Mythgard Academy

Note: Stream ends abruptly at 1:55:08 Title: The Awakening: The Whole Story Week 5: Fixing the chronology of the Tale of Years leads to just enough room to fit in all the worldbuilding necessary for the Children to arrive, be discovered, and start the Great Migration. Note that Melkor was great at planning ahead, while the rest of the Valar were clueless about the Children and their place in the world.

The Beginnings, For Real Week 4: Good news, upcoming events, and a winner! Then we check The Professor's math and redefine an elven year. The march of time catches the Valar looking in the wrong direction. Melkor finds the Children first. Sauron becomes the Serpent of lore.

Growth and Change Week 3: We start with a dice roll for the fundraiser appreciation drawing, and then jump right in to the math. How long was elven gestation? And how long did it take for an elven family to recover and want a second child? Or a third? The math for this is meaningful. It sets the foundation for all that will come after. Like how elves experience time, why only male elves made it into the spotlight (really?), how intensely elves invest themselves in their work, among other delights.

Love and Time among the Eldar Week 2: Fall Fundraising update: weekly appreciation drawings at every class until the webinar! Tonight we wonder if invisible elves are still out there. And how old is Cirdan? And has Galadriel gone through Elfopause yet? And what does Glorfindel remember of his first time around? And we find that Elves are burdened with memory but completely in control of their will and actions. Even in expressing their 4 loves.

Week 1: Lofty Goals, and worthy news, and an auspicious date (mark it well, Saturday, October 16, 2021, Signum Webathon!) precede our inaugural dive into this new book. In the late 1950s, JRRT reworked the structure of Arda. He removed his flat earth and introduced Valian Years. What was the point? Not just math, surely. At last, we have the introductory 'Concerning Elves' material that will shape the Silmarillion. And we have a new word for the incarnate beings in Arda: hröambari.

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Welcome to Luna, here is your narrator, Mannie, a free born, old cobber with one arm who’s not on Authority’s payroll. Look him up and down. He comes from complicated Loonie heritage, belongs to a line marriage, has a clear attitude against Authority and Warden, and a subtle attitude against Terra and Earthworms. He switches arms and jobs with resilience, faces extreme hardships on Luna or Terra, and machines really like him. That is dinkum. ‘Cause Luna is a hostile place. Life is not default. Survival is gift. Bad actors don’t live long in Luna. And everything about what enables survival here is the approval and active protection of the community. That and being a not-stupid. For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/the-moon-is-a-harsh-mistress/

Week 24: And so we finish our tour of Hell and arrive at the crux of the world where we find Dante has been affected deeply by his travels at all three levels of his allegorical structure, and where Dante again faints, and where we also strengthen our understanding of the Medieval knowledge of World Geography. In Virgil’s capable hands the inversion principle moves us through Satan’s nether parts to the next realm, and we are free from the Inferno and the stars come out. For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on Dante's Inferno, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/inferno/

Week 23: Where Dante succumbs to the lure of base arguments and wishes he was merely in a dream. And where a bugle blast messes with Dante’s vision, and towers become giants, and not nice ones either. And Dante’s absolute terror returns and his wish to be anywhere else but the road to Hell. But Virgil trades Dante’s fame card for a ride in Antaeus fist into the dark, frozen well. There Dante’s hubris returns in time to help him harass and abuse the sinners; so much for pity and so much for brotherhood. Dante should take care not to betray his guide; we will return with ours next week as Dr. Olsen promises an end to this tour of Hell. For more information about the Mythgard Academy series on Dante's Inferno, visit https://mythgard.org/academy/inferno/

In which we complete our tour of the Malebolge with a rather crowded tenth pouch