[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the Lord of the Rings' lorecast.
[SPEAKER_03]: The show that explores the background of Tolkien's amazing world, from the very beginning.
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to the Lord of the Rings lorecast.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is the end of June and we have a new patron chat, a VIP patron chat with some VIP patrons who weren't able to join us last month, and so we changed the time a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have a different cast of characters, if I can call you a cast of characters.
[SPEAKER_03]: Barney is joining us, Norwegian Myr, and Avariel, thank you so much for taking the time to hang out and to nerd out about Tolkien's stuff with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: This week, we are discussing their stories about reading the books or watching the movies for the first time, but then Avariel posted an interesting question on rereads, how did your thoughts change?
[SPEAKER_03]: How long was it from when you read it one time to another time?
[SPEAKER_03]: As you got older, did your perspectives change on a future reading or a re-watching of the movies or something like that?
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I'm excited to get into the details here, and welcome to all of you, so glad that you decided to join us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who would like to kick us off?
[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody wanted to share their story about how they discovered Tolkien's works and get us going.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll start Barney.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, go ahead kick us off.
[SPEAKER_03]: Where were you when when were you what was going on?
[SPEAKER_03]: How did this work out for you?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's been probably over 50 years now since I first read the Hobbit.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I recall a friend of mine recommended to me to read the Lord of the Flies.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I got it wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: I picked up the lower of the rings instead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, flies rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still haven't, to this day have not read the lower of the flies, although I did recently watch the, I think it's a four episode Netflix series on it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, very interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: I might read that one day, but anyway, I got it wrong.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I picked up the lower of the rings and I quickly discovered I needed to start with the habit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I read the Hobbit.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think at that point, I started school, my first year of college, and I had started the fellowship of the ring and read about a hundred or hundred and fifty pages, if I recall correctly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I got involved in studies.
[SPEAKER_02]: I had to study hard my first year, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the years, but so it
[SPEAKER_02]: I finally did pick up the fellowship again because I had set it aside for a while and then it really got hooked on and I finished the lower of the rings sometime while I was in college.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember when and I was hooked.
[SPEAKER_02]: somewhere in there, I discovered the summer early and I was made aware of the summer rain.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I immediately jumped into the summer rain and I personally was hooked from the first line, really not really really the one who in our day is called the Louvitar.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that's out because I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I was just hooked and I was just fascinated by the whole
[SPEAKER_02]: that the world that he was creating.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like amazed that anyone could do this, you know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've been hooked at a sense.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I had no trouble reading some rain.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've probably read it five times since.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know I read the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings at least five times.
[SPEAKER_02]: My most recent reread was probably,
[SPEAKER_02]: summer between a year and two years ago.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the first reread I had done in many years.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I've been following your podcast and anything more of the rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just, I just gobble it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, really.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, uh...
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, that's my story about how, you know, yeah, yeah, they've helped me from the start, and very interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Still going strong, you know, yeah, yeah, so you, you discovered these stories 50 years ago.
[SPEAKER_03]: This would have been what the late 60s.
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... we're talking uh... mid-seventies okay so yeah that's okay mid-seventies that makes sense okay yeah yeah i'm doing math wrong in my head so yeah mid-seventies you discover this and i'm sure for some of our listeners they didn't i mean i was born in nineteen seventy nine so i wasn't around yet um... but i'm not i'm not a spring chicken either so there are people who listen to this show who are much younger than i am and uh... i'm sure
[SPEAKER_03]: When you talk about world-building, world-building today, it almost feels mandatory.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you are a fantasy or a sci-fi author, then world-building is just kind of one of those things that you have to do if you're writing a new series on something.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just kind of assumed that you will also do some world-building on some level.
[SPEAKER_03]: But back in the mid-70s,
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you're not just the fellowship of the ring and the rest of the Lord of the Rings books and the Hobbit, but the Somerillion and have a book that reads to so many people like the Old Testament, and yet I'm sure it was lighting up these ideas in your mind that by that point, there was no, you didn't see this in the movie theaters, you didn't like this, like the idea of even putting that in a theater would have been incredible.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean,
[SPEAKER_03]: What was that like?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, for me, I couldn't believe that there was how much bigger the whole legendary and was so to speak than just the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_02]: The fact that there was all of the, you know, before the first stage and then the first second and third age,
[SPEAKER_02]: before the Lord of the Rings just blew me away.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things that happens when you read through the novels is that you get, there are these little hints all over the place that there's something else.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think I get what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_03]: This idea that's like, OK, well,
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, Tolkien might have the answer to Tom Bombadil, or the rest of the story with the ants, or whatever, and then you go, okay, well, that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: He would understand that, but then you open up the Somerillion, and you're like at the beginning of time, and you know, before time started, and that is so much more massive.
[SPEAKER_03]: It must have been shocking as you continue to study these things through your life, to realize just how deep and wide,
[SPEAKER_03]: he had like he had answers for so many of those questions that people like even going back and listening to interviews from him back in that time period.
[SPEAKER_03]: He knew the answers to the questions.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that was just that must have been shocking to people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was shocking to me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Then I have to confess I haven't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't read all of the letters.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've read most of unfinished tales, but not all of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've kind of scrolled through it, if you will.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've read, I've read most of the work like children of here and fall of noon or I've got, you know, half-lesses of middle-worth on my bookshelf and all that, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: sent and so speak for every share on the graph because I get bored with some of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll move ahead and find something I'm interested in and read, you know, that's that's kind of what I'm doing with the appendices right now, you know, I'm not really interested in all of the.
[SPEAKER_02]: the descendants of anarion, for instance.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, when it's just a list of names, it doesn't really hold as much meaning until, yeah, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, for whatever that's worth, you know, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the whole world, like I said, it just fascinated me and I just, to this day, I can't get enough of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's great.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a really great story.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, let's pivot to Wendy, a very old.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I can, it's okay to say your first name.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can always edit that out if you want me to.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's fine.
[SPEAKER_03]: OK. Yeah, why don't, this was your topic idea.
[SPEAKER_03]: Why don't you share a little bit about your story?
[SPEAKER_03]: What was your journey like?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, my audio went out for a bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I am in a spot where I might lose connection if I do and it back in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, what you know, if I have it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right now, I'm stationary.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, headed to a Paul Simon concert in the Berkshire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's exciting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great way.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was funny because I totally resonated with Barney's story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I read the Hobbit, and like 1975, when I was 11, I fell in love, and it was so great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my brother, who was instigating all of this, my older brother, two years older, said there's another part of the story called the Lord of the Rings, and people didn't really know about the Lord of the Rings in those days.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was still kind of an underground book.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I started reading the Lord of the Rings and the first part was just difficult for me to get through at that age, but he said, you've got to stick with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I still remember that feeling of reading the shadow of the past and being so nervous.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I got another friend of mine to read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We would talk about how sort of, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Gary and dark and, you know, we're building it was, and then we would imagine that in our neighborhood, maybe there was a ring out there that we could find and it would transport us and so I just
[SPEAKER_00]: fell in love after that and kept reading and then we read it a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It has a teenager over and over.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were no books and there's some really and it was not out when I read that book in like I said around 1974, 1975.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think did it come out in 76 or 77?
[SPEAKER_03]: That sounds about right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't remember specifically the date.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think it was 76.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I read it right after it came out that was so brilliant.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, probably.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a copy that was, so my, I've talked about this on the show.
[SPEAKER_03]: My dad got me into Lord of the Rings and stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I have a copy of his original version of the silver really and still, I mean, he's still around.
[SPEAKER_03]: But he just, at some point, he was like, hey, you'll enjoy these more than I will.
[SPEAKER_03]: Here you go.
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I think that edition was the 76 edition.
[SPEAKER_03]: If I'm correct, I could run upstairs and go grab it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, so we sort of reading that and I just like you collected all things, folk, and BC areas and calendars, and there were these Hildebrandt, Folk, and calendars that were coming out in those years.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just continue to this day to love all things, Folk, and I remember I was walking into the movie theater.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was like the opening night.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my brother had already seen it, I guess, a couple of hours before we were going to the midnight show because that's what we managed to get tickets for.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, of the fellowship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, brother close me and he said, where are you?
[SPEAKER_00]: How come you're not in the theater right now?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm talking to you, and I'm promise.
[SPEAKER_03]: you can't be like this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's another story.
[SPEAKER_03]: The idea of like the films actually becoming real and then actually being good.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was a college at the time and I've talked about this how I would come home for Christmas break for the holidays and that's when the films were in the theaters and I got to, you know, year after year, enjoy it with my dad and my brother and maybe a friend who came with me or whatever and that was such a
[SPEAKER_03]: such a fun way to celebrate the holidays with family around something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was really just for my life span that just hit right exactly at the right time and it was amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it was very nice to see like there were things of course like as a reader, you might find, nah, I didn't love the way they did that one thing, but those were small potatoes compared to how beautifully it was done overall.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: At that time,
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to play on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: They called it a much, it was a non-graphical game that you played by sort of writing in text, what you were doing and where you were going.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, yeah, like muds, like mud, like mud.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like mud.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was big.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were a lot of people that played that game.
[SPEAKER_00]: And whenever you got on, you would find people and you got to know people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know a cop from Columbus, Ohio through that game and another guy who lives in California, just a bunch of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it became just a fun thing to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And especially with the movies, it got very big.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until, of course, like games moved on from those.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but that was a fun thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it also sort of, it was a different angle into what sort of thinking about and enjoying Hulkan's world and Hulkan's imaginary, you know, at the universe that feels real to me to be honest, even though it's not real.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still feel like it's a bit real.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's my story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still think what we used to call the Tolkien shelf in my house, bits and pieces of all the Tolkien shelf.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like everyone knows that sort of in my house, my siblings will come to my house if they want to look at the books.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm talking about the original ones that we read as kids and then kind of collected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for joining me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for supporting what I do and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll say one more thing, your podcast is in so many ways, like a reread as well, because it opens up my mind to new ways of thinking and the way that you're going very methodically and very close, you know, with this close reading method of each of heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just making things clear to me that I'd never seen in the text or never thought about or missed or just had forgotten about because it's been a while.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: But let me talk on that for just a moment, but I definitely have some questions for you.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that is something I'm glad you appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm glad people enjoy that.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was.
[SPEAKER_03]: one of those things that when you are creating content you have ideas for like I think this is something people want and then you try it it's like creating a startup company where you're like I think this is a product and there's a market for it right but I mean you guys know how it is to read through these books oftentimes they're gripping and you just keep
[SPEAKER_03]: turning scrolling, turning pages.
[SPEAKER_03]: The scrolling joke is because I've talked in the pre show about something and turning pages on the book, but I said scrolled to the back, which is funny for language reasons, but we won't get into that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But my point being that oftentimes you pick up the novels on a reread, and especially as they become more familiar to you, you kind of just
[SPEAKER_03]: Go, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then an hour disappears and you're like two chapters later.
[SPEAKER_03]: And well, and you've just processed it and maybe in a slightly different way.
[SPEAKER_03]: But to take everything just sentence by sentence word by word and do like a very pseudo academic, I can't say that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm an academic on this, but to try to bring that energy to it, I was worried.
[SPEAKER_03]: Would people with this be too boring?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this too detailed?
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this too slow?
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'm glad you guys enjoy that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I would call you an academic on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wendy, you mentioned, this is another thing that our younger listeners will maybe never have experienced.
[SPEAKER_03]: The time when the internet was not what it is today and the idea that you could play a
[SPEAKER_03]: on a server that wasn't even necessarily like I remember playing these on local bulletin board systems.
[SPEAKER_03]: This was the thing, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And he would log in and the ones that I would log in and towards the end of the 90s before the internet really took off.
[SPEAKER_03]: And MMO RPGs became a thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: It only had so many phone lines.
[SPEAKER_03]: So you would have to wait till one of the phone lines was open, log in.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then I think I played a game similar called like Red Dragon or the
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, a tavern of the red dragon or something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And you would do your little thing, go on a little quest, maybe you'd get an item, maybe send somebody a message or a letter, and then like that kind of thing, that brings back so many memories.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure some people can remember this, but a lot of people don't, but to get into your your topic a little bit deeper,
[SPEAKER_03]: When have you done rereads, and how did your perspective change as you did rereads or got older?
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I feel like, you know, when I was younger, I was reading to fill in the gaps in what I, what I knew about the books and, and, you know, just soaking in, let's call it the lore, your term, or often used term.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then later I found that my perspective shifted as I had children.
[SPEAKER_00]: the way that people worked with each other in society, the way that people kind of thought about life and protecting, just was another, you know, another view.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I've gotten older, I sort of see the mortality aspect in Vulcan's own writing and the immortality versus mortality concept and the way that that's portrayed is really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I think the other thing that I noticed in the most recent reread, which I have to confess that I have, like, got stuck at the two towers and I'm, I'll have him come past it because it started getting dark and I was like, Oh, no, it's dark.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're getting scared.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But um, I think that I noticed a lot more about the nature writing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pages of nature writing and.
[SPEAKER_00]: Interestingly, I read some British mystery recently that was written around the same period, and it also had pages of nature writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was also set in a similar part of England that Vulcan grew up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just found that to be very interesting that it was similar in style in so many ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those, you know, the unfolding of the landscape as they move forward right was just beautifully written and something that I'd never noticed quite as clearly until this last reread so every time I feel like I get something different.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I could go on at length, but I think I will not.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there's a reason why I try to point out every time he points out a tree, like actually names a tree.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not just the trees on the road we're shading the path.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the beach trees, or whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very intentional and it's clearly shows both how he appreciated nature, but also felt not just appreciated, but felt personally connected.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like knowing the trees by name, that sort of thing, which is a very treebeard kind of thing, but like you see that later with treebeard.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, that's really, really interesting too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think it's obvious that when he wrote these stories, he was already a dad.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like going back to the idea of like being a parent changes your perspective on the world makes you, it makes you think bigger and broader, it makes you feel more, I don't know, invested in the future and in society and those types of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think that was, do you think it's obvious that he's a dad?
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love others to answer that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that would be cool to see here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, the other guys here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, Norwegian, Norwegian Meyer has an end chance to talk yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to get to your story just a second.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what do you think?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you think it's obvious that Tolkien was a dad?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think in a way that, like, sort of how the, I think about Bill Bowen and Frodo a lot, that the interactions between him is not like all,
[SPEAKER_01]: I wouldn't say a little bit of it, but you know, the meaning like it's a lot more depth to it like a mutual respect in a way and I think that like shows that he is a dad because it's not just one way of action from a father to a son or something like that, but it's more of a mutual like back and forth relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a good way to put it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's an interesting relationship to point to.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you think, Barney?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, to me, it is obvious that, well, you know, we know, but it shall be, it's that he was, I mean, this started out as a children story, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think he was, it seems pretty obvious to me that he's trying to,
[SPEAKER_02]: to basically almost like he's trying to please his children with the writing of these books.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think Bombadillo came from that thought too that he, you know, Bombadillo was thrown in there
[SPEAKER_02]: to please his children to make his children happy or to, you know, I know I've read some letters or some commentary maybe you Tom have even said something about that in one of your episodes or several of your episodes perhaps, but yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and a man from his time, it's interesting, because of how long ago he was born in that generation being for the most part gone at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: But like we, I can understand my generation and the way parents, the way my peers parent, I can understand my parents' generation and the
[SPEAKER_03]: our baby boomer generation right in their 70s and their generation I understand that like for my father's generation like parents generation his father was rather emotionally detached and that was kind of a trend with that generation but I have to wonder what Tolkien's experiences were with his own parents being a child you know like I don't can't think of many times that he's
[SPEAKER_03]: And the evidence we have for the way he interacted with his children and the relationships he built with them into their adult hoods.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that there's some really interesting things in there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure he must have been...
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: The idea that he and Christopher had such a close relationship and Christopher devoted his life to working on the things his father already loved and created must have been extremely flattering as a parent.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, oh, one of my kids loves my stuff and me so much that they just want to keep doing this.
[SPEAKER_03]: It must have been an amazing feeling for him.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard for me to to know for sure what that was like, but I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you have any suspicions about that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Does anybody else?
[SPEAKER_03]: Does this ring any bells?
[SPEAKER_00]: I rolled once, you know, I read at some point that he sent a lot of his Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_00]: stories that were in the world of the rings in development as it was being written.
[SPEAKER_00]: He sent in letters to Christopher when Christopher was stationed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think in South Africa during World War II.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, that's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was not a lot that was much more dangerous than being an RAF pilot in World War II.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was not like an easy way to survive the war.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I have to imagine that he must have been incredibly concerned about his son and his son's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously having seen a close what work is like knowing the reality of that, you know, I think that that also brings this perspective into the battles and the danger and the sort of sense of the sort of the real sort of visual sense that.
[SPEAKER_00]: there is a world on the edge here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for him personally, that must have felt true at Seesriding the Lord of the Rings.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think that's a great point.
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't, I try as best I can to learn more about the world through other people's perspectives.
[SPEAKER_03]: The first thing I always try, and this is maybe this is having been a philosophy major and a religious, religious studies major in college, but one of the things that I grow like,
[SPEAKER_03]: really got into doing back then was when I would read somebody's stuff, whether it was a philosopher or an author or whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would try to give them the benefit of the doubt.
[SPEAKER_03]: So many of my peers would read something and they would immediately go, well, I don't I don't believe that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't I disagree and they would try to find all the reasons to poke holes in it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And as opposed to going, but what if this is true?
[SPEAKER_03]: What if this is accurate, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And putting yourself in the author's shoes.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I try to do that as much as I can, especially with Tolkien and his work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are just some things that I just, like I don't have that experience, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't serve in war, and I don't have children who have.
[SPEAKER_03]: And thankfully, I never will.
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, but to imagine what that is like and how that influenced your life is something that I just, I'm not really sure exactly how that works, but I can try to understand it through talking, you know, this is this is a great conversation so far, but we have to get to a Norwegian Maya in here, your story, where did you discover Tolkien's work and how has that evolved over time?
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I, my cousin showed it to me when I was, no, eight, I think, uh, I was in 2002.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: So then eight years old, that's, that's pretty young.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, some of the, some of the scenes in those movies are pretty scary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, it was probably a couple of nightmares in there somewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, so it started with the movies and like, I have like,
[SPEAKER_01]: the wildest imagination known to man as a kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we just love like running out and playing like the sort of different characters and just yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you grow up in Norway?
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you grow up in Norway?
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, I did.
[SPEAKER_03]: So were you near wilderness and trees and rocks and things like that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I grew up in an island like far outside of Bergen, the on the west coast.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we had a lot of like big forests and you could like really like picture yourself in that world.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so did you be running around wondering if you'd find a secret ring somewhere kind of like Wendy, Wendy did?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: I grew up in a fairly, I don't know, suburban area, but there were definitely some places where there were trees and parks and forests and my friends and I would go into those areas.
[SPEAKER_03]: We'd take our bikes down this trail and then get lost in the woods a little bit and then find the trail again and then go home and like back kind of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: So,
[SPEAKER_03]: I can totally resonate with that experience of like, okay, like people who grow up near the wilderness have a different appreciation for wilderness than people who grow up in just cities and have never experienced that.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sorry, so go on, continue on with your story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so then it's just kept evolving like we love the movies and I think I was probably around
[SPEAKER_01]: And just like immediately like the difference from the movies to the books, I just love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I was able to say like a different shade like the movie was one thing and the books were one thing and just really appreciate both.
[SPEAKER_01]: and I was just a bunch for all to all key and have that nice so at 15 years old do you already noticed the differences do you remember which things stood out the most I think the most was a lot of the conversations like how in depth they were about a lot of things like
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of those things like how much more in depth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember all so the the ends were really cool for me to me that day.
[SPEAKER_01]: And just how much more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually happened around that time where Pippin and Mary were in in favor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a lot of those like yeah in depth things of the not necessarily the the things that were cut out.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the movies, but just how much more in-depth everything was in the books.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things that always hits me funny about the ends is that the movie adaptation is not how they're described in the books.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is very different.
[SPEAKER_03]: They seem to be much more fleshy and have dark human skin rather than bark and as tree-like as they are in the movies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Although I'm not sure that would have transitioned as well for like a visual medium.
[SPEAKER_03]: ever since the movies came out to picture the ends and to actually like visualize them in a satisfactory way that doesn't come across as just somehow odd or creepy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Am I alone in that?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you feel about the ends?
[SPEAKER_03]: No reader Meyer.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I can agree to that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think just
[SPEAKER_01]: because of the movies and like, that's how I was introduced to the whole, uh, the lore.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just that's like the only thing I can picture.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's hard to see them as being more human, like, and less tree-like.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: But that's how the books picture them.
[SPEAKER_03]: When did, when did, what do you think?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you feel about, and send the way they're pictured?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually didn't think about it with the
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's true, like the ends felt more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they were more mushy.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's weird, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they're more feminine, like they were.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were not like rooted trees.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you sort of make sure if you think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the ends were woken up by the others, but they were trees and then they sort of became these beings, or maybe you could say it was the other way around, but you're right, they were very tree like, but they weren't fully tree like, so yeah, yeah, I guess my I'm going to move it for a second and say some of the characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: felt very different from how I picture them, but it is real and I won't say who well, I will say let's go run to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll run to me to not look like you go weaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just don't see that there.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I mean, it was a great portrayal, but the visual wasn't right for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eric Warren, I think, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like, I like, I like, I like there are, I think we all like there are going.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, yeah, his, his attitude is a little different.
[SPEAKER_03]: Vigo did an amazing job.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well done.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm curious.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about El run real quick.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who, if can you think of an actor that you would have replaced El run with or just a description?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I can't think of an after I just can't, it's true.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, somehow, maybe it's very tricky, is one of the hardest things because, you know, yeah, I guess the descriptions of Elron make him so sort of different special and, you know, both very
[SPEAKER_00]: attract very handsome but also very wise all these this sort of mixture of characteristics and I've watched the Amazon series and they're not quite getting a right either but hey you know I mean that's just me I'm sure a lot of people disagree with that but that is one place where I would have said
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: So actually, I think the movie did a very good job of two characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one was Waramir, it felt like I did not understand Waramir's arc and psychology until I saw the depiction of the movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: I always thought of him as a bad guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know spoilers here, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I always thought of him as kind of like the creepy bad guy, you know, from forever and then movie kind of opened my eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was very cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's a great point because I went through a similar thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, I was still fairly young when the movies came out and didn't have hadn't studied any of this as much, obviously.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I remember being a teenager in reading through the books the first time and always feeling bad, like Baramir, he's not a good guy, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: But like, it's not as simple as that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that there's something that comes with
[SPEAKER_03]: and understanding limitation, like your own limitations, how much you intend to do good, but don't always follow through or are tempted by something else, like the nuance of being a human being and dealing with temptation, or dealing with duty, or dealing with expectations of others, or your parents, or your job, you know, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, you end up in Boramir's situation where you're going, I think that there's the right thing to do, and I feel like I'm the right person who's supposed to do it, but everyone else is saying that something else is the right thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And so how do I do that?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then deep down, being like,
[SPEAKER_03]: a legit good guy, like he had very positive relationships with the Hobbits until the moment where the ring finally took over and he was tempted to hard and try to take it, you know, like, yeah, let's, Barney, what do you think about all this?
[SPEAKER_03]: What comes to mind?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I, I love the way Peter Jackson developed that Boramur's character arc.
[SPEAKER_02]: I hadn't, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: My next reread, I'll have to really pay attention to how that goes in the book versus what he did in the movie.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the movies by the way, and I know that they changed some stuff as we all know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And for the theater, but what you said earlier kind of resonated with me about how you tend to give people
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... how was it you ordered it instead of saying oh no that's not right they uh... uh... benefit of the doubt benefit of the doubt there you go i just yeah trying to see other people's perspectives especially when they're like like as opposed to be good at the thing they're doing you know and i tend to do that myself uh... and with the movies that was that's been my attitude you know i just think it's so wonderful that that
[SPEAKER_02]: the way he did that and created that and exposed the Lord of the Rays to the rest of the world, people who haven't read the books like us, you know, and and look at the Norwegian buyer discovered it through the movies, you know, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: This this conversation has kind of gotten this interesting direction because we're now comparing the movies and the books and Norwegian, you kind of set us on this path.
[SPEAKER_03]: Are there any other details in that in your journey like have you now now that you're no longer 15 years old and reading the books and have we've seen the movies like how has your perspective changed is there anything else that really stands out I think like just a lot of the the small details like like how would you picture the ends and in the books tributes as that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, would they look something like trolls or something like that?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, but I think there's a lot of those like small details like everywhere just like drizzle in that you just makes you start thinking and I do a lot more of that now like I've read it probably I don't know 10 times and it just like it's always a new thing that like just gets my thoughts going to like oh
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe that will work in here or there or and then you get something from the silver line that oh okay maybe that can work out in something which isn't explained in the lore of the rings or yeah something like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, right, do you so you bring up the ants and I think the ants change in the movies is probably my the best change and I'm just saying this off the cliff maybe something else come up and I'll be like, oh, no, that one's even better, but that to make them look more tree like.
[SPEAKER_03]: absolutely works better in a film in my perspective, but it was always my misunderstanding early on because I didn't read close enough the first time and I always just kind of visualized them more tree-like.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if that is because I saw some artwork where they were drawn more tree-like for something, but I feel like that works.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is there...
[SPEAKER_03]: in your estimation is there a change we can talk about the changes in between the movie and the books that didn't work or were not as accurate are there other changes where you go I'm so glad they made this change.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a tricky question right off the cuff which is there's a lot to think through.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think also the the dynamic between the
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, how would you say it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, subservient.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: He, especially early on, he very much is there is as I discussed on recent episodes.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is very much a class stratification between the way he interacts with Frodo and Pippin compared to the way they interact with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I think just the, the thing that I feel like they changed is that it's more like you have Frodo and then you have Mary Pippin and Sam.
[SPEAKER_01]: at least to a certain degree, and I feel like that, at least for me, I think that dynamic works a lot more, instead of that aristocracy sort of in which Hippin and Mary have
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like in the movies, Mary and Pippin and Hansham are much more clearly defined as with simple expectations for what their personalities are supposed to be like if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, oh, Mary's the mischievous one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Pippin's the ignorant one.
[SPEAKER_03]: Sam is the good intention, you know, friendly one, and you're right that distance seems less.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's easier for a movie audience to grab onto those personalities and just kind of hold onto that as opposed to a material.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It would also be to make them, like, actually feel younger.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Seeing as there younger the proto.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and okay, that was another thing that Wendy brought up the whole like photo being 50 years old leaving on his very billbow being 50 years old living on his journey, but habits have different life spans of 50 to him wasn't really 50 to us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I'm not quite 50 yet, but I don't know that I would want to do a journey like that 50 years old as opposed to being 20 or 30, you know, like your body just doesn't work the same way, but in Hobbit culture he was more like say a 30 something going off on a journey, which feels much more reasonable.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you feel like that shift in the movies was a good idea
[SPEAKER_03]: Does that feel accurate to you or does that feel?
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you feel about that?
[SPEAKER_01]: So me, at least it feels like would would say like yeah, it seems more believable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the fact that they are younger and not some 50 year old go hit on a trip with a bunch of 20 year olds.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, one of them when a party or a
[SPEAKER_03]: So, sorry, thank you, uh, good ones.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did I interrupt?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you're good.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's, it's, this is how a chat's go because it's all online, but go ahead.
[SPEAKER_02]: You covered in a recent episode, I think, Fiera Stockersy that existed in the Shire.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's Mary Pippin being, you know, considered era Stockersy.
[SPEAKER_03]: And basically, you know, Pippin was a princely, without really the whole title.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that gave me a new perspective on, you know, thinking about how the did that in the movies,
[SPEAKER_02]: is, you know, I hadn't really thought about the fact that they were, they were a aristocracy, and Sam was more of us, you know, more subservient role.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he was very blue color, you know, farmer, like a bug and gardener, that kind of thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that that came across in the movies as, as much those that did in the books, like Norwegian was saying, and
[SPEAKER_02]: They gave them each their own personalities.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it was a little easier to digest for the, you know, for the movie watchers, being introduced to it.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, right, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, when you covered that, I don't know, three or four episodes to come make.
[SPEAKER_03]: That gave me a new perspective on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, doing what?
[SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: When do you think about the Hobbits?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the Hobbits are,
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's like definitely a lot of comic release in the movie Hobbits.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's also really true to the story in a lot of ways, you know, the fool of a talk and all of that stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love the way they all are there to support each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's also really like love that, you know, you feel the sense of,
[SPEAKER_00]: camaraderie and joy when they reunite etc.
[SPEAKER_00]: You feel that in the books, you feel it in the movies, there's more detail of course in the books and there are things that are simplified like the you know the feelings of safe hip and when he wants the you know he's the desire is the
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure if I answered the question right because it was also sort of focused on writing a comment that I have to drop now.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you for we're about to wrap up in in a little bit.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, thank you for for joining us and taking the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Have fun with the concert.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, sometimes soon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I hope so.
[SPEAKER_03]: Nice to meet you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice to meet you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice meeting you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Bernie D.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for being here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, she brings up the relationship between the Hobbits, rereading through the first few chapters and the stuff that I'm currently going through.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a level of familiarity and comfort, especially between Pippin and Frodo.
[SPEAKER_03]: That comes across in the dialogue, the way that they kind of
[SPEAKER_03]: They poke at each other a little bit, but they're like, it's all good intention, you know, like that, like any of us do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, if you spend any serious amount of time with anybody you're close to and everything isn't all polite and rosy the whole time.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's just like, hey, get up this morning.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, so I think there's a lot there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is there anything from, and this is, we're getting close to the end of the episode, so we're eventually going to have to wrap this up.
[SPEAKER_03]: those first few chapters in the book which I've been going through and the the episode that actually just came out for patrons as we record this today and we'll be out tomorrow for everybody is about the first time that they have to hide from one of the NAS goal the ring rate comes by on the horse and in the movie it's different but in the book
[SPEAKER_03]: Frodo hides in one area, and Pippin and Sam are in a slightly different area off the side of the road, and they hide, and the descriptions of this black rider with a black horse and a cloak, and an invisible face, although when you guys get to listen to the episode, I don't know if you've listened to it yet.
[SPEAKER_03]: I describe how the use of the word invisible there,
[SPEAKER_03]: is implying that the hood is covering the face of the faces and visible, but in actuality, the face is invisible, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And now that's like, that part of the movies is, of course, streamlined and condensed, and then very quickly becomes the chase to the forward and all of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: But in the books, there's, there's some nuance there, and a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_03]: And going through this, it reminded me,
[SPEAKER_03]: of thinking back to the first time I read through this, and just the quality of the fact that not knowing something is scarier than knowing something, if that makes sense, like anybody who writes and directs a horror movie knows that the monster is added scariest before you know what it looks like.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that was something Tolkien was grabbing onto you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you guys feel that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember seeing the rates for the first time and being like, oh dear, what is that?
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like what is going on here?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like clearly we know the lore now, but how did you feel back then?
[SPEAKER_03]: And let's talk to Norwegian real quick first, because you were younger, you were eight years old watching those movies.
[SPEAKER_03]: How did that feel?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree, like to not knowing, but sort of that, I am expecting what it is like right before the reveal.
[SPEAKER_01]: But to me, it was the ballerag in Moria, just the whole drums in the deep and the build up with all the goblins and just that fire light coming out of the caverns.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I remember I was so scared.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, all of those goblins are scared of something.
[SPEAKER_03]: It must be real bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like when it was revealed, like just this huge, like, would you say typical monster?
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't that bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I remember like that filled up was really frightening.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, interesting point.
[SPEAKER_03]: What about you, Barney?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember thinking about ring rates as a younger man?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't remember, like my first few times I read it.
[SPEAKER_02]: In the movies, I thought this was one of the scenes.
[SPEAKER_02]: If I had complaints about anything, it was very few that this was one of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought the scene where they were hiding underneath the tree root and the ring-wraith literally bent down and sniffed.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was way too close.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think if he gets that close, he's going to find him, you know, yeah, yeah, I won't.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm quite sure it wasn't described that way in the book, but when you were making your comments, it makes me want to go and read that passage from the book again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, that's a good that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, because the first thing I think of sometimes when I'm what I'm
[SPEAKER_02]: listening or, you know, it's being described like you described it, the thing that comes to mind right away is the thing, because I know the mood is very well.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't always remember
[SPEAKER_02]: the text like board for board in order to compare.
[SPEAKER_02]: Makes me want to go back and read it again, just to see how it compares to the movie again.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you described it very well, you know, and that anticipation of not knowing what this thing is, what it looks like.
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, that's, that's the scariest moment right there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And talking does that a number of times.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the bought ball rug examples of good example was I thought I thought that was well done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, heck, the in the box can't remember how it compares to the books.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, it's described as smoke and flame and that's sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: The wings are the shadows on the wall behind him, like that sort of description.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe not on the wall behind it, but the wings are described as shadows, which makes continue people debating, like are there actual wings?
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is that what the fire was casting?
[SPEAKER_03]: It looked like big giant wings, which would have been intimidating anyway.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Tolkien does this a few times.
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, I think one of the, one of the most brilliant things he does is he doesn't give us Sauron incarnate.
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't see in the books and we see in the movies we basically have Sauron dressed up as morgoth.
[SPEAKER_03]: basically.
[SPEAKER_03]: And but in the books like there's descriptions about the eye and how he's seeking and reaching out everywhere trying to understand what's going on in the movements of his enemies and those kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the tower with the eye is very much a move.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the spirit of Sauron.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sauron dressed up as Moron.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: But we don't actually get a, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the black gate or something in some sort of outfit or as a flaming body or, you know, anything like that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's a good decision.
[SPEAKER_03]: The fact that he for the entire duration of the Lord of the Rings books is not to be seen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, we, he's scary because we never actually meet him.
[SPEAKER_03]: like we meet him in the like the palent here or we meet him in, you know, these moments of, you know, that the, I don't know, the clashing of power or that sort of thing, but we don't actually meet him in the flesh.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that makes, that's, you know what, okay, and this is just off top of my head right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what that reminds me of is,
[SPEAKER_03]: the way when you talk about the devil and how people are like, well, it's not, you know, he doesn't have goat hooves in a pitch fork, the way that like medieval books would draw him, but that's sort of thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But what that leaves is this feeling of like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but with them what does that devil look like and that, you know, it's just now left to your imagination.
[SPEAKER_03]: It could be the most horrifying thing you get ever think of, but you don't really know.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that there's something about that that is just scarier than knowing what you're looking at.
[SPEAKER_02]: Although I thought Peter Jackson did a really good job of sort of maintaining that mistake because really the only time you see star on in the movies are is a flashback to the end of the second eight base right when the moon gets cut off of his finger right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I'm pretty sure the rest of the time it's all it's the eye and it's the voice right that we see throughout the movies in real time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, he almost put Salron at the battle at the end fighting Aaron almost, but then replaced with a troll and that's why the error in fighting something big and it had to be a troll, which is a little funny because like can can everyone really carry.
[SPEAKER_03]: Swing of a troll, troll's weapon, I'm not really sure about that, but that's still a better decision than having Sauron mount, you know, March out in former, probably likely to bury the troll than Sauron.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, there is a lot of moves he cut the head off of the mouth of Sauron, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, yes, yeah, he does in the extended edition here.
[SPEAKER_02]: in the extended edition.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: I still, I can't separate the two.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I have the extended edition and recently watched them with my grandson, but I think that is one of the differences is the cutting off of the head.
[SPEAKER_03]: I could be wrong, but so if I'm wrong, let me know.
[SPEAKER_02]: But just off top of my head, I think there's an interesting reason to do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's I mean there's a lot this is one of those things where people like I do a number of different Lorshows about things and I've been doing the show for a few years now and my other shows for six or seven years now And it's just one of those things where it's like guys I there's so much to remember I don't I don't
[SPEAKER_03]: I have to look things up.
[SPEAKER_03]: People have asked me questions, like you'll know this, and I'm like, I think it's this, but I'm also not 100% sure that my memory is absolutely correct every time, because it isn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why I researched things before I record episodes.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, it's just kind of funny.
[SPEAKER_03]: But hey, we're getting close to the end here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go back through both of you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is there anything else?
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's go back to Norwegian Meyer.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anything else you wanted to share or talk about before we wrap this up?
[SPEAKER_03]: Any other thoughts?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just happy to be able to be here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm glad you made it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm glad you made this work.
[SPEAKER_03]: And this earlier time that, for anybody who doesn't know, previously we did these a little bit later in the, like early evening, my time, which is easier for people in the US, but not so easy for people in certain international places.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we shifted it a little up a little bit earlier, and you're able to join us.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we'll continue to kind of shift things
[SPEAKER_03]: make it a little bit easier for some people and you know have different people able to join maybe but we'll see where that goes.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I appreciate you taking the time to be here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is there anything any shout outs anything you want to put out into the world or if you want people to get a hold of you anything you want to do with that?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I'm just happy to be here, but yeah, maybe I would love to hear like people's thoughts on how they like thoughts on the magic system in that world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's always been like a thing for me to like, how does it actually work?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and yeah, this comes up pretty regularly in my episodes, but yeah, it is definitely something that a lot of people have made assumptions about that talking never, never meant to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, thank you for joining us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for taking the time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Barney, what about you?
[SPEAKER_03]: Anything anything else you want to share before we finish this before I forget about this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the way you've addressed the issue of magic over the many episodes, because it gives it it gives it a
[SPEAKER_02]: It makes it more believable, I guess, if you will, because it's not truly magic as we know magic in the world today, it's just the, you know, I love the way you've described how magic works for, you know, what, what the hobbits perceive as magic by the elves and how it truly
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't really have a shoutout or anything, but I just want to say thanks for doing what you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's just a never-ending source of entertainment for me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, even when I'm caught up on the episodes, which, you know, like I said, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I said that in the preshow, I accumulate episodes and let them build up for my next road trip, you know, and then I listen, I can call it up.
[SPEAKER_02]: Once I get caught up, I will go back and start listening to, from the very beginning you get.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the time, you know, I've forgotten about all that, and it's just, it's just as entertaining for me now, so I just really appreciate what you do.
[SPEAKER_02]: The one topic that I can't get out of my head, that I could talk about it forever, is Tom Bombadil.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know more about Bombadil.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the last episode that you did, you, you, um, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
[SPEAKER_02]: We're talking about if you could ask talking to question, what would it be?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the thing that jumped to mine right away is Tom Bombadell, I just wanted to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where did he come from?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is the, why can he make the rain disappear?
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't affect me at all, you know?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's something, uh, many of us, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you look at the number of posts about this online.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's nice to have things that he didn't solve or didn't put it like answer to concretely because it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, it's that mysterious thing, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like in the case of Tom Bill, Bob Dylan's not a scary mystery thing, but when we as human beings, when we don't know something, it becomes way more interesting to us than when we do.
[SPEAKER_03]: If we do, like if he had simply flat out said, here's what's up with Tom Bob Dylan, we wouldn't be talking about it anymore, or at least very briefly be talking about it, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: That's very true, so it's fun just to, you know, speculate on all that stuff, so, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm the whale, I'm Goliath.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, all the mistresses that are still lingering.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, thank you for your compliments.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm flattered and I really do appreciate you guys and you're continued support and taking the time to hang out and talk, talking with me.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is always fun for me to be able to do this with it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But most of the time, I've explained this in the past.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sitting here in my office doing this by myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have a co-host, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: So to bring you guys on and be able to get your perspectives on things is super informative and just fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I appreciate you taking this time.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is fun, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's going to do it for this episode.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you guys for your support.
[SPEAKER_03]: And to all of our patrons, patreon.com slash LOTR Lorkast, if you'd like to get the ad free episodes.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's tons of those where I go into even further deep detail.
[SPEAKER_03]: Or you can sign up as a VIP patron and join us on a chat like this in the future.
[SPEAKER_03]: We would love to have more of you.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a bunch of you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And thank you to all of you.
[SPEAKER_03]: But if anyone else wants to join or if anyone who already is a VIP patron wants to jump in, don't be scared.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is this is super fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very casual.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we'd love to have you be a part of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I'm going to take a quick break and then do the regular outro stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll see you on the other side.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks again to all of the patrons who help support the show and make this happen and especially to our VIP patrons.
[SPEAKER_03]: I will be reading out the whole list in just a minute, but also welcome to our newest patron GB.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for signing up and joining us and being a part of this.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, if you'd like to join us on a future VIP patron chat, we'd love to have you.
[SPEAKER_03]: So come join us and thank you to all of our VIP patrons.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's see if I can do it without messing up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, full crew, David S. Daniel Knight, weaver, Capena, Richard J. T. J. T. A. K. Music lover, Barney D. Asle Razzle, Blade of Androa, Lori B. Norwegian Myr, Mason Weathertop, Gimlia Break, Divine Madman, Rosie Rosé, who on is my hero, Al Daryon is right.
[SPEAKER_03]: The bestest boy, Party Snacks, a very old, nor we genious, Artemis, Kira C. Doss S. Silverstar, my name is August West, and Silver Hobbit 414.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for your continued support.
[SPEAKER_03]: If any of you have ideas for the next Patreon chat for next month, feel free to comment or send me a message on Patreon.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're welcome to start brainstorming now and we can set it up ahead of time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks again for being here and have a wonderful rest of your week.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll see you next time.
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening to the Lord of the Rings lorecast.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you'd like to learn more about other fantasy worlds, check out my other podcasts.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Elder Scrolls lorecast, the Witcher lorecast, and more at robotsradio.net.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you'd like to reach out, I'd love to hear from you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Send me a note on Twitter at robots underscore radio, or join our amazing community on the robots radio discord.
[SPEAKER_03]: There are links in the show notes, or just search robotsradio discord, or find the link on robotsradio.net.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll see you next time.