Why the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring Make NO Sense Strategically
Following up my video from last week for Tolkien Reading Day, I thought I would take a closer look at another strange fact about eh Fellowship: Almost none of them are actually there to go to Mordor! ...
31 Mars 202516min
How the “Company” of the Ring Became the “Fellowship” | Tolkien Reading Day 2025
Despite the first volume of The Lord of the Rings being named “The Fellowship of the Ring,” the word fellowship actually barely appears in that volume, and only in its final chapter. Why was the group...
25 Mars 202522min
How J.R.R. Tolkien Almost Ruined His Middle-Earth Mythology
Tolkien changed a lot of material in his legendarium over the years, but late in life he almost scrapped the entire cosmology to fit with real world history. Why did he go down this road, and what are...
17 Mars 202531min
How Providence Made the Most of Boromir Taking Faramir’s Place
One thing that becomes clear with enough time spent in Middle-earth is that Eru can work with anything you throw at him. That includes Boromir taking Faramir’s spot in Rivendell.Other Links: Playeur (...
10 Mars 202523min
Are Peter Jackson’s Deviations from Tolkien Really Justified by Adaptation?
In response to my video on how Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy managed to win the loyalty of many book fans despite its many changes from the source material, I received a number of comments expla...
3 Mars 202519min
Details Peter Jackson Got Right in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and The Battle of Five Armies
Finally completing this project in one fell swoop, because there's not much good to find here.... For the prior video on An Unexpected Journey, check here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Em1AN16K0 O...
24 Feb 202514min
Did Gandalf Make a Huge Blunder Allowing Frodo to Wait to Leave the Shire?
A while back I got an email from a viewer arguing that Gandalf was, to put it politely, a little slow when it comes to making sure Frodo got started on his quest. But just how big a mistake was that, ...
17 Feb 202526min
Was Gandalf a Machiavellian Schemer Who Used Others as Pawns?
In response to my video about the character flaws of Tolkien’s heroes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAn8r-kqD4c),a few people commented that Gandalf’s real issue was the fact that he basically thre...
10 Feb 202522min
