How were you introduced to Tolkien?

I was just looking at my ragged paperback copy of fellowship. I think my older brother got me Hobbit and LOTR when I was about 10, he was into fantasy but mostly scifi. And I was eagerly reading them right around when star wars came out as well, so my imagination had lots of fodder. That got me going on a fantasy binge - at some point got my mom to buy me a copy of Lord Foul's Bane which looked exciting. Though I didn't get to read it for awhile when my brother casually skimmed it and came across a rape scene and told my mom.

dak wrote:I was just looking at my ragged paperback copy of fellowship. I think my older brother got me Hobbit and LOTR when I was about 10, he was into fantasy but mostly scifi. And I was eagerly reading them right around when star wars came out as well, so my imagination had lots of fodder. That got me going on a fantasy binge -  at some point got my mom to buy me a copy of Lord Foul's Bane which looked exciting. Though I didn't get to read it for awhile when my brother casually skimmed it and came across a rape scene and told my mom.

Older brothers.. Always looking out for you.

Forest Shepherd wrote:Older brothers.. Always looking out for you.

An older brother would have been cool, but mine died at birth (sorry the older brother thing made me sentimental), However I was glad I had my mom looking out for me. She had read the Hobbit in school and had forgotten about it till I came home from school after seeing the 77 R&B cartoon, Raving about how great it was. My first grade teacher taped it for us to watch right before Thanksgiving break. My mom made sure I had a copy of it under the tree less than a month later for Christmas... Been a fan ever since.

Nice!

That's too bad about the brother; I have 4 older brothers!

I always wanted an older brother, someone to sort out the bullies at school.

No one in my family really reads or finds Fantasy very interesting...

malickfan wrote:No one in my family really reads or finds Fantasy very interesting...

my family isn't big on reading either but my mom had to read it for school. I read all the time mainly fantasy or mystery, some historical. But both my sons read all the time which is great.

My brother used to be really into sci-fi and fantasy like me, and while our specific interests were different, we'd share stuff with each other and feed off each other's excitement.  Neither of us read or watch quite as much SF/F these days though, as our interests have branched out.

My mom loves Harry Potter and Game of Thrones but she finds LOTR incredibly boring. My dad helped introduce me to the books and went to see the Hobbit movies with me but I surpassed his interest in Tolkien long ago and he's been somewhat bemused by the extent of my passion ever since. Discovering Tolkien forums was a big relief for me in a way because of this.

Mrs Figg wrote:I always wanted an older brother, someone to sort out the bullies at school.

Yeah, everyone needs an older brother to sort out bullies. Mine was too old - just enough so that when I was entering high school he was graduating. Lucky I didn't have much of an issue with bullies. There's one schoolmate that I'll always remember and will be in my good books forever for protecting me from some bullies. Wasn't even a friend just a decent kid. Now I'm getting all nostalgic...

I was introduced by the films at age 6. I hated it. My dad took my older sister and I and I kid you not I only remember flashes of the film because I was hiding my head in my dad's shoulder the entire time through fellowship. I remember finally warming up to it by the end, and out loud said "That's how it ends? That's it?" not knowing there was a sequel. When I saw the movie poster for it the next year, my Dad and sister got excited. I adamantly said "NO WAY" and my stubbornness caused us not to see TT in theaters. Then for father's day we got my Dad the TT dvd. While I was watching the crocodile hunter movie in the basement on the PS2, they were watching TT upstairs. My sister runs down at one point and says "The sweaty guy fell off a cliff!" Naturally, I was intrigued because the sweaty guy was my favorite character (I was 6 I could care less about names). So I watched it from the point where he fell onwards, Gollum giving me nightmares, but eventually found myself wanting to watch the whole thing. Well then I watched it multiple times. I guess I had matured more by age 7, because I was hooked and couldn't wait for the third movie to come out. I saw Return of the King in theaters, loved it, but was sad it was over.
Then my mom decides to tell me they were based off of books. I don't know why she never brought it up before that point, but she didn't. I didn't believe her. I couldn't imagine it as a book. She told me there was even another one before them about Bilbo. She bought me a copy of the Hobbit and I read it and loved it. I wanted Legolas to be in Mirkwood, but he wasn't. In fact I pictured every Mirkwood elf looking like orlando bloom. I then tried to read fellowship in fifth grade. It took me the entire year to read. I also bought the silmarillion that year from a book order packet, and flipped through it wondering if I mistakenly bought the book in another language.

Eventually, around eighth grade I finally tackled most of Lord of the Rings (I skipped around, not reading straight through but bopping here and there, following coherent storylines) and then read the Sil, which I liked more than LOTR. And now here I am, almost through UT and Children of Hurin with volume ten of HOME.

Also, loved the video games! I still play them! In fact, I just beat the Two Towers game over Winter Break. It took me ten years to beat that game. TEN YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!

Have you played the Tower of Orthanc bonus levels in TTT yet, Tin?  Once you do you can unlock some secret cheat codes and also a special bonus character and then go back and play earlier levels with those.

"The sweaty guy fell off a cliff!"

Hey, that's Sir Sweaty Guy.

Eldorion wrote:Have you played the Tower of Orthanc bonus levels in TTT yet, Tin?  Once you do you can unlock some secret cheat codes and also a special bonus character and then go back and play earlier levels with those.

Yep! That was the part I couldn't beat! I got down to the last troll and DIED every time. I've never been so livid about a game. So yes I've got the cheats and the special character (who I swore was gonna be gandalf, but now it's Isildur? What?) and will probably never play the thing again! Return of the King is always fun to play for me, I'm trying to level every character up to level 20 right now with the help of my sisters. It's the only game I can play without wanting to throw up or chuck the controller at the screen

My brother and I did the same thing with levelling all the characters up and racking up hundreds of thousands of XP once there were no more upgrades to buy. I don't think I ever beat the Tower of Orthanc on my own, but we played each other's saved games a lot.  Neither of us had a clue how to beat the Watcher in the Water until someone else told us to parry the tentacles.  I did hold my own against the wolves of Isengard, though, which was another episode that gave us difficulty.  I think my overall favorite was the second Helm's Deep level (Breached Wall, I think?).

Man, so many memories of this game. I really love it.  It was a huge part of my Middle-earth experience, especially in the period before I was allowed to watch the movies.  I like the ROTK game a lot too, especially since it has multi-player.  My brother and I still play 'em together sometimes, along with the 2002 Clone Wars video game and Need for Speed: Underground (featuring the censored version of TI's "24's" on the soundtrack).  Ah, nostalgia...

No Love for Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age? That was a fun game too...

I never played that one I'm afraid.

That game is hell! I've been stuck on the same damn level for years! I'm in Moria, right after the balrog climbs by. Then you have to defeat 6 goblins at once! IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!

I was bored and read The Hobbit over a school break - not during the previous school year, of course, when I was supposed to read it! It was love at first read. Good school break that, because I read Vikings Dawn by Henry Treece too and (I think) A Wrinkle in Time. All brilliant books - but TH the best. Always.  I think I read TH again straight after reading it the first time. That was long before PJ got hold of Tolkien..

I'm impressed you managed to get away with that in a world before SparkNotes or Wikipedia.

"The sweaty guy fell off a cliff!"

Not gonna lie, it took me a couple minutes to figure out who the sweaty guy was. Then I remembered the whole "Aragorn falls off the cliff" subplot.

Oh, I thought you meant Ian McKellen.

Nope sorry I meant Aragorn! He was always covered in sweat in FOTR and so I called him the sweaty guy. He was filthy! I also hated Arwen for a while because of her relationship with Aragorn... I still couldn't tell you why.

Ah, ok. Seeing as it was in TT, that does makes a lot more sense. It was only when you said fell of a cliff, my mind went straight to Gandalf for some reason. (I guess his "falling off a cliff" subplot was a bit more interesting. )

This turned out a pretty interesting thread/idea, Malick. Maybe you should make a "How did you come across the movies" thread too.