"Fool of a Took! Throw yourself in next time and rid us of your stupidity."

[dannysgirlsg1]

So, I was getting much long-lost joy from watching LOtR today - and by this I mean the true goosepimpley appreciation of the epic scale, epic writing, and epic win of it all... and then something came to mind and it kinda pissed me off...


I read LOtR when I was 13 - the same age that many of the Twihard girls are. And that made me sad. When they could be out there reading actual GOOD fiction, they are caught up in a captivating, yet horribly written and bad image portraying story. And I wouldn't be so upset if Twilight was getting them to read and read OTHER works. But these girls are reading the Twilight series,  and then rereading it...and rereading it again...and again...and AGAIN. The series isn't helping them get into reading, it's just taking hold of them and turning them into the worst kinds of fangirls who think Stephanie Meyer is the best writer LIEK EVAR!

And then the truly GREAT and TALENTED writers, such as Tolkien (who, for the record, had TRULY BADASS AND STRONG female characters), go unnoticed or unappreciated by these tweeny girls b/c their view is skewed towards Twilight. And that makes me sad because I owe of a lot of the way I am today to Lord of the Rings (things like SG-1 and Farscape might not have come along for me if it wasn't for my first love of LOtR).

For the record, here's my two cents on Meyer - She wrote a captivating story (for me at least). It was enjoyable to have so much material to get into. It's not the greatest story ever written. And she's not the best author around. Her inspiration for the story is pretty cliche and very fanfic writer like. Tolkien, on the other hand, was a literary genius. He made his OWN world, his own languages. He drew his own maps and had his own history for Middle Earth. It took hims YEARS and YEARS to get LOtR finished, and even now not all of his material is out there to read. And he wasn't inspired by a 'dream'. A lot of his stuff is based on REAL LIFE events that he experienced (the Dead Marshes anybody?). Oh and even though he was a devoted Catholic, he was able to write an amazing fantasy tale that could be read WITHOUT seeing obvious religious undertones and messages. The eternal struggle of good and evil, and the balance of that, is what is portrayed through his works. Of course I'm not saying LOtR doesn't have it's religious messages, but it's built into the workings of the story so effortlessly that it's not a glaring detail.

And yet these girls are thinking Meyer is the greatest author around these days. All of this makes me so sick and disgusted and sad...


Just felt I needed to rant on this...and for those wondering, I am slowly turning against all things Twilight in general. It's not just the Twihards, but the Twi-haters and the hype and batshit craziness over this very undeserving series. This is NOT something to go ape nuts over because it is NOT an epic fandom in it's own right (being a FAD does not make something an epic fandom). Epic fandoms, in my opinion, are fandoms that have something special in their own right. They make a name for themselves, not through the mass followings, but through the actual material. LOtR, SG-1, Farscape, POtC...these are epic fandoms in my opinion (these are MY personal ones - you may have your own). They have the fans that have a TRULY INVESTED interest in it and we will always find our way back to them after the 'FAD' fandoms have passed.

I'm not saying Twilight doesn't have such fans - but they are few and far between these days. It's either you're crazy about it or you're crazy about hating it. And it makes me sad b/c of the stupidity of it all. These girl are gonna look back 10 years from now and go 'WTF was I DOING?!' and will lose respect for the fandom. How many SG-1 or BSG (hey look, I mentioned a fandom I'm not even a part of!) have done that??

Twilight is for the time being, SG-1/Farscape/LOtR... are for life. These tweeny peeps need to learn this - and the anti's need to learn it's not worth the hate and attention they're giving it. 


 


~Pip