LOTR

Posted on February 7th, 2008 by Bieren Skidels.
Categories: Uncategorized.

Our Analysis: Lord of the Rings

An exercise in Philosophy, Sociology, Anthropology, Religion, Theology, Science Fiction, Ethics, and History

Book I Ch 2: The Shadow Of The Past

Book I Ch 1: A Long-Expected Party

The Prologue

On the Author’s Forward

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“By the time the reader has finished the trilogy, including the appendices to this last volume, he knows as much about Tolkien’s Middle Earth, its landscape, its fauna and flora, its peoples, their languages, their history, their cultural habits, as, outside his special field, he knows about the actual world.” - W.H. Auden

Bieren Skidels

Comment on February 9th, 2008.

Officially beginning on March 8th, a group of us will begin reading one chapter a week from the Lord of the Rings, beginning with the “Fellowship of the Ring” and continuing sequentially through the series. Each week, we will discuss theories, thoughts, etc.. about the previously read chapter - with the goal of developing our own theories or narrative of the Lord of the Rings. Much extensive analysis and writing has already been done on this subject, however, this project will not focus on others’ analysis, but, as the project title implies — “Our Analysis.” The greatest drive and justification (you could say excitement) for the project is concerned with the unknown, the possibility for theories and thinking we unable to predict… We see a huge potential.

We invite any and all of you to take part in this discussion/project which we expect to last for 15 to 18 months (possibly up to 2 years). The discussion will evolve as we all grow and learn over this time period. The discussion will take place this blog, beginning each week with a chapter summary post to this special “LOTR” section of the blog (which is reachable by clicking the LOTR logo in the top right)… discussion of that chapter will consist of replies to the chapter summary post. New theories, once sufficiently mature, will be posted as static documents (or blog posts) which can discussed and changed by the author. The interface for accessing this information will evolve with the discussion, hopefully ending in a novel set of theories and narrative accessible to all in a fashion found to be most natural by those involved.

For those who would like to take part in the discussion (often or even intermittently) , I suggest coming up with an canonical alias (handle) under which you post. If you intend to be very active in the discussion I can make you a permanent account as a writer on the site.

The beginning date (March 8th) will involve a “kick-off” day long part, involving lots of food and watching all three (extended version) LOTR films back-to-back-to-back! (~12 hours)… anybody interested let me know =)

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