[@BCTheEntity]
It's not like not understanding a reference would ruin your experience to any larger extent. Sure, the game would have a better 'flow' to you if you did understand them, but you can always google or ask, as the GM said. Also, if the players write well, you'll be able to connect things to your existing knowledge by yourself, like putting together a puzzle. 

You know how Gandalf fought a Balrog and then looked all sad and did not wish to speak of it much when he explained to Gimli, Aragorn and Legolas how he fought it? You can understand thanks to his behaviour that he was pained and saddened by the fact that he had to fight someone (another Maiar spirit) whom he probably knew or loved millennia ago before they were corrupted and turned into a demon.

Your character can also be created so that he or she is ignorant or uneducated, so that you have an excuse to be overwhelmed by the talk of lore that goes on around you. My character cannot speak well, for example. She is illiterate and knows nothing of the world outside the environs of her homestead besides the random info she picked from stories that are borderline myth. I intend to make her speak in broken and 'Tarzan' Westron to you all at the beginning, and then have her learn the language slowly as the game progresses. I am sure something similar can be done in terms of understanding the background story.

Don't get discouraged! :)