just say it clashes a little bit with the sensibilities of East Coast liberals who make up the largest population of Turbine.”

This conjours up the image of Tolkien as a redneck who drove round in a pick-up truck looking for people to beat up. Errr, no, he was a Professor at Oxford University, a place riddled with homosexuality (if such a thing can indeed 'riddle'). One of Oxford's most famous 'circles' included Betjeman, Auden, Spender, Macneice and Isherwood. Now Lewis may not have seen eye to eye with Betjeman and his aesthetic (but note, not gay) ways, but the same dislike did not prevent Tolkien and Auden being great friends - and Auden was not only gay but also a Marxist.

It does make me laugh how people will cast their own beliefs onto Tolkien - they may indeed be particular sorts of conservatives, and may interpret conservative in a particular way, but whatever they think, this did not preclude Tolkien from being great friends with someone who was both extremely left wing and gay.

Anyway, at root, this is a game not the books. If you don't like the idea of gay characters being conjoured up by gamers then stick to the books. Like it or not, online worlds are co-created by those who game in them and the game creators are fooling themselves if they want to maintain some spurious semblance of 'authenticity' as what's that anyway?