[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_00]: Today we begin chapter 18, the return journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the beginning of this chapter, we change perspectives again, back to Bilbo, waking up after he's been knocked out, and injured survivor of the battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Technically, that is a casualty.
[SPEAKER_00]: We misuse the word casualty today to generally mean deaths, but casualty's aren't just deaths.
[SPEAKER_00]: their injuries, their people who were damaged or incapacitated, who could no longer fight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this battle, the Battle of Five Armies, has similarities to something Tolkien went through himself, the Battle of the Somme.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in order to understand what Bilbo is going through here, it might help us out to take a look at what was happening in Tolkien's own life.
[SPEAKER_00]: World War I at the Battle of the Somme.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what is the Battle of the Somme?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was one of the deadliest battles of World War I.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this battle alone, there were over one million total casualties.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now again, that's not deaths that's people who died and or were injured.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now compare that to other battles during this conflict and the number ranks at the very top.
[SPEAKER_00]: The battle of Verdun was over 700,000 casualties.
[SPEAKER_00]: The battle of, and I'm probably going to mispronounce this, but passion-dale was just under half a million casualties.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I bring up these numbers not to compare them to the numbers of the battle of five armies.
[SPEAKER_00]: The battle of five armies was nowhere near this many soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: That battle, best estimates show that the allies, let's call them the allies, the dwarves, the men, and the elves.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're probably in the lower thousands, 3, 5, 7,000 soldiers, something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The orcs outnumbered them at probably a number closer to 10 to 20,000 soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So all in all, largest assumptions about this, including the Eagles and Bjorn were definitely less than 30,000 individuals who were in the conflict at all, not casualties, total number of soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no similarity there.
[SPEAKER_00]: This feels like a minor skirmish compared to the battles of World War I, but there's a good reason for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The world in the 20th century was much more populated than it has ever been before.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a reason why they called it the Great War, or World War I now, and it's because there were so many different nations who were involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: The numbers were staggering.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't bring this up to compare the numbers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I bring it up to compare the trauma of the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916 saw the greatest number of casualties for the British.
[SPEAKER_00]: in history.
[SPEAKER_00]: 57,000 casualties are estimated, if not more, and Tolkien was there.
[SPEAKER_00]: He served as a battalion signaling officer, and this was a very dangerous job.
[SPEAKER_00]: It required him maintaining communication lines, this is like telephones, flares, runners, pigeons, between the front line and the headquarters.
[SPEAKER_00]: This means that he was constantly putting himself in danger, because the Germans, on the other side of the line, were watching for people running to and from the front line.
[SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have the same protection as everybody else, because they needed to get up and move.
[SPEAKER_00]: They needed to travel back and forth, so they became targets, and they were valuable targets.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because imagine, if you could take down a signaling officer, then information would stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: An information was crucial on the front lines.
[SPEAKER_00]: After this, he helped us salt some towns, he served in the trenches, he spent a significant portion of time, months, between the Battle of the Somme, in July, through October when he finally came down with trench fever, and was removed from the conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, normally three months doesn't feel like a long period of time, but imagine being in his shoes, serving directly in the front line in the trenches, communicating information back and forth, being in harm's way for three months, until fever took him, then he was removed.
[SPEAKER_00]: During that time, he would have witnessed so much death, the chaos of battle,
[SPEAKER_00]: but also his own suffering.
[SPEAKER_00]: And unlike the dwarves, the battle hardened dwarves who show up at the battle of five armies, he and most of the people that he was serving next to had never been in conflict like this until right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: His perspective is very much in line with out of billbows.
[SPEAKER_00]: A first look at the horrors of war, but also being a casualty himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bilbo in this part of the story wakes up from being knocked out, he's hit on the head, and when he comes to, he realizes that he missed the majority of the conflict, and needs to be filled in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Coming down with a fever may not have been something Tolkien was excited to have to go through when it happened, but it probably saved his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because after he left, the battalion that he served in took a major hit and many of the men he served with were killed.
[SPEAKER_00]: He could have been among those numbers and we never would have gotten these stories, his perspective on the world, his love of history, literature and myth.
[SPEAKER_00]: But much like Bilbo, he survives the conflict and has to be filled in on the details later.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think there are some other parallels there, but we'll get to that as we get through this section of the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: So keep this all in mind as we begin Chapter 18.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Bilbo came to himself, he was literally by himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the beginning of this, Bilbo wakes up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he is knocked out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also still has the ring on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things I want you to consider as we get through this section of the story is, if you were the writer, and I know I do this regularly, but put yourself in Tolkien's shoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you manage
[SPEAKER_00]: a hobbit on a battle field.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something he had to solve, not just in this scenario here, but a few times in the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you handle a hobbit on a battle field?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just in a small conflict, and we get a few of those in the hobbit fighting the spiders dealing with the orcs, those kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But also, in lines of soldiers, in massive formations of infantry and archers and a hundred other things that could totally destroy even a large grown man, how do you take a Hobbit somebody the size of a child, the weight of a child, the speed of a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: and put them on the ground amidst a battle and expect them to survive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the solution here is that, well, he's wearing an invisibility ring, but he also is knocked out.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just doesn't participate with a large section of the battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I mentioned in the prologue,
[SPEAKER_00]: That means he has to be caught up on everything, but he's also not doing well, and this is one of those parallels with the things that Tolkien went through.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wakes up, he's shaking, he's chilled as stone, but his head burned with fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have to imagine if this is what trench fever felt like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, trench fever was something that was passed from person to person, but before that, probably came from the rats or bugs, the other vermin that were in the trenches with the soldiers.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't take that many people and put them in one place for that long without the ability to take care of their hygiene and expect disease not to spread.
[SPEAKER_00]: I imagine he probably did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Bilba says to himself, now I wonder what has happened at any rate, I am not yet one of the fallen heroes, but I suppose there is still time enough for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The interesting thing about this quote isn't the fact that he would consider himself one of the heroes, everybody who was serving against the Orcs was heroic in some sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the idea that he just didn't even know was going on and that he realized that he may not survive it's still, he wasn't safe yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he looks out and he sees no living goblins, implying that there are many dead, but none of them were moving around, but what he does find are some elves moving in the rocks below.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some other hints too that filmin' to the idea that this battle is mostly completed
[SPEAKER_00]: He sees dwarves removing the wall, meaning the wall in front of Arobor.
[SPEAKER_00]: But everything else was silent, deadly silent, a description that feels like it's directly out of the conclusion of the battle of the Psalm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tolkien even writes, there was no call, no echo of a song, sorrow seemed to be in the air.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he supposes that this means victory, but he realizes that even in victory, it is a gloomy business.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's truth to that, serving in a military conflict like this causes even good men to have to do terrible things.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this was the fallout of our cast, I would say war never changes, and there's a reason why that quote resonates.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he's spotted by a man who's coming up into the stones where he has kind of been passed out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, hello there, hello there, what news?
[SPEAKER_00]: And the man can't find him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, what voices it that speaks among the stones?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's still as the ring on, and so the man is only hearing a voice, but he can't tell where the voice is coming from.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Bilbo pulls off the ring and says, well, I'm blessed, this invisibility has its drawbacks after all.
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, I suppose I might have spent a warm and comfortable night in bed, which is kind of funny that he says this out loud, but he's talking to himself, he's not talking to the man telling him about the ring, and then he speaks up, he cries out and says, it's me, Bilbo Baggins companion of Thorin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I noticed that he mentions Companion of Thorin here, which I thought was interesting because he would have known that the men and the elves were in conflict with Thorin and his party.
[SPEAKER_00]: And wouldn't fully be sure about if that was resolved or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So saying that he was a Companion of Thorin in the situation was still kind of brave.
[SPEAKER_00]: It still means that he identified himself with the group that he had spent time traveling
[SPEAKER_00]: The man mentions that they'd been looking for him for a long time and we're starting to wonder if he was among the numbers of the dead, and that Gandalf had mentioned that his voice was last heard in this place, and that he had been sent to look for him one last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And asks if he's hurt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now this implies that Gandalf hadn't given up on Bilbo.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wasn't 100% sure that Bilbo was okay, but as Gandalf does, he takes care of the people around him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And typically, he has a strong sense of the way things are, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And he mentions that he has a knock on the head, but that he had a helm and a hard skull, which is funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, how would you know if you have a harder skull than anybody else's?
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's neither here nor there, and usually is an expression for being some like hard headed and stubborn.
[SPEAKER_00]: That sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he mentions that he feels sick in his legs are like straws, like benty, like he's having a hard time walking, again, trench fever probably feels something similar to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the man says that he'll carry him, and this is another reminder that Bilbo is the size of a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: A grown man can easily pick him up and walk down a hilly rocky precipice in order to take him back to the camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: He weighs maybe 60 or 80 pounds, something like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: The man was able to carry him.
[SPEAKER_00]: They go all the way back to Dale where the campus set up and there stands Gandalf.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Gandalf is among the casualties his arm is in a sling.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has been injured in the conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is another reminder that he, sure, he's a myr, but he's in a physical body.
[SPEAKER_00]: He can be hurt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tolkien even mentions that the wizard had not escaped without a wound in that there were few unharmed in all of the host.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Gandalf's exclamation of delight here is wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, Baggins, well, I never.
[SPEAKER_00]: A live after all, I am glad I began to wonder if even
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we've talked about his luck before.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something unique to Bilbo.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sign that his role here is part of the greater plan has something to do with a Louvitar or the Valar, even though Bilbo has no sense of that at all other than just he feels lucky.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it also implies that Bilbo survived after this point, so there's still a role for him to play.
[SPEAKER_00]: His story is not done, and then Gandalf mentions that he is called for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Gandalf takes him to Thorin.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thorin himself is seeking out Bilbo, and you have to think at this point, is this because Thorin is still upset with Bilbo, and also why is Thorin in the camp a day-all?
[SPEAKER_00]: What is going on with that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And we very quickly find out that this Thorin Oakenshield is a very different dwarf than who we left last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something about the battle, something about this conflict.
[SPEAKER_00]: changed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe it was a release from the terrible magic of the dragon, the dragon sickness, or maybe it was the heroic fight against the Orcs and getting back with soldiers, his other dwarven kin and the men in the elves in order to have a common focus that the changes his perspective on things, or maybe it's the fact that
[SPEAKER_00]: that he is mortally wounded.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if we'll ever know for sure, but he has a changed dwarf.
[SPEAKER_00]: He lays there, bleeding.
[SPEAKER_00]: His armor is rent.
[SPEAKER_00]: His axe is not showing that he spent time right in the thick of battle, and the very first thing he says to Bilbo is farewell good thief.
[SPEAKER_00]: I go now to the halls of waiting to sit beside my father's until the world is renewed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since I leave now all gold and silver and go where it is of little worth, I wish to part in friendship from you, and I would take back my words and deeds at the gate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the seems to imply that he's come to a senses because of being on the precipice of death and realizing that gold and silver has no value where he's going, but there's a calmness in an acceptance of that that isn't pushing back against that idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have this feeling that the dragon sickness has lifted at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Bilbo is filled with sorrow, he still cares about Thorne, and in his response he mentions that a mountain of gold cannot mend an injury like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then for all his fussing and wanting to go home during the journey, he plainly says that he's glad that he shared in Thorne's perils, and it was more than any Baggins deserves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And notice he doesn't say Hobbit here, he says Baggins, because the Baggins part of him is the part that longed for home.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the part that wasn't the took side, the non-adventurous side, the side of him that never would have gone on that journey to begin with.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet, he feels even in this moment of sadness, even in this moment after a conflict that feels meaningless with so many people injured and dead, that it was worth the journey.
[SPEAKER_00]: It also implies that the bag inside of him is not adventurous, it is not somebody who's willing to stand up and do things that would change the world for the better.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Thorn reads this in that comment, his response to Bilbo here is, no, there is more in you of good than you know, child of the Kindly West.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now imagine reading this when it came out, what does child of the Kindly West mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: It means that he is a child of the Valor.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is sent by the powers that be with the purpose to do good in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thorne continues on and says, some courage and some wisdom blended in measure.
[SPEAKER_00]: If more of us valued food and cheer and song above horded gold, it would be a merrier world, but sad or merry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must leave it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Farewell.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this line really confirms the idea that the dragon sickness has left him, that he is thinking clearly, and he's gone back to the Thorin that we knew more from the earlier parts of the journey, the one who was able to see Bilbo side of things and respected him, and understood the value of food and cheer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think back to their initial meeting, eating all the food in Bilbo's home, which seems intentional in order to make sure the food didn't go bad, but also there was value in that, and Thorn was a part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sure, all the gold in the world can't solve a deadly injury, but it also can't build friendships and community.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't need gold for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: All you need is kindness and caring of other people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the language through this section feels very formal.
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels, again, very much like one of these old myths, the way that characters would have spoken, where their words were filling in important details more than they were emoting specific things about the character or the way that characters would speak in the real world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've gone through it.
[SPEAKER_00]: A big change of the last few hundred years in the way literature is written, I think think about somebody like Mark Twain and writing characters that actually used dialogue that sounded like characters who lived in the South in the American South.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a big shift in literature.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sure, it wasn't the first time that happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you could back to Chaucer's Tales and the characters speak like where they come from, but it wasn't something that was always common or so focused in front of the narrative in the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here, we have this dialogue that feels sincere, but it feels very formal at the same time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, we get a very sincere and informal moment with Bilbo.
[SPEAKER_00]: It turns away, and it goes, again, by himself, sits alone, wrapped in a blanket, remember he's chilled, but he's got like a fever.
[SPEAKER_00]: But he's not doing this because he feels sick.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's doing this because he's overcome with grief.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tolkien writes, whether you believe it or not, he wept until his eyes were red and his voice was horse.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was a kindly little soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: He even mentions that it was long before he had the heart to make a joke again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have to wonder, his talking talking about his own experience here, going through the deaths of his friends, the impact that war made on him, a kindly little soul, or on people he knew.
[SPEAKER_00]: And like anyone who's experienced grief, he starts trying to understand the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get him talking to himself, Bilbo, talking to himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, a mercy it is that I woke up when I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wish Thorin were living, but I'm glad that we parted in kindness.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are a fool, Mr. Baggins, and you made a great mess of that business with the stone, and there was a battle, in spite of all your efforts to buy peace and quiet, but I suppose you can hardly be blamed for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this moment right here, you see little bits of the stages of going through grief.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see denial, there's not really anger, but a little bit of bargaining depression and then acceptance, which is interesting because Tolkien wouldn't have known about these stages of grief because it was first published by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in 1969.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was decades before that was a psychological theory.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like with so many other things, Tolkien is aware of the human condition, the kinds of things people have gone through in dire scenarios and the things that he has felt himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, whether he knew it or not, he was proposing elements of this before they were actually published.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this section concludes with an explanation about how Bilbo was ready to go home.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was ready to be back in a place where he felt safe and secure, but it took a little bit of time for that to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, talking realises that he has to fill in the details, that he didn't tell us about how the battle ended and what happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we learn about the eagles.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had this suspicion about the goblins, mustering, they'd been watching them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even though the goblins mostly operated underground, I mean, think about it, the eagles are circling overhead.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have the best eyesight of any creature in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were able to tell that something
[SPEAKER_00]: was a foot so they followed the goblins to the battle and it was them who were dislodging the goblins from the mountain slopes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember the description about the way the battle played out and how the forces of the elves and men up on the arms of the mountain would have been able to take on all of the forces that came through the middle because they were shooting arrows down at them and basically had created a really strong fortification.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the only weakness in that was if the goblins had come down over the top of the mountain, which was their plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had numbers to do so in their goblins.
[SPEAKER_00]: They crawl over all sorts of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was in some ways thwarted by the Eagles showing up and tossing them off the mountainside.
[SPEAKER_00]: But even then, with the help of the Eagles, it was still not enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were outnumbered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the battle still would have been lost if it wasn't for one other detail.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that last hour, Bjorn himself had appeared.
[SPEAKER_00]: Noah knew how or from where.
[SPEAKER_00]: He came alone and in bear's shape, and he seemed to have grown almost to giant size in his wrath.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we have to go back to Bjorn to the chapter where we met Bjorn and understand what's going on here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bjorn hates the goblins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, the dwarves hate the goblins, the goblins hate the dwarves, so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bjorn hates the goblins.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were hints of him tracking the goblins, tracking the party, trying to understand what was going on, watching the goblins movements, meeting with the other people from his community to understand what was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: and what he could do to take out the goblins, and he followed them, and he found the perfect time to strike.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there was a military commander in the scenario, they couldn't have done better, because Bjorn attacks them from behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: The roar of his voice was like drums and guns.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tossed wolves and goblins from his path like straws and feathers.
[SPEAKER_00]: He fell upon their rear and broke
[SPEAKER_00]: The dwarves were making a stand still about their lords upon a low rounded hill, then Bjorn stooped and lifted Thorin, who had fallen pierced with spears and bore him out of the fray.
[SPEAKER_00]: Swiftly he returned, and his wrath was redoubled, so that nothing could withstand him, and no weapon seemed to bite upon him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He scattered the bodyguard and pulled down bold himself and crushed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: then dismay fell in the goblins and they fled in all directions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I think back to the movies and the way this is portrayed in the movies and the rival read between Thorin and Azog and the reason why they did that in order to draw the audience into something that was a less complicated story and to give a you know a big
[SPEAKER_00]: fight at the end, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Thorin versus Ezog and then the other people show up and all how that all plays out in the movie, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I get why they did that, but isn't this equally as epic?
[SPEAKER_00]: Bjorn saves Thorin, well I mean he still dies, but he respectfully carries his body off the battlefield so that he can be given a chance to recover or at least be respectfully put to rest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this rallies the troops.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, Moral is the greatest element of any battle.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as Moral breaks, your army is done, and that's when the majority of the casualties happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at this moment, they drive the goblins back.
[SPEAKER_00]: The morale on the side of the dwarves and the men and the elves is increased.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the morale on the side of the orcs is destroyed.
[SPEAKER_00]: They drive them into the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have to imagine retreating into a river is a very bad idea because it's hard to cross a river.
[SPEAKER_00]: It slows you down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody stuck in the river is going to be shot with arrows.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even if they make it to the other side,
[SPEAKER_00]: And they had nowhere to go.
[SPEAKER_00]: They ended up at the edges of Merquwood, where the elves were waiting for them, or they got lost in the magic of that place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the dangers that the elves had set for anybody invading their space.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I've mentioned this before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oftentimes when an army is routed, we'll say something like they were decimated.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in the times of historical conflicts, decimated meant one in every ten soldiers,
[SPEAKER_00]: was killed or wounded, and that was enough to call the battle for one side or the other.
[SPEAKER_00]: If that happened, morale broke, and the decimated side would be the loser.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this conflict, three parts of the goblin warriors of the North perished on that day.
[SPEAKER_00]: That means three quarters, seventy five percent.
[SPEAKER_00]: So many that it took years for the goblin population in the North.
[SPEAKER_00]: to recover, and after this explanation of everything that happened with the battle, we returned to Bilbo's perspective, he makes his way back into the camp, finds Gandalf, and he asks, where are the eagles?
[SPEAKER_00]: Summer in the hunt said the wizard, but most have gone back to their earrings.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would not stay here and departed with the first light of morning, Dine has crowned their chief with gold and sworn friendship with them forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am sorry, I mean, I should have liked to see them again, said Bilbo, sleepily.
[SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps I shall see them on the way home.
[SPEAKER_00]: I suppose I shall be going home soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: As soon as you like, said the wizard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know about you guys, but reading through sections like this really hits me on an emotional level, maybe that was conveyed in this episode, but there are things that just resonate with me very, very strongly through your grief and billbows perspective and the sacrifice of heroes all of that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so well done, but you all know that I love this stuff and so do all of you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know what else I love?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have a feeling that is a not your actual name.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll read out of the Gigabyte part.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's somebody actually has the last name Gigabyte.
[SPEAKER_00]: That would be crazy, but probably not likely.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Patreon.com slash LOTR Lorcast in order to help support the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get access to almost 200 bonus episodes at this point.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's add free episodes and t-shirts and all sorts of fun stuff so thank you to all of you for your support and a big shout out to all of our VIP patrons Let's see if I can get through this without missing up a name
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably can't, here we go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Folkram, David S, Dan O'Neighweaver, Capena, Richard J. TJT, aka music lover Barney D. Azal Razzle, Laurie B., Mason Weathertop, Jezor, Gimlia Break, Divine Madman, Rosie Rosey, Ginger Fury, who won is my hero, Audarion was right, a very old Matt, Party Snack, single end looking for endwives, Maltwell, and which I still don't know how to pronounce, nor were we Jenny's Balrogious Hunteris, Bruce W. and Brandt P. Thank you so much for your continued support.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, we've got this wonderful new review on Apple Podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please leave reviews on there, 5 star reviews.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll get right out if I can see them, but it also helps if I can't.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's people know why they should tune into the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is from somebody with an username dissident and then a bunch of letters that are
[SPEAKER_00]: think is what that says.
[SPEAKER_00]: Super in-depth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello from Iowa.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Tofer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely worth the listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: The host is super in-depth about the material at hand, whether it's the Somerillion, the Hobbit, and hopefully the Lord of the Rings book soon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We will be getting to the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, as well as he never fails to give me a new perspective, the host is also very knowledgeable about Tolkien as a man in his time in the war, awesome listen would 100% recommend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tofer, I'll just call you tofer because I can't pronounce your username.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, thank you everybody for tuning in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please share the show with your friends and especially during the holidays, if you're tuning in and you're enjoying watching the movies again, and you sit down with somebody and they're like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I've got some questions about this Sauron guy or what happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: In the first and second age, because this is the third age or any of that kind of stuff, please recommend the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hopefully they'll enjoy it as much as you do, and it really does help continue to grow this show and keep things going for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank you so much for your continued support, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to the Lord of the Rings lorecast.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to learn more about other fantasy worlds, check out my other podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Elder Scrolls lorecast, the Witcher lorecast, and more at robotsradio.net.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to reach out, I'd love to hear from you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Send me a note on Twitter at robots underscore radio, or join our amazing community on the robots radio discord.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are links in the show notes, or just search robotsradio discord, or find the link on robotsradio.net.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you next time.