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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!

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!

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...

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...

Just a comment I should have brought this up earlier, but I forgot to post on the forum when this was covered. Prof Olsen discussed people's impression of rangers as having been informed by Dungeons and Dragons and from other games, and from other fantasy novels as stealthy fighters of some...

My theory for this is that the Nazgul was commanding his confederates to meet him at the South Gate. Merry heard this command subconsciously and followed compulsively. The mechanism for the Nazgul's communication is unknown, but I would hypothesize that they were speaking in a language that...

The Nazgul attacked Crickhollow under the assumption that Crickhollow was the only place in the Shire where the Ring bearer could be. When they attacked, they used an attack specifically tailored toward defeating the one who was holding the One Ring. Since Fatty escaped instead of falling victim...

Several comments on Episode 53: 1. Regarding the question on why Strider is playing up to the caricature of a conman, I think the best answer is supplied later in the text (fair game, since this whole conversation assumes we know Strider is a good guy already). The salient point is from after...

Running with the theme that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, is Bree-land (Bree/Combe/Staddle/Archet) truly isolated in the wilderness? I think it would be odd if Bree is a modern town (up to Hobbit standards) with travelers' amenities and plenty of commerce, but truly as...

The book doesn't give us much on the history of Bree. It says that according to the tales of the Breelanders "they were the original inhabitants and were the descendents of the first Men that ever wandered into the West of the middle-world." But it's not necessary that we believe this. Note that...