BONUS: The Music of The Rings of Power with John Lorehound

[00:00:00] OK, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. Your turn. I am black for life. So, we're not fighting? I thought this is where HBO wanted us to, like, pick sides and fight and stuff.

[00:00:24] Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod, but we seem to agree on one thing. We both really like the show. The politics, the drama, the lore! It was made for the Lorehounds.

[00:00:36] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option and Supercast, listeners can get early, ad-free access to each weekly, scene by scene deep dive,

[00:00:50] plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes. The Lorehounds house of the dragon covers is also safe for teen green consumption.

[00:01:03] Side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore, a hardened conflict with itself, and an inescapable urge to read the book fire and blood by George R.R. Martin. Dragon seeds may experience burning. Hello, and welcome to a bonus episode of Rings and Rituals.

[00:01:29] I'm Marilyn, the librarian of Rivendell. My co-host, Sara, S.H.I.E.L.D. Maiden of Rohan, is in the marches of Aethelion keeping watch with Prince. So tonight, I have a special guest. John Lorehound, our producer and podcaster extraordinaire from the Lorehounds.

[00:01:44] Among many other things, John is the musician who arranged our theme song for this podcast. So I invited him to join me in a discussion of music in relation to ritual in the Pain and McKay series Rings of Power.

[00:01:57] If you enjoy this special episode, you can email us at ringsandritualsatthelorehounds.com and or you can join our Rings and Rituals channel on the Lorehounds Discord. We'll include all that information in the show notes. Also, we are a proud affiliate of the Lorehounds Barovian Broadcast Network,

[00:02:15] where you will find all sorts of interesting podcasts on TV, films, books, video games and other stories. Our thanks to all the listeners who support the Lorehounds through good ratings on Apple iTunes, joining the Lorehounds Patreon or Supercast and other forms of donation.

[00:02:32] If you like what we're doing here, consider giving them a boost as well. And now, here is our conversation on music and ritual. Enjoy! So tonight we're going to have a special guest join us in a quick review of the musical styles that we're seeing

[00:02:45] or will be seeing for five of the cultures and a few of the individuals of Middle Earth. This includes both the music that the characters are making or hearing themselves, also known as Diagetic Sound, as well as the music from Bear McCreary's Excellent Score.

[00:03:01] John Lorehound is half of the reason that this wonderful collection of podcasts known as the Lorehounds exists. Ian David started off over a year ago covering the lore for Rings of Power and invited me on to talk about what a Barovian is. Are there guest appearances followed?

[00:03:16] And now John is our producer for Rings and Ritual. He's also a musician. John, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself and how Lord of the Rings and music both entered your life? Sure! And thanks Marilyn for having me here.

[00:03:29] You've been on our podcast so many times and I love what you have to say every time and I know our listeners are always just clambering for more Marilyn, so we gave them a whole feed. And now they have you and Sarah and that's great.

[00:03:43] Really, really thrilled to be here. I am a podcaster of almost two years now over on the Lorehounds feed. We do if you're interested in Tolkien, we do Silmarillion stories where we break down the Silmarillion basically a chapter at a time.

[00:03:57] Sometimes we combine that's why we're all Lucy Goosey on the titles. But it's a great time. We'll be covering Rings of Power season 2 when that comes out episode to episode. But for now, you know, we just cover Shogun. We just finished True Detective.

[00:04:13] We got plenty of stuff going on. Oh yeah! As far as music, I actually my first career was in music. I went to school for music production. I did live sound for a number of years before I decided to change career paths.

[00:04:27] But it's still a big part of my life. I still play as a hobby and I still love listening to it. And often when I'm listening to scores like this, I'm just thinking about the music theory I learned in college and sort of comparing it different techniques.

[00:04:45] It makes my brain work. It makes my brain work. It wakes me up. It's why I don't listen to... If I'm writing something, I can't listen to classical music because it will turn my brain into an analytical machine for that instead. That's cool.

[00:05:02] I also majored in music in college. I played violin for many years until... Yeah, I attended night is unfortunately. Put an end to that but I also sing. And I have a dim memory of taking music theory classes and taking a composition class

[00:05:19] and having my professor tell me that the little string quartet thing that I wrote sounded like Finnish Vikings. And I just decided not to tell him that there were never any Finnish Vikings. Well, that's fun. So some of it comes back every now and again

[00:05:36] but a lot of it I do have to double check. And I can listen to all kinds of music all the time except opera. If I know the opera, I can't put it on while I'm working. I just can't do that. Fair enough.

[00:05:49] Two pulled into the whole drama of it all. It's just a lot of drama in it. And plenty of drama in the rings of power too. Absolutely. And plenty of music. We of course have... Barry McCurry's amazing score. So let's get to it. Let's start with the elves

[00:06:06] because that's pretty much the first melodic culture if you will that we hear. How would you describe them? Well, I think you've described them really well here. Maybe we should start with your descriptions because you wrote them. Okay, fair enough. I think elves are all about harmony.

[00:06:26] If they have melodies that are quite fluid and expressive little to no percussion that I can remember except in maybe specific dramatic circumstances. There's solo vocals and choral vocals but primarily when I think elves, I think choral music. Usually higher register and major keys. Yeah.

[00:06:51] You know, Galadriel is obviously the protagonist of this show at this point. We don't know if they're going to start shifting around perspectives more but I think it's safe to say after season one she was the protagonist. Definitely. And so her melody there, her light motif

[00:07:09] we go back to Wagner with his light motifs. Oh, hello. He invented them, right? I know. He did. I had a professor in college who absolutely hated Wagner as a person but was like, I have to teach you about his music because he was so important.

[00:07:25] And it's true. That's pretty much my whole feeling about him as well. He was really something of a war to see human being but he made some of the most beautiful music I will ever hear and invented a whole kind of dramatic theater, visual, everything.

[00:07:43] He wrote his own words to go along with the melodies that he was creating and it was supposed to be a total, a gizmpt experience, a combined experience together from beginning to end and changed a lot of the techniques, the musical techniques that we'll use.

[00:08:06] He even has, he had a chord which was eventually called the Wagner chord which is, I can't remember if the adding sevenths or what it was and the Tristan chord did it and Tristan and his older and other operatic composers followed with that. But anyway. Very nice.

[00:08:24] Well, I mean, I just want to be clear if you're in the listenership right now and you don't know what a leitmotif is, it's just a theme or melody that comes around when a certain, it's attached to a certain character or setting. And this was something that,

[00:08:41] well, it seems really commonplace today, right? You know, we have all the different superheroes with their leitmotifs. We have the hot, the Shire theme, things like that. This was really a byproduct of Wagner's work. Yes. This really was started by him

[00:08:54] and so I think it's really cool to see someone like Bear McRier using that today. Definitely. And the way they build on each other, the leitmotifs and they develop as the characters and the conflicts develop and change. Right.

[00:09:08] That's the beauty of it is where they start interacting, right? Yes. And a really fun demonstration of that is to listen to the beginning of the ride at the Wagner because you can hear, first you hear the wind and then you hear the galloping hooves

[00:09:21] and then you hear the horses naeying and et cetera, et cetera. And then you hear the voccaries with their hyah to hoes. And then when the hawker leave the stage, they do exactly that thing in reverse order. It's that precise. Very cool. Yeah. So collagereal is leitmotif.

[00:09:39] You know, to me it screams longing. That's really, you know, it feels like she almost resolves the chord but then she gets there and the melody resolves but the chords go in an unexpected direction. Yeah. And it reminds me a lot of her diving off the boat

[00:09:59] on her way to Valinor. Yes, definitely. And the longing, of course, to my mind is the unresolved grief. Mm-hmm. That for her brother and for the light of the two trees, for all of the things that she has lost and has poured that grief

[00:10:19] into her search for vengeance, which is not an uncommon thing to do. So I think collagereals are really fascinating character and I don't want to go too deep into it since we're just on music right now. Yeah, go deep. What the heck? We're low rounds.

[00:10:34] But this whole idea that, you know, she, I think longs for Valinor. Really? But if you look at her here and in Even in the Lord of the Rings, it seems like she almost feels like she's too damaged

[00:10:51] to go back there until she rejects the ring with Frodo. Right, right. Damaged and I think, well, of course, it's so hard to talk about colladereal in a definitive way because Tolkien never did self. Right. You know, there's so many different colladereals

[00:11:10] depending upon which part of the legendary you're reading. So I think we all kind of land on the ones that we like best. There is, I think, a thread throughout most of them, which is she does want to be a powerful person.

[00:11:24] She does want to be a leader. And she does so in a whole variety of ways throughout all of the adventures that we read about her. One of the lines that really struck me and I hope we see something of this in the Rings of Power series.

[00:11:43] She looked upon the dwarves with the eyes of a general. Now that just covers so much territory. And I would really love to see colladereal walking through Khazadum and all its glory and splendor, making connections with the dwarves, which then in the end repay

[00:12:10] in the final battles that we see in the Second Age. Right. And then when she meets Gimli she's talking about the beauty of Khazadum. She has seen it. She saw it in its heyday and its peak. And Gimli never saw that. And I just find that so poignant.

[00:12:31] Poignant is something that ties in with colladereal a lot. I don't think she'd want to be called that by anybody necessarily, but yeah. It definitely seems to be there. Yeah. I mean, I think Morphid Clark does a really good job of capturing the fierce side of colladereal.

[00:12:46] This determination that seems to be with her throughout the Second Age. And sort of beneath the surface, just beneath the surface in the Third Age. Yeah. Yeah. And her melody perhaps, I mean, you can, it can be stated very dramatically, of course,

[00:13:06] but I still think that the melody reminds one. I mean, she has her famous line, there is a tempest within me. There is, and there's also this longing, this here-life as the Welsh would say, for what she has lost and what she remembers.

[00:13:27] And I think also the knowledge that you can't go back, that can't be recovered in any way. Right. And the ending of her melody in the Minor Key, of course, seems to kind of put the stamp on that. Say, yep, that's right. This is what it is. Yeah.

[00:13:49] Yeah. It's really, it's almost a heartbreaking melody the way it lingers on certain notes and how it doesn't quite resolve the way you expect it to. Definitely heartbreaking. It's just a long line of disappointments, which is really sadly a lot of colladereal's life up to this point.

[00:14:08] You could also maybe call it the long defeat. Mmm. Mmm. I just thought of that, just now. I wonder if that was in Bear's mind when he wrote this melody for her. Yeah. I don't know. Shall we talk about Harfoot's? Oh, definitely. Yes. Nobody gets left behind.

[00:14:31] Nobody walks alone. Look, I'm well known for my critique of the line and our hearts even bigger than ours. I think that's one of your signature pieces, John. I can't tell you how much that bothered me, but I did love the vibe of the Harfoot's generally.

[00:14:52] I thought they captured what I could see turning into Hobbit culture, turning into the Shire eventually. Yes. And I thought they did a really brilliant job with that. And I think Bear did an amazing job turning the music into something reflecting that.

[00:15:10] If you want to give your paragraph of sort of things that you picked up from them first, and then I'll talk about more of my thoughts. Sure. In keeping with their culture simple single line melodies, not a lot of polyphonic necessarily,

[00:15:29] but definitely polyrhythmic, meaning lots of different rhythms coming in against one another. So it almost feel this kind of jostling as they're trudging along the road. It's not four square like the Dwarves, and we'll get into them in a minute. I mean, the Dwarves are marching,

[00:15:47] and they're marching very straight lines. And you can see that the Harfoot's not so much. And yet they keep together. And in keeping with their living in and with nature, most of their instruments are very natural instruments. They're made of wood, they're made of clay, natural percussive objects,

[00:16:08] making their striking a log with a stone or something to make a rhythm. But that's more of the diagetic, the stuff that they're doing. Bear has thrown in marimbas, which of course are wood, that are tubular pieces of wood that are struck,

[00:16:26] or maybe they're flat ones now I'm blanking. Yeah, the marimbas is the flat pieces of wood that when you strike them have different tones. And they use illan pipes, which are the Irish bagpipes that work in a slightly different way.

[00:16:44] Illan is Irish for elbow, and at one version of this they work the bells with their elbows under their arms. Obviously more complex than something that the Harfoot's are going to come up with, but I think he threw that in

[00:16:59] in order to pull in this sort of semi-Irish feel rightly or wrongly. Right. Yeah, you know we've had the conversation right of is it proper to constantly be giving peoples that you are portraying as simpler and Irish accent. Right. Well, and he's following with the Howard Shore.

[00:17:21] I mean Howard shows melodies for the Shire were clearly influenced by Irish melodies and so forth. And instruments, you know, the flute is shared between the two of them, although in the case of the Harfoot's wooden flutes probably isn't the Shire tube. Who knows? Right.

[00:17:37] One of the neat things is a shifting time signature. Time signature refers to the pattern of the rhythm. So you might have a one, two, four, one, two, three, four, like the Dwarf's very four square structured. You might have a six which would be one, two, three,

[00:17:59] four or five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. Which sometimes people like to be tricky and go one, two, one, one, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six, which would be what we call three. It's two.

[00:18:11] Yeah, I mean, I always say you switch to three, four. Be honest with yourself. All depends on what kind of notes they're writing if it's a series of, you know, triplet eight notes. Yeah, yeah, you switch to three, four. Write the right time signature.

[00:18:26] No, I got to do it faster so it's six, eight, you know, six eighth notes. But what's really interesting is when they shift from a five beat to a six beat. So one, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, six.

[00:18:43] One, two, three, four, five, one, two, three, four, five, six. And the five beat is often associated with folk melodies. So again, this sense of quote unquote rusticness because they're using this. But Naughty's theme is always to my recollection

[00:19:03] in six, eight, which is that one two, four, five, six, which to me says, okay, the hard foot are wandering and they have their certain stops that they make. They don't always take the same path to get them. Nori is different.

[00:19:18] Nori knows that she wants to be going somewhere in a straight line. Right. She might not always know what she, she's sure of herself. She might not know what her goal is, but she knows there's something out here greater than our wanderings.

[00:19:32] And so her melody is very much a directed melody and you can follow it through, at least to our Western years, right? We have to remember any of the things we say are definitely colored by our Western perspectives of music.

[00:19:45] I mean, other people who have studied other cultures might have a different experience. And in particular, her melody sounds remarkably similar to a melody from Algeria. Oh really? And then probably going to butcher this pronunciation. My interpretation is add, ket, hent, ti, ul, lass.

[00:20:06] And the theme for that is approximately. Da, da, da... Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da, da, da. So they do that same thing, that 5-6 kind of thing. Yeah. Sort of rushing to the next upbeat, right?

[00:20:30] Yeah, yeah next downbeat rather if anybody wants to hear a true rendition of that instead of what I just did This is on an album by a group called La Bonna

[00:20:40] Hmm, and I'm pretty sure we could link it in the show the show notes. Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that particular album there's this called sojourns

[00:20:50] Which again is another word for wandering right? Oh, and I would love to know if Bear ever heard them or ever heard that song in some

[00:20:58] Pacity, maybe we could get him back on the pot sometime. Hey, let's do it. We could we get him on rings and rituals Yeah, I mean if we play this room and tell he can tell us how many ridiculous assumptions we made

[00:21:12] Yeah, yeah for sure. I mean, I'm sure there are things that we pick up that are Mark Lee's but there are all right There are also you know things that he meant to put in there and he'll be thrilled that anybody pointed it out

[00:21:27] You know you pointed out pretty much all of the notable things about hardfoot I will say the thing that even asked me that made me want to ask you would you like me to come on and do a music segment was listening to

[00:21:42] One of the hardfoot themes. I think it was hardfoot life, which is your theme song Thank you so much. Oh no problem. I happy to make it but I just was so loving how it sounded like They're on their carts. They're on their little portable habit holes

[00:22:00] And they hit a rock on one of the wheels And that's that's skipping to the the next downbeat, right? They just get back on their feet. They're just you know, they Just hit a rock. I it was so fitting for this nomad culture

[00:22:16] Yes, when you tell me about that I just thought that was totally cool Love it love it Shall we talk about the big people? Oh, yes, let's because this particular people is presented as possibly the grandest of all

[00:22:33] Um even grander than the elves in a way. This is the numad orians You know when we first see them and all their splendor and glory The rhythm for them is something called the baladi Which is egyptian folk rhythm or what some people would call belly dance music

[00:22:53] So it's uh bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum So it's fascinating that he gave them this rhythm Because it's very strongly associated with egypt And there are other Mediterranean influences throughout to create this culture, but

[00:23:13] I'm pretty confident that this is why he chose this rhythm Um this particular people because it's familiar Hmm even to western ears You know, you look here at sometimes on sort of generic folk

[00:23:27] Music discs or something like that or or I mean if you dance baladi then it's quite familiar Right. I mean there's there's so many comparisons to Numenor and Atlantis right and so right question is where was at lantis? Right what did it have to do with Egypt?

[00:23:45] Right, right But I just think it's it is a rhythm that conveys otherness You know one of the first things uh, halbran says is you know, who are these people? You know that can build all these structures and you know

[00:24:03] What is a man like me doing here and she said they're not meant like you Knowing that halbran was started on the whole time Do you think he actually was impressed by the new norians? I do

[00:24:15] I do I I think it's pretty safely textual to say for a long time. He just ignored them Okay, he had other fish to fry if you like um other add ours to fry. Well, yes, we'll see won't we I don't know that there's any really clear

[00:24:34] Information about what salron is doing in the immediate aftermath of mordegos fall But it seems that his focus is all on the elves When he first returns to the earth Because I think he doesn't think very much of humans at this point, right? But then later on

[00:24:52] I mean he resented Humans to the extent that they were also one of the reasons why the valar decided that they were gonna take out mordegos once and for all But when he does eventually discover How incredibly advanced they are

[00:25:10] It's kind of interesting. Isn't it to set him next to farazon and see, you know two Men for lack of a better word at this point With very similar notions About wanting to use another culture for their benefit all right You know, so it is interesting

[00:25:33] You can see how salron was pretty comfortable in his understanding of what made farazon tick So I like that they drew that in wonder if bear will ever write a theme for farazon I'm sure as as farazon becomes More of a central figure in this story

[00:25:56] Bear's gonna have to do some kind of scoring for him. I would hope so. Yeah, I would hope so So to this Really wonderful rhythm that always makes me want to start dancing and doing veladi moves and so forth You have a single line melody in a pentatonic

[00:26:14] Scale, which is a slightly different from our usual Right. Don't ramie fa so latido And I notice often in parallel octaves they were it was there was a lot of Octaves going on not just a single melody And you do occasionally get the single

[00:26:33] Line of of counterpoint. So you are starting to get polyphonic, you know two lines together Which we kind of haven't really seen before. I mean yes, the elves were stacking Melodies on top of each other orally

[00:26:47] But this is more obviously two distinct melodies that we're kind of talking to one another anyway The instruments are Mediterranean style instruments loosely described uh with More melody and harmony when the chorus joins in and the choruses is lovely sigh, you know

[00:27:10] And you wonder what are they sighing for you know the the bliss of new menor or the bliss of the valor or What it's interesting to speculate on that And also typical of the Mediterranean and the velody Lots of different types of drums

[00:27:30] Smaller and larger so you might have a tabour um Which is one, you know the sort of hourglass shaped drums that may just be covered on one side or have drum head on both sides and They also bring in the horns the the french horns to express

[00:27:50] I think the the grandeur you know french horns usually represent Right heroism and grandeur and splendor and regality Regality yes, I definitely will And then we have this melody that It's a little bit. I can't remember if it's defined clearly anywhere

[00:28:11] Um, it relates to both elendil and isildur And I think by extension to the faithful Hmm and I hear it as a something of a Spanish flavor, which is kind of ironic because of course the first singing in

[00:28:27] Mind steeped in English history would go to would be the Spanish armada. All right And the new minaudians will eventually build themselves on armada So this is more in flavor and feel but there is a guitar ornament at one point. I think it's the first time

[00:28:41] I've heard guitar in this series And when they're on the sea when they're on the ships, uh, bear throws in the harmonica which Kind of ties and he he does it in a different melody. He does it in a yadada dadada dadada dadada

[00:28:57] almost like a jig sort of a melody but um That's back to the to the new minorean theme Yeah, and in that melody you will occasionally have A solo instrument trumpet or an oboe Depending upon the circumstances playing the melody which again

[00:29:18] Is just full to my ears of longing and regret Yeah, and loss Uh, you know, I think of the new minaurians how they start to fade quick more quickly As they get farther away from the baller as they start to cling to death more

[00:29:35] You know, you're you're you're clinging to to death and yet in the end. There's just this one Sad instrument. It's just sort of fading away Hmm. Yeah Yeah, whereas you had this grand chorus before you could have gone out. Well, it was still a grand chorus

[00:29:51] Yes, yes, definitely The dwarves Well before we do doors you you have a note here saying that the chorus sounds similar to dwarven music. So tell me more

[00:30:02] Well, I actually I was listening to them side by side just because I was listening to the soundtrack more today and sometimes the choruses Sound the choir sound very similar on the two, you know when I'm listening to the causa doom theme

[00:30:16] And the new minorean theme you have that really forceful Bass and baritone harmony coming. Oh, okay That really made me go, huh? Are they trying to tell me a similarity here? Hmm Maybe just from a lot of range

[00:30:34] I mean, we're I think we're supposed to receive new minna autos being a really big thing Yeah, even if they are in their days of decline Um, and of course the dwarves to some degree are in their ascendancy

[00:30:47] Right, and I mean even aragorn in the Lord of the Rings Is still supposed to be Grand compared to normal human and so sure so you still and I know he's supposed to be sort of Is sealed or restored right by? right

[00:31:03] Even even so I think that if if he was a sealed or restored and he's this grand king You need to sell me on these this whole island was full of people like that

[00:31:14] Right, and that's kind of hard for my instagram. Isn't it? We'll see how the show does with that. I wonder if he's Yeah, he he talks about his ill being is ill doors air but also ellendil's air of numeral

[00:31:28] Right and his battle cry is not his ill door. It's ellendil. Yep. Yeah, so it's kind of interesting to see how those two Ancestors go back forth His mind we need a clip of loose live tyler saying

[00:31:45] You are a sealed or is air not a sealed or himself Which is actually said by he himself in the in the text so Yeah, they certainly inserted a lot more self-doubt into aragorn's arc in the movies. They sure did Anyway Moving on to dwarfs

[00:32:10] I love the dwarfs. Oh, yeah, I find myself Hearing their song in my head when i'm out walking It's a great walk to the pace of that because that's a that's pretty fast pace. I mean, yeah, I do Particularly downhill Not so much. All right

[00:32:36] So a very heavy four square rhythm which is eminently appropriate for these strong stocky dwarfs that Humans thought return to stone when they died, which of course doesn't happen But that tells you something about their character as well, but this is how they're perceived from the outside

[00:32:55] Lots of hammer strikes not unsurprisingly given their their work and their joy So and drums and brass string basses Though they're the first ones. I think we hear doing that the rhythm The the baseline there And The singing also, you know, bass baritones and a very simple melody

[00:33:22] There's part a and a part b and that's pretty much how it happens. There's not a lot of development of melodic development, but The different instruments that play it definitely show development. I mean, I think of one statement of the dorban theme when

[00:33:45] Prince doran and elrond are talking and Doran realizes that, you know, he might not be able to save his friend and there's this very quiet statement of the theme and it's You know, this is a very different side of the dwarfs. This isn't the bold brash challenging

[00:34:05] call and response kind of dwarfs, but um A very A very tender side although they probably wouldn't like you saying so Well, I think that's right though, right? I mean look at gimley when he gets the hairs from galadriel He uh, he's very touched. He's very touched

[00:34:24] He's got his best friend right beside him legolas Yeah, yeah one of the things I love about the the text for gimley and galadriel is gimley is actually the best representation Of The courtly love That's written about in the troubadour and trouvert and their songs about

[00:34:50] The pure love for an unattainable woman and yet Will maintain her honor you will fight anybody who speaks ill of her You will serve her until you die And get three hairs from her head is enough to send you in it is

[00:35:08] And you know of all the people I might imagine in a french court Around the time of the troubadour and the trouvert gimley is probably the last on the list Right there it is dwarves are very loyal once they give their field and uh, We definitely see that

[00:35:28] And you even see Uh dora get upset with aragorn for not paying attention to his feelings enough You know he says you you may live for a very long time But I don't and you missed half my life basically Yes, yes. That's that is a very touching

[00:35:47] Yeah, because I think once Dwarves wear friendship They take it very very seriously as do elves or at least al-haram All right, but it was the misunderstanding of the cultural concepts of time and the passage of time Al-haram was generally remorseful

[00:36:07] When he realized the pain that he had caused because that's certainly not something he would want to do Right, but he's also being a politician not a politician. He's being a statesman at that point He came with a mission and he never forgets it

[00:36:23] It's just his fortune that the mission Combines beautifully with his desire to pair repair the friendship right You know what else I loved about the dwarves was that the stone singing Yes And I'm sure you're gonna talk about that with sarah

[00:36:46] When you you know the ritual of it but The It's a whole idea of it. It reminded me so much of loyal from the wheel of time

[00:36:56] Being a tree singer and some wood is this thing that's such a beauty and so rare and it's a dying art for loyal Uh, I wonder you know, we don't see the dwarves fading in the third age or going into the fourth age of Middle Earth

[00:37:11] But when do they fade because clearly they fade in tolkines You know if if I know that it's not fully Our world after a certain point he made the decision to sever it from uh, a false origin story, but

[00:37:27] You know, I think I think really it's the age of men after a certain point, right? That's the whole point Yeah, and I think I don't think he ever completely let go of the idea that it was our world

[00:37:38] But in a different history. I mean he says that quite clearly Yes towards the end He was thinking about changing origin stories But that was simply because he decided that if the elves are learning all of their science from the valar

[00:37:53] They're not going to come up with things like light from trees that eventually Produce fruit that eventually become the sun That was the kind of tension that he was dealing with nonetheless Certainly in his heart. I think He wanted To be able to say

[00:38:15] You could draw a through line From the shire and the third age to oryxure around the time of the jubilee of queen victoria And that was that was very dear to his heart that idea, right? I'm not sure that the doors faded. I think they just retreated

[00:38:36] And disappeared. You think there's still dwarves around that we can you know knock a couple holes into the mountains and find them Who knows Who is explored every single mountain range throughout this trail all around the world here

[00:38:51] It's true. And I think you could make an even stronger case that there's still elves around Because the elves Exist as long as this earth exists Right and uh, and you have the already right who you have the ofari

[00:39:06] And I don't think they exist in a physical form anymore. I think their their um faya have basically right used up their furoa and uh Now they they exist and it's interesting faya and fe Fe is a word for the fey Also means the fair folk um Nice

[00:39:31] So, you know, they could be standing In that bush that suddenly catches your attention and you don't really know why right? That's a lovely sentiment. It's fun to think so and the thing about the um One thing I can say about um the singing to the mountain

[00:39:52] When we see them Pleading with the mountain to return the bodies of the four miners with the breath still in them You have a supportive chorus There's this choral um Again, sort of a ground-based kind of a line that disa Sings over

[00:40:16] And extemporizes on and does riffs and so forth So it is interesting. Um I'm not sure how much the doors value Individuals unless they have a specific gift that their culture recognizes Right right or they're a king by right, right, you know, right exactly the line of doran

[00:40:40] But she needs the supportive singing of her fellows And still this wonderful low rumbly bass sound and voice and so on so that there's a you know Same culture very similar kinds right music Well, we've got a few more people to talk about Yep, we got the southlanders

[00:41:06] Who really don't have musical statements very off? And they're very short It's one melody. It's never really developed very much And again we get illan pipes Which I find interesting what were they trying to uh indicate with that

[00:41:26] Yeah, yeah, because I don't think they're irish. I don't think they're hard with no but they are Are they displaced? I guess they're not they were there before but they are yes, they were

[00:41:37] They're almost morally displaced, right? They were they fought for morgoth and now they are here trying to You know redeem themselves a lot of them It could be a reflection of their interaction with the elves that had been quote-unquote protecting them. Oh, right Hundreds of years

[00:41:57] Is what you go wrong with the military occupation? Oh, gee who know Who can say right and it's also used as helbrun's theme Throughout this first episode Which is very interesting because it turns out that helbrun's theme

[00:42:17] Is sauron's theme backwards, right? It's it's a palindrome. Which is it's the same front or back Uh or rather it can go front or back And that's Super fun. Bear McCreary snuck that

[00:42:34] Snuck that through to us. Uh, he he loved talking about it on the podcast. He likes he lit up when we asked about it Yes, yes He gave us a clue Yep to the probably the biggest question of the entire series

[00:42:51] Where in the world is where in the world is sauron? Yeah It's a good question I'll be interested to see if we do get more development of the southlanders music or I mean now They all wiped out now basically at least between order drew and and austere

[00:43:11] I guess the region is wiped out for sure Uh, there there are some survivors with the people but are they still southlanders or are they something else? Well, I suspect that southlanders was a name that was given to them. Right. They may have their own

[00:43:26] Right that nobody ever bothered to use. Yeah, maybe they'll be the population that you know because A a decent amount of new minorians come over but not enough for a kingdom So maybe they'll be the founding members of gondor

[00:43:41] Could be I mean they've already talked about the fact that there was um a settlement Right along the coasts of the on doing And brunwyn and oron dior and theo are planning to head in that direction or at least at the end of season one

[00:43:55] They were yeah, so maybe it would make sense for them to become sort of incorporated into new minorian society Some of them. I'm also thinking of At the end of the war the ring and when sauron is destroyed there's a line that says that ergon gave

[00:44:13] the lands of mortor To the slaves of sauron And my first thought when I heard that was oh, wow, he's even you know giving the orcs a place to live giving the orcs a homeland is Adar was so keen to do

[00:44:30] But when I expressed this on one of the discord channels, I was saying no no no no that meant human slaves That didn't mean orc slaves, you know all the orcs have to be wiped out etc. etc

[00:44:39] Um, so maybe some of the southlanders now are going to be those slaves of sauron You know several thousand years from now. Yeah, could be and they will eventually get the land back right I'm not sure how good that well farther south than or drew in

[00:44:57] way far south around the the inland sea of nurna There are green pastors and lands that can grow food stuff because otherwise nobody could survive in morskos Right right Well, I hope they're able to make mortor great again as they said Well, maybe give it a different name

[00:45:19] That would be a good idea. That's a good start Well, I switched the order of my notes here Because you did indeed I thought that sauron would be an appropriate next step after this discussion Definitely, uh, so incredibly dramatic And and chromatic melody here where it's just

[00:45:45] You get to that Oh, it's it's so it's so dirty that minor a second. It feels wrong, right? The whole thing feels unnatural and slimy and it feels like there's evil circling

[00:45:58] You and and that that you can't get away from it and then just when you start to feel a little comfortable with the melody Bear changes the key by a half step and now you're you feel like it's it's upping the stakes Right, right. He's gonna get you

[00:46:12] It reminded me very much of like the hon Zimmer style, right this batman style where he's like do do do do It's uh, very similar. It's been become pretty popular over the last like 20 years Which you're gonna laugh now, but what you just

[00:46:27] Hummed took me straight back to my favorite Batman of all time, which is That man It's the same thing, you know the the half step down and up. Isn't that funny? I wonder if that was intentional For me it feels like it's drilling into inside me

[00:46:47] Like a tapeworm Eating me out for the insiders that but I can also see Circling around you on the outside yeah, yeah, it's um Um It it reminds me of basically that scene where hell brand reveals himself to Galadriel and she's sort of stuck in this vision

[00:47:06] And she can't get out of it that that's what this theme feels like to me and I thought bear nailed this one interesting interesting Yeah, that that reveal when he says you know, I have Existed before the sun rose. I have had many names. I mean it

[00:47:25] The actor Charlie Vickers just Nailed it. Yeah, you could just you could see the transformation. He finally once and for all, you know Shook off how brand and all of his doings

[00:47:40] And I really yeah, I really really loved his portrayal and at the same time. I hope we never see it again I hope that saran becomes anatar and I hope that there is a different form Yeah, that's nice on that role That'd be nice

[00:47:56] I want to see that he was there in some form Before we met hell brand and He poisoned the elves tree and Seeded the story of of the origins of mithril Uh That don't want to talk about mithril nap. Yeah, no, I don't really either but anyway

[00:48:20] Um, yeah, I got a lot of directions. They can go don't they? Yeah, I think that they're going with the mithril thing is a fact in this story, but oh john say this We'll say I I would put money on it that this

[00:48:34] Well, I'm afraid you're probably right, but I still am going to cling to hope That's fair until all hope is gone. Hope is never meager Even when it is mere No, hope is never a mere even when it is meager. There we go

[00:48:49] You know, yeah, I don't I hope so hopefully clean up kill gala a little bit too again Yeah, he was he was a little deceptive a little sneaky over there He was just so incredibly political though. Yeah. Yeah

[00:49:03] I cannot picture the minstrel sadly singing about so I think he's gonna have some arc I hope he's gonna have some arc Yeah throughout the series. I mean I can't picture this one sacrificing his life and

[00:49:17] Killing south on even knowing that he's going to be killed and in a fairly gruesome way Uh, he reminds me more of thingal and his personality in the summer early. Yes. Yes Yes Interesting maybe that's what they're going for maybe they want us to see a thingal

[00:49:35] Not have a fall race Huh I was just about to complain about how many times people try to throw thingal into this that and the other character you know, I'm thinking of Thranduil from the movies that shall not be mentioned

[00:49:50] Oh, no. No, we're not doing Thranduil, but thingal. I I mean, I love the story surrounding thingal because I think he's such a fascinating character but uh Certainly not the kindest elf that you've ever met

[00:50:04] No, he had him a fair amount of pride, but you know you marry a myar, I guess Yep, it kind of goes to your head after a while and then you stop listening to her Well speaking of myar, I guess we should probably talk about the Ishtar

[00:50:20] Yeah, the strange beautiful transition there sir. My head is off to you. Oh, thank you. I do this for a living, you know Uh, do you I know you do it? I do it. I do it for a supplemental living Uh, so the stranger I I I I

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