Oddly, I have never really gotten much into Tolkien fanfic
I have a theory about fanfic. I think that the more incomplete the source material is, the more good fanfic there is and the more people go looking for it. (I specify "good fanfic" because crappy fanfic and pure porn seem to have no relationship to the quality of the source material.)
So, for example, Tolkien didn't just write an epic fantasy novel -- he invented something like six different languages, at least five different races, and an entire cosmogony going back to the creation of the world in which to set this epic fantasy. Plus a sprawling universe of side stories, back stories, and future stories covering almost every single character in the books, from Elrond's father to Merry and Pippin's grandchildren. His world is so complete in itself that for people who love the books, fanfic just seems blatantly unnecessary.
Harry Potter, on the other hand, despite being roughly the same length as LOTR in terms of word count and covering six years longer, leaves so many questions unanswered and so many characters unexplored that for people who love the books, it positively cries out for fanfic.
no subject
I have a theory about fanfic. I think that the more incomplete the source material is, the more good fanfic there is and the more people go looking for it. (I specify "good fanfic" because crappy fanfic and pure porn seem to have no relationship to the quality of the source material.)
So, for example, Tolkien didn't just write an epic fantasy novel -- he invented something like six different languages, at least five different races, and an entire cosmogony going back to the creation of the world in which to set this epic fantasy. Plus a sprawling universe of side stories, back stories, and future stories covering almost every single character in the books, from Elrond's father to Merry and Pippin's grandchildren. His world is so complete in itself that for people who love the books, fanfic just seems blatantly unnecessary.
Harry Potter, on the other hand, despite being roughly the same length as LOTR in terms of word count and covering six years longer, leaves so many questions unanswered and so many characters unexplored that for people who love the books, it positively cries out for fanfic.