A heartbreaking tale of staggering geekiness

Monday, December 14, 2009 at 10:44PM

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A heartbreaking tale of staggering geekiness

I wrote earlier about my personal relationship to fantasy and gaming, and the reasons for writing my book Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks : An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. I wanted to expand on those ideas here.

To recap: I was a high school gaming geek. I played Dungeons & Dragons religiously. I was not on the football team. My varsity letters might as well have been "D&D."

Years passed, and I forgot about my gaming days. But I noticed the culture had changed. Suddenly, in the 21st century, all the geeky pursuits of my youth --- video games, science fiction and collecting action figures --- had gone mainstream. So I asked myself one primal question: did our culture's obsession with Harry Potter, Xbox, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Magic: the Gathering and World of Warcraft mean we had become a nation of escapists? Were we all unable to deal with the real world?

As it turns out, no. But to find out, I embarked on a nonlinear, noncontiguous odyssey of self-reflection, cultural analysis, and free mead. The journey became my book.

I crisscrossed the country, the world, and other worlds, from my home in Somerville, Massachusetts, to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; from France to New Zealand; from Planet Earth to the realm of Aggramar. I asked gaming and fantasy geeks how they found balance between their escapist urges and the kingdom of adulthood. I questioned Tolkien scholars and medievalists. I spoke to grown men who built hobbit holes and learned to speak Elvish, and to grown women who played Warcraft and EverQuest. Old, young, male, female, able-bodied and disabled—I wanted to hear, in their own words, what lured them in, and for what reasons, whether healthy, unhealthy, or in between.

I needed to put myself face-to-face with these escapist pursuits. Before, as a kid, my Dungeons & Dragons obsession was a haphazard consequence, a symptom of being lost and a solution to my familytrauma. But I had adopted D&D and fantasy accidentally. This time, I would get lost on purpose. I wouldn’t be escaping again; I would be excavating. Examining the unexamined in an effort to find out what fantasy meant to me, to all of us.

I hung out with Harry Potter tribute bands, attended fan conventions and gaming tournaments, camped with 12,000 medieval reenactors for a week, learned to sword fight, and battled online goblins and trolls. I went on pilgrimages to Tolkien's hometown of Oxford, England, and I trekked across New Zealand in search of the filming locations for the Lord of the Rings movies. At a live action role-playing game, I dressed as a pacifist monk for a weekend. I became Ethor, Ethorian, and Ethor-An3. I sewed my own tunic. I even played Dungeons & Dragons again for the first time in 25 years.

I met hundreds of gamers and geeks on my quest and listened to their stories. Their reasons for embracing fantasy and gaming were diverse, surprising and in many cases, touching. It wasn't mindless escapism that lured them to swords-and-scorcery realms. Games taught social skills,leadership, and strategy; they inspired creativity and storytelling. They provided rites of passage, accomplishment and belonging, even belief systems. They let people safely try out aspects of their personalities --- often dark, evil sides, or extroverted or flirtatious --- they could not or would not flex in "real life." The games connected folks to magical thinking, to nature, to a primal, pick-up-your-battle-ax and kill mentalities long suppressed by so-called society. For the disabled who ventured online into realms liek World of Warcraft, games and fantasy provided transcendence from pain and prejudice, and a venue where they'd be judged not based on their appearance, but how they played the game. As one woman told me, bound to her walker and crutches, “I can’t run through the grass barefoot anymore. It’s something I cannot do. But my avatar can.”

In short, all the stories helped debunk the stereotypes that gamers and geeks were simply anti-social escapists who lived in their parents' basements and had no "real" lives. And, by meeting all these articulate, tolerant and confident folks who still gamed after all these years, I was finally able to face my inner geek.

That's the happy ending of my story. Because, after all, we're a storytelling people. And if nothing else, fantasy and gaming lets us be the hero of a story -- not to simply absorb and consume but to participate, to tell and be part of our own heroic narrative.

That thread to our heroic lives has been largely lost. The minutiae of our modern, mundane troubles --- politics, race, jobs, communication, relationships, family --- are a bore and a chore and wear us down. Dissatisfied with ATMs and speed limits, mediated experiences and the suburban blah-scape, who wouldn’t prefer trying his or her luck with a broad- sword against a horde of orcs rather than paying the Visa bill or looking for parking?

Which explains why people read Tolkien and J.K. Rowling and play role-playing games. Why? The books and games give us hope in hopeless times. Fantasy is a genre people can read and retreat to and gather strength to face the real world. Fantasy keeps the spirit alive and kicking --- and inspires us to confront our real-world problems.

Indeed, when you read heroic stories like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, or watch the movies (and even play the games), you sense that if a mere hobbit can withstand evil, why not you? If the little guy can enter Mordor and destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, then perhaps we can take on our own problems, no matter how real or imaginary they may seem.

As for me, my problem was that I was 40 and still in love with fantasy. But I've changed. I finally embraced my inner geek.

Ethan Gilsdorf is the author of the new travel memoir Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms

Ethan Gilsdorf |

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Reader Comments (3)

Ethan - love the book. My wife (whom you've interviewed a couple times over the last few years in your 'day' job) got me it as a bday present. I was flipping through it and came across a map you had drawn on graphing paper... it took me back to 7th grade so fast I had to grab the table to steady myself! I still recall fondly those saturdays spent exploring White Plume Mountain and the Tomb of Horrors. The Slave Lords and Castle Amber. Keep on the Borderlands, and of course, In Search of the Unknown. Who knew a +3 Long Bow could make someone so happy!?

Your final paragraph sums it up. Through high school and college, I kept my love of all-things-fantasy to myself. Being labelled a geek just wasn't worth the hassle. Now, over 40 and with a great family, I'm proud it's part of who I am. D&D broadened my creativity, strengthened my problem-solving abilities, and has kept me young. I wouldn't part with that box full of maps, modules and manuals in my basement for anything. It waits patiently for my kids.

These days my hobby is limited to reading Robin Hobb and George R.R. Martin, and playing the occassional MMORPG (currently, Aion). But nothing will replace those magical days in the late 70s/early 80s. Thanks for bringing them back in your book.

December 15, 2009 |

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