There were five of us. One was a little embarrassed; she was the only one who really had other friends. One was cheerfully uncomprehending, but happy to be involved with the group’s latest obsession. The rest of us were devoted to whatever short-lived passion struck us at the time. It was December 2001, and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring had just been released. We weren’t put off by that grandiose, sprawling title, being, as we were, fifteen and deadly serious about things. Or by the almost three-hour length of the film. Between us, we watched it maybe twenty times (although most viewings were shared, of course.)
Our local cinema was cheap and you could tell. Our feet stuck to the floor as we walked in, we picked popcorn off our shoes and out of the sides of our seats – worn red velour with shiny patches. For £2.50 we could watch the film again, and again, surrounded by snacks and giggling, a good chunk of a yawning Sunday afternoon dealt with, and an excuse to be together. It was winter so we couldn’t go to the park or wander around Camden Market avoiding eye contact with boys.
Lunchtimes we sat in the classroom. No one wanted to be in the playground in the cold, and there was nothing to do. We sat in the corner, pushed the grey tables together and ate our sandwiches. One day one of us brought in a video of an interview, recorded from TV, with the Lord of the Rings cast. Some of us went and got the TV, basically a wooden cupboard on wheels with an enormous cathode-ray television-VCR behind its doors, more commonly used for watching documentaries about 1066 when the history teacher was hungover. We wheeled it into the classroom and watched the video, rewinding and rewatching the bit where Orlando Bloom laughed nervously. We thought he looked a bit weird without his long blond hair and elf ears. There were other girls in the classroom, but they’re not in our memory. Evidence suggests they were surprisingly tolerant of us, or that our bubble was just impenetrable.
We weren’t really concerned with details. None of us read fanfiction, or tried to write in Elvish, or learned the favourite colours of the actors. We just watched the film – over and over – and looked at pictures of Legolas and (to a lesser extent) Aragorn, and said things to each other like ‘This task was appointed to you, and if you do not find a way, no one will.” We also got quite good at reciting Galadriel’s opening monologue in increasingly portentous voices. (We were mainly about the films, not the books. We did however make a special after-school trip one day to buy our own unwieldy 3-in-1 tie-in copies of the trilogy, which we devoured, although we skipped the songs.)
The best document of our obsession is the notebooks we received for our birthdays from a peripheral friend, the covers collaged in pixelly print-outs from the film. Inside are the excruciating notes we wrote to each other during long days at school. How we kept these books out of sight during Geography or Maths lessons is a mystery – they are large and brightly coloured and we wrote in them with glittery gel pens, and our notes and drawings induced giggling of great intensity. Looking at them now stings, because some of us still contain so much of that earnest desperate self-consciousness. Enough of it remains.
Our parents were accepting, if bemused by the speed and fervour with which we could move from one thing to another, but adult influence was unimportant. It was just us, our miraculously solid circle, among a jumble of duvets and sleeping bags on someone’s living room floor on a Saturday night, still awake at 4am. We had so much to say to each other, all the time. We talked and talked, our words overlapping each other in their haste to be heard; we annoyed other passengers on the buses we rode to the cinema, but our words were always too important to wait.
School was a small, oppressive necessity, where outside lessons, adults spoke to us mostly to tell us to tuck our shirts in or keep our voices down. The school, appropriately enough positioned at the top of a steep hill, was all-girls, a fact we resented enthusiastically and were only a little relieved by. We each had a different kind of shyness, but these shynesses reinforced each other. Some of us would struggle, later on, when we had to interact with boys. Sometimes now we discuss whether we would have fared any better at a different type of school, less restrictive, more unforgiving. Would we have found each other, or people like us? Would it have mattered?
One of us bought the soundtrack and lent it to the others. We became so familiar with the transitions between tracks that we could predict them, and cheerfully admitted this to each other. We sometimes listened to it on a CD walkman on the bus, one pair of earbuds shared between two of us, the sound seeming stereo anyway. We talked about the holiday we’d take to New Zealand to see the sets when we were older. We would walk among the hobbit-holes and over the rocky hilltop where the Fellowship first appear as a group, to rising music. That was the bit on the soundtrack we skipped to most often.
The Lord of the Rings was a winter obsession. By the spring, school was almost over. Some of us had turned sixteen. Some of us decided to move to other schools for our sixth-form years, and some of us had started spending time with other friends, something no longer unthinkable. The film wasn’t in cinemas any more. (Also, Aragorn had started to look better to us than Legolas, especially the bit where he pinched out a candle flame with his bare fingertips. This was an adjustment to make.) The DVD version wasn’t released until August 2002, and that was much too late. We bought it, but more because we felt we should than because we had to. Some of us never took it out of its packaging. We just felt lighter, and older, and closer to escaping.
Tags: friendship, hanging out, jrr tolkien, movies, the lord of the rings
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We just watched the film – over and over – and looked at pictures of Legolas and (to a lesser extent) Aragorn, and said things to each other like ‘This task was appointed to you, and if you do not find a way, no one will.”
MY PEOPLE
Mallory, I am honoured to be your people!
Sometimes when I look back at what I was like as a teenager and I wonder how I could have been so impossibly odd and strange and full of–as you said–“earnest desperate self-consciousness,” I read articles like this and I feel so much better. Lots of love from a girl who saw FotR seven times in theaters.
(I didn’t skip the songs in the books, though. Instead, I copied them out into a rustic-looking journal with leaves on the cover, writing with a calligraphy pen I had no idea how to use.)
DOUBLE MY PEOPLE
I used to try to sing the song! I didn’t know the tune ever, so I tried to make it up. The result was predictably terrible, but I was doing it under my breath alone in my bedroom so it didn’t matter.
I have seen the movies more times than I can count. (I also have a LotR tattoo, my mother used to write notes in high school to her best friend in Tolkien’s DWARF RUNES, I shit you not, I have her crib sheet for them, and she tried to name me Galadriel. I was doomed from birth to be a Tolkien nerd. 🙂
I ALSO TRIED TO SING THE SONGS. Made up tunes myself. Predictably terrible for me too.
Bless your mother for raising you right.
She also brought me up watching Star Trek: TNG, so I think she’s pretty rad.
Oh! OH! I was SO excited to hear Bilbo singing “The Road Goes Ever On and On” in the Fellowship movie, in the beginning. It gave me a tune!!!
I made up terrible melodies for the songs as well. Probably awful, but to my teenaged self, they were Definitely The Way Tolkien Intended Them Because I Had Incredible Powers of Knowing That.
I had a LotR tattoo PLAN, I just never quite got to it. Maybe someday. Tree of Gondor, full-size back piece. Go big or go home, I guess.
Wooo! That would be a GORGEOUS tattoo design. Mine is far smaller – I took the stylized Evenstar they did for the movies and modified it, and it’s on my left bicep.
I’ve got the front door of Bag End on my ribcage. I am so glad you people are here.
Oooh, I wanna see!
I don’t have any readily-accessible pictures, nor can I find the reference pictures I used (where did they go???), but it’s about halfway between Tolkien’s illustrations and the movie version, which seemed appropriate for me.
It sounds perfect!!
omg that is an awesome tattoo
I will take a photo of it tonight and throw it on Twitter so you can see it. I’ll probably #AvalanceofSelfies tag it, too. 😉
I still have some of the songs memorized, but only if I sing them to the (terrible) tunes I made up when I was a teenager.
We were kind of LOTR lightweights. (I also saw it seven times. I don’t usually confess this.)
It’s okay, you’re among friends here. (Thank you for writing this.)
Thank YOU for your lovely comments! I should comment on here more often. Must try not to always be a week behind with everything on the internet.
FotR was the first movie I saw after a nervous breakdown that forced me out of college during my senior year. I actually think it was the first time my parents let me out of the house after I showed up on their doorstep unexpectedly early and told them I couldn’t go back.
Man, that was an awful time. I needed the distraction, a lot.
I went through a disturbingly similar experience and Doctor Who pulled me out of it. I feel you.
Posts like this make me feel better about the fact that my freshman year of college birthday party was LotR themed (and photographic evidence exists of it, and on the Internet, no less).
Oh god, I related to this a lot. I memorized Galadriel’s entire opening voice over and was constantly reciting it to everyone around me. The girl whose locker was right beside mine HATED me for it. My obsession didn’t really fade until after the second movie – by the time the third one came out, I was in university and had chilled the fuck out a bit. Just a bit, though.
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen, han mathon ne chae a han noston ned ‘wilith.
I learned all the Elvish in the movies and quoted it constantly at people. I never quite chilled the fuck out, though.
That is impressive, and I commend you on your dedication! At this point I only know the opening monologue up until the “One ring to rule them all” part. I can’t even remember the whole thing about Isildur, son of the king.
I may or may not have also memorized pretty much the entire film dialogue for Titanic, so I don’t know if this is truly impressive or if it is incredibly, incredibly pathetic.
I watched the film again recently with one of the same group of friends. We realised pretty quickly that we didn’t know the words to the opening monologue any more. It was OK, we just made some up.
I chose to write a film studies essay on establishing genre about the FOTR. I had to watch the opening about fifty times, and I could recite that opening monologue for YEARS. Old age has since shifted it out of my mind, sadly, but I bet if I watched it again, if would be right there.
I will still recite the part that I know every once in a while when intoxicated. No one ever WANTS me to do it or anything, but damnit, I do it anyway.
My best friend and I went to the Sadie Hawkins dance our senior year of high school with cardboard cutouts of Legolas and Aragorn. We wore gowns (my mom made mine).
I love absolutely everything about this comment.
(My friends and I got a cardboard cutout of Legolas and took it on some of our trips. I do not recall the logistics of transporting such a thing.)
But… which one was YOUR date?
My husband has been reading the Hobbit out loud with our 4th grader. Sometimes our 5 year old will listen, too.
We just had a parent/teacher conference with the 5 year old’s teacher and learned she has been confusing all the other kids by saying “My Precious” in her best gollum voice.
I worry high school will be tough. I hope they both find friends to be strange with.
I think that high school is tough for everyone, no matter what group they fit into, but I wouldn’t worry too much that they love LotR. This is, to quote Alex Hardison, “Age of the geek, baby.”
Thanks! I hope it will be all right. High school was just so tough for me, but college was awesome so it does get better!
I just cracked up reading about your 5 year old’s p/t conference. That’s a kid after my own heart, right there.
I don’t remember the first time my parents read me The Hobbit, I was a wee tiny thing. I found my people, your little ones will too. (Rest in the knowledge that you are raising them Right.)
she has been confusing all the other kids by saying “My Precious” in her best gollum voice.
THIS IS AMAZING.
Growing up strange is better anyway. Can you imagine being «shudder» normal?
I went through my first big breakup right before The Two Towers came out in theaters, and therefore I glommed upon Aragorn, son of Arathorn as my rebound guy.
This probably explains more about me than maybe I want explained, but whatever.
That sounds not only excellent, but also way better for you than any non-Aragorn rebound dude would have been
This makes total sense to me.
This came out right around the same time as Pirates of the Caribbean, and put my giant Orlando Bloom crush solidly in place. Legolas posters all over my locker, bits of Elvish from the Mines of Moria chapter scribbled on my notebooks…and I had the 3 in one-movie-tie-in book too!
I still watch it, but these days my preferred mode of viewing is through drinking games with friends (drink when someone makes a rousing speech! Drink when Sam says, “But Mr. Frodo!” Bonus points for drinking ale)
i love everyone in this bar
given the chance, i would still climb elrond like a tree. he is my AFTER ALL THIS TIME? / ALWAYS
There’s something about Elrond. I used to put sections of my hair in little tiny plaits for this reason.
Oh jeez yeah. I had the little braids just above my ears. I would climb that tree of plaits and eyebrows, no doubt,
The first movie came out my first year of college, the second my second year, etc., and I finally read the Two Towers at a time in my life where I felt like there were no correct paths to take and that book took me gently by the hand and helped me along as I stumbled over the angst of my sophomore year.
I’m actually re-reading the trilogy right now. We just landed in Edoras!
This place makes me feel so warm and happy right now. So many Tolkien nerds, all gleefully sharing our tales of how geeky we are!
(Does anyone else think it’s one of the most adorable things of all time that JRR & his wife’s graves list them as “Beren & Luthien”??)
<3
I’ve just started my almost-yearly rereading of the trilogy. Maybe this time I’ll actually read the “Frodo, Sam, and Smeagol” section from The Two Towers (usually I skip over it, as it’s both long and bleak).
I usually skip over that part too! I feel like a terrible Tolkien-lover for doing it, but ooof. (I had been worried they were going to do something similar in the movies. A solid 2 hours of Frodo, Sam & Gollum/Smeagol schlepping through muck, mire and despair would have tested even my fan-girling.)
I think rereading the series multiple times means we get to keep our good-standing as Tolkien fans.
Shaaaaaare the looooooooooooooad
POE-TAY-TOES.
To this day I can’t say ‘potatoes’ normally
What is “normal,” even?
Boil ’em mash ’em stick ’em in a stew
WHAT IS TAYTERS PRECIOUS
If I had a dollar for every time I said this line to someone and then paused for just a sec, waiting for a glimmer of recognition…
I love this!! And I definitely relate! Except I had just turned 11 when Fellowship came out so our LotR adventures were still pretty childish….me and 2 of my best friends made up elaborate plots where we were the daughters of various LotR couples which were not actually canon (Aragorn and Arwen, Galadriel and Gandalf, and Sam and, also, Galadriel, which caused a big fight) and had to destroy the 3 Elven Rings in a sort of sequel. We destroyed the dollar store rings after several months of wearing them around our necks by throwing them in a pond. We stayed ridiculous fans all through the trilogy and I remember making “homemade lembas” to smuggle into the theater for the midnight showing of RotK. I had a cardboard Legolas stand-up, too, and read a lottt of fanfiction.
The #1 reason I knew I would be good friends with my randomly selected roommate freshman year of college was that she put her Legolas poster up right next to my Aragorn one.
This hits so close to home for me.
(I still have an Aragorn poster from Return of the King hanging framed in my home office.)
Oh man. I wasn’t quite that serious about LOTR when the movies were coming out (though one of my friends was really, aggressively into it), but I seem to have made up for my lack of interest during college, when my friends and I re-watched the movies early and often. My middle school/early high school friends and I seemed to be more into the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which, in retrospect, not very good movies at all, but they still had Orlando Bloom, so.
(Also, Aragorn had started to look better to us than Legolas, especially the bit where he pinched out a candle flame with his bare fingertips. This was an adjustment to make.)
Also, this is very true and I definitely remember Talking About This with a friend in high school, we were both kind of surprised that we were more into Aragorn. Surprise! Quiet scruffy dudes with beards who are good at shit: welcome to your type.
This resonates so much with me. My group of school chums at our all-girls school was brought so much closer by our mutual love of the LOTR trilogy. We used to host Lord-of-the-Rings-athon sleepovers fortnightly and see who could stay awake throughout all three extended editions. (I claimed to be the victor SEVERAL times but was lying each time, my friends all knew this and yet still humoured me)
The best time was a night when we were all feeling a bit silly and the newest addition to our group went “This is the bit where they all go to Helm’s Clam!” in total seriousness, she really REALLY thought it was called Helm’s Clam and I’ve refused to know it by another name ever since.
I met my best group of Internet Friends on an old Fametracker message board about LOTR, which got so out of hand we were asked to take it elsewhere, please. We did, and now we are a secret snarky Facebook group who knit for each other’s babies and go to each other’s weddings. It’s truly wonderful.
That sounds so amazing!
FAMETRACKER!
I know, right? Tells you how long ago it was.
What has it been, 10 years since FT (spectacularly and hilariously) imploded? How cool that you have sustained those friendships!
I did all of the LOTR fangirling very quietly to myself 🙁 Wish I’d had somebody to share those times with.
Beautifully written. I too have always been the fannish type, and can move somewhat alarmingly quickly from one obsession to the next. I didn’t find my friends and fellow fans until my thirties. I wish I’d had them when I was younger.
Thank you! It definitely made being a teenager a little bit easier. (Not that much, though. Being a teenager sucks.)
THIS PIECE IS SO GOOD CAN I TAKE IT TO PROM I WILL HAVE IT BACK BY 11
I give it my permission to stay out all night, if you so desire.
I had one LOTR pal at school, but she was an INTENSE Legolas girl and I was definitely a Pippin and to a lesser extent all Hobbits but Sam girl (I mean I loved Sam but, Sean Astin? Eh). As such, I reserved most of my fangirling for my out-of-state BFF since kindergarten who shared my opinion that the Hobbits were most worthy of our adoration. Five or six years ago she abruptly broke contact with me for a still not explained reason, so this is such a bittersweet thing to think about, all those years touching our noses saying “Don’t be hasty” and giggling at the cast commentary tracks and printing out screencaps for birthday cards and trying and failing to learn Elvish and buying pants because they looked Hobbity.
I have more better than bitter memories of LOTR though, so a couple of years ago I braved DragonCon for the sole reason of meeting Billy Boyd and John Rhys Davies (if Gimli and Treebeard aren’t your other favorite characters, I don’t know what to do with you). John recited what he was writing on a photo as he wrote it (“To the bee-u-ti-ful Erin”) and I talked to Billy for about five minutes, and as we were walking away my husband said to Billy “you were always her favorite” and Billy said “she was my favorite, too” and I probably should be embarrassed by how much it made me blush. But I’m not. At all. Nope.
That is awesome. Gimli gets major points for ‘NOBODY TOSSES A DWARF!’ and ‘MIND THE BEARD!’
ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR
Hoo boy, this post fills my heart with warmth and joy! I was serious about the LOTR films. I loved the books too, but I went nuts for the films. I think I saw Return of the King maybe 6 times in the theater, and wept bitterly during the credits of it because it was finally over. I tried (and failed) to learn Elvish, and happily shared that information with my neighbors in college, offering to translate their names into Sindarin. That didn’t work so well, so I took classes in Old English and Medieval Welsh instead, and felt reasonably satisfied to learn runes. I may never walk on snow as lightly as Legolas (because obviously I tried that every winter), but at least if I got transported to Edoras, I could read, speak and write in the language of the horse people, in a pinch. I remained insufferably smug about this for several years (though I did try and keep that to myself…usually).
My friend was also super, super into the movies, and one particularly memorable disagreement we had was whose hair resembled Arwen’s more (ahh Friday nights at a women’s college)- mine was longish, brown and wavy but thin, and hers was dark, black and straight. We never settled that argument.
So, yeah. I love this.
This made me happy. I have been playing the Lego Lord of the Rings video game with my kid lately, and they use the audio from the movies, starting with Galadriel’s opening monologue. I am pretty sure that saying “This task was appointed to you, and if you do not find a way, no one will” to one’s kid is the best thing about parenting.
Aaaaaah this SPEAKS to me. I was a freshman in high school when FOTR came out and my friends and I saw them all on opening night, where we waited in line with tons of nerds in costumes. We quoted it all the time, and we said “keep it secret, keep it safe” any time we handed anyone anything. One of my friends wrote fanfiction (Frodo/Sam, Merry/Pippin obviously) and talked about Orlando and Billy like they were on a first name basis. I tried to pretend I wasn’t as intense as her but I totally was. I channeled all my overwhelming teenage emotions into the movies and cried pretty much every time Gandalf or Sam was on screen. It all seemed very symbolic of the pain of growing up and facing reality. I still cry over Theoden every time I watch it because he reminds me of my dad.
My sexual attraction evolution went Frodo—>Eomer (and secretly Boromir) though, not Legolas—>Aragorn. I never got the attraction to either of them. One of my friends stubbornly went for Faramir and no one ever backed her up. I find Elijah Wood kind of creepy now–I think it was the kind of attraction you can only have at age 13, since he looks like a child himself. Eomer is still crazy hot though.
ALSO when we went to see FOTR for the third time we snuck in forties and when Legolas says “You have my bow” at the meeting in Rivendell my friend yelled “I WANT YOUR BOW!” and everyone in the theater hated us.
My best friend and I still watch one of the LOTR movies (usually The Two Towers because it’s obviously the best) whenever we get to see each other. We also made a pact that whoever has a son first must name him Hamfast.
My parents were adamant that I would not be allowed to see the Lord of the Rings movies until I turned 13 (I think they thought Sauron would terrify me?). Naturally, the very weekend I turned 13, which was shortly after Fellowship came out on DVD, I holed up in my room for three hours to watch it. I got completely hooked: I painted words in the Sindarin alphabet on my bedroom wall, had lots of posters, saved my allowance for months and months to buy a replica of the Evenstar, spent an incredible amount of time on the Council of Elrond website, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I met one of my best friends at theater camp when she casually mentioned that she loved the Lord of the Rings and we bonded over our mutual disappointment at Glorfindel’s being cut out of the movies. We watched the Extended Editions an incredible number of times, and our favorite lunchtime activity at camp was playing Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. Our other friends, who were far less obsessive fans than we were, hated to play with us, but the two of us had a brilliant time.
LOTR Trivial Pursuit! Mine had one question with a wrong answer (I forget what now, but my sisters and I crossed it out and wrote in the right one). It also had a lot of awkwardly-worded questions, you could tell they rushed it to get it out in time for Christmas.
But we LOVED it.
Great story. The comments made me smile a great deal, they were so sweet and honest. I want to hug all of you ladies.
I think I should write a parent version of how this was xxx
Are you the Jackie I think you are?! Write the parent version!
My people! I was 12 when FOTR hit theatres, and I wasn’t allowed to see it until I had read the books (a rule instated by my hardcore LOTR geek mother), and my god was LOTR important to my formative years. My first ~boy crush~ was Frodo, and my best friend was way into Legolas (I believe there was an Orlando Bloom pillowcase), and my mum was all over Aragorn, so we had some pretty interesting theatre-going times? (I am forever thankful to my mum for encouraging my LOTR geekiness. She took me to see ROTK in theatres at midnight on opening night, on a SCHOOL NIGHT, and she had to get up for work at 5 am. Bless her!). My room was covered in LOTR posters, and I clipped out every cast photos I could find in magazines. We had extended edition parties, and quoted lines at each other, and you guys, it was the best, and I am filled with so much nostalgia right now.
Oh good, an unexpected fit of chest-wrenching nostalgia. Silent painful tears. Yes, that’s exactly what I wanted.
(But really, this was beautiful.)
I was 7 years old in 2001, and way too young for the Lord of the Rings. But my sister, then 15, was a total LotR nut, and in true little sister fashion, I set out to like everything she liked, because I worshipped her. And now, thirteen years on, I’ve read most of Tolkien’s work several times, and seen the movies more times than I can remember.
Her ardor eventually cooled. Mine hasn’t. (AWWWWWW YEAAAAAH, bring on the eternal bragging rights.)
My Fellowship began freshman year of college, the fall of 2001. All of us were already fans, and the first night on campus we found ourselves in my dorm room watching the first DVD on my tiiiny computer. The next day we decided on our Fellowship nicknames (I’m Pippin) and began using them almost exclusively. When the extended edition DVD came out, we reserved the largest classroom on campus and hosted a viewing party, complete with popcorn and costume contest. It was pretty epic.
This struck a huge chord with me.
My Fellowship began freshman year of college, the fall of 2001. All of us were already fans, and the first night on campus we found ourselves in my dorm room watching the first DVD on my tiiiny computer. The next day we decided on our Fellowship nicknames (I'm Pippin) and began using them almost exclusively. When the extended edition DVD came out, we reserved the largest classroom on campus and hosted a viewing party, complete with popcorn and costume contest. It was pretty epic.
This struck a huge chord with me.