THERE is a certain amount of creative license that enters into any film adaptation of a book. And history teaches us that no matter how faithful (or unfaithful) a film adaptation is with respect to its original source, someone will complain about the movie’s (un)faithfulness to the books.

For example, I loved the first two “Harry Potter” movies, which I felt were extremely imaginative and creative. I had never seen children’s movies before where the actors were actually called upon to ACT. Compare the lively, engaged performances of the adults in “Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone” with the wooden performances of otherwise perfectly good actors in classic children’s films like “Mio in the Land of Faraway”, “The Witches”, “The Neverending Story”, and so on. You almost have to go back to Edmund Guinn in “Miracle on 34th Street” to see anything like an adult actor taking a children’s story seriously enough to treat it with respect (well, “Mary Poppins” and “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” were pretty good).

But I digress from the main point. Movies can be very faithful to the book, and one of the criticisms that my Harry Potter fan friends who had read the books before watching the movies complained about was that the movies were boring and predictable. They followed the books very closely (even while cutting out a bit of material).

But then along came “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”, which Alfonso Cuarón directed — totally changing the tone and character of the film franchise — and people complained that his film was too UNLIKE the book. Talk about injecting a Goldilocks Syndrome into a fanbase, you just cannot find people agreeing on when the “Harry Potter” movies are just right even up to the last film (which some people hate for all sorts of reasons — but I loved it).

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What started off as a friendly chat quickly devolved into an exposé… and an attack of a clone!

Kelvarhin: How do you run a news site for 5+ years when there is no news?

Xoanon: Ah, the salad days. That was quite fun for me, I had the run of the place! There was very little…or actually NO news, so there was absolutely no studio politics involved. I think I mainly ran stories about the cast, DVD releases, game news etc..

It was quite amazing to see how fast the old gang came back together once news on The Hobbit began to hit and was real. Now there are so many amazing new volunteers and hardworking staff from the old days I cannot keep count!

Kelvarhin: What event, experience or situation has given you the most long-term satisfaction from TheOneRing?

Xoanon: I think the Oscar parties were the most fun for me, even though I did very little to help organize it…I did think they were tent-pole experiences in my life. There was something quite magical about each of those events, it was really fun.

I must also include my trip to New Zealand and having lunch with Peter Jackson, that was a great time for my wife and I…trip of a lifetime.

The fact that the site is still around and is still very important to many people, that gives me the greatest satisfaction.

Kelvarhin: What other fandoms are you interested in?

Xoanon: Wow, that is a long list! I am, and always have been a life-long devotee of Doctor Who since the early days in the mid to late 90s and of course the re-launch.

I am a huge film fan, and love everything from westers to sci-fi and crime dramas. But as far as established fandom? Let’s see… Star Wars, Star Trek, Supernatural, Arrow, The Hunger Games Series, anything comic related, Hellboy, Watchmen, Sherlock (Elementary too). I am currently finishing up the entire Sherlock Holmes original stories…that book is a bible! 1100+ pages, super small font!

Kelvarhin: Do you have a phobia about anything?

Xoanon: Good one, I have a very common phobia of failure…I think many people do. I am not good with rejection either. Oh and vomit…omg.

But more seriously, I suffer from mild agora phobia and social anxiety disorder. I can sometimes find it quite hard to do the simple things like get a haircut or go out to dinner. I have panic attacks on occasion. A mix of medication and relaxation techniques help me through rough patches. I actually insist on working quite far from work…forces me to get ‘out there’

Kelvarhin: What does it take to get you on the dancefloor?

Xoanon:  A great pair of legs and some alcohol…next question

Kelvarhin:  When did you become a Dr Who fan? And what’s your opinion of the Sylvester McCoy years?

Xoanon: I’ve been a fan since I was about 9 or 10..so 1987 or 1988. I love Syl’s Doctor for several reasons, first, I met him and got his autograph (!!!), but also I do love the mystery they put into the last few seasons. If they had gone through the Cartmel storyline, which was latter adapted into books, it would have been awesome.

I think Doctor Who at that time suffered from a general lack of fresh blood, ideas, and infrastructure on the part of BBC Drama. It took them almost 20 years to get things on par with some of the better American channels.

Kelvarhin: Who in your opinion would win in a Leela vs Ace smackdown?

Xoanon: Ace would use Nitro-9…but Leela would have Janus thorns…so I’d call it a tie.

Kelvarhin: Demosthenes said you should tell the story of XoanonFlash!

Xoanon: Ah XoanonFlash! There should be a link to that somewhere, I’ll try to find it for you. Essentially XoanonFlash is one of my first attempts at flash animation. I used a photo of myself and made an animation of me dancing to ‘kung fu fighting’…there are hip thrusts and music involved…a good time was had by all.

Kelvarhin:  No need, we found it  Enjoy people Xoanon Flash! :D *warning if reading this at work, turn off your sound! *

Kelvarhin: Did you get the name Xoanon from the Dr. Who episode, The Face of Evil?

Xoanon: I did indeed! But not because I have an evil face…at least I hope not. WAY back when I wanted a ‘handle’ for myself, so I grabbed my trusty Doctor Who Encyclopaedia and chose a page at random. The first word I chose was ‘Ragnarok’, but I thought that might be too confusing..so I chose Xoanon….little did I know..

Kelvarhin: As you are a DW fan from way back, what, if anything, do you think of the new series?

Xoanon: Oh I love the new series, although every season has its highs and lows. My Doctor will always be Tom Baker, but of the new Doctors it is a tie between David and Matt (we’re on a first name basis here).

I do lament the worldwide phenomenon that it has become though…I sort of liked feeling like I was the only fan in the cosmos.

Kelvarhin: And of all the DW references, why choose Xoanon, the computer suffering a major identity crisis?

Xoanon: I know, right? I think it works out in the end, I am constantly of 2 (or 3) minds of everything. So perhaps it does reflect me..maybe I didn’t choose that name…maybe it chose me… Woah!

Kelvarhin: How did you come to know the other Founders?

Xoanon: I met Erica through ICQ, I think we began talking about books and our mutual interests. We both liked Kim Stanley Robinson’s ‘Mars’ series. We just starting chatting and got onto the discussion of LOTR and off we went.

Chris and Bill (Corvar) used to play MUDs together and were friends from that, one day Chris emailed us and offered to make a website for us, one better that the free-hosting site we had.

And voilà

Kelvarhin: How long did it take you to get TORn up and running having come up with the idea?

Xoanon: It was a working progression, like I mentioned above we had a green-themed site off of a free website company way back when (xoom.com or something?). When Chris approached us to make a new site we had to choose a domain and park it there. We emulated the guys at TheForce.net and chose TheOneRing.net. I can still recall Chris showing us some design mockups and getting everything working with a CMS (Content Management System) called…newsmaker? I think? This was pre WordPress days.

I think they are on TORN version 4 or 5.0 now..we’ve come so far

Kelvarhin: What does it feel like to be one of the founders of the worlds most popular Tolkien sites?

Xoanon: It is a great feeling to have that in your life, a good feeling to know that it brings joy to so many others.

Kelvarhin: How often do you browse the boards? Do you have a favourite board?

Xoanon: To be honest I haven’t spent time on the boards, or the site, for way too long now. With a demanding job and 5 year old son, things have certainly changed in my life. I don’t know how people like Chris (2 kids) and Erica (1 kid) can do it, plus all the other amazing volunteers who have a MUCH fuller plate than me, manage to keep the site running. I wish I could spend more time on it, or just visit the boards more often than I do.

Kelvarhin: What are your favourite spots in the world?

Xoanon: Certainly New Zealand, my wife and I both felt very much at ‘home’ there, we would move there if it wasn’t too far away from our families. I love my city of Montreal, it means the world to me. I often think of places I would love to visit, Vietnam, Egypt, Prague, Moscow.

Kelvarhin: How were you first introduced to Tolkien, and how did this influence your life, in the days before TORn?

Xoanon: I was given the books as a Christmas gift when I was…16? 17? Maybe? I didn’t pick them up until I had a class in college about Tolkien and his books, so naturally I raced through them and fell in love. I think one of the best experiences I had was to begin LOTR in the fall and read it though the changes of season..I felt almost part of journey with Frodo and Sam.

The key takeaways that I bring into my life from Tolkien are the themes of responsibility and duty. I truly love Sam Gamgee, and think that without his devotion to Frodo the quest would have failed from day 1. Sam felt a duty and obligation to follow Frodo into the very heart of Mount Doom, and I think we can all take a little lead from Sam when it comes to our own responsibilities and duties, especially difficult ones.

Kelvarhin: What was your favourite cartoon when you were a fledgling, and is it still your favourite?

Xoanon: Wow, change of tune from the previous answer! I was a child of the 70’s and 80’s so growing up we watched The Flintstones, GI Joe, Transformers and He-Man, those are still my favourite to this day. I actually got my son to watch some He-Man..he was all into it!

Kelvarhin: What kind of music do you listen to?

Xoanon: Good question! I am an AVID lover of music, mind you I think Bill (Corvar) has one up on me, he is always visiting bars and small clubs listening to these really obscure bands.

I am a lover of almost all types of music, and my ipod has 1200 of the most diverse music you could imagine. Hip Cop, Celtic, Movie Scores, Rock, Classic Rock, Instrumental, you name it!

Thank you Xo, for taking the time to talk to us this month.

As always a big thank you to all our message board regulars, DanielLB, Ataahua, Brethil, elaen32,  Ziggy Stardust, dernwyn, grammaboodawg and zarabia, and Staffers, Demosthenes, MrCere and Justin for our questions this month.

If you would like to ask any questions yourself, just head over to our Message Boards, the sign up process is pretty painless. A lead post for questions is made at the beginning of each month on the Main board, if you don’t want to sign up to the boards just email me your questions at kelvarhin@theonering.net.

Till next time from TORn’s resident Tiger.

Kelvarhin

Gandalf & Saruman at SLCC 2013

SALT LAKE CITY — Once scheduled for a smaller venue in the suburbs, the first ever Salt Lake Comic Con filled Utah’s capital city’s largest convention venue and had it bursting at the seams Saturday. For a time the hundreds waiting outside were not allowed to enter except at a 1-out-1-in rate. Word on the dealer’s floor said it was because the fire marshal closed the space but that rumor was never confirmed.

Reports in the media called the event “record setting” for a first-year convention, and that is possibly true, but such stats aren’t readily available. In any case, it was a massive event with celebrities that included William Kircher (Bifur) and Manu Bennett (Azog) and other pop-culture icons like William Shatner and Adam West.

Azog at Weta booth, Salt Lake Comic Con 2013

TheOneRing.net was part of the fun as well, with staffer (and this writer) Larry D. Curtis (MrCere) attending with the show in his (my) hometown. the SLComic Con invited TORn to present a panel about Smaug and serve on other panels as well, with topics including Fantasy Films, all things Tolkien, Geek Culture and film school.

Bennett and Kircher were kind enough to drop by TheOneRing panel that also included author and TORn friend Paul Genesse. He helped moderate the panel and showed incredible enthusiasm for the material.

TheOneRing also managed a booth on the at time very crowded floor supported by incredible friends at Badali Jewelry and Weta Workshop making its first U.S. appearance outside of the San Diego Comic Con. TORn helped back in a small way to staff the Weta booth and send those with questions about where to purchase The One Ring to Badali’s very nearby booth. Artist David Powell was also kind enough to sign posters of his art for fans.

The Salt Palace Convention Center can be expanded and the SLCC will return next year. TheOneRing.net hopes to be part of the show. Thanks to Dan McBride and Blonde Ninja for their support of the TORn booth. Thanks also to the many financial supports at the event and to Salt Lake Comic Con for letting us be a part of the show. If you attended and would like TORn to return, you can use the contact info here to let them know.

If anybody has images of Bennett and Kircher attending the TORn panel, please send them in! We were busy having a panel and didn’t get any photos.

Since I had so little direct linguistic information about Black Speech to go on other than what could be gleaned from the Ring-inscription (object suffixes -ul, -ulûk; verbal infinitive (perhaps) ending -at; abstract ending -um in burzum “darkness”, containing the same burz element seen in Lugbúrz “Dark Tower”; postposition -ishi “in”) I had to go on à priori notions of what a language such as Black Speech might be like — I had to get inside the mind of Sauron, and try to figure out what somebody like the Dark Lord of Mordor might put into his language.

As a matter of fact, this is something I had thought about some years before. As an undergraduate in college, I had contributed to a set of ongoing stories, where each participant wrote additional chapters and introduced characters and events as he or she pleased. Into one of these stories I introduced the character (played partly for humor, partly tragically) of a misfit Orc who, sometime after the fall of Mordor, had found himself transported through time and space into a new environment. On introducing this Orc, I thought it would add a touch of realism to let him speak in his own language; so I sketched the outline of what I imagined Black Speech might be like, and wrote a couple of paragraphs in it.

I have no idea if any copy of this text survives somewhere in my files. At any rate, I made no direct use of it, except for one small element that I retained in memory, the first person pronoun za — possibly suggested by Avestan azəm.

What I did retain, however, was the overall notion of Black Speech as a complex but consistent language, rich in affixation and inflection, but with a wholly transparent morphology. Indeed, the transparency of the morphology, the lack of any phonetic alterations between morphemes that could obscure the structure, would help explain the prevalence of clashing consonant clusters; morphemes ending in one consonant were jammed up against morphemes beginning in another, with nothing to ease the transition.

Sauron, I imagined, was an enormously practical person, who would have made the Black Speech as “perfect” (according to his notions of perfection) as he could make it, with a rigorous consistency and logic, but without making any allowance for æsthetics. It would not eschew borrowings from other languages of Middle-earth, but it would adapt them to its own style. It would in fact have been, as my friend Helge Fauskanger terms it, Sauron’s Esperanto.

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Art student Jemima Catlin, an avid JRR Tolkien obsessive, was just 23 when her work fell into the lap of literary giants Harper Collins – and little did she know that she would go on to illustrate none other than her beloved epic, The Hobbit.

Long after she first read Tolkien’s classic novel, Jemima decided to illustrate one of the author’s short stories, Roverandom [ed note: in the original article it's misspelled as Rover Random], as part of a university project.

“I only had three months to complete the university project, so I’d decided to illustrate Rover Random, a short story Tolkien wrote about a little dog who became a toy dog,” the 26-year-old told The Big Issue.

“The dog upsets a wizard and ends up going to lots of different places – like the moon and the sea. It’s a really interesting story.

“I decided I would bind it all together in a book with the illustrations between the text and that I would contact Harper Collins to send them a sample of the illustrations.

“David Brawn, their estate’s publisher, invited me up to see him. He really liked the work and sent it off to the Tolkien Estate.”

However, typical of a Tolkien tale, the journey wasn’t a fairytale from start to finish. What happened next was disappointing – but it didn’t knock the Dorchester-based student off her fiery journey.

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If you like what we do, and would like to see your Tolkien community keep growing and growing, consider making a contribution to our Pledge Drive. Every bit helps defray our costs!

For more details, read the article here.

I’ve also been reading other what others have had to say in the media. This piece, by Tolkien scholar John Garth, is a good place to start if you’re interested.

Early in The Fall of Arthur, long awaited by fans of J.R.R. Tolkien and now edited for publication by his son Christopher, an army rides to Mirkwood where they see in a storm above it, Ringwraith-like:

wan horsemen     wild in windy clouds
grey and monstrous     grimly riding
shadow-helmed to war,     shapes disastrous.

But this isn’t Middle-earth: it is Europe on the brink of the Dark Ages, and the army is led by Arthur and Gawain. Mirkwood is simply the old name for Germany’s eastern forests, which Tolkien borrowed for the children’s story he was writing in the same period in the early 1930s, The Hobbit.

Tolkien was a writer of endless stories. And as with most of them, The Fall of Arthur is literally endless: unfinished. It’s been lying among his vast legacy of papers, almost unknown but for a paragraph in Humphrey Carpenter’s 1976 biography and a single reference in Tolkien’s published letters. Publication follows that of the more difficult The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún in 2009, which Christopher Tolkien probably elected to publish first because it was complete. Like Sigurd and Gudrún, The Fall of Arthur is in alliterative verse, a mode last fashionable in the 14th century.

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“The only way he knows how to resolve conflict is with those damn Eagles,” is one of the most persistent complaints about Tolkien. “They’re such a deus ex machina,” the complainer will add if he wants to make it absolutely clear that he went to college.

As a storyteller, Tolkien was no flailing amateur, hurling his characters into conflicts that he could not extract them from. Whether or not you like his style of resolution, it was quite intentional. He even coined a word – “eucatastrophe” – to refer to this type of sudden deliverance, which he detailed in his essay “On Fairy Stories”:

The consolation of fairy stories…the sudden joyous “turn” (for there is no true end to any fairy tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially “escapist,” nor “fugitive.” In its fairy-tale or otherworld setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.

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Just look at some of these numbers.

33,467. News articles, spy reports and features published on the TORn front page since 2007 alone.

22,300. Spy photos, movie screencaps and fan images in the old TORN scrapbook, and the new one.

616,739. Posts from 9,981 TORnsibs on the “new” TORn gossamer forums since 2007.

700. Megabytes of plain text people have written in our Barliman’s chat since 1999. That’s several million lines of type from thousands of visitors.

These numbers are constantly growing. And it’s all from the passion and enthusiasm of the TORn community.

Your community is an enormous patchwork of brilliant, clever and Tolkien-literate people from all around the world who are passionate about Tolkien and love the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies.

And they love sharing that passion with each other — through stories, anecdotes, events, videos, music and fan art.

The TORn community is you

We don’t simply mean TORn staff. The community is you, the message board posters from the USA, Canada or France. It’s you, the chatroom regulars from Finland, the Netherlands or New Zealand. It’s you, the folks from Australia, Singapore and Brazil who participate in Hall of Fire and watch TORn Tuesday each week.

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.

Keeping all this afloat, though, takes as much money as it does love and passion.

For new servers. For software upgrades and social media integration apps. For web hosting bills.

If you’d like to make a Pledge to help TORn cover bills to help your community continue to grow, we’d be grateful and appreciative.

Just use the links below.

If you can’t, that’s ok! Keep on contributing to your community whichever way you can — through your thoughts, comments and recommending TheOneRing.net to your friends!

Make a Pledge today

General Pledge Pledge anywhere from $5 to $20!

Bronze Pledge Pledge $25. All Bronze Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page.

Silver Pledge Pledge $50. All Silver Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page and receive a TORn supporter t-shirt!

Gold Pledge Pledge $75. All Gold Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page and receive a TORn supporter t-shirt and a commemorative pin!

Platinum Pledge Pledge $150. All Platinum Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page and receive a TORn supporter t-shirt and a commemorative pin + MORE COOL STUFF!

Mithril Pledge Pledge $400. All Platinum Pledges are listed for one year on TheOneRing.net’s ‘The Tale of Honour’ web page and receive a TORn supporter t-shirt and a commemorative pin + SUPER COOL STUFF!

Or make a custom pledge

We have some fabulous, exclusive pieces up for grabs – including some things which, usually, money can’t buy! Here’s just three that might tickle your fancy:

TORn Collector’s Ed of The Hobbit Magazine signed by grammaboodawg

This is a new copy of TheOneRing.net’s premier magazine tribute toThe Hobbit! A collaborative effort between Topix Media Lab and your friends here at TheOneRing.net, it covers everything you need to know about The Hobbit movies from a fan perspective. Side-bars and feature articles, contributed by our own volunteer staff, include interviews, a feature on book vs. the movie, articles on games and collectibles, a Middle-earth timeline, and much more! The high-quality, glossy paper used for this magazine is also packed with colorful pictures of cast and crew members, locations, collectibles, gorgeous fan art and a few exclusives! One thing that makes this truly a collector’s edition is that there are only two ads in the entire 82-page magazine.

This copy’s article on the Middle-earth timeline is signed by its author, grammaboodawg. Based on TORn’s Today in Middle-earth posts in the TORn Discussion Boards, the 4-page colorful article highlights major events confronting both The Fellowship in The Lord of the Rings and Bilbo & Company in The Hobbit throughout the history of The One Ring.

TORn Collector’s Ed of The Hobbit Magazine signed by grammaboodawg Auction

NIB Exclusive LOTR PEZ gift set by Walmart featuring the Eye of Sauron

This limited edition Lord of the Rings Pez Gift Set comes with 8 themed dispensers and 12 rolls of candy. The dispensers are Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Gollum.

LOTR PEZ Gift Set Auction

The People’s Guide to J. R. R. Tolkien by TheOneRing.net Staff (2003, pbk)

Author J.R.R. Tolkien created his mythical Middle-earth as the setting for his greatest works,”The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”. Director Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy has created an even greater awareness and curiosity about Tolkien’s creation.

This guide to J.R.R.Tolkien is an exploration of Tolkien’s world from the writers of the Tolkien fan website, TheOneRing.net. This volume includes new articles as well as familiar favourites from the website. The essays are grouped around themes such as defending fantasy literature from the accusation of triviality; why people become Tolkien “fans”; whether Tolkien’s notions of Good, Evil and Free Will are relevant to a changing world; the inspiration fans draw from his work; and the ideas from which Tolkien himself drew inspiration, both in his life and in his love of ancient literature and European myths. This volume also looks at the impact of the wildly popular cinematic version and answers the most common questions asked about Middle-earth.

The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien Auction