Between seeing We are Wizards at SXSW last month, Elisabeth's excellent Geek Beat column on cosplay and costuming (that's her at the right, dressed as Queen Gorgo), JK Rowling squaring off in court with Steven Vander Ark over this Harry Potter Lexicon, and following the wonderful Twilight fan sites more closely of late, I feel like I've been double-dipped in fandom recently. All this has got me thinking on the concept of fandom and fantasy and what drives people (like myself) to obsess about fictional worlds and characters, and where the line is between healthy love and admiration for books and films and unhealthy obsession.

Don't get me wrong here ... I totally love fansites.. Fans who maintain fansites give hours and hours of their personal time to keeping those sites going, and when sites get popular, they have to recruit other obsessed fans to help them out, all while maintaining the quality of the site and keeping away trolls (and, in the case of Twilight Moms, maybe a few irate spouses to boot!) But how much is too much?

Fandom. It makes people do crazy things. People worship; people cherish; and people band together to fight. These days, we have heard all about that Fanboys debacle, which rages on while the film sits, tapping its impatient fingers. But that's only one aspect of fandom. There's also those love-filled homemade fan creations.

But this post is really all due to the picture above. Now, I've seen many funky fan crafts over the years, but this one I just loved. David Lynch isn't the sort of man who gets a ton of fan recreations, and honestly, aside from my still-unfinished oil painting of Jack Nance, this is the first one I've seen. It's simple, yet oh so bloody cool.

I have to admit it: I have an addiction to creating and appreciating funky things -- whether they be large, wine cork platters, a chess-themed birthday cake, or making a pair of underwear with Christopher Walken's face on the front. (Yes, I have a pair of Walken underthings. No, I will not share a picture.) I've always liked making things because, well, it's fun to do. But it also allows you to be original. Instead of paying someone to show your inner fan or inner taste, you can make something unique and filled with your own time and appreciation.

Oh, I know there are a slew of you out there who would love to be that guy -- all walking around the halls of your high school sporting Obi-Wan's robe, tellin' it like it is. Showing up to the office with authority: "Oh yeah, you want me to sit in that cubicle? Well, no one puts Obi-Wan in the corner!" Women would flock to you like they do in those annoying Axe deodorant commercials (Hey, I wear Axe and nothing like that ever happens to me!), while a day wouldn't go by without a high-five and a few dreamy stares. And then you wake up, realizing: "Holy crap, I just spent $100,000 on a freaking brown robe!"

Yes, that's (approximately) how much bidding will start at for a chance to own the original robe worn by Sir Alec Guinness in Star Wars. Oh, but that's not all -- folks can also pick up costumes worn in films like Titanic, Indiana Jones and Evita, as well as a number of James Bond's suits, when they go under the gavel at Bonhams Auctioneers. Roughly 350 to be exact, all provided by the London-based costume maker Angels. Tim Angel, of Angels, is honored to produce all these memorable movie costumes, but at the same time they could potentially hurt business. He notes, "The flip-side of creating such iconic costumes, that become so very famous and so firmly associated with key movies, is that they can never be used in other films or productions, nor can they be made available from our fancy dress shop."

I'm not sure what I would do with a brown robe worth $100,000. Where do you wear it? Could it be used as, like, an after shower robe? Do you hang it in the closet? For you Star Wars fanatics out there, is the price tag worth it? And, if you could own the original robe, what in the world would you do with it?

Remember the awesome series of knitted zombies that we linked to last year? Well, compared to this latest example of obsessive fandom, knitting zombies is about as easy as picking your teeth. You want do something that really shows your devotion? How about creating a massive, incredibly meticulous, dollhouse reproduction of Bag End (AKA the Baggins family home)? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Livejournal user 'Obelia medusa' really, really loves The Lord of the Rings, so much so that she decided to devote 18 months of her life to making a hobbit house. From what I can tell, she combined information from both the movies and Tolkien's novels to come up with a floor plan, and to dictate her interior details. And I emphasize the word "details" - you think you're obsessive? Check out this status update from August: " The past year or so I've spent wiring (my hobbits need their candlelight, after all!) and installing wood paneling and flooring." Holy. Crap.

If you've got some free time today, go check out the pictures. While any obsession taken to this level is maybe just the slightest bit creepy, the devotion and craftsmanship - there are STAINED GLASS WINDOWS and TILE FLOORS, for the love of God! - are truly mind-blowing.

[via BoingBoing]