My Top 5 Fandoms: 1 - Middle-earth

In the end, has there ever been any doubt which franchise would take my top spot?

I even named my son after one of the characters from the books of professor Tolkien.

Now, where does my love come from?  I guess I must have been 6 or 7 when I saw the original Ralph Bakshi animated movie for the first time on "auntie Beeb", and it was my first introduction into the world of fantasy, though back then for little Tomsche all wizards of all movies of course lived in the same world.

When I was 10 I first read The Hobbit, followed a year after by The Lord of the Rings, and it has sticked with me ever since that day.  As my geek developped during my teens, with introductions to Warhammer, DnD and the likes, I always hovered towards building forces and characters whom in a way drew back on Middle-earth (like an Empire force of Rohirrim, back when Black Tree Designs still held the license).

So of course when the movies and the Games Workshop gamesystem arrived, I was immediatly there to jump on the bandwagon!  I still find it a pity the game never really took off at the club, though post Covid-19 I`m going to put in a fresh effort to gather some players and learn them the ropes.

Now, I can`t point out one specific thing about the setting that reeled me in, though I guess for 11 year old it must have been the whole battle of Helm's Deep sequence in the book (vastly different from the movies mind you) and my allows attraction to the men of Rohan.  Over the years I collected a lot of figures for the game and a serious library, these days as well as in paper (rulebooks, Tolkien's books and books based on his work) as digital (the various RPG incarnations), and still enjoy (re)reading on the subject.

It is the strong setting, the character development, heck, the works of Tolkien are what we are thanking our whole fantasy worlds of today to, and the opportunity to escape from these bleak times into an imaginary world that gives it it's strength, and that is just priceless and makes it my top geekdom.

Because not all who wander are lost!