"And love grew after between them."

If you have spent any time in the fanworks fandom for The Silmarillion, you likely recognize these words, which have inspired thousands of fanworks amid lively discussions about the how and why of the love that grew between Elrond and Elros and their captors/adopted parents Maedhros and Maglor. Called kidnap fam in the fandom, it is one of those brief passages in Tolkien that provokes an interest among fans that might seem surprising given the relative lack of importance that Tolkien seemed to attach to the episode.

As part of our series of interviews of presenters for Mereth Aderthad 2025, I spoke to polutropos about her presentation "'Kidnap Fam' and the Living Legendarium," which explores the popularity of this short episode in the fandom as an example of how fans use the "living legendarium" to inspire fanworks.

"[I]n terms of how many words Tolkien wrote about [kidnap fam] versus how many fans have written about it, it's entirely disproportionate," polutropos told me, but as she went on to explain, that is the point. The "thousand directions" the story can be taken makes it a perfect jumping-off point for fanworks.

But polutropos's presentation isn't just about kidnap fam but what she terms "the living legendarium." Tolkien left The Silmarillion unfinished, and it was put into publishable form by Christopher Tolkien, whose editorial choices shape how we understand the story. In particular, Christopher Tolkien's choices around Gil-galad, as polutropos explains, "makes an already complicated relationship even more complicated." The incompleteness and complexity of how The Silmarillion came into being—not only the in-universe questions about historicity, orality, and narrators but the out-of-story concerns around how Christopher selected which of his father's writings would rise in status to become The Silmarillion—is part of what leads to the appeal of The Silmarillion to fanworks creators (and increasingly scholars as well). "[T]he very aspect of The Silmarillion that at first seems like a barrier to literary study is, on the contrary, an opportunity," polutropos said. "I think fanworks creators intuitively get that, but I hope this presentation affirms the legitimacy of fanworks as modes of inquiry and worth academic study in their own right."

You can read my interview with polutropos here.