New Zealand

''There's a real purity in New Zealand that doesn't exist in the States. It's actually not an easy thing to find in our world anymore. It's a unique place because it is so far away from the rest of the world. There is a sense of isolation and also being protected.''

- Elijah Wood (that's right, Frodo loves us).

New Zealand. Aotearoa. Godzone. The Land of the Long White Cloud. Middle-Earth.

New Zealand is an ex-British colony, originally settled by Polynesian settlers (modern-day Maoris) and later colonised by the British (in order to stop the French getting their hands on the land). New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote (in 1893), create an old-age pension (in the 1890s), and create a government-based accident compensation fund in order to cut down on negligence lawsuits (in the 1970s). New Zealanders split the atom, conquered Mount Everest, helped discover the DNA helix structure, and (arguably) discovered flight first. New Zealand has some of the greatest natural landscape in the world, and is probably the nicest and best developed English-speaking country in the world.

But, most importantly in this context, New Zealand is home to the movieverses of The Lord of the Rings - filmed by Peter Jackson across New Zealand and edited in Wellington - and Narnia - filmed primarily in New Zealand by Shrek director Andrew Adamson. So, in a way, you could say New Zealand was not only responsible for two of the greatest fantasy epics of recent times, but also indirectly responsible for the influx of fanfiction that followed these films. Including the large amount of badfic. We're not responsible for the majority (around 99%) of the badfic authors, though.

Those bitter at us about this can rest assured that, according to H.P. Lovecraft, the home of Cthulhu, R'lyeh, is located not far from New Zealand, so we'll probably be first to be destroyed if he wakes up.