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Mangesh Hattikudur
Gay Hobbits and Middle-Earth Matrimony?
by Mangesh Hattikudur - May 2, 2007 - 9:07 AM

bakshi___bilbo_horrified.gifI’m not sure if you’ve been following the recent controversy in Middle Earth, but the video game company behind Lord of the Rings Online has recently decided not to allow players to get married. As G4 is reporting,

“It’s not because marrying someone in a videogame is way too dorky to even consider, either: The prohibition is for a more complicated, compelling reason.”

Essentially, it all comes down to gay marriages. Worried that homosexual hobbits and interspecies relationships go against Tolkein’s fantasy, the company Turbine has announced that they’re putting the kibosh on Middle Earth weddings (and more importantly civil unions), much to the dismay of gay gamers and anyone who wants to see more elf-Hobbit matrimony. Read more here at G4.

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Comments (4)

  1. That’s about as homophobic as you can get – someone actually feels threatened by a fictional gay marriage?

    posted by Karen on 5-2-2007 at 2:52 pm

  2. They don’t understand; some people are going to be so addicted to this game that they’re going to hire a pastor fluent in x language and fully informed on y race marriage rites. You can’t ban something people want to do; just look at Prohibition!

    posted by Anonymous Mk II on 5-2-2007 at 3:36 pm

  3. Correct me if I’m wrong–while I’m certainly a dork, my dork credentials have their limits–but Arwen and Aragon are two different species (elf and human, respectively), unless elves and humans aren’t really different species or something…(this is the part where the dorkiest among you may correct me)… And yet, the implication is that they will marry and have babies, right? So, it doesn’t really seem like Tolkein was actually against inter-fantasy-species relationships, and so their defense about keeping it true to Tolkein’s wishes isn’t really holding. Hmm…

    posted by Cynthia on 5-2-2007 at 6:52 pm

  4. yup… I didn’t elaborate enough Cynthia, but the rationale the execs at the company were using was that they didn’t want to do anything that wasn’t in the books. So, while human-elf marriages would be allowed by the game, dwarf-elf, or elf-hobbit, or other relationships that weren’t specifically mentioned in the book are off-limits. And since allowing some marriages to occur, and others not to, would cause too much outrage, the company’s decided to ban all marriages. At least, that’s what I’ve gotten from it. Really bizarre!

    posted by Mangesh on 5-2-2007 at 6:57 pm

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