The Ruin of Beleriand and the Fall of Fingolfin - Silmarillion Stories E20

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[00:01:43] Welcome to Silmarillion Stories, where the Lorehounds, your guides to Tolkien's world of Middle-Earth. I'm John, and this is our podcast for of The Ruined of Beleriand and The Fall of Fingolfin, the 20th portion of The Silmarillion. In this episode, we're going to be discussing the Dagor Bragalach, the Fall of an Elvish King, and the Rise of Heroic Houses. If you want to get in on the Tolkien Talk, please send an email to lotr at thelorehounds.com or visit thelorehounds.com slash contact to leave a voicemail.

[00:02:13] One more note, if you want to support us directly, click the link tree in the show notes and follow it to Supercast for Patreon, where you can get early and add-free access to our podcasts, plus bonus content like Second Breakfast and Elevensees. Back today with me is returning guest for the third time now, Aaron from Lore of the Rings. Aaron, how are you doing? Hello, doing so well, John. Great to be back with you. Always love having you on. The people love you. I get great feedback in the Discord and whatnot when you're on,

[00:02:42] so I'm glad that you could make this happen. I think you might be our... Well, Marilyn's been on several times, but Marilyn is off and on with us at other things too. But you might be our first third-timer for out of the network. Wow. All right. Well, I am honored to be the first third-timer from outside the network, and I'm always so humbled by the feedback that the Lorehounds fans give, and you've got a great fan base here. We've got great listeners, and we are here to deliver tonight.

[00:03:12] Before we get started, just where can people find you and your podcast? What do you do in general in case people haven't heard you before? Yeah, absolutely. So my podcast is called Lore of the Rings. That's Lore with an E, not a D. Lore of the Rings. You can find it most easily at ringspodcast.com. And I try to give you just a weekly sort of 15-minute wandering or exploration of the world and works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

[00:03:38] So, like you, we've explored the chapters of The Silmarillion. We've explored The Hobbit. We've compared each chapter of The Hobbit to its on-screen adaptation. And right now, our current exploration is The Fellowship of the Ring. And we were saying before we recorded, I plan to do a chapter and episode, but there's just too much in there. So about every four to six pages of Fellowship of the Ring, we're looking at details, themes, things that you probably missed if you've only read it once or if you've only seen the films, things that you definitely missed.

[00:04:07] And just kind of wandering a lot of those things there and looking at the philosophy, Tolkien's masterful skill in telling stories, and just looking at some really rich details that people miss when they read through The Fellowship for the first time. So, come find me at Lore of the Rings, or you can find all your favorite podcast players at ringspodcast.com. Very cool. And people should definitely go there if they want to read along with The Lord of the Rings. It's a really great paced discussion that you have going on there.

[00:04:34] Plus, the fans over here have told me that I'm not allowed to do The Lord of the Rings next. I have to choose something else. So, probably Unfinished Tales, but I've got to talk about it. So, if you want Lord of the Rings companions, you're going to have to go over to Aaron's feed, Lore of the Rings. So, we'll link that in the show notes as well. Yeah, come on over. Come wander Middle-earth with me. You've probably heard him in our cross-promotions if you're on the public feed anyway. Exactly. We've done that a few times. Aaron, this is a big chapter.

[00:05:01] When I pitched this to you, upon outlining it, I thought maybe I should have made this two episodes because there's a lot of stuff in this. But we're going to get through it. I believe in us. We're going to get through it. It's kind of a two-parter, right? It's the Dagor Bragalak, the Battle of Sudden Flames, I believe it is. And then it's this sort of man-ish, elvish, what's the aftermath of that? Yeah.

[00:05:29] And sort of a prologue to Barret and Luthien. Yeah, exactly. And I love those two parts. I would even break it up into maybe three parts. Okay. One is sort of the battle proper itself, the Battle of Sudden Flame. And then you've got Fingolfin, who sort of has this high, dramatic point. And it's really a turning point for him, essentially, and the Noldor.

[00:05:54] And then, like you say, you sort of have this sort of setup of, okay, what is going on Beleriand now? And what are the future tales that are coming? You get a little hints about Baron and Luthien, as well as Turun and Turunbar, and a little bit that's going on there. So you kind of get this setup, this foundation of some of those later tales. Yeah. Especially you get right in the middle of the chapter, this quote, war ceased, not wholly ever again in Beleriand. So this is a big turning point in the book. It's just, this is where the action is heating up.

[00:06:24] We are in the last third of the movie, right? Everything, all the plot lines are going to come together now. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. How do you feel about this chapter generally? Is this one of your more favorite chapters? It has one of my most favorite scenes. Mm-hmm. In it, I think in terms of themes, this chapter really, it speaks to a lot of like the downfall of good and the desperation that can come.

[00:06:53] It speaks to a lot of how good doesn't really understand evil, the nature of evil and how it operates. And so you've got some really interesting themes there. But for me, the real core of this chapter is that final scene with Fingolfin and sort of what he has to go through. And so when I look at the Silmarillion and I look at all of the elves of the First Age, this scene with Fingolfin really cements him as one of my most favorite characters from the Silmarillion. Yeah.

[00:07:23] It's definitely an iconic moment. Like if there are iconic moments in this book, that is one of them is just Fingolfin going toe-to-toe with Morgoth. Very cool. Very cool. We'll get to that. Starting off in the chapter, I mean, we have this setting where the Noldor are just kind of doping around, I want to say. Like they just don't know what to do with themselves. They've been at peace for a while and they're like, maybe things are fine. And of course you have Morgoth plotting in the background.

[00:07:52] And I love this quote here because it's so Tolkien where he says, and it is said Morgoth's hate overcame his counsel so that if he had but endured to wait longer until his designs were full, then the Noldor would have perished utterly. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, you get this little bit of impatience from Morgoth where his downfall from the very beginning has been his own pride and hubris, right?

[00:08:19] He thinks that he can do these things, that he has the capacity to do these things. And maybe he actually would or could if he waited just a little bit longer. Right. But in his impatience, he's like, no, I'm strong enough now. I don't understand. Well, you know, he wouldn't say it this way, but he doesn't fully understand the elves and especially the newcomers on the scene. Right. Men, right? Mortal men. He took no account of them. Yeah, right. Of men he took yet no account. So it's like men have just come on the scene.

[00:08:48] We don't really know how they are going to interact here with the elves, with Morgoth. We don't exactly know what their capacity is. And so he basically just ignores them, which is a strategic blunder, I think, on his part, which works well for the good as much as the side of good or the elves can have a silver lining here. But yeah, there's a new piece in play and Morgoth has not yet fully accounted for it. Right.

[00:09:17] Morgoth's thinking, well, they die on their own. I don't even have to do anything to them. So what do I have to worry about them? Yeah, exactly. They die on their own. They're sort of weak. He has some messengers that he sent out to the east. So some of these men he's already persuaded into his council. And so you also begin to see a little bit of the theme here of the difference between men and elves.

[00:09:39] And we'll get to this a little bit later on, but one of the reasons why men are always so prone to action, to take action, is the shortness of their lives. They have an expiration date, right? They know that they're going to die. Unlike the elves who, barring some violent clash or some deep, deep sickness, the elves, they're going to live forever. Hence why Fingolfin at the beginning of this chapter, he's like, hey, we probably should take out Morgoth while we have the strength and the numbers.

[00:10:08] And all the other elves are sort of like, nah, we don't want to do that. We can wait him out. We're immortal beings here. Like, we have infinite amounts of patience. And so Fingolfin never really is able to muster their strength with that desire to try to attack and take the fight to Morgoth. And that's to the detriment of the elves here. Right. Both sides are sort of, you know, underestimating the other side, right? And that's tough. That's really tough.

[00:10:37] I mean, it serves good and then it serves evil. Yeah, it does. And it speaks to, I think, you look at the Third Age. Let's fast forward to the Third Age where you have Elrond and Gandalf and Galadriel. Apparently they've learned something in a few thousand years because at that point they're able to really guess Sauron's mind. They're really almost as if they could read Sauron's mind. And they're like, he would never expect somebody to try to destroy the ring. If somebody claimed the ring, he would never expect them to try to take it back to Mordor.

[00:11:02] Like, they have these, like, major bets where it seems like at that point they've been able to understand the nature of evil better. Yeah. But still at this point, they're still naive, I guess, is the only word I can think of, where they just don't understand Morgoth and how he operates. Right. Yeah, that's interesting. I guess enough battles and you finally start to learn your lesson a little bit.

[00:11:24] But I do like, that's one thing I like about Rings of Power is I do buy that later Galadriel has learned from these fictionalized events that we're seeing here. Is that, you know, she's growing through these seasons and she will become what we eventually see in the Lord of the Rings. Yeah, exactly. And I do think that is, I theorize at least that that's one of the character arcs that the showrunners were going for is let's show an impetuous Galadriel who needs to learn from failure.

[00:11:51] And that's kind of what you see in season one a little bit in season two. So maybe she's kind of growing into that wisdom of understanding the nature of evil a little bit better. Yeah, I think so. Well, Morgoth certainly understands the nature of evil because he's going to send great rivers of flame that ran down swifter than Balrog from Thangaradrim. Pretty rough. Pretty rough. Yeah, this is a pretty intense battle here.

[00:12:18] And it goes back, Morgoth is always able to use the nature that's around him to his advantage. And, you know, you go back to how the world was created and some of the things that he created based off of the Valar's sort of creations that they did. And so he uses nature to his strategic advantage. I like this analogy, right? That rivers of flame are running down swifter than Balrogs. Interesting choice of words there.

[00:12:44] Like, what is the speediest thing in Middle Earth that Tolkien is relating to, but is also something that is on fire, right? Something living and fire. And it's like Balrogs. They must have been really fast if these great rivers are running over all of these plains and just burning people as they go so fast that many people don't even have the chance to get out of the way. Right? Right.

[00:13:08] And I don't know where it, I can't remember exactly how it says it here, but many had their, oh, their charred bones had their roofless grave out there on the plains because it was so fast. Yikes. It's not great. We don't like when that happens. We don't like burnt elves. And, of course, we have a lot of them here.

[00:13:27] And a bunch of, I didn't want to list everything because I think it just gets to be word salad, but a lot of these regions that we've been talking about, Dorthonia and whatnot, just are decimated, just destroyed and uninhabitable. And we'll get to some of Sauron's nonsense in a little bit, but again, war never ceased holy again in Beleriand. This is the end of elvish peace in the First Age. Yeah.

[00:13:51] Yeah, and in a way that it says that, you know, the orcs came forward, that you have this dragon Glaurong that comes forward in his full might. It says, you know, the Noldor, the elves, had never before seen or even imagined just how strong Morgoth and his forces had become. So, yeah, just again, that surprise, that miscalculation that they had on the nature of evil. Right.

[00:14:14] We brought up Galadriel a little bit, and I think it's probably worth noting, Angrod and Agnor, who are mentioned here, they're slain in this first assault. Right. Coming back to Galadriel, those are two of her brothers, Angrod and Agnor, and they are the ones who are kind of furthest in the north. They're kind of the tip of the spear, if you will, against Morgoth. So, coming back to Galadriel and maybe learning some of that wisdom and learning the nature of evil, like, this is very personal.

[00:14:43] When she fights against Sauron in the Third Age, she's got all of this past history with Morgoth, and it's very personal for her. Right. Of course, Finrod's going to rule the day in her mind. Everyone else is going to go, do I mean nothing to you? Yes, exactly. Exactly. But yeah, they did do a good job of dramatizing that relationship in Rings of Power, this whole, you know, it is personal to her, as you said. And that's a good point.

[00:15:11] Speaking of Finrod, we've got this big assault, and Finrod gets really surrounded and almost dies until Barahir saves him, and Finrod gives Barahir his ring. Yes, absolutely. Key moment here. And if you're reading the Simarillion for the first time and you're having a hard time keeping track of the names, just remember Finrod is Felagund, and Felagund is Finrod. These are the same people here. So, yeah. So, Finrod is trying to escape. There's a wall of spears.

[00:15:41] Barahir helps him, and he gives Barahir his ring. This is a very important ring, and this is one of those very few artifacts from the First Age that actually survives all the way into the Third Age. So, John, I don't know how much spoiler you want me to give here, but if you've seen the Lord of the Rings movies and the Two Towers, Wormtongue goes to Sauron, and he says, oh, there's this ranger from the north, and he had a strange ring.

[00:16:08] And Sauron, he sort of looks through his encyclopedia of pictures of Middle-earth artifacts, and he's like, oh, it's the ring of Barahir. Right? So, this ring of Barahir is a big connection line. It's been handed down from father to son, from Barahir to Beren, who's about to come in the next story, all the way down.

[00:16:30] You can trace that ring all the way back down to Aragorn, and is indeed one of the symbols that Aragorn does come from this ancient line of the royal Adain, the men who helped the elves in the First Age, and that he is indeed truly the heir of the kingdom of God. Yep. So, this is the moment where the ring of Barahir comes into play, because Barahir receives this ring from Finrod as a token of friendship and aid,

[00:16:57] if any of Barahir and all his kin, it's important, and all of his kin, if they ever need help, that they can use this ring to call for help. Right. It's not much of a promise from an elf if it's just like, only you, none of your kin. Yeah. Because, you know, do I have to redeem it by death? Is this, you know? Yeah. Expires at death. Yeah. Kind of a worthless coupon when it's coming from an elf. They're like, yeah, sure, until you die. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, that's a big one. You got to remember that.

[00:17:26] We'll remind you, you know, next month it's going to be Lee Silberlian from, you can see her on TikTok. Mm-hmm. And she's going to talk about Baron and Luthien with me, and spoiler alert, I already talked about it with her twice. But yeah, so we're definitely going to remind you of that, so don't worry about that. Now we've got Fingolfin, and I know you said this is your big moment here. Yeah.

[00:17:53] So Fingolfin, let's just remember the context of who Fingolfin was. So Fingolfin right now is High King of the Noldor, he's Galadriel's uncle, he is a half-brother to Feanor. Feanor was the one who created the Silmarils from the light of the two trees, and started the Noldor all the way back on this return to Middle-earth, and in the fight against Melkor and Morgoth. Right. Melkor and Morgoth, I say that as if they're two different people. They're the same person, sorry. Morgoth, Melkor, interchangeably.

[00:18:22] So Fingolfin, being half-brother of Feanor, his father was Finway, who was also slayed by Morgoth all the way back in Valad, when Morgoth stole the Silmarils. So Fingolfin has a very personal score to settle with Melkor.

[00:18:40] And even so much so with the sons of Feanor, because when Feanor left Valinor, he took the ships of the Teleri, he burned them on the other side, and he left Fingolfin, and all who followed him, including Galadriel, they had to cross the northern grinding ice. The Helikoroxe, I think is what it's called. Right? So that just gives you a little context on Fingolfin.

[00:19:05] So he feels very personal against Morgoth, but also he feels like this is now the utter ruin of the Noldor, right? As it seemed to him. So he feels like the Noldor, we have nothing left to lose. We've been broken. We've been shattered, scattered, divided, leaderless, as one of his descendants might say. And so he is, I love this, he's filled with wrath and despair. He mounts upon his horse, and he rides forth alone.

[00:19:34] And I'm just going to read this a little bit here. None might restrain him. He passed over Dornu Fogleaf like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in a maze, thinking that Orome himself was come, for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar.

[00:19:53] I just love, like, I love this imagery of Fingolfin on this horse, riding like the wind, over the ash, over the sudden flames, so much so that he looks like Orome, who was one of the Valar, the great hunter of the Valar. And nobody even dares to stop him. He's just racing through the lands of Melkor.

[00:20:13] And then it continues, thus he came alone to Angband's gates, and he sounded his horn and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat. And then I love just this simple line that Tolkien gives us, and Morgoth came. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. That just sends chills down my back. Like, lone elf king, surrounded by enemies, at the enemy's gates, challenging him to one-on-one. You know, how medieval does that get?

[00:20:43] Let's go one-on-one here. High King of the Nulldor versus, you know, King of Slaves and Cravens, as he calls to them. And he's challenging Morgoth, and then you have Morgoth, right? This great evil entity just coming up from underneath the ground. And Morgoth came, man. It just, oh, that sends chills down my spine every time I read.

[00:21:07] Yeah, it's one of those mic drop moments for Tolkien, pen drop, I guess, moments for Tolkien, where you go, you know that he wrote that, he goes, oh, I'm cooking with this one. Yes. Yes. It's the same thing of, there's a certain line in Baron and Luthien that I always, he, you know, Baron and Luthien has a million references, but the one about the hand. Oh, yes. Yeah. I'll save it for the next chapter, but like, it's always in every one exactly the same, and you know that he was like, oh, I cooked with that one. That's my line. He's like, I'm so clever. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

[00:21:38] Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, so Morgoth comes out, he's, he's, comes out from his underground cavern, his fortress. He's dressed in black armor. He looks like a tower with his vast shield, a complete black shield, no, no insignia on the shield. And he casts a shadow over, over Fingolfin.

[00:21:59] Um, but then it says, but Fingolfin gleamed beneath it as a star for his mail was overlaid with silver and his blue shield was set with crystals. And he drew his sword ringgill that glittered like ice. So, I love this connection back to, you've got Fingolfin whose sword is glittering like ice, right? And he was the one who led the elves across the grinding ice before.

[00:22:26] Um, and even ice, and it's in and of itself, just ironically, ice is almost a, uh, an invention of Morgoth, right? You had Ulmo who had these waters and rain clouds and such, but all of a sudden you have Morgoth who can freeze it and it becomes ice and snow and all these other things, right? And Edu Iluvatar, the creator god is like, see, you need some opposition to help you kind of build some cool things here. But, but, uh, but I just kind of love the, the ironic of ice exists because of Morgoth.

[00:22:56] And here you have Fingolfin who is like a icy star. He's like this cold star with crystals, um, against this black towering, um, iron, uh, you know, evil entity here. I just, uh, the imagery here is just, it just, it speaks to me. I find it so, so beautiful. Yeah. It, it is very beautiful. And, uh, you know, you've got him fighting with an ice sword. You've got Morgoth with fire.

[00:23:24] I think George RR Martin has been doing some plagiarizing because we've got a song of ice and fire here. That's true. Yeah. Uh, it's funny. I did not make that connection. Yeah. But he gives them seven wounds, right? Seven wounds plus a bonus. Yeah. Absolutely. Plus on the heel. So let's, yeah. Plus a bonus. So let's, let's look at this battle a little bit here. So first off, um, if you've seen the movies and maybe this is your first time reading the Simarillion or first time in a long time, Morgoth has a weapon and it has a name and it's called Grand. Grand, right?

[00:23:53] He calls it the hammer of the underworld. And so you fast forward a few thousand years and you've got Sauron in the war of the ring in, in the Lord of the ring story. He's prepared a, a battering ram specific, specifically to break down the doors of one tower, Minas Tirith. And what does he name this great wolf head, have battering ram? He names it Grand, right? So almost you've got Sauron, the lieutenant bad guy here giving homage to his old master

[00:24:22] Morgoth and sort of renaming his great weapon after, after the weapon that Morgoth has. Um, and so you've got Morgoth. He's slamming down this hammer, making ginormous pits in the earth. Fingolfin is darting away. Um, I mean, talk about, talk about, let's, let's make a movie out of this. Let's, let's have a whole rings of power series just on Fingolfin versus Morgoth. Like, let's just watch this battle. Yeah. Yeah. And you, and you can't, you, you pointed out the, the exact imagery or not the imagery, but

[00:24:51] the, the count of the wounds, right? So Fingolfin is able to get seven wounds into Morgoth. Um, and three times Morgoth is able to crush Fingolfin before he finally goes down. Um, but then you kind of look back and, um, uh, Fingolfin gets one last hit plus the Rondir, the eagle comes. And so he is able to get another wound onto Morgoth. So right. Scratches the face, right? Right.

[00:25:21] So if you're keeping track of numbers, you've got one elf who did seven primary runes. Um, he was crushed three times. And at the end, Morgoth has nine wounds, one, three, seven, and nine. Coincidence? Maybe. Right. But that matches pretty well in my mind too. You now have these numbers of the rings that get created later on, right? You have one ring, three for the elves, seven for the dwarves, nine for the, for mortal men.

[00:25:51] And so was there something about these numbers that, that Tolkien just really loved? Maybe, maybe he wasn't even trying to make that, have that intent here, but I just find it really interesting when you can find some of these numbers and you just do a little bit of counting and you're like, oh, this, this is, this all does tie back to one big epic narrative. Um, and Tolkien is just kind of giving us a little slice of this amazing epic narrative and it all is interwoven and connected together. Well, I never, I never considered that.

[00:26:20] So I'm really glad you brought that up. I mean, Tolkien loves to have it rhyme and, and it really does rhyme there. And I think it's more meaningful because he doesn't spell it out for you. It's just there. So, wow. Very cool. Very cool. Everyone applaud for Aaron because that was very good. So we've got, uh, we've got the falling, fallen Fingolfin now, man, there's a lot of Fs here. You know, that game, is it an elf name or an antidepressant? Ah, there you go. Yes. And, uh, it's lovely. Yeah.

[00:26:47] I love, I love that he goaded Morgoth into coming out. Morgoth sort of is shamed into coming out. Uh, you know, I love what you, what you put in here with the rage, making him shine with the light of the Valar and the, and the wound count. That's awesome. Thorondor is not going to let Fingolfin's body stay with Morgoth though. He's going to carry it away and send messages to Gondolin and Hithlum like, Hey, it's bad stuff out there. Everyone stay inside.

[00:27:14] We're instituting the lockdowns and, uh, yeah. Yeah. Eagles to the rescue again. Really? It's, it is Tolkien's get out of jail free card, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. And, you know, and, and he, he spun it with his own special flavor. He called it, you know, you catastrophe sort of this sudden joyous turn from the darkest, you know? So, and, and I think there's some value, there's some value to that, but you know, the, the Eagles sort of, they intervene when, when they want to. Right.

[00:27:42] And so it's not exactly like, you know, just this, you know, God out of the machine, right? Dios X backing up, but it's sort of like, when do the Eagles intervene? Yeah. And there's, there's another special detail here too, is that Therondor, the King of the Eagles, he takes Fingolfin's body to Turgon, who's in Gondolin that has been set up. It's still a hidden city here. Mm-hmm. Um, and Turgon, um, is Fingolfin's son. He builds a karn over his father. And I really love sort of this detail that, that, that Tolkien gives us that no orc ever

[00:28:12] dared to pass over the Mount, Mount of Fingolfin or draw nigh into his tomb. So many times in fantasy stories, or even in horror stories, we learn of, oh, here's an evil place that if you are a good person, you want to avoid, right? Mm-hmm. Like, don't go to the borrow downs, don't go to the paths of the dead. Like, you have so many of those places. But the reverse logic works just as well. Yeah. When you have these places that have been so sacred and revered by, shall we say, the

[00:28:39] elves or the forces of good or light, that orcs also have that same ominous feeling of, we dare not go to that place, right? And this, and this is one of, I don't know, three or four that Tolkien will call out in the first age. This is one of those places. And I just, I find that pretty cool. Yeah. That's awesome. I, I, it's a reverse cursed burial land, right? A blessed, a blessed burial land, if you might say. There you go. Okay. All right. That's better than a reverse curse. It's less cumbersome.

[00:29:08] Uh, Fingon is now man of the house, right? He's, he's the new Lord of the house of Fingolfin. And he's going to send his son Gil-galad, well, eventually called Gil-galad, to the Grey Havens. Yeah. Interesting little detail that Tolkien gives us here. Um, and, uh, who is after named Gil-galad, he sent to the Havens. So Gil-galad, uh, for those of you who've seen Rings of Power, he shows up in season one and season two.

[00:29:36] He's sort of known as the king of, of the Noldor there. Um, and this is actually, I know there's some controversy about who actually was Gil-galad's dad. I think there's a couple of things that are contradictory from the Silmarillion to Unfinished Tales and other sources. I'm not full up on all the different sides of, of that controversy. Um, but, but I, it, it does go to speak like when it comes to Tolkien, it's really hard to nail down and say, this is canon.

[00:30:03] This is what Tolkien would have thought because it's like, well, you can read three different passages where Tolkien's like giving three different explanations for something. And so it's just kind of like, well, you kind of have to choose, choose your own canon here, I guess. So that's part of the complication with, with Gil-galad. Right. We're so used to things today. Like people want it so cut and dry. Like this is canon. This was the author's intent to the point where, you know, Star Wars, rather than just have

[00:30:29] a messy canon said, well, let's just get rid of everything prior to this year. And that was controversial too, right? Like what if, what if the Tolkien estate finally came out and said, all right, Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings are canon and the Hobbit, nothing else is canon. Everything else is, is the legendarium, you know, something like that. I think people would be really mad. I think people would be displeased by that. It would be tough. It would be tough. It would be tough to say that.

[00:30:55] And, and, you know, this lends to a lot of the controversies and conversations that are around Rings of Power and, and how can you change this or change that? And while it's like, well, which, which, which section of Tolkien's drafts are you going to adhere to? Right. And, and that, that becomes a pretty complicated question. For me, I've been able to just say, none of this is canon. None of the Rings of Power are canon. So I could just sit back and enjoy the show. I can enjoy the visuals. I can enjoy seeing these characters and concepts be put to screen. Yeah.

[00:31:25] Just treat it as, as an adaptation, which is what it is. Yeah. All right. Well, Aaron, let's take a quick break and we'll get back to the Silmarillion. We are Teresa and Nemo. And, so we're headed to Shopify. The platform, the we used for Shopify, has regularly needed updates, which have often brought to the shop, that the shop didn't work.

[00:31:53] End of our Nemo Boards Shop makes us on the mobile device a good figure. And we're back.

[00:32:22] So let's talk about Sauron. We've got to talk about him. He's the man of the hour after Morgoth is gone. And, you know, there's this great section where, you know, a couple years later, a couple years pass and not much happens. But then there's, there's the Western pass and it's going to, it's going to, it's going to suffer a little bit.

[00:32:45] So, uh, we have Sauron has, Sauron was become now a sorcerer of dreadful power, master of shadows and a phantoms foul in wisdom, cruel in strength, misshaping what he touched, twisting what he ruled, Lord of werewolves. His dominion was torment. And he's going to transform Minas Tirith into the bad place, uh, mirroring what happens later with Ozgiliath.

[00:33:16] Yeah. And, and, and more with Minas Morgul rather. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I love, I love that description of Sauron, um, just Sauron the deceiver, right? As, as he's later known and just a wily sly type of a person, certainly, uh, a great number two for Morgoth to have, to have recruited. Um, you've got this tower Minas Tirith, which Minas Tirith simply means tower of the guard in Elvish. So this tower is, is that Western passage, as you mentioned.

[00:33:46] And Sauron is sort of sent out, um, to, to go take that, to go take that tower and secure the Western passage, um, for, for Morgoth's forces. Mm-hmm. Um, so in the Third Age, in the War of the Ring, when Sauron is again attacking Minas Tirith, this is not the first tower of the guard that he has come up against. Now, the tools and resources he has in the Third Age are a little bit different from the

[00:34:11] First Age, um, and as we all know, the outcome of the Third Age Minas Tirith was a lot different than the outcome of the First Age Minas Tirith. So this tower he is able to, uh, to, to take for Morgoth. It turns it into a watchtower. Um, the island that it's on is called Tol-en-Garhoth, meaning the Isle of Werewolves. So you have a lot of connection between Sauron and wolves and werewolves here, um, and Sauron is able to, um, secure that Western pass for Morgoth. Right.

[00:34:41] And, and of course, like I mentioned, you do have Minas Ithil in the Third Age following Sauron's forces as well, becoming Minas Morgul. So this is something, he loves to do that. He loves to take a city that men live in and turn it right into his evil stronghold for orcs. Yeah. Or even to abstract that a little bit further, Sauron loves to take the creations of others and corrupt them to his own purposes. Yep. Right? That's, that's a good way to put it. So that's, that's kind of his operating, uh, M.O., right? Yep.

[00:35:11] And so Sauron's kind of lurking in the background. That's a lot of setup for next chapter. You'll see. You'll see. We'll get there. Right. And in fact, that's kind of the theme of this back third of this chapter of the Rune of Blerion is you get a lot of setup for what's about to happen in the next couple of stories. So you have Sauron lurking in the background. You've got a mention of, of Huren, um, who will be the father of Turin who, and Turin will kind of have his own tale. All around great guy. Yep. No issues. That's like, no issues.

[00:35:41] Definitely, definitely not a tragic hero by any stretch of the imagination. Um, you've got Beleg Strongbow who shows up. He's an elf in the service of Thingol in the kingdom of Doriath. He will also show up, um, in, in the story of Turin. Um, you've got a couple of different men who come over from the east who are different from the Adain. They'll have a few things, uh, coming up in future battles. Um, in connection with Huren, you also have Huor, his brother.

[00:36:09] Huor, uh, will have a son named Tuor. And you definitely have some connections there with, with Gondolin and some future stories there. Um, but really a lot of this is set up for the future tales. And, um, if this isn't too much of a spoiler, I think, I think a lot of these tales and this setup is really starting to point our minds to who is the final great heroic figure of the Silmarillion and really the one who can connect and bridge the first to the second to the third ages.

[00:36:38] Um, and that character will be, spoiler alert here, it will be Aedin, right? Aedin Dil, the father of Elrond, um, and great inspiration for the kingdoms of men in the second age. Um, and so all of these stories, Berenin Luthien, Turin, Tuor, all of those are sort of this contextual background to get to who was Aedin Dil and why was he so important?

[00:37:04] Um, and in fact, if we can go back even to like the first chapter or the first paragraph of this chapter, you know, when Fingolfin is trying to get the Noldor to attack Morgoth, um, Tolkien says, um, the Noldor did not comprehend the fullness of the power of Morgoth, nor understand that their unaided war upon him was without final hope, whether they hasted or delayed. So you've got this seed of an idea that the Noldor will never able, that they will never

[00:37:32] be able to overcome Morgoth through battle, through war, through strength of arms on their own. And so that sets up the question of, okay, well, if they can't do it on their own, where are they going to get help from? Well, it's no coincidence that men have just entered onto the scene here. And then later on, you will get a certain individual who is the perfect combination of Noldor elves,

[00:37:56] Sindardan elves, and men, and can be the only person in the future who can plead on behalf of both elves and men for the Valar to come help the Noldor in their, in their fight against Morgoth. So I can't, you look at this back half of the chapter, it seems a little hodgepodge-y, but a lot of it is laying that sort of like, let's set the stage for the final stories that will set the stage for the final heroic figure of the Silmarillion. Right. That's a great way to put it.

[00:38:24] I hadn't thought of it that way. And you're right, A.R. and Deal, if there's going to be a protagonist of this book, it's A.R. and Deal, right? He is the one who does the thing. He's finally the person who's going to prosecute my case against Manway that I've been building this entire time reading it. Why don't you do anything, Manway? What do we pay you to do? Middle-earth taxpayer money is really going to waste here. Yeah. Your tax dollars at work, not in Middle-earth.

[00:38:51] But Morgoth is going to take advantage of a lot of the discord within the elvish populations. He's going to send spies. He really takes advantage of the distrust from the kinslaying. And so there's a line in here that I've always really loved about, I don't have the full line ahead of me, but it's a line about how basically Morgoth was capturing elves and he would have spies.

[00:39:16] But even if you escaped and were really fine, you were distrusted because they didn't know if you would be a spy or not. And you basically had to go live off on your own and be in exile. That is what I wanted Adar to be. That's what I hoped Adar would be. Interesting. Oh, okay. One of these forsaken elves who's just like, well, nobody else will accept me, so I'll go live with the orcs. Yeah, that would have been a really cool character arc for Adar to sort of be one of these.

[00:39:45] They did set him up as a dark elf, if you will, or a corrupted elf who was sort of the father of the race of orcs, the Uruks. So you had that, but why not take it a step further, which is I escaped from Morgoth. I escaped from this, and yet nobody trusts me. Nobody believes me. And thus, that was my primary motivation for, okay, I'll go set up my own family and we'll get revenge in our own way. Yeah, that's a really cool idea. It would have been awesome.

[00:40:15] You know, they should hire me for the writer's room. I think so. I'll put it right into their heads. Yes. Yep. You have my vote for what it's worth. Fair enough. Fair enough. I'll bring you with me. But I do like this continuing theme. We don't have to go on it for too long, but there's a continuing theme of like, you know, I think Tolkien gets a lot of flack for really basically saying like evil is incompetent. Evil can't trust itself. And so good will always triumph over evil.

[00:40:43] And that is a theme in The Lord of the Rings, but I think it's a lot more complicated than that. And here we have good people, people with good intentions being unable to trust each other because of evil meddling. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Can they unite? Yeah. Can they unite? Will there always be treachery? That oath of Feanor, his sons. I mean, that just is haunting over all of these elves.

[00:41:05] Um, the love for the Silmarils, it gets really complicated, you know, and good is going to have to overcome its own little problems. Um, and concerning the nature of evil, like, I did not realize this, but in Lord of the Rings, you know, Becca Tarnas is a great academic, you know, studied Tolkien and also Carl Jung.

[00:41:29] And she kind of pointed out this theme of evil will defeat itself in Lord of the Rings. Um, so you've got something like Ungoliant, the great spider, if you remember from a few chapters back, she ends up like eating herself, um, um, basically. And so it's like, you start to, you begin to see here the threads of, you know, Morgoth, yes, in his hubris, he went and attacked all of these elves.

[00:41:56] But if he had waited just a little bit longer, his designs would have been fully complete and he would have fully broken everybody here. Um, but because of his impatience and his hubris, he's left some seeds of weakness that the Noldor could, could take advantage of. And eventually, um, we'll see if evil, evil will defeat itself or if good versus evil and, and how that, how that will all work out. Right. Right. Well, we've got to introduce some new players first. Yes. The Swarthy men.

[00:42:24] He's really into calling them Swarthy. Yes. Yeah. That's not necessarily a word we use a lot these days. Um, but they, these men seem to come from the East and they, they seem to have, um, two, two main groups to them, Bor and Ulfeng. And Tolkien does kind of break that, uh, that fourth wall a little bit and gives us a little foreshadowing. Um, one of these groups will be faithful, um, and, and not actually help Morgoth and the other group will be faithless. And that is faithless to the elves.

[00:42:53] Um, and they will help Morgoth. And that's a little bit of foreshadowing for some of the future battles. I wonder if Oldor the accursed will be on the good side or the bad side. Yeah, exactly. With names like Oldfast and Ulwarth and Oldor, like, uh, yeah. Oldfang. These do not sound like very pleasant names. No. Uh, yeah. He's, he's not very good at hiding the ball this whole book. He's just, I mean, he titles things of the ruin of Beleriand, right? Like you're going to know in the fall of Fingolfin.

[00:43:22] Like, he's not exactly trying to hide spoilers. The return of the king. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Though, I guess if, if you gave him his choice, he wouldn't have titled anything, anything. Exactly. Exactly. He would have just published in one book. Yep. The War of the Ring. Yeah. So not a lot of here with the, with the swarthy men other than Medros. Do you say, you know, people say Medros and they say Mathros and I don't ever know which I should do. Am I being pretentious to call it Medros? I don't think so.

[00:43:50] The DH, I think is supposed to be like a, like a sound like TH, but not quite so thick as I think what we would do it. I think it's kind of really subtle. I kind of try to take a middle road and say like Medros. Okay. Medros. Maybe that's a little bit too thick either, but in some pronunciation guides, I think you could find the DH is supposed to be sort of like a, like a, like a, like a the sound.

[00:44:13] So, well, that guy really likes these swarthy men and he's going to, he's going to ally with them as best he can. That's basically all they come into this story. You've got the swarthy men. You've got a few other characters who come up. Um, Beilig, like I mentioned, you've got, um, some of the people of Haleth or Haleth, um, some remnants of the house of Beor. So you kind of have these different houses of the Adain.

[00:44:41] Those were the, the men who are faithful and helpful for the elves. And they kind of take up little pockets. We have these little pockets of resistance. Um, you've got Houdin and Huor, um, and, and they are, they are about to be, let's see what happens to them. They're about to be, they're very young. We've got Huor at 13 and Huor at, who knows? I don't know why he gives one an age and one not. Right. Um, they're about to be overcome.

[00:45:08] The eagles come and pick them up, drop them off in Gondolin for about a year. Um, and they, they finally convinced Turgon. They say, Hey, uh, you know, we're men. We need to take action. Our time is short. We have an expiration date. You're elves. You can live a long, long time. Please let us leave. And Turgon does say, well, you can depart if by the same way that you came, meaning by, by the eagles, because they don't know the secret path into Gondolin. Uh, and they're able to convince him of that.

[00:45:34] Maglor, or Maglin, uh, the king's sister son, who's been hanging out in Gondolin for a while since the death of his father. Um, he's not very happy about how, uh, Huden and Huor are able to leave Gondolin because he feels trapped there. Uh, and Turgon obviously kept his, uh, his mother and father there. Right. Um, to their detriment. And so again, you have these little seeds of what's going to happen.

[00:45:58] Maglin is progressing further and further sort of down this path of, of darkness and, um, resentfulness. Um, and Huden and Huor just, they just add gasoline to that, to that flame. Right. For Maglin. Maglin is really a brat here. And I, I also kind of empathize with him here. I mean, his mother, all because she was so sheltered and unable to leave, ended up sort of trapped in this marriage with Aeol.

[00:46:28] We talked about this a few chapters ago. If you want to listen to of Maglin, that, that'll tell you everything you need to know. Um, we went to some dark themes on that one because, you know, there's suggestions of some untoward things happening in that chapter. And it's, and it's really tragic at the end because his mother dies all because Aeol wasn't going to be allowed to leave. And he decides that, well, if I can't have you, no one can, which is a really dark theme and something that not a lot of people were talking about at the time that Tolkien wrote this.

[00:46:57] So good for him for writing it. Yeah. Yeah. You look at Tolkien and some of these themes that he dealt into, like, you know, he talked about the perilous realm, right? That these stories take place in the perilous realm and the perilous realm is filled with light and beauty, but it's full of peril and darkness. And that darkness can take a lot of different shapes. And Aeol and Maglin, um, are an interesting shape of the darkness or the resentfulness that can come.

[00:47:23] Um, when people have all the best intentions, they have good intentions, they have to make tough choices, but, uh, there's some resent, resentment that can grow from that. Yeah. Um, also, Huden and Huor, they are able to convince the eagles to come give them a taxi ride out of Gondolin. Um, and this again plants another seed where Morgoth, he knows that Turgon has gone somewhere.

[00:47:47] He doesn't know where, he doesn't even know the name of that place, but it's sort of, uh, gnawing on his mind that Turgon has some secret stronghold. And so, and so when Huden and Huor eventually come out and, you know, they're dressed as princes, um, as, even as the eagles drop them off, it's like, oh, well, these two must have been somewhere. Right.

[00:48:10] So you kind of get to see these seeds of Morgoth is trying to just find any clues that he can to find out where, if Gondolin even exists, right? He doesn't even know. Nargothround, the other stronghold of Nargothround, which is founded by Finrod, Galadriel's brother, um, he knows that place by name, but he doesn't yet know where it is. Right? And so Morgoth has sort of these two big weak points that he's worried about. He knows where Doriath is. Everybody knows what Doriath is, right? You've got that.

[00:48:40] Who wouldn't? Exactly. You got Melian and her protective girdle around that. Like everybody knows that place, but there's these two other major strongholds that Morgoth is really worried about. Um, so he's trying to find any clues that he can to find, to find those. Yeah. Um, he's gonna, he's gonna send spies around. He's gonna want to find more intel. And I feel like he's sitting there with a protractor trying to like triangulate the location based on eagle roots. Right. Exactly.

[00:49:09] Where can my dragons not fly? Right. Right. Where are the eagles protecting? Um, and then you've got this other foreshadowing too here from coming out of Gondolin where Turgon, he realizes, he's beginning to realize that the elves are never going to be able to do this, um, on their own. Right.

[00:49:33] Uh, but per enchantment and per the ban, the doom of Bandos, um, none of these messengers are ever, ever, are ever able to make it to Valinor. So again, that sets up a little foreshadowing for us to be looking forward to. Huh? Well, will there be another, uh, individual from Gondolin who can finally get to Valinor and bleed on behalf of the Valar? Uh, that's a, that's a, put a pin in that question because that will be coming up in just a few chapters. Yep. Yep.

[00:50:02] We can't get to the West right now. That is a no go zone. No go zone. We have the, uh, enchanted aisles. We can't get through them. You're going to fall asleep. No one's going to show you the way. And you really have to have the blessing on the Valar to get over there. But we do have the conquering of Hithlam and Hithlam is going to fall. Fingon is going to escape with Cirdan. Cirdan, Cirdan just randomly shows up in these stories. You notice that?

[00:50:31] Like there's never any setup for him. He just shows up. Yeah. He's just kind of there. Yeah. I think the people, the people of Hithlam and Beor, you kind of have this remnant of, of men who are able to get and gather together. And it speaks to, again, like you said, war never fully ceased again in Valarion. So you have kind of these three major strongholds, Doriath, Gondolin, and Nargothrown. But you also have these tiny little pockets of, of resistance.

[00:50:56] And the people of Hithlam, the people of Haleth, they're able to, to kind of form one of these on the, on the Western side of Doriath. I think it is. There's another character who comes up in this chapter, who's able to create another little pocket of resistance.

[00:51:11] And that will be, um, Badahir, the father of Beren, who, uh, uh, he's able also to kind of form a little bit of a pocket of resistance, sort of on the, on the northern edge of, of Beleriand. Uh, Badahir is stuck with nine faithful servants and three of his own family. So again, you have Badahir, who's one person. He's stuck with three of his family and the nine faithful servants, one, three, nine.

[00:51:39] Another connection there with some of the numbers of the rings of power. Um, but you, again, the little pockets of resistance that kind of pop up everywhere that Morgoth is just trying to, to flush out. And we'll see that Sauron has some of the main, uh, commands from Morgoth to start to flush out some of these little pockets of resistance. Right. Right. Yeah.

[00:52:02] I think that's a good point is, is even in these darker areas, there is some kind of light poking through and perhaps some of our greatest diamonds will come from that. Spoilers for next chapter. Hmm. We've got Hurin closing out the chapter, marrying Morwen, the daughter of Baragond. And I had to pull up a family tree for that, but basically this is a meeting of the houses of Haleth and Beor. Yes. The meeting of the houses.

[00:52:30] Look at those family charts because those will be, those will be very, very helpful. Um, Morwen, great character, very tragic. Um, Beren. And, um, and we, we do finish out with Beren, son of body here alone, escaping hardly came into Doriath. Right. So that really sets us up for what's the next tale about to come of Beren and Luth. Right. So the story of Beren, Beren is now set up. We know his ancestry.

[00:52:59] Uh, we know where he is. We know a little bit of his story. And so now we're ready to kind of really dig in and find out the tale of Beren and Luth. That's right. Well, Aaron, thank you for leading us through this chapter. Any parting thoughts on the chapter itself? Yes, actually. This chapter is a turning point for the Silmarillion. Up to this point, you've had the Noldor. Yes, they've been in a struggle against Morgoth.

[00:53:23] Uh, but this is the time where Morgoth really has the upper hand, um, across the whole continent. Uh, yes, there's still some pockets of resistance. Yes, there's still some strongholds. But like you, like you mentioned at the very top, war never fully ceased from now on. Now it's very perilous to try to go from one to the other. Whereas before, Noldor, men, you could travel freely amongst all of these areas of, of Beleriand. Uh, but no longer. You've got Sauron in the west.

[00:53:53] Uh, you've got orcs on the east. You've got flames and, and burnt, uh, areas in the north. And so there's not a whole lot left, um, for the Noldor to try to defend. And so really, this is, this is the beginning of the end, really, for the Noldor. They've, they've been broken. They're not fully defeated yet. But, but they've been fully broken and they will never, never come back together, at least in the lands of Middle-earth. And it's tragic. It really is tragic.

[00:54:23] People know that the continent of Beleriand does not exist in the third age. So I, I think, and in the second age either. So I, it's, uh, it's not going to go well. It's not going to go well. Yeah. And I think the battle of Morgoth and Fingolfin is sort of a microcosm of what's happening at the macro scale, right? You've got Fingolfin who challenges Morgoth alone. He's able to get several good hits in. The Eagles will come in eventually.

[00:54:51] But Fingolfin, who was dragged into this whole conflict in the first place, um, dies at the hand of Morgoth. And so you kind of have this, this turning point on the macro, but it's represented in these micro one-on-one sort of, uh, moments.

[00:55:10] And I, I really love how Tolkien is really able to say, here's the big picture story and let me pull it down into like personal moments that are reflective and rhyme with the big story. And I, when I just read things like that and I, I look at what Tolkien, and he's able to do it over, over and over again. Like on my own podcast, we just looked at the chapter of, of Brie.

[00:55:35] And Brie is this, these concentric circles of, of coming togetherness and zooming back out and zooming back in. And just in one little chapter, Tolkien is able to take your brain from like macro to micro to macro to micro. It's so subtle and it's so beautiful. And I just, I just stand back in awe and I'm like, J.R. Tolkien, what a mind, what a storyteller, what a master of this craft. Um, and I, I, I, I find it awe-inspiring. I really do. Yeah. That's a great place to leave it, Aaron.

[00:56:03] And that's a beautiful way to sum up what he's doing here. And, and yeah, I think a lot of interesting stories to come, uh, with a lot of other interesting voices. And I hope people will go over to Laura, the rings and hear more of your great takes, especially now you can listen to the Brie episode. So you can know what he was talking about. Exactly. Exactly. You know, cross promotion is great folks. Yeah. Great for everybody. Go over there, give them a nice Apple review. Give them a, give them a follow and everyone will have a great time.

[00:56:33] Yes. I'd love that. I appreciate that. Come wander middle earth with me and, um, John, thank you. It's always a pleasure. I love these, these similar alien chapters that you're doing and, uh, your, your listeners, your listeners have a good, have a great guide into the lands of middle earth. Well, I'm glad you were able to come for this one. Thanks Aaron. And we will see you. I'm sure again soon. All right. Thank you. It's always a pleasure to have Aaron on from Laura, the rings, please go follow the link in the show notes to check out his podcast.

[00:57:00] And he has so many great, wonderful conversations about Tolkien. He breaks everything down into bite-sized chunks. I know you'll enjoy it if you've enjoyed this podcast. And also please go check out our affiliates. Nevermind the music has weekly coverage of music under the lens of music and psychology. Really great stuff. I'm going to be a little bit vaguer here because I'm not sure when this is going to be dropping. Uh, but check out properly Howard who's doing their few good men series, a few good films where they cover different movies that have to do with a few good men.

[00:57:29] Also check out radioactive ramblings. As I'm recording this, they are covering invincible season three. If you want to check that out, uh, that show is getting rave reviews. I know they're going to be doing a great job covering it. So get head onto their feed. Also make sure to keep posted on Alicia's feeds, we'll shift dust and the star Wars cannon timeline podcast. So you don't miss any podcast over there. I'm not sure what's going on by the time this comes out, but I'm sure there will be something.

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[00:58:21] And overall, just a very happy to be making content for all of you. And with our lovely group of friends here at the lore hounds, let me just do my quick. Thank yous discord server boosters, Aaron K tiller, the thriller, Dork of the Ninjas, Doove71, Athena A, Tina, Lestu, Nancy M, Ghost of Perdition, and Radioactive Richard. Plus our lore masters, our Patreon and Supercast subscribers who are on our top tier. They get the shout out every episode.

[00:58:49] Samartian, Michael G, Michelle E, Brian P, SC, Peter O.H, Bettina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Doove71, Brian8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Matthew M, Sarah M, DJ Miwa, Andra B, Kwong Yu, Dead Eye Jedi Bob, Nathan T, Alex V, Sub-Zero, Aaron K, Dally V, Mothership61,

[00:59:14] Narls, Kathy W, Lestu, Jeffrey B, Elisa U, Neil F, Ben B, Scott F, Stephen N, Julia F, Kali S, Ilmariel, and Adrian. Thanks everyone. We'll see you next month for a Baron and Luthien with Silmarillian. The Lorehounds podcast is produced and published by The Lorehounds.

[00:59:39] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com slash contact. Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash thelorehounds. Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Are you ready for a deep dive into one of the most intense animated series out there?

[01:00:06] Welcome to Radioactive Ramblings, where we are currently breaking down the world of Invincible. Each week, we're going to unpack the jaw-dropping twists, the unforgettable characters, and that trademark brutal action. From Mark Grayson's journey to the darker side of heroism, to our continued love of Debbie, we've got every moment covered. Mark, I don't want to hurt you. I'm not the one who's going to get hurt. You said you don't do threats. Yeah? Well, people change.

[01:00:32] Whether you're a longtime fan or just getting started, tune in to our exclusive takes, fan theories, and so much more. Catch new episodes of Radioactive Ramblings every week. Your go-to podcast for all things Invincible and more. We're going to talk about it.