Update: Here’s the really funny thing. Ned reminded me in the comments that this was an old story. That rang a bell in my mind. I searched The Hog’s Head. I reported it way back on September 15, 2006! Here are some better pictures. At least now, via John, we know what to call people like this (and like us): elvendorks.
John Granger came across a pretty impressive undertaking by a genuine elvendork – a matchstick scale model of Hogwarts!
Pat Acton, 55, of Gladbrook, took more than two years to complete the model which features all the turrets, walkways and towers seen in the films.
“I love the books and consider myself a Harry Potter fan,” he said.
“A fan,” indeed. I look forward to John’s future nominations for Elvendork of the Month, and perhaps the pub’s patrons can nominate a few of their own.
Red Rocker on 
Arabella Figg on 
Travis Prinzi on 
PotterMom05 on 
Joivre on 
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{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
I remember seeing that a while ago… it may have been all the way back in 2006. You can see better pictures of the model at the guy’s website, here:
http://www.matchstickmarvels.com/Comingin2005-2006.htm
Pretty impressive stuff.
Oh, RIGHT! I do remember that from a few years ago. Funny how old news slips your mind and becomes “new” again.
Only thing better than a huge matchstick Hogwarts? A huge cake Hogwarts that you can eat. I sent the link to you Travis, but I’ll mention it here too. Charm City Cakes, of the Food Network show Ace of Cakes, did a cake of Hogwarts a year or two ago for one of the movie premieres. You can see it on their web site charmcitycakes.com. It is one of the coolest cakes I have ever seen. And what’s better than being able to EAT Hogwarts?
The term “Elvendork” really, really annoys me. I can handle it as the adolescent joke of a Potter character but it smacks of the worst type of dorkiness to slap the term on fans of the Potter series.
Please leave it in the text of Rowling’s short story.
Really? I think it’s a great term. I’m proudly an elvendork, and I think Rowling knows she’s one, too.
Just to clarify – when I use “elvendork” here, I’m using ZoeRose’s definition from the comments at HogPro:
Ladies and Gentlemen – we are Elvendorks. You may be a male Elvendork or a female Elvendork. Elvendorks appear at Border’s on the night Potter books are released. Elvendorks go to conventions and give seminars. Elvendorks argue over whether Lewis’ centaurs rock over Rowling’s centaurs. Elevndorks serve lambas bread with their coffee. They woke up at 2:00 in the morning this week to see if the prequel had been posted yet.
How does one spot an Elvendork? Did you cry when Dobby died?
Well, there you are.
It’s not meant to be insulting or anything. I think it’s clever, and that Rowling intended it.
I can’t stand it.
I’m not a fan of taking names for ourselves.
Everyone who hears that name, and if Potter fans begin to use it to describe themselves, will instantly associate Potter or fantasy/sci-fi/mythic fans with dorkiness. It will drive potential fans AWAY from what could be life-changing literature.
I don’t think I’m a dork. I don’t think you are either, Travis. If someone called you one in front of me I’d let ‘em know I wasn’t happy about it.
And If ZoeRose’s definition works she’d make certain of it being lembas bread rather than lambas bread. Lambas comes from the rear end of a young sheep.
Does that meake me dorky?
We must just be coming from entirely different frames of reference. “Dork” is about the most innocuous word I can think of. I call myself a dork all the time. I’m fine with us all being dorks, with Star Trek fans being dorks, with Potter fans being dorks.
I just happen to think dorks can change the world, too.
Hey! Who are you calling a dork!
Well, to me, it is dismissive and disdainful- someone who lacks social skills but not the intelligence of a nerd… maybe bad personal hygiene.
Want proof? Watch Police Academy II. I remember some trick done with sun-screen on the chest of the sunbathing cop.
I can understand that. At the same time, I’m not sure we’d ever escape the term “dork” to begin with; you should have been at the conference I was just at. I’m usually more inclined to embrace a derisive term, and so change people’s perception of it by not being stereotypical, than to resist the term (which guarantees they’ll use it all the more). And at least in my own context, calling someone a “dork” has lost all its dismissive and derisive force. To seriously use the term sounds absurdly adolescent in the first place.
Can see both sides of the argument.
My heart is with Matthew. It is a dismissive term. It reeks of people who dress up while waiting in line at midnight for the release of the next installment. People who use the Potterverse to live out their fantasies. Fan fiction. And by association and implication, it takes away from the value of the books as meaningful literature. Elvendorks are the same as Trekkies and would-be Jedis. It’s hard to miss the ridicule.
Ridiculous is not the first word that comes to my mind when I think of Dobby’s death. Or am I missing something?
On the other hand, since it is a label which is being assigned to us – we who people the web sites and talk and talk and talk about the books endlessly – it might not be a bad idea to assume the label and wear it proudly.
We might as well laugh at ourselves, since the rest of the world is already laughing at us.
Is that where you’re coming from, Travis?
Red Rocker, precisely! When assigned a term like “dork,” if you wear a costume to a movie or convention, we’re stuck with the term. I’d rather embrace the term, be willing to laugh at myself, and over time transform people’s perception than try to protest.
No, there’s nothing to ridicule in Dobby’s death, but we get it. Step outside our world for a moment, and think about the perception of a non-fantasy lover watching a 29-year-old man working in his yard with an iPod in his ears, crying because the death of an imaginary little elf is being described.
You forget about the hundreds of men who waited at the harbour in New York City circa 1841 to read the latest installment of the Old Curiosity Shop to find out if Little Nell had died or not.
I do see your point. We have placed ourselves beyond the pale by our own obsessions. But that includes a lot of variations. I for one do not dress up or read or write fan fiction. I don’t go to conventions – not even the serious ones. I don’t have a shrine in my house dedicated to HP. And when JKR decided to downgrade Snape to secondary character after all the time we’d spent agoanizing about his affiliation, I let it go. I would rather not be included in the same group of people who do all those things. But the word Elvendork has that effect.
I’m with Matthew & Red Rocker on this, too. Don’t really like the term & thought it the least best part of the prequel that is not a prequel. Now, the term ‘geek’ I don’t mind, ’cause I truly am one. But seeing as my wife only married me because I knew who Doctor Who is, I think I came off well for being a geek.
Well, I’ll remain the only one proudly bearing the name “Elvendork” then. I just don’t get it. I feel like I’m back in my old fundamentalist church, and I just said “darn.”
Hey Travis,
I’ll stand beside you and loudly proclaim my Elvendorkness any time. It’s not like anyone else is going to understand what we mean by that anyhow. I just don’t like calling myself that.
I’m trying to defend an indefensible and possibly impossible position: to love the books, to be engaged in the books, and to speculate endlessly about the books, without being accused of having lost all perspective about the books, and in fact of making more of the books than they can possibly mean.
But here’s a question for us. JKR herself coined that term. What do you suppose she meant by that? Who was she thinking of? Was she gently poking fun at her readership who inhabit the web sites (and dress up)? Was she even referring to Potterverse?
I am so reminded of the scene in Bedazzled where Elliot (Brendan Fraser) suddenly realizes he’s gay because he knows the details of a Broadway production.
Oh my God! I am an Elvendork!
JKR herself coined that term. What do you suppose she meant by that? Who was she thinking of? Was she gently poking fun at her readership who inhabit the web sites (and dress up)? Was she even referring to Potterverse?
That’s what I was getting at with ZoeRose’s comment. Who knows, maybe Rowling didn’t mean anything at all by it. But I rather think she was poking fun at us all, including herself.
I’m not sure it’s fair to compare those who don’t like the name elvendork to fundamentalists. I’m not saying anyone else can’t use it or that they’re going to hell for using it. I just personally don’t like it.
This gets us back to the old debate, are you a Trekkie, i.e. fan boy, or a Trekker, a serious fan of the show & genre? Or is there a difference?
Just talking feelings here. I’m not saying anyone is acting like a fundamentalist; I’m just saying that I’m a little taken aback at the strength of the reaction to the word “dork.” It feels, to me, like the kind of reaction I used to get for saying “darn.”
Clearly, not everyone feels the same way about that word
Actually, I think that my own reaction is due not so much by the label, but at the inevitable comparisons. Elvendork raises visions of Trekkies, and people dressed like hobbits at premieres, and the D&D crowd, and people who wave lighters and throw toast at the screen during The Rock Horror Picture Show These are all manifestations of pop culture; with the possible exception of LOTR – and that is debatable – none of the works which are thus celebrated are literary classics.
Which brings me to the elephant in the middle of the room. Dostoevsky and Steinberg and Melville and Atwood and Munro don’t have fanboy cults. The films based on their novels and stories don’t attract this kind of attention. For me, the implication is very clear: if we are fanboys, then HP must be pop culture fluff.
And that, fellow Potterphiles, does not sit well with me.
HP is the very strange phenomenon of the intermingling of pop culture and academia. 75% of the folks at Portus were costumed. Then there was James Thomas, Edmund Kern, and others, who simply loved being among them.
I don’t think “fanboy” when I think “elvendork.” I think of when Rowling said, “Harry Potter is a book for obsessives,” and the elvendorks are the obsessives.
Here’s an odd question: is it possible that some of the costumed folks and fan fiction writers are entering into the HP stories in fruitful ways that the academics are missing? Or is it all inevitably fluffy pop culture?
If they’d had the Internet & 24 hour TV back then, I’m sure we’d see Dostoevsky et al fanboys. And the fact that conferences like Portus put on such rocking scholarly lectures seems to indicate that HP is not just a pop culture phenom.
Tell you what – if nothing else, I’ve just discovered that all this talk of elvendorks has put this post as the #2 search result on Google for “elvendork.” The only thing beating it is the actual site elvendork.com.
So, we’re getting just as bad as what John complains about over at Hogwarts Professor? That when some serous scholarly post is up, nobody discusses it. But put up a movie blurb or some other blurb and we’re all over it.
Actually, I just Googled elvendork and Hog’s Head came up #1 and #2
And you know what: entering our site blind off the internet, we look cool. It’s all that white space and the art at the top (yay Michael!) and then the colorful avatars. Nice job, Blongengamot.
You know, I’m guessing the person who owns elvendork.com bought it to sell it. S/he has done nothing with it except put up that one quote.
The tech-elves really did do a great job, and they deserve another round of applause. Nice work, Michael, Ben, and Jon.
I’m also pleased that Red Rocker calls it “our site;” I’ve always hoped that both Blogengamot and commenters feel that way.
I have received three nominations for this site for August’s “Elvendorks of the Month” award. Keep up the good work!
John, HogPro and Elvendork monitor
Yeah, I thought about using that determiner: our Didn’t want to seem too possessive. But that’s what I felt, coming in off the internet: like I was coming home.
John, sweet. What do they say in these situations? “It’s an honor just to be nominated.”
Red Rocker, That makes me happy. Always use the possessive.
Travis wrote:
When assigned a term like “dork,” if you wear a costume to a movie or convention, we’re stuck with the term. I’d rather embrace the term, be willing to laugh at myself, and over time transform people’s perception than try to protest.
My main issue is that it is a self-appointed term. No-one has had anyone come up to them at the movies and say “Mate, you’re an Elvendork!”
It isn’t a term you need to embrace to change people’s perceptions because no-one else is using it. It is deliberately creating false perceptions – those Potter fans are a weird mob.
The Harry Potter phenomenon has been far, far too mainstream for fans to become clannish about themselves.
Unless those using the term are trying to identify themselves as THE REAL fans. Its exclusive and not inclusive of new fans.
That’s the way it makes me feel anyway. I don’t like people being pigeon-holed and I see this as the fast lane for that to happen.
I love people feeling ownership of the site. I’m honoured to be a part of it. A real think-tank.
Thanks Travis and all- the regulars especially.
Interesting thoughts, Korg.
I was looking at it from Travis’ point of view (in as far as I understand it): that we should be willing to laugh at ourselves because people already see us as odd. And embracing the label would be part of that.
But what if no one uses the label – mainly because no one knows it? It’s not actually a coincidence that Googling the term brings up the Hog’s Head: no one else is much interested. Should we be embracing the label so much that we refer to each other by it and announce ourselves as such?
In a strange sort of way, it reminds me of how gangs are formed. Part of gang formation and gang identity is assigning the group a name. Most gangs are “out-groups” in the sense that they don’t belong to the main stream. One of the purposes for the name is to display pride in that “out-group” status.
I’m with Korg on this one. Although I do feel a sense of belonging at the Hog’s Head in particular and with the lovers – fanatics others would call us – of HP in general, I don’t want the label.
I agree with everyone who thinks it a good idea to laugh at ourselves. I’m all for it!
And, like you Red Rocker, I like to feel that sense of belonging. I think the community here is respectful, intelligent, humerous, supportive and a model of polite disagrement. I love appreciating the Potter stories and discussing them with like-minded persons too. I’m happy if someone wants to describe themselves as an Elvendork but I really feel that it doesn’t sum up the caliber of the majority (I’m assuming) ofpeople who are Potter fans.
Honestly, I think this has been blown out of proportion. If no one else cares about the term, then a tiny little place like The Hog’s Head isn’t going to redefine everyone’s perception of HP fandom.
It can’t actually be that no one else is much interested, because since the release of the “prequel,” we’ve had more traffic to this site from the search term “elvendork” than any other two search words combined. But even if we and HogPro are the only ones using the term specifically, that makes sense: we started using the term because we academic eggheads, who read layers of meaning into the stories, think Rowling used the term deliberately (in other words, I think Rowling is calling us all elvendorks); and I’m using the term as I think she meant it. It’s a joke. I think it’s funny. I don’t think it’s demeaning anyone, and I’m not trying to be clannish about HP fans in general. That’s already been happening for years, and I think it’s obvious enough we don’t do that here.
But from this point forward, I won’t use it for anyone other than myself. I’m an elvendork; the rest of you are not. I’ll refrain from labeling anyone else an elvendork.
I wasn’t trying to give you a serve, Travis. I was trying to discuss in my own egg-head way the possible effects of the term. I don’t think you’re trying to be clannish. How could you be when it’s the highest selling series…ever?
Do you think Rowling was really making a joke about the fans? Or just making a cool, adolecsent shot at the cops in the story? I think it is funny in the story, bye the way. If so she must have an amazing mind to come up with it in the course of writing it in, how long did she have, 2 hrs?
Also, I think you might be under valueing the site and the impact it does/will have.
All things start somewhere. There you go, elvendorks changing the world!
I think she was making a joke about herself and the fans. Like I said, I like ZoeRose’s definition (which, I think, describes academics better than it describes “fandom”).
You could be correct about the effects of the term; like I said, I think we must approach the concept of a “dork” from really different contexts/experiences.
I do hope I’m undervaluing the site’s influence
Travis,
We probably are approaching “dork” from different experiences. I just wouldn’t want some stranger to come up to me and call me one to my or your face.
I’m curious about Rowling using the term because she has said that she wasn’t really a reader of Tolkien (didn’t she?) and “elven” is particularly one of his terms. Other writers used elfin (didn’t they?) until Tolkien changed the world.
Thinking about it I can identify one person who I would really call and elvendork. On the LOTR Special Edition DVDs there is a consultant on the pronounciation of Elven languages and he would sum up everything that I find it hard to admire about fandom.
Seen him?
Does anyone know if Elvendork is the only thing from Potterverse to kind of enter the mainstream of culture? Kind of like “Beam me up, Scotty” or “May the Force be with you” have from Star Trek & Star Wars, where it’s become a part of the culture & most people understand what you’re referring to when you say things like that.
Oh, getting back to Dostoevsky & fan boys, at least with Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings there was a bit of fan boy connection with the works at about the same time they were written. People, especially on college campuses, walking around with “Frodo Lives” t-shirts. And let us not forget Tolkien’s vast influence on the role-playing community.
Matthew, is it safe to say you find the term ‘dork’ appropriate then for people who learn how to speak & read Klingon?
Not that I do that. I only found one word of Klingon to be absolutely necessary & to sum up everything you’d ever need to say in Klingon & that is “BAH.” Which means, of course, “Fire the torpedoes.”
Matthew, I haven’t seen him, no. Though I think, perhaps, Christopher Lee should count.
I’m of the opinion that Rowling likes Tolkien a bit more than she lets on. I could be wrong. But as we were getting further along in the series, attempts to distance herself from both Lewis and Tolkien grew stronger, mostly because, despite her claims that she was doing “something different” than them – thematically, she didn’t.
She didn’t?
Would you care to expand on that, Travis? I realize it’s a topic which could launch a thousand dissertations, but it might be worth exploring in our own haphazard but respectful, supportive and (I too like to believe) intelligent way.
Speaking of topics for discussion: did you have time to do the draw at Portus? Who gets the audiobooks? Did you already announce it and I missed it?
The attempts to distance herself from Tolkien & Lewis may have grown stronger, but I don’t think she could really get away from them. Especially Lewis. Dumbledore’s statement to Harry at King’s Cross is classic, “Just because it’s happening in your head, Harry, doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” Words that could’ve come straight out of Professor Kirke’s mouth!
Red Rocker, in some very technical ways, she did depart from Tolkien and Lewis. In others, especially thematic, she did not. Part of this was inevitable; self-sacrificial love is the only story that works.
I think that in order to really get into the discussion, you have to explore Tolkien’s “Cauldron of Story;” that places my whole argument upon supernatural grounds, in a sense, but one can’t really take fairy tales seriously and be an Enlightenment rationalist anyway.
The audiobook Giveaway: I have to stop making promises that I’ll record podcasts from conferences. There’s just never time for it. I plan to record today or tomorrow, and I’ll announce it then!
Travis wrote: “I think that in order to really get into the discussion, you have to explore Tolkien’s “Cauldron of Story;” that places my whole argument upon supernatural grounds, in a sense, but one can’t really take fairy tales seriously and be an Enlightenment rationalist anyway.”
You hopefully reiterate this point in your book. Otherwise, did Tolkien flesh this out in On Fairy Stories? Or somewhere else? Thanks. Happy California!