The Hall of Fire

Sigh, language is so imprecise. I mean being "a white person" (i.e. akin to European, or that outdated/inaccurate term "Caucasian", not Asian or African or anywhere else) is treated as the default. What else could I have meant? When Tolkien used white or brown or black in relatio...

There's nothing wrong with making or keeping the European-derived mythological creatures and humans of the setting European-looking. If the goal is to portray the setting as less Eurocentric (as/though Eurocentrism is fundamentally baked into it), it's one thing to, say, downplay or remove the bit ...

https://c.tenor.com/ld8J6D6qk5MAAAAC/raiden-i-dont-think-so.gif I’d be curious to get your response to my post above. Spent a lot of time on it, and all I get is a Christopher Lambert gif?! :) Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk Oh that wasn't for you, that was for the AV Club article which...

https://www.theonering.com/patron/ :( Thankfully http://forums.theonering.com/ is still online. But most of the links above now redirect to this. He's charging at least $4 a month now for Live Chat via Discord Monthly Exclusive Livestream Access to Premium Full Length Podcast Access to Comments Ask ...

Our professor died 49 years ago today. All that glitters is not gold, often have you heard that told. But the old that is strong does not wither, and deep roots are not reached by the frost. Deo Optimo Maximo.

First of all, the old forums at http://forums.theonering.com/ are thankfully still up, even if they're frozen. I can still log in there with my username. But for the "main" level there's no login anymore. If there is I can't find it. I think I was already logged in but there's no user cont...

Should elves stop visibly aging when they look like around 18-20 in human years to emphasize eternal youth, or do you lean more around 30 to show a bit more maturity? Based on some quick Googling I think the average age for the elf actors was around 30 with Weaving being older than everyone else. Th...

More info As some may be familiar, Tolkien worked on a synoptic time scheme chart while he was writing and revising the Lord of the Rings. This is a 14 document mostly arranged as a two dimensional grid showing what each character was doing on every day. A few pages have been reproduced in recent e...

Necro-post All the show stuff got me thinking, is there a way to find a "happy medium" between modern sensibilities/expectations and strict adherence to the texts, while keeping the spirit of it more than has been done before, not going as far as what has already been done before? Tinker t...

To bring the conversation back on topic, while I agree that some of the vitriolic commentary about RoP is coming from Peter Jackson LOTR fans, but to me the vast majority is coming from people who think that failing to follow Tolkien's own racist tendencies is a paramount to not following Tolkien a...

My academic background is in history and journalism. Furthermore, my country is plagued by historical denialism/negationism and distortion, weaponized by a select few elites in recent years for their benefit, and the result is that we're being currently screwed over politically. So representing the ...

I confess I'm not sure what is objectionable about a prologue summarizing the major events of the First Age. Huh? I mean, them showing First Age stuff isn't going to hook me in. They've done enough for me to opt out, like with the first Hobbit trailer back in the day. But the problems I had with th...

According to Arannir on TORn, they showed a number of First Age scenes during the Hall H presentation, including the War of Wrath (featuring Balrogs), Morgoth, and the destruction of the Two Trees. Some monkey's paw wish this is shaping up to be. Wanted a fresh take on everything, not "movieve...

I'm one of the grumpier skeptics about the show and I've always tried to keep it apolitical, never using political buzzwords or meme-words myself even when show-associated-or-adjacent people themselves are bringing politics into it. A big gripe I have about the "not-pro" stuff that I can f...

I'm not saying they're trying to get it wrong. They already believe they're in the right. As for the legitimacy of scholars and even "big name fans" working for and/or supporting the show, I've never claimed any of them were "fake". Still, I literally don't recognize most names o...

Yeah I know. But still, context. First Age humans are more wonky than by the time the Third Age rolls around but there's still the West vs East symbolism, the men in the West having the true tradition of and kinship with the elves and the somehow-analogues of the English being the most directly conn...

Cynthia Addai-Robinson says, "[Tolkien] explores many themes, but one of them is the idea of people of different ethnicities, backgrounds, and walks of life all coming together for a common cause." That's not how I would describe the story of book!Númenor, a brutal colonial empire, but I ...

Say goodbye to the anti-European colonialist/imperialist themes of Numenoreans oppressing and enslaving other peoples, I guess. What for, they're already akin to a post-colonial melting pot if the rightful queen is like that (and I should know about post-colonial melting pots, I'm from one several t...