The Middle Earth Popularity Cup

[Durelin]

People took me seriously about the pipeweed addiction? When it was paired with a 'candy addiction'? Hmm.

Originally Posted by Lal

...vanilla 'hero' dreamt up by a focus group to be perfect and conform to the agenda of the modern world. So he smokes and probably drinks, and he's sarcastic?

Yes, that certainly makes him sound interesting, but he's not to me. I also have no idea what a 'vanilla' hero is in the modern world. I actually think the modern obsession is with the sort of anti-hero. Unfortunately what that normally means is that they make a anti-hero just a piece of trash and expect people to like them because they're, uh, interesting. True, smoking and drinking is suddenly evil, but having no respect for any person or thing around you (or yourself) isn't. Thus we have reality shows.

But then, I don't even think of Gandalf as a 'hero'. Gandalf is more an entity than a character to me. He just manipulates and does. Maybe it's that he's...plot driven, himself like a plot device. Boromir's personality and motives are among the most interesting and well-defined, in my opinion, even though he only makes it through FotR. I guess any character whose purpose is to be there so all the other characters do what they need to just kinda annoys me.

And iconic Gandalf may be, but I'm not into the type of character/legendary figure he represents.

I think I would like him better if he had stayed dead.