In the ruins of Moria, at a fork in the mountain tunnels, Gandalf explains to Frodo how the burden of carrying the ring to Mordor was passed to him. The word he uses? “Encouraging.” Tough to swallow, but Frodo learns if it weren’t for him, there would be no one else, that he therefore must possess some quality otherwise unattained or lost by all else, and if that quality does not make him qualified for the mission, then certainly no one else is or will be.
We must thank Hermione Granger for the new trio of e-books from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling available for download on September 6. The books are called Short Stories from Hogwarts and provide a user’s manual for poltergeists, politics, heroes and even a guide (although unreliable) to the venerable Hogwarts itself.
Dear non-orphaned and/or adopted authors, The orphaned and adopted would appreciate your consideration the next time you take away a character’s family just because it’s interesting. Sincerely, an adoptee.
Magic in literature causes problems. It has always bugged me, just a little, that at the end of all the sublime comic mix-ups and supernatural complications in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we’re left with an imbalance in our two happy couples: one pair has been reunited by the reversal of the fairies’ love potion, and…
Between 1854 and 1929, around 200,000 homeless, abandoned, and orphaned American children were sent by train, mostly from New York City, to new homes, mostly in the Midwestern U.S. Later in the twentieth century and early in the twenty-first, in our contemporary versions of the Orphan Trains, planes from Vietnam and Korea brought escorted children…
In the wide realm of literature, having parents is a convenience that escapes many characters. The Orphan is one of the most prominent characters in literature, in part because the absence of parental figures automatically fuels so many possible motivations. Origin Story: Unlike some blueprints, which can be traced to Greek origins, the Orphan…
A life is divided into three parts: the time before you’re able to work, the time after you’re able to work, and the monstrous bulk of time between. After obedience to the law and some basic moral code, work is one of the great demands placed upon the able. It’s inherently traumatic, a sacrifice of…
As anyone ever tasked with disciplining a child (or heck, even anyone who has ever been a child) can attest, telling someone they are forbidden from accessing something only makes that person more likely to want that particular thing. Case in personal point: when I was about thirteen, my parents came home from a trip…
After meeting Gothic characters the Byronic Hero and the Mad Woman, the time has come to visit periods before Romanticism in discovering a popular character known as The Wise Fool. Origin Story: The idea of the Wise Fool is somewhat hard to trace. Unlike some other character types, he does not have a clear…
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