When I say LoTR I mean Lord of the Rings.

So when I was first introduced to LoTR I did not like it at all. I thought it was so gory and the orcs honestly freaked me out. I could not get past it and so I avoided the films like a plague. I was kind of disappointed too because I loved Orlando Bloom and I was introduced to him when I watched a docu on the behind the scenes of LoTR. Do you know how many times he’s been hurt? He’s like a stunt man without being a stunt man. So it was like I wanted to watch the movies but I knew I couldn’t.

It stayed like that for a couple of years until in one history lesson my teacher wanted to teach us about battle strategies so that we understood what he was trying to explain better. He was trying to explain why people stormed castles and how they did it. England, Britain in fact, has a bloody past and there was a lot of castle storming (in fact I know a lot about castles because of this). In The Two Towers the orcs storm the castle right. So my teacher decided to show us that section of the movie, for educational purposes.

I was really apprehensive because I thought I was going to get traumatised. But then he played the ending of the movie and it was epic! I fell in love that day, I really did. It was so cool! Legolas was a beast, the elves were beasts! I loved the humour between Legolas and Gimli and the emotions of the battle were rife! I sat at the edge of my seat thinking, “How are they going to defend this castle? The orcs have surprisingly good strategy!”

Once the castle bit was done Sir turned off the video (yes VCR times) and we analysed what had happened (he was a good teacher).

After that lesson I didn’t care about the gore I wanted to know what happened and how it ended. So I went back to my friend who’d tried to show me LoTR years before and I watched The Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers (not back to back though, I didn’t have that much time).

Somehow I wasn’t scared of LoTR anymore. The gore still bugged me and the orcs were still gross (they’re meant to be) but I could handle it and the parts I couldn’t handle I blocked out (Return of the King gets dark). Maybe it was because I was older and so was able to handle such things better.

So yeah that’s how my obsession started, in a history lesson learning about how to storm a castle. I should probably write about LoTR on here, I have so much to say, it is one of the best trilogies out there.

What started your love for LoTR assuming you have one?