Why Can't Gay Dwarves Get Married in Middle Earth

[pegkerr]

Now THIS is interesting. . .

An article in Salon here by Katherine Glover discusses trying to balance the needs and requests and desires of players of a role-playing game with the overarching intention of the original author of the source material for the game (in this case, J.R.R. Tolkien).

I can vouch for my stepbrother -- he's a big supporter of equal rights for the gay and lesbian community. But when the issue of gay marriage came up at work, he voted against it. Same-sex marriage for U.S. citizens is one thing, but same-sex marriage for gay dwarves in Middle-earth is quite another.

Nik Davidson is a game designer at Turbine, the Westwood, Mass., company producing "The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar." The game has been in beta (a test version) since September, and during discussions of new features for the game, which was officially released Tuesday, the design team wound up in a heated discussion over what restrictions should be placed on marriage. They debated not only gay marriage but also marriage between members of different species. Finally, the game's executive producer settled the matter by pulling the entire marriage feature. Read more

It's particularly interesting, considering the huge number of slash fanfic writers who love the Lord of the Rings universe and some might presumably like to play the game. But although I, too, strongly support gay civil rights up to and including marriage, I gotta think I would probably have made the same decision that the game designers did. That surprises me a little.

Perhaps it's because, being a published author myself, I give extra (perhaps too much) weight to authorial preferences/intentions.

Thoughts?

Edited to add: Of course, it should be pointed out that if the object is to adhere to authorial intention, the computer game itself probably would not be invented at all: Tolkien used a typewriter and probably would have preferred quill and ink. I'll bet that he would have regarded personal computers with suspicion, if not outright loathing, as indicative of modernity, which he rather hated.

Comments

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

My point is that all of Tolkien's "authorial intent" is based on the experiences of a man who grew up in the 19th century and fought in the First World War.

If you're going to allow women to fight, then you're just as false to his vision as if you allow gay elves.

I believe in courtesy, at least, to living authors. When you're building a game based on the ideas of a man thirty years dead, you have no way of knowing how he would have adapted those ideas over time.

[serenya-loreden.livejournal.com]

yes, that is an excellent point, and I agree. Who knows what the tales told would encompass if written now, not then?