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Tolkien on the Net
An Odyssey for the new millennium.

In the earliest days of the Internet—in the late 1960s, when it emerged as a network connecting scientists, graduate students, and Defense Department researchers—there were two pop-culture phenomena that kept popping up on the rudimentary web sites of the time: the science-fiction TV show Star Trek and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. That these two entertainment vehicles would appear online was natural, considering their appeal to so-called “nerds” and “geeks.”

During the mid-1970s, an enterprising programmer of large mainframe computers wrote one of the first computer games, a text-based game called Adventure, which was a sword and fantasy story reminiscent of Tolkien’s work. This game gave birth to an industry which today includes some of the most popular multi-player online games, where players assume the roles of characters that continue to exist in the virtual world even when the player logs off.

At the same time, more pedestrian pursuits began with fans using the new technology of email to join with like-minded Tolkien readers, to discuss the books in minute detail. In some of these discussions, fans asked each other which actors should be cast in particular roles in a film version—then only imagined—of The Lord of the Rings.

In the three decades since that time, the Internet has become diversified beyond its Trek and Tolkien origins, but The Lord of the Rings still maintains a presence far more prominent than other cultural markers. A search of the web for “Tolkien” recently turned up 490,000 pages containing that word. The Google.com web-search directory came up with hundreds of discrete web sites dedicated to the author’s works. Among these online offerings are web sites, email lists, and bulletin boards dedicated to academic literary analysis; philological study of Tolkien’s invented languages; board, card, and role-playing games; lists of genealogies and maps; original and published artwork; downloadable computer wallpaper and screensavers; fan-composed and performed music; and more.

Since the announcement that a film version of the movie would be produced was made several years ago, even more web sites and discussion boards have popped up to offer the latest tidbits and rumors, many of which are subsequently proven to be untrue but cause temporary uproar, outrage, and applause nonetheless. For months, fans checked in daily or weekly for the latest news on the film, or for spy photos of actors in costume or sets from the New Zealand filming locations, or for snippets of the filming script.

Some of the most useful and popular web sites are “One Ring: The Complete Guide to Tolkien Online” (http://onering.virbius.net), the confusingly named, but separate “TheOneRing.net,” and the “J.R.R. Tolkien Information Page”

(http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/relipper/tolkien/rootpage.html). These sites are guides to some of the thousands of other web sites dedicated to the author and his works.

As so many current Tolkien fans read the books without seeing their Christian underpinnings, it is perhaps understandable, if disturbing, to find that a number of sites and newsgroups involve fans who revel in the darkness and evil that Tolkien cast as the antagonists in The Lord of the Rings. At one such bulletin board, called “Mordor – Dark Messages,” participants recently discussed: “Who is better Melkor or Sauron?” (The former is the Satan-like character in Tolkien’s mythopoeic The Silmarillion; the latter is the main antagonist of the eponymous The Lord of the Rings.)

A shared reverence for the work
What all these web sites and discussion boards share is an almost reverential love for all things Tolkien. Whereas sites dedicated to other entertainment works like Star Trek, Star Wars, and The X-Files are often filled with debate over the current merits of the work being produced, and excoriations of the producers and writers, just about every note and posting on these Tolkien sites extol the merits of The Lord of the Rings.

This overweening love could have been a problem for Peter Jackson, as the inevitable compromises and changes were made to the book in order to make it a marketable movie suitable for a wide audience. But while some changes were made—and bemoaned by the rabid fan base—Jackson apparently listened to early criticisms and attempted to satisfy those fans with a more faithful rendering. Those fans in turn appear to be grateful, and for the most part they are cautiously optimistic that the movie will not do violence to the purity of The Lord of the Rings as they see it.

With the three movies that make up the cinematic version of the trilogy due to come out over a three-year span, the Internet which has allowed fans to form a worldwide community will not see a slowdown in the capacious interests of fans and the proliferation of web sites dedicated to the phenomenon. In fact, once the first movie has hit the neighborhood cinema, one can confidently expect to see an explosion of traffic on the email lists, bulletin boards, and web sites as fans rush to praise or pan the movie—or more likely, to do both, depending on their perspectives. Tolkien fandom will likely continue to spread online and become even more deeply ingrained into contemporary culture, helping to make The Lord of the Rings a new Homeric epic: an Odyssey for the new millennium.

—Domenico Bettinelli, Jr.

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