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I'm writing Frodo-doesn't-sail-from-the-Grey-Havens fic. I feel sort of ambivalent about the whole thing. I don't think it would be overstating things to say that the Grey Havens were pretty much the central trauma of my adolescence. The pain of that unhappy ending - the loss of the Elves, of Frodo, of the beauties that burn like cold iron - I'm still not over it. I both love and hate Tolkien's ending.
It's not the only ending I feel that way about. Peter Pan, Narnia, His Dark Materials, the Matter of Britain. These awful, inevitable losses of faerie, of innocence, of hope. But all of those terrible endings I can abide by. I feel like they're unquestionable. Right. Proper. I might want Peter Pan to have a different ending, but I would never dream of making a new one. That would be denial of an undeniable truth. Wrong, somehow.
But I keep trying to rewrite the Grey Havens. The first fic I ever wrote was a Sam-sails-too, and the first long piece I ever managed was a Frodo-returns. So what is it about that ending in particular that renders it malleable to me? Why doesn't it feel wrong to try and keep Frodo in the Shire?
It's on Frodo's behalf that I want to object to the Havens. I've never been able to imagine Frodo over the Sea, to picture what he would do or be there. It feels all wrong, too. And I absolutely cannot imagine that any Elf or Maia could give Frodo better care than Master Samwise could. Frodo is a Baggins - he belongs in the Shire. He needs community, not even more isolation.
A while ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fictualities gave me an interesting - and utterly brilliant - frame to stretch this issue across. She picked apart that quote of Tolkien's, "I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, the longing for Elves, and sheer beauty."
( Read more... )
It's not the only ending I feel that way about. Peter Pan, Narnia, His Dark Materials, the Matter of Britain. These awful, inevitable losses of faerie, of innocence, of hope. But all of those terrible endings I can abide by. I feel like they're unquestionable. Right. Proper. I might want Peter Pan to have a different ending, but I would never dream of making a new one. That would be denial of an undeniable truth. Wrong, somehow.
But I keep trying to rewrite the Grey Havens. The first fic I ever wrote was a Sam-sails-too, and the first long piece I ever managed was a Frodo-returns. So what is it about that ending in particular that renders it malleable to me? Why doesn't it feel wrong to try and keep Frodo in the Shire?
It's on Frodo's behalf that I want to object to the Havens. I've never been able to imagine Frodo over the Sea, to picture what he would do or be there. It feels all wrong, too. And I absolutely cannot imagine that any Elf or Maia could give Frodo better care than Master Samwise could. Frodo is a Baggins - he belongs in the Shire. He needs community, not even more isolation.
A while ago,
fictualities gave me an interesting - and utterly brilliant - frame to stretch this issue across. She picked apart that quote of Tolkien's, "I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, the longing for Elves, and sheer beauty."( Read more... )