CHAPTER 4

The Quest for Truth

Play, Performance and Participation Within the Tourist Site

Chapter 3 defined the two aspects of the Templar narrative of the quest in popular culture using case studies from popular films. This chapter will continue the analysis of the grail guardian archetype by examining how this part of the Templar urtext has expanded and evolved through physical immersion in places linked to the Templar narrative. The Templar quest narrative focuses on the journey into the fantastical medievalist world to obtain an item of terrific value. Following this, in the same way as Chapter 2 examines the Templar knight narrative’s place in popular culture through fan participation, the quest narrative also needs to be analyzed in terms of fan participation through tourism and visiting related sites. Fan tourism is the ideal fan practice to examine as the fan can participate in the fictional world of the text by traveling to the real site featured in the text and emulate the truth searching of the text’s protagonist. The chapter’s case studies will be The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure fan tourist experiences at the Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland and Independence landmarks of Philadelphia in the United States of America. The film National Treasure includes the Independence landmarks in Philadelphia as locations for the protagonist to retrace the Templar past, with sites such as Independence Hall hiding a secret clue to the Templar treasure. The Da Vinci Code, novel and film set their climax in Rosslyn Chapel as the burial place of Mary Magdalene (the Holy Grail), a site that is already associated with mystery and the Templar myth.

The case studies chosen for this chapter will demonstrate how my concept of the Templar urtext has further expanded through physical participation with the Templar narrative via fan tourism. In analyzing the grail guardian archetype of the Templar urtext, this chapter will examine how participation with the quest narrative further expands and evolves the Templar narrative in popular culture and further impacts the Templar urtext. Fan tourism enables the Templar enthusiast to recreate the thematic journey of the protagonist and venture on their own quest to obtain new knowledge of a text and a closeness to the story world via a physical experience. As I outlined in the introduction, I traveled to several fan tourist locations, immersed myself in the site and collected data on the tourist experience. The methodology to approach this will include methods of primary ­evidence-gathering used in fan tourism studies such as taking notes on site and using photographs to document the fan experience. To further document the tourist experience, I took photos of the film’s filming locations to compare the location to its ­on-screen appearance and interacted with site officials such as park rangers and tour guides. This chapter on Templar fan tourism also uses autoethnographic methods by drawing upon tourist reviews, social media posts and photos to underpin how participation strengthens the Templar myth through the thematic narrative of the quest.

To examine how fans have forged a deeper understanding of the Templars through the thematic structures of the quest narrative the chapter uses academic studies to analyze the fan tourist experience. The chapter draws from Lincoln Geraghty’s work on fan geographies in The Smallville Chronicles: Critical Essays on the Television Series (2011), which incorporates Foucault’s concept of heterotopia to understand the relationship between real sites and their fictional counterparts. Geraghty’s chapter provides a useful method to analyze the conflicting mythical and historic realities within my case studies. To help frame primary data taken from the immersive fan experiences I visited, the chapter draws from Will Brooker’s chapter in the edited book The Blade Runner Experience: The Legacy of a Science Fiction Classic (2005) and Matt Hills’s book Fan Cultures (2002). These sources feature studies of fan tourist sites that provide a useful framework for this chapter. Immersion enables fans to build their own vestiges of the Templars, which demonstrates how the Templar narrative has been emended and evolved within popular culture. The final section of the chapter explores how the acts of play and performance further enhance the fan tourist experience. For this section, the chapter draws from Lancaster’s book Interacting with Babylon 5 (2001), also using Stijn Reijnder’s article, “On the trail of 007: media pilgrimages into the world of James Bond” (2010) to ascertain how the more immersive qualities of play and performance impact the evolution of the Templar urtext.

The concept of participation with text narrative was explored in Chapter 2, and the importance of analyzing the quest narrative from this perspective is evident through Gray’s dialogues on fans interacting with a text narrative in three ways: telling, showing and participation (2010, p. 192). This chapter analyzes how fans can participate with the Templar texts by visiting the space or location of their fandoms. This visit is done symbolically as these sites are signs for the historical past and also literally as the fan travels to a historic geographic site. The ­real-world sites associated with the Templars are historical sites and provide a crossover experience for fan tourists with heritage tourism. These spaces provide tourists with physicality to the Templar myth, where the heritage sites stand as a shared space, where the historical and mythological coexist. Templar fan tourism is uniquely tied to heritage sites like Rosslyn Chapel and Independence Hall, as these are depicted as key sites in the fictional media as sites to unlock the mysteries of the Order of the Knights Templar. This setting is not to be confused with historical film’s heritage relationship because the second aspect of the Templar quest narrative is set in modern day, but due to the follow in the Templars’ footsteps narrative it also echoes the past. The relationship between fan tourism and heritage tourism and the tension created by the coexisting spaces is paramount to exploring Templar fan tourism, as the iconic historic buildings provide the protagonist with a symbolic and physical journey to the past.

Fan Pilgrimage

When examining fan tourism, the practice can be quantified as a fan pilgrimage; however, for this ­Templar-themed study, such language is problematic. This concept of religious travel would universally have been associated with pilgrimages to Jerusalem or the Islamic Pilgrimage to Mecca; however, this religious experience has become associated with fandom and enthusiasm for articles of popular culture. For example, despite being a popular film and heritage tourist site, Rosslyn Chapel has initially been and still is a place of Christian worship, which naturally incorporates notions of the religious pilgrimage. However, the fan tourism journey taken by fans to visit a site of textual significance can be articulated in terms of a fan pilgrimage. This type of fan activity, Reijnders explains, citing Couldry, “should be defined as ‘media pilgrimages,’ which are comparable to traditional, religious pilgrimages” (2010, p. 370). Urry and Larson highlight the similarity between the tourist and the pilgrim, noting, “Like the pilgrim, the tourist moves from a familiar place to a far place and then returns to the familiar place. At the far place both the pilgrim and the tourist ‘worship’ shrines which are sacred, albeit in different ways, and as a result gain some kind of uplifting experience” (2011, p. 12).

Despite the similarities Urry and Larson allude to above, for academic fan studies this comparison of the activity as a pilgrimage is quite problematic. Duffett explains, “Much of the discussion of fan tourism is framed by the metaphor of ‘pilgrimage,’ a term that relates fandom to both religiosity but also attempts to capture the emotional value of visiting places of magical interest” (2013, p. 227). The associated religiosity encompassing the term pilgrimage can be misleading of the interests of the ­Templar-themed tourist seeking to experience a closeness to an item of popular culture. Although not the focus of this book, the Knights Templar have been subsumed into New Age Christian religious groups who would associate such ventures to significant sites as an act of worship. Although the term is used in academia to symbolize fan tourism and implies religious associations, Hills perceives “Fandom both is and is not like religion, existing between ‘cult’ and ‘culture.’ ‘Cult’ discourses are thus not entirely hollow and empty, but neither do these discourses quite ‘fit’ fan cultures” (2002, p. 118). There is a contradiction in using the term pilgrimage, as parallels with fan tourism are there, but this book is examining the Templars as a subject of popular culture and not as a religious practice. Although focused on popular culture, the Christian Templar connotations are unavoidable as the medieval order was an organization of devout Christian monks, and many of the sites of Templar interest are firstly Christian holy places.

However, if the religious connotations are removed from the term pilgrimage, as Reijnders does when he cites from “Victor and Edith Turner’s classic statement that a pilgrimage is more than just a physical journey: it is also a symbolic journey towards certain central values of society,” (2010, p. 370) then it is justified in relation to fandom. This justification for using the term pilgrimage is mirrored in Duffet’s evaluation of the relationship between the language of religion and fandom, writing, “spiritual metaphors are more useful as they capture the emotional transcendence of fan experience. Fans often refer to a live rock show as a religious or spiritual experience. They report being filled with the spirit or feeling a sense of closeness to their star” (2013, p. 144). It is in keeping with Duffet’s notion of a spiritual experience that the fan travels to the location of the chosen text to participate, and the quest to follow in the footsteps of Templars can be arguably termed a pilgrimage in that the fans seek an emotional or spiritual closeness to the text. However, this chapter will be addressing the practice in terms of cultural tourism, which Urry and Larson explain is linked with the cultural shift to a postmodernist view where “there is a breakdown in the distinctiveness of each of these spheres of activities, especially the cultural. Each implodes into the other, and most involve visual spectacle and play” (2011, p. 98). This idea of a lack of distinctiveness between spheres of activity encapsulates the difficulty in defining the Knights Templar as a singular uncontradictory entity, as what coincides with the historical Templar does not conform to the perceptions of the Order published in Templar myth. The mythical Templar has further separated into various archetypes and roles within literature and film; thus, the ­real-world locations have absorbed this new Templar cultural identity into itself. For Urry and Larson, in this postmodern culture, tourism and media are intrinsically linked as “the tourist gaze and media gaze highly overlap and reinforce each other, whether people travel corporeally or simply imaginatively through the incredible range of global images that make up everyday media cultures” (2011, p. 116).

Given the notion of the fluidity of defining aspects of current culture, and although media tourism does demonstrate general similarities to a religious pilgrimage, seeing fandom as wholly religious is undermined by postmodernist views on the difficulty of viewing culture as separately distinguishable. Although the term pilgrimage is incorporated into the study, this chapter is exploring the tourist experience from the perspective of cultural practice of fan tourism: how the fans of ­Templar-themed texts desire for authenticity to the Templar myth brings them to ­real-world locations, locations that have had their cultural significance adapted by the association of the thematic Templar narrative. This chapter articulates the practice in terms of fan tourism, as the focus of the project is to argue for the existence of a reoccurring Templar narrative within popular culture. This chapter focuses on the appropriation of the historical order into consumable products and how the Templars’ place in popular culture evolves through consumers’ interaction.

Fan Tourism and Heritage Tourism

When studying fan tourism, it is not the buildings themselves that are the subject of this chapter but the fan experience offered through participating in the location. This chapter examines participation with the Templar narrative and how the Templar quest narrative enables a more intimate fan relationship with the Templar texts. Sandvoss explains the significance of studying these spaces, proposing that these geographical sites are more than physical locations because they “are socially constructed through symbols, discourse and representations. In this sense places, and in particular places of pleasure and affect, are always texts” (2014, p. 115). The significance of studying featured locations for the Templar quest narrative is that fans can follow in the footsteps of the Templars themselves, offering an essence of venturing into the mythical Templar past in search of knowledge of the film and like the narrative’s protagonist discover a Templar revelation for themselves. These fan excursions are classed as fan tourism, a type of tourism where closeness to the original text is sought out by enthusiasts. Simon Hudson and J.R. Brent Ritchie writing for the Journal of Travel Research define film tourism as “tourist visits to a destination or attraction as a result of the destination being featured on television, video, or in the cinema screen” (2006, p. 387). Fan tourism enables a different level of fan experience, the notion of physical immersion within a geographical location associated with their favorite texts. These can be locations where films or television shows are shot, such as Cloverdale, which “advertises on their website that Cloverdale is the ‘Home of Smallville’—a statement backed up by the road sign that welcomes drivers as they pass through” (Geraghty, 2011, p. 129), or as Duffett highlights, they can be “simply spaces themed as places that represented particular stars or narrative” (2013, p. 226). Both of these types of fan tourism are available for Harry Potter fans, who can visit the themed Harry Potter Universal Theme Parks in Florida and California, London filming locations or the Warner Brothers Studio Tour. Although different types of Harry Potter fan spaces, all three enable the fan to experience the Harry Potter narrative for themselves. On Universal Orlando’s website, it markets its themed land with the following words:

Step inside a world where magic is real. Within Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park you can visit the iconic Hogwarts castle and explore Hogsmeade village. And, at Universal Studios Florida theme park, you can enter Diagon Alley to enjoy a thrilling ride, magical experiences and more. Get ready to explore more of Harry Potter’s world than ever before.

Universal theme parks offer fans a deeper level of interaction with their fandom, offering the chance to step inside the fictional world of Harry Potter. This notion of entering the world is mirrored by the website for Free Tours by Foot, which states that tour participants can “join us as we dive into the magical world of Harry Potter!” Aside from recreating the fictional world in a theme park, Harry Potter fans wishing to experience a closeness to a fan text by visiting the filming locations are also catered for, demonstrating the popularity of fan geographical sites and how they are marketed as a more intimate experience for fans.

A similar experience can be found by fans of the Templar texts, which can recreate the protagonists’ journey into the past via a geographical site of historical significance. The historical location provides a symbolic link such as Robert Langdon’s traveling to Rosslyn Chapel to discover a hidden account of history, making the journey to historical sites fundamental to the theme of visiting the sensational Templar past. The Templar quest narrative facilitates an opportunity for fans to interact with the text and mimic the protagonist in physically visiting the past; therefore, the fan has the impression of being able to journey to the past in the same way as Robert Langdon at Rosslyn Chapel or Benjamin Gates at Independence Hall. The significance of the Templar quest narrative’s feature of historical sites as destinations is not unlike the recreated sites, such as Diagon Alley at Universal Studies, only that the Templar text fan crosses over with heritage tourism, giving geographical locations subjective meaning for tourists. Fans travel to these ­real-world locations to become closer to the world of the text, making the fantastical seem more real. For the Templar fan, these sites give a sense of legitimacy to the Templar conspiracy theme featured in the fictional story, with the Templar myth seeming more real in the context of an actual ­Templar-associated historical site.

The Templar texts are not unique in the overlapping of fan tourism and heritage tourism, as Martin Jones explains, “Film tourism can thus be understood to be a facet of heritage tourism, as the nation is promoted internationally to identified target markets” (2014, p. 157). This overlapping of fan tourism provides substantial benefits for heritage tourism and can boost countries’ economies. Martin Jones highlights the impact of film tourism in Britain; he writes, “The Economic Impact of the UK Film Industry dedicates around 10% of the report to film tourism, noting that an estimated £1.8 billion of visitor spend might be due to UK films alone” (2014, p. 160). While Martin Jones asserts that Scotland has long had prominent levels of heritage tourism, he argues that film tourism can significantly increase it. He cites from the Hydra Report to show the impact that the film Braveheart had on Scottish heritage tourism. He argues: “The Wallace Monument, for example, saw a rise in visitors in 1995 of over 50% on the previous year, and of the visitors surveyed overall, 49% had seen Braveheart (a higher figure than would be expected of the general population)” (2014, p. 162). Although the majority of Braveheart was filmed in Ireland instead of Scotland, the film’s popularity created an increase in tourism for the Wallace Monument, suggesting a desire of Braveheart enthusiasts to get closer to the film’s protagonist. The Scottish heritage site still caters to Braveheart enthusiasts via the gift shop, where visitors can purchase William Wallace–like teddy bears, complete with blue face, a kilt and a claymore, the historically inaccurate look designed for Mel Gibson’s portrayal of the Scottish hero.

Sweden attempted to promote heritage tourism using the popularity of the Arn: The Knight Templar film series by promoting medieval historical sites featured in the novel and film. Hedling cites from Helltén to highlight the Swedish tourism marketing around Arn. He writes:

In the 2008 tourist brochure for the western Gothian cites of Skövde, Skara and Falköping, much space is devoted to Arn tourism. Regarding Skara, for instance, the text in English reads: “Skara is a medieval town with monasteries, churches and even film history—through the tale of Arn” [2008, p. 66].

Martin Jones argues that for Scotland, film tourism is “the latest in a long line of shop windows for the nation” (2014, p. 164), which corresponds with Sweden’s summer tourism marketing following the popularity of Arn: The Knight Templar.

Although the example above evokes a reactive approach to film tourism, Hudson and Ritchie explain, “Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) can engage in a variety of marketing activities both before and after the release of a film … but some are becoming active in encouraging producers to make films in their region to benefit from ­long-term tourism impacts” (2006, p. 389). Hudson and Ritchie use the collaboration between New Zealand and The Lord of the Rings production to highlight the planned tourism boost, writing, “During the filming of The Lord of The Rings, for example, media clippings mentioned that film was being shot in New Zealand, providing important early linkage between the film and the location” (2006, p. 391). Moreover, after nearly two decades since The Fellowship of The Ring (Jackson, 2001) was released, Hobbiton remains a popular tourist attraction. This example of collaboration between production and heritage tourism is seen by Scottish heritage and has used ­high-profile films such as Braveheart and The Da Vinci Code to promote tourism. This link between film tourism and heritage tourism by the collaboration of the Scottish Tourist Board and ­Twentieth-Century Fox aims “to market Stirling as ‘Braveheart Country’” (Martin Jones, 2014, p. 166). Martin Jones draws particular attention to marketing around the release of the film, which “included bringing the premiere of the film to Stirling which, along with various competitions and a cinema commercial, was estimated to have achieved a return on an overall investment of around £254,000 worth £480,000 in hotel bookings alone” (2014, p. 166). Due to the romantic historical associations Scotland has with William Wallace, Braveheart shows that geographical space can have multiple associations, one with the fictional Wallace played by Mel Gibson and with the historical Scottish soldier who led the Scots to victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.

To address the shared experience found within a single location, this chapter draws upon Foucault’s concept of heterotopia. Foucault explains that heterotopia is:

a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real sites, all the other real sites that can be found within the culture, are simultaneously represented, contested, and inverted. Places of this kind are outside of all places, even though it may be possible to indicate their location in reality [1986, p. 24].

Geraghty introduces Foucault’s work of heterotopia to define the ring fence of Smallville fan tourism within Vancouver (2011, p. 146), where the streets represent both the mundane geographical reality and the associated reality of the television show. Foucault’s concept of heterotopia provides an approach to addressing how one site can contain several different associational perspectives because “The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible” (1986, p. 25). For example, the Wallace Monument provides an example as the space represents both the Mel Gibson cinematic version and historical reality as standing atop the ­Victorian-built tower enables visitors to view the actual battle site (a bridge) and recall the battle’s location depicted in the film (a field). For the ­Templar-associated heritage site, Foucault’s concept of singular spaces representing alternative culture can be attributed to fictional relevance and the historical significance of the heritage sites of Independence Hall and Old Pine Church Graveyard (a burial site for heroes of the War of Independence) in Philadelphia and the Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland. These sites are substantial to historical memory but also juxtapositioned as spaces of popular culture manifestation.

The dual relationship of these heritage sites coincides with Brooker’s notion, “most geographical sites of media fandom are multiply coded; their fan significance is just one aspect of their identity” (2007, p. 430). Brooker explains that ­real-world mundane places can carry alternatively coded connotations from the perspective of fandom, and he uses Blade Runner film tourism in Los Angles as an example. For the experience of the Blade Runner fan tourist, Brooker found that it:

“involves working with two maps, a real plan of LA and an understanding of the alternative, fantastical, impossible geography of Ridley Scott’s diegesis. The two cannot be reconciled: most glaringly, the police HQ and Deckard’s apartment are skyscrapers, whereas Union Station and the ­Ennis-Brown House are ­one-storey buildings” [2007, p. 430].

Given the popularity of a fan coded site, a once mundane site has its multiply coded location corporately advertised, such as the photo point at London’s King’s Cross station, which for Harry Potter fans is the entrance to platform 9¾. Warner Brothers advertises the mundane location as The Harry Potter Shop at Platform 9¾ and invites fans to “visit the famous trolley” via the website www.harrypotterplatform934.com, which also features photos of the cast members posing at the supposed entrance to platform 9¾, although the site was once mundane, more akin to Brooker’s example of LA, as the railway station shared space was marked only by half a trolley fixed to the wall to simulate the entrance to the platform. This is a space that fans would search for and would appear mundane to anyone without the perspective of the Harry Potter fan tourist.

Even though the majority of films no longer generate the same level of tourist marketing once the initial buzz has settled, the site’s cultural reality remains intact when gazing from that perspective, as with tourist sites associated with Arn: The Knight Templar, which now a decade on from Arn’s release are not widely published and the interactive promotional website www.arnmovie.com that Hedling cites is no longer active. However, In Arn’s Footsteps, an illustrated ­15-page brochure is available online that provides the key Arn locations and their significance to the series for a ­self-guided tour of Sweden. This brochure demonstrates the shared geographical space occupied by various Swedish historical sites, illustrating their role in Swedish history alongside the location’s association with the Arn: The Knight Templar series. The brochure includes images and information about the novels and a short biography of the titular character Arn Magnusson and includes quotes from the book to illustrate the geographical site’s relationship with the Arn series. The shared space of the heterotopia is made apparent with a carving at the Forshem Church, originally constructed in the 12th century. The brochure explains that another of the carvings (not featured in the photo) “is of the lord of the Aranäs castle, the one known as Arn Magnusson in the novel” (Praesto & Sjölin, n.d., p. 7). In reality though, the carving is of a historical figure, not the protagonist invented by Jan Guillou, but for fans of the series that carving connotatively represents Arn Magnusson—the heroic Templar knight. The brochure features how the carving is described in the Arn novel The Kingdom at the End of the Road (2000), describing:

At the early Christmas service down at the Forshem church a confident and proud Arn has shown what he had commissioned, even pointing to his own figure in stone above the church portal as the one giving the church keys to the Lord. And above him was the cross of the Knights Templar [Praesto & Sjölin, n.d., p. 7].

For the carving described in the novel and mentioned in the brochure, there is no photo of Arn’s carving in the brochure but only the carving of the supposed stone master who created the sculptures. The photo of the Arn carving, however, is available online via a ­photo-sharing site such as Flikr, uploaded by Silva_D., who demonstrates his fandom knowledge by proclaiming, “The book written by Guillou was fictional, but when he visited this church he found that it was adorned with carvings that seemed to depict a Knights Templar” (2010). The image of the carving matches the description from the novel and implies that there is substance in the fan’s assertion about Guillou’s inspiration. The Arn carving provides a clear example of the concept of heterotopia as the location exists as two realities in one space, the historic site and the site of the novel; fans can see a piece of history that represents the fictional character as well as the historical lords of Aranäs Castle. The production of the Arn tourism brochure shows how heritage and film tourism can be interlinked, with the separate sites existing in the same location, as can the image of the Lord of the castle and the Templar protagonist, Arn. The association of Arn with this heritage site demonstrates how participation with the Templar narrative further expands the Templar phenomenon within popular culture, as the tourist’s experience at the site further correlates the fictional Templar archetype with medieval Sweden.

The Rosslyn Chapel can also be considered a heterotopic space due to the chapel’s historical and cultural contexts. The Rosslyn Chapel brochure states, “Explore the mystery—Discover the History,” and this marketing slogan demonstrates the existence of several different realities contained in one space. The chapel, first constructed in 1446 by Sir William St Clair, stands as a physical remnant of historical reality, while also the site contains conspiracy themes by identifying the chapel with Templar and Masonic connotations. The Rosslyn Chapel also blurs the line between heritage tourism and film tourism as the chapel trust promotes its association with The Da Vinci Code, even including on a timeline the chapel and the book’s publication date. This use of cultural associations would coincide with Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger’s concept of invented tradition. Hobsbawm explains that the concept involves “a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition” (2012, p. 1). Most significantly for this case study is Hobsbawm’s assertion of an attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past (2012, p. 1). Rosslyn’s Templar association created a symbolic Templar reality that encourages practices such as fan tourism to the benefit of the Chapel Heritage Trust. This alternative reality draws comparisons to the invented traditions of freemasonry, which Hobsbawm uses as an example of “innovators generating their own invented traditions” (2012, p. 8).

The Chapel Heritage Trust promotes the ­quasi-historical theory due to the significant benefit that Brown’s ­best-selling novel brought to the historical site. Olsberg demonstrates the rise in visitors, stating, “In the Wake of Brown’s novel the number of tourists to the destination had all but doubled each year, from 38,000 in 2003 to 68,000 in 2004 to 120,000 in 2005” (Martin Jones, 2014, p. 167). The impact of Dan Brown’s fiction was celebrated by a Rosslyn Chapel tour guide who told her audience that visitors went from 36,000 to 176,000 a year after The Da Vinci Code was released, making a point to thank Dan Brown for increasing visitors and income to the trust. This is a relationship the Rosslyn trust also promotes by selling copies of The Da Vinci Code in the gift shop along with the novel’s supposed inspiration, the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

Fans visiting the chapel find themselves in The Da Vinci Code reality, the location where Robert Langdon found the location of the tomb of Mary Magdalene but also a location showcasing the artistry of the medieval period. These two realities coexist within the same geographical location; as the marketing tagline “Explore the Mystery—Discover the History” suggests, a building encapsulating the historic stonework is given more considerable significance by the connotative meaning. This ­two-part tagline separates the historical actuality from the conspiracy narrative. It further coincides with the concept of shared spaces with two overarching accounts of the site, one of which The Da Vinci Code fans seek to substantiate their perception of the truth behind the Templar myth. The most substantial point of the chapel where the two realities coexist would be the crypt, in the scene where Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu descend to find the secret passage. Down in the crypt are two information signs explaining the significance of the space; one details the room’s use as a workshop for the chapel’s construction, while the other informs of the room’s place within The Da Vinci Code novel and film. These separate realities are associations that the Heritage Trust is keen to promote as Brown’s work has given a significant rise to interest in the site, a location that (according to Martin Jones) was promoted in marketing for The Da Vinci Code film as a result of VisitScotland joining “a business partnership with Sony Pictures entertainment to market the locations” (2014, p. 157), and like the dual tagline suggests, the Rosslyn Chapel still markets itself thematically with The Da Vinci Code alongside its Scottish heritage.

The tagline expresses that the site has coexisting realities: the separate conspiracy narrative has drawn the tourists to the space, and the shared space will expose them to the ­historical-cultural significance of the site. This may cause tensions between the contrasting realities in that the facts do not support the assertions of the Templar narrative of the quest. This tension between the myth and the reality is addressed by Laing and Frost’s study of King Arthur and Robin Hood tourism, where they highlight that the “English heritage’s brochures of Tintagel make overt reference to King Arthur” and a video focused on discrediting the associated myth, which, they state, “disappointed many of the visitors” (2018, p. 102). They also explain that a similarly disappointing experience was found at the tourist attraction The Tales of Robin Hood in 1989, whose “interpretation at that time firmly explained Robin never existed and that popular media repetitions were rubbish” (2018, p. 104). However, Laing and Frost cite Shackley (2001) to inform that the attraction changed focus “with the release of the Kevin Costner film” in 1991 (2018, p. 104). The tension between the coexisting spaces at Rosslyn Chapel is demonstrated by the lively exchange on the Rosslyn Chapel official Facebook page. The page usually informs of upcoming events at the chapel or updates on the chapel’s conservation, such as the post on August 5, 2018, “The stained glass window in the crypt looks wonderful after being cleaned earlier,” with an accompanying photo of the window. The page, however, demonstrated the tension between the shared site realities when posting a message: “Today there are many theories about what could be below, an alien space ship, the Templar treasure, the Holy Grail itself or listening to our guides all the socks that go in the washing machine and don’t come out” (January 5, 2018). This ­tongue-in-cheek post ended with posing the question to the page’s followers, “But are the vaults even there and what could they hold?” (January 5, 2018), which started an ardent exchange among the page’s followers. The first comment was by Facebook user 1, who asks the question, “Has any legitimate work ever been done to see if they [sic] are indeed vaults there?” The page’s admin replies, “Yes, a vault exists but it is sealed. It’s the burial place of the Rosslyn Barons and as sepulchre, will not be disturbed.” Facebook user 1 responds with the suspicious Fry (character from Futurama) meme, which suggests that Facebook user 1 did not agree with the actuality of the page’s response as it diverges from the conspiracy narrative and suggesting its falsehood from a position of authority.

Further examples of tension between the shared space are shown by Facebook user 2, who is quick to rubbish the chapel’s Templar associations writing, “The entire Templar crap is getting old with Roslyn [sic] stories!” Another user, Facebook user 3, suggests that all the posters are wrong and posts, “The Holy Grail, the cup of Christ is in Europe, in a glass vault underground only special people can see it.” Dan Brown’s novel is introduced into the debate by Facebook user 4, who posts, “The Grail isnt [sic] a cup … didn’t [sic] you read?” The posts on this thread demonstrate the tensions between the perceptions of the sites’ associated realities, notably when the historical findings do not support the Templar conspiracy myth.

The tourist’s perception of the site gained from literature or filmic depiction can also cause tension if the reality deviates from a preconceived understanding of the site. The tension between the fictional depiction and reality is addressed by Frost, who explains, “historic films have the potential to strongly imprint a particular historical interpretation upon the minds of potential visitors” (2006, p. 249). Frost alludes that this perception “may create tensions, if that interpretation differs markedly from those provided by the existing attraction and tour operators” (2006, p. 249). This tension is demonstrated in a review of Rosslyn Chapel on Tripadvisor, where they exclaimed their disappointment at discovering that the Templars’ historical reality did not align with their perception. In this review, the Rosslyn Chapel visitor explained how the tour guide did not discuss Templar or Masonic signs and posted, “he told me that the Templars had disappeared before the chapel is built and that therefore the hypothesis was not true” (Agunsuni, 2016). The tension created by the contrast of reality and expectation is further demonstrated by the reviewer’s suggestion that the chapel “stop selling Templar books in your gift shop and Templar pendants or gifts with Masonic signs” and that “neither should you refer to the book of Robert Langdon” (Agunsuni, 2016). Further tension for Templar fans visiting the heterotopic sites can be experienced by a dismissal of the site’s association with the fictional reality, which is demonstrated by a tour guide who, when conversing with me on the Philadelphia walking tour that I attended to research participation with the Templar narrative, did not want to include the National Treasure sites on the tour as the film promotes myth instead of history.

One of the National Treasure sites that the tour guide diverged from is the Old Pine Church, and this multiply coded site is a graveyard that, according to the signpost, provides “a ­self-guided tour of Old Pine’s historic graveyard.” The sign states that visitors can “Walk now in the footsteps that of people who held the nation together during its formative years in the 18th & 19th centuries.” This historic graveyard features the resting places of notable Americans of the War of Independence, such as the grave of William Hurry 1721–1781, as the gravestone states, “who rang the bell proclaiming the declaration of independence.” This heritage site is also the location where Nicolas Cage is chased through a graveyard in National Treasure, which is attested to by a small sign at the spot he enters the graveyard. This heterotopic site demonstrates the tension created by one space containing two realities, the historical heritage site and the filming location for the text associated with the Templar conspiracy myth.

The difference between the expectation of the ­fan-associated site with the reality of its actual location provides another aspect for the tension between the realities of the shared space. This was a criticism levied at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Madden, 2011), a film that created an idealized depiction that Kork writes is “pleasing to watch and increasing the tourist demand for India, [the film] was criticised for ‘­sugar-coating’ the destination and inaccurately portraying certain social elements of it” (2018, p. 75). This example of the difference in the social elements of reality compared to the idealized perception can also create tension between the coexisting spaces. A tension that would be experienced by the National Treasure fan visiting Philadelphia, a city depicted in the film as an optimistic link to America’s Founding Fathers, is, in reality, “ranked the poorest metropolitan area of the country’s biggest cities” (Lozano, NBC, Sep 26, 2018). This difference between expectation and reality is an aspect of the tourist’s relationship with the local population; as Urry and Larsen explain, “there are usually large inequalities between the visitors and the indigenous population, most of whom could not envisage having the income or time to be tourists themselves” (2011, p. 62). This creates further tension for the fan tourist, as the reality of the site differs from the fictional perspective they had before visiting the ­real-world location, an experience shared by a Da Vinci Code reader who explained in his Tripadvisor review that after reading The Da Vinci Code, he “believed that there was something mysterious about the chapel, but it was only when I visited, that I realised that there is nothing mysterious” (David P, 2015). Despite the difference between reality and fiction, the Templar tourist will also discover tension between the coexisting realities within the multiply coded space, the contrasts between both the historical reality and Templar conspiracy narrative.

The Templar quest narrative revolves around the journey into the world of the sensational to find an item of significance. This narrative has evolved to create the second aspect of the narrative, following in the Templars’ footsteps, which reworks the mythical aspects of the narrative, such as the quest of the Holy Grail, most notably the cup of Christ, which essentially makes the Templar past the sensational world; the protagonist must venture to discover the Templar revelation, which has a benefit for Western society. It is this narrative function of the Templars’ past that then intrinsically links Templar fan tourism with heritage tourism. The quest narrative of following in the Templars’ footsteps incorporates iconic historical sites which give this journey into the past a physical presence as well as a symbolic presence. Gaining greater knowledge of the Templar myth by visiting the fan site symbolizes the Templar revelation of the narrative, as fans seek the greater truth behind the Templar myth. The myth is attributed as a perceived credibility through the associations of heritage sites such as Rosslyn Chapel.

Templar fan tourism for texts that include the quest narrative will merge into sites that possess a heterotopia of realities within one geographical location, as in the Rosslyn Chapel. This shows the potential for one site to have a separate meaning for fans of The Da Vinci Code. For fan tourists of these ­Templar-themed texts, the sites will be linked to heritage tourism through the thematic aspect of the following in the Templars’ footsteps quest narrative, although these mythical Templar associations create contrasting realities and tension between perceptions of these multiply coded sites. However, the emergence of tensions through fan tourism is not unique to the Templar myth’s link to heritage sites, as Williams explains that there is tension for all sites. Williams states, “This tension between commercialization and the lived experiences and practises of fans sit alongside other debates around the ‘authenticity’ of experiences, how fans can engage in certain practices at meaningful sites” (2018, pp. 104–105). The coexisting realities of the real and the fictional will always cause tensions, such as The Da Vinci Code reader David P’s disappointment when visiting the ­real-world Rosslyn Chapel. However, the inevitable tensions with the heritage sites are due to the clash of historical and mythical perceptions. Fans of these ­Templar-themed texts will encounter these while investigating the site and feeling closer to the perceived truth behind the Templar myth, just like the protagonists in the Templar quest narrative.

Immersion Through Tourism

Chapter 2 explored how fans immerse themselves into the story world through play and performance by controlling and interacting with the Templar knight narrative and how game producers influence those experiences by incorporating established aspects of the Templar knight narrative to facilitate this immersion. While Chapter 2 explored fan immersion in a digital sense, with computer games and fan film, this chapter argues that fan tourism enables a physically immersive experience that facilitates fan interaction with the Templar narrative. Fan tourism is more than just visiting filming locations in person; it allows fans to immerse themselves within the narrative in a kinetic and symbolic way. The importance of symbolic immersion is highlighted by Reijnders, who explains, “media pilgrimages are not only a physical journey to a location that is important in the context of a particular media story, but also represent a symbolic journey, during which the distance between the ‘ordinary world’ and the ‘media world’ is collapsed” (2010, p. 370). This notion of the fusion of the physical and symbolic is explored by Hills, where he explains, “Through visiting cult geographies, the cult fan is able to extend an engagement with a text or icon by extratextually ‘inhabiting the world,’ in a restricted or imaginary sense, of the media cult” (2002, p. 145). This participation is both physical and symbolic in that fans travel to real locations that have symbolic meaning to them but appear mundane to those uninitiated to the ­Templar-themed text.

Brooker explores the concept of the closeness fans feel to shooting locations, explaining, “On our journey to ‘the promised land,’ where we lose ourselves and become immersed in the favoured text or site, we are in a stage of inbetweenness” (2005, p. 12). Using a still image of the film text to compare to a ­real-world geographical location is a common way for fans to experience an immersion with the text, a practice carried out by tour guides at the Old Pine Church. A tour company manager described in an email that the tour guide displays a still from the chase scene in National Treasure at the spot where the scene was filmed. Showcasing the closeness of the ­real-world location to the fictional world through the fan tourist practice of comparing a still from the film to the real location enables a deeper connection to the world of fandom, but unfortunately for fans, the reality is still outside the fictional world. To address the attempt to experience the cultural perception of the space, Brooker turns to Turner’s concept of “the liminal, from the Latin ‘limen’ or threshold” (2005, p. 12) to address the limitations of fans’ closeness to the fictional world of Blade Runner.

Turner defines liminal, writing, “The passage from one social status to another is often accompanied by a parallel passage in space, a geographical movement from one place to another” (1974, p. 58). This concept is addressed by Brooker to examine the notion of the state of inbetweenness. The liminal, according to Turner, “may take the form of a mere opening of doors or the literal crossing of a threshold which separates two distinct areas, one associated with the subject’s ­pre-ritual or preliminal status, and the other with his ­post-ritual or postliminal status” (1974, p. 58). The notion of a threshold between two realities encompasses the duplicity of the realities within the space of the ­Templar-associated heritage sites. The notion of the threshold to the fictional world is also addressed by Reijnders, who cites Turner and Turner to explain this concept in the context of fan tourists touching the fictional world, writing, “this quest is part and parcel of all media pilgrimages. In the words of Turner and Turner, every pilgrim goes through a ‘­pre-liminal phase’ in which he/she steps out of his/her everyday life and gains access to holy or magical locations” (2010, pp. 371–372). This comparison of the fan objective to access fantastical locations draws a comparison with the Templar quest narrative of the journey to the Templar mythical past from the story’s ­modern-day setting. Reijnders highlights the fan’s quest to access the fictional world, in one case through the location of a door on Westminster Bridge, which is used in the James Bond film Die Another Day (Tamahori, 2002) as a secret entrance to MI6 headquarters. Reijnders evidences this through an interview with a fan, underlining, “The fact that the door can be seen and touched is enough to justify the journey to Westminster Bridge. As Delmo said in his interview, actually touching this door and taking a picture of it, allowed him to make Bond’s world ‘more realistic’ and tangible” (2010, p. 371). For the uninitiated, the door appears mundane and perhaps hidden in plain sight, but for the James Bond fan it provides a symbolic point of immersion, standing as a literal threshold and a symbolic one.

This experience of closeness for the James Bond fan by viewing the threshold of the fictional world could be shared by the National Treasure fan when visiting Independence Hall. In the film, while hunting down the next treasure clue, Ben Gates and his companions sneak away from a guided tour inside and jump over a roped staircase to ascend into the hall’s tower. Similar to the fan’s relationship with the door on Westminster Bridge, the roped staircase represents the threshold to the reality of National Treasure, as fans can copy the protagonists and take the tour. However, jumping over the rope, like the characters, would not lead to adventure but would get the fan in trouble with the park rangers. The roped staircase, like the bridge door, represents the state of inbetweenness, where the fictional text and real world meet to create an impassable threshold, which for fans, Brooker explains, means “they never reach the peak of intense connection with the ‘promised land’” (2005, p. 13).

This sense of liminal inbetweenness felt by fans is openly promoted by Rosslyn Chapel. This chapter has already explored how the heritage site markets itself as a Da Vinci Code fan tourist site, but this location asserts its appearance in the film by referring to the exact place the actors stood. Specifically, down in the chapel crypt is a sign that shows a film still of Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu entering the crypt: the location of the characters’ entrance is to the right of the sign. This sign provides a focal point where the texts merge with reality and enable the fan to visualize the fictional world, which enables the fan to bridge the gap between reality and fiction. Although the Templar quest narrative promotes fans using their knowledge of the text to complete the quest like the protagonists, in the chapel the fan does not need to rely on fan knowledge as the Rosslyn Chapel enables fans to experience the threshold of the fantasy world. When explaining how fans deal with the visual difference between the real LA location and the futurist LA in Blade Runner, Brooker explains that fans can “bridge the gap between real and fictional through photoshop, ­carefully-angled pictures, graphic effects and editing” (2005, p. 26); this bridging is provided for the visiting Da Vinci Code fans by the Rosslyn Chapel. The sign in the crypt ties in to the Templar quest narrative as it points the reader to the end of the quest, the room that Langdon and Sophie enter to find the secret grail entrance. It states, “This still from the film shows the characters discovering a secret door in the floor of the vestry which leads into an underground chamber. This vault does not exist in the chapel or if it does, it has yet to be found.” This points towards the connected narrative of the film and the geographical location edited together within this signpost. Unfortunately for Da Vinci Code fans, the room off the crypt does not lead to the same one entered by the fictional characters and does not have a secret entrance to the grail. This reality means the fan can no longer follow in the protagonist’s footsteps as the lack of a secret entrance provides a symbolically blocked threshold to the fantasy world.

In his work on The ­X-Files fan tourism, Hills notes that the tourist experience is not officially offered to fans. They must rely on their own research using blogs or forums to discover key locations and then having to resort to comparing the mundane real world to a screenshot of the fan text. As this chapter has identified, the Rosslyn Chapel openly promotes the site’s relationship with The Da Vinci Code, which means it does not coincide with the experience of The ­X-Files fan tourist. However, what is significant is how the fans desire to replicate the series characters by “The ‘tracking down’ of sites, hence replicates the narrative structure of the programme” (2002, p. 114), a character emulation that is sought out and marketed to fans of National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code. The opportunity for fans to emulate the traits of the protagonists is featured within the National Treasure DVD, which encourages fans to solve a puzzle to unlock hidden bonus features, getting clues from the available bonus features. The interactive menu on the DVD encourages the consumers to replicate the actions of Ben Gates but from the comfort of your own home. A physical quest was used for marketing the film around its release with Disney producing tourist maps of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., both significant locations of the film setting. This marketing strategy was explored in an article on the website TripSavvy. The article is titled, “National Treasure: Hollywood Film Sparks ­Real-Life Adventure,” a title which ties into The Washington, D.C. Convention & Tourism Corporation (WCTC) and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation’s (GPTMC) use of the film’s popularity trope to market heritage tourism. The article explains, “Using images and clues from the film, the tour leads visitors on a ­multi-day, ­two-city tour of National Treasure’s key locations. The WCTC and the GPTMC have outlined the tour in a ­10-panel, ­four-color brochure, illustrated with photos from the film, which points visitors to both historic and contemporary stops” (Fischer, 2017, May). These cities’ tourism boards are encouraging fans to play at following in the historic footsteps by participating with the film’s shooting locations. Thus, the organizers of the tour are using the Templar quest narrative of the film to enable participation with the text but also with the geographical location they are seeking to promote. For The Da Vinci Code film, a similar marketing approach was used called The Da Vinci Code Adventure. Martin Jones explains that the campaign “provided an opportunity for winning teams from various countries (including Australia and the USA) to visit locations featured in the film, and to learn about their history by solving clues and completing tasks there” (2014, p. 167). This marketing venture highlights the attractiveness of visiting the geographical locations associated for fans and the desire to boost the immersive experience through carrying out activities that emulate those of the protagonists. The functionality of the quest narrative, as a story tool, is replicated as a viable way to produce fan experiences, as it enables that desired deeper sense of integration through place and participation.

While visiting the fan location enables connection, participation on location provides the possibility of a more profound sense of immersion through recreating the characters’ activities. As mentioned in The Da Vinci Code Adventure, the prize is not only the chance to visit the locations but also mentions activities that are the essence of the protagonist’s behavior. The protagonists of the ­Templar-themed text rely on their knowledge of history/symbolism to solve the puzzles that enable them to continue their quest, which is a feature of fan tourism, as fans rely on their knowledge of the text to give purpose and propulsion for their fandom quest. In competing in The Da Vinci Code Adventure, fans can play at being their favorite characters by taking part in a competition that involves carrying out tasks that simulate the actions of their fandom texts, while to a lesser degree fans visiting the Rosslyn Chapel are encouraged to decipher the meaning behind the chapel’s carvings, such as the carving of “Indian Corn” located in the south aisle. The Rosslyn Chapel website explains that the chapel was built before 1492 and asks, “could these carvings of Indian corn be proof that Scottish knights reached America first?” In examining such symbolism in the chapel’s carvings fans can become a symbologist like Robert Langdon, and like the ­puzzle-solving of The Da Vinci Code Adventure, this interaction enables a deeper sense of immersion.

Rosslyn Chapel promotes itself as a place of mystery, demonstrated by the chapel’s brochure tagline “Explore the Mystery—Discover the History.” However, long before the chapel agreed on a partnership deal with Sony to market the location, the unique chapel has been associated with themes of conspiracy and shadowy groups. Despite the wonder of the chapel’s architecture, there are notions that the Rosslyn Chapel has a deeper significance. In his book of the Templar sites of Britain, Simon Brighton addresses the cultural associations of the chapel’s architecture, explaining, the “symbolism is recorded: a codex for the modern researcher to decipher, trying to get close to the medieval mind of William St Clair and the vision of the Knights Templar” (2006, p. 241). The perceived Templar symbolism is identified for visitors by signs such as the burial stone of William de Sinncler, which explains that the “slabs bears a floriated cross often associated with the Knights Templar” and engraved underneath is “WILLIAM DE SINNCLER KNIGHT TEMPLAR.”

The other key Templar symbol promoted by the site is the Lamb of God, which the Rosslyn Chapel visitor brochure states, “As well as being a reference to Christ, the Lamb of God was a symbol of the Knights Templar, whose aim was to protect pilgrims travelling to the Holy Land during the Crusades.” The brochure is more ambiguous about the meaning, but the information sign for the carving at the site caters more to the Templar mythical narrative with an additional sentence of “Many stories surround the Knights and their quest to find and protect the treasures of the ruined Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.” This line directly conforms to the Templar quest narrative referring to the perceived location of both the physical Holy Grail and its reimagining as the tomb of Mary Magdalene in The Da Vinci Code. This additional sentence offers fans seeking truth to the Templar myth a sense of legitimacy, as this historically false narrative is provided in the context of a historic heritage giving validity to the mythical Templar theme associated with the site. The concept of solving the secret symbolism is further thematically promoted within the chapel; for example, on one of the signs explaining the significance of the carved cubes in the Lady Chapel section, it states, “Each one is carved with individual symbols. Various theories suggest that these represent musical notes or keys to a secret code.” This theme of solving chapel mysteries encourages participation with the site, offering the visitors the illusion of opportunity to uncover secrets of their own.

The thematic marketing of the chapel is further embedded through the information talks carried out by staff; RosslynChapel.com states, “cover some of the Chapel’s history, the family’s story and highlight some of the key carvings.” The Rosslyn information talks by the tour guide ended with the questions, “Will you find the treasures of the Knights Templar? Will you find the Holy Grail?” These talks leave the theme of fantastical mystery as the conclusion of the talk, which is given an added weight of authority by an official member of staff. This is the weight that fictional characters Langdon and Teabing’s academic credentials give to the fantastical conspiracy revelations when educating Neveu (and the reader) in Brown’s work. The chapel’s information talks further blur the line between the coexisting realities, catering for both the interest around the heritage site’s historical context and the mythical Templar associations. This interests The Da Vinci Code fans seeking a greater understanding of the truth behind the Templar myth. This theme of uncovering hidden revelations is further enshrined in the visitor experience by the chance to purchase books such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Sion Revelation (Pickett & Prince, 2006) and Rosslyn and the Grail (2005, Oxbrow & Robertson), ­quasi-historical books that detail the site’s mythical association.

The encouragement for visitors to participate with the site to experience the secrecy theme is celebrated by The Da Vinci Code fans in reviews on Tripadvisor. A Tripadvisor review by 84u2c titled, “Be [sic] your own professor Langdon of the Da Vinci Code!” explains how they “got to play Da Vinci code all on my own. Absolutely fascinating and thoroughly enjoyable for the explorer and code solver in all of us” (March 2017). Another review of Rosslyn Chapel by Grigs27 is titled, “felt like professor Langdon” (August 2014). These reviews demonstrate that the thematic experience the site is promoting is one that The Da Vinci Code fans are not just seeking but identifying with as a unique way of interacting with the narrative made possible through fan tourism to the Rosslyn Chapel. The Templar quest narrative following in the Templars’ footsteps is the protagonist’s physical and metaphorical journey to the past to learn a Templar revelation. The Rosslyn Chapel provides a sense of this experience for fans wishing to engage with the text’s narrative on a kinetic level and encourages fans to become, in effect, active researchers. With the act of visiting the geographical location where the text is set, fans can interact physically by standing where the characters stood and interact symbolically by engaging with the thematic mystery associated with the site, which further embeds their perception of the Templar Phenomenon in popular culture.

Play and Performance

The significance of fan tourism to the Templar narrative is more than using it as an example of fan interaction but how this interaction expands the Templar narrative through Jenkins’ concept of textual poaching. Sandvoss explains that for fan tourism, “Fans are in this sense engaged not so much in textual poaching as in textual roaming” (2005, p. 54), a practice where participating fans create a sense of ownership and potential new narratives. Alderman emphasized this aspect of fan tourism in his arguments around practices of Elvis fans visiting Graceland, which he claims are “authoring.” Duffett cites Alderman to explain that he “has argued that such visitors are not just consumers shuttled round the mansion, but they are also, in effect, participating by ‘authoring’ their own involvement” (2013, p. 231). This premise suggests that fan tourism is an act of authorship and that fans create their own experience through physical interaction. However, this implies an individually unique experience for individual fans, which Duffett argues is problematic as “why so many people desire to experience something so similar and whether they all leave with same experiences” (2013, p. 231).

What enables the perception of a unique fan experience is the physical participation enacted by fans, which Sandvoss examines by drawing from Aden’s concept of purposeful play, which he explains “can be envisioned as a purposeful play in which we symbolically move from the material world to an imaginative world that is in many ways a response to the material” (2005, p. 54). The importance of the interactive nature within fan tourism is explained by Sandvoss, who states that places “are socially constructed through symbols, discourses and representations” (2014, p. 115). The Washington, D.C. Convention & Tourism Corporation (WCTC) and the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) ­mass-produced an identical brochure for fans to market the city around National Treasure’s release. However, in interacting with the world of the text, fans are able to participate with the text and have their own unique National Treasure experience. This suggests that the mass production of brochures does not equate to a mass ritual experience, and therefore, there is an element of Jenkins’ poaching concept in the personalization of the text.

The personalization of the text is a sentiment explored by Brooker, who analyzes Blade Runner fan pilgrimage, writing, “the Blade Runner pilgrimage experience has to be carved out for oneself, ‘poached’ (following Jenkins 1992) from a range of other possible meanings and constructed by the individual through a committed act of investment and imagination” (2005, p. 24). This unique experience will affect the relationship fans have with the text, which Brooker perceives, “The memory of having occupied the space where the film was shot … provides a link between the viewer and the screen text” (2005, p. 27). The fan pilgrimage enables fans to participate with the fantasy location of their chosen text; fans of the Templar film case studies can physically interact with the Templar quest narrative through play, and much like the text’s protagonist, the fans can follow in the footsteps of the Templar. This participation with the quest narrative emulates the protagonist’s new knowledge gained through the Templar revelation feature (see chapter 3) in that the experience of interacting with the geographical relationship gives fans a newer, more intimate relationship with the text. This intimate understanding is the revelation or symbolic grail that fans achieve at the end of their quest, which is an experience only achieved via participating with the text’s geographical location.

The official brochure that enabled convenience for National Treasure fans wanting to explore the film location has since been discontinued, as the film was released well over a decade ago and is no longer used by the cities to market for tourism. National Treasure fans will have to rely on their own research skills and expert knowledge. The emulation of the skills of fictional fan favorites at locations associated with the text can enable fans to feel a more profound sense of closeness with their beloved text, such as throwing a pitch at the Field of Dreams (Robinson, 1989) farm in Iowa. The increase to the immersive experience is explored by Reijnders analyzing James Bond fandom. Reijnders asserts, “This feeling is intensified by performing certain routines at the location. Most of the respondents said that while at the location they assume a Bond pose, with their index fingers representing pistols” (2010, p. 373). Such actions by fans at important locations are mentioned in Hills’ account of ­X-Files fandom, where he cites from Focus (1997) to highlight fan recreation on location of Scully’s kidnap. Hills cites: “To recreate the scene she tied up her young son and placed him in the boot of their rental car and then photographed him there” (2002, p. 149). These fan actions of throwing a baseball, posing as James Bond using your finger as a rudimentary gun, or as I did in Philadelphia, posing beneath the Rocky statue and recreating the Apollo Rocky punch from the end of Rocky III (Stallone, 1982) bear a resemblance to Lancaster’s approach of performance fandom defined in Chapter 2.

Although not as well marketed as the National Treasure tours were around the release, fans can take part in more general Philadelphia tours, which cater a small portion of the tour to filming locations including National Treasure. For example, the city of Philadelphia actively promotes its setting in fictional films as soon as tourists depart the plane, where movie posters of films including Rocky (Avildsen, 1976), The Village (Shyamalan, 2004) and National Treasure line the walls as you travel along the airport’s travelator. Tours that still cater to National Treasure fan interest include the walking tour, Real Philadelphia Tour (Insider’s Guide to Philly), which makes the Old Pine Church and setting of a chase from National Treasure part of its ­four-hour tour. Once on location, the tour guide would show a still of the chase scene in the film to show the location’s role to the tour group. The use of a film still on a tour is an approach, as with the film still displayed at the Rosslyn Chapel crypt, which enables the bridging of the gap between worlds such as explained by Brooker’s analysis of Blade Runner tourism.

Fan performance at significant, textual geographical locations enables a deeper sense of immersion, which is not exclusive to fan tourism as the concept of immersion through performance was analyzed alongside fan film depicting the Templar knight narrative in Chapter 2. However, the act of performance and its potential enhancement of immersion demonstrate cohesiveness of performance with fan tourism. Lancaster defines immersion as “the process by which participants break the frame of their actual ‘everyday’ world, allowing them to interact in some way within the fantasy environment” (2001, p. 31). This desire of immersion with the fantasy world is apparent within the desire of the fan to walk where their favorite characters have walked. However, as Brooker has explored in his study of fan pilgrimage, the desired feeling of closeness falls short, which creates the ­in-between liminal state. Fan poses or recreations can help deepen the sense of immersion within the story world through the act of performance. The concept of the active performer attempting to transcend from their reality into the world of the fandom coincides with the immersive desire of fan tourism that ultimately leaves fans on the threshold of the fandom world; they are in a sense stuck between worlds. This idea of fan immersion through performance coincides with the symbolic actions of fans at important locations, such as an The ­X-Files kidnapping scene recreation cited by Hills, which heavily indicates a performance by fans (2002, p. 149). What constitutes a performance can be subjective, but that is not to say that the fan posing as Bond or a National Treasure fan posing at the Old Pine Church gate to represent the film’s chase scene is not a performance. Lancaster’s concept of fandom performance is not purely for theatrical presentations, as Sandvoss explains, “Lancaster’s account is based on the insider perspective that arises from his own regular participation in the viewing of the programme [Babylon 5], ­web-based discussion groups, ­role-playing, card games and ­multi-user domains” (2005, p. 45). Lancaster’s ­wide-ranging bracket for fan activities moves his approach beyond the simplistic theatrical connotations of performance, which suggests that immersive behaviors carried out by fans can be considered performances. Such performances by fans of these Templar texts are demonstrated by a photo of a woman recreating the scene from National Treasure, where Ben Gates and his companions venture over the rope barrier to ascend the tower in search of the next clue. The photo’s caption states, “Just doing my best National Treasure Ben Gates climbing over a restricted rope blocking off a staircase at Independence Hall impression.” To coincide with the recreational pose, the caption of the photo showcases the person’s fandom by informing of the cultural relevance of the site, posting, “‘Excuse me! Will we be going up to the roof today to see where Nicolas Cage discovered Ben Franklin’s ocular device behind the brick?’” (Hall of Independence visitor 1, Facebook, 2015).

The difference between play and performance concerning fan tourism is often not fixed as the terms are used interchangeably, as play and performance both require fixed boundaries to exist, in both a physical sense, such as space or in a symbolic sense as rules to hold the fan practice. Of course, fan tourism also requires a location to be a destination of the text’s dual reality, so the three are intricately linked, which means the boundaries between play and performance often blur and merge. The concept of play within pilgrimage is analyzed through Geraghty’s study of Smallville fan tourism, where he cites Hills to associate “the movement and practices of fans in geographical spaces within notions of ‘affective play’ and social interaction” (2011, p. 137). Hills’ concept of affective play reasons, “it deals with the emotional attachment of the fan,” and “it suggests that play is not always caught up in a ­pre-established ‘boundedness’ or set of cultural boundaries” (2002, p. 112), which Lancaster explains as vital to be defined as fan performance. However, the language of performance is used by Reijnders when examining James Bond fan testimonies around their behavior at Bond film sites. He asserts, “By performing Bond, these fans perform and thereby reconstruct a specific masculinity” (2010, p. 374). Reijnders describes the activities of James Bond fans ranging from posing at sites to renting an Aston Martin to “retrace the route that Bond drove in one of the films or novels” (2010, p. 373). What sets this fan tourism study apart from notions of play is the transformative, psychological experience recorded by Bond fans. Reijnders asserts that Bond locations are “material symbolic sources of masculinity, where the individual’s sexual identity can be rediscovered, delineated and reinforced” (2010, p. 374). These practices described by Bond fans demonstrate the desire of fans to be close to the fictional world but also how performance at these sites enables fans to identify with Bond and the associated character aspects. The relationship of fandom with performance, Sandvoss explains, is more than construction identification with the text: “Places of fandom thus take on a dual meaning. On the one hand, they incorporate tendencies to placelessness for their ­other-directedness with respect to the fan text; on the other hand, they are transformed into the territorial focus of individual and group identities” (2005, p. 66). The concept of the transformative role in fan performance is due to the focus and behavior of the fan, but this is in relation to the text as the location. For example, the James Bond locations in London will appear mundane to those not antiquating the location with the Bond text.

Where the concepts of fan pilgrimage and fan performance merge is that they are focused around created sites. Whether this is the Harry Potter studios, the streets of Los Angeles or the character sheets within a published ­role-playing game, they have been purposefully constructed to create an immersive experience, either as locations for a spectatorship narrative or to participate with through play and performance. Participation with the fantasy world through play was explored in Chapter 2, where players can play with the historical Templar world and interact with an environment that could only be viewed through fictional film. Playful interaction with the associated environment of the text is demonstrated by the video uploaded to YouTube by Tripfilms (11 July 2008) titled, A Da Vinci Code Tour of Paris. In the video, Hillary, the virtual tour guide, dresses in an outfit of a coat, shirt and skirt and hairstyle that matches the character, Sophie Neveu. The Da Vinci Code tour starts in the Louvre where Hillary then playfully interacts with the environment, winking when standing in front of Da Vinci’s painting the Virgin on the Rocks, which The Da Vinci Code fans would know holds a clue to the quest for the Holy Grail.

The video also holds performance aspects as when Hillary walks through the famous heritage site of the church of ­Saint-Sulpice, her ­voice-over dramatically states, “Ok, this place is seriously creepy. It’s huge, it’s dark and there aren’t many people around” (2008), with the camera zooming to a ­close-up of her looking apprehensive. Although other tourists are visible behind her, the video here tries to recreate The Da Vinci Code’s theme of mystery and suspense. Hillary’s performance continues as she emulates the clue spotting and ­puzzle-solving of Dan Brown’s protagonists, as she examines a carving, stating, “check this out. Opus D! Followed by who knows, they’ve scratched it out.” With some ominous background music, Hillary takes the carving of Opus DOM Sacrum out of context and playfully suggests it relates to the Opus Dei order featured as antagonists in Brown’s story. Through this participation, Hillary can immerse herself within the fictional world of The Da Vinci Code, by visiting the geographical sites and interacting with them through acts of play and performance.

Regarding fan pilgrimage, the concepts of play and performance start to blur, as Chapter 2 argued, the act of play creates boundaries that play is facilitated within. However, Lancaster’s notion of performance decrees, “the various sites of the imaginary entertainment environment … can be perceived as sites of performances” (2001, xxviii). Lancaster defines these sites, not in the traditional theatrical sense of a stage or set but as immersive mechanisms such as online forums and ­role-playing games. For example, Lancaster defines the site of performance as the character record sheet of the Babylon 5 ­role-playing game, arguing, “The character record sheet becomes the site, the interface, for transforming this fantasy into reality” (2001, p. 63). This suggests that as fan pilgrimage is the fan’s quest to visit sites of symbolic importance to feel close to the fictional world and then to pose or recreate themes identifying with their fandom, these become sites of performance to enable deeper immersion within the fictional world. However, this comparison is simplistic in its assumptions that ­text-related acts are acts of fandom. Sandvoss argues that Lancaster’s notion of performance is problematic, highlighting, “not all fans engage in performances of ­game-play, and not all performers in ­role-play or fantasy games are fans” (2005, p. 46). This would underline that not all visitors to popular culture sites such as the Harry ­Potter-themed rides in Universal Studios are Harry Potter fans, and therefore defining photo poses as performances is too encompassing. Although the performance made by Hall of Independence visitor 1 and Hillary can be assessed as fans due to the post’s display of knowledge of the text, not all performances of these Templar texts can be attributed as fans, such as the short film National Treasure (­2-minute theater) (May 6, 2015) uploaded by Cara Thompson. Although the short film features the lead actor performing like Ben Gates with his hair styled to match, this video is one of dozens of short filmic recreations the user has uploaded to YouTube. Although the short film is not filmed on location, the film underlines Sandvoss’s notion that labeling all performers as fans is problematic.

Determining whether posing at a fan site is an act of play or performance can only be assessed based on the individual cases, but what is comparable is the pretense of transforming reality through the action. Fortunately, fan tourism does provide evidence of these acts of play and performance due to the importance of capturing images of oneself to prove your journey to the site and showcase your knowledge of the site’s importance. Geraghty explains that proving you have been to the sites is part of creating the fan sense of belonging, and in regard to Smallville fandom, he writes, “Meaning, attachment, and a sense of belonging are created through physically being in the city where a television series is filmed, recreating moments of viewing and sharing the experience with others after the event” (2011, p. 137). Sharing the experience can be seen in a photo uploaded to Facebook by a Da Vinci Code fan, which shows her sitting in front of Arago medallions on the floor of the Louvre in France, which Da Vinci Code fans know indicate the rose line for Robert Langdon to find the grail’s resting place at the Louvre. Sharing these photos not only showcases the uploader’s knowledge of The Da Vinci Code but also demonstrates their attachment to the text. Capturing photos at culturally significant sites is part of creating the unique fan experience and the sense of authoring proposed by Duffet. The uniqueness of the experience is further amplified by the acts of recreation by fans which, once home, they can post online to demonstrate they were there and change their perception when again viewing the text, having visited the location in real life.

The importance of sharing the experience when the fan is back home is demonstrated through Aden’s concept of the return home, which Brooker cites as “leaving the liminal, coming back to normal ­life-ideally, on new ­terms-and gaining a new and enhanced, albeit temporary, perspective on the everyday” (2005, p. 27). This concept of the return home uses the language of a journey and coincides with the classical mythic story structure defined by Joseph Campbell. This is in part inspired by the Arthurian myth, which is the origin of the Templar quest narrative. In effect, the fan Templar quest follows the narrative thread of the mythical quest that it is replicating, and therefore the fans can follow in the Templars’ footsteps via sharing their fan tourism experience. This sharing unconsciously completes recreating the Templar quest upon their return home. The quest’s completion upon the fans’ return is demonstrated by the video National Treasure Philly Walking Tour (March 4, 2018) uploaded to YouTube by Joseph Naylor, where the uploader explains while at the heritage site Independence Hall what scenes of the film were shot there intercut with clips from the National Treasure film. The video explains how they asked the tour guide where the film was filmed and how the tour guide explained to them, “the only parts that were filmed here were when they’re up in the tower. On the roof. When they leave, we didn’t actually let them tear out a brick” (2018). This video allows the National Treasure fan to share his new knowledge online by sharing the video that is intercut with scenes from the film to show the legitimacy of the new knowledge.

To explain the importance of capturing photos on site, Hills cites Sontag, who argues that fans need “to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism” (2002, p. 150). Of course, for holiday photos “the scale of this practise is significantly larger now than ever” (2017, p. 116); according to Linden and Linden, advances in digital photography and use of social media sites like Instagram and Twitter have heightened its significance. Linden and Linden make clear that when examining the role of photographs, there is also an aspect of narcissism in the importance of sharing these images. They suggest that images of oneself and especially the “selfie” photo is more than “The importance of being seen as somebody who is creative and does interesting things can not be completely separated from the need for communicating and sharing experiences with friends and family” (2017, p. 117). However, in the context of fan tourism, these photos share the fan’s experiences and preserve the memory of fan immersion within the fictional world of their favored text and the sharing of these images in part adds to the fan’s sense of ownership of the text.

The keeping of records of fans’ journeys is more than a habit of narcissism but provides fans with a reference point to remember their journey to the threshold of the favorite text. Brooker demonstrates the importance of recording the liminal experience upon the return, as recalling the shared space creates a deeper sense of belonging between fan and text. He explains, “The memory of having occupied the space where the film was shot, of standing in a place that, while grounded in the everyday, was nevertheless the ­parallel-world neighbour of a site Rick Deckard had walked or driven through, provides a link between the viewer and the screen text” (2005, p. 27). This recollection of the closeness felt by the fans standing on the threshold of the story world creates deeper integration when interacting with the text’s narrative. In posting the images of their fandom, fans “are getting closer still to both the text and physical space they once occupied—returning to a place to which they now feel they really belong” (Geraghty, 2011, p. 136). The photo serves as a reminder for when the fan shared the heterotopic space of both geographical and symbolic. In regard to the Templar fan tourist, the photo and video show the point where history and popular culture meet in the same space, such as the photo of Hall of Independence visitor 1 who posed at the rope barrier on the staircase, mimicking Ben Gates.

The significance of immersion through fan action is further supported through examining fan photos from National Treasure and the Da Vinci Code filming locations, which show a repetition of the meaning within the text and similar playful acts of fandom. Searching for The Da Vinci Code on Facebook in the photo category will bring up multiple photo repeats of the same location and ­near-identical photos of poses in front of the bottom of the pyramid in the Louvre. In the film and novel, the Louvre is a significant location as it is the resting place of Mary Magdalene who, according to Brown, is symbolized as the Holy Grail. These photos uploaded to Facebook also include captions which indicate the fans’ acts of play, such as “is the grail really there? #TheDaVinciCode” (Louvre visitor 1, 2016) or “Looking for the Da Vinci Code” (Louvre visitor 2, 2009). A National Treasure fan demonstrates her knowledge of the film with a photo, posing next to the Liberty Bell with the caption, “Liberty Bell #nationaltreasure #where is the next clue” (Liberty Bell visitor 1, 2016, Facebook), which demonstrates knowledge of the site’s significance to the film text but also shows a sense of playful immersion through the photo caption. These photos demonstrate how the malleability of the Templar narrative has blurred real history, Templar conspiracy myth and the film merged together into one geographical location, which coincides with Brooker’s concept of multiply coded places. Although Aden explains the personal significance of the return home to the fan (Brooker, 2005, p. 27), it also provides the opportunity to examine the evidence of Templar fan tourism. Moreover, this evidence demonstrates how these acts of fandom have further evolved the Templar quest narrative within popular culture, not only through the text’s association with landmarks but also provide a platform for showcasing the fan’s tourist experience through individual acts of play and performance.

Conclusion

Fan tourism demonstrates how fans engage with the narrative of their favored texts beyond the viewing format which was initially provided. This chapter analyzed how fans seek to engage kinetically with the textual narrative to form a new relationship, one that they perhaps could not achieve with the conventional, more passive engagement of viewing the screen narrative. Analyzing fan tourism, alongside the reoccurring Templar narrative of the quest, showcases how my concept of the Templar urtext further evolves in recent popular culture due to fan interaction. The practice of fan tourism influenced by the Templar narrative underlines the significance of the malleability of the Templar narrative as fan tourism enables fans to gain a deeper understanding or relationship with the text. The fan of the Templar text is seeking to find, seeking to impose their own subjective truth onto a multifaceted narrative of the ultimately contradictory Templar urtext.

The lack of a single, definitive version of the Templar’s legacy, due to their Order’s extinction in the 14th century, has enabled the narrative’s evolution to take on new forms. Due to the Templar narrative’s malleability, fans can create their own personalized narratives through their own quest to these sites of textual importance and then share these new narratives via photos and posts, documenting the experience, which enables the Templar phenomenon to further expand across mediums in popular culture. In examining fan activity with the Templar narrative, the study demonstrates how the Templar quest narrative has further evolved beyond a phenomenon that fans endeavor to experience and expand the narrative themselves.

The second aspect of the Templar quest narrative, following in the Templar’s footsteps, depicts the protagonists’ venture into the past to learn of the beneficial Templar revelation. Fans replicate this journey taken by the text’s protagonist through the act of fan tourism. The Templar revelation discovered by the texts’ protagonist is echoed by the fans’ greater understanding and deeper relationship with the text and the truth to the Templar myth. With fan tourism, fans are able to recreate the journey of the protagonist and have their own quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps into the past, in both a symbolic and physical sense. Although full immersion into the fictional world is impossible, the fan undertakes a physical venture to the past as the Templar quest narrative is intricately linked to iconic historical sites.

This use of iconic historical sites by the text brings Templar fan tourism into contact with heritage tourism, as the sites demonstrate the symbolic journey to the past and a physical journey due to the history of the location. Film tourism and heritage tourism are known to overlap, but the significance of the relationship with Templar tourism is that these quest narratives are set in the modern day and that these sites provide the link for the protagonist and therefore the audience to the past. This relationship between Templar and heritage tourism coincides with the concept of heterotopia, for which two different realities coexist within the same geographical space, that of ­historical-cultural memory and the fantastical Templar narrative. This shared space of heritage and film tourism is often promoted from the venue itself, with Rosslyn Chapel selling books such as The Da Vinci Code and Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The chapel trust incorporates this shared interest in the spaces with its marketing tagline “Explore the Mystery—Discover the History,” which caters to the crossover of site interest in both Templar tourism and heritage tourism.

Templar tourism is ultimately linked to heritage tourism due to the historic nature of the Templars’ presence, but it is the ­modern-day setting of the Templar quest narrative that makes this link significant. Templar tourism enables fans to mimic the quest of the text’s protagonist, which leads them to iconic, historic sites in their search of the Templar past. This reliance on iconic architecture to depict this journey to the past fuses together Templar and heritage tourism; however, the fans desire to visit significant Templar sites will undoubtedly boost trade for the heritage site, be it temporarily as in the case of Philadelphia’s historic sites or in a more ­long-lasting way as with Templar interest at Rosslyn Chapel.

Visiting a geographical site, be it a manufactured one like Universal Studios theme park or a filming location, enables the fans to gain a sense of immersion within the fictional world of their fandom. A full immersion into the fantastical world for the fan is, of course, impossible, which leaves the fans who engage in fan tourism on the threshold of the fictional world. This level of immersion is defined as the liminal state of inbetweenness, where the fan finds themselves between the real world and the fictional world. This desire of immersion is acted out by the fan’s physical engagement with the site’s location and physically walking where the characters have walked, which coincides with the fans personally engaging with the Templar quest aspect of following in the Templars’ footsteps.

The significance of Templar fan tourism is more than the possibility of fan emulation through a quest of their own, but it is the personalization of this immersive experience through the concept of fans’ authoring their experience that further embeds and expands the Templar phenomenon within popular culture. Despite the singular experience marketed by ­Templar-associated sites, fans can achieve a more profound sense of integration through acts of play and performance with the Templar quest narrative. The deeper sense of integration gained through acts of play is evidenced through tourist reviews, who claimed to emotionally connect to the text’s protagonist, as well as the captions promoting related activities such as “seeking the grail,” alongside photos uploaded to social media. For fans visiting heritage sites associated with the Templar texts, it is a blurring of realities but also a blurring of history and myth, which provides historical legitimacy to the truth behind the Templar myth that the fan hopes to gain a deeper relationship with through this act of immersion. For fan tourists, this liminal experience is further acquired through acts of performance and play, which are utilized by the heritage sites seeking to promote themselves, such as Rosslyn Chapel encouraging visitors to attempt to find the Holy Grail or the Philadelphia Tourist Board publishing a National ­Treasure-themed brochure that encourages visitors to engage with the city using the skills and knowledge possessed by the film’s protagonist.

The final aspect of fan tourism is the return home, and like the concept proposed by Joseph Campbell, the fan now has a new understanding of the text, be it a geographical reality or a new empathic relationship gained through immersion within the world of the text. The return home provides a similarity to the new equilibrium achieved by a text’s protagonist’s discovery of the Holy Grail or symbolic grail in the guise of a Templar revelation that provides a benefit for the wider population, be it physical like the first quest aspect or a cultural value like the second aspect. The act of fans sharing their immersive experience of their acts of play and performance online, in a sense, emulates the quest’s sharing of the grail benefits, as fans are contributing to the further evolution of the reoccurring Templar narrative.