Learning about this website

[Thinlómien]

Oh wow, this thread makes me so happy. Is it normal for a person in their early 30s to get this high on nostalgia?

But yeah, the name generator! (That's where Thinlómien comes from, incidentally.) Or the personal title promotions! And well... everything!

I joined this site when I was 14. Coming across my old posts from say, 2004-2006ish is somewhat terrifying - the teenagerishness radiating from them is quite something. But I'm also pretty proud of myself for joining a forum in a foreign language at that age and discussing everything here quite comfortably if with the occasional sad linguistic error. (I still remember the RPG where I wrote about my character that as a kid he often "coupled with" his sister and I also once got a negative reputation for an RPG post where the text was "the past tense of to teach is taught". Which I still feel obliged to point out I KNEW obviously, but I somehow accidentally wrote "teached" in a hurry. Oh well.)

Yeah and of course my first thread here was about whether some of Thorin's company could have been women since it was reputedly hard for outsiders to tell dwarf women from men, and I got beautifully trolled by the infamous Sauce-Pan Man, because I was a 14 year old kid who took everything seriously. Good times!

But that being said, I'm very happy to have logged in today. I think I will lurk around a little more again. Sadly, I don't think I have the stamina for in depth book discussion anymore, but we'll see. I think Legate and I started a chapter-by-chapter project maybe... four years ago? and abandoned that somewhere in the middle of the FotR. Maybe I could resume the reread and the chapter commentaries!

[Ring Bearer]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Oh wow, this thread makes me so happy. Is it normal for a person in their early 30s to get this high on nostalgia?

I joined this site when I was 14. Coming across my old posts from say, 2004-2006ish is somewhat terrifying - the teenagerishness radiating from them is quite something. But I'm also pretty proud of myself for joining a forum in a foreign language at that age

Foreign Language? I believe you would have watched LOTR in English tho?
Not hating here--English is not my mother tongue either.

I actually assumed most of you here must be Americans...

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Ring Bearer

I actually assumed most of you here must be Americans...

Quite a few are, but quite a few are not. Many are not native English speakers, but they express themselves so eloquently you would not be able to tell, which is an amazing achievement to their credit. And many have been introduced to Tolkien in languages other than English.

Though I currently live in an English speaking country and English is my primary language, my first read of LOTR was not in English, and when watching the Jackson films as a kid I understood exactly one line ("Rohan will answer"), the rest was mostly guess-by-the-pictures. I'm sure there are translated films out there, but at that time we were still using VCR and you watched what you had.


I wanna second Lommy's feelings about coming across old posts. Whenever I look at my early posting I am quite embarrassed for myself. And on the flip side, if I am reading an old thread and think that I've made a good point there, it's probably not from my earliest years on the Downs.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Yeah and of course my first thread here was about whether some of Thorin's company could have been women since it was reputedly hard for outsiders to tell dwarf women from men, and I got beautifully trolled by the infamous Sauce-Pan Man, because I was a 14 year old kid who took everything seriously. Good times!

But that being said, I'm very happy to have logged in today. I think I will lurk around a little more again. Sadly, I don't think I have the stamina for in depth book discussion anymore, but we'll see. I think Legate and I started a chapter-by-chapter project maybe... four years ago? and abandoned that somewhere in the middle of the FotR. Maybe I could resume the reread and the chapter commentaries!

When did Sauce-Pan Man go into "retirement"? It feels like something that happened fairly early on in my membership.

I never managed to be part of a chapter by chapter, and it is actually one of my big regrets on this site. If I was to join one these days, I would probably need to do it by audiobook to make my schedule work. I hope you find the stamina.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

When did Sauce-Pan Man go into "retirement"? It feels like something that happened fairly early on in my membership.

I never managed to be part of a chapter by chapter, and it is actually one of my big regrets on this site. If I was to join one these days, I would probably need to do it by audiobook to make my schedule work. I hope you find the stamina.

He actually posted as recently as last year.

His activity mostly stopped in late 2009 - early 2010.

[Pitchwife]

Welcome to the Downs, Soriman! You've already proven yourself a mighty conjurer to have raised so many undead spirits from their graves (with a little help from Formendacil on Facebook).

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Let me tell you that I joined some 10-odd years ago, and still feel a very young Entling and the newbie of the place.

Are you kidding me? You've become one of the stalwarts of this place, keeping it alive when so many of us (including myself) can hardly be bothered anymore. And you do realise, don't you, that you've been a member for longer than many of us were when you joined?

Originally Posted by Boromir88

But (at least for myself) I'm just protective over a place that has been like a home for over half my life now.

THIS. Even when I often don't check the forum for months (let alone log in, let alone actually post) it still means much to me that it's still around, and every once in a while I'll revisit some old thread for Auld Lang Syne, and I'm profoundly grateful to TBW Himself for keeping the site online to make this possible.

Originally Posted by Ring Bearer

The social media links to use for Personal Messaging are ANCIENT.

When you gaze into the Time Abyss, the Time Abyss gazes back at you.

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

When did Sauce-Pan Man go into "retirement"? It feels like something that happened fairly early on in my membership.

Not quite, as I vividly remember getting him Fenrissed in one of my early WW games, 2010-ish (my first and only time as the Seer, and I dreamed him on N1); but it was a rare appearance even back then.

I guess what meant most to me about the Downs during my more active membership (apart from the sheer pleasure of finally talking to people who got what Tolkien was all about, and learning stuff about his work that I hadn't dreamed of) was the community spirit (and this, I feel, was stronger, or more tightly knit, among the Werewolfing crowd than the Downs at large, although I guess that the long time role players had something similar going, and there were of course overlappings); and this was also the part of Downs activity that was most easily transferred to social media, hence the shift Formy talked about above.

Also I'm afraid I've got burned out discussing Middle-earth over the years, or at least I'm not interested in discussing the world-building rather than the actual literary works, which is a direction many recent threads seem to be taking (i.e. I couldn't care less which kind of units were in Sauron's or Gondor's army in the War of the Ring, stuff like that); but I'll always be up for close reading and dissecting Tolkien's prose, so... time to revisit Chapter by Chapter, I guess?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Also I'm afraid I've got burned out discussing Middle-earth over the years, or at least I'm not interested in discussing the world-building rather than the actual literary works, which is a direction many recent threads seem to be taking (i.e. I couldn't care less which kind of units were in Sauron's or Gondor's army in the War of the Ring, stuff like that); but I'll always be up for close reading and dissecting Tolkien's prose, so... time to revisit Chapter by Chapter, I guess?

This hits at the heart of what I've been feeling as well the past few years.

As I get older, I find myself treasuring Tolkien's works all the more, and becoming rather protective.
I am fearful of not heeding Gandalf's advice to Saruman, about not breaking something to discover its workings. I really have no interest now in how the books were constructed. I don't care about real or imagined symbolism. I know what I feel when I read of Tuor seeing the Great Sea for the first time, and spreading his arms as if to embrace it; or picturing Galadriel standing with Frodo in front of her Mirror, struggling with her own longing and temptation to use the Ring.

That's to say nothing of a relatively little-discussed work, Smith of Wooten Major, that can make me long to journey with Smith and meet the Queen by some shining water.

I love this forum, though. It's been here through a great many changes in my life, and it's always a comfort to know I can come back.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Also I'm afraid I've got burned out discussing Middle-earth over the years, or at least I'm not interested in discussing the world-building rather than the actual literary works, which is a direction many recent threads seem to be taking (i.e. I couldn't care less which kind of units were in Sauron's or Gondor's army in the War of the Ring, stuff like that); but I'll always be up for close reading and dissecting Tolkien's prose, so... time to revisit Chapter by Chapter, I guess?

This is a good distinction and thinking about it, I think I'm almost the complete opposite: I love to talk lore--the worldbuilding and the factoids and the gap-filling, but I have always been protective of things around literary worth and meaning where Middle-earth is concerned, but this topic has been on my mind since I re-encountered the What Breaks the Enchantment thread while looking for a link to the great Canonicity thread, and setting aside the self-analysis of why I resist talking about the MEANING of Tolkien's literature (to me or anyone else), I think it is very much accurate to distinguish between the two.

And I think you're right: in my early days (let's define that as 2005-2010), there was a lot of literary discussion--some of it quite heated, but in a generally thrilling and usually no hurt feelings way. Since then, the Books discussion that has least been impacted by the general slowdown of the forum is the "lore" stuff.

While, obviously, I enjoy that, I do associate the former sort of discussion with the halcyon days of yore and agree it would be nice to see something of that sort return.

EDIT: X-posted with Inziladun and we both used the word "protective" with reference to our attitudes toward Tolkien. There might be a topic here...

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I am fearful of not heeding Gandalf's advice to Saruman, about not breaking something to discover its workings. I really have no interest now in how the books were constructed. I don't care about real or imagined symbolism. I know what I feel when I read of Tuor seeing the Great Sea for the first time, and spreading his arms as if to embrace it; or picturing Galadriel standing with Frodo in front of her Mirror, struggling with her own longing and temptation to use the Ring.

You know, I think this is an important distinction between two approaches to literature I've encountered in my studies back at the university: one that starts with a theory, or a predetermined mode of reading, and tries to prove it on the text; and the other, which starts from the text and how it affects us, and how it does that (one of my best teachers told us not to ask 'What does this poem mean?' but 'What does this poem do?'). In the latter case, symbolism and what have you got may all come to bear, but the starting point is always the text and how it makes us feel.

Originally Posted by Formendacil

the What Breaks the Enchantment thread

I don't think I've ever read that, but the title leapt at me out of the screen and yelled "Bookmark and read me!" Thanks for the hint.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Did we ever do organised discussions of the minor works such as Farmer Giles, Smith, and Leaf? Maybe we could read them together as a short-term project...

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

Did we ever do organised discussions of the minor works such as Farmer Giles, Smith, and Leaf? Maybe we could read them together as a short-term project...

That would be fun, and manageable not the least!

I actually only got around to reading most of the minor works recently. Roverandom I read a while back, but that was the exception to the rule.