[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]: I want you to imagine for just a moment that you are Gandalf.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are one of the wisest individuals in all of Middle-Earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not only in a starry, you are a Maya.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have powers well beyond those of regular mortals, most of the people that you spend your time with here in Middle-Earth, and have been for millennia now.
[SPEAKER_01]: and you are suspicious about a golden ring that Hobbit discovered, well, stole from an individual deep underneath the mountain, and now has passed that on to another Hobbit.
[SPEAKER_01]: The smallest, most meek and mild people in all of Middle-earth, and it's come to your attention
[SPEAKER_01]: much more sinister than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: This ring may actually house inside of it the spirit of one of middle-earth's most dangerous and terrifying individuals ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you've now returned to this little habit and you're asking for that ring because you are about to do a test in order to finally confirm
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're hoping beyond all hope that there's just something funny about this ring and there really isn't anything else you need to worry about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if this is the one ring, then that spells almost certain doom.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only for this poor Hobbit, this poor Frodo who happened to just inherit this from somebody else,
[SPEAKER_01]: but all the hobbits.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, maybe all the free peoples of middle earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the burden is on your shoulders.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were sent here.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of five with the job of making sure that this does not happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Making sure that Sauron does not rise to power once more and drop middle earth into a
[SPEAKER_01]: And sure enough, it confirms it.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fiery writing on the outside and inside of the ring confirm that all of your worst fears have come to pass and the world is going to suffer.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you feel in that moment confronted with the sudden truth that the end of the world is potentially weeks or maybe months away?
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the point we're at with the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is one of those iconic moments in an iconic series of books.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you all know exactly how iconic this series is.
[SPEAKER_01]: But among the moments in the series, there are a handful of moments that will burn themselves in our memories.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is one of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's go through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's take a look at the nuanced little details of Gandalf and Frodo discovering that this is the one ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the previous paragraph, Gandalf says, give me the ring for a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Frodo takes it out of his breaches pocket.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now breaches is one of those terms that here in the US.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't use very often.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, I have a feeling it's the origin of breaches, like somebody, I don't know, maybe somebody in the Southern US would say, put on your breaches.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, breaches is not exactly the same as breaches, but of course we have to break into a little bit of nuances here in language.
[SPEAKER_01]: Breaches for those of you don't know, are trousers, which is another word we don't use here in the US very much.
[SPEAKER_01]: So pants that go slightly beyond maybe the knee and are often customized for different kinds of events, like horseback riding or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: They may have some extra padding in them or that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: That in today's world, that's,
[SPEAKER_01]: a little bit closer to where you'll find breaches.
[SPEAKER_01]: But of course, I'm not an expert on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you're somebody who uses breaches all the time, comment and let me know more about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Tolkien uses that here as Frodo unclasses the chain that hangs from his belt.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we get a good image here of the way that he has secured the ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is in a pocket with the chain around it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that chain is attached to his belt.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like double safe guarded here.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ring is not somewhere where he can easily put it on.
[SPEAKER_01]: He would have to take it off the chain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on top of it, it's linked directly to his belt.
[SPEAKER_01]: So unless somebody were to break the chain, the ring isn't going anywhere, even under its own want to kind of fall off sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at this point, Frodo has already said that the ring behaves oddly, sometimes it appears to change size or weight, and here it does again.
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt suddenly very heavy as if either it or Frodo himself was in some way reluctant for Gandalf to touch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: and you can see the ambiguity here that it first seems to be the ring, but then it's also or maybe Frodo himself, which implies that the ring is already commanding some control over Frodo's actions, or at least tempting his will.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Gandalf holds it up, he picks it up with his own fingers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now this is another one of those moments that is
[SPEAKER_01]: worthy of consideration.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there are people out there that will absolutely debate why this is.
[SPEAKER_01]: But everything we know about the ring seems to paint the picture of if somebody were to touch it, they could be corrupted by it and it would influence them and Gandalf would also be in danger of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But here he picks it up with his fingers and so the question then is why did Gandalf feel safe in doing so and why didn't the ring corrupt him and hold temptation over him in that moment to claim the ring for his own?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there are a few reasons why that doesn't happen here.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, Gandalf knows exactly what he's doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has done more research.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's looked into it some more.
[SPEAKER_01]: And his will in this moment is to see if this is actually the one ring or not to test it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not to claim it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has no want of power and he has no need of power in this situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not desperate to defend himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: The enemies are not approaching him right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: None of that is going on, and on top of it, the ring seems to be going through an awakening.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like it was mostly dormant when it was with Gullham, and yet would be used on occasion, but less and less so as Gullham became more suspicious of it, and then was barely used at all by Bilbo.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it has been in this dormant state for a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: On top of that, Salron,
[SPEAKER_01]: thinks that it might have been destroyed.
[SPEAKER_01]: He doesn't even know that it still exists.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's not exerting his power at a distance to bring it back to him, to summon it back to the source.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or in another perspective, you could say, you can think of it as kind of like reuniting the parts of his spirit, the part that went into the ring with the part that was still responsible for him, him in Shadowform, or if he decided to try to re-embody, although he couldn't do that in a
[SPEAKER_01]: So with the ring more dormant and less active, with Sarah not summoning it coming after an actively even searching for at this moment, it appears that it's not being as tempting as it would be otherwise.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not trying to take on a new master.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Gandalf feels relatively safe and at least handling it very briefly to then toss it in the fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: He discusses with Frodo, and points out, basically saying, like, can you see any markings on it, and Frodo responds with no, in fact, it's quite plain.
[SPEAKER_01]: It never shows any scratches or signs of where.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what's happening here at two things?
[SPEAKER_01]: Gandalf is setting up the experiment by saying, hey, look, there's nothing on here, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like there's no writing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't see it either, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to set a baseline.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Frodo reinforces that with this idea that,
[SPEAKER_01]: Somehow, and this is another mysterious quality of the ring, it never actually shows any scratches or signs of wear, which is very odd for gold because gold is a soft metal.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would assume that it would show scratches.
[SPEAKER_01]: On top of that, it means that they couldn't misinterpret any scratches as being some sort of ancient text that it looks kind of like.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no ambiguity here.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ring shows no markings and never has as far as Frodo knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: So of course Gandalf takes it and tosses it into the fire and Frodo gives a response here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives a cry and gropes for the tongs and Gandalf holds him back.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this implies either his just has a reaction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you're taking something valuable and throwing it and he didn't expect it and just responded.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, more likely, that the ring has begun to already grab a hold of him and his natural responses to not want it to be in danger.
[SPEAKER_01]: and so he's ready to grab the tongs and try to pull it out of the fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then Gandalf responds with a commanding voice, wait.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is not unintentional.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, Tolkien uses specific words for a reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: Commanding the will of others is as much magic as anything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when Gandalf uses that tone of voice, he is influencing people, not just in the regular sort of way of, well, he's an authority
[SPEAKER_01]: But in something a little bit more foundational to the way that they work and engage with the world around them, he's taking some level of control over Frodo to make sure that Frodo does not dive into the fire.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is something that the wizards are known to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're known to be able to command things.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, powerful beings all over the place.
[SPEAKER_01]: The power of a voice or a will to change the way others behave.
[SPEAKER_01]: is a foundational type of magic.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to remember, magic in this world is not so much throwing fireballs and things like that, but it's about wrapping reality around what you wish it to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you are using say Elvin magic to grow a forest, you are willing the trees to take root and grow faster to grow in a more healthy state, maybe bigger or taller than they would have naturally.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are,
[SPEAKER_01]: imposing your will on reality and seeing a result, and that is no different from commanding somebody with your voice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now notice the series of events that happened here.
[SPEAKER_01]: No apparent change came over the ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then, after a while, Gandalf got up, closed the shutters outside the window and drew the curtains, and we could hear Sam's shears getting closer and closer to the windows as he works through the garden, and
[SPEAKER_01]: But notice the Gandalf does this before he actually grabs it out of the fire and discovers the text on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's at this point that it seems that he's sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: He knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ring is not being affected by the fire in a negative way.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something going on here.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then he stands there for a moment looking at the fire and in the intro, this is the moment I want you to think about being in.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is at this moment pretty sure that this is the one ring and about to be a hundred percent confirmed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what would be racing through his mind?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure he's lamenting what's going to have to happen with Frodo here
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know Gandalf, he would have thought through all the what ifs, he has thought through this moment in his mind, if this confirms it, what will happen next, what will happen to Frodo?
[SPEAKER_01]: What must he do?
[SPEAKER_01]: What must Gandalf do?
[SPEAKER_01]: If this turns out to be the ring, the chance that he can stop Sauron's rise to power is almost completely gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I said in the beginning, everyone he's cared about, every group of people in every location in Middle Earth that is still free is going to suffer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he knows it.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, he knows it's so much that he grabs the ring out of the fire with the tongs.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he knows immediately.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, it's quite cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take it and hands it to Frodo.
[SPEAKER_01]: And notice the language here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Frodo received it on
[SPEAKER_01]: shrinking as if pulling into himself as he pulled the ring back towards his body, but also shrinking in this idea that while holding the ring, he, Frodo himself, shrinks in comparison to the power of the ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, it says immediately after this, it seems to have become thicker and heavier than ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ring is stirring.
[SPEAKER_01]: Gandalf tells him to hold it up and look closely, and this is when Frodo notices that there are these fine lines.
[SPEAKER_01]: It says finer than the finest pen strokes, along both the inside and the outside.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this line in particular is very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: They shown piercingly bright and yet remote as of out of a great depth.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's interesting right like why would that be the case is that the fire that was in the heart that is now inside the ring because the ring is heated up but what depth would there be inside a ring a few millimeters it says if the ring itself contains
[SPEAKER_01]: a depth that is not natural, that there is something going on with this physical object that receives almost into the spirit world or something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems to be implying this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we know what the script looks like because Tolkien wrote it out and put it right here in the book for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it is enchanting, the way that the lines move, the tang war script here, is the language, the writing that fanor invented himself ages of the world ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Frodo can't read it, he says that he can't read it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Gandalf says, well no, but I can, the letters are elvish of an ancient mode, but the language is that of Mordor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, why is this the case?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Tengwar is an alphabet of symbols that represent sounds rather than specific words.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in some languages, you have a symbol representing a word, think like, hyroglyphics.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the case of say, the Latin alphabet, like most of us would be familiar with, the letters make sounds.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you can use those sounds to then pronounce something in a different language, kind of like,
[SPEAKER_01]: the fact that you can use Latin to write both English and Spanish, or Latin, or French, or German.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this case, it's in an ancient mode, which seems to imply that this is an earlier version of this script, and you can see these little symbols above some of the letters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those symbols are called Taitar.
[SPEAKER_01]: And from what I can tell doing a little bit of research, and I'm not an expert on script and languages and those kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it appears that in the use of the elven language here, the little marks above the letters are representative of vowels.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the rest of the letters are consonants, and then the symbols imply what vowels would be used with those consonants.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we find out what is written on the ring, and it is one of the most sinister things it could possibly be.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the final two lines of a poem about the rings of power, the lines that confirm which ring this is, because they say one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, they're not exactly the final lines, because there's one more line after that in the land of mortar where the shadows lie, and there are multiple lines before this, talking about the three rings for the Elvin kings, seven for the dwarves, nine for mortal men, and all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where Gandalf explains exactly what all this means, both to Frodo, who is our stand-in for our audience, because he doesn't know this information yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: and to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so much is revealed here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He lost this ring, the dark lord, a long time ago, and as Gandalf says to the great weakening of his power, but he desires it, he must not get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Frodo's response here is interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: He sits silent and motionless.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it says this, fear seemed to stretch out a vast hand, like a dark cloud rising in the east and looming up
[SPEAKER_01]: It looks like the clouds that Sauron sends forth in order to cover over his orc minions so that they can march out into the field.
[SPEAKER_01]: And already Frodo feels as if this is what is happening to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Frodo, who's been pretty cool and with it this whole time that we've been understanding who he is, getting kind of an intro to his character, loses it a little bit here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, this ring, how on earth did it come to me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, that's more of an exclamation of like, whoa is me, why do I have this, why me?
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's also a question about the history of how this actually played out beyond the things that Frodo already understood.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Gandalf takes it as that and decides to fill in the details.
[SPEAKER_01]: He tells us that this is a very long story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Back?
[SPEAKER_01]: in the years, the black years that lawmakers only now remember is when it starts.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that raises a question, what are these black years?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, these are the years during the mid-part through the end of the second age.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the last time Sauron was at the height of his power and was corrupting middle-earth, was working to destroy new manure and fight against the elves,
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to go over this more in the bonus episode this week, but to not leave people out, what did that look like roughly on a time scale?
[SPEAKER_01]: So if we go back to the end of the first stage, we have the War of Wrath, the sinking of Belirion, and the founding of Numenor.
[SPEAKER_01]: It rises above the ocean, although large swaths of Middle-earth are now on the bottom of the sea floor.
[SPEAKER_01]: And...
[SPEAKER_01]: All the baddies got taken to town, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: The Valar march on Middle-Earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: They hold more Goth accountable.
[SPEAKER_01]: They bind him and eject him beyond the edges of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Salron is the next in power and is offered redemption, but avoids it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he disappears for about 500 years and then he comes back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he realizes that he has an opportunity here.
[SPEAKER_01]: to do the bad things that he was doing before and subjugate all of the men and maybe the elves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he starts realizing that the new Minorians are becoming too powerful in about the year 1000 by 1200.
[SPEAKER_01]: He puts on his fair visage, the Anatar look.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess we call it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He looks like a fancy elf guy who brings gifts.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, that's what Anatar means.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord of gifts.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, he gets in good with the elves.
[SPEAKER_01]: The elves don't move quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes about 300 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: 1.
[SPEAKER_01]: 1500.
[SPEAKER_01]: He starts working on the forging of the rings.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's buddied up with Kelebremboer, who is the grandson of Fanor, and the greatest living Smith in Middle-earth and Corrupt Sim.
[SPEAKER_01]: The test rings are made, all the other rings are made, and by 1.600, Sauron makes the 1 ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we enter into the black years.
[SPEAKER_01]: And very briefly speaking, he begins the war of the elves and saurons, what it's called.
[SPEAKER_01]: 1693, he starts attacking the elves.
[SPEAKER_01]: The new manorians become even more powerful, they expand into middle earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's during this time, this time of the black years where sauron dominates all the wildmen, the less sophisticated individuals.
[SPEAKER_01]: and Numenor is his primary enemy, and on top of that, he starts corrupting Numenorians.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, he bends some of them to his own will by giving them rings and then creating ring rathes out of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's in the year 2251-ish when they first appear as ring rathes, but you can see that there are several hundred years, about 400 years worth of time, where Sauron is a massing force in fighting against the elves and the Numenorians,
[SPEAKER_01]: At the same time, while still corrupting as many people as possible, he gives himself the title of King of Kings, King of Men, Lord of the Earth, and even Lord of the World.
[SPEAKER_01]: This domination in conflict continues for the next thousand years until the rise of our phares on in 3262, and the final corrupting of the new Minorians, where he convinced them to travel back to Amman,
[SPEAKER_01]: To actually attack the Valar, because they were upset that they don't have eternal life, and we all know how that turned out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then during the next 200 years, you have the downfall of the Numenorians, and then the last alliance in the fight against Zauron, and Izilder cutting the ring off his finger.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Second age, super brief.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get into more in the bonus episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: But just want to make sure everyone understands the timeline there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is different than the rings of power.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you probably noticed if you've been watching that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there you go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now it was also during the black years that Sauron builds his tower in Mordor and creates this as his defensive area.
[SPEAKER_01]: The mountains that line the region work great as just borders to keep people out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And on top of it,
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a big mountain who fire and a giant dark tower and thousands and thousands of works.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Gandalf lays this all out for Frodo and explains all the details.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact that he's rebuilding his power that he is now back in Mordor and that there's one thing that he's missing.
[SPEAKER_01]: This one ring.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives Frodo a kind of an overview, explains the three, the seven, and the nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where we find out about ring rates.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's gathered the nine to himself, and it's been a long time since they've walked abroad.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the shadow grows once more, as Wakandoff says.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he also speculates a little bit about the seven, and how they were either lost or destroyed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love how we get some ambiguity there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't really know, and that the three are hidden.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, we come to find out where they are, Elrond, Galadriel, and Gandalf now wheeled them.
[SPEAKER_01]: So not exactly a surprise, but the safest hands they could be in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, what I find most interesting about all of this is this idea that Gandalf believes that he, Sauron, had thought or at least considered that the ring had been destroyed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it had been cut off his finger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sauron's power had been diminished because he had been separated from it.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the ring, of course, ends up on the bottom of a river, but it's not destroyed, which seems to imply that had it been destroyed in some way, who knows how, Sauron maybe wouldn't have been able to tell at a distance, he couldn't feel it.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's this ambiguity, I'm keeping using that word ambiguity about specific things, like how in Tune he is with the ring, he clearly cannot actually sense if it's out there or not,
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they were to somehow be able to destroy it right here, he may not have even been able to feel that.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, that seems to imply that Sauron is rebuilding his power in his force in spite of the fact that the ring may never be recovered or was destroyed and still thinks that he can amass him enough power to take over Middle Earth, which is kind of terrifying when you think about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: In his mind, he doesn't need the ring to win, but he definitely would win if he were to get hold of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now during this, Frodo responds with this interesting response here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, why?
[SPEAKER_01]: Why wasn't it destroyed, Cried Frodo?
[SPEAKER_01]: And how did the enemy ever come to lose it if he was so strong and it was so precious to him?
[SPEAKER_01]: He clutched the ring in his hand as if he saw already dark fingers stretching out to seize it.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of these things play in Fredo's mind, which I would justify as being the ring playing with him, specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Gandalf gives him kind of a vague response, doesn't fill in all the details here, but says that the men in the elves back then were more powerful than they are now, which doesn't bode well for everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he does reveal that Isolder cuts the ring off of Saran's hand, he took it from self and then lost it in the river when he was killed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for today's episode, that ends with Gandalf saying, and there in the dark pools amid the gladden fields, the ring passed out of knowledge and legend, and even so much of its history is known now only to a few, and the counsel of the wise could discover no more.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at last, I can carry on the story, I think.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Also, Hunter to Rumbar left us a review on Apple podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you leave a five star review on Apple, then I'll read it down on a few trips.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like this one from Hunter who says, my brother, my captain, my king.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi Tom, lately my life has felt like I've been succumbing to the power of the rings and descending into ratham.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh no, I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your podcast has been like the beacons of Gondor that has brought hope and happiness into my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still catching up as I've found this podcast recently, but I've made it all the way to the third age in a month.
[SPEAKER_01]: The way you explain the lore and history of Middle-earth amazes me and always brings joy to my day.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ambiance and jokes you uh bring make even the darkest of situations feel light.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are truly an artist and as many have said before, you can tell by your words just how much you love the work created by Tolkien.
[SPEAKER_01]: I read the Hobbit when I was 12 but struggled to get into the rest of the works but since starting your podcast, I am now making my way through fellowship currently and I'm already looking to expand my knowledge to all the works like the Sumerillion.
[SPEAKER_01]: The tragedy of Touren is currently my favorite story, and I can't wait to read it for myself and share these stories with my son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, this has been long, but you have truly thrown my one ring into the fires of Mount Doom.
[SPEAKER_01]: I recently joined the Patreon and Discord and will be listening to your other podcasts in the future.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you have instantly become one of my favorite podcasts, you truly are like Tom Pombadil of the Master.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, thank you so much so many kind things you've said there Hunter, and I really do appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you're all enjoying the series as we go through the fellowship and get into these very poignant important moments in the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going to keep getting into more of those as we go through.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've got more of this section to talk about next week.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope that you're coming back.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're staying on board and you'll be there in the future.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for all the support.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and until next time, be a Gandalf, you know, confront the bad news head on that way you can actually do something about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine if he was just like, nah, we're not going to check.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: There'd be a really bad story.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, see you next time.
[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]: Their 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.