I think I’ll join Dung Beetle in Narnia, although living in pre Fourth Age Rivendell would be very cool.
Hi ho hee hee, it’s Middle Earth for me! Landed gentry in the realm of Gondor, probably owing my allegiance to Prince Imrahil. Ancestry dating back to Imrazor the Numenorian, one of the early settlers on the coast of Gondor, folk of the “Faithful” of Numenor, who left before the Fall, and who welcomed back Elendil and Sons and and acknowledged that line as Royal. Imrazor was kinsman to Elendil, too.
Said ancestry goes back to Nimrodel’s maid Mithrellas, too. She married Imrazor and had two kids. My line would be via Gilmith, sister of Galador, first Lord of Dol Amroth.
Hence I’d be of elvish blood (albeit mostly sylvan), along with descent from the 3 houses of Edain! How cool would that be?
I probably would have come along with Aragorn after he defeated the Corsairs, and sailed into Minas Tirith with him, and promptly got slaughtered. 
Come on, who could resist being Lando Calrisian? A gambler/scoundrel/rogue turned businessman, owner of a gas mining (whatever the hell that is) facility. Wherever you have miners, there’s gambling, liquor and prostitution. As the proprietor of the mine you could easily run all 3 of those businesses as well. So, payday comes, you pay all the miners. They cash their checks, go to the casino, brothel, or bar and you get half your money back.
And he was one smoooth brother.
HANDS OFF !!! The Elf is MINE I tell ya ! Mine, mine , mine alllllll mine !!
Star Wars. I’d go and seduce a young Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Although Harry Potter would be cool too. Go Ravenclaw!
Star Wars for me. I’d be the Emperor and blast that candyass Harry Potter with force lightning until he was as crispy as fried chicken. Then I’d take Hermione and Liv Tyler to bed for a threesome.
Heh. I’d go Star Wars, and seduce a fully grown-up Qui-gon.
HP is a close second. I like being able to use magic, yet still having all my modern conveniences.
Don’t wanna live anywhere without hot & cold running water, toilet paper, modern dentistry, etc.
Not the lone, by any stretch of the imagination.
<fan mouse> We have GRYPHONS? No one told me we have such cool looking gryphons. Narnia, Narnia, Narnia all the way</fan mouse>
Well, Narnia and Middle Earth are right out for me. Too much Christian allegory, besides, I haven’t read the books. As for Middle Earth, as much as I loved the books and the movies, it’s too one-track to allow me to do anything interesting except as one of the main characters. Tolkien wrote an epic, he didn’t create a universe.
Which leaves Harry Potter and Star Wars. This boils down to, in my mind, the earlier thread about which would win in a fight between Yoda and Dumbledore. After reading that thread I realized that neither work of fiction truly exploits the potential of the abilities it confers on its characters. So let’s do that. 
Star Wars:
Those who control the Force show limited telekinesis. When used to its full capacity, telekinesis is extremely powerful. Also, the Jedi and the Sith have limited precognition, which when extended is almost deus ex machina (see the Dune series).
Harry Potter: Magic. Where Star Wars’s precognition is almost deus ex machina, this is deus ex machina. Why is Dumbledore the most powerful wizard? Because he gets really, really creative with his magic. As I recall from the fifth book, the OWL test examiner who administered Dumbledore’s test said that Dumbledore did things with a wand that the examiner had never seen before. Dumbledore came up with the Mirror of Erised trick, etc.
Conclusion? While a Jedi master like Yoda could (if George Lucas knew how to write) create a shitstorm of debris and force lightning, while throwing any opponents around like they were in a blender, a sufficiently creative wizard could simply phase himself out of contact with any normal matter, or teleport an opponent into the heart of a star, or whatever he could think of. I’d have to live in the Harry Potter universe just to see what I could come up with.
Star Wars is out. There doesn’t seem to be anyone I’d enjoy hanging out with. Yoda, as cool as he is, speaks in riddles and I’d get tired of that very quickly. Luke Skywalker whines too much. Han is a decent enough fellow but I’d probably be loaning him money all the time…and who needs that. Obi Wan has terrible taste in students…so if he were to pick me, I’d start to question myself. Plus there’s very few woman.
Narnia is out. Talking animals give me the creeps. Again, very few woman (animals don’t count, and neither does the white witch).
Harry Potter is appealing. First of all, I’m assuming I’d be a wizard. I’d be a ways behind because I’m already 28 and would basically have to start from scratch. I couldn’t do any worthwhile evil fighting for at least five, maybe even seven years. On the plus side, plenty of woman (I’m not talking about students).
Middle earth wins. The ability to fight evil effectively in this world seems to be more about heart and athletic ability. I mean, sure, having magical ability would help but it’s not a requirement. I’m not saying I’m the bravest or the most noble but at least I’d have a fighting chance in this world. I could deal with the talking trees, trees don’t normally make any sound at all so hearing a walking tree talk wouldn’t be that bad.
The people are generally pretty cool. Legolas can be a bit of a pill but generally he’s alright. Gimli seems great. The Hobbits all seem really fun - and they eat almost as much as I do. Plus there’s Rivendell. How cool is that place. Plenty of woman (they don’t have large roles in the movie - with two exceptions - but they are there).
In ascending order:
4)Harry Potter. Nah! You’re either in freakin’ school or in some English suburb waitin’ for freakin’ school to start. Hermione don’t put out and the Slytherins probably keep all their chicks for themselves. Bummer.
3)Narnia: Probably not as bad as HP, but still pretty droll. Lots of inconvenience and not much excitement.
- Middle Earth: I could deal here. There’s horses and swords and other stuff I’m familiar with, and some of those inns sound pretty cool. There’s always some war to fight and I’d like to meet an ent in person.
1)Star Wars: Here’s a winner! Inter-galactic conflict, faster than light travel, a princess to rescue, light sabres and some kick-ass bars.
Beam me up, Scotty! Oh wait…
Well, of course YOU would say that… 
:eek: :eek:
You’re serious, right? I mean, you certainly have a right to your opinion but…
Tolkien told us how his universe was created, formed, helped along and inhabited. We even know (just a bit) of what’s going to happen at the end of it all…
/end Tolkien geek.
That said, as Anaamika posted, we girls just don’t get to do much in the Tolkienverse unless we’re Valier, Maiar, and a few selected elves…and maybe one or two humans.
Still, it’s what I’d pick. Life as an elf in Gondolin, Nargothrond or Doriath in the Elder Days would be my choice. Preferrably Nargothrond, cause I like Finrod better than Thingol…
Oh this is so hard to choose but I think I’d go with Harry Potter. I’d so be in Slytherin and there are too many cute boys… besides, magic would just be so useful and studying at Hogwarts would be so intresting.
On the other hand the Force would KICK ASS because I’m really lazy. Why bother getting up to get a soda when the Force can do it for you? And lightsabers! And Anakin…drool
Earthsea.
Don’t know much about Narnia other than what I saw in the movie. Thomnas the fawn gave me the willies and I’d probably take a sword to the little freak, so I’d be on the run from whatever law exists there. Not much fun.
As a devout Tolkien fan, I’d like to say middle earth would be my choice, but unless you are of the gentry it looks like you’d live like a serf. Plus the whole mythology pretty much leaves it to men and a few elves to clean up the mess left by the Valar (gods) in dealing with their brethern. Nothing like being a serf going up against gods. Yep, pretty much a short career there.
Star wars would be good. Even without the force you could see and do interesting things. With the force you could be a god! The ability to influence weak minds would make me a gazillionaire relatively shortly. And the weak minds of blondes with large boobs would keep me entertained, too. Yeah, I’d probably be evil there.
Initially, I thought HP would be bottom of my list. Upon reflection, I think it would be the most fun. I’d actually try to learn something at Hogwarts instead of always whining about things and fighting with teachers. Yes, we know the teachers won’t help you if ‘he who must not be named’ comes after you, but if you actually learned how to turn him into a toad, you wouldn’t need them to protect you. I’d also do some major research on how to dispense with having to use a wand, too.
Middle Earth, no question. Even the relatively entropic Fourth Age seems to have plenty of adventuring opportunities kicking around; my very first order of business will be to track down Radagast the Brown, assuming that he wishes to be found. It seems likely that the signature abilities of the Istari cannot be learned through apprenticeship in the manner of other spellcasters, although the rumors of the Blue Wizards and their followers give me some hope that I may yet aspire to hold the title of Terrifel the Terracotta, master of shapes and changes of hue, friend to eagles, companion of ravens, confidant of thrushes, etc, etc. I want to muster an Entwife-seeking expedition to Rhun. I fully intend to assemble an unrivalled collection of lore that will form the basis for the Great Library of Osgiliath.
Interestingly, for a world whose history focuses so much on kings and rights of succession, Middle Earth might just be the most egalitarian of the four choices. It’s entirely possible to succeed spectacularly in Middle Earth without having a favored bloodline or magic powers of any kind; the noblest hero of the War of the Ring was a lowly gardener, of a race no one else had ever heard of.
I fear that I would not live long and prosper on Planet Potter, as my entire wizarding career would be dedicated to breaking down the oppressive, mind-erasing elitist power structure in order to share the benefits of magic with all humanity. *“But if Muggles knew about magic, they’d seek magical solutions to their problems! That would never do!” * Well, first of all, you’re all kind of dicks to give them the derogatory epithet ‘Muggle,’ aren’t you? They’re people who happen not to express the gene for magic. And why the hell shouldn’t they seek magical solutions to their problems? Presumably the use of service dogs to aid the vision-impaired is abhorrent to wizardly ethics as well, since the ‘blindies’ are seeking the aid of a sighted being to solve their problems. So I believe I’ll just be taking this formula for bone-growing elixir and using it to cure every single case of Osteogenesis imperfecta in the world, thank you very much, and the rest of you wizards can feel free to bite me.
Star Wars has much the same problem, albeit to a lesser extent; the Force may bind and permeate all life, but evidently you need to harbor certain germs to make it work for you. On the other hand, while the Star Wars galaxy shares Planet Potter’s problem of being thoroughly infested with thunderously stupid people, at least in Star Wars there are a decent number of pleasant, personable folks to make up for it. Also, Planet Potter take note: even though Star Wars is total space opera, it still manages to have properly hairy movie werewolves.
Ultimately the greatest appeal of Star Wars is having my very own lightsaber, and I know myself well enough to realize that if that ever happened I would manage to kill myself almost immediately.
My Location at this time is listed as “the left side of the door.” I’ve had this same Location entry pretty much since I’ve started posting on this board. For the life of me, I can’t recall why I chose that phrase in particular; however, it is a direct reference to The Last Battle and indicates how I think I would probably fare in that situation. Narnia seems like a nice place, but I suspect it isn’t for me. I am not theologically flexible enough to accept a deity with a barbed penis as my personal savior.
A definite no to Narnia and Middle Earth because I wouldn’t be able to remember any of the ridiculous names of people or places or tribes. Maybe Star Wars but only if the empire doesn’t strike back, the jedi don’t return, there is no phantom menace, clones do not attack and the sith remain revengeless. Otherwise off to platform 9 3/4 for me.
My apologies, I wasn’t careful with the way I said it. Tolkien most certainly did create a universe, but in that universe there is a chain of events so staggeringly more important and than any other that it makes participating in anything other than the main character’s plotlines almost pointless.
Sure you could go live as an elf, or go track down Radagast the Brown and have a nice chat with him over tea and lambas bread, but that’s not going to do anything. Whereas in Harry Potter, as I outlined in my post above, the deus ex machina magic allows anyone who is sufficiently creative to make an impact, in a way that’s interesting even if it’s not the main storyline. Terrifel’s use of bone-growing elixir is a good example.
Hey, if someone gets to go to Earthsea then I want to take vacations to Fantastica and the country from Spindle’s End, and specifically Foggy Bottom and Woodwold. I want to hang out with an unbeautiful horse-doctor Sleeping Beauty.
Discworld, with a stop by Neverwhere on the way.
OK, OK, actually responding to the OP (and bear in mind they’re all really close in rankings):
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Star Wars: I like the idea of Jedi mind control, and learning how to use the Force and all that, and the concept of lightsabers is pretty cool. But it just doesn’t really appeal to me, especially after the prequels.
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Narnia: As other people have pointed out, the characters are all really flat and two-dimensional. It’d be great to travel along on the Dawn Treader for a little while, but there’s no complexity or depth in that universe–it’s fun, but bland after a while.
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Middle Earth: If I could be someone like Eowyn, or possibly Galadriel–or disguise myself as a boy, which would be a big hassle, which is why my number one choice goes to…
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Harry Potter. Magic wands, kick-arse school, sports on flying broomsticks, pointy hats, and perilous danger at every turn. You really just can’t beat it.
