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Demetrious Polychron had been a devoted fan of the Lord of the Rings novels since his childhood. In a 2017 letter to Simon Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien’s grandson, Polychron professed his love for the series — and wrote that he had something to share, according to court records.

“For the last three years, I’ve been doing the most obvious hardest thing in the world,” Polychron wrote, according to a copy of the letter presented in court documents. “I’ve been writing the obvious pitch-perfect sequel to ‘The Lord of the Rings.’”

Polychron wrote to the Tolkien family multiple times across several years, repeating his admiration for Tolkien’s fantasy world and his insistent desire to write its next chapter, court records state. But the excited outreach of a passionate fan ended in courtroom acrimony. In April, Polychron sued Tolkien’s estate and Amazon Studios, which produced the prequel “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2022/09/01/lord-rings-amazon/" target=_blank>The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power</a>,” alleging that the high-profile television series copied his work.

Tolkien’s estate responded with its own lawsuit in June, alleging that Polychron ignored repeated warnings that the estate rarely authorized derivative works of the Lord of the Rings and committed copyright infringement by publishing and selling the book himself. Polychron’s unauthorized sequel, “The Fellowship of the King,” copied plot points and characters from Tolkien’s original series, the lawsuit alleged.

In the unusual clash between an author’s estate and an industrious fan, the Tolkien family won out. Polychron’s lawsuit was deemed frivolous and dismissed in August. On Thursday, a California judge ruled against him in the estate’s lawsuit and granted a permanent injunction barring him from selling or keeping any copies of his story.

“This is an important success for the Tolkien Estate, which will not permit unauthorized authors and publishers to monetize JRR Tolkien’s much-loved works in this way,” Steven Maier, a United Kingdom-based attorney for the Tolkien estate, said in a statement to The Washington Post shared by the estate’s U.S. attorneys.

Attorneys for Polychron and Amazon Studios did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday evening. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post, and the newspaper’s interim CEO, Patty Stonesifer, sits on Amazon’s board.)

Polychron introduced himself to Simon Tolkien as a Tolkien fan since childhood in his 2017 letter, according to court documents. He said he was inspired to write a Lord of the Rings sequel after reading Tolkien’s notes on undeveloped story ideas in the series, court records state.

“Some part of my creative subconscious took that as a command from your grandfather,” Polychron wrote, according to court documents.

With the letter, Polychron shared a finished manuscript of his sequel, which he said was 180,000 words long, according to the lawsuit from Tolkien’s estate. He received no response, according to Polychron’s lawsuit. In 2019, he contacted Tolkien’s estate to discuss collaborating to publish the book and was rebuffed, according to court documents. In December of that year, Polychron allegedly wrote to Simon Tolkien asking him to reconsider. Simon Tolkien returned Polychron’s manuscript unread, according to the Tolkien estate’s lawsuit.

Polychron proceeded to publish “The Fellowship of the King” himself in 2022, court documents state. A synopsis from an <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/book/1142895065;jsessionid=329F8BBA7D57529C5B904603C06D3E6E.prodny_store02-atgap12" target=_blank>online listing</a> of the book describes characters from the Lord of the Rings series fighting in a “War Of The Rings To End All Wars Of The Rings.” The book’s first page dedicates it to J.R.R. Tolkien.

The lawsuits by Polychron and the Tolkien estate argued that Polychron’s book either became the subject of copyright infringement — or was an unauthorized work itself.

Polychron’s lawsuit, filed in April, claimed that the 2022 Prime Video series “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” one of the few Middle-earth adaptations authorized by the Tolkien estate, was copied from his “Fellowship of the King” sequel. The <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7631058/" target=_blank>series</a>, a prequel to the Lord of the Rings, is set thousands of years before the events of Tolkien’s original story, according to an online synopsis.

In June, the Tolkien estate answered back with its own lawsuit, which discussed the plot of Polychron’s book in detail and alleged that it was plainly written as a sequel to Tolkien’s series, which the estate did not authorize.

“The Fellowship of the King” continued the Lord of the Rings story two decades after the end of the series and featured characters from Tolkien’s trilogy, such as Samwise Gamgee, Aragorn and Legolas, according to the Tolkien estate’s lawsuit. The book also lifted plot points and verbatim phrases from Tolkien’s trilogy, the lawsuit claimed.

Attorneys for the Tolkien estate sent a cease-and-desist letter to Polychron in March, according to the estate’s lawsuit. In a lengthy response, Polychron denied that he had infringed on Tolkien’s copyright and called his book a “loving homage” to the Lord of the Rings, court records state. He also allegedly described plans for a seven-book series of Lord of the Rings sequels that could be adapted into 21 films.

In an answer filed in court to the Tolkien estate’s allegations, Polychron confirmed his correspondence with Tolkien’s estate but denied committing copyright infringement.

A judge dismissed Polychron’s lawsuit, writing that Polychron had admitted in his letters that his work was intended to be a sequel to the Lord of the Rings, and that an unauthorized derivative work cannot be subject to a copyright infringement claim. Polychron was also ordered Thursday to pay attorney fees for Amazon Studios and Tolkien’s estate.

The injunction granted Thursday in the case against Polychron forbids him from distributing or selling “The Fellowship of the King” and orders him to destroy any copies of the work.

In a March email to the Tolkien estate, Polychron allegedly said that he considered rewriting his story for a separate fantasy setting but could not bring himself to delete his work. He offered an explanation for his insistence in petitioning the estate of his favorite author.

“I will never, ever believe that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien would not be proud of what I have accomplished, only by standing on his almost unscalable shoulders,” Polychron wrote.

Stanford University, BA in History and MA in Communications

Daniel Wu is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. He joined The Post as an intern on the Metro desk in 2022 and previously worked for the Seattle Times and the San Jose Mercury News.

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