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Hey Flammifer, thank you for these! It will be interesting to delve in and see what folks have come up with. If we start, as Corey has asked us to, by assuming that things were done for a reason & not just mistakes, then I would really love to understand the reasoning. Best, Harry

Sorry, I have one point to add that is unrelated but has been gnawing at me and I just wanted to jot it down: I don't think Gollum was in contact with Sauron's agents while in Thranduil's captivity. I don't think he was in league with any of them. Gollum is loathed and feared by all and loathes...

Hi all. Long time no write. Real-life had intervened for many months, and I am only lately clawing back from a year's worth of "Exploring" episodes. (I have not been surprised to find that 2020 has been taken up entirely with the Council of Elrond.) Anyway, I'm at Episode 156 now, and there are...

Could be? The hobbits can claim that no hobbit has murdered another in the Shire in centuries (ever?). That does seem to suggest that empathy is strong in them. But on the other hand, they're often shown to be pretty petty toward each other. All the minor thievery & the acquisitiveness, plus...

Hi all. Still hopelessly behind, but still thinking deep Tolkien thoughts. :) As context, in the "Exploring" series I'm still at the point in the Hall of Fire where Bilbo asks to see the Ring, then seeing Frodo's reaction finally "gets it" and gives it up for good. I've been reading Prof...

Hi Prof. Olsen & all. I've fallen hopelessly behind the Exploring series again, been spending most free time finding & reading more Old English. But in that, I've come across something remarkable. There are a series of Old English "charms" preserved in a text known as the "Lacnunga." These are...

Was a great conversation last night and my appreciation to Prof. Olsen for the discussion! Ardent Crayon, I was thinking a lot about hobbits after your post yesterday. I'm of two minds... On the one hand, they seem to have been actually regressing through the later 3rd Age. At the Battle of...

So you're suggesting that Gloin is "thinking locally." There's a certain commonsense to that -- that he's saying simply that the building works at Erebor were never that good before. But even so, it's still striking to me for the casualness of it. How are they better than the most brilliant...

Yeah that, on first glance, would be the easiest explanation. But (as Prof Olsen would say) I’m resisting it — for some reason. It would get really easy to say that every statement in the book that doesn’t “fit” the world is just a mistake by either speaker or scribe. (Or by Tolkien!) But...

Maybe? But Tolkien was so clear on why his other various races aren't seen in "modern" times anymore. The elves have faded. The hobbits have become fearful of "the Big People" and skitter away at a moment's notice. The Men of Numenor mixed their bloodlines in with "lesser" men. Each of those...

If Gloin had only been talking about pure utilitarianism, that could be feasible. But he talks about their mining and building in the context of the incredible new waterways, fountains, multi-colored roads, underground halls with "arches carved like trees," and terraces & towers. In the context...

Slight look-back. But this has bugged me since we got to & through it. Why did Tolkien give the dwarves any greater achievements now than they had previously made? As I best understand it, this is I think *unique* in LOTR? Tolkien the Medievalist seemed very content to have his sub-creation's...

Bilbo's "Ah-hah" moment seems like one of those tailor-made movie moments, where a character suddenly has their whole life flash in front of their eyes, and they finally *get it*. When we read it, it's easy to read it at the same pace as everything else, but I wonder if that's how Bilbo...

To play a bit of Devil's Advocate ... do the rest of the attendees actually *know* that this feast is in Frodo's honor? Frodo plays no role at the feast. He is not introduced to anybody except the dwarf who happens to be sitting next to him. There are no speeches at the feast that we hear of...

This does make sense. For a fading people, who will eventually leave Middle-Earth, I imagine it gives genuine joy when they see that the things they love will be carried on, even "imperfectly." I recently stumbled upon a YouTube sub-genre -- new people's first reactions to hearing "old" (1980s)...

I wonder, can we understand it in terms of Rivendell's sense of "timelessness"? Maybe when you're at Rivendell, the people around you don't look either young or old, but rather they look "right" -- maybe you see them at their best. Maybe to Frodo, there in Rivendell, Bilbo just looked like...

I love this question and would agree that it's strange. It's something I can't reconcile. If, on the one hand, Gandalf and Elrond were so concerned about making sure Bilbo let the Ring go for good, why would they leave him *unsupervised* with the Ring-bearer? On the other hand, if they weren't...

So close! Listening to Episode 110 now! There is a discussion of what "venerable" means, and a lot of great thoughts -- revolving around age, honour, dignity, being worthy. It's that last definition that struck me. And this seems a good place to bring up something I notice repeatedly. When the...

Hey Anthony, thanks much for the responses. I mean that being nestled in a valley, with tall mountains just to the east, by the time the sun can be seen in Rivendell it is way past sunrise. So the dwellers there don't get the chance to greet a day as readily as they can say goodbye to one. For...

Sorry, second addendum but maybe more immediately relevant: Rivendell, nestled in the western crooks of the Misty Mountains, never gets a sunrise. It never greets a day, it can only ever say goodbye to one.