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I seem to hate the Jackson movies even more every time I watch; only got halfway through RotK recently. But I laughed out loud at the Orc armies advancing on Minas Tirith to the beat of a drum -- in 5/4 time!

Corey often devotes an episode or two to adaptations at the end of a book series, and even before that there is often some compare and contrast between the book and the adaptation(s). But as far as I can recall, the ONLY work where he explicitly prefers the movie is "The Princess Bride", which...

Nice mega-thread going on Orcs. Do they have souls? Are they irredeemably evil? Why does everyone slaughter them without a qualm? We've not once mentioned the role of female orcs. Where are they? What is their moral and social status? Does their undoubted existence shed any light on all the...

A humor thread for mashups of any kind; books, movies, sayings, memes, whatever, just so long as they're short and funny (assuming you "get it", anyway). I'll start: "Hello. My name is Darth Vader. I am your father. Prepare to die." - The Jedi Bride "Beam me up again, Sam". - Captain Rick...

Help! I want to listen and I can't get any new podcasts! Anyone have pointers to other download sites, or news about any of these? http://s3.amazonaws.com/media.podcast/feeds/TolkienProf.xml -- last updated with ELotR 126 in December...

“On Fairy Stories” and other writings of JRRT more or less define his concept of subcreation, and I’m not going to try to even summarize it here; it has been discussed by Professor Olsen many times. But I have never seen it defined or discussed in literature by any other author before, and I...

There was some question/confusion about this line of the Eärendil poem: "and light upon her banners laid". Did he hang a lantern above the banners to light them up? Were they made of something *shiny*? (cue "Black Crow" by Joni Mitchell) Could it have been the light of the Silmaril? No, that...

In episode 113, Professor Olsen discussed Bilbo's "ring-induced monologue" where he tells Frodo about how he had wanted to go back to The Shire and bring the Ring to Rivendell himself, to spare Frodo the burden and all, when he first heard that the Enemy wanted it. It was noted that this...

I ran into a very interesting article. It doesn't mention Tolkien, or invented languages, but seems very relevant to our discussions of these. https://aeon.co/essays/why-meaning-is-more-sunken-into-words-than-we-realise That's pretty cool. The idea that synaesthesia is the basis of all...

In episode 107 there was considerable discussion of the wonder that Frodo felt at meeting Elrond "of whom so many stories tell". The best comparison we came up with in class was to one of us meeting King Arthur in person. But I think many of us have our own stories of feeling that sort of awe...

I could swear I listened to the entire "Gawayn's Vengance" episode and at the end two more were promised: one to finish up the book, and one more for the Monty Python film. But now the next episode 35 has appeared in the RSS feed, and it is titled Monty Python. Is one missing? Furthermore...

Most of the Netflix reviews of their Watership Down 4-episode series are quite positive. The recurring negative is the cheap animation "like a 1990's video game". There are also a mind-boggling number that say it was very good, but they still prefer the 1978 animated movie. . . But I didn't...

Corey discussed what Malory could be getting at here, when King Mark immediately jumps to the "treason!" conclusion from the report that Tristram and Isode were seen talking in a window. Shakespear reprises this very scene and phrase in Much Ado About Nothing: This strategem works perfectly (if...

I think Professor Olsen was too dismissive of the piper. (and I word that very carefully) His attitude seems to be summed up by "who cares about the piper dude?" but he never questioned the piper's actual existence. I do not believe there is a piper at all. The piping is more like a sound in...

All my life I've made the same mistake and had the same confusion as this blog author: http://khkeeler.blogspot.com/2014/12/plant-confusion-hemlock-both-umbels-and.html Hemlock is a tree, in my experience. The plant Tolkien names in the Tinuviel poem is known around here as "poison hemlock"...

Corey postulates a pattern in the use of Pippin's full name vs. his nickname, especially in the case of mention by the narrator, and even more especially in the case of mention by the various postulated narrators and authors and translators/transcribers such as Frodo, Sam, Gondorian scribes...

Reading Malory, I got interested in the prefix "be" when I spotted the word about how Nimue was being constantly hassled by Merlin and couldn't get rid of him: What a cool word, "beskyfte". You can tell what it means from context: she couldn't discourage his attentions. After some thought, I...

It seems that most modern re-tellings of Arthurian stories inject an over-arching theme of moral conflict. They depict Arthur as a "Roman" Briton, trying to conserve civilization against the invading Saxon barbarians; Arthur as a Christian King in conflict with the old Celtic religion; Arthur as...

Can we have a forum section created for Le Mort d'Arthur? The last one created was for HGTTG and it was little-used, but Professor Olsen estimates this course will last for 30 sessions (so expect 40 ;)) and there isn't yet any place here really appropriate for discussing it. What is the best...

I was struck by this quote: "Ontology recapitulates philology" [attributed to James Grier Miller by W.V. Quine in "Word and Object"]. Not only is it a punning reworking of the old (and quite invalid) chestnut in evolutionary biology "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", but it has direct...