>I love these things because I'm immersed in the books. I'm one of *those* people, and if other people aren't, that's okay; it doesn't bother me.

I really wish I could be that sort of person. I have trouble getting immersed in anything (I generally find myself checking my watch during the most suspfensful of movies, but that probaby comes from a strange obsession with knowing what time it is).

>LotR is very close to me, so I have a post-critical relationship to it and can laugh at its weaknesses without rejecting it outright.

Well, I wouldn't say I (and I don't think Dave meant to convey this sentiment either) reject LotR outright. I really enjoyed the books, but I enjoy them more upon reflection than I did while reading them. They had an interesting story and good characters, they were just quite dull at points.

As for holding a subjective view of something, I can understand that. Take for example my love of the computer game Myst - I recognize that as a game, it's absolutely terrible (it's not even a game so much as a series of slides). But to me, it was incredibly asorbing and I loved the story (it helps having read the Myst novels - which were actually pretty cool, though like I said I don't exactly have the most objective opinion on Myst-related stuff), so I always enjoyed the game, even though I realized it's not that great (which does not imply that LotR is not great, I'm just using a weird example).

Ste "(I like parantheses too much)" phen