Looking ahead, and let us not forget...

Fin

Fin

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This last episode has just brought to mind something I have been struggling with for what now 80 years? ......no only a few, can we not keep reading this work of literature, without stopping and thinking about what we "already know"? Lets face it, most of us that are really listing to this lecture, already know the books....not all of us, but probable 95 % of us.....so can we ignore all the references that JRR is giving us for future events? If we are really going through this in the slow and methodical way that we have been, and again, 90% of us want to go though this, let us not tarry off the path now. We need to stop and think about what we know, and talk about it now. We have already touch upon this in the last 100 episodes...but I feel we need to embrace this now.... yes we will be getting to future events, in about 15 years. but lots of us really wont be around that long and would love to discuss all this now. what say you Corey? This is not the time to kick the bucket.......
 
I think the line we have sort of informally drawn is a good one - we can talk about future stuff as it relates to current stuff, up to but not including the point where we would need to directly quote future passages on-screen.
 
The main point is that talking about the whole of the work is what people do all the time elsewhere. Exploring the Lord of the Rings is special in that we try to read the text very closely, from the perspective of someone who hasn't read it before.

There are plenty of places where you can discuss any part of the work you like.

There's only one place where we can spend weeks on a single poem and still feel like we missed something because we moved on…
 
I'd be curious to know for sure, but I honestly suspect there are no consistent viewers/listeners who haven't read the books. I certainly wouldn't recommend this be the way someone experiences them for the first time.

That said, I agree with the sentiment expressed here by others. This project is so totally unlike anything else--and frankly, so unlike anything I'd have ever hoped to experience--that I'd really hate to see the focus change. The Professor has given each book the Mythgard treatment, if a shorter version is desired. And the Prancing Pony Podcast--and accompanying facebook pages and reddit--would provide a discussion that is both quicker and broader. There are other venues too, of course.

But the point--I think rightly--is that Exploring the Lord of the Rings is and ought to be about not missing the rhizosphere for the trees, as it were.
 
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I first read LotR nearly 40 years ago. I actually enjoy trying to remember what I thought and felt on that first exciting experience. Particularly difficult, as I think I re-read it again within a month of finishing...
 
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