The Lord of the Rings - A General Discussion Thread

[MICHKA]

Je ne comprend pas très bien le sens de cette phrase et ne connaît pas d'équivalent en français:''mouche (vol) par la place de mes pantalons?'', peut-être ''entendre une mouche voler?'' pour signifier le silence, le respect pendant l'audition(?)

[Merry]

I find French idioms difficult, too, and the on-line translators sometimes are not helpful. To 'fly by the seat of my pants' means to be able to adjust my actions when conditions change unexpectedly. I'm not sure where the idiom came from--sounds like something from the Air Force!

[marbretherese]

Glad to hear your first talk went well, Merry. I would like to have been there to see it!

[MICHKA]

merci à Merry pour l'explication, un peu bizarre expression mais chaque région a les siennes propres au dialecte employé et la racine est souvent lointaine...
à propos de la trilogie je suis heureuse d'annoncer que je vais initier une nouvelle personne au chef-d'oeuvre de Tolkien ces jours prochains, faire encore une adepte peut-être?

[Merry]

Thanks, marbretherese, it was fun! There was a lot of energy in the discussion and it made me wonder if more people aren't kind of hungry to have more meaningful discussions in their lives.

Have fun with your Tolkien novice, Michka!

[Merry]

I gave my last talk on LOTR this morning and it was a lot of fun! I guess I use the word 'talk' pretty loosely: I've structured the conversations around questions for discussion, after a little introduction. This morning's topic was religious themes in LOTR. I started off by reading a little of the creation myth from the Sil and then showing the clip from the movie of Frodo crawling up Mt. Doom (in Gorgoroth--sound familiar? They all got the Gorgoroth/Golgotha connection.)

When I asked about religous themes, one gentleman spoke very well about the importance of personal choice and strength of will in LOTR. I would call that a moral theme, not necessarily a religious one, but I didn't want to quibble. We also talked about death/deathlessness and the possibility of a meaningful death, like Boromir's and Theoden's. I was thinking afterwards that it would be interesting to contrast the meaningful deaths with the meaningless deaths in LOTR. I keep thinking of Denethor and Gandalf's remark that only the pagan kings die like he did.

Anyway, a good discussion! I'm kind of sad it's all over!

[Lindariel]

Merry, I really wish I could have been there for all of your "talks"! Sounds like a wonderful way to spend an hour or two, and I'm thrilled that you got such a wonderful response from your participants.

[marbretherese]

Me too - so glad it went well, and I would like to have been there!

[Merry]

Thanks! But I think any of us could do this. I imagine schools, churches, libraries, care facilities, etc., are looking for people to lead discussion groups. Lots of people looking for a good talk!

[MICHKA]

Bonjour , je ne sais pas s'il y a des clubs en France amateurs de Tolkien et s'il existe des discussions de ce genre chez nous, il me semble que c'est exclusivement anglais, à cause de l'origine de Tolkien, d'une part et d'autre part, par la passion du SDA qui est un peu plus forte en Amérique due au film de P.Jackson. Il est bien dommage que je sois loin de l'Angleterre surtout pour la langue, mais j'espère toujours un compte-rendu de votre colloque rédigé ici, SVP!!et dans ma mesure :participer, merci d'avance

[MICHKA]

un document +ou- intéressant publié par ''Empire'' sur ''LSDA'', peut être vu sur VW, des choses déjà connues et quelques autres nouvelles, par exemple que serait prévu une version encore plus étendue dans 15 ans( 25ème anniversaire) et surtout des scènes de la jeunesse d'Aragorn avec Arwen(??)

[Merry]

I can't remember if I told everybody here about this, but a week or so before Christmas, I gave a little dinner party for Tolkien fans and recreated the dinner the hobbits had at the Prancing Pony. Good dinner (if I say so myself!) and great conversation!

One little part of the conversation that is sticking in my mind was about Boromir. Some of you know that I have been pretty hard on Boromir over the years. It's not so much because he tried to take the Ring from Frodo--I understand this, I think--but because, when he came to himself and came back to the group, all of whom were worried about Frodo and orcs all over the place, Boromir didn't say what he knew. Well, one of my dinner guests was a young priest, about thirty years old, I imagine, who said that if I ever heard confessions, I'd find it easy to forgive Boromir. Since it is highly unlikely that I'll ever be invited to hear confessions, I guess I continue to wonder what he meant by that. Is it that I would learn to become more forgiving? Is it that there are a lot worse things than what Boromir did? Is it that people show remorse in different ways?

Of course, Aragorn forgave Boromir, but at that point, he was dying. I wonder what would have happened if Boromir had escaped unscathed from the orcs and Aragorn had found out somehow (although I don't know how that would have happened) that Boromir had attacked Frodo and caused him to be so frightened that he separated himself from the Fellowship. Would Aragorn have been so forgiving then?

What do you think?

[marbretherese]

Merry, I wonder if your priest friend meant that listening to people's confessions gives one an insight into the behaviour of those who have something on their conscience. Perhaps he's heard people say something along the lines of "I'm so ashamed, Father, I can't talk about it to anyone".

[MICHKA]

Il y avait ces derniers temps une pièce sur le pardon, à Madrid, où elle fut jouée par Viggo et C.Elias, ''Purgatorio'';et Viggo a déclaré que pardonner nettoie et apaise, alors si Aragorn était aussi grand et bon qu'il est dit par Tolkien, je crois qu'il aurait pardonné à Boromir, peut-être l'aurait-il sanctionné, mais le pardon est autre chose( je crois....)

[Merry]

Thanks for these ideas, friends. I saw that quote from Viggo, too: what a mature thought. For me, this is more than just theoretical, because a very good friend has just been caught in a major public scandal. I'm struggling with my response.