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Discovering The Lord of the Rings, paragraph by paragraph.

Welcome to the new home of Exploring The Lord of the Rings! Soon, this page will be the hub for our live class meetings and chat, but our new discussion board is already open. If you have thoughts, observations, or suggestions related to the portions of the text we've already discussed, feel free to post those on the discussion board below.

Threads
Eucatastrophoria
An observation: In the movies when Arwen says "What grace has given me, let it pass to him; let him be spared", is a reference to her gifting the seat in ship to Valinor to Frodo. Passed to him, to spare him.
Reply to Eucatastrophoria
TolkienProf
I agree that that's the intention in the film, and it is a clever adaptation, drawing attention to the significance of that moment with the white gem in the book (which some overlook).  Turning it into some kind of transaction in that moment, as if her intervention saves Frodo from death or wraithification, confuses things, however.  It's clear what it means in the context of Frodo's eventual departure; it is not so clear what it means at that moment of early crisis.  So is Frodo immortal now?  It's one of the muddiest moments in the films, I think.  
Reply to TolkienProf
Odola
Well, it is quite "muddy" in the books too, no wholly clear how the transfer of sailing "tickets" actually works here and in how far it even applies...
Reply to Odola
TolkienProf
Agreed!  That's why I always found that an interesting move in the films -- bringing into prominence something that is, I agree, quite muddy in the book.  

For the record, I don't think there's any actual obvious correlation between Frodo's ticket on the boat and Arwen's gift; after all, Bilbo gets a ticket to, without explicit Elvish sacrifice to enable it.  Rather, being a Ringbearer seems to be the qualification (as implied in Sam's case).  I think that the white gem is just a promise and a comfort to Frodo, a piece of mercy from Arwen, who perceives how hard the next few years are going to be for Frodo.  She gives him hope to hold on to (literally, with the white gem).  

But, sadly, I don't think that the film's move introduces any clarity, it just makes it even muddier -- but more prominent!  And that's something, I guess. 
alunarwoe
Hi all! I caught up a few months ago but have found it difficult to work the live class into my parenting schedule, so I am mostly still watching asynchronously. A couple of weeks ago, Corey mentioned that there is not a very good digital tool for analyzing alliteration in poetry, so I tried my hand at building one! You can take a look at it here: https://alunarwoe.github.io/alliterationanalysis/

After you paste the text of a poem in, the algorithm does its best to divide each stanza into stressed and unstressed syllables and identify the initial sound of each syllable. After it does so, you can manually change where the syllables are broken down, which are stressed, and what the initial sounds are (it sometimes gets things wrong). You can also tell it to make note of end sounds if they show up prominently in the sound patterns of the poem. Once you have okayed all the changes, it marks the poem up similarly to how Corey has been doing with Nimrodel - solid boxes for stressed syllables, dashed boxes for unstressed syllables. It looks for repeats in sounds within the stanza, as well as across stanzas for sounds that show up particularly frequently.

I made the colors up, trying to keep sounds of the same type (fricative, plosive, etc) within the same color family. I know there was some discussion of standardizing colors for each sound, and I'd be more than happy to edit if we come up with a better color system than mine!

This project is definitely still in beta mode, so I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts about it!
Reply to alunarwoe
ArdentCrayon
I tried it with Flannan Isle; pretty good!
IMG_1449.jpeg
Reply to alunarwoe
Eadric
This is awesome!!

I'd love to work together if you're interested. I've actually been working on something myself, but I've spent most of my time so far on a color system that captures related sounds like sibilants and plosives, but your interface is much nicer looking and easier to use than my Keynote slide. I have some thoughts I'd love to run by you on how to represent sound and stress (e.g. my system classifies sounds rather than letters). I don't know if this platform does DMs yet, but you can find me on the Signum Discord (Éadric Scúsmiþ) or just email me at kingsepp (at) gmail.
Reply to Eadric
Eadric
Here's a draft of the color scheme. It's designed to show the relationships among both place of articulation (labials, dentals, etc.) and manner of articulation (plosives, fricatives, etc.). 

I don't know how you would train your algorithm to recognize the underlying sound behind letters, but Corey in the poetry episodes often mentions how the letters sometimes look similar but carry different sounds.

This is just the consonants. Vowels are a separate system—highlights—with actually similar colors (back vowels and back consonants end up having similar colors, etc.).

Screenshot_2026-09-29_at_3.25.27PM.png
Reply to TolkienProf
Eadric
Corey, let us know if you have any preferences or guidance as we talk our notation systems out!
Alexander R.

In episode 385, Dr. Olsen mentioned that it would be nice to transcribe the Lay of Nimrodel into Tengwar for poetic scanning and analysis. I am not learnèd in the Tengwar script, but I am a user of the alternate phonemic English alphabet called Shavian, which is also a featural script with the much of the same key benefits for poetic analysis.

I produced a transliteration of the Lay of Nimrodel in the phonemic script for any interested. Also attached is a field guide for Shavian, which can be learned with surprising speed if one is motivated.

Shavian_Guide.pdf
The_Lay_of_Nimrodel_-_Shavian.pdf
This discussion is closed.