Tolkien discussion ideas

[Sister Golden Hair]

Welcome to the Lord of the Rings book forum.

In an effort to promote discussion of the Lord of the Rings, we would like to invite you to post your ideas in this thread. List any topics you would care to discuss. Even topics that you feel may have been overdone or recently posted are welcome. Please feel free to make suggestions as to how you think we can improve our Tolkien community and its forums. We especially wish to invite and strongly encourage all newbies to join in.

We look forward to reading your topic ideas and suggestions.

Thank you for your participation.

[Elanor the Fair]

This is a great idea (from a "newbie" perspective ). I'm sure there are lots of topics to discuss. Some things I am interested in are:

1.The wide variety of published material on LOTR such as various editions of books including collector's editions, books that support the reader eg. published maps, illustrations, glossaries etc

2.Chronology - what was happening and when. For example, plotting the journey by date - what were all the characters doing.

3.Discussions on what is great about the LOTR and why it is special to the reader.

4.Character analysis - what motivated each of the characters - even the minor characters are worthy of discussion. What were their strengths and weaknesses, what did you like or dislike about them or why you feel ambivalent towards them etc - we could analyse one character at a time!!

I could probably think of some more things that I am interested in, however, I will leave some room for other suggestions!!

[Beren3000]

I second point 4. I've been doing it by e-mail with some Tolkien fans and it was quite successful. It's bound to be even more interesting on the moot. I'd suggest a sub-forum for character discussions and analyses; it'd really be great! Thanks for bringing that up, Elanor

[Bombadillo]

Those are some pretty good ideas, for a newbie.

Character analysis threads would be great! Some have been speculated on in their own threads, like Boromir and Bombadil already; I don't know why no one else has thought of that.

I don't have any new thread ideas (when one hits me, I post it then and there). But perhaps we should encourage more speculation as a good thing around here. Most mooters' excuses for not posting in this forum is because many threads are just speculation, anyway, and won't pregress anywhere. (ie What is Tom Bombadil, What would happen if____ got the Ring...) So!? It's still fun discussion, even if it can't end on a clear note.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

How about a nice and simple one like 'Who's your favourite character and why?'

Just get people do discuss who they like and dislike and why?

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

I've got another one.
Was the destroying of the Ring lucky?
People could discuss whether they thought it was lucky that Gollum fell off the edge.

[The Gaffer]

Responding to criticisms of Tolkien.

[Elanor the Fair]

Originally Posted by Telcontar_Dunedain

How about a nice and simple one like 'Who's your favourite character and why?'

Just get people do discuss who they like and dislike and why?

That sounds great. Why don't you start up a thread, Telcontar?

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

I've started it up today.

[Aphanuzîr]

Here are some topics from my own future topics list. It may be that some have been discussed before.

Had Aragorn (and Boromir) not seen Argonath before?
Sam's hair colour
Who was mightier: Elrond, Galadriel or Denethor?
The 'dark forests of the South'
The Shire as a place of lore
What became of all the Rings of Power after the destruction of the One?
Miruvor
Did Tolkien have a point in naming both the pony and Ferny Bill?
The black swans
What became of Saruman's body?
Why 'the Grey company'?
The slaves of Saruman
Why did Aragorn and Arwen plight their troth upon Cerin Amroth?

[BeardofPants]

Noooooo!!! Not Leggie's hair colour!

Yeah, it might've been done before.

Welcome!

[Lizra]

Legolas's hair color...heh!....

[Aphanuzîr]

Removed.

[Radagast The Brown]

Aphanuzir... most of these ideas weren't discussed while I've been here, I think. But the Mirror of Galadirel has.
I'm pretty sure Aragorn states he's already seen Argonath, and Boromir says he hasn't somewhere (I think Boromir didn't leave Gondor before he had gone to Rivendell).
And I don't really see what do you mean by 'mighty'... in what way? Denethor is, obviously IMO, not nearly as strong as Galadriel or Elrond.

[Aphanuzîr]

In this case, by 'mighty' I mean influence or power over people.

At another Tolkien board there is a thread where people may post their topic suggestions for anyone to create threads of them, but noone there has created threads for any of them (yet), and there are a lot of good topics. It will be interesting to see if this method is more successful at Entmoot. I wonder if there is any point at all in doing it; you might have to start the threads yourself.

[azalea]

Well, I think we were trying to see what new people were interested in discussing. I think we wanted to try to encourage discussion of a variety of topics, even those that have been "done to death." We want to encourage newbie participation, and it's hard when all the oldbies shoot down their discussion idea because "it's been done." So that was our thinking. I can't remember what, if any, further action we were going to take (I'll bring it up again), so please do start threads about anything you want to discuss. The only exception would be stuff that already has a recent thread (and by recent I mean that it was just opened a couple of months ago). Just do a search. Part of the thinking is that some threads are so long for newbies to have to read through before getting to post. We don't really have a concrete plan, we're just trying to get ideas.

[azalea]

Okay, how about this -- I'm going to try an experiment that I think was tacitly approved in the mod forum. If I wait to do this until everyone has weighed in down there, it would get done by next year.
Certain threads that have been "done" (Legolas' hair color) can be started, but refered to as "newbie friendly" threads. That is, we are allowing an old topic to be started in the interest of allowing newbies to have their say on stuff, but also to include comments from long time members who wish it, understanding that the goal is to encourage newbies to feel welcome and encouraged to post. That means that IN THOSE THREADS (only), oldbies should refrain from making posts that would make the newbies feel dumb or insignificant. To put it rather bluntly. (Okay, we shouldn't make newbies feel dumb or insignif in ANY thread, but I hope you catch my meaning on this -- if not, refer to the discussion we had in GM about it). Thanks. guys! So, Aphanuzir -- start away! I'll designate the appropriate ones as newbie friendly threads (or Valandil will if I'm not on -- or any mod/ admin, really).

Okay, wait, to clarify something -- anyone may designate his thread as a newbie friendly one, but also we may do so at our discretion. We may also take that designation away if we get too heavy on newb friendly stuff. It'll be an adventure guys, just go with it!
BTW, I meant 2 MONTHS in that last post, not 2 weeks! I'll go edit it.

[Elanor the Fair]

Great idea, Azalea. Thank you for your efforts in encouraging new members, like myself, to enter into discussions. Aphanizur had some pretty good ideas and I'm sure they would generate some interesting discussions. Well done, Aphanizur!!

[Haradrim]

What I think might be cool is to create a new forum called-
weekly discussions.

In that forum would be the following sub-forums-
character analysis
Lotr chapters
Hobbit Chapters
Silmarillion(whatever they use to mark off sections havent read yet)
Other Books chapters
Races analysis
Kingdom Analysis
Ring Analysis
Wars Analysis

Each week you would change the topic for each sub-forum ie-
new character
Next Lotr chapter
Next Hobbit chapter
Next Silmarillion thing
Next Other Books chapter
New Race Analysis
New Kingdom Analysis
New Ring Analysis
New War Analysis

In each of these sub-forums would be threads pertaining to that character alone. Anything could be discussed. After that week no more discussion would be allowed in the forum about it. (Maybe you could make a place to put all of it if people really wanted to continue talking about their topic) Each week you would erase (or move) every thread in the sub-forums and change the titles of the sub-forums.

I think this would really help bring new people into the Entmoot. I think old members and new members would be drawn to it because it offers an oppurtunity for everyone to discuss their opinions without reading through lenghty threads to understand what is going on. This way we could discuss almost everything having to with Tolkien and it would take a long time to reach a point where we couldn't continue. (Maybe for the race sub-forum it could be every month or two months since there aren't very many races.)
In the characters and wars subthreads there could be a place where it notifys people of where they can find that character or war in the books and therefore read up on it. Also in each sub-forum there should be a place where the Moot will notify people of the next topic so people can prepare. I really like the idea and I hope you, my fellow mooters, enjoy the idea as well.


I also have another idea which might make the moot a little more fun. Instead of having one group of titles ie- Hobbit, Sapling, Enting, Elven Warrior, Elf Lord/Custom maybe we could also have evil titles ie- orc, troll, Uruk-hai, Barrow Wight, Balrog/Custom. Tell me what you think.

Haradrim

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Haradrim

What I think might be cool is to create a new forum called-

weekly discussions.

That may turn out to be a good idea. However, for now, we're still pretty early in a LOTR Book Discussion Project - with new assignments due every two weeks. I suggest you first try getting involved in that.

One of the intents of the Project is that it lends itself easily to 'spin-off' threads on specific topics that come up as we work through the story.