In Brightest Day: Homesickness

A common theme that pops up in fiction is the idea of homesickness. It’s a feeling that we’ve all probably felt at some point. When I went to college, I spent two weeks hiding in my bed and going to class, nothing more. I did the same thing when I moved from my small town to the big city of Pittsburgh.

When I think about how I dealt with my homesickness, I realize that homesickness can be considered a form of temporary depression. But for the heroes of works of fiction, it seems to be more of a driving force to succeed.

What the Puff: Pipes in Pop Culture

I smoke tobacco pipes. I’ve enjoyed them since I turned 18 and even make them. So, I am pleased when I see television or movies including characters smoking their pipes. You’ll never know where pipe smokers are going to turn up in these things, from Colonel Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds to Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean. Even the First and Fourth Doctors in Doctor Who were seen smoking pipes. However, I’m almost always infuriated when I see how they smoke them. This is because many times the characters smoke their pipes wrong. Typically, these characters seem to be most interested in making as much smoke as possible. This isn’t wrong because of arbitrary etiquette, but rather is wrong because it ruins the taste of the tobacco, burns the mouth, and can ruin a pipe over time.

Top Ten Everyman Characters in Geekdom

The Everyman (or Everyperson, as the case may be) is one of the most underestimated and important characters in storytelling. The Everyman is a character with no powers or special abilities outside of those that a normal person might have. The Everyman is not the chosen one; they usually are the stand-in character for the audience (though not always); and they can be the main character or supporting in the story. But the biggest and most key factor here is that they must be a completely and utterly ordinary character. This character represents what a normal person would be like in an extraordinary situation.

Many movies, TV shows, and books like to indulge in our fantasies by revealing that an ordinary person is actually someone amazing. These stories say, “Are you an awkward outcast and loner? Well, that’s actually because you’re a wizard/demigod/slayer/the chosen one!” And while this particular plot is great and all, at some point when watching or reading about one of these characters, you might wonder what it would be like if you were in the story. You then quickly realize that you are not a mutant/fairy/genius/alien and that you would be extremely screwed if you were to step into the story just as you are now.

But what if you weren’t? The beauty of the Everyman isn’t just that they are completely normal and average, but that they somehow survive against all odds in impossible circumstances.

So without further ado, here are my Top Ten Everyman Characters in Geekdom:

Oh, My Pop-Culture Iluvatar: Tolkien’s Mythology

If you’ve read the Lord of the Rings books, you’ll have noticed that Tolkien created a deep and extensive mythological backstory for his world. If you’ve read The Silmarillion, you saw this mythology play out on the page, from the creation of the whole universe and the planet of Arda, up through the end of the Third Age, which is the end of the LotR story.

Tolkien’s mythology draws a lot from both Catholicism and ancient Norse religion. As he was a follower of the former and a scholar of the latter, it’s been argued that the story of Arda was his attempt to reconcile the two. Whether this is true or not, it’s undeniable that Tolkein was inspired by the two belief systems when he created the history of Middle-Earth.

Celebrating the “brotp”: Ten Awesome Platonic Friendships

Pretty much everyone who has read fanfiction has an OTP—a One True Pairing that they ship harder than anything else. But what about the couples that are just awesome buds, and who you like together as friends but not romantically? Well the recently coined term ‘brotp’ is there for you. And since Valentine’s Day puts and unnecessary emphasis on being in a romantic relationship, I figured I’d take this post to give a shout-out to some of the awesomest platonic friendships out there.

By Jon Morris

Sexualized Saturdays: Where are all my dwarf ladies at?

If you’ve read The Hobbit or any other Tolkien books or pretty much any fantasy story where dwarves exist as a separate race, you might have noticed that dwarf ladies are sadly lacking representation. Although there aren’t, in fact, any female characters at all in The Hobbit, in The Lord of the Rings at least we have examples of powerful women (or at least existing women) from every race but the dwarves. As someone (I think Gimli?) in Lord of the Rings notes, Middle Earthling dwarf women are seen so rarely, and so resemble dwarf men (sporting plenty of facial hair and… pants and axes, I guess?), that most other races assume dwarfs are a single-gendered species who spring from the rock fully formed rather than one that engages in sexual reproduction.

Peter Jackson, in the scene in The Hobbit movie showing the fall of Erebor and the devastation of Dale, does show us a number of dwarf women living under the mountain with their male cohorts. I was surprised, however, that he had given them far more feminine clothing and features than I expected. These are certainly not characters who might be misgendered as men, and furthermore, the clear difference in presented gender gives the lie to any suggestion that dwarf women are so rare/often misgendered that they are considered mythical creatures by other Middle Earthlings.

The Hobbit: An Unexpectedly Long Journey

Yeah, I’mma just put this whole thing behind a cut. Hit the jump to find out what I thought!

Colbert and Back Again: “Hobbit Week” with Stephen Colbert

Saika and Bacula already know this about me, as does anyone who has ever seen me in person, but I am a massive fan of The Colbert Report’s Stephen Colbert. The word “fan” can’t even begin to encapsulate the incredible amount of admiration I have for this man. So I think I can be excused this reaction when Saika helpfully tried to inform me that Stephen had a cameo in Peter Jackson’s forthcoming “Hobbit” series:

Saika: Hey, Colbert has a cameo in The Hobbit, red alert!

Luce: I SAW THE NEWS EARLIER TODAY AND FREAKED OUT LIKE I’M NOT EVEN KIDDING I’M SO HAPPY FOR HIM IT CHANGED HIS WHOLE LIFE AND HE LOVES IT SO MUCH THAT’S THE DREAM

Saika: Hahaha, Luce, I’m like crying at your reaction. Did you weep, Agent Romanov?!

Spoiler: I did.

But what’s important here is that Stephen is a massive, massive geek who loves Lord of the Rings more than is entirely healthy. His favorite character (and mine) is Faramir, Aragorn once showed up at his studio to tell him to run for president, and he’s probably the only person in the world to ever be gifted both the Captain America shield and one of the original replicas of Sting. And so I was particularly excited to see that Stephen was going to be hosting a week of Hobbit-themed shows in preparation for the release of The Hobbit.

The Lord of the Rings Family Tree

If you are a huge Tolkien and a lover of distracting things, look no further than the LOTR Project!

The LOTR Project is a giant family tree of everyone in Tolkien-dom.  I would say Middle Earth, but that would be rather limiting.  In addition, it has a timeline with a map feature showing where and when everything took place, and a map of character movement (specifically from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy) and important event locations.

In addition, and this is my favorite part, is a page on Middle Earth statistics.  It describes the population by race and sex, life expectancy, age distribution of the characters by race, Middle Earth’s population by year, the decline in longevity for Men (the race, not the gender), the oldest and youngest of each race, and a graph showing the number of miles parties in The Hobbit and the Trilogy traveled in a day.

I’m a Tolkien fan, don’t get me wrong, but this is absolutely crazy.  Why do I need to know how many miles Sam and Frodo traveled in a day, every day?  Never!  And as much as I love math and find the statistics section to be very enlightening, I would absolutely never desire to be the one to put it together.

So if you love math and statistical things and Lord of the Rings, I found you a present!  Again, here is the link to the LOTR Project for y’all to check out for yourselves.

Btw, I’ve grown quite an appreciation for the slightly corny Avengers posing scenes because I could not find a single decent LOTR group shot that was not photoshopped to death. Because of that, enjoy this reminder that the animated Hobbit movie still exists

Oh, My Pop-Culture Jesus: Free Will and Personal Responsibility

Last week Lady Geek Girl talked about the way fate and free will tend to be ‘in a relationship and it’s complicated’ in popular fiction.

This week I’m also going to talk about free will, but I’m going to take a different track—I’m going to look at the intersection of free will and personal responsibility.

What exactly do I mean? Well, people have free will. They can do whatever they want. But if it’s within their power to do the right thing, even if it will have unpleasant consequences, do they have a responsibility to do the right thing? Or is it morally acceptable to say, “no, I’m washing my hands of this”? I think that there has to be a balance. In fiction, choosing of one’s own free will has a particular weight and importance.

Before this becomes a Philosophy 101 debate, let me give you some examples to show you what I mean.