It sure has been a long time since I posted on this blog! Lots has been going on: I moved to another state, started a new job, and have spent quite a lot of my blogging energy on my college admissions related blog, Tip of the C.A.P. But I'm always trying to come up with good ideas for this blog, and the latest one--while a bit complicated to explain--is a doozy.
Not everyone knows this about me, but I am a very big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was 12 in 1982, and I read it twice each year until 2003. Since then I've cut back, but I still read the trilogy (along with The Silmarillion) annually, to the point where I have large parts of the works memorized. I've always taken the books seriously; in fact, I remember a student-led January Term class about the books in college that I left in disgust when the teacher couldn't pronounce the Elvish words properly. It's not that hard--the books have pronunciation tables and everything! Of course I love the stories, but I also love how it is possible to find new ideas in the books. For instance, while Tolkien said he had always had "a cordial dislike of allegory", in the last decade I've come to read the One Ring as a drug, and the people who would possess it as addicts, permanently scarred by their experience with something so destructive.
While the Tolkien fandom might be less well-known, I have not made a secret of the fact that I've been a fan of professional wrestling for over 30 years. And if there is a real life, "Lord of the Rings" today, it is none other than Vincent Kennedy McMahon, the longtime owner of (and frequent onscreen participant in) World Wrestling Entertainment. McMahon, or "Vince" as he is known to the dedicated fans who make up the so-called "Internet Wrestling Community", or IWC is frequently blamed for unpopular storylines, match outcomes, and the successes (or lack thereof) of particular wrestlers. Wrestling is based around the idea of fans (or "marks") being suckered into giving their money to a promoter, and Vince is the greatest promoter of all time. But some fans are considered "smart marks", or "smarks" and they derive the most fun out of second-guessing everything they see from WWE, almost always while blaming Vince McMahon for everything they dislike or disagree with.
All of this helps to explain the brainwave I had the other day. It suddenly occurred to me to wonder what the feedback would be if Vince McMahon got rid of Good Ol' JRR and was responsible for what happened in Middle-earth. I imagine it might go a little something like this:
- "So typical of Vince to give away Gandalf vs. the Balrog in the middle of The Fellowship of the Ring--it should have been saved for a major Pay Per View".
- "So typical that Éowyn should have to dress like a man to be in the Battle of Pelennor Fields in The Return of the King--you'd never see Ronda Rousey doing that. Some #DivasRevolution!"
- "So typical of Vince to have the sword of Elendil carried around for 2000 years all broken and dull--no one respects titles anymore".
- "So typical of Vince. He loves old, big guys who can't move. Treebeard should retire already, he's so stiff he can't even bend at the waist!"
- So typical of Vince to team Gimli the Dwarf with Legolas the Elf. Everyone knows Vince doesn't like short, bearded guys. He must think Gimli is a B+ player.
- "Sauron's a monster heel, but Vince only gives us one scene with his spokesman "The Mouth of Sauron" in The Return of the King. It would have been so much better with Paul Heyman, but Vince has beef with Heyman. So typical.
That's all I've got for now. Leave a comment below with your suggestions. Thanks for reading!
