What’s gotten into me, Guy?

I buy fan stuff. If I retrace the early steps of this blog, I remember that it used to make me feel guilty — the amount of money I was spending. When I bought the region-free DVD to be able to watch UK DVDs, two months into Armitagemania, it was such a step that it seemed worthy of recognition. Then the first time that I spent significant money on acquiring fan stuff, two years in, I wrote thousands of words about it.

Eventually it stopped being an issue, although many of these purchases were still accompanied by angst. And I have fan friends who would never spend anything more than a trivial amount on fangirling, which I respect. The decision about which object to obtain is always symbolic, although I don’t always realize what they stand for. Honestly, at the very latest the decision to spend a lot of money to go to London (something I’d speculated on from the first summer I was a fan) really should have extinguished the idea that I still had any qualms.

But one bug still hadn’t bitten. Most of my very first fan friends had some kind of relationship with Guy of Gisborne stuff, namely, the Guy of Gisborne action figure. Some fan pages devoted significant time to Little Guy (as he was often called) fan art — when the Thorin action figure appeared, we frequently saw them appear together. This activity has mostly ceased, and lately the main Armitage figure I see around is the FUNKO POP Thorin. Makes sense — he’s easy to pose, and he has a suitably mysterious expression that makes him suitable for every occasion. We used to regularly see Guy of Gisborne action figure giveaways in the fandom. All that has abated.

I always said that I felt no need to get a Guy of Gisborne figure. It’s true — I never entered those giveaways, never searched on eBay for a figure.

Yeah — so what is up? In honor of my birthday, a Guy of Gisborne action figure has come all the way from England to live with us.

According to Guy’s package, he’s ten years old, but he doesn’t seem at all the worse for wear. In fact this Guy is in better shape than the SO NOT DEAD character he personified.

I shelled out extra, not for the package so much as for the complete figure — several that I saw on eBay were missing their swords. And what would Guy of Gisborne be without his huge sword?

I was prepared to be disappointed, because of this commentary from the horse’s mouth in 2008:

But looking at Little Guy’s face, I find myself disagreeing. It’s almost remarkably like Armitage and much more so than any of the Thorin Oakenshield action figures have typically been.

Closeup of Little Guy (still in package).

I wish I could get a better picture of the nose. It actually really strongly resembles Richard Armitage’s nose. But to do that, I’d have to take him out of the pacakge, and I haven’t “gotten that far” yet. Which is a little strange. I did buy it to play with so I am wondering why I am concerned about the packaging.

Well, one bright side — at least so far, I don’t feel the need to get the superposeable horse, which is really rare.

Although, thinking of this:

Maybe I shouldn’t speak too soon. As one of the sexiest moments in Robin Hood, period, it’s brought me to my verbal knees before. Others have found that moment inspiring, too.

~ by Servetus on February 22, 2016.