Water

The sense I get from his work and a lot of well-done pop culture in general (e.g. the HBO GoT series, The Last of Us, Chandelier, etc.) is one of beauty but with despair at its heart - a belief in the Fall, but no hope in the Resurrection. There's a sense of irresistible decadence and decay, but no (or at least little) hope that anything could be truly, radically different. And it somehow feels different than the Silmarillion, which goes as dark as a Christian can without giving into despair at the triumph of evil.

A waterfall

$100 says it won't be. The last one was published five years ago, and he's still not done with the sixth.

$200 says that even if it is, the ending will be super lame. Despair can get you through a wonderful first and second act, but always fouls on the landing.

Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki, 2006. A young girl traveling with her parents watches them fall under a spell and enters a magical bathhouse as a worker to try and free them. Enchantment, love, and beauty abound.

I'm glad someone brought up LLoyd Alexander. Taren Wanderer is still one of my very favorites.

Two newcomers: Robert Jordan (1948-2007), Wheel of Time. 13 volumes of 800-1000 pages each. Doorstoppers. Finely written characters and an oddly compelling setting of good and evil. Why oddly? Because of.... George R. R. Martin (1948 -) who is the current reigning king, unreasonably called the "American Tolkien" but reasonably called a master of fantasy prose. He has some of the best characters in fantasy literature, and his writing is vivid (and contains lots of parts the discerning reader will, ahem, need to skip). In particular, his short story, The Ice Dragon, is a modern masterpiece.

1. Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki. A fantasy fairytale about curses, gods, conflict, yet with no villain. A young prince is cursed by a dying god and accepts exile from his people, journeying far to the west, where he encounters a war between a colony of ironworkers and gods of the forest. Beautiful meditation on peace, hatred, war, and human choice.

2. Pan's Labyrinth, Guillermo del Toro. A fairytale for adults. A young girl in 1940s Spain is told by a faun that she is the Princess Moanna, and must complete three labors to return to her kingdom. Horror, violence, and pure childlike love abound. Moanna learns the price for breaking rules as well as the proper time to reject them. In short, we become witnesses to the flowering of a true conscience.

3. Calvary, John Michael McDonagh. The most beautiful depiction of the priest as true shepherd of souls I have ever seen. Released in 2014, it follows an Irish priest after the sex abuse scandals in Ireland, set in a time (our time) where faith in Christ our God as Savior is seen as irrelevantly antiquated at best. The encounter of the priest with despair and the cross I can only describe as hauntingly beautiful.

It helps that television has dramatically improved in recent years, discovering things like good writing, excellent photography, and compelling character development.

I had no idea Redwall had been adapted. I've read about twelve of the Redwall books, and went through nine of them again this summer. My mouse hovers on the link, hesitant to try or not...

Something I've gotten into again recently has been....anime. And without too much hyperbole, this series is better than most of the Shakespeare I've read. The best enfleshment of leadership in community I've ever encountered. Shinsekai Yori (Japanese for "From the New World", also a Dvorak symphony) takes place a thousand years from now after telekinesis appears in people. 25 episodes at about twenty minutes each.

http://ww2.kiss-anime.me/Anime/shinsekai-yori

Wouldn't the Narnia exception be The Horse and His Boy?

I was going to recommend Robert Jordan, but his doorstoppers aren't portals. I'd never thought of them as a distinct genre before, but it clearly makes sense. The portal as unveiling what is, or something like that.

Ooh, Raven's a smarty! It is indeed a relic of a Saint!

Take away then, O Raven Wise

No, but it's the right ballpark.

Ugh. Fire is always hungry, and smoke never returns, but fireplaces aren't usually said to sit, are they? Shucks and other comments, Ceitien!

QuoteI drive men mad for love of me.
Easily beaten, rarely free.

This is clearly a description of Woman, not Gold.

And on the slight chance my guess is good enough, here is a riddle I created:

I am born after death as a sign of life,
An image of triumph, having overcome strife.
Hope see my friends when they look upon me,
And companions encouraged -  they too can be free.
I can be from animal, from plants or of bone,
Working wonders for friends, but not on my own.
When strangers behold me they often see fear
And corruption and death, for sight is unclear.
Behold me with eyes made anew from the blind
And blind too shall see - for our Maker is kind.

QuoteOn a side note, everyone else seems able to think of better usernames than I can. Oh well.

I think you win at least a few points for having name 80%+ of the world can't pronounce. Is it some weird language of the Isles like Welsh or Irish? It looks a bit like Sindarin with extra dipthongs too.

For a while I have been thinking about fairy tales, their relation to myths, and the relation both faerie and myth have to the truth. This was aroused first when I read Chesterton's remarks on Sleeping Beauty and the meaning it gives to Death, and then I turned to Tolkien's essay on Faerie. Most recently I read his Silmarillion for the first time, which provoked an inner fight about freedom and its tragedies, but last night while watching Beauty and the Beast I had an inspiration on the meaning of the conditions laid down in many fairy tales: "You can have this if..." So here it is, linked to my blog, where I published it first, but the full text is attached below as well. http://deinoslogos.blogspot.com/2016/07/a-glimpse-into-if-of-faerie-while.html

Thus spake Lost Pathway's newest member, Philosoraptor. I'm an old friend of Raven's, worked a couple summer jobs with him, and now several years later, he has (successfully) strong-armed me into joining his website. One can only protest so far. He "does not take no for an answer," so here I am. My talent lies more in answering riddles than it does in telling stories, but we will see what talents lie for ripening.

I look forward to reading and posting. I am nothing if not inconsistent, so don't expect much and you won't be disappointed. Hamlet's moon speech applies more to me than it does its traditional attribution, but we'll make a good go of it.

Hi everyone!