The Rings of Power - S02 Mid-season Mailbag

[00:00:18] [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the Rings of Power podcast with The Lorehounds, your guides to Tolkien's world

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_02]: of Middle-earth. I'm David.

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Jon.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Marilyn.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_02]: And this is our feedback episode for episodes one through four of season two. In this

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_02]: So we're playing a little catch up and we have a lot to cover tonight. So I think we're

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_02]: going to just dive right in. I don't think we need to cover much other in the way of

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_02]: materials Jon or Marilyn, do we?

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I think the only thing would be how to write in feedback if you want to do it for the

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_01]: next time you feedback is L-O-T-R. That's Lord of the Rings. L-O-T-R at the Lorehounds.com

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_01]: or you can go to the Lorehounds.com head to the contact page and you will find ways

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: to send us voicemails in contact form entries.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And don't be surprised if Nancy M our hand of the pod are I don't know what what did

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_02]: what did they use in Middle-earth for communications and management? Anyway,

[00:01:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Osanwe Kenta.

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_02]: What's that?

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Osanwe. That's that's just between the elves. Yeah, okay.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_06]: I'll put something else.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_06]: She's the keeper of our Palantir.

[00:01:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay. Well, that's true. She could be the have the central Palantiri to

[00:01:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. Anyway, Nancy is one of our subscribers and community members and she has graciously

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_02]: taken on the task of wrangling the email for us. And so she's compiling it all

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_02]: into this really great single document that we can just read through. Sometimes

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_02]: she's interacting with folks and letting you know that she's gotten your email or

[00:02:07] [SPEAKER_02]: she's got a clarification or a question or something like that. So don't be

[00:02:11] [SPEAKER_02]: surprised if Nancy emails you back. But Nancy is a treasure and we're so grateful

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_02]: to have her help with this. It really made a big difference for us on House

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_02]: of the Dragon and it's making a big difference for us in season two of

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Reigns of Power. So thank you, Nancy.

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Iglario, alightate, alightate.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_06]: This is Quenya Ancindorin for...

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Perfect.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Praise her, praise her.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Great. John, you want to lead us off?

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_01]: All right, Pangalodrum. We are going right in here. See, I can speak GELVISH too,

[00:02:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Marilyn, sometimes.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Of course you can.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_01]: That means Masters of Lore, doesn't it?

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I think, yeah. Teacher of Lore, I think actually. Somebody's going to write...

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody's going to at me. Nancy made a joke about adding me in this.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_01]: It's Teacher of Lore. All right. Better Than Season One is the first section.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Davey Mack wrote on the Discord, I enjoyed episode one quite a bit. Just want

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_01]: to shout out the director is Charlotte Brandstrom. I hope I'm pronouncing that.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's Brandstrom because it's the umlaut.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_04]: Strom.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And she's got quite a bit of experience and even directed one episode of Shogun.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's fun.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we love Shogun.

[00:03:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_02]: That's very cool.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was written by Jennifer Hutchinson who wrote on Breaking Bad and Better Call

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Saul as well as season one of this show. That's pretty cool.

[00:03:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Even better. Those are some good creds.

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. And they sure did milk that. So thanks, Davey Mack for pointing those out.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Jordan M.

[00:03:39] [SPEAKER_02]: I think Marilyn might read this.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh no. Yeah. Marilyn has to read this one because I can't do the French.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't do the Quebecois.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_02]: You could master Sindarin in Quenya but you can't master the French.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_06]: All right. Jordan M. writes, bonjour mes amis and shout out to Nancy. Love your

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_06]: commentary and insights too. So wonderful to be back in the Tolkien world with you all again

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_06]: and with Marilyn too. Wow. What a treat. I blush Jordan. I thank you for your kind words.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_02]: Jordan's been a good contributor in past shows. So it's good to hear from you again, Jordan.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Jordan likes to trick me into speaking French.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_06]: I discovered you both back during season one and as I've said before,

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_06]: you've really helped me decompress on some of those rough nursing nights. So un gros merci.

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_06]: Best discovery in a while. Well, we are grateful that we are able to help you out

[00:04:36] [SPEAKER_06]: with those things, Jordan. Alors, while generally enjoying myself with season two,

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I find myself sometimes bored if our favorite dwarves aren't around. Can we get like a

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Jordan and Nidhisa sitcom with a Charlie Vickers, anotar villain?

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_06]: With a laugh track and everything. There's a thought. Yeah. Film before a live studio

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_06]: audience. I love it. Vickers has been killing it and I was surprised that he was not in the

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_06]: mid-season episode, though more on the mini storyline subject to come. Yeah. Well,

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_06]: I think they chose to do it this way and on the whole, I think it was a good choice

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_06]: because I liked the way they tied it back in again and I liked the continuity

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_06]: to be able to follow him all the way through. Although it was kind of subtle,

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean I didn't really notice the stalactites and stalagmites growing.

[00:05:29] [SPEAKER_06]: You were supposed to notice that that meant that hundreds if not thousands of years had passed

[00:05:33] [SPEAKER_06]: in his evolutionary process through various forms of slime. But yeah, no, I thought it was good.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, I really enjoyed the first three episodes and think it was surprisingly smart to drop

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_02]: the first three together. Whatever it might do to us. We've debated this and from a story

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_02]: standpoint, I get it. And from a life standpoint, man. Yeah. Anyway, they could have been kinder.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_06]: Jordan goes on, unfortunately, despite being well rested, I fell asleep twice in episode four.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Are you sure you were well rested, Jordan? And realized it was always during the Isildur scenes

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_06]: minus the entry of some long lost Antwives. And that has me wondering if there are perhaps

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_02]: too many isolated storylines. There are no shortage of storylines, are there?

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess what Jordan's pointing out here is we need a denouement at some point, right? We need

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_01]: to get in. I just learned that word recently. I didn't know this before.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Where you tie everything together. I don't know why I'd never heard this word before.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a good word.

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm trying to use it to get into my vocabulary, you know when you got to do that.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And I do agree. I think some of these storylines do feel quite separate. It doesn't

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_01]: feel like Doran could meet our Rondir right now, but it seems like they're heading

[00:06:56] [SPEAKER_01]: in a similar direction. So I think we're going to get something like that.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_06]: I suppose it also creates a sense of the vastness of the world.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_01]: That's true. That's true.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_06]: It's like we're not just in one cozy corner here. We're in

[00:07:09] [SPEAKER_06]: territory that stretches on for hundreds if not thousands of miles.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I think perhaps the alternative would have been focus on Numenor in season one,

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_01]: focus on the elves in season two, etc. You know?

[00:07:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, that's honey, Jon, because I distinctly remember you saying you

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_06]: thought that they could have done without Numenor in season one.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, I did say that. I did say that and maybe I should have flipped my things.

[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I do think that they could have, you know, timeline wise,

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_01]: they absolutely would have been well within their right to not do Numenor until season two.

[00:07:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, focus on the elf season one and then bring in Numenor slowly.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that would have been fine. I think it is getting a little bit lost.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: That's my one criticism of the show. The Numenorean politics have been a little lost

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and I think that's why on the lore cast, you know, at some point we're

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_01]: going to have to talk about Numenorean politics.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_06]: Mm-hmm. Jordan carries on.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_06]: Also, and sorry to the professor and Marilyn,

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_06]: but the elves are rolling would get old very fast for me in the real world.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_06]: To be clear, that is not a dig against your pronunciations

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_06]: or the spoken language itself as a whole. Ha ha.

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_06]: It sounds like my grandmama's French. Ha ha.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_06]: And my own Quebecois tongue hurts just listening to Morpheus Clark

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_06]: talking about Elrond or Calabrembor.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_06]: Sorry, Jordan. There are certain aspects of our rolling that I'm not very good at yet,

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_06]: but I keep practicing.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Still give me more Tolkien always please and thanks.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_06]: As mentioned, if I commented on all the storylines,

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_06]: this email would be ridiculously long.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_06]: So I'll just add that they completely nailed Tom Bombadil.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, I think we're all in agreement on that one,

[00:08:51] [SPEAKER_06]: which is interesting because the variety of opinions being expressed

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_06]: in various channels throughout the interwebs.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: His boots are yellow enough for me.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_06]: There we go.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Is there, I've been intentionally staying away from a lot of other places,

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_02]: so I don't really have a sense of how widespread the variations are.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's always the extremes. We know that.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_02]: But is there quite a diversity of opinion on Bombadil at this stage?

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, there is and I think it reflects the nature of his character.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_06]: And the fact that because he's an enigma, each of us tries to fill in with our own

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_06]: knowledge and background and perspective on the blank spaces, if you will.

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_06]: And so when presented with one conception of what Bombadil is like,

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_06]: there will be people who will be thrilled and people who are like,

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_06]: okay, that works. And people are like, why did you do that?

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_06]: People who clutch their pearls and set their hair on fire and all the usual things we talk about

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_06]: when expressing displeasure.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_06]: So Jordan's view on the subject, I honestly thought getting Bombadil correct was going

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_06]: to be the Lord of the Rings version of Star Trek's Kobayashi Maru.

[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Do we want to fill that in for people who aren't Star Trek fans?

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's, well, if you read the next line there.

[00:10:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, fair enough. Basically an impossible task, Captain Kirk,

[00:10:20] [SPEAKER_06]: but man, did these showrunners hit it out of the park.

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_02]: So the Kobayashi Maru was a test that command officers would have to take.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was kind of in the academy and they kind of kept it secret.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_02]: You're really not supposed to know that much about it.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And it was made famous in one of the original movies and it's a no-win scenario.

[00:10:42] [SPEAKER_02]: There is no way to successfully get out of the situation that you and your crew are in.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_02]: They have a training simulator and stuff.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a test of character. It's not a test of protocol or procedures.

[00:10:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think what Jordan is saying here is that it's unwinnable.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Like you were saying, Marilyn, nobody's going to be happy.

[00:11:05] [SPEAKER_02]: Nobody's going to get out of this unscathed necessarily.

[00:11:09] [SPEAKER_02]: But the great thing that Kirk did, mine are spoilers and I won't go into the details,

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_02]: but he was able to do something that changed the conditions of the test.

[00:11:19] [SPEAKER_02]: And he did something that no one else could ever do.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_02]: And so the question is, if that's the bar then have Payne and McKay,

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_02]: even though there's people who are going to be like, have they crossed the bar?

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Have they been able to, I'm thinking about high jump or one of those things,

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_02]: pole vault or something like that, right? Have they pole vaulted themselves over this

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_02]: difficult challenge? And by our estimations, they did so.

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes. Jordan goes on, plus it was at this moment that I jumped Blue Wizard Camp to

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_06]: Gandalf Camp once Tom T's off Gandalf's mission.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Brilliant writing that. And it just makes me think about

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_06]: Gandalf needing to sit with Bob Mandil after the Ring's destruction at the end of that age.

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_06]: I love a well-rounded circle. Ha ha. Yeah, I can see where that would be.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_06]: People are thinking forward to that who know the Lord of the Rings and would be

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_06]: satisfied with that. I'm still holding out for Blues, but we'll see.

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would be fine with it being Gandalf. I'm perfectly fine with that.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want the Dark Wizard to be Saruman, but if they make him Gandalf, then I'm fine.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_02]: If they make the stranger Gandalf. Right. I'm hoping for just both Blues.

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that would be cool. Just fill in gaps. I'm just not sure if they're going to do it and

[00:12:49] [SPEAKER_01]: if they can do it rights-wise. I think they would let them, but I don't know.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Hope that they would have their minds made up already. And so anything that

[00:12:57] [SPEAKER_02]: they're doing right now, they're just teasing us.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. I just mean the estate, whether the state has already given them.

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I think probably they did and they don't need. So they don't need rights to the Silmarillion

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_01]: to say there are more Istari because there's already listed. There's five in the order.

[00:13:15] [SPEAKER_01]: The Lord of the Rings, I think Blue is only said in the Silmarillion though

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_01]: and other extended works. Right.

[00:13:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Pretty sure that's true, John. Pretty sure that's true. And I know that the names were

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_06]: included. I think the names only appear in unfinished tales, but in any case.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: It's in the nature of Middle Earth too. They actually have an alternate set of names.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_02]: And the way that the rights work just as a reminder is that they have rights to the book

[00:13:42] [SPEAKER_02]: Lord of the Rings and everything that's in the appendices and anything else that they

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_02]: want to use, they can approach the estate on a case by case basis.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Right.

[00:13:53] [SPEAKER_02]: We would assume that if they've got everything mapped out at this stage,

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_02]: they've got most of those approvals already. I would assume like it'd be crazy to go into

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_01]: season five and be asking for stuff. Well, you could also, I just wanted to say

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: like have a backup plan, right? Like maybe you want to do it as two blue wizards,

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_01]: but if not, then you just will write it as two Istari that are not blue, right?

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_06]: You never see the word blue. Sure. Sure. I keep reminding myself

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_06]: that they started filming season two almost immediately after they finished season one.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_06]: There wasn't a lot of lag time between the two. They really did have to have their ideas

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_06]: set that far in advance. I think they also had rights to the Hobbit. I think the Hobbit and

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Lord of the Rings came in that same initial package, but of course they don't talk about

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_01]: blue wizards and Hobbit eaters. That's all in the Tolkien made a mistake bundle.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_06]: Such an important bundle. Jordan concludes,

[00:14:50] [SPEAKER_06]: oh, okay. Too long. Sorry. Suffice it to say my stupid nitpicks aside really loving this series

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_06]: and these writers clearly seem to get the big picture. Of course, pre-gaming with you all

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_06]: and listening along makes it all the more enjoyable too. Merci bien.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_06]: Thanks as always for the Beyond Amazing content and wishing you all the best.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Going to convince the hubs to let me join a season pass membership.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, should we sing a song to get Jordan's husband?

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Jordan. It's good to hear from you. You want to read Abby's David?

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Sure. Abby, our friend of the pod on the discord says the response to the episode is

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_02]: definitely very mixed. I love how everyone on this channel agreed it was good and that we

[00:15:44] [SPEAKER_02]: love to explore the deep dives into lore. I think this is going back through sort of the

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_02]: one through three coverage. Outside of this space though, there's a lot of dislike expressed

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_02]: in various forms. Some people didn't feel connected to the Harfoot storyline. Some

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_02]: just like Tom or still, oh, so this is up through four are still having trouble with

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_02]: the pacing. I sanitize the negative takes. It's much worse. Feels at times that folks

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_02]: work themselves up into a frenzy of hating a thing so that they can't approach it with an

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_02]: open mind at all. Not just about this particular IP. When I didn't, when did I didn't like it become

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_02]: it's bad. I was one who didn't vibe so much with the first season pacing mostly, but find

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_02]: this one much improved and certainly hope they keep making so that we get the full story.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I totally agree with that. I mean, I was just talking to Marilyn about Dune before this

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_01]: and how I'm just not really a Dune person, but I see what it's doing and I appreciate

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_01]: it for what it is. And I am happy to let you and Alicia cover that.

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. That comes out same thing with Marvel. I'm not going to call any of a bad except

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01]: secret invasion, but seriously, but I, I, I just not going to watch most of it. I am

[00:17:05] [SPEAKER_01]: going to try to watch Agatha all along, but you know, I think we can, we can say that's not my

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_01]: thing. Right? I mean, wasn't there this review that was like scathing and they said, well,

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't really watch fantasy shows. It's like, well, okay. Then maybe you just don't

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_02]: like the genre. Right. And then judge it for what you can judge it on. Right.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like making someone with a shellfish allergy. Try the lobster.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_02]: No, don't do that. Don't do that. I mean, the, and the, I could say the same about wheel

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_02]: of time. I I'm glad it's out there and I'm glad there's a phantom and I'm glad you and

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_01]: get to enjoy it. That's great. Here we are all holding hands while avoiding the things we don't

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_01]: buy. Well, thanks Abby for the vibes. Well, and the thing that I always come back

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_06]: to is if you don't like it, the books are still on the shelf or in your Kindle or

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_01]: wherever you like to read. Absolutely. Right. David G wrote in an email. Yeah. This is,

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_01]: this section is for you. The at is, oh, the app means great. Great. I always say don't

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_01]: at me and then they do it anyway. Uh, David G said, hi all. First I wanted to say I am very

[00:18:10] [SPEAKER_01]: much enjoying your coverage. A lot of nicer things. And then however, I wanted to provide

[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_01]: a little feedback related to spoilers. Okay. I'm going to summarize this section because in case

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_01]: it spoilers have spoilers. I don't want the spoiler to spoil the spoiler.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. So I don't want the spoil spoiler to spoil the spoiler. Um, yeah. So this idea of, um,

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_01]: you know, you don't want, you don't want to, uh, spoil the future plot, but also the book's

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_01]: been out for like 50 years. So it's, it's tough because Tolkien spoils himself. If you

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_01]: look up the Silmarillion, you will see that the opening letter that opens the book has

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_01]: the entire story of what's going to happen in the second age within a few paragraphs.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: He just summarized it very nicely. So I, I, uh, I think sometimes it's hard for us to

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_01]: wall that off in our minds because Tolkien so upfront with it when you start, but point

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_01]: taken and we do try to not spoil the future plot points and apologies if that happened in

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_01]: episode. I do want to say on this particular spoil you point spoiler, you pointed out, um,

[00:19:22] [SPEAKER_01]: they are going a very different direction with this character and many of the other characters

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_01]: in this storyline that happens in the books. We are very far apart from where this character

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_01]: was in the books. So I don't think you should take anything anyone said as definitive.

[00:19:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's a good point, John. And I will own this one because I was the one who said

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_06]: spoiler and then revealed the I was trying to give you a cover. I appreciate it very much,

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_06]: but I will take responsibility for my own actions. And, uh, I appreciate the feedback

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_06]: because that means I'll think about it more carefully. And you're right. I just assumed

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_06]: that everybody listening would know what the lore said. And that of course is a silly

[00:20:01] [SPEAKER_06]: assumption. So my apologies and, uh, I'll certainly keep it in mind. And as John said,

[00:20:07] [SPEAKER_06]: you know, maybe it's just something to trick all of us who think we know all the lore inside

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: and out, right? Also they show some things in the flash forwards just so everyone realizes this.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's true, but they have shown something flash forwards. So they have shown quite a bit

[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_01]: of future spoilers in the, in the visions of Galatriel. So, um, George, sorry, not Jordan

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_01]: where I'm David now, David G ends on a positive note. Uh, I always like to end on a positive

[00:20:39] [SPEAKER_01]: note. So once again, thanks for all your time and effort. Passion on the topic comes through

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_01]: so clearly for someone who, and for someone who loves deep lore dives like myself,

[00:20:48] [SPEAKER_02]: it's just appearing for the show. Yeah. Thanks David for writing in and letting us know. And,

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_02]: and we appreciate it. And we will, we'll be more mindful in future. Absolutely. Thank you,

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_01]: David. Always appreciate the feedback and yep, we are working on our barriers of spoilers.

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_06]: Who wants to do Jackie? Oh, go ahead, Meron. Okay. After you, Jackie says, hi there,

[00:21:16] [SPEAKER_06]: just listening to the episode four podcast. And it was said that around the office from

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_06]: Greenwood, the great I heard Greenwood, but not the great around the office from Bollorri

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_06]: and, and there were a lot of woods in and around the Doriath area. I took it that he

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_06]: met one of those, just a thought. And what are your thoughts gentlemen? Well, I think

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_01]: you were the Laura Lisa answers right afterward. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yes. For a Lisa

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_06]: Sylvan elf, Greenwood turns into Merkwood in the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And that was what I was thinking of. Yeah. And, and I see what Jackie's saying is that

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_01]: perhaps it's a different Greenwood than Greenwood, the great I it's possible. It's

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_01]: possible we haven't been told that I think perhaps where you're from is the question. Like

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't live where I grew up. Am I from here or am I from there? And I think it changes with

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_01]: the context, right? And so if I'm from Bollorri and, but I want to bond with the, but, but I

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_01]: also have lived in Greenwood, the great, and I want to bond with some ends who are really

[00:22:25] [SPEAKER_01]: mad about trees. Maybe I referenced this giant forest that they're probably familiar with.

[00:22:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Not to mention the fact that I've been living in this giant forest

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_01]: since the beginning of the second age. Right. Which is thousands of years, you know, if I live

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_01]: somewhere thousands of years, am I still in Bollorri? I know it's confusing because

[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_01]: a Rondier said I'm from Bollorri in the first eight, in the first season. He said that to,

[00:22:49] [SPEAKER_01]: right. I want to say at our, he said it too. I think so. Yeah.

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_06]: So there was a reason for that because there was a reason for that because of Rondier,

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_06]: excuse me, Adar was also from that first age region. And so he is connecting, as you were

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_01]: saying with whoever he's talking with. Yeah. I think it's contextual. I think it's contextual.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_02]: I'll also add with Greenwood, the great, Merck Wood thing. I think when I was doing some

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_02]: research and doing some stuff, I came across that title Greenwood, the great, which is the

[00:23:26] [SPEAKER_02]: proper name for it, right? Like that's the, that distinguishes it from any other Greenwoods as

[00:23:31] [SPEAKER_06]: such. Yeah. But the question is, did he actually say Greenwood the great? I don't think he said

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_06]: the great. No. I don't think so either, but you know, it was a tense situation. He had

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_01]: to establish his cred as fast as he could. Going through the wikis by the way, because I

[00:23:48] [SPEAKER_01]: did some of that too. It does appear, and I forgot about this, but the forest probably

[00:23:54] [SPEAKER_01]: was quite bigger during the years of the trees. And it's possible that he was from

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Greenwood, the great and it extended into Bularion at the time a little bit.

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. That's what Treebeard says. You know, at one point I could walk all the way from here

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_06]: to here with nothing but trees and Eladon makes a similar observation about a squirrel

[00:24:14] [SPEAKER_06]: traveling from one end to the other. So yeah. All right. Well, well thanks Jackie

[00:24:19] [SPEAKER_02]: and for Elisa. David, you want to take Maureen? Sure. Maureen says, hi folks loving the

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_02]: coverage across the board. And I particularly enjoyed along with House of the Dragon this

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_02]: season. Well, thank you Maureen, but I must come to Elrond's defense in the season two

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_02]: episode four podcast. You say that Elrond is doing opposite day merely doing the opposite

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_02]: of whatever Galadriel says. First off Elrond is questioning the influence of the ring,

[00:24:50] [SPEAKER_02]: not Galadriel. We, the viewers know there will ultimately be some good in the three rings,

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_02]: but there's no way for Elrond to know that at this point in the story. He's totally right

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_02]: to question anything Sauron had a hand in and to question the influence of the jewels on the

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_02]: Remember Elrond lost both his parents. They didn't technically die, but he lost them because

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_01]: elves were killing each other over the Silmarils. Marker, do we need to take out the,

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_01]: we know that there will ultimately be some good in the three rings? I don't think so. Spoilers.

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_01]: What do we think? Is that spoilery that the rings end up being a force for good?

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_06]: I suppose it could be for some people if we want to be really cautious about it.

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Now we need to be able to talk about this. Just go ahead.

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_06]: No, I mean, since it's part of her argument, it's only fair to her to include it.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. Keep it in. Sorry.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's fine. I'm going to start from Remember.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Remember Elrond lost both of his parents. They didn't technically die, but he lost them

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_02]: because elves were killing each other over the Silmarils. That is his legacy. And so far in

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_02]: this series, from his perspective, Galadriel has been obsessive and irrational regarding Sauron.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_02]: She searches for Sauron for a thousand years, then didn't recognize him and fell completely

[00:26:22] [SPEAKER_02]: under his spell, maybe even a little bit in love? I don't know. And now she's following.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_02]: That's your comment, not hers. That's my comment. That's my comment. You can at me.

[00:26:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Let's make that very clear. And now she's following what a ring he

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_02]: helped design is telling her to do. And she didn't tell Elrond who Sauron was after she

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_02]: found out. That is betrayal to her old friend and puts him and all other elves in danger.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_02]: And he must be worried about how much she has changed from the warrior he has known,

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_02]: who dragged other elves, many to their deaths, up to the freezing north for a century.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_02]: That same warrior let Sauron just walk away and said nothing to anyone who he really was until

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_02]: forced to do so. As viewers, we welcome the change to a softer Galadriel,

[00:27:11] [SPEAKER_02]: but Elrond must be like, where's the body snatchers pod? What have you done with my friend?

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_02]: Who are you and what have you done with my friend kind of thing? Perhaps Elrond went too

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_02]: far when he said she wasn't sacrificing herself for the group, but for the ring.

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_02]: If he thought about it, she wouldn't have given him the ring if she was beholden to it.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But he is right to question the influence of the rings.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_06]: So I can agree with your final conclusion there, Maureen. But

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_06]: I might push back on a number of your points, and I want to give my colleagues

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_06]: chance to do similar sorts of responses. Jon, any thoughts first or?

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I totally understand what you're saying. I think both sides are being

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_01]: a little bit of absurd extremes, right? Galadriel is like, let's jump head first into

[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_01]: all of these things. And Elrond says, let's not do anything. Let's just not do anything

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_01]: connected to the ring at all. And yeah, they are at an informational disadvantage on

[00:28:26] [SPEAKER_01]: what the rings can do. They don't know at this point whether the rings can be influenced by

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Sauron or not. And frankly, even though she gave the ring back to Elrond, I think that

[00:28:40] [SPEAKER_01]: could still be possible in Elrond's head that the ring is still influencing her because she used it.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know. I think it's fair to give Elrond a little bit more grace than we did on

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_01]: the podcast. I apologize on behalf of the podcast to Robert Arameo.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_06]: And I apologize for calling him a jackass because I was frustrated with him.

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_01]: We're really explicit, Marilyn. You call him whatever you want.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_06]: MW Well, what I would say he's not a jackass, but he is prideful, stubborn and naive.

[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_06]: MW And was not showing a great deal of compassion to Galadriel at this point. I also think we need

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_06]: to look at sort of a subtext here. I think it may well be that Elrond is certainly angry

[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_06]: at what he perceives as the deception. And I admit that I don't think Galadriel should have

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_06]: admitted the fact of his being Sauron because if she had said it right out there when the three

[00:29:41] [SPEAKER_06]: of them were there, a lot might be averted. But then we wouldn't have a story. So makes

[00:29:48] [SPEAKER_06]: it kind of tough. I think Elrond may be feeling some guilt because let us not forget,

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_06]: he contributed to these rings. It was his Mithril that made the whole thing possible,

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_06]: and he sacrificed this symbol of his friendship with Doran. At that point,

[00:30:08] [SPEAKER_06]: he didn't know that Sauron was Helbrand and had had any kind of influence at all upon the

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_06]: making of it and so forth. And I think when he found out, that's when it really began

[00:30:19] [SPEAKER_06]: to hit him. I don't think the show gave us enough time to see that change in him.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_06]: He seemed to just flip a switch. At the very end of the first season, he had maybe a 30-second

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_06]: glance on his face and watched it kind of change to this what are you doing kind of thing.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Particularly when she just looks at him when he says, I can't remember the exact words,

[00:30:46] [SPEAKER_06]: in effect, he's looking at her saying, tell me what you know. And she's saying, trust me.

[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_06]: That's just not going well. So I think that there's maybe a little bit of guilt and shame

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_06]: on his part that he participated in the first place. And that's what's leading him to be so

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_06]: forcefully rejecting of it. I don't like the degree of purity that he seems to be showing.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_02]: He's being a little bit holier than now.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_06]: DR. JANelle H

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_06]: When I think the fact of the matter is, I don't think he knows experientially

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_06]: how in some circumstances you may have to travel far from what you consider to be the

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_06]: good without going all the way into the evil in order to deal with certain situations.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_06]: I think he's being kind of naive here. I mean, I think back to the first series scene in which

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Galadriel says to him, you have not seen what I have seen. And Elrond says, I have seen

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_06]: much. And she says, you have not seen what I have seen. And so we're kind of back to that

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_06]: dialogue, if you will.

[00:32:04] DR. JANelle H

[00:32:04] [SPEAKER_02]: I think in House of the Dragon this last season, there was a lot of tension between

[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_02]: the younger set of kids coming up and wanting to take power and step into their leadership

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_02]: roles. And then there was the older folks who've been around a long time and have a

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_02]: long review of things and a bit more wisdom. And what, at least that I took away from that

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_02]: season was, yeah, when you are a little bit older and have these perspectives, you may

[00:32:41] [SPEAKER_02]: not be as quick to action. And sometimes you need to be quick of action to solve something

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_02]: or just get in and deal with stuff. Whereas if you're too quick of action,

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_02]: you can run into a lot of problems. And Galadriel, so it's just what I'm pointing to here is a

[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_02]: spectrum of extremes here, right? Of our crossways where Galadriel is a little bit of a zealot

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_02]: and a little bit intense about her feelings about orcs, rightly or wrongly, right? But

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_02]: she, that means a great conversation with her and Adar in episode six of season one.

[00:33:25] [SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully we're going to, fingers crossed, we're going to get some more of that now coming up.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh yes.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, she's battle hardened and she's been around and she's seen and done a lot,

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_02]: but that has pushed her to an extreme that she can't necessarily see herself. Elrond,

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_02]: opposite end a little bit. And now he's been given authority and he is, like you said,

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_02]: he's being a bit naive and maybe he's being a little bit overzealous in his command.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I think he absolutely is. Let us remember, he was the one who encouraged Galadriel to cross

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_06]: the water in the first place. And when she comes back to him, practically the first thing

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_06]: he says to her is, I was wrong. I don't see that level of humility in him anymore.

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_06]: I see an absoluteness on this particular issue that gets two of his company killed.

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. No, I think only one.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_06]: No, two. The first one got hauled into the barrow and the second one had the sword so they didn't

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_01]: have a body to bury. Oh, I thought they were just burying the one from the barrow.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh, were they? Okay.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01]: They got into the barrow to get the swords.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah. Okay.

[00:34:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It was just the one. And then the other guy had the arrow but then the ring seemed to.

[00:34:36] [SPEAKER_06]: And then she healed him.

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Does that mean nothing to him?

[00:34:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_06]: And he is ignoring his oldest and dearest, past and one thing's future friend. He's also

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_06]: ignoring the wisdom of Cirdan who is universally acknowledged as being the wisest of the El.

[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Now, he's got to do him.

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_02]: I would disagree slightly because I think that's what brings him back is that Cirdan

[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_02]: and if he hadn't been speaking to Cirdan in some ways, I don't think he would have

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_02]: participated at all in letting Gilgallad give him any sort of mission to do.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I agree with that. Yeah, he wouldn't have joined or led Galadriel's company.

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, he turns away from the group and leaves when the three of them put their rings on.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_01]: No, yeah, but this is after, right?

[00:35:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And he had already.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Galadriel says, I want to lead a company. He refuses. He goes to Cirdan for advice

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_01]: and Cirdan says, look, they're your besties. You got to go.

[00:35:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Right. Right. Okay.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Then he does it. Now what I'm getting out of this conversation is that Elrond is a Nepo baby.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_01]: He's been a Nepo baby the whole time.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_01]: A what?

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_01]: A Nepo baby. Nepotism.

[00:35:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Nepotism.

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, okay. Okay.

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So he got this job because his dad was a star and his mom was a bird.

[00:35:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Are you saying entitlement?

[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Now he's a Nepo baby for life. Oh, I'm sorry. Does your mommy and daddy fly, Elrond?

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess you get job on the right hand of Gilgalad forever.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_01]: You're killing me, John.

[00:36:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And frankly, I think the reason why we're having such strong responses to this is because he was

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_06]: probably a lot of people's favorite character from season one and he was behaving in this

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_06]: wonderful way that maybe was almost a little too perfect. I don't know.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_06]: So now he's showing his shortcomings.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_02]: But then at the same time, this is great because and that we're having this conversation because

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_02]: it says to me that there is a character arc that is developing here.

[00:36:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.

[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_02]: That this character is going to be processing and working through emotion and experience and

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_02]: encountering things that they could have never thought would happen before.

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, to have Galadriel not tell him the truth of anybody.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, yeah, well maybe we keep it a little secret from the king or we don't tell

[00:37:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Caleb Rimba or whatever, but they're like besties and she didn't tell him

[00:37:17] [SPEAKER_02]: what happened and I'd be kind of pissed too in a way. My feelings would be hurt.

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, the point is that there is dramatic tension.

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_02]: And we know where Elrond ends up for a bunch of stuff from the larger story things.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_02]: So we know that there's arc here and if we're discussing it in this way,

[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_02]: it means that the writers are doing their job with his character.

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Definitely.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_06]: They're creating tension.

[00:37:41] [SPEAKER_06]: I see Galadriel as being shamed for what happened.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that's a good point.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_06]: She can talk about that with her high king.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:51] [SPEAKER_06]: I think she could talk about it with Elrond if Elrond wasn't being so completely unwilling

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_06]: to even consider that these rings might have some beneficial influence.

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_06]: And again, I think that's partly because he feels guilty because he participated in it.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_02]: This is great, right? There's shame and guilt and tension.

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_02]: This is very real. This is very normal in our daily life.

[00:38:16] [SPEAKER_01]: It's very real.

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_01]: And do you ever think about the difference between shame and guilt?

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I never thought about it until I discussed it in a class on patriarchy.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_06]: I remember that.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Shame is directed outward.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_01]: It is you are angry that other people perceive you as lesser.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Guilt is when you're angry at yourself because you perceive yourself as lesser.

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_06]: And it's interesting, Jon, because I agree absolutely with the

[00:38:42] [SPEAKER_06]: distinction of those two feelings, but I flip the terms.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_06]: What I say is guilt is about something I have done.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_06]: Shame is about something that I am.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_06]: I can make changes in my behavior.

[00:38:56] [SPEAKER_06]: I can apologize for things I have done.

[00:38:59] [SPEAKER_06]: I can't, you know, if I'm supposed to apologize for who I am,

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_06]: how am I supposed to, you know, change that, make that better?

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And then that anger goes outwards, right?

[00:39:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Right. Or you keep throwing it in on yourself and making things worse,

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_06]: which is what a lot of people do too.

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So I think Gladriel is getting a little angry at people

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_01]: because she feels ashamed at what she did.

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_06]: Sure, but it's also a question of how are they interacting with her?

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean that exchange with the High King about, you know, when she says

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm surprised you haven't dismissed me to the Ettenmoors and he says I haven't.

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_06]: I haven't decided.

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm considering it.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That was one of the best laughs of this season so far.

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Yes, it was. Yes, it absolutely was.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_06]: And she could be able to have that same relationship with Elrond,

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_06]: but Elrond is clearly working through something here.

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_06]: And I just hope he gets over it soon because, you know,

[00:39:55] [SPEAKER_06]: we need everybody on board here, folks.

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_06]: And to say at the end there, it just broke my heart when he said,

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_06]: well, she wasn't rescuing us. She was rescuing the ring.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm sorry.

[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that wasn't fair.

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_06]: That was just over the top as far as I'm concerned.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_06]: That's what evoked a certain term from my mouth that, you know,

[00:40:14] [SPEAKER_02]: maybe it was too harsh.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm with you, Marilyn. I'm with you.

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to defend it.

[00:40:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Let's move on.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_02]: We should.

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_02]: And I just want to put a last point in Maureen's email here where

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_02]: if the ring had the power over her, she wouldn't have given it up.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_02]: I really like that comment.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Aces.

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_02]: Very nice.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. Moving on.

[00:40:37] [SPEAKER_01]: So solving the season one mystery boxes with Nancy M. Hand of the Pod.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_01]: I am being honest when I say I was not a super fan of season one,

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_01]: you and the rest of us, Nancy, don't worry.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But based on the first three episodes of season two, I am all in.

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I know time wise it is not possible, but it feels like show runners

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_01]: listening to fan complaints and fix them all.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_01]: What I'm happiest about is how they quickly solved

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_01]: a bunch of mystery boxes from season one.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_01]: How did Adar kill Sauron by stabbing him with the crown

[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_01]: and then letting his children finish the job?

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Why did Halbrand try to kill Adar after asking if he recognized him?

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Because Adar tried to kill Sauron in his previous health form,

[00:41:22] [SPEAKER_01]: so of course he wouldn't recognize the new form of Halbrand.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Where did Adar get the phrase power over flesh

[00:41:28] [SPEAKER_01]: from hearing Sauron say it to the orcs in the prologue?

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Why did Galadriel find all these dead orcs in the snowy castle

[00:41:37] [SPEAKER_01]: left over from the prologue scene that we don't see until season two?

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_01]: How did Halbrand get the king of the Southlands,

[00:41:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Heraldry killing a very nice man and stealing it?

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, he let him die.

[00:41:52] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, he didn't actually kill him.

[00:41:54] [SPEAKER_01]: He took it off a dead man.

[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_06]: He left him to die.

[00:41:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Right, right.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, how did Halbrand get on the boat?

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Not planning on his part, but chance.

[00:42:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you faint when he hitched on with the Southlanders wanting to sail to a new life.

[00:42:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Where did Adar come from?

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_01]: He was created by Morgoth and he saw Morgoth's servants face Sauron as elf in prologue.

[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Who are the Hissy sisters?

[00:42:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Acolytes of the dark wizard in Rune.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_01]: How will Sauron ever convince Celebrimbor to create more rings?

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_01]: By speaking directly to Celebrimbor's pride.

[00:42:31] [SPEAKER_01]: You are not the scion of Feanor, you are the lord of the rings.

[00:42:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, title drop.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_01]: You ever watch Arrested Development?

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_01]: They go, hey, that's the name of the show.

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_01]: The narrator says that at one point and I always want to clip that for our podcast.

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_01]: What happened to Isildur's mother?

[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_01]: She drowned trying to save him when he swam out too far.

[00:42:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Why did Isildur have so many issues in season one?

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Guilt that it was his fault, she drowned and he lied to everyone about what really happened.

[00:43:03] [SPEAKER_01]: His goal was to do something singular or special to earn what she did

[00:43:07] [SPEAKER_01]: and what happened with Arianne and the Palantir in season one?

[00:43:11] [SPEAKER_01]: She stole it.

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_02]: That is quite the inventory and Nancy has really put her finger on something.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_02]: They have very efficiently wrapped up a ton of story threads.

[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes.

[00:43:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I like it Nancy.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_01]: This was a very good, a smorgasbord?

[00:43:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Can we call it a smorgasbord?

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_02]: It feels more like an inventory, a detailed inventory to me.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_06]: I call it an excellent analysis.

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_06]: There you go.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_02]: Very nice.

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Sauron versus Adar and the orcs.

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: It looks like you have some back and forth with Nancy on this.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I think I'm going to give this one to you.

[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Furlisa, Faton and Aeon on the Discord had a cluster of

[00:43:58] [SPEAKER_02]: conversation and some associated thoughts.

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_02]: Rather than reading all the individuals, Nancy collapsed them,

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_02]: summarized them all into one thing.

[00:44:10] [SPEAKER_02]: Because individually it was better if they were all pulled up together.

[00:44:15] [SPEAKER_01]: So you're saying that three rings would be better than one crown.

[00:44:20] [SPEAKER_02]: The power of many, Jon.

[00:44:22] [SPEAKER_01]: The power, oh we, pull one out.

[00:44:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Pour one out for the acolyte.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah and the state of television which, yeah there was something in Nancy's comment there.

[00:44:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It is a whole other podcast, it's a whole other topic but

[00:44:40] [SPEAKER_02]: sometimes you have to let shows grow a little bit and one season

[00:44:45] [SPEAKER_02]: is not enough for what you need to do.

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_02]: This is television, these aren't movies.

[00:44:50] [SPEAKER_02]: If you want to make movies and they're one off, go make a movie.

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Television needs to be multi-series, multi-seasons I mean.

[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Watch season one of Parks and Rec and tell me that was as good as

[00:45:00] [SPEAKER_01]: season three of Parks and Rec.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?

[00:45:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Shows do need to grow.

[00:45:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Even Game of Thrones, season one was really good but.

[00:45:07] [SPEAKER_02]: By the highs that we got by four and five, they didn't come from,

[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_02]: they came from growing out of one.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:45:14] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, Sauron being killed by Adar and the orcs in the prologue is apparently a bone of contention.

[00:45:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Why are people mocking the choice of having Sauron taken down by the orcs?

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_02]: Sauron took 15 or so stabs from various different orcs.

[00:45:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Maiar are not indestructible.

[00:45:33] [SPEAKER_02]: And if what, if that was Morgoth's crown, surely it had some power of its own?

[00:45:39] [SPEAKER_02]: There are written references found in canon letters confirming the physical form of Sauron

[00:45:45] [SPEAKER_02]: is destructible.

[00:45:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Right, it's his fauna.

[00:45:48] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the word for his remant.

[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, look at you, Jon.

[00:45:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[00:45:54] [SPEAKER_02]: In a book of previously unpublished Tolkien's writings, The Nature of Middle Earth,

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_02]: the orcs are described as initially despising and laughing at Sauron.

[00:46:03] [SPEAKER_02]: This justifies how the prologue presents the violent attack on Sauron by Adar and the orcs

[00:46:08] [SPEAKER_02]: at the start of the second age.

[00:46:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Was that your call, your catch, Jon?

[00:46:12] [SPEAKER_06]: David, did you?

[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no.

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_02]: This is way, way beyond my level.

[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_02]: In addition, the prologue demonstrates that Sauron did not just assume leadership

[00:46:25] [SPEAKER_02]: of the orcs post-Morgoth's defeat.

[00:46:28] [SPEAKER_02]: Just because he was Morgoth's lieutenant doesn't mean Adar and the orcs were just

[00:46:32] [SPEAKER_02]: going to follow him.

[00:46:34] [SPEAKER_02]: Sauron had to earn his place as the Dark Lord.

[00:46:38] [SPEAKER_02]: His first attempt did not go over well with the orcs.

[00:46:41] [SPEAKER_02]: A good recruitment strategy does not include a message about the need for sacrifice

[00:46:45] [SPEAKER_02]: and the death of orcs.

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_02]: No.

[00:46:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Sauron's failure to communicate forced him to revise his rise to power approach

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_02]: once he reformed as Halbrand.

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_02]: He had a lot of time to think his ooze.

[00:46:59] [SPEAKER_02]: He had to be more subtle, more subterfuge, more manipulation.

[00:47:04] [SPEAKER_02]: This has been a great thing for the first three episodes.

[00:47:06] [SPEAKER_02]: As a villain, Sauron has been outstanding in these opening episodes of season two.

[00:47:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think there was some conversation about the, as you were saying, John,

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_02]: the form of the Maya, of a Maya.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we did our first lore cast on that.

[00:47:27] [SPEAKER_01]: The Maya are immortal, but they really are non-corporeal.

[00:47:32] [SPEAKER_01]: They are energy.

[00:47:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And they can take Fanaar.

[00:47:37] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the plural, or a Fana, which is a veil.

[00:47:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I have it here in the nature of Middle Earth.

[00:47:42] [SPEAKER_01]: I just pulled up the actual definition here.

[00:47:46] [SPEAKER_01]: The basic sense of this was to cover screen veil.

[00:47:51] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is, and also it's related to the elvish word for clouds.

[00:47:55] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of like that.

[00:47:57] [SPEAKER_01]: So, but those, I believe in Middle Earth can be destructible.

[00:48:01] [SPEAKER_06]: Oh yeah.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_01]: The bodies of these temporary raiments.

[00:48:06] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why, and we think we talked about this on the lore cast too, but

[00:48:09] [SPEAKER_01]: that's why when Sauron is fighting Huon, this great hound,

[00:48:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Huon has Sauron's veil, has his Fana in his jaws.

[00:48:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, you look, you can flee this body.

[00:48:26] [SPEAKER_01]: You can go back to your master crying in your little spirit body.

[00:48:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Or I'll let you go, but you have to let my friends go.

[00:48:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So this is a difficult thing to reconstruct on your own.

[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_06]: As we see.

[00:48:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:48:41] [SPEAKER_06]: It's as if the Maia are a higher vibration of the elves.

[00:48:49] [SPEAKER_06]: Because it's a very similar conundrum for the elves.

[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_06]: The Hroa can be killed.

[00:48:54] [SPEAKER_06]: The Faea survives, goes to Mandoz, might get rehoused, might not get rehoused.

[00:49:03] [SPEAKER_06]: But presumably the fact that he had been so enamored of the dark for so long meant

[00:49:09] [SPEAKER_06]: that Sauron was not going to get any help with reconstructing his own.

[00:49:12] Right.

[00:49:14] [SPEAKER_06]: Form, nature, whatever you want to call it.

[00:49:17] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:49:18] [SPEAKER_06]: I think there was a very strong Julius Caesar vibe and that might have

[00:49:23] [SPEAKER_06]: put some people off and made it seem as though Sauron was too vulnerable as a Maia.

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_01]: A two Adar?

[00:49:32] [SPEAKER_06]: Exactly.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_06]: It's interesting, the whole thing about the crown.

[00:49:38] [SPEAKER_06]: I never really thought about it as Morgoth's crown.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_06]: I thought of it as Sauron's imitation of Morgoth's crown.

[00:49:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's right.

[00:49:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Because Morgoth's crown was taken from his head.

[00:49:48] [SPEAKER_06]: It was beaten into a collar that went around his neck.

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Also, I don't think that that crown looked like it could hold three Silmarils.

[00:49:55] [SPEAKER_06]: It could not hold three Silmarils.

[00:49:56] [SPEAKER_01]: That was the whole point of the crown is it held the three Silmarils.

[00:49:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_06]: There was no little holes where the Silmarils had been pulled out from

[00:50:03] [SPEAKER_06]: because they never held Silmarils because it was not Morgoth's crown.

[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's how I thought.

[00:50:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I agree.

[00:50:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Cool.

[00:50:13] [SPEAKER_06]: It doesn't matter how much juju it might have in it.

[00:50:15] [SPEAKER_06]: You flip something upside down and you stab someone in the back with it.

[00:50:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Literally, metaphorically, it's going to do damage.

[00:50:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[00:50:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying.

[00:50:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Roll for damage.

[00:50:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I know from video games that you hit them with a sharp side.

[00:50:30] [SPEAKER_01]: So, Marilyn, do you want to take Ehoop?

[00:50:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[00:50:33] [SPEAKER_06]: This is from Discord.

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Am I the only one who thinks Sauron is sending a lot of mixed signals?

[00:50:39] [SPEAKER_06]: As though he's kind of in a state of wanting to help and being kind of sympathetic.

[00:50:44] [SPEAKER_06]: Probably not genuinely good.

[00:50:45] [SPEAKER_06]: And things keep driving him the other way.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_06]: I think the repeated torment at the hands of Adar's minions

[00:50:51] [SPEAKER_06]: is going to be part of what twists him.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_06]: I'd like to see a long game where that's Adar's intention all along.

[00:50:58] [SPEAKER_06]: But most likely I'm over reading and Big S is the one playing the long game and it's all very devious.

[00:51:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, devious is Sauron's middle name.

[00:51:09] [SPEAKER_02]: I was going to say in this case, I think more than one thing can be true at the same time.

[00:51:15] [SPEAKER_02]: Good point.

[00:51:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I like this idea that, in reflection from the previous comment or group of comments

[00:51:26] [SPEAKER_02]: from the three, this idea that Sauron is something less than a god

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_02]: or some sort of super angelic being but more than a corporeal being.

[00:51:43] [SPEAKER_02]: He's got this extra ability to turn into a slime and eat some bugs and rats and things

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_02]: reconstitute his form.

[00:51:56] [SPEAKER_02]: Every time that that happens to him, it's going to hurt.

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to suck.

[00:52:02] [SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to be good.

[00:52:04] [SPEAKER_06]: It's going to take longer.

[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_06]: It's going to take more energy.

[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to shape the psychology of the person or the creature that is being affected

[00:52:13] [SPEAKER_02]: by that process.

[00:52:16] [SPEAKER_02]: And so at the same time and then each time you've got to go,

[00:52:21] [SPEAKER_02]: that didn't work.

[00:52:22] [SPEAKER_02]: How do I do it next time?

[00:52:25] [SPEAKER_02]: There's a great movie.

[00:52:26] [SPEAKER_02]: What's the, oh gosh, I'm blanking the name of it.

[00:52:30] [SPEAKER_02]: It's the Tom Cruise movie, the science fiction one.

[00:52:37] [SPEAKER_02]: It's sort of a repeat thing going over and over again.

[00:52:41] [SPEAKER_06]: It's not Groundhog Day.

[00:52:42] [SPEAKER_02]: No, no, no, no, no.

[00:52:43] [SPEAKER_02]: It's a kind of Groundhog Day but with alien invasion creature things.

[00:52:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, he has to get smarter throughout the course and keep trying to figure it out,

[00:52:52] [SPEAKER_02]: keep figuring it out but looping in this never-ending time loop.

[00:52:57] [SPEAKER_06]: So he keeps saving and leveling up?

[00:52:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Basically.

[00:53:00] [SPEAKER_02]: And then each time he has to re-loop.

[00:53:02] [SPEAKER_02]: What's that?

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_02]: Edge of Tomorrow.

[00:53:03] [SPEAKER_02]: That's it.

[00:53:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.

[00:53:06] [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's based on a graphic novel or some comics or something like that from prior to that.

[00:53:13] [SPEAKER_01]: The poster says, live, die, repeat.

[00:53:16] [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_02]: And so each time, you might have, Sauron doesn't do this but what I'm saying is that like,

[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_02]: okay, this didn't work.

[00:53:26] [SPEAKER_02]: I got killed or same with Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

[00:53:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that didn't work.

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that didn't work.

[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_02]: That didn't work and you keep iterating and that is going to shape you.

[00:53:38] [SPEAKER_02]: And meanwhile, do you have the ego strength to stay focused on what it is your objective?

[00:53:46] [SPEAKER_02]: Sauron certainly has that.

[00:53:48] [SPEAKER_02]: He's got this idea that he needs to lord over this world to reform it but every time

[00:53:55] [SPEAKER_02]: he's going through all of this stuff, it's bending him and twisting him and

[00:54:01] [SPEAKER_02]: pressurizing him in different ways and I think I like the way that they're depicting it on

[00:54:06] [SPEAKER_02]: screen with this.

[00:54:07] [SPEAKER_06]: So what do you think about what Ehud says about him seeming to be somewhat sympathetic

[00:54:14] [SPEAKER_06]: and possibly even wanting to reach out to the good?

[00:54:17] [SPEAKER_02]: But didn't he start out as canonically in the stories as wanting to try to fix things?

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, in the second age, he did spend the first age gleefully doing evil.

[00:54:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Trashing it all.

[00:54:34] [SPEAKER_01]: For Morgoth.

[00:54:35] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not like he was good at some point.

[00:54:37] [SPEAKER_01]: No, he was.

[00:54:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, no, no, no, no, no.

[00:54:39] [SPEAKER_06]: He was good in his original creation because nothing bad was created.

[00:54:44] [SPEAKER_06]: But he did eventually fall off that.

[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_01]: He went, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:54:48] [SPEAKER_01]: Right?

[00:54:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Real quick though, wasn't he one of the first people to leave with Morgoth?

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_01]: He was very quick.

[00:54:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Very quick.

[00:54:57] [SPEAKER_06]: He was Morgoth's lieutenant.

[00:54:58] [SPEAKER_06]: There's no getting around that.

[00:55:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And really took joy in it.

[00:55:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Took joy in doing battles of song with Finrod and sending wolves after people

[00:55:08] [SPEAKER_01]: and torturing people.

[00:55:09] [SPEAKER_01]: This is not a guy who spent the first stage doing the right thing, but I do want to talk about

[00:55:16] [SPEAKER_01]: the difference in political philosophy between Morgoth and Sauron.

[00:55:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think that's really important.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Morgoth wants chaos for chaos sake.

[00:55:24] [SPEAKER_01]: He wants to create suffering for suffering sake.

[00:55:26] [SPEAKER_01]: He wants to control for control sake.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Sauron in the second age does try to be like, I would be a good leader.

[00:55:34] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm going to make everyone treat me as leader.

[00:55:37] [SPEAKER_01]: That's his goal.

[00:55:37] [SPEAKER_01]: He sees order as good.

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_01]: He sees order as a way to heal the world.

[00:55:42] [SPEAKER_01]: He does see that as not mutually exclusive of doing good and having control over everyone.

[00:55:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And he also thinks the ends justify the mean, right?

[00:55:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, absolutely.

[00:55:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's why he's willing to lie to Celebrimor the whole time.

[00:55:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And he's willing to corrupt things.

[00:56:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think he just thinks that whatever I have to do to get control over these

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_01]: people's of Middle-earth, they're chaotic.

[00:56:06] [SPEAKER_01]: They kill each other.

[00:56:07] [SPEAKER_01]: They're mean.

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't like them that way.

[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_02]: So it makes me think of Loki from the first Avengers movies.

[00:56:13] [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, I'm going to you guys are a mess.

[00:56:16] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to come fix you.

[00:56:17] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to come search you out.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the Sauron political philosophy, which is much different from Morgoth.

[00:56:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that's an important distinction.

[00:56:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And it makes him a more interesting villain.

[00:56:26] [SPEAKER_01]: 100%.

[00:56:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, and there's also this thinking back to, I mean,

[00:56:31] [SPEAKER_06]: this helps me make a lot more sense of what happened with him and Galadriel on the raft,

[00:56:36] [SPEAKER_06]: both the first time and the imaginary second time.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_06]: That first he was trying to find good through the sayings of this obviously good man.

[00:56:49] [SPEAKER_06]: And, you know, trying to say, oh, well, maybe that'll work for me.

[00:56:51] [SPEAKER_06]: And then, of course, the shipwreck and the monster and yeah, let's snatch the

[00:56:55] [SPEAKER_06]: pouch and go away because clearly this guy isn't surviving.

[00:56:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And Galadies, you can't fix him.

[00:57:03] [SPEAKER_06]: No, you cannot.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_06]: Because he says then to Galadriel on the raft, you will bind me to the light.

[00:57:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Right.

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_02]: That's right.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Again, he's looking for this power or something other than himself.

[00:57:17] [SPEAKER_06]: Right.

[00:57:18] [SPEAKER_06]: To say, okay, I'm going to go ahead and rule the world and make people do things and so forth.

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_06]: And you'll make sure that I'm still more or less good.

[00:57:26] [SPEAKER_02]: Even though that's not how it would actually work out in the long run.

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Of course it wouldn't.

[00:57:31] [SPEAKER_06]: And the one wild card that the showrunners keep throwing into this whole mix is this

[00:57:37] [SPEAKER_06]: power not of flesh but over flesh.

[00:57:41] [SPEAKER_06]: Because that's what he was really hyped on in his first ever, you know, CEO speech to

[00:57:47] [SPEAKER_06]: his minions about yeah, some of you are going to die, but it's going to be for this really

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_06]: cool project.

[00:57:52] Great!

[00:57:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But that's a price I'm willing to pay.

[00:57:54] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[00:57:55] [SPEAKER_06]: And I don't care what the rest of you think.

[00:57:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Not a great way to start your career.

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_06]: Career is.

[00:58:02] [SPEAKER_06]: And the rest of it in your career, right?

[00:58:04] [SPEAKER_06]: So they seem to be using this concept in a bunch of different interesting ways that I

[00:58:10] [SPEAKER_06]: want to keep following along and seeing because while it might not be totally a

[00:58:16] [SPEAKER_06]: show creation, it's certainly not a statement I ever remember running across until.

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_06]: And the whole thing of the scene and the unseen world stuff.

[00:58:27] [SPEAKER_06]: That was from Tolkien.

[00:58:28] [SPEAKER_06]: But he was pretty cloudy about what that meant and how he used it.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_06]: So it gives them kind of wiggle room, I think, for a number of things.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:58:41] [SPEAKER_01]: All right.

[00:58:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, why don't we take a quick break?

[00:58:43] [SPEAKER_01]: When we get back, we'll continue our feedback.

[00:59:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And we're back.

[00:59:06] [SPEAKER_06]: So next we have a combo thread from Discord, which was contributed to by

[00:59:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Fere Lissa, Maureen Dee and Fatin Alias Sadi.

[00:59:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And myself actually as it happens.

[00:59:19] [SPEAKER_06]: So we don't have any attributions for any particular section,

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_06]: but here's the gist of the discussion.

[00:59:25] [SPEAKER_06]: I really enjoyed hearing some of Adar's origin story.

[00:59:28] [SPEAKER_06]: Was he one of the original elves imprisoned?

[00:59:31] [SPEAKER_06]: Was he corrupted and made into an orc?

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_06]: And then he drank wine from Sauron.

[00:59:36] [SPEAKER_06]: Was it the wine that corrupted him?

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm still trying to puzzle out the wine's significance.

[00:59:42] [SPEAKER_06]: It is interesting that they are framing drinking the wine as a ritual

[00:59:45] [SPEAKER_06]: versus the branding of the people who are captured,

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_06]: suggesting that being turned into an orc is sacred.

[00:59:51] [SPEAKER_06]: A quote here, he and his beautiful face saved me from Morgoth.

[00:59:55] [SPEAKER_06]: So I drank the wine and I turned into an uruk.

[00:59:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Close quote.

[01:00:00] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm not sure if that's a direct quote from the show itself

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_06]: or if this is somebody positing this.

[01:00:06] [SPEAKER_06]: The ritual definitely shows that Sauron at least didn't see

[01:00:08] [SPEAKER_06]: that first making of orcs as enslavement.

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_06]: That does sort of track with Sauron envisioning himself

[01:00:14] [SPEAKER_06]: as a lord over Middle Earth, not just a conqueror,

[01:00:16] [SPEAKER_06]: believing he is a savior.

[01:00:19] [SPEAKER_06]: Many people seem to think Adar took the wine as a sign of friendship.

[01:00:24] [SPEAKER_06]: But the wine is what corrupted him.

[01:00:25] [SPEAKER_06]: I'd like a different narrative where Sauron was saving Adar to be his partner.

[01:00:30] [SPEAKER_06]: Then over time somehow Sauron corrupted Adar into his current form.

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_06]: Perhaps Adar chose the change willingly.

[01:00:37] [SPEAKER_06]: Imagine if Adar trusted Sauron enough to be like,

[01:00:40] [SPEAKER_06]: okay I'll submit to your experiments.

[01:00:42] [SPEAKER_06]: Then the relationship soured when Sauron began doing it to Adar's children.

[01:00:47] [SPEAKER_06]: Red as a blood moon is ominous.

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_06]: I drank all of it is tinged with regret.

[01:00:54] [SPEAKER_06]: The show is on a good job suggesting that Sauron

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_06]: is looking for a true partner, not someone to lord over.

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_06]: We see this in the initial scene with Adar and Jack Loudon's Sauron.

[01:01:05] [SPEAKER_06]: Sauron is looking to Adar for confirmation and even kneels in front of him.

[01:01:10] [SPEAKER_06]: Parenthesis, I know Marilyn did not love that

[01:01:12] [SPEAKER_06]: and they're right I didn't love that.

[01:01:15] [SPEAKER_06]: We saw in episode six last season Sauron's intense emotion under the surface when he says

[01:01:20] [SPEAKER_06]: never believed he could be free of what he did to Adar, what Adar did to him which is betray his

[01:01:26] [SPEAKER_06]: trust. We wouldn't want to be Sauron's partner even as he experiments on your children.

[01:01:32] [SPEAKER_06]: Well I wouldn't but anyway we know from the proposal to Galadriel that it was about ruling

[01:01:37] [SPEAKER_06]: together. Sauron comes to Celebrimbor and calls him partner.

[01:01:43] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't think he intends to control them initially but inspire them make them see his

[01:01:47] [SPEAKER_06]: way. There's a lot here and the thoughts I had on the wine ritual, it's very much

[01:01:59] [SPEAKER_06]: evocative of the Christian communion.

[01:02:01] [SPEAKER_04]: That's good to say.

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_06]: And I'm wondering if the show runners were trying to draw from that.

[01:02:08] [SPEAKER_01]: And Lembus is the Christ cracker as we used to call him when I was a kid.

[01:02:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Well something like that. The flip though is that according to some medieval Christian stories

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_06]: people would do what they call evil masses in which they would do a sort of a corrupted mass

[01:02:29] [SPEAKER_06]: and do the reverse and I don't know if maybe that's what they were thinking of,

[01:02:34] [SPEAKER_06]: receiving red wine from quote unquote the devil.

[01:02:38] [SPEAKER_02]: But it's about transformation ultimately whether a transformation to good or

[01:02:41] [SPEAKER_02]: to evil it's about taking a part of something and incorporating that into your being

[01:02:49] [SPEAKER_02]: to then transform your being.

[01:02:53] [SPEAKER_06]: But was the wine from Sauron, was it from Morgoth?

[01:02:57] [SPEAKER_06]: Morgoth was still around at this point but saying that he saved me from Morgoth I drank

[01:03:02] [SPEAKER_06]: the one and turned into an Uruk. I don't know.

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't think we have enough information on any of this.

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I agree. I think we're just speculating here.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_06]: We really are. And the whole notion of, you know, he still has some notion that he's a savior,

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_06]: that he's got a better plan than anyone else, Sauron does.

[01:03:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and I mean Adar was up on the stage with him right when he was trying to pitch his

[01:03:26] [SPEAKER_01]: whole thing to Uruk so I agree that he does want a partner more than any subordinate.

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_06]: Which again just kind of feels off to me.

[01:03:36] [SPEAKER_01]: That's true. I mean I think Peter Jackson could have done a better job getting marriage

[01:03:39] [SPEAKER_01]: counseling for Saruman and Sauron but didn't quite get there.

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_06]: No, no I mean maybe there will be more information in subsequent episodes that will

[01:03:53] [SPEAKER_06]: help clarify this whole picture. But what comes through to me clearly is

[01:04:00] [SPEAKER_06]: Adar was one of the first if not the first.

[01:04:03] [SPEAKER_06]: He felt some kind of connection with the subsequent Uruks or orcs or whatever you want

[01:04:09] [SPEAKER_06]: to call them. Began to feel that they were his children and by the time Morgoth was out of the

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_06]: picture, was ready to be done with dark lords and evil people and just take the remnants of

[01:04:23] [SPEAKER_06]: his children and go off and find a place of their own and live there.

[01:04:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_06]: So.

[01:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:04:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah I mean I think we're not going to know the complete motivations of everyone until we get

[01:04:39] [SPEAKER_01]: towards the end of the season or perhaps series.

[01:04:43] [SPEAKER_06]: I think series.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_06]: Really?

[01:04:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So why don't we get to the man of the hour, Tom Bombadil and the music of Bear McCreary.

[01:04:51] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess the men of the hour.

[01:04:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Matt E says I'm going to lay down all my internet chips on Tom Bombadil telling

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_01]: the stores or Harfoots to set up in the Shire.

[01:05:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Might be indirect via Gandalf or incidental but there are two spatial temporal coincidences

[01:05:08] [SPEAKER_01]: in the second and third ages.

[01:05:11] [SPEAKER_01]: This may be long odds or take a while to pay off but I'm going all in on it.

[01:05:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Internet points wagered.

[01:05:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It brings a power Tom is said to have come west to see the desert.

[01:05:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Well he came east to see the desert from the west.

[01:05:26] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:05:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Just to be clear.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_06]: There we go.

[01:05:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Um in the fellowship of the ring his house was by the old forest right next to the Shire

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_01]: so it makes sense he may have come west from that he came east just to be I the email says west

[01:05:40] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm correcting at the east.

[01:05:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[01:05:42] [SPEAKER_01]: From that home and knew of a relatively peaceful place where the halflings could live.

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_01]: In rings of power Tom is now hanging out very near to halflings all descended from a

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_01]: common ancestral tree who are seeking a place to settle down.

[01:05:56] [SPEAKER_01]: That said I don't think Tom is likely to directly metal hey nori you know where you could settle

[01:06:01] [SPEAKER_01]: down so my wager would be that somehow maybe via a wizard with an affinity for halflings

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_01]: they are led to the Shire after all it can't be pure coincidence that the hobbits settle

[01:06:13] [SPEAKER_01]: in a peaceful place it is a fairly easy walk to Tom's residence in the third age.

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_01]: It all seems like the logical Shire harb- Hobbit origin story kind of obvious in a way

[01:06:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm betting the stranger is Gandalf but that seems a low risk bet at this point.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah I'd agree with that.

[01:06:29] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you think?

[01:06:30] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah I think it's very clear that that's going to because they dropped all the the

[01:06:37] [SPEAKER_02]: Suzat line the lineage all of that is is very clear and like Matt says and like we

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_02]: talked about in the lore cast about Bombadil he's right there next to them so.

[01:06:50] [SPEAKER_01]: And and he did say he was in the withy window he was by the withy window so that is where the

[01:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: old forest was so yes you are placing him correctly in the old forest that's where he

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_01]: was before.

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah I think it's I think it's pretty clear how that's the question but will they end up

[01:07:07] [SPEAKER_02]: there and and through some machinations of Tom and the and the istari yeah I think so.

[01:07:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that's an important point for spoilers I just want to make that point quick

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_01]: you know this whole show is about how right like we know yeah right the lord of the rings

[01:07:21] [SPEAKER_01]: is common knowledge at this point and so we know eventually where all this is going now

[01:07:25] [SPEAKER_01]: we're trying not to spoil plot points that are in between but really this is all about how

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_01]: this whole story is going to be about how do you portray events that are widely known

[01:07:36] [SPEAKER_01]: and Marilyn you were gonna say something?

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah I'm I'm putting more faith in the Harfoots walking song and their traditions

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_06]: and so forth I giving them more of their own agency.

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_06]: I just don't see Bombadil as being this directly interventionary.

[01:07:52] [SPEAKER_02]: That's a good point.

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_06]: He is you know you have to find your own name you have to find your own staff

[01:08:02] [SPEAKER_06]: you know hey Frodo what are you doing with that ring on your finger he'll he'll show you

[01:08:08] [SPEAKER_06]: a safe way out of his realm but if if the stores have a map and they have

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_06]: a legend and the Harfoots have a story that is a directional guide I mean the directions were

[01:08:23] [SPEAKER_06]: to guide the Harfoots back to the stores as I understand it to then say okay we can all go

[01:08:32] [SPEAKER_06]: together up the back trail here and then the next question is how do we get over the Misty

[01:08:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Mountains? How do we get from the Vale of the upper Anduin across the mountains and

[01:08:46] [SPEAKER_06]: towards Bree which was their next settlement point if they're following the lore closely.

[01:08:51] [SPEAKER_02]: So Bombadil is like the observer effect he good yeah yeah it's uh he's like oh little

[01:08:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Hobbit friends you know little store friends looking for a new place to live have you

[01:09:04] [SPEAKER_02]: you know are you oh well what is your song say or whatever he's not going to

[01:09:07] [SPEAKER_02]: do anything he's not gonna you know snap his fingers and he's gonna say right

[01:09:13] [SPEAKER_02]: he's gonna he's gonna ask questions or observe things and reflect back to you whatever it is

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_02]: that you need to hear yourself saying because he doesn't say anything to the stranger about

[01:09:27] [SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna train you in the ways of the forest I'm not gonna exactly I'm not gonna demonstrate to

[01:09:32] [SPEAKER_02]: you he's saying you already know how to do it you know this stuff is all within your grasp

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_02]: so I'm just gonna sit over here and watch you and make silly statements and sing silly songs

[01:09:44] [SPEAKER_02]: and you can take observations and make observations yeah yeah and then you have to

[01:09:50] [SPEAKER_06]: make you got to do the work yeah and oh by the way your ultimate goal is you have to

[01:09:56] [SPEAKER_01]: prevent these two fires from joining yeah would you buy the Tom Bombadil self-help book

[01:10:02] [SPEAKER_06]: well as a contemplative yeah I'm I'm I can kind of understand his point and with these five

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_01]: tips you too can be on your way to the Suzotte is it would that be too much for Tom though

[01:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean Tom doesn't seem like a guy to put things down in writing so yeah it'll be five

[01:10:22] [SPEAKER_06]: ways to find your true self I mean let's think about it if as my theory goes Tom is the

[01:10:29] [SPEAKER_06]: embodiment of the song the essence of the song is free will an individual choice how could

[01:10:38] [SPEAKER_06]: something which is the essence of the song be so directional as to say you should call on me

[01:10:42] [SPEAKER_02]: to this new place and you should do this thing yeah yeah when you you know reach out with

[01:10:46] [SPEAKER_02]: your feelings you know yeah right you know this is how you work with the force he's going

[01:10:50] [SPEAKER_02]: to be like oh you feel the force huh that's interesting what's it like right which is not

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_06]: to say that the show runners are not going to follow more of a feel the force approach

[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_01]: you know we just have to wait and see see a modern day Tom would not be a tech talk

[01:11:04] [SPEAKER_01]: influencer instead he'd be a homesteading youtuber where you just watch him do his

[01:11:10] [SPEAKER_01]: thing and you can learn from him but you just watch him I love it I like that yeah and he

[01:11:16] [SPEAKER_02]: aims his lamb after himself so yes we learned that didn't we that was the the answer to that

[01:11:21] [SPEAKER_01]: and today I'll be building my cabin right and there's just a camera there just yeah he

[01:11:28] [SPEAKER_01]: doesn't say this is how you do this he just does it right you watch him anyway today I

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_01]: will be calming my ironwood tree exactly David you want to take the next two because they're

[01:11:38] [SPEAKER_02]: both kind of short sure Vanessa from San Jose email says I love the discussion about Tom

[01:11:45] [SPEAKER_02]: Bommadil I've also always thought of Tom Bommadil as the embodiment of illuva tar's song of creation

[01:11:52] [SPEAKER_02]: thank you Vanessa thank you like illuva tar he is eternal if I had to give him some

[01:12:00] [SPEAKER_02]: religious analogy he is the holy spirit illuva tar is often seen as a quote unquote clockwork

[01:12:07] [SPEAKER_02]: god he would wind up the watch of creation and walked away however I think Tom like the

[01:12:13] [SPEAKER_02]: holy spirit allows illuva tar to interact with his creation I know and this is the

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_02]: in conclusion of Vanessa's email I know Tolkien repeatedly says that Lord of the Rings is not

[01:12:25] [SPEAKER_02]: religious allegory but he certainly uses Catholic imagery throughout yeah and he also

[01:12:29] [SPEAKER_01]: then goes right back and says it's fundamentally a Catholic work so Tolkien gives with one hand

[01:12:34] [SPEAKER_06]: and takes with the other and I would I would push back against the notion that he's a

[01:12:40] [SPEAKER_06]: clockwork god and that illuva tar wound it up and walked away that that just is not my experience

[01:12:45] [SPEAKER_06]: and understanding at all he gives it a little jizz from time to time right exactly or he he

[01:12:50] [SPEAKER_05]: shakes the watch a little bit hey is this thing telling time right he has the ocean burp at an

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_06]: unexpected exactly exactly has somebody trip in or maybe through ulmo maybe ulmo does it but

[01:13:02] [SPEAKER_06]: right you know yeah yes having a little creature's trip on the edge of volcanic ledges

[01:13:08] [SPEAKER_02]: I think the difference between being remote and being dis disinterested are two maybe two

[01:13:14] [SPEAKER_02]: a distinction there that's a good point yes for sure and then Jordan adds more to the

[01:13:22] [SPEAKER_02]: Bombadil perfection Rufus singing Tom Bombadil song magnifique was pure folk melodic perfection

[01:13:32] [SPEAKER_01]: you gotta you gotta be proud you gotta be more judgmental with the French pronunciation

[01:13:36] [SPEAKER_01]: you know you gotta make people really feel ashamed for their own being shameful for

[01:13:43] [SPEAKER_02]: yeah exactly oh come on you guys you just don't know your French so that wraps up to Hayley's

[01:13:50] [SPEAKER_02]: email actually the third here I love your work and I love to hear what you all thought of

[01:13:54] [SPEAKER_02]: Rufus Wainwright's cover of Tom Bombadil song the Tom Bombadil song at the end of the

[01:14:00] [SPEAKER_02]: fourth episode of the season I thought it was so joyful but a bit sad as well just

[01:14:04] [SPEAKER_02]: beautifully done for some reason it brought me to tears and this is coming from someone who

[01:14:09] [SPEAKER_02]: skips the songs and poems in books please don't judge me too harshly no judgment no judgment

[01:14:15] [SPEAKER_02]: thanks so much thanks thanks so much for your thoughtful and thorough coverage of all things

[01:14:20] [SPEAKER_02]: Tolkien I've learned so much about Tolkien those works from your pot I always look forward

[01:14:24] [SPEAKER_02]: to hearing your thoughts all the best thanks Hayley yeah that we totally missed the song

[01:14:30] [SPEAKER_02]: for episode four and I remember when it kicked in the song and I was like it really shook me

[01:14:38] [SPEAKER_02]: like threw me for a loop because it's so modern and contemporary and it it really it was like

[01:14:46] [SPEAKER_02]: jarring for me in that but uh I don't know what did you guys think I really didn't hear

[01:14:50] [SPEAKER_06]: very much of it because screeners and time constraints and you know all that sort of

[01:15:00] [SPEAKER_06]: stuff okay and I'll confess I'm not familiar with his work so I couldn't really make any

[01:15:07] [SPEAKER_06]: kind of an assessment one thing that I really liked about what Hayley said is she thought it

[01:15:11] [SPEAKER_06]: was so joyful but a bit sad as well and again to me that's a perfect representation of how

[01:15:19] [SPEAKER_06]: one might imagine you know a loving deity feeling about the earth right and and it's

[01:15:28] [SPEAKER_06]: of the world and the universe but obviously sad because free will it's it has its painful side

[01:15:37] [SPEAKER_02]: John are you a Rufus Wainwright stan I think the only thing I've ever heard from him is

[01:15:44] [SPEAKER_01]: uh his hallelujah cover he did he did the uh you know he he actually married Leonard Cohen's

[01:15:52] [SPEAKER_01]: daughter oh oh my so he covered his father-in-law song and his father-in-law said you did an

[01:15:59] [SPEAKER_01]: amazing job Rufus I still like Jeff Buckley's version better well he's the father-in-law you

[01:16:06] [SPEAKER_06]: know he married the daughter he's got to kind of keep him in line that's funny yeah but I

[01:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: thought it did I just want to comment on the song very good very very good song I enjoyed

[01:16:16] [SPEAKER_01]: the cover I thought it was good I do agree Marilyn very jarring because the last scene was

[01:16:21] [SPEAKER_01]: connected to Bumbledale at all I think they could have edited that a little better yeah yeah

[01:16:27] [SPEAKER_02]: moving on the elf rings from anonymous uh this person uh wanted to write in but you know chose

[01:16:37] [SPEAKER_02]: that not to reveal their identity uh they say I've really enjoyed the three episode podcast

[01:16:43] [SPEAKER_02]: review so far I appreciate the discussion about the lore of the rings of power or sorry yeah

[01:16:49] [SPEAKER_02]: and the rings of power adaptation from text to screen I'm glad that all three hosts

[01:16:53] [SPEAKER_02]: have a fair and open mind about the adaptation I think one of the best story elements in rings

[01:16:59] [SPEAKER_02]: of power is giving a solid reason why the rings should be made why they need to be given

[01:17:05] [SPEAKER_02]: out and why the receivers should wear them the elves want to push back the fading but why the

[01:17:14] [SPEAKER_02]: men in the silla merlion text it's somewhat vague why they were received I don't think that would

[01:17:20] [SPEAKER_02]: work on screen I think we need the level of peril caused by the fading and the earthquakes

[01:17:27] [SPEAKER_02]: in casa doom and the rise of mortars darkness to propel the ring story hellbrunn says in

[01:17:33] [SPEAKER_02]: episode two that the rings provide the light needed and in season two I'm starting to see

[01:17:39] [SPEAKER_02]: that mithril provides a tangible element for their power besides a vague type of sauron

[01:17:46] [SPEAKER_02]: and elvish influence in their creation kori olson said recently that rings of power is

[01:17:52] [SPEAKER_02]: in uh is a fill-in-the-blanks adaptation we are seeing that more and more thoughts reactions

[01:18:03] [SPEAKER_06]: well I'm you know I'm coming from the place of the lore and remembering that in the lore

[01:18:13] [SPEAKER_06]: the rings other than the three rings the these other rings were made first as essays

[01:18:19] [SPEAKER_06]: in the craft and experiments and studies and so there was no creating of them by sauron with

[01:18:27] [SPEAKER_06]: particular recipients in mind it was basically the guai de miradine practicing their craft

[01:18:34] [SPEAKER_06]: making rings making more rings and then kella brimbor separately on his own making the three

[01:18:40] [SPEAKER_06]: rings and again at this point it depends on which version you read some of them say

[01:18:46] [SPEAKER_06]: because galadriel was expressing her grief over the fact that she lived in a world where things

[01:18:51] [SPEAKER_06]: and she would like preserve them which was not a good thing because it's going against

[01:18:58] [SPEAKER_06]: the natural order of things so here we have a completely different interpretation of the story

[01:19:04] [SPEAKER_06]: which is I think partly what our our listener is saying here and of course mithril was not a

[01:19:10] [SPEAKER_02]: consideration at all in in the lore so but in terms of like embodying it so that we can

[01:19:20] [SPEAKER_02]: deal with it on screen what you know right that's the question is is was that a good choice or does

[01:19:26] [SPEAKER_06]: is it an effective choice or and in the silmarillion text he says it's somewhat or she

[01:19:32] [SPEAKER_06]: it's somewhat vague why they were received it's pretty clear in the silmarillion text that

[01:19:39] [SPEAKER_06]: sauron scooped all the rings that he could find and there happened to be this number of

[01:19:43] [SPEAKER_06]: them and so he dealt out seven to the dwarf lords and he dealt out nine to different

[01:19:47] [SPEAKER_06]: men now this could have taken place over hundreds of years so we can't really answer

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_01]: too much of this question after this point yep i do want to say i think it's perfectly reasonable

[01:19:59] [SPEAKER_01]: to say men like power and and and the elves are different because they are kind of removed

[01:20:07] [SPEAKER_01]: from mortality in a way that allows them to look at things a little more soberly sometimes

[01:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: right they don't just crave power like that and also they just fought like

[01:20:17] [SPEAKER_01]: thousands and thousands of years of wars for power and they're kind of tired of it so they're

[01:20:22] [SPEAKER_01]: not that enticed by these rings of power anymore except for this motivation of the

[01:20:28] [SPEAKER_01]: elves fading whereas men you absolutely have uh you know of the desire for power and dwarves

[01:20:36] [SPEAKER_01]: perhaps you know we've said that they're they're less corruptible but they do

[01:20:41] [SPEAKER_06]: like their jewels quite a lot true and as the writer says um we're given very very specific

[01:20:52] [SPEAKER_01]: reasons also i have to make a major correction to my rufus wainwright story which i went on

[01:20:59] [SPEAKER_01]: the wikipedia to double check it and he did not marry lennard cohen's daughter he is a gay

[01:21:04] [SPEAKER_01]: so he definitely did not marry his daughter he did donate sperm and fathered a child with

[01:21:10] [SPEAKER_01]: lennard cohen's daughter okay okay so good thing you just want it before i get added

[01:21:18] [SPEAKER_01]: very much doing a major correction here there we go big trouble yes and i'll just say here too

[01:21:25] [SPEAKER_06]: that um in the lore gladriel's wing does have a specific effect on her but i'm not going to

[01:21:32] [SPEAKER_01]: say what it is or how it operates all right we got we got maureen next yep you want to do it

[01:21:38] [SPEAKER_06]: sure or i can you want to do it sure all right maureen writes it could be that the dying trees

[01:21:44] [SPEAKER_06]: were assigned to the elves to leave middle earth we now have hints that it was sauron who

[01:21:50] [SPEAKER_06]: infected the trees black slime sauron is similar to the black mold in the leaves

[01:21:55] [SPEAKER_06]: we don't know if he was powerful enough then to have done that and what does the scene of

[01:21:59] [SPEAKER_06]: waters rejecting the rings tell us that's me saying a very important question presumably one

[01:22:06] [SPEAKER_06]: of the valor thinks the elves should keep the rings and stay in middle earth or at least that

[01:22:10] [SPEAKER_06]: the waters don't want them after all the rings are a fire not water and anatar steps out of

[01:22:16] [SPEAKER_06]: the fireplace like he traveled by flu powder excuse me so far we've seen evil as ugly orcs

[01:22:25] [SPEAKER_06]: burned landscapes torture and murder now evil comes disguised in the form of anna and that are

[01:22:31] [SPEAKER_06]: divine and beautiful so shouldn't we also mistrust the renewed beauty of the trees and

[01:22:37] [SPEAKER_06]: landscape but as viewers we are also sucked in because we love la florian in rivendell

[01:22:43] [SPEAKER_06]: so we want them to keep the magic and beauty of the three rings when kyrdan says to separate

[01:22:49] [SPEAKER_06]: the artists

[01:22:51] [SPEAKER_06]: it took me out of the story it is a very current events argument and made me wonder if the writers

[01:22:57] [SPEAKER_06]: showrunners are being a bit self-serving and defending themselves it made me want to start

[01:23:02] [SPEAKER_06]: googling to see if they were using this line to defend their own work or the show

[01:23:05] [SPEAKER_06]: i mean who would defend sauron in that manner i draw the line when the art is a powerful

[01:23:10] [SPEAKER_06]: ring and the artist is a dark lord well i'm with you on that one so your thoughts

[01:23:22] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah i mean first of all flu powder excellent joke yeah but yeah i mean i think too they make

[01:23:30] [SPEAKER_01]: good point in the show that they kind of need the elves to stay in middle earth because

[01:23:35] [SPEAKER_01]: it does appear that there's a lot of problems that the men and the dwarves and the hobbits

[01:23:39] [SPEAKER_01]: who they don't even seem to be aware of they i don't think they could deal with it yet you

[01:23:43] [SPEAKER_01]: know i i just don't think they can deal with it alone yet especially because sauron is not

[01:23:47] [SPEAKER_01]: the third age when the when the elves are feeding even more and elrond is leading them away again

[01:23:53] [SPEAKER_01]: this is not spoiler for this this is the lord of the rings but in the third age you know sauron

[01:23:59] [SPEAKER_01]: is at a partial strength because he doesn't have his ring but here you have sauron he has not

[01:24:04] [SPEAKER_01]: poured anything into his ring he is at full strength and he you know there's an orchestra

[01:24:09] [SPEAKER_01]: army he doesn't control it right now but addar has an orchestra army i think the elves are

[01:24:14] [SPEAKER_01]: what do we do we can't just abandon these mortal people of middle earth because they

[01:24:19] [SPEAKER_01]: don't have the capacity to fight back right now i think that's something to show

[01:24:24] [SPEAKER_02]: would it would be i don't know how they would show it but the fact that the elves are this

[01:24:33] [SPEAKER_02]: stabilizing force and a protective force in some way for themselves and for men and for

[01:24:41] [SPEAKER_02]: orbs they don't really see that that's something that they're telling on screen so much

[01:24:45] [SPEAKER_02]: as they were patrolling the men of the southlands in an occupying kind of way but they

[01:24:54] [SPEAKER_02]: i guess that's a little complex i don't know there's just a i haven't seen a

[01:24:59] [SPEAKER_02]: really good on-screen depiction of the fact that why do we need to stay here

[01:25:05] [SPEAKER_06]: well i mean aside from what they are or not doing the elves are really the only ones who can

[01:25:11] [SPEAKER_06]: begin to have the sort of power and organization yeah to combat something like sauron right

[01:25:18] [SPEAKER_02]: there's no sense just the other nameless things that are out there just all of the

[01:25:22] [SPEAKER_06]: evil that morgoth unleashed on their land i have the sense there's very little if any

[01:25:26] [SPEAKER_06]: communication between them and numinor which is quite clearly clearly from the lore and i'm

[01:25:32] [SPEAKER_06]: wondering how they're going to handle that i because there's people everywhere throughout

[01:25:38] [SPEAKER_06]: middle earth here exactly and they have been living in a peaceful couple of hundred years

[01:25:47] [SPEAKER_06]: now thousands even yeah that's true i guess it was about a thousand years that galadriel

[01:25:52] [SPEAKER_06]: has been searching for right right right and interestingly enough i mean as we know now

[01:25:59] [SPEAKER_06]: sauron was was definitely present just you know making his way up from slime mold to

[01:26:06] [SPEAKER_06]: slimy human being looking and so she would not be able to find him but what she found instead

[01:26:13] [SPEAKER_06]: which is great right right looking and she couldn't find him it's like no because he

[01:26:17] [SPEAKER_06]: was a slime mold right right exactly so you know we can't hardly blame her for that i think

[01:26:22] [SPEAKER_06]: but she did eventually find you know that adar had co-opted the plan and was setting

[01:26:28] [SPEAKER_06]: this up and um you know blowing up the mountain and basically establishing mortor but um yeah sauron

[01:26:36] [SPEAKER_06]: was coming along later to to scoop it i'm interested that the the uh separate the art

[01:26:43] [SPEAKER_06]: from the artist took her out of the story i understand what she's saying because it did

[01:26:48] [SPEAKER_06]: also to me sound extremely topical i think they phrased it in such a way

[01:26:56] [SPEAKER_06]: as to not want us to say oh yeah so you know you're saying that cancel culture is a bad thing

[01:27:04] [SPEAKER_06]: i think they phrased it i think kyrdan expresses it in a way that kyrdan would express it

[01:27:11] [SPEAKER_06]: and i think it's an important concept that certainly predates 21st century cancel culture

[01:27:18] [SPEAKER_06]: and it's kind of like what i was saying before about anytime you see a desert

[01:27:22] [SPEAKER_06]: landscape it's really hard not to think tatsui in anymore anytime you hear this particular

[01:27:27] [SPEAKER_06]: topic brought up it's very hard not to think cancel culture right and i can't imagine that

[01:27:33] [SPEAKER_06]: the showrunners would have wanted us to do that but you know i'm i do not purview to

[01:27:39] [SPEAKER_06]: their thoughts so you know what what what do you guys think it didn't take me out of it

[01:27:46] [SPEAKER_01]: at all i was i was totally fine with it also david by the way on on why the elves need

[01:27:51] [SPEAKER_01]: to stay i would direct you to our power levels podcast that we just did because

[01:27:57] [SPEAKER_01]: because they're more powerful than men right there are more powerful right right right elves

[01:28:02] [SPEAKER_01]: are able to go toe to toe with my are in a way that men just aren't correct but they have

[01:28:08] [SPEAKER_02]: they just on screen they haven't shown us like oh here's yeah i see what you're saying

[01:28:12] [SPEAKER_02]: here's the elves with the you know um on patrol and protecting or with this you know

[01:28:18] [SPEAKER_02]: helping to resettle some people because of a volcano or whatever right there they're not

[01:28:22] [SPEAKER_06]: showing us their good efforts i think they were showing us that in the very beginning and then

[01:28:28] [SPEAKER_06]: gil galla declared the war over and pulled back right right the watchers the one remaining set

[01:28:34] [SPEAKER_06]: of watchers who were watching over the one remaining set of beings which then came off it

[01:28:38] [SPEAKER_02]: more as like they were being patrolled by the elves as opposed to being protected by

[01:28:43] [SPEAKER_01]: the elves well but also let me push back on you a little bit how about galadriel's whole

[01:28:47] [SPEAKER_01]: parkour scene where she's just taking down basically an army of orcs solo i mean to me that

[01:28:52] [SPEAKER_02]: shows well i'm not i'm not talking about the power level i'm talking about like seeing the

[01:28:57] [SPEAKER_02]: elves as a population that is doing good across the land yeah all right all right fair enough

[01:29:02] [SPEAKER_01]: now this next sentence is for the tolkien estate so if you're not the tolkien estate

[01:29:06] [SPEAKER_01]: you can fast forward 30 seconds you cowards give them the rights to glorifindal versus

[01:29:12] [SPEAKER_01]: the ballrog give them the rights to thing gulfin versus morgoth i want it all i want it all

[01:29:20] [SPEAKER_06]: all right we're back to the real podcast it would be lovely it would be lovely i think

[01:29:26] [SPEAKER_06]: obviously the reasons for the elves remaining in the show are slightly different from

[01:29:31] [SPEAKER_06]: the lore there is a sense in which they are still loving this place

[01:29:37] [SPEAKER_06]: but there was also a sense of yeah we're here in the first place because we defy the valor

[01:29:46] [SPEAKER_01]: and they turn here in the second place because they divide the valor i mean come on the valor

[01:29:51] [SPEAKER_01]: also kind of messed up the plan a little bit too by bringing them over to yes yes

[01:29:58] [SPEAKER_06]: unquestionably everybody has their own oopsie moment some of which were manifestly larger

[01:30:05] [SPEAKER_06]: than others but the whole treatment of valor is the good conduct prize from season one really

[01:30:13] [SPEAKER_06]: kind of messed that whole thing up so all of a sudden now oh yes we all get to return

[01:30:19] [SPEAKER_06]: to valor because the tree is dying and we have to go or we're going to die and you know

[01:30:23] [SPEAKER_06]: what changed there all of a sudden previously it sounded as though you couldn't go unless

[01:30:30] [SPEAKER_06]: you were given you know the golden ticket now it sounds like oh yeah we could have decided all

[01:30:37] [SPEAKER_06]: along we all wanted to go back which of course was the actual truth of the situation so

[01:30:42] [SPEAKER_06]: they're kind of tripping over some of their own concepts here i think

[01:30:49] [SPEAKER_06]: but i think it is a very important theme of this whole question of is it okay to use the

[01:30:59] [SPEAKER_06]: artist and it ties in with what we were talking about that it's really only the elves that are

[01:31:05] [SPEAKER_06]: going to have the possibility of defeating a takeover by sauron or by ador if that is his

[01:31:12] [SPEAKER_06]: intention and so you use the tools that you have at your disposal with the conscious

[01:31:19] [SPEAKER_06]: awareness that no they are not perfect because for one thing nothing is perfect

[01:31:25] [SPEAKER_06]: but also it is necessary to have as much as you can

[01:31:34] [SPEAKER_06]: to defeat this enemy which is so incredibly dangerous and that's why galadriel says

[01:31:41] [SPEAKER_06]: you know the only thing of any importance is defeating sauron right more than my life she

[01:31:48] [SPEAKER_06]: didn't say it but more than your life elrond and and so on and so on and that the rings

[01:31:52] [SPEAKER_01]: are crucial to that accomplishment so all right well let's keep moving because we got a bunch more

[01:32:02] [SPEAKER_01]: feedback uh causa doom revisited i'll read eric sees email here hello long time fan

[01:32:09] [SPEAKER_01]: we're here writing my first email to y'all i'm a very very casual Tolkien enjoyer having

[01:32:16] [SPEAKER_01]: only watched the original trilogy of movies and never having read the books i suspect the answer

[01:32:20] [SPEAKER_01]: is going to be because that's not how jr r Tolkien wrote the story which is fine and all

[01:32:25] [SPEAKER_01]: but i figured i'd ask anyway is there a reason why the dwarves couldn't just start farming

[01:32:30] [SPEAKER_01]: their food stocks above ground it's not like they're trapped under the mountain as evident

[01:32:35] [SPEAKER_01]: by how we see durin and desa travel over to the elves or for that matter how with how

[01:32:42] [SPEAKER_01]: easy it is to get out and visit neighboring kingdoms why not simply trade or any combination

[01:32:48] [SPEAKER_01]: of both it would take time to set up farmable land and then grow crops but they could surely

[01:32:55] [SPEAKER_01]: trade their gems minerals and metal works for food stock while they prepared and grew

[01:33:00] [SPEAKER_01]: i understand dwarves are meant to be prideful people and stubborn but with only three months

[01:33:06] [SPEAKER_01]: of food left surely this warrants emergency action i'm looking forward to hearing if

[01:33:12] [SPEAKER_01]: there is a reason or answer other than because that's not how jr r Tolkien wrote it thanks

[01:33:18] [SPEAKER_01]: can i can i get with all kinds of reasons go for it you ever tried to buy food in iceland

[01:33:25] [SPEAKER_01]: or alaska it's very expensive to import food very expensive and i'm gonna i have another

[01:33:32] [SPEAKER_01]: thing deposit capitalism i do think the dwarves run this very it does seem like a very

[01:33:40] [SPEAKER_01]: capitalistic laissez-faire economy i mean with uh the way we see the market working with uh

[01:33:46] [SPEAKER_01]: during andesa when they're arguing about not having money because he's not a prince anymore

[01:33:52] [SPEAKER_01]: i just think it's you point out that it's going to take a long time to spin up a farming

[01:33:58] [SPEAKER_01]: economy that's not going to happen overnight and sure they can get food in but do you have

[01:34:04] [SPEAKER_01]: the organization where the king can go get all the food for everybody is there a distribution

[01:34:07] [SPEAKER_01]: system all that i i think it's it's a lot of logistics i think my brain is just going

[01:34:12] [SPEAKER_01]: to project management at this point right and like this is the way we've always done it can

[01:34:18] [SPEAKER_01]: we pivot is a is a tough thing right sure particularly when you're living in a landscape

[01:34:24] [SPEAKER_02]: that has no arable farmland transport i would i would think a big thing would be just

[01:34:29] [SPEAKER_02]: transporting that food up uh that much food for that many uh people would be a huge

[01:34:36] [SPEAKER_02]: logistical operation that would have to start up overnight so i think they were my guess is

[01:34:41] [SPEAKER_02]: they were like oh well we'll just dig some new shafts and it will all be good but they were

[01:34:45] [SPEAKER_02]: then yeah you know having the problems where they couldn't hear the mountain anymore if they

[01:34:49] [SPEAKER_06]: had been able to grow crops from the beginning then they would have done that

[01:34:53] [SPEAKER_06]: well in their surroundings and so forth right i also think back to the hobbit

[01:34:58] [SPEAKER_06]: when uh thorn was talking about the history of the lonely mountain saying

[01:35:02] [SPEAKER_06]: we didn't need to grow foodstuffs because we could trade for whatever we wanted with dale

[01:35:09] [SPEAKER_06]: right with they said they had a community that was already farming and had surplus that they

[01:35:14] [SPEAKER_06]: could sell yeah there is nothing of that nature that i know of it because i do i don't think the

[01:35:18] [SPEAKER_02]: elves are growing surplus right right to be able to grow surplus and transport it that

[01:35:23] [SPEAKER_02]: would be your biggest right and being prideful well maybe i mean yes there is a sense that

[01:35:29] [SPEAKER_06]: thorn looked down upon those those primitives in the shire because you know all they did was

[01:35:35] [SPEAKER_06]: farm and so forth you know and let's just pause it how many dwarfs are there in khaza

[01:35:40] [SPEAKER_06]: doom a lot a lot a lot and you know three months is three months and oh by the way are

[01:35:45] [SPEAKER_06]: we moving into winter now so nobody's going to be growing extra for the next six months

[01:35:50] [SPEAKER_02]: right right so yeah the surrounding farm economies aren't geared for surplus yeah

[01:35:54] [SPEAKER_06]: and it takes a while to start that up yeah right so you're the answer eric is project

[01:36:00] [SPEAKER_01]: that's really the answer is it's it's a big pivot you need to completely change the food

[01:36:06] [SPEAKER_01]: sourcing of your entire society extremely quickly i think that's the answer it's not even part of

[01:36:13] [SPEAKER_01]: tolkien's writing i don't think there's anything against farming for dwarves outside

[01:36:17] [SPEAKER_01]: with tolkien's writings because they're farming inside yeah this is this is more of a

[01:36:22] [SPEAKER_06]: logistics kind of question and actually the farming inside i think is a creation of the

[01:36:30] [SPEAKER_06]: doing that in you know the two uh belegost and the other community of the dwarfs that was part

[01:36:36] [SPEAKER_06]: of the larian in the first stage well this is some of the coolest stuff that they're doing

[01:36:39] [SPEAKER_02]: they're like oh how would they exactly mirrors exactly yeah that's very dwarf a very dwarven

[01:36:46] [SPEAKER_06]: answer and frankly i wonder how they're growing grain because you know i can see you know sort

[01:36:52] [SPEAKER_06]: of base level green plants and stuff like that but green takes a lot of room and a lot of

[01:36:57] [SPEAKER_01]: all right well want to go back to numinor here sure yes why don't you go for it john

[01:37:04] [SPEAKER_01]: all right i'll keep going here arthur h says i did not pick up on the placing of the seashell

[01:37:09] [SPEAKER_01]: on the tomb of tarp volunteer but this is significant i have presented at myth mood and

[01:37:14] [SPEAKER_01]: published an article demonstrating that there are ways in which new minorean culture suggests

[01:37:19] [SPEAKER_01]: jewish culture and when we visit a grave it is customary to place a small stone on the grave

[01:37:24] [SPEAKER_01]: just saying i totally agree with that i totally agree with that especially the

[01:37:29] [SPEAKER_01]: the tributes to shrines to temples essentially on specific holy days that is very jewish

[01:37:38] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah i think new minorean culture has a lot of a lot of jewish culture in it for sure

[01:37:43] [SPEAKER_06]: intentionally so on telkins part you know the the mental karma three times a year right um

[01:37:49] [SPEAKER_06]: fact that the king was also the priest exactly early form yeah there's there's a lot right

[01:37:55] [SPEAKER_01]: because judaism to tolkien well it's a little complicated because judaism consists of more than

[01:38:01] [SPEAKER_01]: just the torah uh it consists of a lot of talmudic teachings and and mishnah torah and

[01:38:06] [SPEAKER_01]: whatnot but anyway the point is tolkien would have looked at at least the base rules of the

[01:38:12] [SPEAKER_01]: tora and been like that's an interesting way to run a ritualistic society and so i'll turn

[01:38:17] [SPEAKER_01]: that into new minorean culture and i think that's pretty clear here so good point and i'm glad that

[01:38:23] [SPEAKER_06]: arthur wrote in because i knew that there were other religious traditions that would place stones

[01:38:28] [SPEAKER_06]: upon graves and so forth i just couldn't remember which one it was so thank you arthur for

[01:38:33] [SPEAKER_02]: reminding me that it was of course jewish culture and uh arthur has participated in a

[01:38:39] [SPEAKER_06]: moot oh yes arthur is well known in in tolkien circles oh really well thank you

[01:38:44] [SPEAKER_02]: well gosh i feel a little

[01:38:48] [SPEAKER_02]: we're blessed is this is this like an eagle coming to uh to visit us on our little podcast here

[01:38:53] [SPEAKER_02]: something like that okay cool take it as auspicious stick around arthur we like you arthur

[01:39:00] [SPEAKER_01]: and uh athena a i'm just gonna finish off the new menorah section here uh said it looked like

[01:39:05] [SPEAKER_01]: the eagle was looking in muriel's direction and then pharaoh's own supporters were quick to

[01:39:09] [SPEAKER_01]: twist the eagles presence to suit their agenda listen strange eagles flying on balconies is no

[01:39:15] [SPEAKER_01]: basis for a system of government supreme executive power derives from the mandate of

[01:39:19] [SPEAKER_01]: the masses not from some farcical avian ceremony

[01:39:27] [SPEAKER_01]: but in all seriousness it is interesting to see an eagle so boldly present in the episode

[01:39:34] [SPEAKER_01]: with new menorah if i recall in the silmarillion eagles were indicators of approval from balinar

[01:39:38] [SPEAKER_01]: yes that is correct and eventually they stopped coming so often which makes sense because you know

[01:39:44] [SPEAKER_01]: pharaoh's own says right he's like oh it's been a long time you don't always get an eagle

[01:39:50] [SPEAKER_06]: yeah that was a really chilling moment the um twisting of the religious into the political

[01:40:01] [SPEAKER_06]: yeah and someone taking quick advantage of it and interestingly it wasn't pharaoh himself but

[01:40:06] [SPEAKER_06]: he had the nose to know that he couldn't do it himself someone else had to make that play

[01:40:12] [SPEAKER_01]: he he had his friend do the slow clap getting into the audience right there oh boy all right

[01:40:19] [SPEAKER_01]: uh we got a voicemail from venessa you want to listen to that here yeah about tolkien's real

[01:40:24] [SPEAKER_00]: life and his writings here we go hi everyone um this is venessa from san jose i think i

[01:40:30] [SPEAKER_00]: finally figured out how to get the voicemails to you i had some problems with house of the

[01:40:35] [SPEAKER_00]: i think i nailed it this time so anyway indeed you did um just welcome back i'm so glad to

[01:40:41] [SPEAKER_00]: hear you guys again and to be in middle earth with you all and i'm just really enjoying

[01:40:47] [SPEAKER_00]: this season um i just did decide to become a subscriber so oh thank you and i would highly

[01:40:54] [SPEAKER_00]: just urge anyone else that's thinking about it to to just take that plunge because your content

[01:41:00] [SPEAKER_00]: is just so thorough and so enriching and i just really appreciate all the work you guys do

[01:41:07] [SPEAKER_00]: um anyway i just wanted to say i was listening this week and you made a comment about a

[01:41:13] [SPEAKER_00]: conversation between um maryel and ellen deal and they were talking about um what they

[01:41:22] [SPEAKER_00]: needed to sacrifice in order to maintain their faithfulness um to the to the elves you know

[01:41:28] [SPEAKER_00]: their elf friends and it just kind of made me bring up this very visual image of tolkien's

[01:41:36] [SPEAKER_00]: mother mabel and in his writings and in his letters how much he talks about what she

[01:41:43] [SPEAKER_00]: sacrificed you know up into her own life in his opinion um for her faith and um

[01:41:52] [SPEAKER_00]: you know the ostracization from her family the poverty because they they refused to support

[01:41:59] [SPEAKER_00]: her when she converted to catholicism etc and i just i'd never really kind of made that

[01:42:06] [SPEAKER_00]: connection between those events in his life and the deep impact that really had on his writing

[01:42:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and until you made that comment and it just kind of was really hit home oh wow that's

[01:42:21] [SPEAKER_00]: you know yeah that makes perfect sense now um so just you know thank you for that insight

[01:42:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and i look forward to listening to more podcasts and more lore casts and have a great week all

[01:42:38] [SPEAKER_02]: right bye-bye thank you venessa that was a great it's great to hear from you finally i

[01:42:46] [SPEAKER_01]: recall the troubles in house of the dragons yeah glad you glad you made it thanks for

[01:42:51] [SPEAKER_01]: being a subscriber and thanks for keeping calling in um i love this connection and i think it applies

[01:42:56] [SPEAKER_01]: to with uh the asildor stuff with his mother right yes because talking definitely i don't recall

[01:43:03] [SPEAKER_01]: the exact language but there's a letter or something where tolkien says basically his

[01:43:07] [SPEAKER_01]: mother was just so lovely and gave all herself to her children yes she killed herself out of

[01:43:14] [SPEAKER_06]: devotion so that her children could be brought up in the faith yeah it's a great connection

[01:43:19] [SPEAKER_02]: i just curious about your wording there killed herself d you meant like she went over

[01:43:24] [SPEAKER_01]: she worked herself she exerted over exerted yeah no she did not commit suicide i want to be

[01:43:29] [SPEAKER_06]: clear on that there was no self-harm no no no no she had diabetes yeah right which in those

[01:43:34] [SPEAKER_02]: days was not treatable right right right and if you can't yeah not not being able to take

[01:43:41] [SPEAKER_02]: yourself take care of yourself with that condition at that time would have been very hard i think

[01:43:49] [SPEAKER_06]: in squalor but they definitely lived in in penury and so yeah meager she had to do a lot of work

[01:43:58] [SPEAKER_06]: and she was teaching the boys and trying to get them into school and right so on and she she's

[01:44:03] [SPEAKER_01]: the one who taught tolkien language right she was yes she was really with him all the way and

[01:44:08] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah i i really like this so thank you venessa for bringing this in the whole buffalo

[01:44:14] [SPEAKER_01]: so uh who wants to go next we've got some really deep lore speculation maryland sure matthew jay

[01:44:22] [SPEAKER_06]: writes in about a particular term that i stumbled over oh i did too i did you know see that's why

[01:44:28] [SPEAKER_01]: i'm trying to use extra elvis tonight because i gotta make up for the fact that i miss

[01:44:34] [SPEAKER_06]: matthew jay writes re season two episode four pretty sure suzanne is the western name for

[01:44:41] [SPEAKER_06]: shire shire suzanne with a t suffix as the definite article in the common speech as suzanne refers to

[01:44:50] [SPEAKER_06]: an independently organized district especially one around a local capital the word seems to

[01:44:54] [SPEAKER_06]: have been used in gondor for any of the main divisions of the realm of levenin ethylian and

[01:44:59] [SPEAKER_06]: so on its most famous use was for the land of the hobbits in the northern parts of middle

[01:45:03] [SPEAKER_06]: earth west debris for this reason region the name suzanne one was translated by tolkien into

[01:45:11] [SPEAKER_06]: much more familiar form the shire yeah this gets in with tolkien soul creation of his um

[01:45:16] [SPEAKER_06]: frame narratives that what we read in lord of the rings is an english translation from a text

[01:45:22] [SPEAKER_06]: which was written in west ron which was based upon the adunaiac language of the new norians

[01:45:28] [SPEAKER_06]: that was transformed over time um by the ones who settled in middle earth every time you think

[01:45:37] [SPEAKER_02]: oh this is just a cool sword and sorcery sort of story it's like no no he actually not only

[01:45:43] [SPEAKER_02]: do you invent languages he invented the histories of languages bring out the begats

[01:45:49] [SPEAKER_06]: yeah right right lord and i don't think i'd ever seen it with the t on the end

[01:45:54] [SPEAKER_06]: i pretty sure i had seen the suz a and it kind of rang a bell and i didn't listen closely

[01:46:01] [SPEAKER_06]: and and uh yeah so it's also really hard when you don't have subtitles right like

[01:46:06] [SPEAKER_01]: you had the spelling of this when you got the public episode we did not have the spelling we

[01:46:10] [SPEAKER_02]: just got suzanne yeah and if we can't hear it yeah yeah yeah so anyway yeah so i think we'd

[01:46:17] [SPEAKER_06]: talk about it maybe in the next episode a little bit but basically matthew jay has got

[01:46:22] [SPEAKER_06]: it spot on yeah excellent explanation for how that all came about thank you so thank you

[01:46:27] [SPEAKER_06]: maryland you want to do the next one too from arthur sure because david said let's get

[01:46:32] [SPEAKER_01]: more arthur age here you are with more arthur age just magically appeared it's in the document

[01:46:39] [SPEAKER_06]: in the review of episode three there was a discussion of the manufacture of the palantiri

[01:46:44] [SPEAKER_06]: and how gandalf said maybe feanor looking at the silmarillion i recall a discussion of all

[01:46:50] [SPEAKER_06]: the stuff feanor made including things i don't remember they specified gem or stone in which

[01:46:56] [SPEAKER_06]: things far off could be seen i think that's highly suggestive and the law firm of goth mug

[01:47:02] [SPEAKER_06]: goth mug shilab angmar and goth mug keep mentioning something about patents

[01:47:09] [SPEAKER_06]: that is classic died in the world arthur h okay yeah that's good now you see the full character

[01:47:15] [SPEAKER_06]: the man yeah i think i hope arthur you keep on writing because we will definitely enjoy hearing

[01:47:21] [SPEAKER_02]: from you we've had a couple of good singers from the the folks tonight so keep them coming

[01:47:25] [SPEAKER_02]: we have people coming it makes it makes reading through the the feedback stuff a lot more fun

[01:47:31] [SPEAKER_02]: when we get a zinger or two you get one internet point per chuckle

[01:47:37] [SPEAKER_01]: let's see how would now we start counting chuckles all right ed 74 david you want to

[01:47:43] [SPEAKER_02]: close us out with the last couple sure ed 74 on the patreon here's a puzzler i just

[01:47:48] [SPEAKER_02]: conceived about luthian million put a bunch of her own power into thing all

[01:47:56] [SPEAKER_02]: rather like sauron putting his power into the ring right that's why thing all becomes so

[01:48:02] [SPEAKER_02]: powerful i think he's described as appearing as a lord of the mayar so then after million

[01:48:10] [SPEAKER_02]: empowers him they've got a kid luthian who's a maya elda hybrid but thing all is full of

[01:48:19] [SPEAKER_02]: millions power question mark so is she more than mothering but kind of projecting herself

[01:48:26] [SPEAKER_02]: into an earthly form not in the terms of identity or personhood but as far as the

[01:48:33] [SPEAKER_02]: characteristics thus is luthian closer to maya than elda

[01:48:42] [SPEAKER_06]: no my first thought is that you don't become a maya by birth you become a maya by being

[01:48:51] [SPEAKER_06]: created a maya at the beginning no and so the maya-ness may be shared around but it's it's

[01:48:59] [SPEAKER_06]: it's like sharing happiness you know you don't lose any of your happiness by sharing it with

[01:49:04] [SPEAKER_06]: other people you don't lose any of your maya-ness by sharing it with other people it's not a you

[01:49:08] [SPEAKER_06]: know a measurable amount you have to pour out carefully and i i for my part put a bunch of her

[01:49:19] [SPEAKER_06]: own power to thing all that to me is almost too much of a statement about how she empowered

[01:49:25] [SPEAKER_06]: him it makes it sound again like this sort of transfer thing and i think it part of it was

[01:49:30] [SPEAKER_06]: he was content to be with her because in the light of her face he saw the light of the two

[01:49:38] [SPEAKER_06]: trees and was content and so she might have enhanced him to some degree but it was really

[01:49:46] [SPEAKER_06]: her own girdle that was surrounding the kingdom of doria and you know thingal was a mighty

[01:49:51] [SPEAKER_06]: elf to begin with right so i don't think she you know had a roll of die and power up or

[01:49:59] [SPEAKER_06]: whatever i just don't think it was that transactional i know john what are your

[01:50:02] [SPEAKER_01]: thoughts i i completely agree i mean thing all is one of the big three right he's one of the big

[01:50:06] [SPEAKER_01]: three elves that went to valinor and first saw the light of the trees right um i i do want

[01:50:11] [SPEAKER_01]: to do one quick lore point because nancy asked in the comments of the feedback document isn't

[01:50:16] [SPEAKER_01]: it eldar i questioned for my lore knowledge uh so eldar is the plural for these elves elda

[01:50:23] [SPEAKER_01]: take off the r and it becomes singular right right so that's that's why that's like that

[01:50:29] [SPEAKER_01]: same thing with maya maya valar vala that's just a convention in talking i know it's it's

[01:50:35] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of weird it's not it's it feels foreign to our english and it is because

[01:50:38] [SPEAKER_06]: it's a different language and you could also say that what malian what luvian received from

[01:50:43] [SPEAKER_06]: malian was the chains and trammels of the flesh of our love exactly yeah i think i think

[01:50:51] [SPEAKER_01]: it's more like uh it's when your mom says to you when you're a kid show me three of your friends

[01:50:55] [SPEAKER_01]: and i'll tell you who you are right it's uh it's that whole who you hang out with rubs off on

[01:51:00] [SPEAKER_01]: you right and there's many many sociological studies that show that your peers influence

[01:51:05] [SPEAKER_01]: your personality and your habits much more than your parents family do well yeah and so

[01:51:11] [SPEAKER_01]: makes me i think that's that's quite right i think thing all just being in proximity

[01:51:17] [SPEAKER_01]: council from a maya constantly when he asks for it sure listens to it i think that would

[01:51:24] [SPEAKER_01]: would enhance his his knowledge and enhances his because elvish magic isn't like a power right

[01:51:32] [SPEAKER_01]: it's not power over something it's it's not knowledge of the world and ability to interact

[01:51:37] [SPEAKER_01]: with it in a way that feels like magic but it's really just interacting with the natural

[01:51:41] [SPEAKER_01]: world above the ability of men so yes i think that's what that's what thing that's what luthian

[01:51:47] [SPEAKER_01]: oh my god i'm mixing up all our names now it's late that's what malian is enhancing

[01:51:51] [SPEAKER_01]: and thing all it is not that she's giving him you know yes power juice right right no

[01:51:57] [SPEAKER_06]: that's a good point shan that the the ability of the elves rests in their craft which they

[01:52:01] [SPEAKER_06]: have thousands of years to develop to such a point that to mortals it appears to be

[01:52:06] [SPEAKER_06]: magic when it actually is not right david you want to read up the last one yeah let's do it

[01:52:15] [SPEAKER_02]: crossovers in the land of the lore hounds okay this is interesting i have not pre-read this

[01:52:21] [SPEAKER_02]: email so mark in glasgow hi maryland and sarah oh this is from rings and rituals rituals

[01:52:29] [SPEAKER_02]: feedback that's why the title here hi maryland and sarah i listened to and loved the lore hounds

[01:52:36] [SPEAKER_02]: coverage of the rings of power season one in the second age prologues which were outstanding

[01:52:41] [SPEAKER_02]: especially the favorite tolkien scholar contributions i come back and followed through

[01:52:47] [SPEAKER_02]: house of the dragon and took a season pass for the rings of power and found your rings

[01:52:52] [SPEAKER_02]: and rituals in my feed it worked and what a delightful discovery your conversations are

[01:52:58] [SPEAKER_02]: interesting informative and just a joy thank you both for this thank you mark i have just

[01:53:05] [SPEAKER_02]: finished episode five partings and well to say i'm a bit late for the feedback maybe an

[01:53:11] [SPEAKER_02]: understatement but i had to say maryland to hear you say james the sixth of scotland and

[01:53:18] [SPEAKER_02]: first of england made me smile yes i'm scottish haha it is so often just said as

[01:53:25] [SPEAKER_02]: the first and sarah you said first and sixth and respect to you as an english woman for adding

[01:53:32] [SPEAKER_02]: the sixth bit but you did get it wrong the wrong way around haha but don't worry it's all nonsense

[01:53:40] [SPEAKER_02]: anyway i am a committed republican too that's a small r for the americans haha i'm including

[01:53:47] [SPEAKER_02]: john and david too i just love all the lore coverage i have read lord of the rings maybe

[01:53:53] [SPEAKER_02]: every 18 months since i was a teenager including the appendices maybe less so of late in my 40s

[01:54:00] [SPEAKER_02]: now it might be time to bring them down off the shelf again and finally get round to the

[01:54:06] [SPEAKER_01]: silmarillion shock if only there were a companion podcast if you do that too if only well i

[01:54:13] [SPEAKER_06]: think i know something i can recommend to you mark and by the way mark it's very important for

[01:54:18] [SPEAKER_06]: to say that sarah is a welsh woman aha well that explains the discrepancy and she is also

[01:54:25] [SPEAKER_06]: a firm republican so maybe that's why she got backwards fair enough well thank you mark and we

[01:54:31] [SPEAKER_02]: are so glad that you found us and we are glad that we found you thanks for writing in thanks

[01:54:36] [SPEAKER_06]: for taking the time for writing it it was very kind mark thank you very much wow we did

[01:54:41] [SPEAKER_02]: that's a lot of feedback and we're just coming in under two hours so exactly everyone go drink

[01:54:48] [SPEAKER_02]: some water let's have a nice little snack thank you everyone for writing in we really it was a

[01:54:54] [SPEAKER_02]: pleasure to get all of your emails it was great to see we were concerned about the beginning

[01:54:59] [SPEAKER_02]: of the season like is this going to be a good season or not and you know how are people

[01:55:03] [SPEAKER_02]: coming back and it's great to see everybody back and having a good time and conversing

[01:55:08] [SPEAKER_02]: about it so lotr at the lorehounds.com you can send emails you can use the voice memo app on

[01:55:17] [SPEAKER_02]: your phone and record yourself and you can email it to that address or you can go over

[01:55:22] [SPEAKER_02]: to our website use the contact form and there on the contact form well on the contact page

[01:55:28] [SPEAKER_02]: there's a contact form as well as the voicemail tool also super easy to use and again we invite

[01:55:34] [SPEAKER_02]: you to the discord we have channels set up there for all the different shows or the different

[01:55:39] [SPEAKER_02]: episodes for the show and all the different things that we're covering uh john um besides oh you

[01:55:44] [SPEAKER_02]: know and the thing we didn't really talk about was season pass and show guide but we'll

[01:55:48] [SPEAKER_02]: talk about that on the main podcast we don't need to sell you guys anything sign up if

[01:55:52] [SPEAKER_01]: you want the lore cast in the show guide yeah that's basically the deal in the show notes

[01:55:55] [SPEAKER_02]: hear me read poetry absolutely yeah don't miss it folks uh john uh what do we got on our

[01:56:02] [SPEAKER_01]: outro notes well we are launching a new podcast this week so i believe the same day or yeah the

[01:56:09] [SPEAKER_01]: same day this launches you'll be able to listen to the first three episodes of never mind the

[01:56:14] [SPEAKER_01]: music that's a new very lore houndy podcast where they dive into the music and psychology

[01:56:19] [SPEAKER_01]: of different artists and songs it's really really cool it's a very unique podcast you can

[01:56:25] [SPEAKER_01]: out i believe uh the day before this comes out i'm i can't figure out when things are coming out

[01:56:32] [SPEAKER_01]: check the feed at some point um just uh just check out will we have a Tuesday the 10th

[01:56:39] [SPEAKER_02]: Tuesday the 10th that that conversation our interview with Mark and Nicole will be on

[01:56:43] [SPEAKER_02]: the lore hounds main feed exactly and their feed will be live and there are links in the

[01:56:49] [SPEAKER_01]: notes below right there you go very cool all right and also on the main lore hounds feed

[01:56:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Alicia and John are going to be doing a preview podcast of Agatha all along which is coming out

[01:56:59] [SPEAKER_01]: another week so check that out i think that'll be out around Friday then also check out on

[01:57:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Alicia's Star Wars canon timeline feed the conversation with her and Marilyn on the myths

[01:57:10] [SPEAKER_02]: of the Old Republic yes very cool stuff john you know something we keep forgetting we're

[01:57:16] [SPEAKER_02]: we've been a little bit neglectful of is the blog oh yeah yeah on our website we have a

[01:57:23] [SPEAKER_02]: blog so if you dear listener are somebody who likes to write and has something to say

[01:57:30] [SPEAKER_02]: we welcome submissions go to the lorehounds.com go to the link for the blog and there's the i

[01:57:37] [SPEAKER_02]: think the first blog post by our editor Brian Brian 8063 one of our mods and lore master

[01:57:43] [SPEAKER_02]: subscribers and just a great friend of the community and he's there waiting for your

[01:57:48] [SPEAKER_02]: submissions so you can send in stuff especially if we've got stuff about lord of the rings and

[01:57:55] [SPEAKER_02]: rings of power stuff we would love to have that on the blog we've got a bunch of great

[01:58:00] [SPEAKER_02]: articles on there already so please visit the web page and then on the discord there's a

[01:58:07] [SPEAKER_02]: channel for the blog as well that you can talk with folks about so please we would love to

[01:58:12] [SPEAKER_06]: have your submissions and there'll be submission guidelines on that link yes exactly on that

[01:58:16] [SPEAKER_01]: blog post yep very cool how to do it um thank yous thank yous david sure do you want to do them

[01:58:24] [SPEAKER_01]: yeah all right i'm going to give you very energetic music because it's okay nice

[01:58:34] [SPEAKER_02]: to our discord server boosters narles erin k tiller the thriller darker than ninjas du 71

[01:58:40] [SPEAKER_02]: captain jingy 56 athena agilea adrian tina listu and i believe nancy just boosted the server as

[01:58:50] [SPEAKER_01]: well gosh yes she did so generous so we're at level three oh and ghost of partition also

[01:58:56] [SPEAKER_02]: just boosted the food really yeah well thank you we don't have our document updated so

[01:59:02] [SPEAKER_02]: we'll get that updated but thank you ghost and thank you uh thank you nancy uh to our

[01:59:07] [SPEAKER_02]: master subscribers these are our regular monthly subscribers or they pay annually and they are top

[01:59:14] [SPEAKER_02]: tier subscribers and they really are the cornerstone of our publishing empire uh samarshin

[01:59:21] [SPEAKER_02]: michael g michelle e david w brian p sc peter oh batina w adam s nancy m duv 71 brian 8063

[01:59:32] [SPEAKER_02]: frederick h sarah l garret c eric f matthew m sarah m dj miwa andra b hong u

[01:59:40] [SPEAKER_02]: dead eye jedi bob nathan t alex v erin t sub zero erin k dally b mothership 61 narles listu

[01:59:51] [SPEAKER_02]: jeffrey b elisa u fasi u neil f ben b and forever last adrian thank you all so very much

[02:00:02] [SPEAKER_02]: we really um just couldn't do it without you but wait there's more but wait we have another one

[02:00:08] [SPEAKER_01]: oh really charlotte m on supercast oh really charlotte thank you wonderful we have to update

[02:00:17] [SPEAKER_01]: our documents here more regularly it's crazy that was eight hours ago apparently yeah been a

[02:00:22] [SPEAKER_02]: little bit oh my goodness thank you so much that's amazing so yeah anyway super uh uh lore

[02:00:30] [SPEAKER_02]: thank you uh anybody who subscribes whether you're on the season pass or your regular subscriber and

[02:00:36] [SPEAKER_02]: wherever you are if you're just listening thank you because without you we would not be able to

[02:00:41] [SPEAKER_02]: do this and um have this great and enjoyable community so thank you one and all maybe we

[02:00:47] [SPEAKER_02]: wouldn't have all these wonderful questions to reflect on exactly great all right so we will

[02:00:52] [SPEAKER_02]: be back for episode five and we are going to have a lore cast and i believe john what's our

[02:00:59] [SPEAKER_01]: cast topic you will have to find out on the podcast so we don't spoil the episode

[02:01:07] [SPEAKER_02]: fabulous all right well we'll see you then thanks everyone good night good night

[02:01:31] [SPEAKER_01]: the lore hounds podcast is produced and published by the lore hounds you can send questions and

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