60. The Origins of Fantasy – A Soup with Distance and Time: On Fairy Stories, Part 2
Diving into what the origin of fairy stories is, we realize–once again–that Tolkien doesn’t give us an encyclopedic answer, but instead lays out some boundaries that help us better understand where fa...
18 Jul 202346min
59. Talking Tolkien with Renowned Artist Ted Nasmith
Ted Nasmith has been creating visions of Middle-earth since the early 1970s when he decided to send JRR Tolkien one of his early pieces–and the professor responded with encouragement! In addition to ...
11 Jul 202347min
58. Is Star Wars a Fairy Story? – On Fairy Stories, Part 1
This week, Michael, Dan, and I discuss the first part of Tolkien’s seminal essay “On Fairy Stories”, where Tolkien defines what a fairy (aka fantasy) story is. Why is this important? Well, the “fairy ...
4 Jul 20230s
57. This is the (raw) Meat – The Silmarillion – A Final Look – The Silmarillion – 37
In our final episode discussing The Silmarillion, we each get our own “Big Thought” (sorry Dan!)… We look at how Tolkien created “high beauty”, how this book truly shows Tolkien’s “Strong Women”, and ...
27 Jun 20230s
56. Make Tolkien Great Again – Of the Rings of Power, Part 2 – The Silmarillion – 36
** Use the code “GREAT” at https://shop.theonering.com to get $2 off anything! ** It’s hard to believe, but this week we finish “Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”–the last chapter of The Silmar...
20 Jun 20230s
55. The Chuck E. Cheese of Middle-earth – Of the Rings of Power, Part 1 – The Silmarillion – 35
Many of us endured Amazon’s Rings of Power show last year… and now we’ve finally reached that part of The Silmarillion. Of course, here we actually talk about the Rings more than they were featured in...
13 Jun 20230s
54. Gollum’s Apology, Why We Love Tolkien, and the Nerdiest Thing We’ve Ever Done
Join us as we look back on one year of Exploring Tolkien! This week we talk why we love Tolkien so much, the path that brought us to be a part of this show, all the stats for the show… and most import...
6 Jun 20230s
53. The Path to Gollum’s Redemption | Tolkien Discusses What May Have Happened
With the release of the new Gollum game, we decided to take a deeper dive at this character–not his motivations or history, but what Tolkien specifically said about him in his letters. Tolkien indicat...
30 Mai 20230s
