About the site...
The site was first posted on the web in March of 2002. I sifted through a lot of name ideas (White Prince, Ithilien Ranger) but I didn't want to go for anything too obvious so I finally settled on 'In Dreams' after being inspired by the Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. For version three, I decided instead on 'There He Came' after the famous Tolkien line - catchier, and a little more original.

And you are?
Just call me Shandy. I'm an eighteen year old Scottish girl who doesn't want to grow up. I'm pretty insecure... clingy... jealous... impatient... stubborn... fairly lazy... and I'm not very self-dependant (I'm going to university next year and I don't know how the hell I'm going to look after myself)... and I do spend an unhealthy amount of time daydreaming about my own little fantasy obsessions instead of facing society. I'm pretty pathetic all in all. So there you go.

What "obsessions" are these then?
Lotr obviously, Final Fantasy (especially VIII and Squall), His Dark Materials (Lee, Will, Asriel), Earthsea (Tenar), Harry Potter (Sirius), The Princess Bride (Inigo), Sabriel (Touchstone), The Wheel of Time (Nynaeve, Lan), Neil Gaiman novels, The Office, Buffy (Buffy, Anya, Wood @themoment), Angel (Fred), Scrubs (Janitor!), Matrix, X-men movie (Logan, Rogue), Matchbox Twenty, Goo Goo Dolls, Lifehouse. That sort of thing.

What makes Faramir such a great character?
If I'm being honest, I have to say that Faramir didn't grab my attention immediately (ie. the Ithilien sequence didn't make a of of impact on me). I think it was after watching his triumph over his struggles in Return of the King that I began to take an interest in him. Then, when re-reading the books, he soon became my favourite. He's clearly a very heroic character; gentle, wise, noble, shrewd... a skilled and courageous warrior but well-learned, not rash. He has a slightly mysterious 'magical' quality to him also, a better man than his father (in my opinion)... with his Elvish blood and his strange dreams. And yet at sometimes he seems so vunerable... I imagine him so when he talks to his father - "If I should return, think better of me!" and Éowyn - "Éowyn, I would not have this world end now, nor lose so soon what I have found." It's hard for a girl not to fall in love with a character like that. I was left with some very clear images of him - like when he casts his glance to the walls of the Houses of Healing after his meeting with Éowyn... or when they clasp hands on the walls of the White Tower. Can you tell that the pairing of Faramir and Éowyn is one of my all time favourite love stories?

Which other characters are you fond of?
Pippin is my second favourite, Boromir, Strider (my favourite name of his, though all 10 million of them are very endearing. Did you know it was 'Trotter' originally? We can thank our lucky stars Tolkien got rid of that one), Beregond and Imrahil.

What do you think of the movie in comparison to the book?
I think it's had both a positive and negative effect on me. For one thing, it was a Lord of the Rings poster in early 2001 than spurred me to read the triliogy in the first place. It's deepened my fondness of some characters (such as Boromir; I loved the additional clip of him teaching Pippin and Merry to spar), and I think they brought certain Middle Earth locations to life tremendously (The Shire, Rivendell, Lothlorien, Rohan). Overall, Fellowship was done beautifully. However, certainly with Two Towers, I was majorly disappointed with some of the changes (eg. to Faramir)... I personally think the Frodo/Nazgul confrontation was ridiculous and the same with the Aragorn near-death sequence that was completely unnecessary. I think they've made a mess of the Arwen and Aragorn romance... they could have made it into a very mature, sophisticated, noble love story, but instead they've made it over dramatic, sappy and given it some awful lines (I mean - "This is a dream" "Then it is a good dream"? Please. Let's hope they get Faramir and Éowyn right.) I don't think it had the same appeal as Fellowship. All said, I still throughly enjoyed the film - you should have seen me when the Rangers of Ithilien first appeared. I was nearly jumping on my seat for joy. That scene was so perfect - it was exactly, exactly how I'd imagined it in the book. Sometimes when I think of the movie as an "interpretation" I don't mind the changes as much. I think we all have to take it a little less seriously, including myself - after all, it's not the book itself, and Peter Jackson admits it. And I simply CAN'T WAIT until The Return of the King! I'm so overly excited (and anxious) to see what they do with Faramir...

Any shoutouts?
Of course; a big hello to Elora (thankyou so much for creating the board, I'm having so much fun there!), Chris (stop drooling over David's accent :P), Kushana (thanks for introducing me to Neil Gaiman), little hobbit (glad you're enjoying His Dark Materials!), kefira, Geneinelle, xenabard, akin, Orion, Siberia, Cressida, Anita, Sarah, Steven, Tania, Molly, Keeley (yeeeeees... that action figure was the best xmas gift EVA!), Katrina (damn you for seeing TTT before me - damn you!), Petra (The no.1 David Wenham expert in the world), and everyone else who I chat to at Brothers of Gondor and the David Wenham Yahoo Group.