Being In A Fandom In J. R. Tolkien's Lord Of The Rings

Being in a fandom is a mentally and physically exhausting yet beautifully rewarding folk group to be a part of. There are an excess of fandoms that I can speak about being in like being a ‘Potterhead’ or a ‘Whovian’ or even better a ‘Trekkie’. However, the fandom that I take the largest part in and have the deepest love for is the Lord of the Rings fandom. I grew up with a mother who was a ‘Ringer’, as we are sometimes called, and that is what truly sparked my deep love of Lord of the Rings and other J.R.R. Tolkien works. I can distinctly remember watching The Fellowship of the Ring with my mum when it came out on DVD in 2001 or 2002. I fondly remember seeing The Two Towers and Return of the King with my mum in theaters when I was a little girl. I was shaped into a Ringer because of my mum and I feel that’s why it’s so important to me. Ringers differ in a multitude of ways about our culture. There are the die-hard book fans who accept nothing but the words of J.R.R. Tolkien and occasionally his son Simon, but refuse to acknowledge to movies. There are fans of only the movies who will never read the books. My mum and I are a part of the group that loves both the books and the movies. The most important thing …show more content…
I can remember fondly staying up until the wee hours of the morning binge watching all the Lord of the Rings movies when I was nine. More recently I remember binge watching the entire Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies with my family and my best friend. That leads me into another unstated rule of the Ringer fandom, you cannot watch just one movie of the trilogy. You have to watch the whole trilogy or not watch them at all. I remember watching An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of Smaug and then my family had to leave and go to a family function. It felt so wrong! I had to finish the trilogy when I returned home so that I would stop feeling so