Emerald and gold: Sam and OL's (Other Lovers)
Thursday, August 11th, 2005 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serai.
Samwise Gamgee. Best of hobbits, friend of friends. The moral and emotional centier of The Lord of the Rings. As a person in Middle-Earth, not just a character in a story, Sam is vastly unassuming. When the story opens, there's nothing remarkable about him, really, other than a rather dreamy fondness for things magical. He has a good living at an honest trade. A pleasant fellow of a lower station, the most any landed hobbit would think of him would probably be gratitude that he isn't any trouble. "A fine fellow to have about the place," they would say, and promptly move on to other things. Indeed, one of the greatest pleasures in reading the story is the measured, step-by-step revelation of just what in buried in this gentle, common gardener, so deep he has no idea himself that it is there.
As Sam, whose own heart is so large, is the heart of this story, and he being one of the few characters that expresses his love in words, it seems natural to imagine he is active in a love affair. And given that, there really isn't anybody who would fit the bill as completely as Sam's master, Frodo Baggins. Sam is clearly starry-eyed already when Gandalf hauls him through that window, and the deepening and tempering of his devotion through ice and fire and death feels like nothing so much as Sam simply falling into his fate. Clearly, this is what he was made for, as seems true of so many in the book, and so Sam is fated to love Frodo. Even if Sam did not want to bed his master, it's hard to imagine that he would refuse if asked, or that he would not take at least some pleasure in it, in that case. Love can transcend anything.
Unlike a number of fine writers in this fandom, I have trouble envisioning Sam with anyone else in the story. I've enjoyed the stories I've read, but for me when it comes time to write, Sam loves only the two people that Tolkien said he did: his beloved Frodo and his dearest Rose. It's frustrating sometimes, because I would love to explore the possibility of Sam finding love or pleasure with others.
So I should like to know your thoughts. Have you written Sam with an OC or another canon character? What gave you the impetus, and was it easy or not? Have you read fics with Sam loving someone other than Frodo or Rosie? Did you like them? Why? Why not?
Even if Sam is involved with another character, it seems to me that it would by definition be brief. Frodo dominates Sam's attention in the first third of his life, it seems, and after that he is married with a family. How do you view the idea of the permanence of Sam's major loves vs. the relative brevity of an OC affair? Do you feel that Sam would love another character just as intensely as he does Frodo or Rose? Is it even possible to see Sam doing this, and what do you think would drive Sam into or keep him out of another's arms?
I wonder if I'll ever find another written character like Samwise. Tolkien took a very old demi-character of lore (he even has the traditional name: he is Good Sam, the faithful servant) and created someone who grows exponentially as the tale goes on, and yet in the end is who he always was. Every part of his story is uniquely Sam, livable by no other being (again as is true of everybody else in the book.) He's given every characteristic that would endear him to a romance writer - good, brave, loyal, forthright, humble, strong, we could go on - and so there's a lot of potential there. (And now I'm starting to have porny inklings of Sam being the Gardener of the Shire after the War, in more ways than one. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
It would be cool to hear all the angles on this. So spill it. The microphones are on.
P.S. Sorry if there's anything eye-rolling up there. Felt like sounding high-falutin' for a while.
Samwise Gamgee. Best of hobbits, friend of friends. The moral and emotional centier of The Lord of the Rings. As a person in Middle-Earth, not just a character in a story, Sam is vastly unassuming. When the story opens, there's nothing remarkable about him, really, other than a rather dreamy fondness for things magical. He has a good living at an honest trade. A pleasant fellow of a lower station, the most any landed hobbit would think of him would probably be gratitude that he isn't any trouble. "A fine fellow to have about the place," they would say, and promptly move on to other things. Indeed, one of the greatest pleasures in reading the story is the measured, step-by-step revelation of just what in buried in this gentle, common gardener, so deep he has no idea himself that it is there.
As Sam, whose own heart is so large, is the heart of this story, and he being one of the few characters that expresses his love in words, it seems natural to imagine he is active in a love affair. And given that, there really isn't anybody who would fit the bill as completely as Sam's master, Frodo Baggins. Sam is clearly starry-eyed already when Gandalf hauls him through that window, and the deepening and tempering of his devotion through ice and fire and death feels like nothing so much as Sam simply falling into his fate. Clearly, this is what he was made for, as seems true of so many in the book, and so Sam is fated to love Frodo. Even if Sam did not want to bed his master, it's hard to imagine that he would refuse if asked, or that he would not take at least some pleasure in it, in that case. Love can transcend anything.
Unlike a number of fine writers in this fandom, I have trouble envisioning Sam with anyone else in the story. I've enjoyed the stories I've read, but for me when it comes time to write, Sam loves only the two people that Tolkien said he did: his beloved Frodo and his dearest Rose. It's frustrating sometimes, because I would love to explore the possibility of Sam finding love or pleasure with others.
So I should like to know your thoughts. Have you written Sam with an OC or another canon character? What gave you the impetus, and was it easy or not? Have you read fics with Sam loving someone other than Frodo or Rosie? Did you like them? Why? Why not?
Even if Sam is involved with another character, it seems to me that it would by definition be brief. Frodo dominates Sam's attention in the first third of his life, it seems, and after that he is married with a family. How do you view the idea of the permanence of Sam's major loves vs. the relative brevity of an OC affair? Do you feel that Sam would love another character just as intensely as he does Frodo or Rose? Is it even possible to see Sam doing this, and what do you think would drive Sam into or keep him out of another's arms?
I wonder if I'll ever find another written character like Samwise. Tolkien took a very old demi-character of lore (he even has the traditional name: he is Good Sam, the faithful servant) and created someone who grows exponentially as the tale goes on, and yet in the end is who he always was. Every part of his story is uniquely Sam, livable by no other being (again as is true of everybody else in the book.) He's given every characteristic that would endear him to a romance writer - good, brave, loyal, forthright, humble, strong, we could go on - and so there's a lot of potential there. (And now I'm starting to have porny inklings of Sam being the Gardener of the Shire after the War, in more ways than one. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
It would be cool to hear all the angles on this. So spill it. The microphones are on.
P.S. Sorry if there's anything eye-rolling up there. Felt like sounding high-falutin' for a while.
