The day-to-day operation of the website, and the events we host, require a lot more resources than when we first started nearly 15 years ago. We sometimes find it hard to ask our readers for the help we need to keep running, so we began discussing what it is that makes TheOneRing.net worth helping out. It started out as a search for the Top Ten Moments of TORn, but the list got so long because each staff member had their own idea of important moments in TORn history. Here, instead, is something more encompassing: Ten Ways TORn helps serve Tolkien and Lord of the Rings fandom (listed in no specific order).

And, if you enjoy what we do, consider a donation (no amount too small, because every bit does help!) to keep us running!

If you can’t, that’s fine as well — keep reading, commenting and contributing. Because TORn is as much you as it is us!

If you’ve ever sent in an article, submitted a photo or report, posted on our messageboards, visited our chat, or commented on our twitter, facebook or g+, you’re the reason TheOneRing.net is among the largest and most-respected pillars of the Tolkien community on the web.

• Spy Reports

• Spy reports were a big part of our content when the website first started. From casting announcements to secret location pictures to leaked images of important plot points, spy reports were our bread and butter stories. Some of the reports were from random, anonymous sources, while others were official leaks from cast and crew. In fact, there were many production members who said they used TheOneRing.net to keep track of what some of the other filming units were doing. Other spy reports were just someone stumbling upon a film location and sending in a story or images and then we’d all try and guess what location it actually was. Some of our biggest spy reports were of Arwen at Helm’s Deep (which subsequently didn’t happen), Saruman’s prone body on a spiky wheel (which did happen), and TheOneRing.net was given the honor of introducing Thorin to the world. And very soon, we will be seeing stories from MrCere’s visit to the set from his Production Embed last year.

• Hall of Fire Chats and the Message Boards

• Literary discussions on the message boards and Hall of Fire chats – From the very beginning of TheOneRing.net, discussions of the books, chapter by chapter, has been a hallmark. After all, while we waited for news on who would be cast, where filming would take place, and rumors of what might be cut out, we had the books to talk about. Discussions worked by talking about one chapter at a time, and luckily, there are enough books with enough chapters, to keep those discussions going on for a long while. Since the beginning, we’ve looped through the books several times, but luckily, there are always new readers joining the discussion, and new interpretations to be had. And for something a little more dynamic, there are the Hall of Fire chats in Barlimans. Sometimes the talk is about a specific chapter, or a certain character, and sometimes it is about current events, such as new character images or reviews of a recently released trailer. No matter which forum you use, there is always someone to talk to about some aspect of Tolkien, the books or our fandom.

• TORns Live Videos

• We began with TORn Live, which consisted of Red Carpet interviews at premieres, awards ceremonies and special events like Cannes 2001 and SDCC. These would be recorded, edited and released online a few days or weeks later. But technology now allows for live streaming interviews and vlogs and the like. Quickbeam hosts a weekly TORn Tuesday event with interviews and discussions, while he interacts with a live chatroom. The Happy Hobbit ladies record and post their vlogs and post them within a day or two of their recordings, for a much quicker turnaround on video content. And right now we have the Road to DragonCon in full swing with live streaming from across the country.

• Conventions

• Convention appearances – Calisuri and Quickbeam hosted a panel at San Diego Comic Con in 2001, before the release of FOTR, and since then barely a year has gone by that TORn hasn’t had a presence at at least one convention. At many of the conventions we appear at we also have a presence on the exhibit hall floor where we have sold some of our classic TORn shirts. We love it when we get up on stage for a panel and half the people in the audience are wearing some of our older shirts.

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  Baggins Birthday Party sign

  Line Parties and Fan Events

• Line Parties and other fan hosted events – TheOneRing.net has always been a grass roots type of fan-site and that is no more apparent then looking at the Line Parties of years past. Whether it is just a few friends, or some hundreds of people signing up on the website to attend, fans like you all over the world hosted Line Parties. A few even took place over several days, and included costume contests and trivia games for prizes. Other fan hosted events over the years have been the Hobbit Day/Baggins Birthday Bash events on Sept. 22, the Tolkien Toast on Jan. 3 and the Tolkien Reading Day on March 25. TORn staff in Los Angeles have been hosting a Baggins Birthday Bash party for 11 years now, but there are fan groups around the world that have hosted similar events. Smaller moots happen around the world all the time, there is a very active group in Wellington and one in Croatia. If you are hosting a fan event in the next year or two, please feel free to tell us about it.

• The Oscar Parties

• Originally conceived as a fan event to help raise funds to buy TORn a new server, who could have imagined the Cast and Crew actually showing up to the FOTR oscar party? Even more surprising, who could have imagined the ROTK sweep and all those Oscars on stage at a fan hosted party?

• O.R.C and E.L.F.

• TheOneRing.net hosted conventions – The One Ring Celebration on the West Coast (O.R.C.) and the Eastern Lord of the Rings Festival on the East Coast (E.L.F.) were co-productions with a professional convention company, but they definitely had a TORn stamp on them. The conventions allowed us to combine our love of the films by interacting with cast and crew with our love of the books through academic discussions, the art shows and costume displays. We really did break the mold on how a commercial scifi convention is run and hope everyone who attended had a blast.

• Academic essays and editorials

• TORn has long standing relationships with many in the academic community who have posted guest essays and editorials. Over the year several staffers have posted in depth analysis to fan questions on the site as well. In fact, we have a whole section on the ‘old TORn’ (pre-crash) called Green Books for academic posts. This section had so much good stuff in it, we published a book called “The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien” and a sequel book as well.

• Driving fan initiatives

• After Return of the King was done and Peter Jackson moved on to do King Kong, the fans waited to see what would happen with The Hobbit afterwards. Months turned to years and still no word while studios went bankrupt, copyrights issues got tangled up and various lawsuits were filed for missing payments. Finally, a few fans decided they had had enough and started a petition to ‘Make the Hobbit Happen’. They brought it to TORn and we got thousands of you to sign so that a big pile of names was delivered to TPTB. A similar thing happened when there was talk that the production would be moved out of New Zealand. The fans could see no where else as Middle-earth, so the ‘Keep the Hobbit in NZ’ campaign was born, but this time on Social Media. And most recently, there was an explosion of Tolkien fan love over the #Votebilbo twitter event prompted by an MTV Audience Award.

• TORn Community

• This list compiles many of the things that TheOneRing.net does to keep you informed, entertained and engaged, but there is really just one thing that makes TheOneRing.net so important to keep around. And that is the community of fans that convene on our message boards, in Barliman’s chat, on Facebook and Twitter.

This site was built by fans getting together to discuss what they hoped for from Peter Jackson long before FOTR ever saw the light of day. The fact that a long existing fan-base gathered here meant engaged and informed discussion began from day one, including analyzing all the spy reports about casting and location details. We didn’t have to wait for the release of the films, or for several episodes of a new show to take off before we could discuss the minutia of every detail because our fan base was already well established.

And what is ‘fandom’ if not a community of like minded people passionate about the same thing. Sure, everyone has their own opinions, so every time a new image was released, or a new trailer appeared, the message boards and chatroom erupted into heated discussions. But as the years wore on friendships were made, some turning into marriage, and we all began meeting up at various moots, conventions, concerts, premiere events, trips to New Zealand or just coffee and a movie. How many of you newer fans were galvanized by the #Votebilbo campaign and now have a wider array of Twitter friends because of it? The fact that TORn was able to continue to exist during all those lean years between film productions is due mostly to you, the readers, sticking around to discuss anything and everything to do with Tolkien, and sometimes other bits of pop culture. We know that after the release of The Hobbit: There and Back Again we will see another decline of readership, but we also know that the community is strong, the friendships have been forged and all of you take that fandom with you where ever you go next.

So again, if you are so inclined to help support us and keep the website going, please do make a pledge or bid on one of the many cool auction items we’ve been posting about the past few days. On behalf of the All Volunteer Staff at TheOneRing.net, you have our deepest gratitude for all the support over the years.

Tolkien Reading Day takes place annually on the 25th March and commemorates the date on which Frodo and the Fellowship were successful in destroying the One Ring and defeating Sauron. This event takes place worldwide, and across the UK, in an act of international fellowship in recognition of the achievements of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. Anybody with a copy of his works can take part and it provides a great opportunity for children to be introduced to Tolkien’s works for the very first time.

Shaun Gunner, Chair-elect of the Tolkien Society, said: “Millions of people have seen The Hobbit film and millions more have read the book. Whether you’re a casual fan of the film or a dedicated reader of the books, Tolkien Reading Day is a great opportunity to sit down with your friends and family to enjoy the beautiful world of Middle-earth together. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote two of the best-selling books of all time which is testament to his skill as a writer and his ability as a creator.”

The Tolkien Society was founded in 1969 dedicated to promoting the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien; J.R.R. Tolkien remains the Society’s Honorary President in perpetuo whilst his daughter, Priscilla, is the Society’s Honorary Vice President.

What are you up for Tolkien Reading Day? (Or if you live “Futureland” in the Eastern hemisphere, what did you do for TRD)

Did you go to an event? Read some of the Professor’s works among friends? Settle down on the couch by yourself with a copy of The Lord of the Rings and a hot beverage?

Tell us in the comments below, or on our Twitter, Facebook, or G+ page!

You will also see some very helpful tips on what types of activities can be done to celebrate Tolkien Reading Day, from discussions about common themes or settings, to fun games to engage children with. Tolkien Reading Day can be held at a home, a school, a library or a bookstore or you can even take it outside, maybe at a picnic and add a meal to the event. And while the Middle-earth stories tend to be the more popular at a Tolkien Reading Day event, his other works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Letters from Father Christmas or Roverandam can be just as enchanting.

The theme for this year is Landscapes, a subject that Tolkien was particularly adept at envisioning and describing in wonderful detail. Middle-earth must have had very successful travel agents, how many times have you wondered what it would be like to visit some of the realms described?

Tolkien Forever, the Tolkien Smial in Southern California, will be hosting an event this Saturday, March 23. True, it is not the correct day, but a Saturday works better for drawing more people to the event in the ever busy Megalopolis that is So Cal. For those in the Los Angeles area, stop by their Facebook event page for details.

If you have a Tolkien Reading Day event happening in your area, please let us know the details so we can post it and let others know where they can go in an area near them. You can drop a line to Spymaster@TheOneRing.net.

First up is a Literary based Science Fiction convention in San Diego called Condor, taking place this weekend. TheOneRing.net will be hosting several discussions on Saturday and Sunday about The Hobbit, TheOneRing.net and Middle-earth. This weekend will be full of lots of interactive programming, so come on down and join in the fun.

On the following weekend, the American Cinematheque will be hosting a screening of The Hobbit and the LOTR Trilogy in a full day and night Middle-earth Marathon. This will be on Saturday, March 16 at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. TheOneRing.net will be there to talk Tolkien, run trivia contests and play a game or two. And to help some lucky Tolkien fan to OD on Middle-earth, we have a pair of tickets to give away. Go to our Event Page on Facebook, RSVP to attend the screening and leave a message stating how you plan to survive the 15 hours or so that this marathon will take, and we’ll randomly award a pair of tickets to one lucky person. Hurry, this contest will close on Saturday at Midnight.

Just a week later, on March 23, Tolkien Forever will be hosting their annual Tolkien Reading Day event. This event is typically held on March 25, the Middle-earth New Year  after the Destruction of the Ring. But March 25 is a Monday, so the event in Los Angeles was moved to the Saturday before, and is going to be at what looks to be a wicked cool used bookstore in Downtown LA called The Last Bookstore. Selections of Tolkien’s wide range of works will be read to any and all who show up, spreading the love for his written word. Visit the Facebook Event Page to see more details.

The final event for So Cal Tolkien fans to attend and enjoy will be Wondercon in Anaheim at the end of the month. This convention is typically held in San Francisco, but moved to Anaheim last year and this year because Moscone Center in San Fran has been undergoing renovations. Wondercon is a spin off from San Diego Comic Con and is run in a similar manner, but on a much smaller scale, making it more accessible for fans to enjoy all that the con has to offer. TheOneRing.net will have a panel at Wondercon, but the schedule is still pending, we will announce when and where you can find as soon as we know.

And there you have it, 4 weekends of Tolkien fandom, fun and friendship. What more could wee little Hobbits hope for?

Editors note: The image links to a High-Res version, feel free to print and share with other fans.

For those who have attended Reading Day in the past, please note that the venue this year IS a pub and therefore not child-friendly. In fairness to those who wish to read at this largely unmoderated event, please prepare a piece of not more than 7 minutes in length. A sign-in sheet will be available at the door and readers should sign in with their name, the piece they will read, it’s approximate length and any comments they have on the piece. One of your Reading Day hosts will introduce you and your piece, in the order of sign-ins, and using your comments as an intro to your reading. (*old* Tolkien Forever members: in deference to new members, you may be asked to let the new folks read first. We will have, therefore, two different columns on the sign-in sheet, one for the ‘elder’ members, (Treebeard) and one for the new folks (Quickbeam)).

Parking is often a problem in the Hollywood area. Please note that Cat and Fiddle offers valet parking at a very decent rate. There is also limited on-street parking, but please read the signs carefully to avoid tickets.

Since we expect a goodly turn-out, please help the wait-staff at the Cat and Fiddle by bringing cash to the event (so that they do not have to split the bills between any number of credit cards). For events of this size, it is typical for an 18% gratuity to be added to the bill, so please plan accordingly. You can view the Cat & Fiddle Menu here.
Mainly: please bring your Tolkien books, your Tolkien love and your hobbity appetites and join us on March 24 to celebrate our favorite author!

The Last Shore, by Tim Kirk

The Tolkien Society got me thinking. This year’s Tolkien Reading Day had a nautical theme – some breezy thing about International Seafarer Day. Why? Is Tolkien a particularly “nautical” writer? I admit this had never occurred to me. From the very idea of Middle-earth, a land before time that approximates continental Europe with land bridges to England and Africa; to the endless series of quests across mountains,  forests, fields and caverns that Tolkien loves to describe in breathtaking language; to the most famous fantasy race of Halflings that ever turned pale at the thought of crossing open water, Tolkien has always seemed to me to have his literary feet planted firmly in dry land, like the roots of his beloved trees.

Not that he doesn’t treat with the Sea. Of course he does. Every foreground needs its background. Who doesn’t know that the great Western or Sundering Sea is the barrier between the mortal Great Lands (Tolkien’s original name for Middle-earth’s central continent) and the Undying Lands of Elvenhome and Valinor? Only the Elves may cross this Sea – with the usual exceptions of various mortal Heroes taking their numbers and awaiting their chances. The Elves have the Sea-longing embedded in them. Legolas is warned by Galadriel that once he hears the seagulls at Pelargir in southern Gondor, he will never again be at rest in his woodland home. Ted Sandyman mocks Sam’s love of the tale of the Elves: “sailing, sailing, into the West” – a theme echoed by Saruman at the end of the story as he taunts Galadriel for her exile on the wrong side of the great water.

But this is symbolism. Elvenhome was originally England, in Tolkien’s youthful conception. England is an island at the edge of the Atlantic, and it was a great seafaring Empire at that time. Tolkien, in his desire to create the apocryphal “mythology for England”, could not ignore the Sea, both inner and outer, in his Elvish pre-history of the Sceptred Isle. The concept of a great Sea supporting a blessed island, far to the West of the Continent, survived the death of his early dream. It lived on in the purely Elvish chronicles of The Silmarillion, and eventually The Lord of the Rings.

White Ships from Valinor, by Ted Nasmith

It is always there, but we never actually sail that symbolic Sea. We hear about innumerable voyages, epics of nautical derring-do by the Noldorin Elves, the Teleri Sea-Elves, Feanor, Earendil, Tuor, Eldarion prince of Numenor, Ar-Pharazon the Great, Elendil the Tall and his sons, Amroth, Cirdan the Shipwright, and the Ship-Kings of Gondor. These voyages always take place off-stage. In none of these tales do we taste the salt on our lips or feel the wind in our hair. In Tolkien’s world, these intrepid mariners leave the Land only to reach another Land or return to their own Land in defeat. In the annals of Middle-earth there is no action at sea, no description of the moods of the ocean, no engagement with the voyages as voyages. Tolkien’s Sea for all its greatness is merely the context for a text about Lands.  Occasionally it dresses in another robe, such as in the Númenórean tale of The Mariner’s Wife, where the Sea becomes a metaphor for the undomesticated Male spirit; or in the person of Ulmo, the Vala of the Sea in The Silmarillion who turns the sound of storm-tossed waves into a horn-call of deepest wisdom and reassurance for the isolated humans and Elves stranded in Middle-earth.

Yet English literature is rich with sea-stories, as one might expect of the Empire on which the sun never set. I recall reading, in the same years I discovered Tolkien and from the same Anglophilic mid-century library: the epic Bounty trilogy by Nordhoff and Hall; the classic Hornblower series by Forester;  Endurance by Lansing on Shackleton’s incredible seamanship; Gipsy Moth Circles the World by Sir Francis Chichester; the Rime of the Ancient Mariner; and even frequent seafaring adventures in the books of Nevil Shute, who is generally thought of as an aviation novelist. These books, whether fiction or non-fiction, grip you with their eloquent and detailed descriptions of Man against the Sea: page after page of well-crafted prose about storms, waves, cold salt water, tackle and rigging, starvation and thirst, sunsets, the infinite stars at night, sea monsters, loneliness and companionship in the greatest deserts on earth, and the relief and shock of the return to terra firma.

Why did the very English Tolkien never really write about adventures at sea? I don’t think it’s profitable to try to prove a negative, so I will just speculate. Leave aside mundane ideas like the fact that Tolkien never sailed off his island, but loved to hike the English countryside. It seems to me that Tolkien’s biggest themes are variations on Man’s struggle with himself: intensely moral struggles such as mortality vs. immortality, good vs. evil, heroism vs. prudence, faith vs. reason, and myth vs. history, to name a few. In the Medieval and Victorian sources that Tolkien knew and liked the most, and from which he drew his romances, these struggles are traditionally externalized as stories of law-breaking or quests or wars. What has gone without saying is that they also take place in land-bound settings.

Sea stories, on the other hand, are about Man’s struggle with the sea – a sea which is an amoral force of nature. There is no inner struggle for a sailor, just an outer struggle for survival. Triumph over the sea is possible, but temporary, and conveys no special grace on the victor – the next voyage or the next wave could still be the last one. From this point of view, a sea voyage is no subject for a writer whose secondary world fairly breathes an innate morality.

Ulmo, Lord of the Waters, by John Howe

As I think about it, I remember that Tolkien stumbled over this prime characteristic of the sea in his creation of Ulmo. In The Silmarillion Ulmo, the Vala (god) of the sea, is the only great spirit who is unreservedly on the side of the Elves (and later the Men), when the rest of Valinor turns away from the war with Morgoth over the Silmarils. Yet a beneficent Sea is a real corker in mythology, literature, and reality too – so Tolkien invented Ossë, a Maia (lesser spirit) of the coastal waters who is a bit crazy. Ossë and his spouse Uinen, Lady of the sea plants and creatures, are the ones who dominate the sea lanes most often used by the fishing and trading ships of the Elves and Men in Tolkien’s stories. Thanks to Osse’s love of violence “at times he will rage in his willfulness without any command from Ulmo” (Sil 30). Ah… blame storms and shipwrecks on the henchman, not the boss. And said boss Ulmo – god of the Sea – is thus left free to concern himself almost entirely with events on the Land!

With such a complex mythological construction to moralize the essential amorality of the Sea, it’s no wonder that Tolkien never embarked on writing up the breezy details of any of his heroes’ ocean voyages – even in his unfinished tales of Númenor, as surefire a nautical setting as any writer could wish for. It’s a pity, since he wrote so well about outdoor adventures in natural landscapes. Imagine a rip-roaring tale of the sea by Tolkien, who so lightly showed us what he could do with lesser voyages by lesser craft:

…the boats whirled by, frail and fleeting as little leaves… the black waters roared and echoed, and a wind screamed over them. ‘Fear not!’ said a strange voice behind him. In the stern sat Aragorn son of Arathorn, proud and erect, guiding the boat with skilful strokes; his hood was cast back, and his dark hair was blowing in the wind, a light was in his eyes… (LotR II.10)

]]> http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2010/03/25/35673-tolkien-against-the-sea/feed/ 0 http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2010/03/24/35726-theonering-net-celebrates-tolkien-reading-day/ http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2010/03/24/35726-theonering-net-celebrates-tolkien-reading-day/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:15:06 +0000 Altaira http://www.theonering.net/torwp/?p=35726 Today, March 25, 2010, TheOneRing.net would like to acknowledge and celebrate Tolkien Reading Day with fellow Tolkien fans all over the world. Initiated by the Tolkien Society in 2003, Tolkien Reading day helps motivate people, alone or in groups, to take time out of their busy lives to enjoy the prose and poetry of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien.

Do you have a favorite passage from The Lord of the Rings? The Silmarillion? The Hobbit? We invite you to join several discussion events on our message boards and share them with us. Or, if *gasp* you don’t have your books handy, we invite you to read and comment on the quotes that other fellow Tolkien-lovers share. Be sure and check out our Main forum to discuss your favorite passages, and the Reading Room for an entertaining look at “Tolkien A-Z.” The essay by ‘squire’  on the Home Page today will also be a must read. (Tolkien Reading Day A-Z footer pictures by “Magpie”).