Search found 2877 matches

by Jnyusa
Sun May 02, 2010 5:00 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Sentience of the Ring
Replies: 25
Views: 24885

Sass, well, I've gone through your post three times now, and even took notes on it, LOL, like a good student. I do still think you're on to something ... not certain yet that 'sentience' is the way I'll end up thinking about it, but ... well, more about that in a moment. If you could truly feel my p...
by Jnyusa
Wed Apr 28, 2010 3:51 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Sentience of the Ring
Replies: 25
Views: 24885

Sassy, that is one veritable intriguing thesis! :bow: I read it through once when you emailed me, and I'm going to have to read it again (and even three or four times) before I can respond to specific ideas. But as usual, other people's responses to you got my brain revving, so allow me to come at y...
by Jnyusa
Mon Apr 05, 2010 4:28 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

I would say it's even more complicated--you have the pre-WWI period, which is the culmination of the Victorian; the interwar period, where you see the flowering of modernism; and the postwar period, where modernism not only takes off but mutates. There's as great a distance between Wharton and Stei...
by Jnyusa
Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:40 pm
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

I think this is also a uniquely Christian viewpoint though, the idea that there is nothing more important than the redemption of lost souls. <snip> This doesn’t make it right for Gollum’s redemption to be more important than Frodo’s life, but it does, I think, help to explain some of Tolkien’s thou...
by Jnyusa
Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:22 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

Anyway, presumably what T. wished to illustrate was a spiritual usurpation. It does more than eat away at the soul, it parasitically invades and corrupts the spirit: Like alchemy, it attempts to transmute; turns one thing into the other and always, at least partially, succeeds. Alchemy is an even b...
by Jnyusa
Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:01 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

tinwë spoke my thoughts about this as well! Much more succinctly and 'safely' than I could have. ]The point being that Frodo and Sam are decidedly not accountable for his redemption. The events at the Forbidden Pool and on the stairs of Cirith Ungul may have been obstacles, or even hindered his rede...
by Jnyusa
Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:29 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

Got to be quick tonight ... apologies if this is terse. I was not clear. I did not mean ownership at all. You were clear! I was the one who was unclear. I just wanted to know if anyone thought it philosophically possible that the book now belongs to us and Tolkien is no longer responsible for interp...
by Jnyusa
Sun Mar 21, 2010 2:13 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

Perceptive questions, Ath! More precisely, that his growing love for Frodo would come to outweigh his greedy love of the ring But Frodo himself could not attain this level of mastery over the Ring. Though the love would have been strengthened daily it could not have wrested the mastery from the Ring...
by Jnyusa
Fri Mar 19, 2010 5:31 pm
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

This is an extremely interesting reading of the Aragorn/Arwen tale and its meaning. Thank you, Brian. I wrote about this interpretation for the first time in the Moral Universe thread over on TORC all those years ago ... 2003 or 2004? Tolkien did not write much that was accidental, in my opinion. T...
by Jnyusa
Fri Mar 19, 2010 5:38 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

The Gollum that leads Sam and Frodo to Mordor is bad enough, what we see of Gollum is disgusting, and unpleasant. But I never saw him as "really" a serious, present threat to Frodo's life - maybe because Sam was there, maybe because that Gollum was more icky than Evil. Now that I hear you...
by Jnyusa
Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:35 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

I understand, I think, what Jnyusa means when she says the ring confers empathy to Frodo and Sam. I do not disagree with the meaning in context, but I disagree with the meaning I would take from the sentence stripped of context. So would I. :) 'Confer' was a poorly chosen word. The sunset ‘gives’ m...
by Jnyusa
Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:25 pm
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

I continue believing that the primary reason why Sam could not overcome his initial distaste (and this is important) is because he had not, as yet, suffered the burden of the Ring. I find myself agreeing. In his own way, despite all he'd been through, Sam remained essentially "innocent" u...
by Jnyusa
Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:18 pm
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

n my own life, I remember seeing those who suffered with great burdens, like my sister, who died last October from cancer Brian, I did not know that Jen had died. I am so sorry. It must be very, very tough for your parents. I’ve thought about you often and wondered how you were getting along. That ...
by Jnyusa
Sun Mar 14, 2010 1:47 am
Forum: The Shibboleth of Fëanor
Topic: The Humanity Of Sam
Replies: 198
Views: 137737

Dear Sass, sorry that it took me so long to get here after telling you I would come. I won’t waste thread complaining about work load, but, typical of the past two terms’ frustrations, I arrived to class Thursday afternoon and the building was on fire! And here we were thinking that two feet of snow...
by Jnyusa
Tue Oct 21, 2008 2:11 pm
Forum: Lasto Beth Lammen
Topic: Thoughts about Lasto from a longtime poster
Replies: 222
Views: 54984

Yo, bt. :wave:

The last time I was in a Radisson Hotel was for a bas-mitzvah party.

Seems an odd venue for moshing. :scratch: Was it catered or merely tolerated?
by Jnyusa
Sun Oct 19, 2008 11:47 pm
Forum: 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
Topic: Voting concerns for the upcoming election
Replies: 385
Views: 162567

This is relevant, and a quick read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy
by Jnyusa
Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:05 am
Forum: Lasto Beth Lammen
Topic: World's first operational laser weapon
Replies: 56
Views: 20281

As long as I'm here .....

I never thought I'd live to see the day when the topic of a thread at the Hall of Fire would be praise for a weapon that burns people alive.


:cry:
by Jnyusa
Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:34 am
Forum: 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
Topic: The 2008 Presidential Campaign (was Obama Phenomenon 2)
Replies: 3054
Views: 700080

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by Jnyusa
Fri Aug 08, 2008 5:02 am
Forum: 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
Topic: The 2008 Presidential Campaign (was Obama Phenomenon 2)
Replies: 3054
Views: 700080

[removed]
by Jnyusa
Fri Aug 08, 2008 4:46 am
Forum: Lasto Beth Lammen
Topic: Marketing the candidates
Replies: 287
Views: 80926

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