No, Really, I'm A Girl. Now Buy Me This Mace

Perhaps it was jealousy that initially kept me away from Felicia Day’s webseries “The Guild.” I am clearly threatened by her nerd beauty and the fact that in her career so far she has gotten to kiss both Nathan Fillion and Wil Wheaton.

Premiering online back in 2007, “The Guild” is now in production on its fifth season. The show boasts a following of bazillions of fans, which coincidently happens to be the EXACT amount of people who play World of Warcraft, an MMORPG very similar to the computer game played in “The Guild.” Oh, and if you don’t know what an MMORPG is by now, please email me your address, so I can drive by and throw a miniature Han Solo frozen in carbonite collectible figurine at your head.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am a former WoW addict. There were times when I literally ignored people hanging out at my house to sit alone in my room and shoot pixilated fireballs at gnolls and dire bats. All the more reason why a story about a young woman obsessed with such a computer game should have been love at first sight for me. Yes, I was intrigued, but I was also a little hesitant. Was “The Guild” laughing with us gamers, or at us?

Then two things happened which forever cemented my fate. The first was that Felicia Day appeared at the local Barnes and Noble signing copies of a graphic novel for “The Guild.” I flipped through it, and enjoyed what I saw, but still wasn’t sold yet. And then, there was Wheaton. In my recent resurgence of teen stalking, I discovered that Wil Wheaton was featured on later episodes of “The Guild,” as a kilt-wearing leader of a rival guild named Fawkes. As in the same name as Dumbledore’s pet phoenix. This, I had to see.

Forgive me Madam Felicia Day for ever doubting your comedic wonderment. Once I sat down and watched it all, I wanted more, not just because the show was hysterical, which it was, but also because it reminded me of a game I loved and missed. I’d also like to take a moment to say I appreciated that while the characters were all a little bit odd, they were not (for the most part) losers. No one weighs four hundred pounds and works in a comic book store. Clara has a husband and family, Tinkerballa is a smoking hot evil Asian chick, and though the youngest guild member, Bladezz, lives in his parents’ basement, it’s only because he’s still in high school. You find out in later episodes this long-haired, perverted teen has a secret modeling career that the others mock him for. Personally, I love any world where someone is mocked for being a model. Even Vork, the middle-aged weirdo who eats expired food and lives in a shed, does so by choice.

I think I loved these characters because I was one of them. At the end of season four, “Big Bang Theory” star Simon Helberg has a cameo as a game master busting Vork for screwing with the game’s economic structure by creating a stock exchange. When the game master compliments Codex on her busty, short skirt wearing avatar, she makes a big point of saying she’s a girl in real life to woo him into getting a new guild hall. Oh, what girl gamer hasn‘t been there before! My guy friends used to hate how I could walk into the auction house in Ironforge and giggle at some dudes and say something stupid to prove how girl-like I was (I got a tailor to make me a customized pink shirt to help in this process.) and suddenly I’d be fifty gold richer. Yes, perhaps this was a form of pimping myself for fake money, but I make no apologies.

The question remains, did I enjoy this show only because I played World of Warcraft? I don’t think so. In fact, “The Guild” is as much about friendship and discovering one’s way in the world as it is about gaming. And you don’t have to be a nerd to have a sense of humor. It might help, but you don’t have to be.