I was always under the impression that the published Silmarillion is supposed to represent Bilbo's "Translations from the Elvish" that he made while living in Rivendell, becoming attached to the Red Book of Westmarch. But "Of the Third Age and the Rings of Power" states that These stones were gi...

Something which never made any sense to me is that the objectively beautiful Evil Queen would drink a frightening magical potion which turns her into an old hag, presumably temporarily (but it's barely even implied), with all the risks this entails. What if something about the magic goes wrong an...

In the movie Black Widow there is an enemy fighter called Taskmaster. It is said that Taskmaster can mimic the fighting style of everyone he sees. I noticed him mimicking Captain America's shield fighting style, Winter Soldier's knife fighting abilities, and Black Widow's fighting style. Has Task...

They come out of Shrieking Shack, where they discover that the dog is actually Sirius. Then Sirius Black says to Harry Potter: Sirius Black: That was a noble thing you did back there. He doesn't deserve it. Harry Potter: I didn't think my dad would have wanted his best friends... to become kill...

The novel Rivers of London, originally published in Britain, was published in the US under the title Midnight Riot. Why was the title changed for the US audience? (Presumably it can't be because "rivers" or "London" would be considered too hard or unfamiliar for American readers.)

In The Matrix (1999), when the agents get their hands on Neo for the first time, they make it look like he was arrested for committing felonies: Agent Smith: As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson. It seems that you've been living two lives. In one life, you're ...

I have this memory of a short story I read as a child at school in the late 80s/early 90s. The story was written in the form of a catalogue, advertising these androids and talking about which model might fit into your life. I remember some of the names - one model was 'Sandra, the perfect housewi...

Someone on Reddit said something that made me curious about the answer. most analyses of Hogwarts place it somewhere deep in the mountainous areas of Scotland, based on excerpts from the books. Does that mean that a student from Leeds or even Newcastle would have to travel all the way down to Lon...

This is a short story dating back to the 1980s or earlier. It's about a world in which underdeveloped planets were forced to hand over children for adoption to wealthy offworlders. They are told to have a 'birthday party' for two year olds who are then taken away. Many years later, few of the ado...

In Mortal Engines, why do Londoners cheer when M.E.D.U.S.A. destroys the wall? Don't they feel the horror of killing so many people?

My daughter is trying to find a series she watched on Netflix in 2017 or 2018. There are 6 main characters, three heroes and three villains, all girls. They are normal girls until they find magical rings and can transform. The characters are teenagers, and at least one of the heroes has relativel...

At the end of Book 2, Azula zaps Aang with lightning, apparently killing him. We know he survived thanks to Katara's healing. Azula gives Zuko the credit for killing the Avatar, somehow aware he has survived. I get that Zuko suspected it, because he knew Katara had the water from the koi pond ...

Where do aliens and humans stand in relationship to each other in terms of expected lifespans?

Inspired by this answer, how can Cypher secretly meet in the Matrix with Agent Smith? I mean, unless I'm mistaken, every other trip into the Matrix had an operator sitting back on the ship watching what was going on. We know the operators have a pretty good view, Cypher can tell red-heads, blon...

I used to own a (small) Ben 10 comic/activity book, it was about 30 to 50 pages and included some simple activities (such as crosswords and word searches) some little fact boxes and several small (non-canon) comics. I remember a few of them, one 10 year old Ben is in a haunted house and turns int...