The uninitiated may assume that the biggest divide of the year is between the ICC and Jagmohan Dalmiya. The cognoscenti, however, know the truth: the split between Potter fans and Tolkien enthusiasts is far more serious.
In the normal course of things, the twain would have followed the norms of peaceful coexistence, if Hollywood had not ordained otherwise. But with the first of the Harry Potter films coming out just a short while before the first non-cartoon attempt to put the Lord of the Rings on celluloid, battlelines have been drawn. To paraphrase Tolkien, fans insist that there can only be one film to rule them all, one film to find them, one film to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.
On one side, then, we have the diehard Tolkien enthusiasts, brushing off those
