Mastodawn

Those who know me know what a big Tolkien nerd I am.

If the IP for Lord of the Rings becomes owned by transphobes, I will stop engaging with new stuff they make entirely. I will be very sad if this happens, but I would rather disengage than follow it into dark places.

Tolkien was a Zionist, in the 1920s version of that word's meaning. He wrote his Zionism into some parts of his books, especially in the Dwarves seeking to recolonise Moria and the Westrons lamenting for lost Númenor. If someone were to adapt Tolkien's work to support modern-day Zionism and its innately genocidal nature, I would be very fucking angry and would certainly not engage with it.

You cannot use my love of fiction to make me support hate. I will not let you do that, no matter how much I like that fiction.

I am cautiously optimistic about the Potter fandom doing the same about Rowling's new version. You're a pretty good fandom, by and large. Please don't disappoint me.

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Rich Puchalsky ⩜⃝12h ago

@passenger

I think it's very different after the author is dead. It's difficult to hold to the principle of "the author is dead" while they are alive and doing politics.

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geolaw

@richpuchalsky @passenger H P Lovecraft is dead, but the fandom regularly struggles with the racism. Lovecraft's works are mostly in the public domain, which allows great freedom for authors to create new works, drawing directly on the Lovecraft mythos, but without the racism.