What was your 'gateway' to Middle Earth?

[Cuarlang / Legladhor]

A poll to get a feel for who of us in The Alliance "knew Tolkien of old" and who are (relatively) newly familiar with Middle Earth. =)

[Oweoc]

I put my vote down as my introduction being the books but it was actually the Rankin/Bass "The Hobbit" cartoon movie from 1977. I was around 10/11 years old when I first watched the cartoon. It was directly after this viewing that I had my Mom buy The Hobbit in paperback. A year ago I attended the Motorcity Comic-Con. I was lucky enough to find and purchase a copy of 'The Hobbit' in graphic novel form. It is a prized possesion.

[Amrun]

My school read The Hobbit to us in 5th grade (~age 10), and there was an annual 5th-grade Hobbit costume party.

I tried to read the Trilogy at about age 13 - I got about half-way thru the 2nd book, and remember thinking "Who? Huh? I thought he died!" and "Saruman... Sauron... who?... no, that's the other one...." - and just gave up. (A not uncommon experience, I've heard.)

Pulled it off the shelf again a couple years later, it all made sense, and I was hooked.

After a couple reads, the Silmarillion came out, grabbed that (a bit heavy...) and Books of Forgotten Lore (mixed).

Studied English Lit & Mythography* in college, and could talk for hours about the main books - I'll just leave it at "good stuff, 'nuff said".

(* Myth in literature & culture - see Joseph Campbell et al - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythography#Myth_theories )

[Lorissa]

Though I've read fantasy all of my life, I never read Tolkein. In fact, I had really no idea that Tolkein was the grandfather of all the fantasy I currently read. My parents even had the Tolkein books in a boxed set sitting next to the television throughout my childhood but I never bothered to pull one down and read it.

Thus I knew absolutely nothing about Middle Earth when my friends from WoW and I quit WoW and started playing Lotro. And that was my introduction to the Tolkein franchise.

[Ulirvarth]

I am one of the lucky ones to have seen some of the locations from the films as I live in New Zealand, so awesome! Also I have been to Hobbiton! There is a place here named that! Me and a mate were very temped to apply as extras to be Orcs for The Hobbit but never got around to it haha

[runmymouth]

Love LOTRO lore long before the movies. If the shire was closer to the book in the movies I would have thought the movies were perfect.

[Linnaerel]

I'm fairly certain The Hobbit was the very first novel I ever read. We had fairly battered paperback editions of that, the main Trilogy, and The Silmarillion, though a couple of those have now been replaced with new hardcovers. (Our copy of The Two Towers was so worn that the spine split right down the middle as I was reading it!)