Fandom Voices: Filmverse Fans by Dawn Walls-Thumma

Fandom Voices: Filmverse Fans

In May, we asked people who were part of the Tolkien fandom before the films how they believed the films shaped the fandom. Their responses can be summed up, in the words of one anonymous respondent, as "there were fans everywhere."

In our Fandom Voices project, we open questions to anyone who wants to share their experiences. This month, we tackle the matter of the films again but from a different perspective: that of those suddenly omnipresent fans, brought to the fandom by the films. We asked fans who joined the Tolkien fandom entirely or in part because of the Peter Jackson film trilogies to share their experiences joining the Tolkien fandom as a film fan or while the films were in theaters. Participants could respond about the Lord of the Rings (LotR) movies, the Hobbit movies, or both. If you missed the question when it was first posted, don't despair: the response form is still open, and we will continue to add new responses as they come in.

In this first section, we'll share some of the trends we noticed in the responses we've received so far, with minimal commentary, followed by the complete collection of responses.

"I Discovered the Books"

I have written in the past about how the films first brought Tolkien fans to theaters, then to the books. Many respondents claimed that seeing the films encouraged them to pick up the books.

In some cases, the drive to read the books was so strong that fans overcame significant challenges in order to access them. One respondent wrote that, after seeing the films, "In fifth grade (around age 10), I decided I wanted to read the books, so I got a boxed set. It probably took me three years to fully read and understand them for the first time." Another describes feeling compelled to be familiar with the books before seeing the films and speeding through them in record time: "It was in that period of my life when I refused to watch an adaptation without having read the book first, so I sped through the trilogy in something like a week." This response is interesting, too, because we often think of fans progressing from the films to the books, in that order. In this case, anticipation of the films—and wanting to experience them with a fuller understanding of the legendarium—led to reading the books.

Fans identified many reasons for turning to the books after the films. Of course, wanting more of the world they first entered when viewing the films is a major reason. "I loved the story," says one fan about her experience watching the LotR films, "so I sought out the books and devoured those too." Another respondent recalls how powerful the first viewing of the Fellowship of the Ring film was for her: "My parents made us go to see the first LotR movie. When I got out of the cinema, I just had to buy the books immediately."

The Hobbit films also inspired (or renewed) an interest in Tolkien's books. Starlightwalking writes:

I was a teen when the Hobbit movies were released, and I have fond memories of going to see them in theaters with my dad. I'd read the LotR books and the Hobbit book before that. Newly interested in Middle-earth, I jumped back into the books eagerly, and began to research more about the cultures of my favorite characters (the Dwarves and the Silvan Elves), which led me to a pairing very related to my previous interests [in Kili/Tauriel]: Legolas/Gimli.

In some cases, even a piece of that world could inspire a film viewer to turn to the books. "I watched the first Hobbit movie and didn’t like it much," one respondent admits, "but I was interested in Dol Guldur and looked it up online. From there I read lots of lore and turned to The Silmarillion. I became active in fandom for the first time after reading The Silmarillion." Likewise, negative perceptions of the films pushed fans to engage with the books. Writing about the Hobbit films, one respondent states: "I joined [the fandom] again because I hated [the Hobbit films] and wanted some vindication. This was how I ended up drifting towards The Silmarillion."

Other fans who watched the films and found the fandom experienced social pressure to read the books. "I wanted to write fanfic to contribute to [Tolkien fandom on Tumblr], but I felt like I didn’t know the world/characters well enough and decided I should read the books," Ari wrote. L. Chan uses the term imposter syndrome to describe the feeling of being a film-only fan in a fandom that tends to be heavily bookverse: "As I got more involved in the fandom, I began to feel a sort of imposter syndrome having not read the books, so I hastily read through all of the Lord of the Rings books, then The Hobbit, and then The Silmarillion." Another respondent writes that "communities were more open to new fans that were willing to read the books as opposed to fans strictly of the films, and I think it’s still the same nowadays."

Along the same lines, having read the books conferred a status on fans whose friends were only familiar with the films. One respondent remembers, "I was the only one of our fan group who not only read the books but also looked at some of the appendices, so I was the resident Tolkien expert until we got a friend who read The Silmarillion about five years later."

"I Discovered Fandom"

The section above hints at the role the films played in nudging fans toward the Tolkien fandom hand-in-hand with their discovery of the books. Fans often reported that the films were all or part of the reason that they found the Tolkien fandom.

In some cases, respondents enjoyed the books long before the films came along, but the films encouraged them to look for content online, leading them to become involved in the fandom. "When I was thirteen," says L. Chan, "my dad showed my sister and me the Lord of the Rings trilogy films. I was enamored by the sword fighting and grand high fantasy of it all. Once we were done, I went on the internet looking for all the content I could find of it."

In other cases, the discovery was accidental. Keiliss writes,"I'd loved the books since my early teens but had no idea fandom existed till I went looking for pictures of Elrond from the movies and accidentally found the Vanilla Elf site and drowned in fiction. Never looked back." Another respondent notes that the films reignited an interest in Tolkien that ended with finding and joining the fanfiction community: "The connection is quite a loose one. I had already been a Tolkien nerd before. But I had pursued that interest in a comparatively solitary fashion, apart from the occasional conversation. The films revived my interest after a short hiatus, and shortly after that, I discovered the existence of fanfiction online as a reader."

Respondents identified many ways that the fandom impacted them positively. Creating fanworks was, of course, a big one. "The communities I joined were mostly also new/film fans," writes likethenight. "There was a huge flurry of fic, particularly, and most of it was set in, or at least inspired by, the movieverse." Sam credits fandom with his interest in writing meta: "I think fandom is really what got me into the meta analysis of Tolkien's work and comparative analysis of the books versus the films."

Nor were these experiences conducted entirely online. Several participants described in-person experiences. Writing of her first time seeing the LotR films, Juliana recalls a mix of online and in-person participation: "Brazil had a decent Tolkien community even back then, with local groups which met in person, some published magazines, and online forums." Another respondent, a child at the time of the release of the LotR films, remembers that "my friends and I would find message boards to learn Sindarin, bake lambas, and dress up together playing in the woods."

The films also influenced fans' perceptions of how the texts should be read and canon interpreted, often causing fans to embrace more liberal interpretations. Sometimes, this bumped up against the prevailing bookverse culture, causing filmverse fans to feel unwelcome. One respondent notes, "Overall I haven't felt very eager to join the Tolkien fandom proper because it seems to me from some probing to be very over-serious and full of people who want to get into big academic debates as opposed to having a more light-hearted attitude to canon that I perhaps picked up due to my film-first exposure." Shadow observes that parts of the Tolkien fandom felt unfriendly after the release of the Hobbit films: "During that time the majority of the most active writers were all purists and Mary Sue hate was at a high as well, which made it a pretty bad place to be for a new writer. Especially one who wanted to write about OCs [original characters]. It got better though." They go on to recall an exodus of many of the existing, vocally conservative fans, "which meant the fandom there felt a lot safer and happier overall."

Especially among Hobbit film fans, several respondents report that the Hobbit segment of the fandom was friendly, open, and fun—an impression that didn't match their perception of many existing Tolkien fan communities. Juliana writes that the Tolkien fandom post-Hobbit was "fine" but, "I could tell I was coming into a community with a lot of baggage and established disputes on how to read the source material." Another respondent notes that the sheer number of new fans created a sense of safety in numbers: "I felt welcome because there was a big surge of new fans." Others found a fandom that welcomed newcomers and the energy they brought with them. "There was a huge influx of new fans on Tumblr during the release of The Hobbit," writes one participant. "It was fun, it was fast-paced, it was a combination of new fans and established Tolkien enthusiasts, and it was friendly."

Starlightwalking details the long-term impact of animosity towards the films—and their fans. "Even nowadays, when I see Tolkien fans dunking on the Hobbit movies, I can't help but feel defensive of them," they write:

Yes, they have many flaws, but also I love them. Seeing people who are genuinely distraught about how they "ruined" the story or the fandom is hurtful, because I would not be here without them! They are very important to me! And though I am primarily a Silm fan these days, I will always love and appreciate the Hobbit movies, and my experiences of being part of the Hobbit-movie-fan-to-Silm-fan pipeline will always shape my views on new fans coming from other media sources, and thus those adaptations themselves. Maybe the new Amazon series will be horrendous. But you won't see me out here being needlessly cruel about it.

As implied above, film-first fans often see the films as shepherding in a more friendly fandom. In some cases, exposure to the films led fans to become more open to different ideas about Tolkien's world.¹ For example, Caitlin writes, "I knew of fandom before the films came out but I had only read the books at that point, the films gave me the realisation that other views were justifiable and enjoyable." Sam makes a similar observation when, speaking of the Hobbit films and the controversy around Tauriel in particular, he says, "I came out of it with a positive outlook rather than a defeatist one because I could enjoy the books and films separately." Whether urging fans toward new books to read or new perspectives to consider, one of the overall impacts of the films is to broaden and deepen engagement with the legendarium. On the eve of the release of Amazon's Rings of Power series, starlightwalking uses this to guide their own engagement with fans brought in by the show: "I want to take the good things out of this, and that includes the new fans who will undoubtedly make this fandom a better place in the long run, because anyone who loves Tolkien enough to remain dedicated to his works will add something to our fan communities."

"I Made Lifelong Friends"

After joining the fandom, filmverse fans often reported forming enduring friendships with the people they met there. These friendships are often strong and even life-changing. Firstamazon writes, "I have fond memories from all the chatting, the endless discussions of whether Balrogs did or did not have wings, if Sam was more a hero than Frodo, if Gollum or Fëanor were truly evil, etc. It was in this forum that I also met one of my best friends to this day." In some cases, these friendships extended into real life. Lady_Elwing offers an example: "I started to read and write fanfics on Fanfiction.net and made friends in the French-speaking part of the fandom. We made a forum to share things … . I'm still friends with my forum friends. We had a real life meetup in Paris and since then we meet regularly."

These friendships often had a lasting personal impact. JoT writes: "I found the Hobbit trilogy during a particularly harrowing time, and the fandom basically served as a haven. I came across works by some amazing authors, who were kind and incredible. Their works sustained me and kept me going and I'll forever be grateful to them for writing such stories."

The influx of new fans that came with the films also created a community ripe for growing friendships. "There were a lot of other new writers like me," Shadow recalls, "who had just found this space and were starting out and that was lovely because we were learning together."

Parting Thoughts

The experiences reported by fans who began participating in the Tolkien fandom because of the films aren't easily categorized. Some found a fandom that they perceived as vibrant and welcoming. Others stumbled upon communities that felt stiff and unfriendly. Fans report communities that embraced the films, detested them, and everywhere in between. However, some clear trends emerge. First, as I have written before, the films drive viewers to read the books. While many respondents created or consumed filmverse fanworks, the filmverse-only fanworks creator is a unicorn; most fans pick up the books. Next, the films led other fans to discover the fandom, again through diverse means. Finally, the films inspired friendships: online, offline, or a mix of both but often described as life-changing. Regardless, for these fans, the films initiated a process that usually began with a deeper exploration of the legendarium and ended up with new community and social connections.

Works Cited

1. The idea that movieverse fanfiction would "give permission" to bookverse fans to be more liberal in straying from the canon was put forth in 2004 by Amy Sturgis in "'Make Mine Movieverse': How the Tolkien Fan Fiction Community Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Peter Jackson" in Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, ed. Janet Brennan Croft (Altadena, CA: Mythopoeic Press, 2004), 283-305.

Responses: The Lord of the Rings Films

All responses we've received to the above question are collected here without curation or commentary. Responses have been lightly edited.

Did you start participating in fandom due to the films? We're still collecting responses and will update this page as new responses come in.

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I'd loved the books since my early teens but had no idea fandom existed till I went looking for pictures of Elrond from the movies and accidentally found the Vanilla Elf site and drowned in fiction. Never looked back.

~ Keiliss, response collected 30 April 2022

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I joined maybe ten years after the LotR films came out, in large part because of the films. I watched the films before I read the books, and that prompted me to read the books. And then I got social media and got into the fandom. I would say I was a new fan but I wasn't new in the same way as people joining in 2003, etc, etc ...  I think my experiences were overall pretty positive. I think fandom is really what got me into the meta analysis of Tolkien's work, and comparative analysis of the books versus the films. I think I missed the worst of the book fan versus movie fan debate, which I've only really heard about. The fandom was pretty tolerant of my learning curve in terms of meta analysis, canonicity, etc, etc.

~ Sam, response collected 30 April 2022

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I became a LotR fan from watching the movies very young, but didn’t join the fandom at that time.

~ Anonymous, response collected 30 April 2022

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I am going to use the term fandom loosely here. But I originally read the books because of the films. It would be years after reading the books that I would join the fandom properly. I was a young child when the first films came out (5). But by the time the last one came out, I had watched them. In fifth grade (around age 10), I decided I wanted to read the books so I got a boxed set. It probably took me three years to fully read and understand them for the first time. It wasn’t until I joined Tumblr in 2011 that I became a part of the online fandom. By that time I was very much a books fan, but my first experience with Tolkien will always be the movies as a young child.

~ Anonymous, response collected 30 April 2022

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I was a young teen when I joined, and I remember going on the internet looking for a fansite or similar that would talk about Lord of the Rings. It was quite an emotional watch and it struck chords I didn't now I had up until that moment.

~ Anonymous, response collected 30 April 2022

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I remember joining in a forum in my country (non-English fandom) which was very canon-based, with no room for interpretations beyond what was in the books. I was 16 and such a fan, I couldn't conceive something that would come in the way of Tolkien's religious view of the world (gay Elves didn't even cross my mind, but I was also very anti-Fëanorian at the time lol). Anyway, I have fond memories from all the chatting, the endless discussions of whether Balrogs did or did not have wings, if Sam was more a hero than Frodo, if Gollum or Fëanor were truly evil, etc. It was in this forum that I also met one of my best friends to this day.

~ firstamazon, response collected 30 April 2022

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Excellent! I lived in a relatively small city and met some previous acquaintances at the only movie theater that was showing the movies; they were my first introduction to the fandom. Brazil had a decent Tolkien community even back then, with local groups which met in person, some published magazines, and online forums.

~ Juliana, response collected 30 April 2022

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I watched them before I even knew what a fandom was. I fell in love with Middle-earth and the story and tried my hand at The Hobbit, then LotR, and finally The Silmarillion, which then lead me to Tolkien's other works and the fandom in itself.

~ Anonymous, response collected 30 April 2022

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I don't participate in the fandom, I'm more a silent fan, but I read a lot about canon/headcanons, ideas ...

~ Anonymous, response collected 1 May 2022

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The connection is quite a loose one. I had already been a Tolkien nerd before. But I had pursued that interest in a comparatively solitary fashion, apart from the occasional conversation. The films revived my interest after a short hiatus, and shortly after that, I discovered the existence of fanfiction online as a reader. I started by reading stories on HASA but as a determined lurker (being wary of internet interactions) and did not really become aware of fandom as a community right away. It was still to take me some years before I joined the fandom more fully. By that time, fans that had joined immediately after the films already regarded themselves as well-established or even "oldies". Many of the fannish discussions of the years just after the films had already become fandom memories.

~ Anonymous, response collected 1 May 2022

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It's a very long time ago now, but I think the communities I joined were mostly also new/film fans; there was a huge flurry of fic, particularly, and most of it was set in, or at least inspired by, the movieverse (I still write in a hybrid of movieverse and bookverse, mostly movieverse).

~ likethenight, response collected 10 May 2022

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Felt very welcomed.

~ Anonymous, response collected 10 May 2022

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The films were my first exposure to LotR at all. By the time I watched them, all three were out on DVD, and I devoured all three over the course of three days. I loved the story, so I sought out the books and devoured those too. At the time, I wasn't comfortable diving into fandom spaces, but I started poking around for occasional fanfiction to read or fan memes.

~ Anonymous, response collected 10 May 2022

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My brothers have always been into LotR and finally convinced me to watch the movies last December. I couldn’t find a lot of current content (especially on Tumblr, my main fan content platform) at first, so I wanted to write fanfic to contribute to that, but I felt like I didn’t know the world/characters well enough and decided I should read the books. Well, five months later and I’ve read the books, seen the movies again, and joined multiple thriving (if small) online communities of other people who love to talk and create about this world and these characters!

~ Ari, response collected 10 May 2022

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When I was thirteen, my dad showed my sister and me the Lord of the Rings trilogy films. I was enamored by the sword fighting and grand high fantasy of it all. Once we were done, I went on the internet looking for all the content I could find of it and was introduced to the classic crack videos on Youtube ("They're Taking The Hobbits To Isengard"). After that, I found my first LotR fanfiction on DeviantArt—a Legolas whump fic. I'd never seen anything like this, and read it with rapt interest. After that, I continued seeking Legolas-centric fanfiction and became an avid reader/writer of (gen) Legolas & Aragorn fanfiction. I met a lot of friends through the Fanfiction.net PM feature. As I got more involved in the fandom, I began to feel a sort of imposter syndrome having not read the books, so I hastily read through all of The Lord of the Rings books, then The Hobbit, and then The Silmarillion. By the time I finished them I was about sixteen? I fell out of the fandom for some years, but have recently rediscovered it after rereading The Silmarillion and enjoying it 110% more than I did the first time, with the benefit of maturity and understanding.

~ L. Chan, response collected 15 May 2022

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I was fairly young at the time (11 when RotK came out) and didn't speak much English, so I don't have much experience with the international fandom. There were a few fanfiction sites (mostly for Harry Potter originally, but they also hosted some LotR content), and I had friends I could discuss it with. It was in that period of my life when I refused to watch an adaptation without having read the book first, so I sped through the trilogy in something like a week (our cinemas had this event where they replayed the first two movies when the third came out, so I saw all three in two days). I was the only one of our fan group who not only read the books but also looked at some of the appendices, so I was the resident Tolkien expert until we got a friend who read The Silmarillion about five years later. The whole time I was supremely confused by the Aragorn/Legolas shipping happening around those times. We had passionate debates about whether cutting out the scouring of the Shire was a good decision.

~ Anonymous, response collected 15 May 2022

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I first discovered this world when the Fellowship came out in the cinema. I liked it sooo much that I read the books after that. 

I started to read and write fanfics on fanfiction.net and made friends in the French-speaking part of the fandom. We made a forum to share things (Le Poney Fringant) I also loved going on TheOneRing.net but didn't interact much.

I'm still friend with my forum friends. We had a real-life meetup in Paris, and since then, we meet regularly. Tolkiendil were always warm and welcoming ... Well people would tease Legogirls but it wasn't done in an unkind way. Purists would scold us if we took too many liberties.  

Through fanfiction.net, I also connected with other people who wrote in English about Éomer and Lothíriel. We shared via reviews.

~ Lady_Elwing, response collected 15 May 2022

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My parents made us go to see the first LotR movie. When I got out of the cinema, I just had to buy the books immediately.

~ Anonymous, response collected 15 May 2022

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I've always participated in the Tolkien fandom as a "lurker"—when I first watched the films and would have probably dove into the fandom, I was still young enough that my parents kept my internet access limited for my own safety. I remember eagerly browsing TheOneRing.net, though, and buying all the Legolas merch I could get my hands on. As an adult, I made one attempt to participate more actively in fandom through a big bang event but found the community there not very welcoming. Overall, I haven't felt very eager to join the Tolkien fandom proper because it seems to me from some probing to be very over-serious and full of people who want to get into big academic debates as opposed to having a more lighthearted attitude to canon that I perhaps picked up due to my film-first exposure. But I do enjoy viewing fanart, fanfic, and movie fanworks (like gifsets) on Tumblr even if I don't create content myself or engage too heavily.

~ Anonymous, response collected 15 May 2022

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I was pretty young, so I didn't participate in fandom as such in that way, but I remember my dad reading me the books and we'd switch off reading each chapter, keeping a dictionary nearby as we did, all because he knew I'd liked the films so he wanted to share the books with me too. I got into fanfiction online, eventually, and I think likely found fanart on DeviantArt, but I never really reached out and interacted with other creators.

~ Anonymous, response collected 15 May 2022

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Before the third Hobbit movie came out, I discovered that my mother had bought the LotR extended version collector DVDs in the early 2000s and watched them instantly, and that's when I fell in love with that universe. And since I was quite young, I was discovering fandoms and fanarts, so my first fanart was a drawing of Thorin.

~ Anonymous, response collected 18 May 2022

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I was very young, my friends and I would find message boards to learn Sindarin, we'd bake lambas, and dress up together playing in the woods.

~ Anonymous, response collected 18 May 2022

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I knew of fandom before the films came out, but I had only read the books at that point. The films gave me the realisation that other views were justifiable and enjoyable.

~ Caitlin, response collected 21 May 2022

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Liking the films made me want to read the books, so I read The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, and after that I joined some communities in social media. Those communities always referenced First/Second Age stuff, which made me want to read The Silmarillion. That’s when I became more of a fan. This was around twelve years ago. Communities were more open to new fans that were willing to read the books as opposed to fans strictly of the films, and I think it’s still the same nowadays.

~ Anonymous, response collected 22 May 2022

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I was in 8th grade. I had just moved to a new school, and my new friend was obsessed. All she talked about were horses and Merry and Pippin. We watched the first two films (the third wasn't out yet) and I was hooked. I loved the story, and as a teenaged girl, I loved Legolas.

~ Stephanie, response collected 26 May 2022

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I "joined the fandom," a.k.a. became a fan in the dark ages, decades ago, a.k.a. right after the movies were first released, so there wasn't all that much to participate in, especially since English isn't my first language, and I wasn't as fluent in reading it as I am now. :) I mostly remember lurking in LiveJournal communities (not specific ones, just in general, there being such) and reading really crappy fanfiction on Fanfiction.net.

~ Anonymous, response collected 2 June 2022

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I had never read Tolkien when I saw the first film in Peter Jackson's trilogy in the movie theatre. It made an impression. But it wasn't until I saw the second film, a year later, that I went online, looking for additional information. Predictably enough, it was Orlando Bloom's portrayal of Legolas—otherworldly, beautiful, androgynous—that was the spur. After scrolling through some promotional photos, I stumbled across the Library of Moria archive and read my first slash story. It was like being hit by lightning. I was instantly hooked. Within a few months I had read the Lord of the Rings books, had joined the fandom, was writing my own stories and had "met" (and eventually met) some good friends. Shortly after, impressed with the canon knowledge of some of the fandom's top authors (AC, Tyellas, Claudio, aka Darth Fingon), I read The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales, and bought some HoMe volumes for reference purposes. Within about a year, I considered myself a "serious" fanfic writer, in that I was serious both about the craft of writing and about being true to the source material. But because I started out reading fanfiction rather than solely the source texts, I always had great respect and affection for my fellow fans' stories.

I was going through a tough time in my personal life back then, and fandom was a real saving grace—the stories, which were wonderful escapism, the writing, for which I found I had a talent and which saved my sanity, and the people, who were kind and supportive. I found my corner of the fandom to be great, although I know that there were other corners that were more "purist" and exclusive. I was never a purist—I felt I had no right to be because I had started out as a movie fan. I had a LiveJournal account and interacted mostly with my LJ "friends"—and extended circle of like-minded people, who were lovely. I participated in some fandom activities: Fellowslash 2003 (held in a Vermont hotel), the Gathering of the Fellowship in 2003 (in Toronto)—where I met Gil-galad in person, effectively launching my Gil-galad/Elrond ship—and the LotR Exhibit in Boston in 2004. Met up with fellow fans at all three. At Fellowslash, I met AC, who impressed the socks off me as a genuine fanfic author and who served as something of a mentor in my early fandom days. She hosted my web page (Maggie's Place) on her website (Ithilas), which has since gone offline. By about 2006, my offline life got busy and I had less time for fandom. Eventually I simply stopped posting, reading, and writing. When I stumbled back into fandom earlier this year (2022), I found it to be vibrant and just as lovely as ever. A lot is new and different (and LJ's demise is a real loss), but the love is the same.

~ Maggie Honeybite, response 1 September 2022

Responses: The Hobbit Films

The Hobbit films came out just as I was getting invested in Tolkien fandom. I think, in some ways, it caused more controversy? They were a greater departure from canon than the LotR films were. There was a bit of misogyny running through the fandom at that time, specifically regarding the addition of Tauriel. I think I came out of it with a positive outlook rather than a defeatist one because I could enjoy the books and films separately, and just blocked or unfollowed people who annoyed me. I'm not one for discourse. It's been interesting to see the Hobbit-film side of the fandom die down a little with time, especially as I'm more invested in the Silm, which seems to be going strong still.  But that's maybe confirmation bias because I mostly follow Silm folks.  The Hobbit fandom rejuvenation was nice though because we got to see some more Dwarf love in a pretty Elf-heavy fandom.

~ Sam, response collected 30 April 2022

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I came in just before the release of BotFA, so my corner of the fandom was still very much in the hype-zone, so to speak. Bagginshield everywhere you looked and generally positive attitudes towards the movies in the Hobbit spaces. There were a lot of other new writers like me who had just found this space and were starting out and that was lovely because we were learning together.

The Lord of the Rings side looked vastly different.
I got sucked into the LotR part of the fandom pretty much immediately after, since watching An Unexpected Journey finally convinced me to give reading The Hobbit and then The Lord of the Rings another try and I fell utterly in love.
Funnily enough, it was the LotR part of the fandom that was complaining about the movies the most. During that time the majority of the most active writers were all purists and Mary Sue hate was at a high as well, which made it a pretty bad place to be for a new writer. Especially one who wanted to write about OCs.

It got better though.
A year or so after BotFa was released, the influx of new fans in the Hobbit part settled and we all found our place. It remained a largely movie-positive space, but you could also see a lot more book-takes popping up from the newer authors, who had time to read the books.
On the LotR side there was a huge exodus (or at least it felt like it, because a lot of major "players" left/stopped publishing), I presume to other sites (at least I saw a few familiar names pop up on AO3) or maybe they left entirely, which meant the fandom there felt a lot safer and happier over all.

Shadow, response collected 30 April 2022

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I watched the first Hobbit movie and didn’t like it much, but I was interested in Dol Guldur and looked it up online. From there I read lots of lore and turned to The Silmarillion. Became active in fandom for the first time after reading The Silmarillion.

~ Anonymous, response collected 30 April 2022

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I joined the English-speaking fandom on Tumblr due to rekindled interest due to the release of the Hobbit movies. It was fine, though I could tell I was coming into a community with a lot of baggage and established disputes on how to read the source material.

~ Juliana, response collected 30 April 2022

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(I apologize upfront for the wall of text, I am prone to rambling!)

I joined because of how emotionally devastating (in the best way) the final Hobbit film was for me. I needed fix-it fic, immediately!! I was particularly captured by the Kili/Tauriel romance included in the films, and I quickly became a huge Tauriel fan. My first forays into the Hobbit fandom were very solidly based in the films, and I found a community of Kiliel fans who had similar interests. I wrote a lot of Kiliel fic, and a lot of Kili & Fili genfic. Fili also became a favorite character of mine, and one I projected onto a lot, especially my newly-discovered aromantic identity. My Tumblr url has been "arofili" for 6+ years now! And my AO3 username is "starlightwalking"—a reference to the scene in Desolation of Smaug where Kili says of Tauriel, "She walked in starlight in another world."

I didn't stay in the Hobbit corner of the wider Tolkien fandom, though. I became more and more interested in other parts of the Legendarium; I'd seen the LotR movies before the Hobbit movies came out (though I was quite young at the time; I was a teen when the Hobbit movies were released, and I have fond memories of going to see them in theaters with my dad), and I'd read the LotR books and the Hobbit book before that. Newly interested in Middle-earth, I jumped back into the books eagerly, and began to research more about the cultures of my favorite characters (the Dwarves and the Silvan Elves), which led me to a pairing very related to my previous interests: Legolas/Gimli. I began to write and read more LotR fic, specifically about those two, because it was such a natural progression from Kili/Tauriel, as Kili and Gimli are related and Tauriel and Legolas are friends, and their stories are therefore intertwined, with Kiliel as a mournful precursor to the much happier Gigolas story.

In connecting with other Tolkien fans, I naturally was exposed to more obscure parts of the Legendarium, primarily through fanart. I love to organize things and make lists, and learning the family trees of The Silmarillion was very fun for me! It was a natural progression to learning all of their names and personalities, through the Tolkien Gateway wiki and of course by reading the Silm itself. Once I'd done that, there was no going back! I started to explore Silmfic, and I quickly picked up on characterizations and fanon and meta, and made friends with all sorts of Silm fans. Maedhros/Fingon was an instant ship for me, and through befriending other Russingon shippers I really fell headfirst into the Silm fandom. But it was Back to Middle-earth Month 2019 that really catapulted me into writing more about the Silm than I'd ever written about anything else!

This has gone a little off-topic, but back to the Hobbit movies: as a new fan who *loved* those movies, it was disappointing and upsetting to see so much hatred and mockery directed toward them. There was a definite sense of elitism in certain corners of the fandom—though certainly not all of them, or even most of them! Really, the worst part was the Tauriel haters. I can understand most of the critiques of the Hobbit films, but I refuse to budge on Tauriel. The amount of hatred she received as pretty much the only female character in the movies was astonishing and infuriating, and though I was already fond of her I quickly became a fierce defender of her as a character. Even nowadays, nearly a decade after the movies were released, I *still* see unapologetic Tauriel hate! I am glad that I was confident enough in my opinion not to feel put off by the haters, and I'm grateful for everyone else who stood up for her, or at least expressed a more nuanced take on her rather than "she's just Peter Jackson's cringe OC who was useless and a Mary Sue blah blah blah and also her romance with Kili was pointless and bad."

Even nowadays, when I see Tolkien fans dunking on the Hobbit movies, I can't help but feel defensive of them. Yes, they have many flaws, but also I love them. Seeing people who are genuinely distraught about how they "ruined" the story or the fandom is hurtful, because I would not be here without them! They are very important to me! And though I am primarily a Silm fan these days, I will always love and appreciate the Hobbit movies, and my experiences of being part of the Hobbit-movie-fan-to-Silm-fan pipeline will always shape my views on new fans coming from other media sources, and thus those adaptations themselves. Maybe the new Amazon series will be horrendous. But you won't see me out here being needlessly cruel about it ... especially since I can already tell I will like their Elf/human couple! I want to take the good things out of this, and that includes the new fans who will undoubtedly make this fandom a better place in the long run, because anyone who loves Tolkien enough to remain dedicated to his works will add something to our fan communities.

~ starlightwalking, response collected 1 May 2022

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I felt welcome because there was a big surge of new fans.

~ Anonymous, response collected 10 May 2022

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I joined again because I hated them and wanted some vindication. This was how I ended up drifting towards The Silmarillion.

~ Anonymous, response collected 10 May 2022

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The LotR films had sparked my interest, but I wasn't at a place in my life where I was ready to dive into fandom. The Hobbit films came at just the right time to push me fully into the fandom. I worked my way through the entire Gen tag for the films on AO3 and wanted more, so I started writing my own fic. If not for the Hobbit films, I might not have started writing for Tolkien at all.

~ Anonymous, response collected 10 May 2022

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I found The Hobbit trilogy during a particularly harrowing time, and the fandom basically served as a haven. I came across works by some amazing authors, who were kind and incredible. Their works sustained me and kept me going, and I'll forever be grateful to them for writing such stories. Since Peter Jackson's trilogy was my gateway to Middle-earth, I owe my thanks and love to him as well.

~ JoT, response collected 15 May 2022

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I was already in the fandom due to the first trilogy. So when The Hobbit came out, it was nice to have new images and videos of that world ... And it was nice to welcome new fans to our beloved world.

~ Lady_Elwing, response collected 15 May 2022

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There was a huge influx of new fans on Tumblr during the release of The Hobbit. It was fun, it was fast-paced, it was a combination of new fans and established Tolkien enthusiasts, and it was friendly.

~ Anonymous, response collected 15 May 2022

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I joined the fandom because of the Hobbit movies. I saw the first two movies and then read the book and watched the LotR movies. I got to see the third one when it came out, and it's a precious memory.

~ Anonymous, 18 May 2022

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I initially went to see the films because I was a fan of Benedict Cumberbatch at the time, and Desolation of Smaug had just been released, so I went to go see it. I had been aware of the books prior and seen snippets of the LotR films on television, but they never grabbed my attention, despite many friends recommending them to me. However, the Hobbit films blew me away, and I was quickly sucked into the Tolkien legendarium. The fandom was extremely active, and growing, for the Hobbit films in particular—large enough that it was its own distinct fandom separate from LotR in general such that it still took me a little while to read the trilogy, and then The Silmarillion. I recall having a very enjoyable experience with the extremely talented artists and writers creating content for the Bagginshield ship (Thorin/Bilbo Baggins), and all of the enthusiasm for the Hobbit films. While it seems like nowadays there's some amount of disdain or dislike for the Hobbit films it was not so at the time, I was completely swept up in the adoration of these films by fans, and it cemented my love of Tolkien's world enough to go all the way and read the Silm and the rest of the many books (I eventually ended up settling in the Silmarillion fandom primarily).

~ Molly Jacobson, 26 May 2022