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One small comment regarding a discussion in episode 148. Forth Dauntless wondered whether the ring is a spiritual ring instead of a physical ring. This immediately brought to my mind the idea of hylomorphism. Hylomorphism is an idea from Aristotle's (and St. Thomas's) metaphysics that any object...

Let's not forget that Celeborn is Arwen's grandfather. That's no small feat!

Thanks for getting this fixed, anonymous podcast engineers!

The idea behind weregild is that by paying the fine, the accused would be exempted retaliation. Although Isildur and his posse had just overthrown Sauron, Sauron wasn't actually eradicated. Isildur could have destroyed Sauron for good by destroying the ring. In this sense, Isilsur's taking of...

Hi Prof. Olsen, I finally finished recording my bluegrass arrangement of Sam's troll song. It's on youtube here: Troll Song Enjoy!

I just listened to episode 115 and half of 116, and was going to mention that a first-time reader of the Fellowship of the Ring might have recognized Numenor from That Hideous Strength. I forget how much description of Numenor, its inhabitants, and its history Lewis gave us though.

Perhaps Frodo's chair was a chair designed for dwarves. Presumably dwarves visit Rivendell more frequently than hobbits, so it would be polite of Elrond to have dwarf chairs available. Hobbits are shorter than dwarves, however, so Frodo would need the cushions as an additional boost.

I used to work for a company that manufactures missiles. Unlike rockets, missiles have the ability to change their trajectory to hit their target. The simplest algorithm used in missile guidance systems is called proportional navigation. Using proportional navigation, the guidance system steers...

What if the boulders and the white riders were just different aspects of one underlying reality? Gandalf used his power to increase the flood's force. To us, Gandalf's abilities are strange and opaque. Perhaps Gandalf's attack wasn't either boulders or white riders, but something deeper. The...

In modern English, the sentence "All that is gold does not glitter" implies that if something is gold, it would not glitter. This is clearly false, even in the text of the Lord of the Rings (the Ring glitters). So it's obvious what Bilbo means is that not everything that is gold glitters. Is...

The description of the encounter at the end of Flight to the Ford is clearly from Frodo's perspective. We speculated that Asfaloth may have stopped on the bank of the river because the Witch King commanded him, because Frodo probably didn't stop him, and the rest of Frodo's party was out of...

So the point is that he's a blank slate upon which we can craft an interesting story? I like!

Who is Rog? I just listened to session 4.01 and Rog was mentioned, but I had never heard of this character before.

Some of us never agreed to that! The hosts imposed that condition on us (and also the severely detrimental 13 episode per season limit). Besides, the frame is supposed to make nonlinear storytelling easier, not more confusing. The characters in the frame are there to acquaint the audience with...

Later on in the story we learn that the black riders have quite good eyesight, except it's only good in the wraith world. While Frodo is suffering from the Morgul blade's wound, he is moving into the wraith world, so much that by the time he encounters the black riders at the Ford of Bruinen, he...

I have a slightly different interpretation of the disappearing blade. I agree with Prof. Olsen that the blade isn't constructed of highly processed steel like a normal physical knife, but more like some evil magic. I imagine it is akin to the foundations of the Black Gate, which crumble the...

Is a synopsis of the Weathertop reenactment available? I heard about it while listening to session 76, but I don't know what the conclusion was. Having not seen it, I'll still offer my 2 cents. Nowhere does it say* that Frodo stood still after he put on the ring. I'd suggest that Frodo backed...

When 2 Ringwraiths stopped at the edge of the dell, maybe they were susceptible to Frodo's commands, and were unsure of what to do. Maybe the 2 Ringwraiths who stopped when Frodo drew his sword interpreted his actions as a command from the holder of the One Ring. Did Frodo's cry of Elbereth hurt...

Is the attack at Weathertop the first time that we are introduced to the Witch King as a distinct ringwraith? Hitherto, I don't think that any characters had noted any differences among the Nazgul, so Frodo recognizing that one of them clearly outranks the others is a moment of significance...

I just listened to episode 73, so this is a little late. In the episode, Prof. Olsen talks about how the poem conforms to the plot of a faerie story: a mortal man wanders into Faerie, catches a glimpse of an elf-maiden, and chases her only for her to elude him, all while a lot of time flows by...