The Bad LotR Fan Fic Drinking Game

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

But note the attempt to sound knowledgeable:

Want to bet those two sentences aren't copy-pasted from Wikipedia or something similar?

I would call that a sucker bet. And funny, I knew that Gandalf was "an angel" well before the Silmarillion was published. References to that comment of Tolkien's showed up in at least two scholarly works that I read back when I was in college (in the early '70s). Even before that, when I first read LotR at age 11, I figured out long before the end of the book that Gandalf was something unusual, since he was not an Elf, and could not have been a Man, either, since he was nearly 2000 years old. That and other things in the story made me figure that Sauron might be a wizard gone bad -- which wasn't all that far from the truth. Robert Foster apparently didn't make that connection, nor, it seems, did the Sue writer. Sigh.

[Morthoron]

Well, since we are going for a veneer of pseudo-intellectuality, then in addition to misquoting and misinterpreting obscure Tolkienia, perhaps we should inject a little exoliterary (a word I just pompously invented) blundering as well. I am thinking specifically of the classic misunderstandings and misidentifications found in Shakespeare's pastoral plays (As You Like It, for example): He loves her, but she spurns him because she loves the other, but the other is not really a he but a disguised she who loves the first, etc.

Of course, blatant literary rip-offs on this scale must be plainly labeled as such in order to show off our pretentiousness. Maybe we can have an elf NPC named Touchstone making snide asides.

[Nerwen]

Ah well, I know of one dreadful LotR Suethor who also writes... Hamlet fanfic!

(Yes, the Prince of Denmark does have raven hair and emerald eyes. Why do you ask?)

There's another who specialises in Jane Austen-Tolkien crossovers... rewrites of Emma and Pride and Prejudice set in Minas Tirith.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Ah well, I know of one dreadful LotR Suethor who also writes... Hamlet fanfic!

(Yes, the Prince of Denmark does have raven hair and emerald eyes. Why do you ask?)

There's another who specialises in Jane Austen-Tolkien crossovers... rewrites of Emma and Pride and Prejudice set in Minas Tirith.

Alas! Then truly, there is nothing new under the sun! Or if I may quote Umberto Eco completely and utterly out of context (which is appropo for this pompously smirking venture):

The property of knowledge, as a divine thing, is that it is complete and has been defined since the beginning, in the perfection of the Word which expresses itself to itself...There is no progress, no revolution of ages, in the history of knowledge, but at most a continuous and sublime recapitulation.

Let us then recapitulate, my Mary-Sues, for we cannot hope to get any odder than what has come before us. We are standing on the shoulders of eccentric giants, who have, unfortunately, sunk neck deep in the tar pits. Be sure to wear your play clothes, and leave your Sunday-go-to-meeting best at home. This could get dirty.

*The Dark Elf puts on his wading boots and slogs off through the muck and mire*