Do you think it's okay to research Middle-earth?

[Lord of Angmar]

I personally love to delve deeper into the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, but not necessarily as much from the angle of "Can I find out as many obscure facts as I can?" but rather from the angle of 'deeper' discussions about the morals, religious undertones and modern applications of the themes in Tolkien's works. I do not think Tolkien would disapprove of that, as long as the discussion does not become overly interpretational or crossover into the realm of discussion of any original allegorical intentions in Tolkien's writing.

There are some things that I do not think Tolkien would have wished for us to learn or discuss, and these are things that I have seen discussed before; things like the exact lengths of Ent-strides and the Elven menstrual cycles (search for "Elf Menses" in the Books forum and I think a topic from a while back will come up). These things, in my opinion (and I believe in the Professor's opinion as well, though I do not qualify to speak on his behalf) detract from the prison-escapist fantastical reality of Middle-earth.

I will leave you with this Tolkien quote, which you may interpret as you will:

In Dasent's words I would say: “We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.” Though, oddly enough, Dasent by “the soup” meant a mishmash of bogus pre-history founded on the early surmises of Comparative Philology; and by “desire to see the bones” he meant a demand to see the workings and the proofs that led to these theories. By “the soup” I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by “the bones” its sources or material—even when (by rare luck) those can be with certainty discovered. But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup.

Cheers,
Angmar