To The Ones Who Get Every Pop Culture Reference Big Bang Theory Makes

“Oh that’s not too bad for a pointy-eared Elvish princeling.” -Gimli, The Two Towers Movie

This past Monday as I carefully poured my tortellini into a bowl not wanting to drop any of it, I thought I should rewatch The Hobbit: The Unexpected Journey. It was six in the evening, and I thought watching that movie sounded like a great idea because no matter how many times I watched The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings movies, they never get old and they make me so freaking happy. I piled a quarter of the parmesan bottle onto my tortellini thinking maybe I should watch The Fellowship of the Ring first and the rest of the LOTR trilogy then The Hobbit because I love Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli way too much. I knew I would get impatient watching The Hobbit trilogy, itching until I could devour the movies with my favorite trio. But don’t get me wrong, I still love The Hobbit movies and book (I could go on and on about how I think Thorin is an amazingly written character and his character arc), but I love LOTR a nanometer more.

I stirred my tortellini with my fork thinking well, if I’m going to watch a LOTR movie maybe I should just start with The Two Towers because that movie is my favorite out of all of them. I kept mulling the thought as I walked to my room and opened my laptop. I decided to go with my original thought to watch The Unexpected Journey so I pulled it up to watch.

So I did.

And similar to Ted in my absolute favorite episode of How I Met Your Mother, “Murtaugh” he says, “I went to bed at 8:00 because it was on the list, and I couldn’t sleep because… well, it was 8:00. So I decided to watch Lethal Weapon. And then, when I still couldn’t sleep, I watched Lethal Weapon 2. And then I watched 3. And then, halfway through Lethal Weapon 4…”

That night I was Ted in that moment because I watched The Unexpected Journey, then I watched The Desolation of Smaug, then halfway through The Battle of The Five Armies, it was two am and I knew I should go to bed since I had to wake up at seven-thirty. Also during the evening, I had pulled up four pdfs I found online of The Hobbit and the three LOTR books since my copies of the books are still in my parents’ basement so I could reread my favorite scenes. As I was doing this throughout the evening, I had to reel myself back from rewatching cast interviews that night. I told myself maybe that was a tomorrow night thing.

At two am, I willed myself to close my laptop and not finish The Battle of Five Armies, but as I slid under my covers all I could think about was how excited I was to finish the movie and start watching The Fellowship of The Ring the following day. Sleep violently shook my shoulder to finally get my attention as I thought about how I was so close to my favorite scenes with my favorite trio.

This particular night has been many different nights in my life. A lot of the nights were centered around The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, but a lot of them revolved around Star Wars, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games, The Shadowhunter Chronicles, The Lunar Chronicles, Legend, Prison Break, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, and some others. All these stories have been and still are such a huge part of my life.

As I’ve watched The Big Bang Theory, I never thought about how I got almost all of their references to various fandoms whether it was Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, Back to the Future, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Marvel, and so on. Me being me loved when “the guys” make the references to the different fandoms. I related a lot to how they felt about the different fandoms. I love how passionate they were about them because that is how passionate I am about them.

I felt how the guys felt after they saw The Force Awakens for the first time. I remember in December of 2015, I was sitting in my college library in one of the computer labs trembling with excitement. It was my freshman year of college, and I was in the midst of my first finals week. In between the tests and assignments, all I could think about was how I was days away from seeing the Force Awakens. A month earlier, Mockingjay Part II had come out concluding The Hunger Games series closing a huge chapter on my life. For the past four years I had very eagerly looked forward to the new Hunger Games movie watching the trailer too many times to count, rereading the books, seeing the movie twice in theater, having my sister braid my hair for the movie, and binging all the cast interviews on Youtube.

My looking forward to each new Hunger Games movie chapter had closed, but receiving new Star Wars content chapter had reopened. Technically, The Force Awakens was the first Star Wars movie I got to see in theaters because when The Revenge of Sith came out, I wasn’t allowed to see it in theaters because my parents thought I was too young.

Eight year old me eagerly awaited my dad to come home from seeing The Revenge of the Sith in the theaters to hear what he thought of the movie. “It was dark,” I heard him telling my mom, and my mind excitedly started buzzing to see it. Finally when it came out on DVD, I was allowed to see it if I closed my eyes during certain scenes. I obediently sat on the couch and put my hands on my eyes because back then, I didn’t even think about breaking the rules. I was told to close my eyes so I closed my eyes. Anyway, the first time I saw The Revenge of the Sith, which is my second favorite Star Wars movie, I felt all the things I still feel about it. The beginning scenes when you see the two Eta-2s fly into view I’m overcome with the friendship, teamwork, confidence, and bravery Obi-Wan and Anakin have for each other in the beginning of the movie. The Obi-Wan quote, “Always on the move,” always makes me grin as he watches Anakin leap out of the elevator. I could go on and on, but eight year old me fell in love with the heart-breaking movie and twenty-six year old me still does.

As the years have gone on, the intoxicating nights of drinking too many fandom cocktails has brought some exciting times in my eyes ;). I have gone through various phases of buying a lot of used Star Wars books off Amazon. I would count down the hours in the day until I could go back to my dorm room in college to read those books.

After Thanksgiving break my sophomore year of college, I brought back to campus my battered copies of The Goblet of the Fire and The Order of the Phoenix because over the break I had reread the first three Harry Potter books. As I got back to school for the last couple weeks of the semester, I was hooked on my rereading and couldn’t stop thinking about the books. As I finished The Goblet of Fire and started The Order of Phoenix, I was reminded of how much I love The Order of Phoenix even though it rips my heart open every time I reread it. Excitement filled me as I read the scene in The Goblet of Fire when Dumbledore tells Snape and Sirius to get along because it reminds me in The Fellowship of the Ring book when Gandalf tells Legolas and Gimli to get along, “I have heard both,’ said Gandalf; ‘and I will not give judgment now. But I beg you two, Legolas and Gimli, at least to be friends, and to help me. I need you both. The doors are shut and hidden, and the sooner we find them the better. Night is at hand!” When Snape comes to Grimmauld Place over Christmas break to inform Harry about the private Occlumency lessons, Sirius is giving Snape a hard time. Snape and Sirius start arguing until they are interrupted by the Weasley family walking into the kitchen.

Also during sophomore year of college, I was in a huge Star Trek phase. I literally bought the 2009 Star Trek book characterization of the movie and Star Trek: Into the Darkness book characterization off Amazon. I would be at track meets and dream about the moment I got back to my dorm room after the meet so I could make two containers of Triple Cheese Easy Mac and watch Star Trek on my roommate’s TV. At the time, I would literally think a night couldn’t be better than that.

A few months ago, I was screaming into my computer excitement when Rick Riordan said he was releasing a new Percy/Annabeth/Grover book in the fall of 2023.

I view these various brilliant fandoms I truly love with my whole heart as a large wall of cupboards standing in front of me. Each of the cupboards says what they contain: Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and so forth. Then there are smaller cupboards that stand for different friendships or relationships I’m obsessed with which would say: Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, Harry and Ginny, Jem and Tessa, Jem and Will, Magnus, Ragnor, and Caterina, or Anakin and Obi-Wan. Some of the other cupboards would say quotes that say, “Who is this horrid creature? Goblin mutant? That’s my wee lad Gimli!” (The Desolation of Smaug), “Do as you please in your madness, but let me first get down from this horse! I wish to see no eyes!” (The Two Towers book), “So all in all, not one of Ron’s better birthdays?” (The Half-Blood Prince book), “I didn’t think it’s because we were the most popular” (The Titan’s Curse), anything between Will Herondale and Jem Carstairs (The Shadowhunter Chronicles), and many others.

Sometimes when I open these different cupboards, I feel them taking over my life. They can make me very antisocial and not wanting to go anywhere because I would rather be home reading these books or watching these movies. Or reading character analysis online of my favorite characters.

These nights of purely obsessing over these stories fulfilled for years until I was twenty when I realized all my free moments in between cross/track, class, and work were pumped with these obsessions. I didn’t have many friends at the time which meant I didn’t have much of a social life so all I could think about in my free time were these things. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Friends, How I Met Your Mother, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, and so on had fulfilled me for years, but as much as they were still fulfilling me, I did realize I was missing something. I was twenty years old, and I wanted to have the college experience I always dreamed of having filled with socializing with friends and making lifetime memories. Fantasy and science fiction lands had been my escape for as long as I could remember, but it was in those darker moments of being a fresh twentysomething that I needed something more than my fictional friends.

I needed real-life friends.

Eventually, I found myself having very good real-life friends, many social times in college and now the years after college. Now on weekend nights when I don’t have any plans I have to tell myself it’s okay, and I should be content with my book/TV show/or movie. It’s funny that life can change your priorities, morals, preferences, or interests without even you realizing it until you’re halfway down the road away from the Shire you thought would never want to leave.

Even though in The Big Bang Bang Theory, Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj never stopped loving their favorite fandoms or cosplaying, they did start to subconsciously break out into the world more as the show went on. They each found themselves in serious relationships, more of a social life, career success that demanded more of their spare time, or having kids. I love seeing each character grow up, but I also love seeing them balance their love for fandoms, but also participate in the real world with responsibilities and a social life. I love this balance because when I was a teenager I was craving the nights by myself with a fandom and now in my twenties, I crave a night with friends and creating memories. I moved on from my hobbit-like lifestyle and into a bolder, at times less wise, more chaotic lifestyle like a Mirkwood elf who are the not as fancy, wilder, bumpkin types of Elves which I relate too on a personal level.

Similar to the guys in The Big Bang Theory, I have found my balance between fictional and real. No matter how much time goes on, I’ll always love the times I have had and will spend with my beloved fandoms and be thankful for the joy and comfort they have brought me.

I have enjoyed spending the past week in the evening rewatching the Hobbit and the LOTR movies and rereading my favorite scenes in the books. I will always stand by that the thirteen dwarves and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are the sixteen most resilient, durable, adaptable, tough, dive into any situation, reliable, and brave characters I have ever read or watched. They all work together even though at times they might be at fault with each other, but they all get the job done. One is in trouble and the other is there to help them. In the Battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers, Aragorn was trying his best to fight in the battle even if he was doubting himself and his direction but he knew Legolas and Gimli are going to show up and give it there all in the battle even if they weren’t too sure how the battle was going to play out or if it was their fight. They showed up for him proving their loyalty time and time again. It makes me think I hope I am that to people. I know I am not that way all the time, but I try. I know I’m reliable and loyal, but if I’m slacking in those areas, I’m glad The Hobbit and LOTR remind me how important it is to show up for people in the best way you can.

These fandoms might have taught about many different things about fantasy and science fiction, but they also taught me we all screw up, loyalty is important, don’t take your relationships or skills for granted, and that the fictional world can only give you so much. We need the real world too, even if it is uncomfortable, painful, or awkward at first when we first step out of our dark, stuffy bedroom that is a hole for all things elves, witches, Jedis, warlocks, and Shadowhunters. But as you leave your bedroom door slightly ajar remember as in most uncomfortable things, they become more comfortable with time.

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