[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]: So now that we've wrapped up the Hobbit, we have kind of this in-between episode this week where I will be recapping some of the things you guys said about this whole adventure going through the entire story over the last year and a half.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I posted a question on Patreon, and this is for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: This includes free members, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is another reason why you should go check out the Patreon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you don't have any money, you don't want to contribute or any of that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can still be plugged in to some of the things that are going on here, and get to answer questions like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a few weeks back, I posted this question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey friends, as we're nearing both the end of the year in the end of the Hobbit, I'm curious about something.
[SPEAKER_01]: What has this deep reading of the Hobbit been like for you?
[SPEAKER_01]: What new things have you realized has your perspective changed in any way?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there something I didn't cover that you'd like to shine a light on?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have a personal story you'd like to share?
[SPEAKER_01]: If I get enough of a response, I'll choose some of the best and most interesting responses to highlight on a future episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for being here.
[SPEAKER_01]: for your support and I can't wait to read what you share.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we got some responses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so part of what I'm doing this week is going to be going through your thoughts, your words, your perspectives on this last year and a half and all the content that we just wrapped up.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the end of this episode, we're going to get ready for the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to share some fun facts about the publishing of the Lord of the Rings, and things that I thought would be fun to just kind of prep everybody for our next adventure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Plus, if you are a Patreon supporter and you have access to the bonus episodes, I will be doing a bonus episode this week.
[SPEAKER_01]: featuring quotes from famous people and their thoughts about the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're pulling together lots of different people's perspectives here across the board and some fun facts for a nice little transition episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope you enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for being here and let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so your words on the Hobbit, your experience and your thoughts about everything we just did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start with Josh B. Hi, Tom.
[SPEAKER_01]: This reading has been fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've not read the Hobbit myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: My dad tried to read it to me and my sister when we were young, but for whatever reason we got about halfway and didn't finish it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't remember anything from the story, sadly, but your reading has been great.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've loved to lure to the rings since my dad introduced me to the trilogy once I was old enough to understand the plot on more than just a surface level, and I have rewatched it many times since then.
[SPEAKER_01]: This deep reading has really been a great look into the books, as I don't know when I will get around to reading it myself, but I do plan to one day.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your narration and insights have been fantastic and really helped bring about a deeper understanding of the text and surrounding information, like connections to Tolkien's own life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't wait for you to tackle Lord of the Rings as I know you will do a fantastic job and help me connect more with this world and story that I love so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Josh, um, first of all, uh, that's so sad that you guys only got half way through the Hobbit.
[SPEAKER_01]: You and your sister and your dad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know how that stuff goes though.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have read the Hobbit with both of my children.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are 10 years apart.
[SPEAKER_01]: My daughter is 25 now and my son is 15.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was, I was kind of a young dad and, uh,
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess when she was about, I think I've told the story before.
[SPEAKER_01]: She must have been about seven, six or seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: We sat down on the couch one night and I was like, hey, we're gonna read a story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's read a story together.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of my favorite books.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you enjoy it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I still had, there's a picture that was taken back when we were doing that of us on the couch reading and I can still picture it in my head and kind of pull it up when I want and I can see her her little face and her little, I don't know, she's like this little bob haircut sort of thing at the time and she's cut it up with a blanket on the couch, I can still see the blue swayed fabric of the couch and the the light from the lamp and.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a picture in my mind that will never go away, and we read through the entire story then, and then about 10 years later, when my son was about the same age, we read through the books, and on retrospect, I think they enjoyed it, they enjoyed time with their dad, they enjoyed the story, I could play up the different things, and make the scary stuff not too scary for them, that sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it also was an early enough age where,
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that they actually remember it very clearly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they know we did it, but the specific details probably escape them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then again, if you do it too much later in their youth, you know, they hit the teens or the tweens and they just kind of become less interested in the things their parents want them to be interested in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, either way, it was enjoyable for me, and I have a feeling it probably set a template in their heads for things that they would find enjoyable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is something about genuinely understanding the things that your parents like and being curious about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that was really cool for us, but it is kind of a tragedy, you guys didn't get to finish the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm glad that you were into the Lord of the Rings, and I'm glad that going through the Hobbit was able to take you through this,
[SPEAKER_01]: actual book and get through it because this is another thing I think this is one of the reasons why shows like this can be successful is because we have I don't know seemingly less time to read I think for me even a lot of my reading outside of research for my shows and that kind of stuff has been audio books over the last 10 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: partly because I can do it while I'm doing other things like driving in a car, like listening to a podcast, but also because many of them are so well done.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everybody praises Andy circus in his reading of the Silmarillion.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, there's, there's a lot of different ways to enjoy this stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So now that we've gotten through this, I am also excited about the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad to hear that from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for your compliments.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would recommend if you want to pick up an audio book,
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I didn't read everything, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't quote every passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there are definitely things that I had to just say, well, then this happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you want the full effect, there's still time.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go back and check that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you, Josh.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's move on to the next one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not all those who wonder are lost says,
[SPEAKER_01]: I absolutely loved in all caps the deep read of the Hobbit, even though I have read the book several times and listen to the audio book a couple of times as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: You had a way of pointing things out that I hadn't noticed or making me think about the content in new ways.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also thoroughly enjoyed the bonus episodes which dive deeper into the lore or provide background information.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I have time, I want to go back and read along while I re-listen to the episodes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really look forward to the deep read of the Lord of the Rings books.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not all those who wander.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how to say the short version of that name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'll just call you wander.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks, wander.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like thank you again for the compliments here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a content creator, there's from my perspective, there's always questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is something I've been doing full-time content creation for
[SPEAKER_01]: five, four and a half, five years now and doing content creation on shows that I still currently do for almost seven.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you never lose the question in your head of does this resonate with the audience?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do they, am I making my points clear?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are my points interesting or entertaining?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they things that are redundant and people have already heard before?
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I bringing a unique perspective to things?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it
[SPEAKER_01]: is what I'm saying accurate.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are many times where I work on an episode and I go, you know what I think I think this about this, and then I have to stop and go, wait, is that right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that accurate?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there actual proof for that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or is that just something I made up?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have to remember, these are stories that have been around for a long time, but also for me have been around for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: My first interpretation of these stories comes from childhood.
[SPEAKER_01]: I read the Hobbit.
[SPEAKER_01]: when I was in fifth grade and then I read the Lord of the Rings through middle school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that version of my mind picked up on things, but definitely did not catch everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the same time, some of my mispronunciations of words come from only being able to read it and never being able to hear the pronunciation until decades later, and those things are now burned in my mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's the possibility that not just my pronunciation is correct, but am I misremembering something?
[SPEAKER_01]: And putting together pieces here that were in there because I read it so long ago and something I don't know, some idea burned itself in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's a funny one, when I was young, this is really funny, you know, how sometimes you just see a name and the pronunciation of the name pops in your head, but you don't double-check the spelling or how to actually say it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Sam Gamji.
[SPEAKER_01]: In my middle school brain, or I guess fifth grade brain, was McGee for some reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: In my head, I remember reading through the stories and there was Frodo and Sam McGee, which doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not spelled like that at all except for the G-part.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Gigi, I guess similar, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, so it's one of the things where sometimes I rely on just my instinct, and then I'm like, wait, I'm going to go slow down and double check this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I appreciate that you like the nuanced points and the details, and that those things actually have value, and stand up for those of you who are
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been dealing with the lore and all of that for a very long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I strive for as much accuracy as I can, but of course, some things will just slip through, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I appreciate your perspective on that in your thoughts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much, Wanderer.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, let's move on to Hobbit Hiker.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think one of my favorite things about our deep dive has been the insight of Tolkien's real-life experiences and how they might have translated to his writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes me respect him even more, putting deeper subjects into a children's book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I imagine him reading to his own kids and getting to teach them about being a real hero, integrity, loss or struggles, really appreciating and you taking the time to do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, thank you so much, Hobbit Hiker.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is something that resonates with me and so it's something that I hope will resonate with other people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also find it interesting, but I think that there's a greater picture here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to draw a parallel that I think many people probably don't draw, but I would wager that Tolkien and Mr. Rogers are probably on the same page when it comes to how to create products for children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, stories, storytelling, writing a book, making a show, that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say this because I was actually watching, I don't know if any of you remember blues clues, and Steve from blues clues, this goes back to like when my daughter was little, and he's still around.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a new show on YouTube where he interviews people and does like adult topics, but in a format very similar to blues clues, where he talks to the camera and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: On an interview that he was recently on, and go with me, this is going somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: He talked about how people would draw connections between him and Fred Rogers,
[SPEAKER_01]: He would bring to blues clues ideas that the writers didn't anticipate and didn't necessarily think that they wanted or were valuable.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the concept was that the writers wanted to just put stuff out there that was fluffy and light and happy all the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he didn't want to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to actually bring up issues.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to show that sometimes his character gets sad or blue gets sad.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have to deal with real world problems and find ways to solve them.
[SPEAKER_01]: That there's a darkness that children are aware of.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't address that, your content comes across as fake.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it also doesn't help them prepare with the struggles of life.
[SPEAKER_01]: with overcoming your fears and dealing with your own struggles.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would argue that both Fred Rogers and Jay are talking were of the same mindset that you don't avoid the bad things in children's literature just because you don't want kids to have to be sad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is a terrible reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: The more we treat children like people and less like little, I don't know, versions of ourselves that never have to deal with anything real, the more we're actually doing them a disservice.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Hobbit Hiker, I'm 100% on the same page, this idea of showing them what it means to be a real hero, to deal with integrity and loss and struggles, to deal with moral dilemmas, all of that stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should be modeling that for our children, not just in ourselves, but in the stories we tell them from a young age.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you have to remember, historically, this is the way that we shared moral stories, that we taught moral lessons.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was always through storytelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: whether that's in a religious context or a cultural context, that is what humanity does.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we stop doing that, we are leaving our children, the generations that are coming without a roadmap of how to deal with real adult things.
[SPEAKER_01]: when they become adults.
[SPEAKER_01]: This also directly ties into Tolkien's perspective of fantasy and how fantasy gives us a lens with which to view really very real problems, but in a way where we can dissect them and see them more objectively and add distance so that we can actually deal with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes, Hobbit Hiker, great insights.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for your comment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, Helen H says, I first read Lord of the Rings as a teenager, but didn't know about the Hobbit.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I did eventually read it, I found it far too much like a children's book, especially compared to the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I totally understand that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Going backwards to it, that perspective would hit me as well, especially as an older reader.
[SPEAKER_01]: This deep dive has been wonderful as I've seen how clever Tolkien is as a writer.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's made a children's book that has so many themes and ideas that as an adult you can get so much out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for all your hard work putting each episode together.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really look forward to a Sunday morning when the episode drops into my feed, especially excited about the Lord of the Rings read through.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you so much, Helen.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very cool to know that you can take something like this and break it down in a way that helps people reframe their perspective on something and actually give it a shot, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've discussed this many times.
[SPEAKER_01]: The beginning of the story feels like a children's fairy tale.
[SPEAKER_01]: The tone is light and silly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in my mind, when I picture, do you guys do this?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe the, I don't know if this is a citizenship thing, probably not.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you hear something or read something, especially when I read something, I get pictures in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: I tend to be very visual in my brain, and very auditory at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like for being a musician, I can kind of play back songs in my head, very, very clearly like 90% of what would be there if I really know the song well.
[SPEAKER_01]: as if I was just listening to it, but I also can picture things very clearly, and I know some people can't do that at all, and some people most people are kind of somewhere in the middle, but I have a very strong image in my head, and when I go back and read the Hobbit, the beginning chapters are all cartoons.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm seeing a cartoon version, and it's not like the movies that they made, it's not that style.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not channeling images that I have from having seen other content.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's actually kind of its own style that's even more light and cartoony and less drab color-wise and a little bit more modern.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I was a good, better, if I was a better artist with my hands and maybe a computer software, I could draw what it looks like in my head.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I see cartoons.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my point.
[SPEAKER_01]: But by the time I get to the end of the book, I see live action moments.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's the tone, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the tone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I would, if I went backwards, experience this, I would probably bounce off the hobbit as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm glad I was able to give you kind of a new perspective on that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you so much for your comment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, we have one more.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from Ganymede who says, I think one of the best parts of your read is the interpretation of character motivations and thoughts at different points in the story as it affects viewpoints, character decisions, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought this as well through your reading of the Somerillion.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have a wonderful knack for summarizing character experiences, viewpoints and events, and how they affect the current point in a given book, especially when those events may have been long ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for that insight.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the, I mean, these comments are extremely kind.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they also help me to understand better my own tool set and my abilities and what things resonate with you all.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one thing to think, hey, I'm pretty good at this or I'm not very good at this, but to have confirmation from external sources, helps me clarify the accuracy of those assumptions.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think there is something going on here
[SPEAKER_01]: And this goes back to when I was in college, and I was doing both a philosophy and a religious studies degree.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the things I noticed about students who really struggled, especially with understanding religions that they were not a part of, because you
[SPEAKER_01]: with a religious studies degree.
[SPEAKER_01]: You study a lot of Christianity because it's, you know, we're in the west and American all of that, but also you study lots of other faiths and you study other variations and beliefs in Christianity and believe it or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so one of the things I saw a lot of the students struggle with, especially those who grew up in
[SPEAKER_01]: environments where they weren't given chances to see diversity in other people's viewpoints was the ability to not just push back against the things that they didn't already believe, but to try to get in the mindset of the person and see the world through their perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this works for philosophy as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, heck, you go back and study Plato and Aristotle, and they don't agree on a lot of points.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're kind of these two pillars of philosophy,
[SPEAKER_01]: I have this very distinct beliefs that are contradictory with each other and they both cannot be true at the same time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what do you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, instead of pushing back on one and saying, well, I like this one better, it doesn't really matter which one you like, so much as do you understand it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And from that point on, I realized that in order for me to actually give something a real shot, I have to get in the mindset of that person's perspective, try to see the world through them.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is their agenda?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is their pathway?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are they being motivated by emotionally?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are they?
[SPEAKER_01]: What logic are they using?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is their life experience?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are they coming from?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you can get in somebody else's shoes and you'll never get there 100% but you can start to make sense of things that otherwise wouldn't make sense at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: As human beings, one of the things that we are terrible at is seeing the world through groups of people who we are not part of their circle.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is where racism comes from, this is where classism comes from, this is where ageism comes from, all of these terrible things that human beings fall into, these terrible traps are due to in groups and out groups and making assumptions about the out group.
[SPEAKER_01]: which when you think about it, doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you know anything really about the motivations and perspectives of people who you don't do not have any contact with or very minimal contact with?
[SPEAKER_01]: You see that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's where that comes from, and it's a, I don't know, a muscle, a brain muscle,
[SPEAKER_01]: that I have focused on for a very long time, and so when I meet somebody with a different perspective, when I read a character in a book, when I watch a show, and I'm trying to predict what's going to happen next, I try to get in the mindset of the characters, but also the author and go, what are their intents and where are they going?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't always get it right, but the more you practice something like that, I think just like anything else, you get better at it and you're more likely
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's always a struggle.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's something I'm so glad that you pointed this out again made because it is something I find very important if you can't tell by my diet try by just went through for the last three minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something I find very important and also something that helps us to understand not just the character's motivations in the books and their perspectives, but Tolkien says well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you can put all those pieces together, it forms a puzzle,
[SPEAKER_01]: you just have to give it a shot and you have to try to see things and remove yourself from the equation as best you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: You never can quite remove your own personal lens, but you can try to do it as best you can.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for pointing that out and I'm glad that you got that from this and I'll continue to try to refine that because I think that there really is true value in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you so much, Gantamy.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, so let's move on to some fun facts about the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And before we do that, just want to let you all know there won't be kind of a post thing where I welcome and thank patrons and all of that because I'm recording this early.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the holidays.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to get as many episodes recorded ahead of time in order to make sure that you guys still have content.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I will catch up with all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: All the new Patreon members, all of the shoutouts, all of that stuff I'll catch up on probably on the next episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you everyone for your support, patreon.com slash, LOTR, or lorecast if you'd like to help support the show, if you like ad free episodes, and
[SPEAKER_01]: all the bonus episodes, lots, almost 200 bonus episodes, lots of content on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So go check that out and thank you to everybody for your support.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here, let's move on with some fun facts about the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: The publishing of the Lord of the Rings was on original the first original publication date.
[SPEAKER_01]: July 29, 1954, and that's specifically for the Fellowship of the Ring by itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't until November 11th of 1954 the same year that we have the publishing of the two towers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a number of months later, and then imagine being in the fan base when this comes out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember imagine being like...
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, somebody who grew up and read the Hobbit, and then almost 20 years later, you go, oh, the Lord of the Rings, a sequel to the Hobbit is coming out, and that fan base was relatively small still.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's way bigger now, but the books were successful, but still relatively small compared to today's fan base.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then being like, oh, the books are gonna come out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna get a sequel and then finding out that this is way more than anything you expected for a Hobbit sequel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then getting the two towers just a few months later, November 11th, 1954.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the conclusion, the return of the king takes almost a year before it releases October 20th, 1955.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine just waiting after the events of the two towers, spending a whole year going, what happens to Frodo and Sam?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going to happen with Gondor?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they going to beat Sauron?
[SPEAKER_01]: What happens with the ring?
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be so interesting to be part of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And can you imagine if the internet existed back then?
[SPEAKER_01]: All the different fan theories and debates about all the different stuff in the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: But nope, you didn't have that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You just had people writing maybe letters to Tolkien or a few little articles that might have been published in local magazines or newspapers or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's some fun facts.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we know, and most of us know,
[SPEAKER_01]: Tolkien wanted to publish this all as one volume.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would have been massive, like a thousand pages, half a million words, and the reason why they pushed back against that or at least one of the reasons why they pushed back the publishers against this idea was because they were still in a post-war economy.
[SPEAKER_01]: The 1950s are especially in the West and especially in the United States, which Tolkien wasn't, were a boom time for a lot of Western countries, but there was still a short supply of paper.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on top of that, back in the 1950s, publishing was expensive, and it was risky.
[SPEAKER_01]: If something took too much money to publish and didn't sell enough, then the publisher would lose money on the project.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they convinced Tolkien to divide it up into three books, and you can tell by the structure of the Lord of the Rings that this was never designed to be divided into three books.
[SPEAKER_01]: If anything, it's six books, because each book contains like two separate books, and then he had to come up with names for each of the published books, you know, like the fellowship of the ring, which made sense, the return of the King, which kind of gives away the ending.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the two towers and everybody, even to this day, debates which of those two towers is he talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's part of why this feels a little un-gainly, I guess you could say.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Tolkien wasn't happy with this decision, but...
[SPEAKER_01]: he didn't really have a choice they had to go with this and on top of that his original perspective was that this would be one of two books.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would have the entire Lord of the Rings as Volume 1 and then he would publish the Silmarillion as Volume 2 and you probably have the same reaction I did to hearing that and it's that well that would have been a terrible decision.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get from Tolkien's perspective and seeing other people's eyes, but I get that from Tolkien's perspective this makes sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: It concludes all of his writings.
[SPEAKER_01]: It brings everything to the audience so that they finally understand the background of the world and all of these characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, the summer really wasn't written in novel form the way that the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings was.
[SPEAKER_01]: And eventually the summer really was published.
[SPEAKER_01]: It took time after his passing in order to do so by his son.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even then,
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a hard read.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of the reasons why the show exists is because it's hard for people to get into that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would imagine that an audience expecting another massive story like the Lord of the Rings getting the Somerillion would have been very confused by the tonal shift.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one thing to go from something that feels more like a children's book to an adult novel.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's another thing to go from an adult novel to something that feels like
[SPEAKER_01]: little mini stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how you would make sense of that without somehow taking all of that and rewriting the entire summer really into something that feels more like a continuous narrative of some sort.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how you would do that, I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you find a POV character who's an elf, like, I don't know, Galadriel who can talk about what things were like early on and lived long enough into the third age to tell the whole story?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you think about the movies, that's kind of what Peter Jackson does, because Galadriel's the POV perspective in the story at the beginning, telling about the history of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know how you would make that work, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting to think that that could have been what we had gotten, and maybe was a bad decision, and would have kind of tainted people's perspectives about these stories because of just publishing it in a way that wouldn't make sense for a general audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: So
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, interesting stuff, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's another fun one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you know the details about why the Lord of the Rings became such a big success in the US, or at least one of the reasons why.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the early 1960s, the US paperback publisher Ace Books took advantage of a lapse to US copyright protection, since the original US hardcover edition was produced from pages printed in the
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of that, they published their own basically royalty-free version of the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was an unauthorized paperback edition which came out in 1965 and paid no royalties to Tolkien.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tolkien's response was a letter to his American fans.
[SPEAKER_01]: He urged them to boycott the pirated edition and buy the authorized edition from Valentine books, which was quickly rushed to Prince.
[SPEAKER_01]: The grassroots fan pressure led Ace books to agree to cease publication and pay a token royalty to Tolkien.
[SPEAKER_01]: This fan mobilization cemented the series status as a counter-culture phenomenon on college campuses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of us know about the Frodo lives
[SPEAKER_01]: end of the sixties early seventies thing that happened with the college crowd and the Lord of the Rings fan base in the U.S. And if wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for a publisher, pirating the books over and then a massive response by Tolkien himself and the fans to make sure that Tolkien got credit and paid for his work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it wasn't for that, then there wouldn't have been as much of a counter-culture movement for the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is another one of those little things that made the books more popular than they would have been otherwise.
[SPEAKER_01]: It created this buzz and kind of a community effort and who doesn't want to be part of a movement when it's moving.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, one more final fun fact.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about the title of the return of the king and how it does kind of give away the ending.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've talked many times about how token in his own works will give away the ending or future events by stating them earlier in the book through a prophecy or just a one-off from a character that's a foreshadow or even just specifically state by the narrator But then this happened later on like he does that right he gives away endings But he was not happy with the title the return of the king because like we discussed before he had to divide these up into three books which he didn't intend
[SPEAKER_01]: And the publisher's choice of name was the return of the king.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tolkien tried to argue for the name the War of the Ring, but ultimately he didn't win out.
[SPEAKER_01]: It became the return of the king.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the return of the king has a good, I don't know, it kind of rolls off your tongue, it sounds good, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, the War of the Ring sounds really good as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know that I would have been sad if that was the name of the final book.
[SPEAKER_01]: but there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's some fun facts and thank you for all your responses and perspectives on the Hobbit and I'm so excited to get into the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is gonna be fun because I haven't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't read through them in a while and it'll be fun to get through it all again and pull everything apart and I was explaining to my wife I was like we took a year and a half to get through the Hobbit.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Lord of the Rings is at least three times longer than that, so this is going to be like the next four or five years of contents, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: But hey, let's do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's get into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to pull apart every little detail I can find.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you keep showing up, I'll keep making things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you for being here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just a reminder, I'll get to all the Patreon things and all of that stuff next week.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you had a wonderful holiday and a happy new year and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stay safe out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening to the Lord of the Rings lorecast.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to learn more about other fantasy worlds, check out my other podcasts.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Elder Scrolls lorecast, the Witcher lorecast, and more at robotsradio.net.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you'd like to reach out, I'd love to hear from you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Send me a note on Twitter at robots underscore radio, or join our amazing community on the robots radio discord.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are links in the show notes, or just search robotsradio discord, or find the link on robotsradio.net.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you next time.