Television, movies, and books can grasp the imagination of children, teens, and adults all over the world. Some individuals watch a movie, spend a few moments marveling at the entertainments brilliance, and then move on with their lives. Others spend days, months, years, decades immersing themselves in the sheer brilliance of the universe that the author, artist, or producer created. Often the obsession inspires inner fangirling, a penchant for buying memorabilia, and an avid devouring of every movie, book, or television released within that entertainments universe.
A small number of fans outwardly demonstrate devotion to a particular fandom in a manner that ties themselves to the brand publically (either through news outlets or blogs).
Below are 5 instances of extreme fan devotion to a particular franchise.
Game of Thrones – Trial By Combat
In a very rare case of devotion, Game of Thrones fan Richard Luthmann asked that the Manhattan Supreme Court allow him to settle the civil suit against him through trial by combat. Luthmann’s petition for a trial by combat is a means to demonstrate the lunacy of the plaintiff suing him for allegedly advising a former client to hide money from creditors. Regardless of the motivation behind the plea, Luthmann is deadly serious about his willingness to fight to first blood or to the death to prove his innocence.
The United States can’t have such an outdated and barbaric form of trial in their legal code, you might be thinking. Don’t be too confident—some aspects of the United States legal code are very outdated. For example. you can still be arrested for eating fried chicken with a fork in Georgia. Game of Thrones fans might be excited or horrified to discover that Luthmann presented his request for a trial by combat with a 10 page document that demonstrates that trial by combat was never legally outlawed. Whether or not the courts allow a trial by combat, Luthmann will be remembered as the man who almost had an epic Viper versus the Mountain showdown.
Star Wars Speeder Bike
In 2015, Australian Star Wars fan Tez Gelmer designed and built a rocking speeder bike for his daughter’s birthday. Tez had two concerns: safety and accuracy to the original design. Before starting to build the speeder bike, this dad studied the original concept art for the bikes in Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi. You want to geek out with a rocking speeder bike? You’re in luck, this super fan wrote out instructions to help fellow fans geek out.
Legend of Zelda Lego Castle
Joseph Zawada demonstrated his love and devotion for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Twilight Maze
In the fall of 2009, the Black Island Farm in Utah demonstrated geeky fan obsession by crafting a Twilight themed maze. The maze spanned 24-acres making it the largest in Utah that year.
The maze corridors were mowed to carve out the faces of the rivals for the main characters affection: Edward Cullen and Jacob Black. Also a part of the maze design was the phrases “Team Jacob”, “Team Edward”, and “New Moon 11-20-09.” The maze would have taken avid fan girls and boys an hour to navigate.
Severus Snape and the Marauders
In December of 2015, Broad Strokes (a group of epically talented Harry Potter fans) will be releasing a Youtube video called Severus Snape and the Marauders. The short film is set at the dawn of the first war against Voldemort after the Marauders and Snape have graduated from Hogwarts. The film will be primarily from Severus Snape’s perspective.
The project was originally meant to be crowdfunded through KickStarter, but the page was removed due to copright infringement. That didn’t stop these super fans, they simply created a website to accept donations from eager fans ravenous for another Harry Potter film. Eager to see an HP created film now? You might want to check out their first film about Dumbledore and Grindelwald: The Greater Good.
Minas Tirith in England?
Lord of The Rings fans led by Jonathon Wilson hope to one day build a life-size replica of Minas Tirith in England. The group of engineers and architects hope to bring Tolkien’s city to life – that includes building homes and shops. The price of the entire project will be £1.85billion. In order to realize their dream, the group has turned to crowdfunding by creating an Indiegogo page. 18 days into the campaign, 2,082 people have raised $80,926 dollars towards the required funds. If fans donate enough money to build Minas Tirith, the group will start work by the end of 2016 and finish the project by 2023.
The good news for both Wilson and other uber fans? Lord of the Rings is massively popular. In fact, the series is more popular in all 50 states of the US than the Game of Thrones trilogy. The only fandom who might be better suited to inspire enough fan fervor to successfully crowdfund a life-size recreation might be Harry Potter. If the required funding is not received, denotations will be refunded to all parties.
Fan fervor can create amazingly epic and ridiculous situations and entertainment. The number of mediums that fans utilize to channel their passion for a particular movie, book, or show are numerous. Most movies have dozens if not hundreds of stories, short films, audiobooks, drawings, or comics that their fellow fans can devour. Occasionally, fan devotion bleeds into real life situations like the Game of Thrones trial by combat situation.
Regardless of the form that the fan devotion takes, each act of fan devotion has the capacity to spur their fellow fans to delve further into exploring the world of their favorite entertainment.
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