My favourite comment ever posted about my fanfic

[bunn]

"bleh! What have you done to the beautiful dialect of the smilarilion? You've trashed it and made it modern! That is a travesty, and no true fan of tolkein would do this. I reject this work."
-- an unregistered user on archiveofourown

I love this comment so much that I am seriously considering getting it printed on a t-shirt.  I keep reading it again and it makes me fall over laughing again.

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

That's up there with my favourite "This is not canon" for a fanfic of mine in which the main characters were turned into bunnies.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I have yet to achieve the lofty heights of the noncanon bunnies, but I am proud indeed of my smilarilion.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I hope you wrote back and explained you were using the correct dialect for the smilarilion - as spoken by the tolkein (I assume tolkeins are a form of being, like elves and dwarves).

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I very nearly did, but then I thought what if they are genuinely dyslexic or something like that? (OK, also a bit rude, but one might be dyslexic and rude...) So I wrote a very serious and polite reply without mentioning the spelling.

But I am still laughing!

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

"I reject this work."

And everyone is gutted, LOL. I had a great one once: "'in whole France' would be more correct than 'in the whole of France'. Just a tip."

[bunn.livejournal.com]

One whole France! There's a tip to treasure.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

Ummm, the very vast majority of Silmarillion fanfic doesn't use the antiquated KJV type speech. This esteemed reviewer must be new.

Also: SMILARILION. Definitely trust the opinion of anyone who knows the true and secret spelling that Tolkien wisely intended.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Nononono 'tolkein' ! Without a capital letter, obvs!

Honestly, if it had been from anyone I knew, I would have assumed it was a joke, but because it's unregistered username 'geek', I think it was intended genuinely.

It is a thing of purest shining accidental gold that I shall treasure long.

First time reader!

[nonnicat.livejournal.com]

Mind sharing a link to the fanfic? I'm a huge Tolkien fan (by the way, I love your art!)

~ Nonni

Re: First time reader!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh, hello!

It was Nerdanel and Fëanor : Messages: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10491684

which by some way is probably the most colloquial and modern-language-y thing I've written -- because it's a silly story about Nerdanel and Fëanor text messaging each other when Fëanor was in the Halls of Mandos.

Obviously Grumpy Commenter would read that one, not anything else I've written where I was trying for more lyrical language! :-D

[angelica-ramses.livejournal.com]

Amazing! It's been some time since such a jewel of a review turns up - almost a smilaril!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

A smilaril! :-DDD

it is indeed.

[arcanetrivia]

I saw this post on the front page of LJ when I logged in today. This comment rather makes me want to read the fic that prompted it!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

! I always forget LJ does that. Though, what am I saying, a comment of this quality deserves an audience to appreciate it!

It was Nerdanel and Fëanor : Messages: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10491684 about First Age Nerdanel and Fëanor text messaging one another. Not one of the more serious and Silmarilliony things I have written!

[arcanetrivia]

Well, now that I've slurped up about 170k words (Aman + Mandos + most of the standalones) in four days, I want to say how impressed I am with the care and thought you've clearly put into your series. And though I had to follow along with a cheatsheet at first, I think now I have a much better grasp on all the kinships than I did before, so the next time I go to read anyone's Silmarillion smilarilion fanfic I'll be a lot less confused! Nothing like a lot of practical exercises to help get a firm grasp on information :)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Good heavens! That's a lot of words. I'm glad you liked them! (I admit, I have spent a lot of time with Elrond's family tree open in a tab myself, there are such a lot of them! And I still have Idril & Tuor on the to-do list for the last chapter...)

Given my appalling treatment of the beautiful dialect of the Smilarilion, it's good news that it was at least educational :-D

[arcanetrivia]

Wellll, I can see where people who would complain about the style are coming from. Personally, I was thrown for a moment in one of the stories when someone mentioned coffee -- tea, all right, mumble mumble Middle Earth somehow has tobacco mumble, but coffee seemed too exotic somehow! *chuckles* But really, I got used to it. And there are definitely some worthy phrases in the narrative - like in "The House of Feanor", ancient Elves with minds full of stars, walking through memory and singing songs of days long past.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I warred with myself about that coffee! I would not have put it into Middle-earth: it would feel wrong, I agree (though as an old-world plant from Africa, in a way it should be more at home than potatoes or tobacco or Bilbo's very modern matchsticks...)

But Aman is supposed to contain all plants and creatures that ever have been in middle-earth, so in the end I put it in. But it probably does have too much of a modern resonance to it: even though it IS old, it *feels* present-day-ish in a way that tea somehow does not, even though in Britain we've been drinking coffee longer than we have been drinking tea! It's strange how they have such very different associations.

But in Return to Aman I was deliberately being a little lighthearted for much of it. It originally started as a quick idea for '100 words of embarrassment' (ie, Maglor being embarrassed about meeting Elwing) and got entirely out of hand!

[scripsi.livejournal.com]

"smilarilion"

Yes, that's a good one!

My personal favourite was someone derailing me for writing Captain Hook as a very unpleasant way, because he wouldn't behave like that because he was a PIRATE!

Oh, silly me, I hadn't realised pirates were mainly known as fluffy romantic bunnies...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. The word pirate has been sadly misused!

[sally_maria]

Oh, what a prime example of Muphry's law.

I must admit I always want to check whether these tolkein fans are members of the Tolkein Society.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I love the Tolkein Society :-D

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

To tell you the truth, I don't like your too modern language also; but the comment is beautiful, it would look great on t-shirt.
(And I haven't time still to tell you that despite language and despite me seeing the elves in an entirely different way, I love "Mereth Aderthad". It was absolutely great. I never imagined a guilty feanorion get angered - and still be right. Thank you.)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Ah, you and my mother both on the modern language! Whereas Pp felt that there was too much tea and cake and not enough epic in the Return to Aman series. The last story is going to have an epic ending, but too late for him...

I'm glad you liked the Mereth Aderthad though. (I do dislike the Amrod burned at Losgar thing, so Maglor's fury was easy to write!)

How is your conception of Elves different? I think I've made them perhaps rather solid and ordinary recently, which I hadn't quite intended but probably arose from the very closeup view and having lots of dialogue (very un-silmarilliony that, I am sure my angry commenter would be furious!)

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I wouldn't be able to explain it even in my native language. "Of character", "out of character" is the most important thing for me as a reader - and at the same time there is nothing more personal and subjective than this point. And if we are talking not about Turin or Finrod, but about the whole people, all traits become ephemeral, there would not be two readers\writers that would agree completely on everything. It's hard to explain let alone proove anything, that's why I usually dont's say such thing to authors. The only thing I can say is that your elves seems like "the boys next door", like ordinary humans, your neighbours. And I'm definitely sure the elves like Tolkien described them are not like this. Proofs? None. Not with my brains at least. That's why I call it "me seeing", not even "conception". But I'm ok with tea and cakes though (shrug).
You know, we Russians for long years called Tolkien "Tolkee-yen", because the first russian translation was issued with a letter-to-letter transliteration like this on the cover. I'm still not comfortable with "tolkeen" myself :) Thanks god Tolkien himself have explained somewhere how to pronounce his name!

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think I might know what you mean, and I sort of agree. I have enjoyed writing the series, but they are a little too ordinary, for Tolkien Elves - even though they are people who live in jewelled houses, sing songs of power and can speak mind to mind, they feel ordinary because they are the point of view characters. I don't know how to write characters that look odd and faerie *to themselves*. Or at least, it seems like it would get wearing for a long piece of fiction. I've done it for short things... Perhaps it would make an interesting exercise.

Tolkien does it by using hobbits as his point of view characters, or by taking a very high-level epic view...

I'm sure I've heard people in England pronounce Tolkien like that too.

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the elves feel ordinary for themselves. Only their "ordinary" is not like human "ordinary", and that's rather hard to write. And I'm sure their difference from humans is not in jewelled houses and even songs of power, it's in a manner of thinking - and ergo speaking and acting. Yes, they have many common traits with humans, and even common sins, and of course elves are different among themselves - and still. Where is this difference, if the traits are common? In proportions? In qualities of the same traits? I don't know, I can't peg it. (Should it be "pin it"?) But I've seen fanfics where elves were high and noble and still it was from treir point of view (I don't mean that they thought of themselves "oh, I'm so high and noble", I mean that they thought, spoke and act so that I, a reader, saw them as high and noble.)
You know, Tolkien somewhere has said - not about elves, it was about Theoden - that if he would speak another language - more modern and not so "high", he wouldn't think the thoughts he thought, he wouldn't do the deeds he did. I think it's somehow related to the question we discuss.

"I'm sure I've heard people in England pronounce Tolkien like that too." LOL! And I thought "ie" should alwais be pronounced as "ee" (well, more or less).

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Do you have any (English language) recommendations? I'd like to see one where you thought the elves worked...

If you think about it the word Tolkienien contains both pronunciations (or it does when I say it, anyway!)

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

Oh. I'll keep it in mind. You know, though, I'm terribly afraid to sound like "look, THAT's good language, not like yours, see?" It's very personal, ok?
I've almost blurted "Himring" - and then stopped to think, what if I love her stories DESPITE the fact that her language is not always "elvish" and I just don't remember it (it may happen). I'll reread some favorite pieces (happy excuse!) and then will say something (I hope). But even then I would not be able to point any definite phrase to say "that's high and elvish, this is not". It works in the whole, I suppose.

What "Tolkienien" means? My first thought - sindarin for "daughter of Tolkien" :)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Well, that series seems to have been relatively popular (at least by my low standards), so I don't feel too insecure about it, honestly.

I just got interested in the idea of how the language effects the perception of character, and wondered if it was all the language, or partly the setting (eg, as shyfoxling mentions above, the mention of coffee, for example), or perhaps also the mood: there's quite a lot of humour in that series, which perhaps may

So if examples come to hand, that would honestly be welcome. I will re-read some of Himring's things too, with that idea in mind. I think they tend to be less lighthearted than some of mine, more soulful, which may make a difference, but it might just be the language too.

'Tolkienien' means about Tolkien, pertaining to Tolkien, in the manner of Tolkien. Though it does make rather a pretty Sindarin name for Priscilla!

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

"if it was all the language, or partly the setting, or perhaps also the mood" - I'm sure all of this points work, each in it's own way. I think setting is the least important though - at least for me. I can easily imagine an elf drinking coffee -why not, really? A beer in a bar though - that would be harder to describe so that the reader would believe the character really being an elf. But even that I suppose would be possible with a good language. (Oh, no, NO - now I imagine a quest to describe a traveling elf in "The Prancing Pony" in Bree! Sounds like a prompt to "tolkien weekly" :P )
The same goes with humor. I think Tolkien's elves are not above humor at all and can even be frivolous and careless. And even mercilessly mocking - I suppose dwarves know it all too well. But even that the elves would do somehow differently, not entirely like humans. I wouldn't believe an elf being, say, for example, vulgar, corny.
And there's one more thing that came to my mind: with good language I wouldn't be able to distinguish a good, high and noble man from a high-noble elf. And I'm not even sure Tolkien didn't mean it to be this way...
OK, I can't not share one more observation: as soon as I want to describe an ordinary elf, not a high lord, but, say, a soldier, simple and er... "feet-to-earth"? less romantic, more pragmatic - his speech immediately starts to sound "humanish". I have no idea what to do with it. I'm sure there could and maybe even should be difference in language of a High Elven Lord and an eathly soldier, but I can't catch it.
I'll keep in mind about examples.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I don't know why not coffee, that's why I put it in, I couldn't pin it down why not - AND YET, it doesn't feel quite right to me (and when I mentioned this to Pp, he thought the same, and we had to research the history of British coffee-houses to try to work out why, but could not).

Whereas beer doesn't seem un-elfy to me, probably because it's got different cultural associations here. Wine seems more elfy than beer, but beer is OK in the right setting...

I agree that as soon as you start writing foot-soldiers it's hard to keep the language sounding 'high'. Though I suppose although Legolas in the book is technically a prince, he isn't really presented as one...?

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

And I can easily imagine an elf laughing out loud at human discussion "what is more un-elfy - beer or coffee?" Maybe it get something to do with you loving beer and me not. It so happenned in my life that people drinking beer were mostly un-cultural and un-high.

I have no problem writing a foot-soldier with a high language. A soldier CAN be educated, book-learned, romantic etc. The problem begins when he is NOT like this - and there suddenly disappear any difference between an elf-soldier and a human-soldier, which, I'm sure, is wrong.

I didn't notice anything un-princely with Legolas. He doesn't act like a prince who sits on his throne, issues orders, does nothing, but, well, it seems like exactly elvish trait for me.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Watching Elves are laughing at us....? I bet they are! :-D

Tolkien was a beer drinker. Whereas coffee here has a slightly American feel to it as a drink here, I think (unless you tag on a location like 'Russian coffee' which changes the feel of it entirely). No logic to that at all, yet there it is.

With Legolas, he's kindly and brave, but he seems to me perhaps more light-hearted than noble (that scene where he runs over the snow!) and there is the bit where he gets angry in Lorien because Gimli says he'll put up with a blindfold if Legolas has one too, which to my mind seems... proud, yes, but perhaps not very noble. It doesn't make him seem like a leader. Gimli seems more princely in that scene, he's not insisting on everyone being blindfolded, just not on being singled out. But Legolas won't have it until Aragorn intervenes. (Aragorn definitely seems noble to me there.)

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

Well, I think "high" and "noble" could be used with a different... not meaning perhaps, just... a flavour? a feeling? I believe it was a problem from the first day the word "noble" was used - what does it means? A 'noble" birth + education, manners, language etc? Or good deeds? Or a manner in which a good deed is done? Too difficult a theme for not native language, I don't hope to explain my feelings of the word, let alone prove it.
As for "princely" - there, I think, we understand the word differently (and yes, I realize I'm not a native). I understand it (maybe wrongly) "like a prince would do". Then Legolas's anger was definitely absolutely "princely" for me, it was Gimli who acted in non-princely, easy and simple way. Well, Gimli is not a prince, eh? :) I must tell, their conflict there doesn't look for me like something speaking bad things about them. Their prejudice against each other was very much due to history and politics and faults of others, I can't see any possibility for them acting in another way. On the contrary, the fact that they were able to overcome their prejudices speaks very high and noble of them both. (OK, with a little help from Aragorn not letting them to strangle each other on the way :) ) Oh, and Legolas is not a leader here, I mean literary, he's not a leader of the Fellowship. I think it's very "princely" and very un-noble (means bad) for any leader (prince, general, boss) to act as a leader in circumstances where he IS NOT a leader, towards people who don't own any loyalty to him. You know, the fact that Legolas had accepted the leadership of Aragorn speaks very good of him. It might be not easy for him - a prince, and raised in a court which, I suppose, didn't hold humans in high esteem.
And dance on a snow ever seemed to me something Finrod could have done. But Finrod could have allowed himself such thing because he is strong, free and calm, and Legolas... well, we don't know what life he has in Mirkwood. Maybe he was glad not to be a prince for once and loosen himself a bit.

I wonder what LJ will do if we continue to comment on and on. :) The space for comment become narrower and narrower...

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I don't know what LJ will do. I did wonder about replying to one of your earlier comments to make more space, but curiosity overwhelmed me. :-D

The difference between 'noble', 'high' and 'princely' is very subtle, and I suppose also depends on your characterisation of 'prince'. I tend to assume 'princely' is like 'noble' but with a greater element of generosity to it. But I'm sure there are people who would put a more 'proud and jealous' spin on it.

I can see Finrod running over snow or dancing on it, but I wonder if he would have been more sympathetic to the rest of the party. He seems like he might be, in the Athrabeth.

Legolas's words 'I go to find the Sun!' come across to me as perhaps a little lacking in sympathy for his poor shivering companions who can't do the same!

[r-blackcat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the difference between "what a prince would do" and "what a prince should do". The words of Aragorn to Gimly, after the wrestling with Palantir "you forget to whom you speak!" (the only thing I hold against Aragorn) sounds very "kingly" to me - and not very much noble. Oh and I just today was reading "The Fall of Gondolin", where Salgant was described by Tolkien as a "noble Gnome". Well, his deeds were speaking otherwise I think.
Absolutely agree about Finrod.
I didn't take the words of Legolas as un-sympathetic, only light-hearted. But I suppose it could be interpreted this way. If I'm not mistaken, it was Legolas who in the early manuscripts of Tolkien joked "Better a pet dragon than a wild wizard" :)