I'll Say This, Then I'll Try To Shut Up

I suppose I must comment on the situation, or it will just rankle me in silence. I think anyone who has read and loved The Lord of the Rings has fostered at least one private ‘fan fiction’ of it. Heck, Dennis L McKiernan started his Mithgar books as basically a clone of the trilogy and a fictional ‘Return to Moria,’ though I understand that he has evolved beyond that (I’ll never know). Most of us have had the good sense to put aside such fictions, at most inflicting them on friends or fringe publishing. You can find my own here on NOT, titled There and Back Again, Again. But with the marketing of Middle-earth as an IP franchise and no longer gate-kept as ‘a heartbreaking work of staggering genius’ the rule has passed to lesser men of mundane vision. One cannot help but think “If [Tolkien] came back and saw what was being done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.”

 

I’ve always liked Stephen Colbert as a Tolkien admirer, a nerd who at least knew the Lore, but I’ve never seen him as an inspired writer who could tackle Middle-earth even on a mediocre level. That Piter Jeksun has handed him the keys of the car to be at least one of the writers on a new ‘sequel’ does not inspire me with confidence. Colbert knows all the trivia, so maybe (the lure of cultural influence is strong, though), maybe he will at least not make any major blasphemies against established Tolkien ‘facts.’ This seems like a cold cash grab move on Warners Brothers part, a way to keep the license to Middle-earth a while longer, and not an artistic decision. I can only cradle my head wearily and await the outcome. We’ve all had our fan-fiction, our head canons, and they are privately amusing. But

“… proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad -
But, when he thought of PUBLISHING,
His face grew stern and sad.”

-Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur [Poets Are Born, Not Made], Lewis Carroll