New Podcast Episode: Talking Angbang with Queer Lodgings
A very scholarly but NSFW discussion
Good evening lovely readers. I just wanted to update everyone that I have finally crossed over into the podcasting realm. Cameron Bourquein and I were invited onto the Queer Lodgings podcast to discuss our very favourite bad boy, Sauron. Queer Lodgings is a queer-led and podcast about all things Tolkien with a strongly intersectional approach that I have been a big fan of from the start. As a friend of the pod, I was very happy for it to be my first (released) podcast (watch this space then the first one I actually recorded goes live).
Cameron and I were invited on to discuss the history and fandom context of Angbang, which is the ship name for romantic and/or sexual relationships between Melkor and Sauron. I’m going to give a very brief overview of what we discuss in this episode just to whet your appetites, but do mind the content warnings provided by the folks over at QL:
Content warning: This episode includes discussion of sex, sexual relationships, kink, BDSM, intimate partner violence at various levels of consent, rape, sexual assault/abuse, abusive relationships, and abusive power dynamics.
If this isn’t up your alley, feel free to skip this one with no judgment (though I won’t go into the really juicy bits here in this blog post). If the very clear NSFW warning hasn’t put you off, if you plug in you can hear us cover topics like:
What IS this ship?
The history of the ship within the fandom
The influence of Russian Tolkien fans on this ship
Problematic ships and the fans who love them (both the pros and cons)
BDSM & kink ethics and fandom engagement
Two very different perspectives on Sauron’s relationship with Melkor
The erotics, ecstasies and abuses of power dynamics
A whole lot of focus on Sauron, we really love Sauron.
The above link is for Spotify, and the episode can also be found here on the Queer Lodgings webpage, as well as on Zencastr and Apple. You can join Cameron’s mailing list for updates and to be involved with her upcoming fandom survey work on Sauron and his reception on SauronProject.com.
And as a bonus for followers her on the blogosphere, I’ve decided to add some thoughts on something we weren’t really able to discuss during the podcast recording due to time: Sauron and Free Will.
One of the things we cover quite heavily in the podcast are the power dynamics between Melkor and Sauron, and how any relationship is going to be inherently imbalanced due to Melkor having power over Sauron, as his boss and as his metaphysical superior. I think asking ourselves whether Sauron has any free will at all adds another complex layer. How much independence does Sauron really have, ever? Sauron doesn’t really gain independence until the Second Age, when Melkor is trapped in the void and Sauron is able to rise to power on his own and of his own devices. Where he was once a lieutenant, a fundamentally subservient middle manager, Sauron is able (in the Second Age) to hold real power. This is something I believe he would really struggle to give back to Melkor if Melkor ever did escape from the Void. He would, in my opinion, grovel while trying to plot a way to return Melkor where he came from. There is only one Dark Lord and he does not share power.
The Temple to Melkor on Númenor isn’t really a temple to Melkor, is it? It has nothing to do with Melkor except in name. Rather it’s a vanity project and an exercise of Sauron’s own power, which he exerts over the will of Men, under the guise of being a prophet for a false God who isn’t even there.
Yet, in the First Age, Sauron is very much subservient. When Lúthien sends him away licking his wounds, he only submits when she threatens to send him back to his master as a failure, rather than on his own terms. If we consider the music of creation in the Ainulindalë as the creation and telling of the fate of Middle-earth throughout its ages then we can assume that, when Tolkien describes Melkor’s music at the very end before Ilúvatar’s final chord, he is describing Sauron at his pinnacle before his fall:
“The other had now achieved a unity of its own; but it was loud, and vain, and endlessly repeated; and it had little harmony, but rather a clamorous unison as of many trumpets braying upon a few notes. And it essayed to drown the other music by the violence of its voice, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.”
For as complex as a character as Sauron is throughout the ages of Middle-earth, I think we can safely say that this describes Sauron at the end of the Third Age perfectly, down to his most triumphant notes being used against him in Ilúvatar’s most solemn plans. This music is Melkor’s music. So, this begs the question: how much free will does Sauron have, ever? If his actions will always just play out Melkor’s music, even when he believes he is aggrandizing himself above all others, then he will never be free. He will always be Melkor’s plaything.
And if that doesn’t add to the complexities of that ship then hell, I really don’t know what does.
PS: Oh, I almost forgot. I reference two kink educators in the podcast and thought I would throw the links up. Watts the Safeword is a Youtube channel dedicated to fun and kinky sex education run by two cisgender gay men. The Dildorks is a sex education podcast run by a bisexual cis woman and sex journalist, and a trans masculine porn maker. Both are definitely worth a follow if you want to expand your knowledge on a wide variety of sex and sexuality subjects!