Gimli and Legolas - a couple?

[Theo]

  Granted, it's been a long while since I've read the LotR books and I don't recall having read anything more about the pair, but was wondering if they ever married or had significant others?  OR were they a couple?  I know some people think (either jokingly or seriously) that Frodo and Sam had something going on, which I disagree with..

  But that said, being homosexual or writing about homosexuals would have been so much more taboo then than now..  I mean, does that even fit into Tolkien's belief system?  Or was it something that honestly never even occurred to him?

  I'm just curious about what kind of relationship they might have had with one another..  So, thoughts?

[GG]

I get a feeling that being perceived as homosexual even in Tolkien's day was less taboo than it is in many parts of the U.S. right now.

A fine example is (and my fellow Americans can testify with me here), the "gay seat" in a movie theatre. When girls go to the movies, it's perfectly okay to sit in adjacent seats and even share a box of popcorn, but guys...no..no way! If two dudes go to the movies and there are only two seats left in the whole auditorium, and they're adjacent, they do paper-scissors-rock for who gets the seat and the other guy stands in the aisle. The vacant seat has come to be called (politically incorrectly) the gay seat, because if another guy takes it, he HAS to be gay.

Apparently from the people I've spoken with,, this kind of fear of closeness doesn't exist in most of western Europe. Guys don't feel compelled to hold their water all day before they would use a urinal right next to another guy, and guys don't get immediately creeped out if another guy tells them that their shirt looks nice.

I get the feeling that Gimli and Legolas were very good friends. I don't even think it went so far as to be called a hetero bromance.

Now..I'm not so sure about the orcs that had captured Merry and Pippin. Something about wanting to use them "for sport". I doubt they meant rugby.

[Theo]

  I've never heard it referred to as the gay seat, but it's definitely true!  Guys are ridiculous about that..  I think that sometimes Americans are overly macho and guys feel like getting in touch with their feelings is "gay" and crying is a major no no..  In their eyes, you're definitely a sissy if you cry..

  I think it very possible that one could say they were gay..  Neither had any sort of love interests in their lives and they never got married..  After meeting at the Council of Elrond they were rarely even separated..

  Though I disagree with trying to force homosexuality on people by saying that characters of books are gay when there's no evidence to say they are..  Or like J.K. Rowling who announced after all these years that Dumbledore was gay..  She only did that to get "in" with more people, to get more people to buy her books/ movies..  But that's a rather cynical point of view.. 

[GG]

I always got the feeling from the books (in FoTR) that Gimli had become hopelessly infatuated with Galadriel. Now that's not to say he might not have also had eyes for Legolas....or that Legolas might not have been feeling some kind of unrequited love for Gimli.

I'm going to make a horrible confession here, but when I was much younger, before I knew anything of LoTR beyond the Rankin-Bass *paTOOEY* animated Hobbit, I came away with the silly notion that Gollum was gay. He had all of the classic (as defined by Americans) symptoms. He lived alone, liked jewellry, had a bit of a lisp and a high voice, and had *gasp* an English accent.

On second thought, we probably best not even bring up Smeagol and Deagol, lest we sound like some kind of homophobic version of the  House Un-American Activities Commission seeing gays around every corner and lurking under every bed.

but wait...Dumbledore?  That's news to me.

[Theo]

  Yep, Dumbledore is gay..  I remember when I heard it that I was appalled because I felt it was nothing but a publicity stunt to get more people reading her books..  I have no problem whatsoever with him being gay, I just disliked that it only occurred after all these years..  If he had been gay to begin with, why not say it from the start?

  Anyways, I digress..

  About Gimli and Galadriel; I had forgotten how much he liked her..  But maybe he was bi, I dunno..  Maybe I'm just trying to put something in the books that's not there..  -shrug-

  I doubt that Tolkien even thought about any of his characters being gay..  Not that he didn't know about homosexuality, just that I don't think he would believe in it..  Know what I mean?  I'm not making myself too awfully clear..  But I disagree with your statement about homosexuality being more taboo these days..  I think it just seems that way because there are more people coming out and so there's gonna be more protest against it..  I don't know how religious or spiritual Tolkien was, but being gay may even have been "against" his religion, I don't know..

Call to undefined function tportal_version()