What was your first post on TORn about?

malickfan

malickfan

Gondor
Hi all, feeling rather random earlier today I searched my own post history, beyond realising I rarely have anything of substance to say (you won't find me in a in depth linquistics discussion), and my spelling/lazyness with proofreading hasn't changed much in the 21 months I've been a forum member, I realised my first post was asking a question we still don't really know the answer to-and no, it wasn't about the purse or the shipwright (C.Lee's screentime in The Hobbit films):

http://newboards.theonering.net/forum/gforum/perl/gforum.cgi?post=400623;t=search_engine#400623

It got me thinking, beyond the obligatory 'I'm new here' post on the Welcome and Introductory Thread I thought it might be interesting to see and discuss our first posts here (or perhaps even on the old boards for the first agers), and whether we were drawn to TORn to ask questions or make friends-for me its a bit of both, ongoing to this day. Admittedly this is quite a 'anoraky' thing to post about, and I'm sure it could get repetitive, but hey could be fun...possibly.

I'm not entirely sure if this is 'Off Topic' or not, so mods feel free to move (or delete if the idea bores you [;)]) this post around (as likely as not most of our more recent forum members first posted in 'The Hobbit Board').
 
Waaaay back in the elder days (ie last week [tongue]) and yes, it was on the Hobbit board, replying to a post about the characterization of the dwarves, one of my favorite topics.

I started poking around TORn when AUJ came out, and really enjoyed reading posts about the movie, but would have to say the reason I came out of lurkdom was to join in the community and make friends. For some reason, my friends (who like LOTR and TH) don’t want to talk about it as incessantly as I do—go figure! This is actually the first web forum I’ve joined.

Thanks for the post, I think this is a fun topic. [:)]

BTW, what does “anoraky” mean?
 
http://gouk.about.com/od/glossary/g/definition_of_anorak.htm

Let's face it Tolkien fans could be considered 'anoraky' by the general populace...

As you can see by my post I'm fairly new to this forum myself (I didn't even really lurk I think I joined up the same day I discovered the forum) but yeah the community is great. [:)]

Though unfortunately at the moment on The Hobbit board at times it seems just as easy to make enemies as friends.

Most of my friends love the LOTR/Hobbit flms, but refuse to read the books' 'because they are really old with no action sequences'...so at least here I can be with more open minded inviduals.

The characterisation of the Dwarves was one of fave addtions to the film, Balin and Bofur fighting for the place of my fave character in the film (though oddly enough, I didn't care for Richard Armitage's Thorin much at all, given how approximately 101% of the cinemagoing audience loved him), but I'm really looking forward to Billy Connoly's Dain...
 
the 101%, Thorin is hands-down my favorite character (yes, I am a fangirl [sly]) I do have to agree with you on Balin and Bofur, and I'm also anticipating Billy Connolly will be great.
 
but I prefer the term "fanlady" to fangirl. I'm way too old to be called a girl, and fanwoman doesn't have the same ring to it, but I am first and foremost a Tolkien fan, have been since I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was in college. For me, it's not just the character, but the actor as well. I don't know why, but my Tolkien favorites always end up crossing over into real life (in contrast, my PotC favorites hardly ever do). From Frodo to Thorin, I'm always a fan of both (not necessarily a bad thing, regardless of what some people might think).[;)]

My first post was how many times I saw AUJ. At the time, it was 11, 10 times in theaters (once in 48fps 3D, 6 in regular realD 3D, and three times in 2D), and once on DVD (I still can't afford to upgrade to Blu-ray yet, since I'll also have to buy a 3D TV). I haven't posted an introduction yet, though I've been a member for a while (have to come up with a catchy title first, since this is the first forum where you have to have a title every time you post instead of just when you start a thread).[:)]
 
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I found TORN in late 2001/early 2002, and registered on January 1, 2002. I had just seen the most amazing movie, adapted from my very favorite book, and my siblings were tired of talking about it with me. I was desperate to learn more about this movie, and talk to others about it, so I went searching on the internet. My previous internet usage was limited to Amazon, eBay and e-mail, so the concept of discussion forums was well outside my awareness.

I first found the Lord of the Rings message boards, hosted by Decipher on behalf of New Line, but the conversations were too much about the movies (and the beauty of Legolas), and I wanted to talk about how the movie matched with the books.

It was on these message boards that I learned about the Lord of the Rings fan club, and their offer to have my name listed in the credits if I purchased a 3-year membership. I also got a subscription to the fan club magazine. I signed up right away for a 3-year membership, and I'm sure I signed up for the message boards, although I'm not sure that I participated.

Back to the message boards, I was still not finding the types of conversation I craved, with people who loved the books as much if not more than the movie. I lurked for a while, and began to discern the personality behind the different user nicknames. One person caught my eye, who seemed to be a kindred spirit with me. She had been reading the books as long as me (since the 1970s) and wanted to talk about the movies AND the books. I started to watch for this person, and tried to work up the courage to "talk" with her. She mentioned another message board she had found that seemed to balance the books and the movies, and her disappointment that the Fan Club message boards were too skewed toward the movies.

I followed a link from my new "friend", grammaboodawg, and found TORN. THIS is what I craved. Funny, intelligent people talking about the books that I loved for decades, and also about this most amazing movie. I laughed and laughed, until I just had to join in during a discussion about Lord of the Peeps. I responded that I just liked saying the word "peeps", and nearly gasped out loud when someone responded to me (I think it was Goeth-helm). Then I was off and running, gaining moderation status, only to lose it when the boards crashed, trying to respond when the server limited us to seeing posts within the last four hours only, discovering FIGWIT, and meeting the most amazing people, including my true friend, grammaboodawg. [:)] It's been a life-changing ride for me, for over 10 years, and I still enjoy it every day.
 
In defense of "reluctant Aragorn".

BTW, I'm extremely surprized The Hobbit board hasn't started a chapter-by-chapter AUJ discussion. By this time of the year we'd already finished the FOTR discussion and were looking forward to starting a chap-by-chap FOTR-EE discussion, followed of course by a TTT movie discussion.
 
I didn't even need to look it up to know that. But I did just for amusement's sake. The post was in regards to the daft proposition of adding female characters to the Hobbit for no apparent and essential plot-point but rather for demographics. I quoted James O'Barr (creator of The Crow), who once said of the Hollywood process and how they try to change the original plot of stories:
"You have this beautiful tree and everyone wants to piss on it".
Click to expand...

My feelings still mirror O'Barr's and my disapproval of Jackson's superfluous and agonizingly bad sub-plots have not changed one iota.
 
but I can't for the life of me remember what it was about. It was just under a year before FOTR came out, so perhaps I can be forgiven for the memory lapse!
 
in June of 1999. I believe I had hopped into a discussion about which composer would be good for Lord of the Rings. I'm a huge John Williams fan, and I was rooting for him for a little while (since the other composers mentioned in that thread were James Horner, Hans Zimmer, and Jerry Goldsmith, and the four camps were quite unwilling to consider other viewpoints). I'd never heard of Howard Shore at that point. I think I threw out a pithy comment that if they couldn't get John Williams, then they could always get Leonard Rosenman to rescore his music from the Bakshi film, but that may have been a later post. It was a while ago. =)

Inferno.
 
Feb. 2003. I fell in love with the Reading Room at the outset, and still spend a lot of time there.

Assuming Rangers somehow manage to have wives and children (else they wouldn't still be around all these years), how do they earn enough to keep them fed and safe and still be able to afford tobacco and the occasional beer at the Pony?

Alas, the answer was, in effect, "Tolkien is no economist."

My personal theory is they get protection money from the citizens of Bree and the surrounding area.
 
A thread in RR on Thranduil; it was a rather vague and jumbled post, but Thranduil had always puzzled me as to where he fitted in.
http://newboards.theonering.net/forum/gforum/perl/gforum.cgi?post=611603;#611603

I was over joyed to get all the responses, and then too shy to reply and say thank you. [blush] So I'll say it now; thank you so much everyone who answered. [:)]

I sighed up three months ago so I could participate in the TAS (which was great fun). I've just realised from looking at the replies on this thread that some of you were members of TORn when I was one years old. [shocked] You have no idea how young this makes me feel, lol. [laugh]
 
was regarding Narya, Celebrimbor, Cirdan (your favourite) and Gandalf.

But it wasn't my first.
When I first joined in, I've posted a long, thoughtful post regarding Elrond and Arwen. But once I've finished it, instead of clicking on "post reply", I just hit Enter. That post went down the cyberdrain, which I only found on the morrow!
Of course, I was quite crestfallen, and the next times I've logged in I just read. It took me another week to post that one; but a week later, I've found another thread in which my thoughts about Elrond were relevant - so I wrote them down again, in a far shorter form than the lost post.
 
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