Anyone who knows me at least a little bit is well aware that I am a fan of Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings. I mean, it's basically the second thing that tumbles out of my mouth after introducing myself. Sometimes it's in the same sentence like, "Hi my name is Hannah and I like Lord of the Rings".  In college, when my class was put into the 'circle of introduction' (which I despise), the "favorite book or movie" question was always answered (shyly I might add) with "Return of the King." Sometimes I overhear discussions of such at bookstores or in movie theaters or at Target, and boom! I've jumped into their conversation faster than the proverbial Gollum snatching back his precious.
"Hey, did someone just say Hobbiton because groovy. I'm a fan of hobbitz, yaaa'lll." Except really.  It happens just like that, and in these situations customary greetings filled to the ends with the exchanging of names and favorite colors is not discussed. It would be anticlimactic and therefore illogical.

The aforementioned situation however never just occurs with Lord of the Rings. I hear Harry Potter and bam! Muggle please. I've done already apparated all up in that convo. Video games: Circle circle square start, you've done caught my gaming heart.

This is how I met the guys and gals in Barnes and Noble who introduced me to D&D. I was browsing the gaming aisle and there they were having a discussion about an expansion pack and that was that.

But this is focused on Lord of the Rings, and more particularly how it opened up the door for me to the world of fantasy.  Everyone has those moments throughout life that help define who they are as a person; moments that have taken you from one path and put you on another.  Often times these moments are life changing and awe inspiring even if, at the time of their occurrence only last a mere couple of seconds.  Sometimes, we don't recognize these moments until much later when a moment of reflection brings it to light.

You know the moments I'm talking about.  One of mine just happens to include Lord of the Rings.

Since I have been writing, I have thought/am thinking about from whence this passion comes.  What inspired me, what lit the spark?

And the answer, quite simply, is a birthday present I received my 13th year.  One of my good friends at the time, who also happens to share my name, gave me the Fellowship of the Ring VHS as a gift and was like, "Here. This movie's so good, you have to watch it."

Okay.

This wasn't my first encounter with the title, though.  I say "the title" because I remember quite vividly sitting in the living room of my neighbor friends' house and seeing a picture from the movie in the newspaper that accompanied its review in said paper, and I remember seeing the title then, but not having any idea what the story was actually about.  If I also remember correctly, FotR was released shortly after the Sorcerer's Stone that year in 2001.  ( I hadn't read HP yet, and wouldn't for many years, but that is a different story for another time).  Anyway, I feel like my friends were talking about Harry Potter (we were all around 11, I know I was) and the paper was just there, and my friends' mom saw me looking at it and remarked along the lines of "Oh, I want to see that.  It's based on books I read when I was younger."  This was two years before I actually got the VHS.

So now I'm 13 and in possession of a VHS FotR (which I still have by the way, though the case is quite worn).  It sat in our entertainment center for probably a good month or two before we actually watched it. I remember like it was yesterday commenting to my mom and dad about how we should watch it because my friend said it was good, and if for no other reason than to watch something I got as a gift.  I remember my dad saying about how he heard it was good, too.

So SPOILER ALERT: We finally watched it, well actually I saw it for the first time with just my mom.  My sister may have watched it then, too. I don't remember. This probably occurred sometime very early summer between 7th and 8th grade, or right near the end of 7th grade.

You must now take into account that my parents were very restrictive about what we could watch when we were younger.  This same year (2003) I had a battle with my parents to let me go see a PG-13 movie with my friends at night, a right to which I believed myself now entitled since I was, in fact, 13.  (The movie was Big Fish btw).  I did go, and this was during the fall term of 8th grade. I remember seeing it with a  big group which included my friend who gave me the VHS and her bf at the time. Random, irrelevant details I somehow remember. (Fun fact though: I played Mortal Kombat among other classics like Sonic on sega genesis with my friends at their house before I was 10 and my parents never knew.  Haha. ) Anyway. All of that is stories for a different time.

It is important to understand that seeing FotR for the first time was unlike anything I had ever seen or read before. In fact, I don't remember much about what I read BEFORE. Yes, I did read, but it was, you know, Nancy Drew, Ramona and Beezus, little books that I don't remember unless I looked through the books packed away downstairs.

When Frodo is reading a book and pops up upon hearing Gandalf coming down the way, that's the moment right there. That moment. The green fields, an old man who I mistakenly thought as Frodo's dad the first time I watched it until I understood what was going on, these tiny creatures who never wore shoes. The mountains and the people who lived in them, elves ( and not north pole elves), trolls, balrogs, a ring that could destroy everything.  Like, I had no idea that kind of world, that kind of story could exist.  A wizard like Gandalf. And Frodo. I loved Frodo.  I watched it over and over. I rewinded back and back through the Hobbiton sequence in the beginning, so fascinated I was with place. I watched it until my parents told me I couldn't watch it because I had seen it already a million times, and that made me cry.

I read the books so fast, and became so proud of myself because they were the first real, big books I had read. To a kid those books are huge, but I devoured them. I rented the Two Towers and watched that, and to my ever so joyous surprise, the third one was still yet to be released.  When it came out in December of that year, my dad dressed up, I dressed nicely, and he took me out to dinner and then to see the movie.  It was the only one of the three I saw in theaters, but it was glorious.  I saw it in theaters three times.

I joined a forum, lotrplaza.com to be precise, and for the four steady years of high school, I rp-ed a character. With others I wrote posts and stories centered in Tolkien's universe.  This wasn't all I did.  I played softball all four years as well.  I was in marching band. I went to more and more movies with friends. And I read more stories.  I read Eragon. I got into Beowulf and mythology.

It was while I was in high school when I realized I wanted to write a fantasy novel.  Heck, I wanted to write an epic poem. I still have the journal with all my notes and ideas (though not nearly as detailed as I wish they could be now). I wrote poems.

With Return of the King, I realized I loved soundtracks. My parents got me them for Christmas in 2003.  I listened to them all the time and it quickly expanded to include other movie scores, and soundtracks quickly became one of my favorite genres of music.  I remember waiting for the bus to come pick us up and carry us to a game (the softball team) and one of the girls was playing High school musical songs, and I said something about listening to a lot of soundtracks, and her response was (I remember it so clearly) "How can you listen to music that doesn't have any singing? I can't stand it."

Okay, let me just reiterate that this girl was listening to Zac effron sing.

Return of the King is one of the things I thought about when I decided I wanted to learn how to make stories into movies. The charge of the Rohirrim onto the fields of Pelennor....beautiful and powerful.

Lord of the Rings is of what the foundation of my nerdiness is made. Tolkien's work is what inspired me to write; it's what opened the door for a 13 yr old who had no idea could exist; that such a work could be created.

What would I be like if I had never gotten that movie when I did? If I never watched it?  If I had seen it only last year? Would I have read Eragon in high school?  would I have realized in high school that I wanted to write a fantasy book more than anything else? Would I have gotten into JMU? Seriously, the last sentence of my entrance essay was a clever reference to Tolkien and I'm convinced that and my writing got me in because my grades were nothing special.

Alas. That's more or less why I'm kind of a nerd and why I like Lord of the Rings. I could write more. I can always write mroe. But I am tired. Goodnight.