The Cult of Darcy

A God Among Men

Does having a shrine, or two, dedicated to a fictional character, make you a member of a cult? If it does then I’m a proud member of the cult of Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy, and the cult of Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape! (I've not been a fan of Richard Armitage long enough to amass a shrine to him.) And I know many of you are cult members too.

What is it about some actors (or some books, TV shows or movies) that make us want to collect mass amounts of memorabilia, which are usually completely useless and costly, and then give said items pride of place in our already cluttered homes? Why do we create little mini shrines to these demigods of pop culture? 200 years from now, will archeologists unearth these shrines and conclude that there was a subgroup in our culture that actually worshipped Colin Firth, Alan Rickman and Richard Armitage?

Right now, if my home were “unearthed”, scientists might argue that Colin Firth is my Zeus-like top god. There is a giant, framed, painted picture of him hanging over my desk.

Doesn't it look just like the picture at the top?

Not to mention the postcards, key rings, bookmarks, and smaller pictures of Colin as Darcy lying around all over the house. And that doesn’t include the huge amount of general Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice stuff I have. I also have a rather large collection of cartoon Darcy merchandise from this site.

Wizard I'd like to .....

Continuing with this logic, the archeologists of the future may decide that Alan Rickman’s Severus Snape is some sort of Underworld god like Hades. I’ve got posters, matted prints, action figures and Gentle Giant busts, wands, key rings, and buttons all about Snape, (my favorite button is a dreamy shot of Alan/Snape with “WILF” on it – as in Wizard I’d like to F***). I’ve also got several generalized Harry Potter “shrines” throughout the house as well.

I don’t even want to think about what they’ll be saying if I end up creating a shrine to Richard as Thorin or Guy.