I promised no more mention of LotR. -- I lied.

More than 15 years ago Russian scientist Kirill Yeskov tried to settle certain geographical problems in Tolkien's fantasy world. One thing led to another, and he tackled a bigger project - what if we assumed that it's no less real than our world? His conclusion was that in such a case, the story of the Ring of Power is most likely a much-altered heroic retelling of a major war - but what was that war really about? The result of this re-appraisal was the publication in 1999 of "The Last Ring-bearer" - a re-thinking of Tolkien's story in real-world terms. Which has now been translated (however roughly) into English by livejournal user "ymarkov": http://ymarkov.livejournal.com/270570.html. Tolkien would have hated or loved this - hard to know which. Have a look and comment here!

Fun fact: this Prezi went viral in 2012. At the time of this posting is sits at just under 60,000 views. 

Thanks again to Dr. Fred Turner for guest speaking in class to us about EPICS and how we "storytold ourselves" into human existence. A most enjoyable way to complete the circle of discussion about depth of context, elements of Epic story, and Epic meaning. Want more? Get his book and read it! 

We also began the process of looking at interactive (aka non-linear) narrative forms, which we will come back to soon. Below are the visualizations for the forms. We will talk about each of them in turn (and briefly again) in 2 weeks after a brief detour into SETTING and NARRATIVE MODE also which will best equip you for the D2.