A few weeks back, I wrote about Boromir being my favourite character from Lord of the Rings, and I mentioned that I was curious (and slightly concerned) to learn how my students would receive him, how they would deal with his attempt to take the Ring from Frodo and with his subsequent death. "The Last... Continue Reading →
In my last two posts, I have been discussing Gandalf's words at the end of The Hobbit: 'You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?" I have focused so far on the words managed by mere luck and suggested that luck... Continue Reading →
Boromir’s arc in The Lord of the Rings is tragic and yet there is glory in it. I am really eager to learn, next year, how my students react to this most noble of men—I’ll be teaching the novel for the first time. It’s already in the planning! On the one hand, Boromir is a... Continue Reading →
It is easy to forget that the Wizards, or Istari, of Tolkien's works are a kind of lower-order angel. Then again, Christians love to point this out, so perhaps it's not so easy to forget. In a passage that Christopher Tolkien dates to 1972, Tolkien writes, "We must assume that they [the Istari] were all... Continue Reading →
Something Tookish 