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

Well, now you can meet the talented, and oft-times crazy, volunteers, who diligently delve away in the deepest darkest caverns of Erebor to bring you TheOneRing.net.

*some of the creatures who work here are extremely shy and there is very limited information about them, beyond their names, if you’re extremely lucky you might just spot one as they scurry back into the shadows *

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!

The Four Founders

Tehanu is one of the founders of TheOneRing.net, heavily involved in setting up the site and reporting on LOTR developments as they unfolded around her in New Zealand from 1999 onwards. She contributed a series of articles called Tehanu’s Notes, some of which were published in The People’s Guide to JRR Tolkien, which she also edited. Tehanu is an orchestral musician, publicist, broadcaster and writer in Wellington.

Calisuri is co-owner and one of the original founders of TheOneRing.net. Based out of Philadelphia, PA USA, he contributes most of his free time to handling the business affairs of the website. As a result, you won’t see him that often on the boards or chat, but he is always lurking in the corner.

Corvar is the mysterious man behind the scenes. Our incredibly talented sys-admin is the one cog that’s all-important to a fully functional site — especially when the big news hits. He can sometimes be found idle in Barliman’s chat while trying to find a way to implement Calisuri’s latest crazy idea.

Xoanon is one of our four founders. Though widely believed to be a creation of the other three founders to differentiate them from the three Elven lords by younger staff members, he has, in fact, been missing since he undertook a quest to the Halls of Thranduil to investigate the rumour that this most unconventional of elves had actually employed a female Guard Captain. All attempts by TORn staff to find out his fate have, to date, failed.

TORn Senior Staff

greendragon joined TORn’s message boards back in early 2002; she became a staffer in 2007 and is now honoured to be one of TORn’s Senior Staff.  Her favourite thing about TORn is the many friends it has brought her all around the world, so she loves being involved with planning TORn’s many moots, parties, convention attendance, etc.  A Brit who is now based in the USA, greendragon’s ‘real life’ job is as a freelance stage director, performer and educator.

Alyse is a senior staff member of TORn and a long time Tolkien geek. Having met Calisuri at the Los Angeles line party for The Fellowship of the Ring, she was recruited to help organize week long line parties for The Two Towers and Return of the King. Alyse is also the de facto art curator on staff, having organized and coordinated the art shows for 3 ORCs, 2 ELFs and last February’s An Unexpected Art Show. Alyse also has another passion – building art creations out of LEGO bricks when not working on developing websites professionally.

MrCere came to TheOneRing by way of organizing Line Party events for the LOTR movies. His heart is with the message boards but since visiting the “Hobbit” set for five weeks he stays away so everybody can have fun. He attends conventions, road trips, writes and posts as much as he has time for. He is currently a film student and the Tolkien Track director for Dragon Con and a former journalist.

Demosthenes has been an incredibly nerdy member of TheOneRing.net since 2001 when Calisuri asked him if he’d like to post some stuff on the frontpage. He now helps run the TORn newsdesk and organise feature stories and fan Q&As. He also keeps the TORn chatrooms in a constant state of chaos and enjoys discussing Tolkien and LOTR every weekend in Hall of Fire.

Outside of TORn, he enjoys long walks in the forest, keeping small mutant spacegoats and live music photography. Octopuses, in his opinion, may be the most amazing living creatures ever.

Altaira discovered TheOneRing.net in 2001 and immediately fell in love with the discussion forums. She became a moderator and eventually received the honor of being asked to become a member of the site’s Sr. Staff. While moderating TORn’s sister site, KongisKing.net, she met her future husband who lived half-way around the world in Middle-earth (a.k.a, New Zealand). Together they forged new discussion forums on an updated platform which went live in 2007. As the head of the discussion boards, she currently works with an amazing team of fellow ‘Rangers,’ protecting the boundaries of the forums from trolls and wargs. In her spare time, she works as financial consultant for mid- to large-sized companies and enjoys watching movies (in IMAX 30D whenever possible) with her Kiwi better half.

 Jincey, usually mingling in Barlis chatroom as one of our eagle eyed Moderators, Jincey is currently on sabbatical.

maegwen – though normally found hanging out with TORn’s chatters in Barlis Bar, recent rumours suggest that this shy, yet mischievous creature has now migrated to the Twitterverse.

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

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.

•  

  

  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.

Aragorn is the kind of character that demands a closer look. You must remember the speech that Shrek gives to Donkey about ogres being a lot like onions: “We have layers!” I would also like to use the onion metaphor for Strider. But wait — that’s just one layer. Peel away a bit and you’ll find the outcast orphan-lad who was taken in by the Elves; his mother desperate for some protection. Peel away more layers to find within a skillful fighter, a passionate lover, a delicate negotiator with a voice of great wisdom, a healer and master of herb-lore, and yes… in the very center of his heart, underneath it all, is a King.

It’s no small wonder readers and movie-goers are fascinated by Aragorn. Women of all ages swoon over Viggo Mortensen’s portrayal of this multi-faceted character. No one can possibly imagine Stuart Townsend taking the role, not at this point (sorry Stuart). Men have found themselves admiring a new hero on the silver screen: as cool a cat as Errol Flynn and as swashbuckling as Harrison Ford. “This guy is great, man, he can kick-ass and has all the ladies in Middle-earth after him!”

Yes, but I must remind you that that ‘matinee idol’ image of Aragorn is just the surface. This man has so much on his plate, is so burdened by worries and duty and the hardships of his life, that we can’t help but admire the TRUE Aragorn that’s underneath the rugged exterior. I say the true Aragorn is proven by his actions. Yes, he is truly the Ranger, leader, lover, and King that fills Tolkien’s pages and fills our daydreams.

But he is only able to succeed (for himself and for all us readers) because he proves himself. The verb “to prove” has several meanings. You could say the actual word prove is like an onion too. Proving a thing is true can be done by establishing it with facts and evidence. To prove the existence of the King, and his rightful claim to the throne, you have to show clear facts; real things in the physical world that show Aragorn is the heir. So Aragorn is given the Elessar by Galadriel:

“In this hour,” she said, “take the name that was foretold for you, Elessar, the Elfstone of the Elendil.”

A beautiful eagle-shaped brooch, given with love but also with a sense of hanging doom. But the mere possession of this Elessar does not prove he’s the King — let us not overstate the obvious here. I can also find the passage in Appendix A where Elrond gives Aragorn the Ring of Barahir and the Shards of Narsil. There is also the stunning Sceptre of Annúminas, which Elrond refused to give to the young man at first.

Funny. The Elven Lord of Imladris refused to give Aragorn the great Sceptre. Let’s think about that. No matter what kinds of jewelry, crowns, baubles, or finery you have accumulated, you really aren’t the King just by possessing such items. Holding up the reforged Andúril to glimmer in the light does not a King make. Aragorn could have trotted off to Minas Tirith, entered the Citadel with all his fine raiment and his new sword, and walking right up to Denethor declared: “Here I am! Bow down to me!” Doesn’t take much imagination to guess the Steward’s response.

Speaking of inherited artifacts, that creepy little Palantír belongs to Aragorn too, I should note. It is an heirloom of his own house. None of the Stones belong to Saruman or Sauron or Denethor. When Aragorn reveals his true identity to the Dark Lord, using the Stone from Orthanc…. just think! It is a critical turning point in his life: and a turning point in the story. This Ranger from the North is no longer in hiding. He controls the Seeing Stone like a finely tuned instrument, and gives the Enemy a sucker-punch right in the gut. I can imagine the wild fear and hatred that Sauron must have felt! So Aragorn comes closer to proving himself.

Now this is the crux of the matter. This is the true meaning of the verb “to prove.” Peel off another layer of that onion. To prove something you have to test it. You have to put it out there. See how it stands up. That is the Kingly Proof we are looking for.

Aragorn had to prove himself, his worth, and his lineage throughout the War of the Ring. Every task put at Aragorn’s feet, all the difficult choices and furious events, every step forward where his credibility was on the line, was part of his ongoing test. He had to prove that everything hanging over him was indeed his own right to become King. And like Atlas destined to carry such a massive weight, Aragorn proves he is strong enough to hold himself up.

It’s a theme we see often in Tolkien’s world. Characters are pushed to their own personal limits. Sometimes they are given a moral dilemma that must be conquered. Sometimes an army of Orcs. Whatever the test, we are enthralled to read of Aragorn’s exploits. We sense that something inside of him is waking up. It’s something very strange indeed to know that you must prove yourself. I sometimes think it is easier on a person if they don’t know what is at stake. But throughout LOTR Aragorn is painfully aware.

He is not given the Scepter of his forefathers because Elrond doesn’t believe he is yet proven. He is not allowed the hand of Arwen either “….until the time comes and you are found worthy of it.” Going off into the Wild and becoming extremely close in friendship with Gandalf (some would say becoming an apprentice) is how Aragorn responds to this. He must survive many journeys and succeed at many challenges against the Enemy. What must it have felt like for him?

Using the name Strider (or any alias) the servants of the Enemy would not to find him. What a strange dilemma. He had to simultaneously hide himself from Sauron and fight against his encroaching evil as well. All the time thinking to himself that the might of ancient Númenor was flowing like blood in his veins. All the time wondering if he’d be strong enough to live through it. And certainly his own internal conflicts made it more difficult.

Aragorn had so many tests to prove himself it makes your head spin:

1) help the hobbits survive cross-country
2) fend off the Nazgûl attack
3) resist the power of the Ring
4) lead the Fellowship after Gandalf’s fall
5) track down Merry and Pippin’s captors
6) inspire Théoden King at Helm’s Deep
7) survive the Battle of the Hornburg
8) use the Palantír against the will of Sauron
9) traverse the Paths of the Dead and recruit the Oathbreakers
10) defeat the Corsairs of Umbar
11) come swooping in to save the day on the Pelennor Fields
12) heal many suffering and wounded with athelas
13) dismiss the faint-hearted with mercy
14) challenge the Mouth of Sauron and the armies of Mordor

And a dozen other things are thrown at this man that I haven’t even remembered! Does it seem to you that Aragorn was ever once given the easy way out? At what point could he reasonably raise up his hands and disavow himself from all of it? Shouting to the night in exasperation, “Enough already! How much more can I take?”

Yet he never does. And we learn something profound about this man from the fact that he endures so much.

So there you have the reality of “proof.” A lesser man would have been overwhelmed. Aragorn was not. He finds something in his soul that keeps him going. But what is it really? Can we find that final layer underneath it all? What makes Aragorn so strong from within?

The key, I think, is found when the Grey Company rides down from the North, finding Aragorn and the others on the fields of Rohan at night. Halbarad and the other Dúnedain bring him messages and a gift from Arwen. She spent many weeks making a great standard for him to unfurl at the appropriate time. The standard of the White Tree, the mark of Elendil’s house, “wrought in mithril and gold.” She is giving him, in essence, the final acknowledgment that he will become King. That she believes in him no matter what. Something inside Aragorn shifts into place. Tolkien is quietly showing us the point of no return for this character. It is such a revealing moment, yet handled with great subtlety, indeed there is danger the reader might miss it. Aragorn finds his greatest strength from Arwen’s love. He remembers the price she must pay to love him, becoming mortal herself. We must also realize she is paying the ultimate price to be at his side.

Aragorn will pass any test to honor Arwen’s heart — to justly respect and honor what she is giving up for him. He decides to make his heart equally as strong as hers. He is keenly aware of her sacrifice, and it weighs on everything he does. If need be, he will prove himself to the final end of ends. He will fly down the fury of all Sauron’s armies, all the treacherous paths of the world, conquering the Enemy from within and without to honor her. Aragorn’s choices and actions show the true measure of his worth, especially because he understands what others are giving up for him.

That is proof enough for me.

Much too hasty,
Quickbeam
@quickbeam2000

========================

This article was originally posted on October 3rd 2003 as part of our Green Books area. 

If sharing your thoughts with the world is not enough incentive…we are going to be giving away some great prizes over the next week to randomly selected reviewers. We’ll be contacting winners with the email they use when submitting their review. Prizes will be doled out over the next few weeks, so stay tuned to TORn’s homepage for winner announcements!

Also, we are going to be working around the clock to approve your reviews as they come in, so please be patient with the dedicated efforts of the TORn staff.  [Ringer Reviews]

This month we’re asking questions of one of our Four Founders, Calisuri.

Thanks Chris for agreeing to do this

Me: What was your favourite cartoon when you were growing up?

Calisuri: Oddly enough, the first one that pops into my head is Hong Kong Phooey! Though I know I really enjoyed He-Man, Thundercats and Gummy Bears! hah.

Me: You have been gifted a 30 second phone call with Tolkien, what would you say?

Calisuri: I think I would be a bit embarrassed to talk to him. Weird right? But ultimately, I don’t think Tolkien totally understood hardcore fans, and well, that is what I represent via TheOneRing.net. – even more-so today where fandom has escalated to a religious fervour in modern society.

I am also not a scholar in any capacity…as you can tell by my grammar! So I’d be embarrassed to even open my mouth!

But after all of that, I’d ask him about his experience in the war and how that affected his life. I’d love to know how he lived through the horrors of modern warfare with his own life experience.

Me: How do you avoid going mad under the pressure of running the largest and most-popular Tolkien and Lord of the Rings movies fan site in the world?

Calisuri: How do you know I have not gone mad? heh

But more seriously… I can’t claim to be solely running the site. I do handle most ‘business’ decisions and manage as much as possible, but there are so many other contributors to the site whom go unnoticed and unrecognised for their valuable efforts. TORn is blessed to have such an amazing group of volunteers – they are the ones that truly make TORn ‘run.’

For the business side of the site, I guess I can say I handle the pressure by putting things in perspective. I make an active decision to not sweat the small stuff. I know that seems clichéd and implies that I’m saying TheOneRing.net is the ‘small stuff,’ but…well, it is! My priorities in life are my family and my relationship with God. If I can handle those two extremely important aspects of my life, the rest just falls into place. So when something ‘bad’ happens on TORn (Server failure, etc) it never really phases me. It is just another day in the life of a thriving fan community. I have confidence in our team of volunteers to resolve whatever issue has come up and know that it ultimately will be resolved…at some point.

The only real time I get ‘stressed’ about TORn is when someone is attempting to abuse the community. In a nutshell, that means someone comes to us to promote their for-profit venture without appropriate reciprocation to our community. Basically looking to use the good will we’ve built up over many years for their own personal gain. That is the quickest way to get on my ‘bad side.’

Me: Why do you still do it? Why do you go to all the trouble?

Calisuri: I’ve often described TORn to friends and family as ‘my baby.’ Now that I have a real baby (my daughter was born in March 2011), I’m not sure its exactly the same, but close. In the early 2000’s, I aggressively protected TORn as I would my daughter and possibly burnt a few bridges. I’ve since come to a much more ‘calm’ place in my life and don’t let things get personal. So again, as I mention above, I’m not sweating the small stuff anymore and as a result TORn is simply an overall positive force in my life.

And it is a hell of a lot of fun! Where else can you throw a 220k+ party?! (Yea, that is what The Return of the One Party cost in 2004 – and we expect our next parties to be even more!)

Me: Ever been tempted to change the site so that you can hire staff to do the work?

Calisuri: No. If you check out the first wave of fan sites from the late nineties, many of them are no longer run by their original ‘owners.’ Most folks look to cash in and move on. I’m very proud of our ownership (Tehanu, Xoanon, Corvar and myself) for realising that the TORn community is more than just a website for a lot of folks. It represents years of hard work from our volunteers, but also is an outlet for Tolkien fandom worldwide. To move to a for-profit model would destroy us…you could really compare it to The One Ring itself. Yes, money would be awesome to have from our hard work on TORn, but ultimately it’s corrupting powers would overwhelm and turn us into Gollum? lol When people volunteer their time and talents to something, they are doing so because they have a real passion. You can’t pay for passion.

Me: What has been the BEST moment, the minute or day that has been most rewarding for all the years of effort?

Calisuri: Oh wow. Well, my memory is horrible – as many of our staff can tell you – so i can’t give you the minute and day. But I can say with certainty it was being invited to the Cannes Films Festival in 2001 before the release of The Fellowship of the Ring and spending time seeing exclusive footage of the film as well as partying with the cast/crew before the whole thing blew up.

Ha – look, the old page still exists explaining the experience: http://archives.theonering.net/movie/cannes2001.html

I know you asked for only one – but I’d have to put up there the ‘Charwen’ experience and the last Oscar Party.

Me: What’s your favourite thing about the TORn community?

Calisuri: Loaded question! I call foul!

My favourite ‘thing’ about TORn is the diversity of our community and the giving, generous and pleasant nature of Tolkien fans. We truly are the best fan base out there – sorry everyone else

Me: What is the meaning of your TORn nick and why did you choose it?  (“I’ve always wondered about it, but when you google “calisuri”, stuff about Chris Pirrotta is what you get.” Alassea Eruvande)

Calisuri: It is rather unique – and I have to give the credit to my brother Steve. You see, his email password was ‘Calusari’ – in reference to the X-Files episode ‘The Calusari.’ I just didn’t know how to spell it…and ultimately it served as a good nickname for use on the Nightmare LPMud I used to play. So there you have it…Calisuri.

Oddly enough…most people think it is a female name. I’m not sure why.

Me: Invent a word that might be heard in M-e and tell us what it means.

Calisuri: Wow – awesome question! How about Eve

Me: Do you have any irrational fears or phobias?

Calisuri: I have quite a few – I’m thinking the worst of which is I’m a hypochondriac. Just ask my poor wife! The slightest sniffle and I much have the flu or something much more horrible than the common cold.

I lived my whole life with another fear that I only recently overcame. Since I’m on a semi-soap box here, I would like to encourage anyone with an issue or fear that affects them daily to get some help. I only wish I would have addressed this particular topic 20 years ago – my life would have been so much different. I feel so liberated every day thanks to just a few sessions of therapy.

Me: How did you decide on what design to use for TORn? …in fact, how did you (and the other Founders) decide on the very name? (And do you have any comments regarding, ah, Charwen? )

Calisuri: The original concept for TORn was simply a collage of the great Tolkien artists – taking pieces from Naismith, Lee, Howe and others to compose an interesting backdrop. Nothing really that impressive – and ultimately today it is very out-dated. We should have a ‘reskin’ coming soon!

The name was directly inspired by TheForce.net – a Star Wars site that I often mention was my personal inspiration for TheOneRing.net. We thought by keeping a few parts of our name similar to TheForce.net, we could capture a bit of their success. So that is why we have a ‘the’ in our name and used ‘.net.’

Ah Charwen…that will live with me forever. The one thing I took away from that was I’m a HORRIBLY UGLY woman. My daughter takes after my wife fortunately

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

And as always thanks to all our message board regulars, Ataahua, DanielLB, Alassea Eruvande, SirDennisC, Xanaseb, grammaboodawg and dernwyn, and a special thank you to Senior Staffers MrCere and Demosthenes for this months’ questions.

If you want to ask any questions yourself, 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.  Or you can just check the boards for this months interviewee and email me your questions at kelvarhin@theonering.net.

Till next time from TORn’s resident Tiger.

Kelvarhin.

This month, in the lead up to ComicCon, we’re asking questions of the other stripey TORn Kitty and intrepid traveller, Garfeimao.

Thanks for joining us this month Garf.

Me: What, in your opinion, are the best places to visit in California?

Garfeimao: Hah, that’s funny, since I’m at just about the most touristy spot in all of California, Disneyland, right now. In fact, if you put these answers up pretty quickly, you may well get a bit of a scoop, since I’m at the Press Preview of the new Cars Land at Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim, California. The’ve added Radiator Springs, a 12 acre park with 3 full rides and loads of shops and restaurants and new entertainment options, and it’s just adorable. They built up the background to look like the desert mesas and mountains you see if the film, including the waterfall and bridge sequence from the film. It’s really cool and very immersive, and the opening night party tonight was awesome. I ran into Andy Garcia, twice, Larry the Cable Guy (who voices Mater in the Cars movies) and I ran into Scott Hamilton, the Olympic Figure skater, among several other celebrities that were here.

But on to some other things to see and do in California. Of course, I don’t think most people realize just how big California is, so this question can be a bit hard to answer, but I’ll give it a go since I’ve driven through most of the state.

Of the bigger cities you should see, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Anaheim and San Diego all are good places to go, but for very different reasons.

San Francisco is one of the older cities in the state and because it was built on a peninsula and is rather crowded in, it has always had an East Coast feel to me. But there is lots to do there from live theater, the Golden Gate, a drive up through Napa Valley to visit the wineries, a trip to Alcatraz to see the famous prison, and some of the best restaurants you could ever hope to find.

Santa Barbara is utterly charming. It’s on the smaller side, by design, and is right on the coast about 90 minutes North of LA. It has one of the California Missions and a lot of the architecture in town evokes the Mission aesthetic. They have a wonderful film festival in February or so, and one of the best little Taqueria Stands in the state called Super-Rica. Google it, people make special trips just to eat there.

Los Angeles, you can’t skip the Entertainment Capital of the World, even if it does have a lot of traffic. But aside from Hollywood, LA has some amazing beaches, three really cool places to get a view of the whole city, from different vantage points (Griffith Observatory, the parking lot outside Dodger Stadium, and from the Getty Museum), and loads of hiking trails in the hills surrounding the city. And since LA is one of the most Diverse cities in the country, you can eat top notch foods from Ethiopia, Armenia, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Mexico, China, and dozens of other ethnicities in sections of towns named after all these groups. Or you can shop with the Glitterati on Melrose or Rodea Drive, or any of a dozen other high end shopping centers. And don’t forget our museums, we have some really amazing museums in the Getty Center, LACMA, the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, the Huntington Library and Gardens and the Norton Simon Museum, just to name a few. And last but not least, LA is still one of the only places where in the Winter months, you can Ski in the morning and Surf in the afternoon, or vice versa, depending on your mood.

Anaheim, the home of the original Disneyland and California Adventure (now the home of Lightening McQueen and Mater and the rest from Radiator Springs in Cars Land, opening on June 15). Anaheim is in Orange County, so this is a great jumping off point to other beaches such as Huntington Beach, also known as Surf City, and Laguna Beach, home to the Pageant of the Masters and the Sawdust Festival (Laguna Beach is an artist colony).

And finally, there is San Diego, which is considered the Playground of California. They have one of the top zoos in the world, as well as Sea World, just in case you like your animals wet. They are the home of Comic Con, but they are also the home to a huge Naval fleet and Marine base. They are the last big city on the way South to Mexico, but also home of a quaint little town on Coronado Island that still has that Small Town USA vibe to it.

Away from the cities, we have some amazing National Parks, such as Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia National Park, and Muir Woods. And if you drive way up North towards the border with Oregon, you may get to see the giant Redwoods, just know that while big, they don’t quite match the Giant Sequoias you see in the middle of the state in Kings Canyon. These trees always remind me of the Waterboys song “Church not made by Hands”, and a must see for anyone who is driving through the state. Just know that LA to San Francisco is about 7 hours, and then it’s at least another 8 hours to the Oregon border, and from LA, it’s a good 2-3 hours south to Mexico. Add to that the 4 hours or so that it takes to drive to either Phoenix or Las Vegas, and you realize just how big this state is. And when I say you can ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon, it is because of all those mountain ranges we have, which are many and vast, with the highest being the Sierra Nevadas, home of Mount Whitney, the tallest peak in the Continental United States (everyone thinks the tallest peak must be in Colorado or Utah as part of the Rockies, but nope, it’s in California as part of the Sierras. Anyhow, you can see Mt. Whitney on your way up through the High Desert on the way to Mammoth Mountain to go skiing, and along the way, see the remnants of volcanic cinder cones. Or you could go to Death Valley and see the lowest point on the continent, a desert that is below sea level.

So there you go, California in a very large nutshell.

Me: You’ve been going to ComicCon for many years, why did you first start going and what keeps you going back?  What do you particularly enjoy about it?

Garfeimao: I must have started going sometime in the early 1990′s, whenever Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Babylon 5 were on the air. I had previously been to Star Trek conventions, which were smaller and focused on just the one show. But a friend and I were big fans of Buffy and B5 and had heard about San Diego Comic Con and thought we would drive down and give a try one year. Back then, you could get tickets on the day of the show, and get in fairly quickly, so we just commuted down from LA. We got to meet a good chunk of the Buffy cast and Joss Whedon (that guy who directed the Avengers movie to perfection) and then we got to meet JMS, who created Babylon 5. I also got to see a panel with Ray Bradbury, which was thrilling for me as a long time fan of the genre in books, TV and film.

We had gone directly to the panels and autograph sessions, and after that, decided to take a turn around the Dealers room. And this is when we realized this was not your small, local scifi convention. Even in the early 1990′s the dealers room was huge, with hundreds upon hundreds of vendors all selling comics, posters, books, artwork, toys, games, videos (at the time), dolls, shirts, etc. The combination of vendors and cool things you could buy, the panels with writers, producers, actors and artist you could see, the sneak peeks of new films and TV shows you could watch, and the people you could meet in person is what kept me coming back. One year there was a 20 foot statue of Blade in the upstairs concourse, another year there were hundred foot blow up Giant Robots on the streets, video game companies bring out the games to play down at one end of the giant dealers hall (which now holds more than a 1000 vendors easily), and the Syfy channel turns a restaurant in the nearby Hard Rock Hotel into Cafe Diem, a themed restaurant from their show Eureka. Comic Con is a fully immersive Scifi/Fantasy/Anime/Steampunk/Comic Book extravaganza that is like a Theme Park for genre fans, but without the rides.

It’s all this time spent attending conventions, and at times volunteering for security at them, that put me in the perfect position to help organize our TORn conventions, ORC and ELF.

Me: What is your most favourite memory from ComicCon? Why?

Garfeimao: Well now, I’ve been going for a long time, so there are many great moments, such as seeing the Heroes pilot for the first time, or meeting the cast of Battlestar Galactica before their miniseries aired, when no one knew if they would do well or be hated. Of course, the Lord of the Rings years were great fun, hanging out with my TORn buddies and the WETA crowd and all the fans. And I’ve entered the Masquerade a few times, nothing cooler than displaying your costume in front of 4000 people at a time, thank goodness the spotlights keep them all out of your visual range.

But for  favorite moment, I am going to have to go with a series of events that happened in 2009. I attended with my sister, who has Down Syndrome and is now pretty much a fixture at comic con. While walking around on the floor, she got stepped on by someone in the crowd, and when I stopped to check on her, I discovered that someone to be James Purefoy. He portrayed Marc Antony in the Rome series and who was at comic con to promote Solomon Kane. Wow, he’s a cutey in person, but also really nice and we chatted a bit, that is part of the completely random nature of comic con, you just never know who you will run into. We actually ran into him 2 more times that same day, one of which was while we were sitting in the front row of a big panel with Peter Jackson and James Cameron. Once the panel began, though, lo and behold, we found that our neighbors were none other than Elijah Wood and Dominic Monaghan. Next day, we got to chat with Guillermo Del Toro, who is still one of my favorite people in Hollywood right now. This was right after he’d announced he was stepping down from The Hobbit, so it was a bittersweet visit. On the last day, my sister won a car, a Nissan Cube that NBC was giving away to promote Heroes. Kinda hard to beat that for best moments ever at the con, to be sure.

Me: If you were invited to The Hobbit set, what would you pack for lunch?

Garfeimao: Probably a good italian sandwich like Salami, Mortadella, and Provolone on a nice French Roll. Add and Apple and some Ice Tea and I’m all set. Travels well, doesn’t need to be kept cool (I don’t like condiments on my sandwiches), and you can nosh all afternoon.

Me: Which creature in any of Tolkien’s work would you be, and why? (Just to clarify, any creature, excluding humanoids.)

Garfeimao: I think I’d like to be one of the Great Eagles, because I could fly around from some really terrific heights, see all that is going on, and pitch in when I felt like helping, or just pass news along, or mind my own business, whatever I felt like on the day.

Me: What was your favourite cartoon when you were a child?

Garfeimao: I was always very fond of the Looney Tunes cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, but I must say the cartoons that ran home to see were Speed Racer and Kimba the While Lion. Both were on PBS (public broadcasting system), and both were early examples of anime making it to America. I always felt that Disney’s Lion King, with the story of the young Simba having to learn to become an adult Lion in the wake of his father’s death was directly taken from Kimba (check out the name similarity). But Kimba was a young lion throughout the show, who’s mother had been taken and the father was dead, and being a White Lion, there was always the threat of poachers. It was so long ago I don’t remember too many other story arcs, but it did seem to be emotionally resonant at the time, and showed a lot of nature in Africa and the like. And Speed Racer was just fun, kind of a cartoon soap opera combined with an action flick, much like the movie was that came out a few years ago.

Me: What extreme sport would you like to try?

Garfeimao: I don’t think there is a single ‘so called’ extreme sport I would like to participate in. I actually consider most sports, played at a professional level, to be extreme. Take platform divers for example, who dive from a 10 meter platform and do extraordinary acrobatic moves on the way down to the water. If that’s not extreme, I don’t know what is. I’ve competed in Gymnastics and Tae Kwon Do, where I am a third degree black belt, so I do have some sporting background.

But if I were to choose one sport I’d love to give a try, one that is completely outside my normal experience and skill set, that would be Ice Hockey. I’ve been a fan for decades, but a few years ago women’s teams came to the forefront in the Olympics and it’s just so cool to see women more than capable of doing something that had been the domain of men for so long. The fact that our local team and my favorite for a few decades now, the Los Angeles Kings, just won Lord’s Stanley Cup, which is the Championship for the National Hockey Team is just icing on the cake right now and probably why I’ve got hockey on the brain at the moment.

Of course, if you had asked me this same question in August, the answer might be different based on whatever sport I was watching in the Olympics at the time. I do love my spectator sports.

Me: What is your most exciting memory from a Cruise to Middle-earth? And most horrifying?

Garfeimao: Pretty sure you don’t want a ‘horrifying’ travel story, because I do have one that was not on the Cruise to Middle-earth and involved a murder-suicide in our travel group, but that was a different cruise many years before our trip to NZ. My guess is you just want the good and bad of the trip, so here it is.

I think the highlight of the Cruise to Middle-earth (I was only on the first one, not the second one that I organized) was our trip to WETA. We did to expect to get a full presentation from both Daniel Falconer and Gino Acevedo, as well as a full luncheon with Daniel and Richard Taylor, and we most certainly did not expect the full tour of the workshop. There were a few areas they could not take us to, because they were just in the early stages of developing The Hobbit, way too early to let any designs out yet. And then we were surprised by a visit from Guillermo Del Toro, who had only just arrived into New Zealand to begin work on the script (this was late 2008).

The worse thing, for me at least, was some of the planning stages. Currency fluctuations are the bane of any Travel Agent’s existence, because it makes pricing and planning particularly difficult. Planning itineraries and hoping to appeal to the widest number of people without boring some of them, is also a real challenge. But the most difficult hiccup to overcome on the first Cruise to Middle-earth was probably our Cocktail party on the ship. I’d arranged for 2 hours with complimentary drinks and hors ‘d oeuvres to be served, and they came out with pretzels and peanuts. I had to talk to the servers, and then the group coordinator and finally the chef, and they all had the light snacks instead on their orders. I pulled out my paperwork (thank goodness I’m a bit anal and print everything) and showed them that it said heavy Hors ‘d oeuvres. But they take time to prepare, so they didn’t know what to do and I suggested they go to the public buffet, that was going on for all passengers at the back end of the ship, bring up some of the free pizzas and snacks type foods from there, as well as a few of the cookies and desserts, and serve them to our group. So sure, it was exactly what they could get from the buffet as opposed to something cute and fancy made especially by the chef, but our group was gathered altogether, mostly in costumes, hanging out by ourselves in the bar having a great time. Not a horrible event, just something a group planner has to be prepared to deal with when they would rather just be laughing and having a great time with everyone else.

Thank you again, Garf, for agreeing to speak to us this month. If you’d like to catch up with Garfeimao or any of the rest of our TORn Staffers (deej, maegwen, entmaiden, MrCere, Sarumann, Quickbeam, Arwen and Justin), they’ll be presenting a Hobbit panel again this year at ComicCon in San Diego, we’d love to see you there.

Once again thanks to all our message board regulars, Ataahua, DanielLB, Rosie-with-the-ribbons,  SirDennisC, grammaboodawg, MrCere and dernwyn, for this months’ questions.

If you want to ask any questions yourself, 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.

Till next time from TORn’s resident Tiger.

Kelvarhin.

We had a couple of highlights that filled the Discussion Boards this week.  One was our Quickbeam’s report on CinemaCon. Be warned!  There are spoilers here!  Mere moments after that presentation, he was hosting his weekly broadcast of “Live TORn Tuesday” where he relayed what he saw of Peter Jackson’s 10-minute preview of “The Hobbit”.   TORn Admin Silverlode was kind enough to take notes and share them.  We also had the opportunity to hear what Peter had to say about the response to his work.

The other highlight of the week was TORn’s Founders Day Party where we observed our 13^th anniversary online and our Founders who brought us all together.  Discussion Board members celebrated the day with reflections and games.

To finish out the emotional week, we just have to share Pollantir Discussion Board member Nuradar’s question of what we thought were The Lord of the Rings’ most heartbreaking movie moments.  For a Board that’s normally a bit subdued, this certainly inspired many responses.  What are yours?

We’ll share more topics next week and hope you can join in on the conversation!  Don’t forget, TheOneRing.net’s message boards have over 7,600 registered Tolkien fans, just like you.  Let your voice be heard!

The films are a two-part adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” celebrating its 75th year of publication in 2012. Peter Jackson is directing the films after helming a three-part adaptation of Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” book that appeared in print 17 years after “The Hobbit.” Jackson scripted the films with his writing team of Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh with the addition of one-time-director Guillermo del Toro. Fans will remember the many agonizing delays before the film’s start that eventually forced del Toro to bow out.

Curtis, reporting from the film set, is part of TORn’s Senior Staff, a writer and photographer known to the TORn community at MrCere. He has contributed to TheOneRing.net for more than a decade in a variety of roles. In December he visited and toured New Zealand including an exclusive report from the Hobbiton Movie Set after being granted permission to publish impressions and photos from the site, rebuilt for “The Hobbit.” The location can be visited as a fully dressed film set accessible to by tour. The first block of filming on “The Hobbit,” included production from the site, set on a working livestock farm near Matamata, New Zealand.

TheOneRing.net is a not-for-profit website that serves as the hub for Tolkien communities online as well as the physical world. It was founded in 1999 by Erica Challis (Tehanu) in New Zealand, Canadian Mike Regina (Xoanon) and Wiliam Thomas (Corvar) and Chris Pirrotta (Calisuri) from the U.S.. The foursome’s website quickly vaulted to fame in an internet age when the relationship between fans and films and movie studios was rapidly evolving. The all-volunteer staff manages the site that includes a live chat room, message boards, news updates about all things related to Tolkien and the fan community world wide.

TORn will make a series of convention appearances including the San Diego Comic-Con, DragonCon in Atlanta and the New York Comic-Con. TheOneRing also used the internet to organize grass-roots fan parties around the world for the premiere of the LOTR films and anticipates doing so again. We also have a Wellington, New Zealand world premiere party planned with Red Carpet Tours and an Oscar Party set in Los Angeles in February.

TheOneRing.net and MrCere wish to thanks Warner Bros. and Wingnut for the invitation, including many individuals inside each organization, and for fans worldwide for their support. While only one representative can serve to communicate the stories and images from the set, we feel strongly that an invite to a fan site is a compliment to the work of many staffers and the whole of the fan community.

Follow us at Facebook and Twitter. Curtis will not be Tweeting from the set, but will be living and relating experiences in Wellington, New Zealand. He tweets from @MrLDC. And, hang on tight!

Writer and photographer Larry D. Curtis (MrCere@TheOneRing.net) will be a one-man news production team for two weeks, starting November 30 when he touches down at the Queenstown airport. His journey will also take him to Wellington to mark the one year countdown before the world premiere of the first Hobbit film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, in 2012 along with visits to friends of TORn (such as our own founder Tehanu) and can’t-miss public sites like the Weta Cave.

Curtis (known by the handle MrCere on the site) also plans to meet with as many fans as possible while in the area, including at un-official but hopefully frequent moot events, so if interested in attending or hosting, please contact him at the email above. The always all-volunteer and not-for-profit TheOneRing.net would also appreciate anybody who has great information or tips on inexpensive places to stay (no haystack ruled out!) or eat while in New Zealand.

The trip, not officially sanctioned by any entity, with no promise of access to set or actors, is important to TheOneRing.net, to mark the one-year countdown and to give readers a closer glimpse of New Zealand’s South Island while the on-location shooting is taking place. This is a completely grass-roots effort and TORn is interested in getting the on-the-ground fan experience, talking to any available LOTR alumni and starting the countdown to The Hobbit. After all, as part of serving fans of J.R.R. Tolkien, it is what TORn is and has done for the last 12 years. The event is also meant to give fellow fans in New Zealand a chance to be heard as two potential billion dollar movies film in their backyard. In fact, some fan-event initiatives may also be announced from New Zealand.

You can follow the daily adventures of TORn’s own MrCere right here at TheOneRing.net, on TORn’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/TheOneRingnet) and at @MrLDC and @TheOneRingnet on Twitter. Spy reports and news tips should continue to be sent to SpyMaster@TheOneRing.net but if in doubt feel free to send it to MrCere as well (MrCere@TheOneRing.net in case you missed it). Curtis has 17 years of journalism experience covering films and film festivals include a decade of service here at TheOneRing.

Interested in sponsoring or contributing to the trip? We are open to all possibilities so feel free to drop us a line.