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Hi all, I wasn't able to attend live last week (December 9) and so just listened to the recording today to get caught up before tonight's class while running a bunch of errands before the snow started falling. So I might have missed something due to distraction, but I was confused about...

Hi all, I'm no scholar of either Dante or Boethius - I've only read the Comedy and the Consolation a couple of times and the only classes I've taken on either have been the Mythgard Academy ones - so I can't really develop this further. As Corey might do I'll just say "this would make a great...

Hey all, I started thinking about this and maybe I'm just forgetting, but did Tolkien address the origins of hobbits in any of his post-LotR writings? We know about elves, men, dwarves and ents. We've been reading through Tolkien going back and forth about the orcs, and whichever story you go...

Hi all, Last week's Mythgard Academy (August 7, 2002, Morgoth's Ring class 17) included a discussion of the Fall. Christopher quoted a letter by JRRT - it's letter 212 in Letters of JRRT - comparing the difference between Christian theology and the internal theology his sub-created world. In...

Hi all, Years ago I started, but did not finish*, a project to illustrate the Divine Comedy in LEGO by creating a vignette** for each canto. Here's my scene for Canto 1 of the Inferno: Midway this way of life we're bound upon, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, Where the right road was...

Hi all, I'm just listening to session 145 Archival Drama fro a couple of weeks ago and had a couple of thoughts. There was discussion of "Isildur's fault" - Aragorn said that Isildur's heir should help remedy Isildur's fault, so goes on the hunt for Gollum with Gandalf. Discussion centered on...

Hi all, I'm not sure who admins here to direct this request to. As we are going to be starting the next Mythgard Academy book soonish (yay Dante!), we should definitely have a new sub-forum under the "Mythgard Academy Discussions" section. Or, if we don't want endlessly expanding forums...

Hi all, I was re-listening to class 2 of Morgoth's Ring from last week, where Corey was talking about the style of the Silmarillion vs the style of Lord of the Rings, and this got me thinking. What if Tolkien had not written the whole sweeping history in the Silmarillion, but had instead...

Hey all, I just re-listened to last week's class and our discussion of the rhythm of the "Seek for the Sword" poem. I have to admit that I don't know all the terminology for poetic meter, so here is my stab using musical notation.

Hey, In the June 25 Exploring the Lord of the Rings class Corey spoke briefly about Bored of the Rings and the relative lack of Tolkien parody. I mentioned this in the thread, but back in the 90's the rec.arts.books.tolkien usenet newsgroup (anyone else here a veteran of that board?)...

Hey, Question for the forum admins - now that we're about to start a new Mythgard Academy book, shouldn't there be a forum for it? Presumably the plan was to create new subforums for each new book, but only Treason of Isengard and Hitchhikers Guide ever got specific sections. Random Morte...

Hi all, I've got a private theory about the additions by Findegil, which I was afraid I'd have to sit on for about ten years, but the Ford of Bruinen passage gives me an opportunity to explore now. We know from the Prologue that "much annotation, and many corrections, especially of names...

Hi all, I've been catching up, since I often catch only part of a class and three podcasts were posted to iTunes this weekend. Anyway, in the last class before the Christmas/New Year's break, we were discussing the bells on what I assume is Asfaloth's harness*. We discussed that Glorfindel is...

Hey all, When I first read LotR I just assumed that the Tom who is the protagonist of the Stone Troll poem was none other than Tom Bombadil. I know there's no real reason aside from the same name and the fact that Tom B. is the sort of guy who would have the audacity to walk up to a troll and...

Hi all, I've been thinking about a few things in relation to past discussions and discussions yet to come. A few data points: Back in "Strider", Aragorn says the Nazgul won't attack the inn because it is "not their way. In darkness and loneliness they are strongest; they will not openly...

Hi all, I raised this at the very end of last week's class and Prof. Olsen asked me to bring it up at the start of this week's session. Just in case I'm not there at the start, I'll post this here. I was reminded of "O! Wanderers in the shadowed land" from the Old Forest when we were reading...

Hi all, (BTW, not so much a direct question, but for some reason I can't "post a new thread" in the other sub-forum - it keeps saying I need to log in and I keep logging in). In Exploring LotR 66, July 10, 2018, there was some discussion of the word "condescend" in its original and modern...

Hi all, This is actually prompted by something from the War of the Ring Mythgard Academy class, but there doesn't seem to be a forum for that, so I guess this is the next best thing. Somewhere (one of the letters I assume) JRRT wrote that LotR started out as a sequel to the Hobbit but that it...

Hey, I've got a question about something that's been frustrating me. During the Exploring LotR sessions I have two windows open, one for the Twitch TV channel and one for the Discord discussion board, but it's hard to fit them on my relatively small screen. If I expand the Discord window to...

Hi all, and Prof. Olsen, A quick question on the Barrow Downs, after listening to episode 38 of Exploring LotR (the episode that was cut short). When they come to the top of the hill and see a misleading view, you compared it to the bald hill in the Old Forest, and suggest that they were led...