me + the richard armitage religion

Could this joker be a deity? Richard Armitage demonstrates his Smaug cheeks at the L.A. premiere of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, December 2013.

We’ve got conversion experiences. We’ve got a theology and rules about behavior, and we’ve got traditions about the Armitage. We see in him some traditional virtues. We’ve got relics. We’ve gone on pilgrimages. We’ve had (personal and less personal) encounters with him, with heartening or affirming results. Many of us would say he’s a life-changer. We’ve got (however tongue-in-cheek) shrines. We’ve got dogmas. We’ve got something along the lines of hadith (definition of hadith).

Some people would say we have a deity. Others would find that blasphemous.

Can we talk?

One of my best fan friends thinks WordPress has become boring. A regular reader has pointed out to me privately that I’ve become reticent. I think they’re both right. I’ve taken a lot of refuge in satire, which isn’t my natural mode, as much as some readers in enjoy it. A lot of my most interesting Richard Armitage discussions go on off blog these days. Many of us have become hesitant to discuss interesting things in public for fear of drama, and the more ground we cede in terms of our capacity to talk about things that are either controversial or don’t make everyone who reads them happy, the harder it becomes to get it back.

So, as I am in a wonderful mood after Richard Armitage’s doodle and his matching donation raised $8700 USD for NFNetwork, a thing to which it is hard for me to see a downside, and feeling doubly delighted about all the money Guylty’s RAPS project is raising for earthquake relief in Nepal, I will give it a shot.

This topic incorporates things that I’ve been discussing with friends for years in other contexts, things I’ve thought for a long time, and a new idea that’s just occurred to me in the last six weeks or so that has re-energized my thinking on the question. It reflects all kinds of conversations I’ve had, and I thank those of you who’ve discussed these things with me. You may recognize your own thoughts here because of that, and I hope that these posts invite to further discussion. It’s not going to be especially well organized, though, because one reason I’ve put off writing about this is that I couldn’t figure out exactly how to organize it.

So it’s just going to come as it comes.

First: Is Richard Armitage [like a] G-d? Or more like a tulpa? What is a tulpa? And what is it that we’re doing with him? Note that my answers are not intended to be definitive; they are based on my impressions after five years of this. Ymmv. But I’m confident it can be a great discussion! Let me suggest: if this topic makes you angry beyond reason, just click the x and make this all go away and look at whichever picture of Richard Armitage calms you most. There are so many!

Next post.

~ by Servetus on May 20, 2015.