[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lorecast.
[SPEAKER_00]: The show that explores the background of Tolkien's amazing world, from the very beginning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Smog the Dragon is dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that doesn't mean everything's going to go smoothly from this point on, and you might be thinking I'm talking about the dwarves in Bilbo, but I'm actually talking about Tolkien himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But wait, he's not a character in the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that make any sense?
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll hear.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me explain to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things I like to do often when reading books, and I've mentioned this before, is to try to get in the mind of the author.
[SPEAKER_01]: how would I handle this situation?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why did the author make this choice or this choice or something else that I wouldn't have thought of at all?
[SPEAKER_01]: And in situations like this climactic conclusion that isn't actually the climax of the story, what do you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Specifically, we have a situation where some of the characters know what's going on and other characters don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have large distances of isolation and knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: We just finished up the previous chapter, chapter 14, and we know what the lakemen know.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, at the end of that chapter, we found out that the elves are also informed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have been
[SPEAKER_01]: watching and waiting to see what happens and now that the dragon is dead, both of those groups are working together with plans for what they're going to do when it comes to the mountain and the treasure and the dwarfs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we transitioned back to the perspective of the dwarves, we end up with a very different situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just one chapter before this, we were following them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It had been days.
[SPEAKER_01]: The dragon was already dead and they didn't know it yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, they don't know much of anything at the beginning of this chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: And not only are they lacking in knowledge, but they're lacking in resources.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, they have the entire mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's safe.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have all the treasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have armor and weapons and tools.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they don't have food.
[SPEAKER_01]: How could they?
[SPEAKER_01]: The sides of the mountain have been blasted by the dragon.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is nothing growing that they can eat.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not like the food that was inside the mountain would still somehow be edible after a few hundred years that doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they could try fishing in the river, but we just saw that the source of that river comes out of the mountain, out of the walls of the mountain itself, and the flow of it is rather quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unless there's something like salmon trying to move upstream, there's probably not very many fish that are available in that water.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Tolkien has a few things he has to solve.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do the dwarves get information about what is going to happen?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how does he get them supplies?
[SPEAKER_01]: and in very short time, we know that the men of Lake Town and the elves are on the march.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are headed to the mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also know that the mountain is only about a day's journey from where they were.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sure, they're taking some time to kind of re-gather supplies and feed themselves and provide shelter for their people, but they are on the move.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the dwarves don't have that much time to respond.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what does Tolkien do here?
[SPEAKER_01]: Does he allow the dwarves to be, I don't know, taken on a wares, only aware of the marching groups armies.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could probably even call them, especially in the case of the elves.
[SPEAKER_01]: when they see them on the horizon, then they won't have very much time to do anything at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that were the case, then they would be in a situation where they have absolutely no leverage, and they would have to concede to whatever it is that the people of Lake Town and the elves would want, and they would have to allow them to take their treasure, whether they wanted to or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: They wouldn't be able to stop them.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's only 13 of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that would be a very unsatisfying end to the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, I would imagine that somebody like Thorin would be extremely bitter and want to seek vengeance on these peoples.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not why Gandalf sent them on this quest.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first reason was to get rid of Smauge period.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because he knew that things were getting worse.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a dragon actively working on the side of the enemy would be a terrible thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's trying to rebuild connections between peoples.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's Gandalf's whole MO.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why he spent so much time with the Hobbits, and all the different races.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why everybody had their own name for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knows that the cooperation of these groups is the only path forward to their salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And much like in the past, when the elves and the dwarves, and the men would trade with each other.
[SPEAKER_01]: They would help each other out, just like the elves are helping the men now.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we ended the chapter with those two groups taking advantage of the dwarves in this situation, it would only lead to more conflict.
[SPEAKER_01]: So from Tolkien's perspective, how do you wrap this up?
[SPEAKER_01]: both in a way that matches what he was hoping to achieve with the story with the themes of the story and the arc that he had created, but also from a perspective of the audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you take what so many of us thought was going to be the climax of the story, the fight with the dragon?
[SPEAKER_01]: And make that only the second greatest climactic event to something else yet to come.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you tie together all the threads that have been laid out in the story during the journey into a tight little bow at the end?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the answer is to give the dwarves something they don't have already.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I discussed this before with the thrush and being able to communicate birds communicating, that's how you can, well, bridge the gap of information in distance is through the
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's also other supplies, what do they do?
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't have their ponies, they don't have food.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do they get supplies?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he solves that as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you might critique this part of the story and go, well, that sure feels like Deus Ex Machina, or it feels like we're going back to kind of a more fairytale feeling, which we are for a little bit of this, but didn't he already foreshadow how lucky things are?
[SPEAKER_01]: How many times things fall into place?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not just for the sake of the dwarves, when we zoom out and we see the bigger picture, it's for the sake of all the free peoples.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know my intro's normally don't give this long, but I wanted to lay that all out before we get into the details at the beginning of chapter 15 so that we can see this through those eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So come with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's explore the beginning of that chapter, the gathering of the clouds.
[SPEAKER_01]: the very beginning of this chapter.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get probably one of the most plain sentences Tolkien has ever written.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we will return to Bilbo and the dwarves.
[SPEAKER_01]: It almost feels like, I don't know, the kind of thing you'd see in an old TV show where they change one scene to the next and I don't know, there's something on the screen that the text is that pops up or the narrator says, and so now we return to Bilbo and the dwarves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, but now that's the way this starts out, and the tone even from the beginning, as I mentioned before, is shifted.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something a little bit more light, harded about it, a little bit less complex and refined.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll dig into that as we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the first thing that we hear about here is that they've been watching the birds.
[SPEAKER_01]: The birds are gathering more thickly than they would have expected.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something is going on and Thorin specifically speaks out here, and it's Thorin.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not fallen.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not Bilbo.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Thor and who says something strange is happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: The time has gone for the autumn wanderings and these are birds that dwell always in the land.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are starlings and flocks of f inches and far off there are many carrying birds as if a battle were a foot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he is seeing from their vantage point.
[SPEAKER_01]: into the distance and can tell that there are birds in the sky, specifically carrying birds, birds that will eat the remains of the dead, who are following the armies of the elves.
[SPEAKER_01]: How ominous does that feel?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this is another one of those things that I have to wonder if Tolkien had experience with himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did Karyan birds start to follow armies on the ground during World War I, or were they so shocked by the explosions and the chaos of the combat, I would imagine that they showed up afterwards once everything kind of settled, but were they hovering and watching and waiting for people to die?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Thorin is noticing here, and it's odd.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Bilbo notices that the old thrush is back, and we get the first glimpse at something that has escaped outside of them from Smaug smashing the mountain side, foreshadowing, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And he makes a joke here.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get a few little light-hearted comments.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have, uh, but I don't suppose the snails have avoided Smaug's smashing, because, well, they couldn't move very far.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that part of the mountain was absolutely demolished.
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus a lot of them were already eaten
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we get this interesting conversation sort of.
[SPEAKER_01]: The thrush fluttered his wings and sang.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he cocked his head to one side as if to listen.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, he sang.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, he listened.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have a conversation about this ballin' and Bilbo about can you understand what the thrush is saying and bones like I can't, what about you and Bilbo's like, not very well, as a matter of fact, he could make nothing of it at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've got another little humorous moment here of Bilbo being like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, me, they're not very well, but really nothing, you can't tell at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've already established here that communicating with the birds isn't just something that they can do, or at least with the thrush.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then Ballon changes this around and says, I only wish he was a raven.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're fed all of this information about the difference between ravens and crows and crows are bad, but ravens are actually very nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there used to be some that lived nearby and that the dwarves would have conversations with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And your initial thought is, oh, well, maybe they understand the language of the ravens, the same way that somebody like Bard can understand the language.
[SPEAKER_01]: of the thrush.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so we've got that established and it gives us this backstory.
[SPEAKER_01]: There used to be great friendship between them and the people of Thor, and they often brought us secret news and were rewarded with such bright things as they coveted to hide in their dwellings.
[SPEAKER_01]: They had a monetary transaction kind of relationship with the Ravens.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were getting information and they were paying them little bobbles that the Ravens liked.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they communicated openly, they had this friendship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we get even more details.
[SPEAKER_01]: They lived many a year and their memories are long, and they hand on their wisdom to their children.
[SPEAKER_01]: I knew many among the Ravens of the Rocks when I was a dwarf lad.
[SPEAKER_01]: This very height was once named Raven Hill because there was a wise and famous pair, old
[SPEAKER_01]: that lived here above the guard chamber, but I don't suppose that any of that ancient breed linger here now.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is so much detail, and yet the specific in ways that you wouldn't expect, wait, carc and his wife, you have pairings, ravens,
[SPEAKER_01]: Mary and Mary for life I would suppose and also they must have lived a very long time for this location to be named after those two birds specifically not just the Ravens who were often found near this hill but those two specific Ravens
[SPEAKER_01]: Seems kind of peculiar, but we're told to just go with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the thrush gives a call and flies away and ball and says, okay, maybe we don't understand him, but it seems like he understands us, because he has a lot of experience I guess talking with birds.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then another bird shows back up.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's as if the old thrush goes and finds his friend this old raven.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's getting blind.
[SPEAKER_01]: He can hardly see.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's even balding like an old man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's aged, but he's also very large.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he lands there.
[SPEAKER_01]: He bubbles around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he starts talking to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, you might be thinking, this seems kind of silly.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is very fairy tale like, and you'd be right.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is very fairy tale like.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, there is a lot of precedence in myth and fairy tale and old stories for birds, the communication of birds, people turning into birds, all sorts of fun stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to get into that in the bonus episode this week, so I'm not going to bog down the details of the Hobbit with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: but if that's something you are interested in, check out the Patreon.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, we get this conversation and this is the kind of conversation that when people make fun of fantasy dialogue and lore dumping, this is exactly the kind of thing that they point out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So imagine you're not somebody who's already bought into this fantasy world.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are somebody who is unsure about reading the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings or even seeing the movies.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, well, this is all a little bit silly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen to this with that perspective, and you will get why people might think that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Othorin's son of Thrain and Balin's son of Fumden, he croaked, and Bilbo could understand what he said for he used ordinary language and not bird speech.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am Rohak, son of Kark.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kark is dead, but he was well known to you once.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a hundred years and three and fifty since I came out of the egg, but I do not forget what my father told me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I am the chief of the Great Ravens of the Mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are few, but we remember still the king that was of old.
[SPEAKER_01]: Most of my family are abroad, for there are great tidings in the south.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some are tidings of joy to you, and some you will not think so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so can you imagine this being your impression of fantasy literature and the majority of what fantasy literature sounds like and to be let's be honest, there is a lot of fantasy literature that does sound like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does happen and it may happen because it was inspired by dialogue like this in the Hobbit.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, I guess we could say that Tolkien carries some of the blame for that, because this does come across very stilted, very infodumpy, very tell in that don't show.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will often give Tolkien, I mean, let's be honest, I'll often give Tolkien the benefit of the doubt, and I'll try to figure out, okay, well, why would he write this like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: He writes this like this because this is how some of those old texts were written.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were info dubby and they would fill in the gaps in the story when they couldn't just show you what was happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, this has precedent in those writings, but you could also argue that the reason why those ancient texts would do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: is because they were not being crafted by master writers, they were being recorded and written down and changed over time, and somebody just had to fill in the gaps of the information that kind of fell away, or maybe info was added later, and they needed to justify it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So from that perspective, this does come across kind of soft moric.
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's turn the perspective around, if you're somebody who is familiar with those works, then this would exactly be the kind of thing that you would expect from something that's trying to sound like an ancient text.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there is justification for doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It just depends on your perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we get the most important line of all of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Behold, the birds are gathering back against the mountain and to Dale from south and east and west.
[SPEAKER_01]: For word has gone out that
[SPEAKER_01]: this is how Tolkien solves the information problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, not just with the thrush conveying the information about watching Bilbo in the dwarves open the door and smug being loose and talking with barred in all of that thrush stuff, it's the birds in general, the ravens who can speak common
[SPEAKER_01]: filling in the gaps.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this works for the story because the dwarves would have no way to get that information otherwise.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like talked about at the beginning, if they were caught on a wares right here and did not know that the dragon was dead, they would not dare to go back inside the mountain because they would expect that the dragon would return.
[SPEAKER_01]: They would be stuck outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: They would be surrounded by the armies that were marching up to the mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: without the information, without the ability to defend themselves, and they would just have to acquiesce to whatever demands were put on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But instead, they are prepared, and they are prepared in just enough time to create a little bit of a defense, enough to give them the power to negotiate, which we'll see in future episodes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now does this feel like a Deus Ex Machina?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, not really, because we are already established that
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of different people can communicate with birds seemingly.
[SPEAKER_01]: The elves seem to be able to, Bard can, and now we know that there's a history of the dwarves doing it as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one thing I would change is to have Ballon,
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell a little bit of a story to Bilbo when Bilbo notices the thrush, and say, at that time, oh, if only this were a raven, we could get information from him because we used to speak with the ravens.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all it would have taken, and then you would have been able to foreshadow this section a little bit better.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a kind of a minor detail and who am I to critique Tolkien?
[SPEAKER_01]: So at this news, the dwarves are just celebrating.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have to imagine that they are dancing and they are singing and they are cheering and they are talking over one another because they had no plan to get rid of Smauge.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were just kind of bumbling around hoping that things would work out.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it did.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of that, any reasonable person would expect that somebody like Thor would be extremely grateful for, barred, the people of Laytown, putting down smoke because without that, there is no chance that they would have been able to get their treasure back to get their kingdom back.
[SPEAKER_01]: The things don't quite take that turn.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Raven himself fills us in about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says the Thorn should take joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They should go back and celebrate all the treasure that is his for the moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then notes that due to the death of the Guardian of the Mountain of Smell, things are changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Already a host of elves is on the way, and carrion birds are with them, hoping for battle and slaughter.
[SPEAKER_01]: He fills in the gap there about the carrion birds that Thorn is noticing in the sky.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the lake, men murmur that their sorrows are due to the dwarves, for they are homeless and many have died, and Smell has destroyed their town.
[SPEAKER_01]: They too think to find a men's from your treasure, whether you are alive or dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can tell that this raven is on the side of the dwarves due to their
[SPEAKER_01]: Your own wisdom must decide your course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice the play here on wisdom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be wise and your decision is what he's saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he starts to justify what might happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: 13 is a small number.
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, you don't have enough people to defend this place if you decide to push back against them.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you will listen to my counsel, you will not trust the master of the lakemen, but rather him that shot the dragon with his bow, barred as he, of the race of Dale, and the line of gerion.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is a grim man, but true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we get this line.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would see peace once more among dwarves and men and elves after the long desolation, but it may cost you deer in gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have spoken.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so a few things here.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, he's giving him counsel.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Raven is speaking as a wise elder, almost like an envoy from some higher power itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's think about that for a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: What other birds do we know are connected to Valar?
[SPEAKER_01]: The Eagles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Manway created the Eagles, they work for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, they are autonomous, they make their own decisions, they are their own living creatures, but they were designed to work with him, to help watch over the world, to convey his will in certain matters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Could it be possible that other birds may have been created in similar fashion?
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that the eagles are intelligent, and that they can speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, we have foreshadowing for birds that can do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would these birds be any different?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just because they're smaller?
[SPEAKER_01]: These ravens live very long lives, they can speak common, and they bestow wisdom upon the dwarves.
[SPEAKER_01]: These might be a direct line to the valor, even though it is not specifically stated at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another hint at this is the very last sentence I have spoken.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a definitive kind of thing that you say when you are somebody bestowing wisdom on somebody else.
[SPEAKER_01]: This feels kind of biblical.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what is that wisdom?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the desolation divided these individual groups, the dwarves, the men, and the elves,
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that the distillation is over, the dragon is killed, there is no physical or any other sort of distance between them.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no hindrance to them working together again, but there will be a cost.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's telling Thorin, spend the money.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give up some of your gold so that we can have peace and cooperation.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's Thorin's reaction to this?
[SPEAKER_01]: He burst forth an anger, and he's polite.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, our thanks, roeck, carcassun, sounding all official.
[SPEAKER_01]: You and your people shall not be forgotten, but none of our gold shall thieves take, or the violence carry off while we are alive, and he goes on from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is that remind you of?
[SPEAKER_01]: Thieves taking my gold.
[SPEAKER_01]: This sounds a lot like smoke, already.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then immediately we see his plan take shape.
[SPEAKER_01]: He tells Rowak to help communicate with his kin at a distance.
[SPEAKER_01]: Specifically, his cousin died in the Iron Hills, specifically because they have many well-armed people and that they are closest to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice closest to them was not the first thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first thing mentioned is that they are well-armed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Immediately, we know Thorin's intentions.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is not going to give up any of the treasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is going to defend the mountain with his life and the lives of his people, and he is even going to try to summon an army to fight back against what he would consider this insurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how do we know that this is a bad decision?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Roach has a response.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will not say if this council be good or bad, but I will do what can be done, then he slowly flew off.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's going to help.
[SPEAKER_01]: He seems to be wisely telling Thorin, use your gold, make sure you get peace here.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then he's like, yeah, maybe that's a good idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, I guess I'll help still.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that is not the enthusiastic response you would want from somebody who's offering you help in the situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, immediately, Thorin's like, okay, back to the mountain, and then Bilbo, it lightens the mood again and cries out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a little food to use in response to, we have little time to lose.
[SPEAKER_01]: It rhymes, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's about food, but it's an important point.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were lacking information, which they now have.
[SPEAKER_01]: The one other thing that they were lacking is food.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's supplies.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't fight to defend your hoard of gold if you're starving.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of this section, we get a whole lot of detail about how they use the tools to figure out how to fortify the front gates because of course that was a blown open.
[SPEAKER_01]: But every other passageway that they check and they know the layout of this mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: is closed, as blocked, is destroyed.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no other way in than through the front, and we know this for sure, because they know the mountain, and we get these details in a very token-esque kind of way, where they build this barrier in the front with a little holes they can see through, and they can shoot through if they need to, and also an opening for the river to still continue flowing out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you might think that this is a weakness, but with that much water coming out of the opening, there's no way anything come in through it, and the river has to go somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it works.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, we're told that there isn't even a door.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have to climb up a ladder to get in and out.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how defensive this is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a wall that has to be surmounted to even get in.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this point, there is no doubt about what Thorne is planning.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is planning a defense and to be seeded by these armies.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what about the food?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it turns out that the ponies escaped.
[SPEAKER_01]: They weren't the only thing to survive.
[SPEAKER_01]: The dragons attack on the mountain.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ponies did as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the ponies still had supplies.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a very convenient solution.
[SPEAKER_01]: They bring a lot of cram enough for weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is solved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, they don't lift the ponies up over the wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: They bring the supplies and they leave the ponies outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they
[SPEAKER_01]: Let them go back to their masters, which is a thing that happens fairly regularly in Tolkien's writings, where you have pack animals or whatever, and they can't take them any further.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they let them go into the wild, and usually this is followed by something like, and they will find their way back home to their masters or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure somebody with more experience of this can chime in on this, but in Tolkien had experience in World War I where there were pack animals.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were donkeys and horses and whatever else that was helping to move supplies around because they didn't just have a bunch of trucks and things that could go over all sorts of types of land they needed pack animals.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the technology for driving trucks over land was still kind of in its infancy.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, all right, so all of this is happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: They finally get some food.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are absolutely prepared.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the section ends with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Approached to the gate was now only possible without swimming along a narrowed ledge of the cliff, to the right as one looked outwards from the wall.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ponies they had brought only to the head of the steps above the old bridge, and unloading them there had bitten them return to their masters, sent them back rightorless to the south.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for tuning in again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you enjoyed that episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: And welcome to our newest patrons this week on our Patreon.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be going more into birds in mythology and how this all kind of connects into the story and has precedent, which is going to be very cool.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We've got Taylor A. Kailin hopefully.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm pronouncing that right.
[SPEAKER_01]: B, Adam J, and Hall Epic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I did not probably butcher your name.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so sorry for that, but, you know, words are hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of my thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm pronouncing that correctly.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Also, we got a new review that came in in the last week.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I read this one out last time.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from White Vine in Middle Earth, who writes nice explanation of the books.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love how you explain things in detail and do it in a fun way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great podcast, keep up the good work.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thanks so much, Widevine.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you to everybody for continuing to listen to this show and be a part of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you are somebody who just tunes in every week, thanks for being here genuinely.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, I'm going to let you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, if I guess a Raven comes and gives you some wisdom, maybe listen to him because he's an ancient Raven who can speak common and probably knows a lot more than you do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening to the Lord of the Rings lorecast.
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