Bluecon 2016 Discussion of the Five Fandoms

[Elaevia]

 

Welcome everyone to the wordy part of Bluecon; the discussion thread!

I have a series of questions to prompt you guys so we can have a good ole chat, but don't be afraid to follow where the conversation takes you!

The first point for your consideration:

How did you start getting into your fandom?

[Elaevia]

I'll start of!

 

I first got into wheel of time somewhat at random. I was in my mid teens, and i liked reading series. I had read lots of Terry Pratchett, all the Fitz books Robin Hobb had written at that point, the same with Anne Mcathry and the Pern books and i was looking for something new.

 

I liked that there were a number of books and they were nice and thick: i prefer a nice thick heavy book lol!

 

So i started reading and haven't stopped yet!

[Turin Turambar]

How did you start getting into your fandom?

 

I read LotR for the first time when I was about 12 and was hooked.

I saw Star Wars in the theater the first weekend it was out in 1977.

I actually came a bit late to HP as I didn't read the books until after I had seen a couple of the movies I think.

I got a copy of EotW from a friend that served on the same ship as I did in 1990 and was also hooked. It was the first series that took me back to the feelings I had from reading Tolkien as a child. 

I didn't really do comics when i was young so it was when the various super hero movies came out that I started getting into Marvel. I think Iron Man was the best of them. That was probably what got me into that.

 

There are more but I will just concentrate on the 5 fandoms we are doing this week. 

 

I would say that overall Tolkien is still the apex for me. I can read those books any day all day and be perfectly happy.  Plus I never had to wait years for the next one to come out. 

[Ithillian Turambar]

How did you start getting into your fandom?

 

I first tried to read Lord of the Rings when I was 11. I was pretty much the only person who used the school library, so I had free rein. I found it too hard going though, so I left it. When I was 13 a friend mentioned it to me so I tried it again and this time I absolutely devoured it. I read all the appendices and learnt the Elvish and the Dwarf runes and the lot. I can't remember any Elvish apart from Ithil now though lol. For me the books were about escaping and also finding a place I belonged. I had far happier times in my books than elsewhere. And of course that one word of Elvish created a bit of intrigue for a certain other LotR fan and the rest is history.

 

I saw Star Wars on telly, two years after it came out in cinemas - because that's how it worked back then. Luke was my favourite. I was taken to see Empire at the cinema. I remember having to queue round the street at our small three screener. As a geek, it was really the first time I'd seen something geekish in the mainstream and I loved it. I still do.

 

I'm not a massive Marvel fan, with regards to the comics, but I have seen more and more of the films. I'm getting into them more and my boys are big fans. We have lots of Lego Marvel ... and Lego LotR, Potter, Star Wars - lego does everything and I'm really happy that we all enjoy it.

 

I was also very late to Harry Potter. I think I was a bit fed up of people saying 'hey look we can read STORIES' and 'isn't this new and cool' when I'd really never stopped reading that. I've still never read the books, but I have watched the movies and really enjoyed them, and I certainly appreciate that J K Rowling basically made reading cool again in my country.

 

I think I got the first Wheel of Time books from my school library and then had to start buying them. I liked all the in depth descriptions of the places and people. Waiting for new books was kind of exciting. Actually the Wheel of Time books made a really big difference in my life. I got really ill after having my first son and lost my way. I didn't read anymore. I even sold off the majority of my book collection. I was trying to fit in with what was expected of me and I ended up forgetting who I really was. One day, the latest book came out and I asked for it as a gift, and the time to actually read it, and I remembered part of who I was. And then I found DM ... and then an awful lot more of being ill and crapness and ugh and finally getting better and then being with Turin and yay happy! So yes, it's still an important fandom for me. I didn't buy the companion though and I wish the rights and things weren't so tightly wound up, as I feel it's been rather let down and allowed to fade away by not having a possible expanded universe situation - which is what kept Star Wars going for so long until it's reboot and re-reboot.

[Guest]

Euhm...

 

Marvel - the movies. It's always been around and such but with the avengers being released and such I found a new yearning to watch alllllllllll of the everything.

 

LotR - I can honestly say that I was not a fan of the trilogy, movies. I loved the hobbit though. I think that makes me a fake fan in most proper LotR fan's eyes. I still need to read the books.

 

HP - books. Started reading them when my mum bought me the first 2 or so. It was waaayyy in the beginning, before there was any translations. I'm not sure how she found them.

 

WoT - I love dragons and was under the illusion that WoT had a dragon in it. Which it does... if you go by name and not actual creature. I read New Spring first. It's still my favourite book. Oh I fell in love with Lan and Moraine. Imagine my sadness when they were barely in the the next few books.

[Niniel]

When I was a kid I had two SW "read and listen" books/tapes. I listened to them a lot and I think I had some toys too. I can´t remember when I watched the films or when I became a fan. I have not read any of the books but there was a time when I read as much as I could on the internet. I loved the Force Awakens and I long for the next movie.

 

When I was a teenager only nerds read fantasy and I wasn´t a nerd. Well, not that kind of nerd anyway. :D But when I met my bf he told me that there were two books that I just had to read - LotR and The Hitchhiker´s Guide to the Galaxy. So I did. And I imidiately fell in love with it. I can still remember the wonderful feeling of magic, of being in Middle Earth. I still feel it every time I re-reads the books (which I do a little now and then). I read all of the books - Hobbit, Silmarillion, Tales of Middle Earth etc. I have a very nice book with LotR art. I became a true fantasy nerd and LotR led me to other fantasy series. LotR is still my favourite book of all time. 

 

After reading LotR (and other fantasy series) I started roleplaying with my bf and his friends. One of his friend read the WoT books and I borrowed one. I was hooked right from the start. I can´t remember when that was, probably around 1995. I had to wait for several of the books to come out, which was very annoying. Since I couldn´t wait for the translations I read them in English. I think it was why I started reading in English. While waiting for AMoL I found DM (2011).

 

I heard from a parent to one of my students that there were some kind of new famous book that had made children start reading more. It was the first HP. I decided to read it to my students and they loved it and I loved it. I read it to our oldest girl, who was always one year younger than Harry. It was very tough to read the last book and realise that it was the end. We had lived with it for half of her life then. 

 

I have just recently started to watch the Marvel movies and I can´t say that I´m a fan yet. But I´m willing to give it a try. 

[Sooh]

Let's see. My first meeting with any of these fandoms must have been Star Wars. It was on tv when I was a teenager, and I watched episode V and VI because HYPE, but I didn't like them much (I know, don't kill me... ). I watched episode II and III as well when they came out because Hayden Christensen, and I was still not a fan. It wasn't until I rewatched them with Pizza this very year that feel I really discovered Star Wars. It has been a good new acquaintance. I loved The Force Awakens, and I'm looking forward to the next.

 

The next fandom I stepped into was LotR, and more specifically The Hobbit. I was 16 and about to finish middle school, and my English teacher just handed me the book and told me to read it, in English, as a challenge for me. I read it, and wasn't a huge fan at first. It was the first book I read in English, so it was a bit of a struggle. Then I picked it up from the library in Norwegian though, and read it again. That's when I fell in love. I was obsessed with this magical world, and couldn't wait to read LotR and Silmarillion. I went absolutely mental with all things Tolkien when the movies came out, and had the geekiest three years waiting for them to happen. It was amazing. I can't say I got that into it now with the releases of The Hobbit. 

 

After I read Tolkien I don't know which books I read first out of Harry Potter and the first few of WoT. I'd say probably HP first and read up to whatever was released by then, and after that I read the books as they were released. I loved the story, and the books were magical up until a certain point. The last two books are not my favorites. I thought they were a drag to read unfortunately. I love the movies and will watch them if they're on tv. I own a couple as well. Here too I think I prefer the first say 4 of the series.

 

WoT is an ongoing project for me. I read the first 3 1/2 books over the course of a summer, and then put them away because of school. It was also difficult for me to remember all the names and peoples and places, so when I tried picking them back up I had to start from the beginning again, and I've done that a few times. I'm on a reread now, hoping that I'll make it through all of them, having been here a while and picked up more.

[Guest]

If fan means fanatic, I am not really a fan of any of them, closest it comes is Tolkien's work. I picked up the Hobbit at a suggestion from a friend and I loved it and followed his work from there. He treated the European folk/faery tale, as well as the native/pagan motifs in a favourable and even flattering manner, creating something that was his own, new, yet not, drawing on so much preexisting and rich lore and language as he did, without making a mockery of it which I have rarely ever seen any other contemporary writer be able to do. I read the Hobbit aloud every year in winter to children in the family, almost to the point where I have it all memorised so I don't have to look at it too much (if I improvise, I don't have to look at all). I liked the trilogy of films that came out in the early 2000s, but I really hated the recent Hobbit films. The first two were so trashy that I didn't even bother watching the third one, in theatres or on dvd/other media.

 

The other fandoms I either don't like or I am lukewarm about - in other words, I have qualities I like about them and qualities I criticise, just like anything else, so definitely wouldn't be considered a fanatic.

 

Marvel I almost completely hate. I have never read comic books beyond glancing at some friends might own so I had no nostalgic connection with any of the "superheroes." From a sociological standpoint, I think superheroes are the modern equivalent of the mythical hero but it speaks poorly for the modern world insofar as rather than being a symbol who exists both in reality and in the realm of the cultural unconscience to the people of the culture, the superhero is right out recognised as fantasy which both strips it entirely of its cultural function and significance as well as representing the escapist attitude of the modern psychology. The earlier films that came out in the 2000s were amusing and some I thought were somewhat good like the Dark Knight (but from what I understand, that is not even Marvel...) but now the cinema is oversaturated with them and from what I can tell most are CGI-filled, poorly scripted garbage, which follows the trend of most mainstream films in the last several years or so. 

 

I read a little of the first Harry Potter books back in the early 2000s. I thought they were pretty much trash though I guess it is a little excusable since they are designed for children. I should probably revisit them to see what it was I hated. I liked the films though - I didn't get into them until most of them were already out, and I thought they were cute with interesting visuals, and I like how they got progressively darker. The very last one was the only one I saw in cinema. 

 

Wheel of Time I picked up at a book shoppe after flipping through the first pages and seeing something about "Aes Sedai" which look like Aes sidhe, one of the names for the gods I worship, so I thought it was going to be some sort of retelling or reinterpretation of Gaelic/Celtic mythology or something like that. I was wrong about that and I liked the first several books alright but then the series degenerated into a cash grab and it became a slog to go through and the ending was pretty bad, so that sort of tarnished the series for me. Theres things I like and things I don't like, like anything else.

 

Star Wars is ok, as far as its quality as films go. I thought the latest film was going to be the same as all the other crap out today but it actually wasn't too bad. The amount of hype it gets - the "fanatics - is what turns me off of it though, and again it is an expression of the modern phenomenon of escaping reality. 

[Elaevia]

It's really interesting to read aboit some of the different connections we have with our fandoms: parts we like, parts we don't, whether long standing or fairly new!

 

My next question to think about: have you ever tried to introduce someone to your fandom (even if its not one of the 5)? How did it go?

 

I tried to introduce my husband to WoT. He didn't even make it to the trolloc attaxk in the eye of thw world: said the descriptions were too long and elaborate. I said if he thought they were too long now it was probably good to stop before it really got intricate! Though i do feel he might have liked it more if he had got to the point where something happened!

[Guest]

Oh yes! I trieeed introducing some people to my fandom. 99% of them failed. It's just not something they do. I think it depends on their personalities though 'cause I introduced my bonded to my favourite fandom and he loved it. ♡ (Thank you, Z!)

 

My brother didn't finish book 1 of WoT. Oh, well.

[dicetosser1]

i read comics as a kid   X Men and their various spinoffs   tho they were hard for me to get

 

read the Hobbit at 11  LOTR shortly after

 

Picked up the Dragon Reborn in a shop not realising it was book three   then took months finding the first two...

 

the Harry Potters i read from the start    and I read them to my daughters as well making sure each was finished just before the movie. That was a real accomplishment as i dont live with them. id read jessie to sleep if i was there. other times...ever tried reading a book over the phone?  it aint easy lol

 

 

So i got the kids hooked on HP  tried getting my eldest to read Wot    she reads as she listens to the audio books   but she only got to the Shadow Rising    their too big and wordy for her limited patience lol

[Elgee]

I joined DM, precisely because I wanted to share my love of the series with others but couldn't get anyone I knew to read any fantasy, never mind WoT. Well, apart from my one nephew, who I actually got to join here, but he decided he's going to wait for the series to finish before reading more than the 1st book.

[Guest]

My next question to think about: have you ever tried to introduce someone to your fandom (even if its not one of the 5)? How did it go?

I'll read stories I like aloud to anyone who will listen (or anyone who can't do anything else but listen, like if I am in a car with someone, might start reading, captive audience). I am not trying to get them to read the book, though- I don't care whether they ever read it or not, it is just something fun to do as I like storytelling and most people usually like listening to it. One of my brothers started reading the wheel of time because I read the first books aloud to him and I guess he liked it, but it wasn't something I deliberately set out to do, have him like wheel of time - it was just a fun thing to do at the time.

[Niniel]

I have introduced Harry Potter to both kids and adults and I think all of them read at least one book, most of them read the whole series.

 

I made my mother read LotR and I think she liked them even though she doesn't like fantasy much. I tried to get some friends to read it but they didn't until the movies came out.

 

I finally got my bf to read WoT last year but he only read three books. I'm reading them to my daughter now. We are on CoT right now.

[Elaevia]

Taltos, I like your idea of a captive audience! :) i think im going to have to read out loud or get sone audiobooks so my husband will become a fan through osmosis os sonething, lol!

[Elaevia]

Does anyone participate in other forums or groups relating to their fandoms?

[Shad_]

Star Wars -- I hate Star Wars.  Even as a kid I thought it was incredibly lame.

 

Marvel -- Outside of watching the X-Men cartoons as a kid, I am completely unfamiliar.

 

Harry Potter -- I read 3 or 4 of the books when I was about 18, too old to enjoy them as a kid and too young to enjoy them as an adult probably.  I lost interest.  I'd consider giving them a go again, but it's no priority.

 

WoT -- My mother picked up Eye of the World some time in the early 90s.  She didn't care for it, but at some point as a kid I read it and enjoyed it and forgot all about it.  I read it again, along with The Great Hunt, in 2004, but that was at a point when I was only really into non-fiction, and I lost interest very quickly.  (The Great Hunt is still my least favorite book of the ones I've read by a large margin, and was a bit of a chore to grind through both times.)  About two years ago, I realized it had been a good decade since I'd read any fiction, so I decided to give it one last go.  The Dragon Reborn was the book that really hooked me, and I should be finishing up A Crown of Swords any day now (about 100 pages to go).  Discovering Dragonmount (I think around the time I was finishing up The Fires of Heaven) definitely enhanced my experience of the series and committed me to finishing them eventually.

 

Tolkien -- My mother read me The Hobbit a few times as a kid, and eventually Lord of the Rings.  I read them all again myself as a teenager right before The Fellowship of the Ring movie was released, but it was The Silmarillion that really hooked me and turned me from a casual fan to a sort of walking dictionary of all things Tolkien (at least at the time).  I didn't actually get into that book as a direct consequence of Lord of the Rings, but rather via Blind Guardian's Nightfall in Middle-Earth album.

 

 

I was just starting to really get into non-mainstream music, and it was easily the best album I'd ever heard at the time (still an easy top 10 contender).  I read the lyrics and realized it was telling a really expansive, epic tale with a very different face from traditional fantasy.  I discovered it was based on Tolkien and well, that was that.  Tolkien's whole approach to relating fantasy as a matter of history and legend rather than as a traditional novel fascinated me, and might be responsible for why I later developed such a strong interest in non-fiction and majored in History. 

 

So of the "five fandoms", Tolkien has easily been the most influential in my life, though WoT has been my greatest interest of late.

[Guest]

Does anyone participate in other forums or groups relating to their fandoms?

No, this is the only one. Before this, the only thing I used the computer for was research,email, and listening to music/watching videos on youtube, barely touched social media. Joining this website was actually only reason I made a facebook page because friends here suggested I do it.

[Elgee]

Does anyone participate in other forums or groups relating to their fandoms?

 

None other than WoT, and for that only Dragonmount now (I used to belong to another WoT RP site, mostly populated by DM members).

 

I've never been that "fanatical" about anything other than WoT.

[Elgee]

Does anyone participate in other forums or groups relating to their fandoms?

 

None other than WoT, and for that only Dragonmount now (I used to belong to another WoT RP site, mostly populated by DM members).

 

I've never been that "fanatical" about anything other than WoT.

[Sooh]

I was an absolute Lost FREAK when that tv show was on, and I was hugely active on thefuselage.com. Forum is just about dead now unfortunately, but I met a number of great friends while I was on there, and I speak to many of them to this day.

 

My Lost obsession brought me to the US, the UK, Germany and any number of great happenings. No regrets there!

[Tyzack]

I am only a member of the Tolkien and WoT fandoms...

 

I was intruduced to Tolkien by my father, who read me first the hobbit, then the lord of the rings as after breakfast/after dinner/campfire stories - normally 10-20 minutes at a time. 

 

After re-reading them on my own in middle/high school my friends suggested I start reading WoT.

[Elaevia]

Thank you everyone for taking part - I love to see the insights into your passions and why!

[Ithillian Turambar]

Thanks Via :) 

[Turin Turambar]

Thanks Via for running this thread.