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Yea, I kinda get the journey vs destination idea. And I DO like doing a close reading. I've done the PPodcast and Tolkien Prof things, they're good, I'm just hoping we can keep this conversation on the shorter timeline (18 years) vs the longer one (76). A journey with an unreachable destination...

I was just doing some number crunching for fun. The result was less than fun.... According to the internet, LoTR has approx. 450,000 words (more, depending on whether you include the forward and appendices). Last week we spent roughly 70 minutes in actual discussion, on a single slide with 113...

I was wondering that, too. My copy of The Nature of Middle-Earth should be here tomorrow, but I haven't seen official announcement of when it will begin. I haven't been doing the current course because it didn't fit my summer schedule - but I checked the announcements section in the latest...

Thanks! I didn’t realize the old one was dead until I just tried to log in.

I'm having an issue with the iOS app on my iPad and iPhone. GoToWebinar refuses to use any of my blutooth speakers or headphones as an output. All of my other apps connect to them just fine, so I know there's no issue with the devices or headphones/speakers. Does anybody know why GoToWebinar is...

I always get auto-links in my email for each session on the day before, but nothing came for tonight. Is it still on, and do I need to re-register to get the link?

I've heard this brought up occasionally in the podcasts so I know that's sometimes what's happening. Maybe it's not always clear to me what 'makes the cut' for on-screen presentation because it is a lot to follow... it just feels like the project sometimes has an undercurrent of "tell them more...

My only concern with fleshing everything out to "get buy-in" is that it can't be EVERYTHING. The best stories leave some important information unseen and unsaid, and expect the reader/audience to make some inferences. I worry sometimes that we get too in the weeds and risk losing the magic...

Since the Professor said he sees this season as being about worldviews more than about politics (which I think are inextricably linked, but that's another thread....) I think we need to take a higher-level view of the Elves' stories for a moment, and consider their worldview vis-a-vis men. We...

A couple of follow-up thoughts - I don't have the text handy to look up locations, sadly. I'm pretty sure the "Shadow of the Past" chapter isn't the only place Gandalf talks about Bilbo's gift as a singular event. Even in that chapter, when although he mentions mortals often, his statement is...

I've just become intrigued by the question of ring-transfers in a whole new way. It is repeatedly said that nobody ever gave up a ring of power willingly, except Bilbo. This cannot be true: 1. The One Ring, yes, this appears to be the case 2. For the nine, we might presume this to be the case...

Reading a little more closely in the daytime, I want to take a slightly different tack. We are all discussing the concept of "agency" in two potentially flawed ways: 1. Many people seem to think it's all or nothing, with no possibility of shades in between. 2. We are failing, at times, to...

I know this has been debated for decades. I’ll just say that the idea that the ring was actively trying isn’t original - it’s stated directly by some of the most authoritative characters in the text. The exact mechanism is unclear, because nobody could know but Sauron, but the assumption is...

I don't see a forum yet for the new Mythgard Academy class on Morgoth's Ring. Am I missing it somewhere?

Another way to say this is: Perhaps the ring has a kind of limited agency which is activated (awoken) by a person’s knowledge of its nature. It must have something to have betrayed Isildur and abandoned Gollum, both of which are attributed to the ring itself. Gandalf for one explicitly...

I think you misunderstand me. I’m not talking about the Ring’s own agency. I’m talking about the knowledge and intent of the bearer and the agency that person brings to it. Key difference. One data point that supports my view is this: when Sauron first put on the ring, Celebrimbor and his...

My printing of the Ballantine (after copyright was renewed in 1982) still has "and". I can't check my later edition as it's loaned out at the moment. We're narrowing down the dates. I bought this brand-new in about 1985/6. Is it possible that this was simply an exact reprinting of the old...

(Disclaimer - I'm the one who questioned whether it was necessary to break the poem down into smaller parts.) I want to elaborate on that a little more. It wasn't that I wasn't interested in how the poem might be broken down based on various clues. It's that Tolkien deliberately chose to set...

All of the Ainur, including Maia, can interact with physical matter. They did so in the creation of Middle-Earth, and some (like Osse) continue to do so while in spirtual form. At the downfall of Numenor, Sauron lost his ability to take fair forms. I don't read that as taking away his ability...

Besides the maps, we're missing another critical piece of info: Boromir says of Elrond's house, "of which many had heard, but few knew where it lay." Who are the many? And who are the few who knew meaningful directions? We might presume he asked around Gondor and Rohan, and queried a few...