A Geek History of Time - Episode 11- Tolkien and the World Wars (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 1, 2019

Ed delves into the nature of the First World War, and JRR Tolkien’s experiences in it. Damian leads a digression on the Battle of Cannae as related to the Somme, and they both remark on the outward craziness of World War I tactics.

And we begin with good days, sir. Geeks come in all shapes and sizes, and that they come into all kinds of things. I was thinking more about the satanic panic. Buy the scholar Gary Guy-Gak's. Well, wait, hold on. I said good days, sir. Not defending Roman slavery by any stretch. No, but that's bad.

Let him vote. Fuck off. When historians, and especially British historians, want to get cute, it's in there. OK. It is not worth the journey. This is a geek history of time. I'm Ed Blalock. I've been a geek since birth, really.

But one of the most notable aspects of my early geekdom was the fact that on a trip to Florida with my family, I sat in the back of my parents' car driving across the state reading the fellowship of the ring at the age of seven. I wasn't able to follow very much of it, but the images warped my brain permanently for life. Damien, how about you? I'm Damien Harmony. I've been a geek

most of my life. I am now raising the next generation of geeks. My daughter and I watched all of the Lord of the Rings, extended cuts. Yeah, over winter break. My God, that's an iron butt right there. Boy, howdy. And now we're working our way through the Hobbit and she absolutely loves, I forget his name, the guy who busted out of the barrel with the axes and went to town on the orcs. Oh yeah, he doesn't talk much. Bomber. Bomber bummer, and she loved that scene. So I'm very proud of my little girl. You're a good one. Yeah.

What do you do for a living? I'm a middle school history teacher, which means a good punishment. And my background in history, I don't have an advanced degree, but I do a lot of reading. I got my bachelor's from University, California, Davis, Go Ags in history focusing on Western Europe, East Asia, and a little bit on American history. How about you? I am a Latin teacher, formerly a social science teacher though. I got a master's degree in gender history technically? Yeah, I guess technically it's just history, but I focused on gender history, specifically on women's suffrage in England, but I also dabbled quite a bit in American history, specifically American women's history,

the history of the birth control movement, stayed very focused on the women, but as well as I did dabbling medieval history for quite a bit. And given that I'm a latinist, I know a fair amount about Rome. Well, kind of just by getting into being adjacent to it all the time and teaching. It's kind of unavoidable. Yeah, it's helpful. Alright, yeah, I can leave it. So, got a question for you. Do it. You have mentioned watching the full extended cut. Yes.

Of the Lord of the Rings recently. Yeah, instead of just going on a hike, I watched short people taking a hike. People taking a hike. If they were, if they were taller, the movies would have been shorter. It would have been, yeah, odd. That's an interesting statement.

I had never thought of it that way, but you're right. So how much do you know about Tolkien's life experiences? I've not read anything about it. I know that he got through World War I. Yes. His movies seem to be couched in neo-Nazi or Nazi light ideology. See, it's really funny that you say that. Yeah. Because the interpretation that you come away with from that I think has a lot to do with the fact that he was a lover of

Germanic mythology that he was a lover of the source material of that source material that that and Anglo-Saxon stories which is it's something that informed the tropes he used and all that kind of stuff. He's so British. It's worth, well, they have an anti-Semitic streak in them. Well, what's interesting, speaking of that, I'm going to address that right away. Oh good. In 39, Hobbit was published in 1937.

Okay. The Hobbit was published in 1937. A German publisher approached him in 1939. Because of German law at the time, he had to provide proof that he was not Jewish. His response was, I am not fortunate enough to be able to claim any of those wonderfully talented, wonderfully creative, wonderfully, I mean, he was effusive in his praise of Jewish people. I cannot claim any of them in in my ancestry, but you know now that you bring up the question, I don't think I want to be published in Germany anymore. He threw the finger. Good. His choice of words about Hitler in correspondence that he wrote to his sons and other people is the way you and I regularly talk after I've had a beer with a correct president.

It is scathing and disdainful would be an understatement. Sure. He was anti-fascist. Now it's worth noting he was a Catholic, so there is a certain level of belief in the legitimacy of hierarchy, there's a certain you know, difference to authority, all that kind of stuff. But it is because of Lenny Riefenstahl is because of Lenny Riefenstahl and the cinematic language that got used by the fascists. And the fact that his work was inspired by a lot of the same source material, he can be viewed, or the movies can be viewed that way. They certainly have a bit of a shading around the edges like that with elves being kind

of the uber mentioned who don't have to worry about snow for instance and who have all these cool special powers. And the dwarves essentially being money-grubbing greedy, big nose long bearded. They look like the goen's from Hogwarts. Yeah. Well, and what should have noted is the Galen's from Hogwarts and the dwarves and the Lord of the Rings have the same antecedents in Germanic myth, which is to say the dwarves of the Galen's were essentially the endomes all of them are basically the same critters. Yeah. Depending on which

Scalded was who was telling the story that very good point so Tolkien is a victim My my thesis is a victim of presentism in that case now It is interesting to note that the dwarfish language as presented in the Lord of the Rings was influenced very heavily by Semitic language structures Kazad Kazad Kazad I menu. Oh wow characters, Qazad, Qazad, Qazad, I menu, Quzdul, the name of their language, Qazad, Quzdul, operates under the idea that you have the consonants, and the way they fit together, like in a Semitic language, the bells that you insert, changes what the meaning is, but they are all

shades of the same word. Right. Quzdul is their language, Qazad is the people. Okay, like Arabic language. Yeah, SLM, Salam. Yeah. Yes. Shalom. Shalom precisely.

Yep, yep. So it is interesting that that is there. So he's probably on it. That might have been subconscious because of the times that he lived in. And that's what I said, like, yeah. Previously with the giant rod brush but yeah but but he he was he was genuinely an anti-anti-fascist genuinely a naturalist in a very big way which I'm gonna get into in more detail here now I'm kind

of looking at the time because we were trying to try to not turn this into two-hour one and I'm kind of looking at the time because we were trying to not turn this into two-hour one and I'm trying to figure out what parts of all this to keep it up. You know what? Just find a break spot and then we'll turn it into a two way. If you get to episode A and an episode B of this. Right, so well we'll see. I'm going to do a few things. Okay, so.

This will not be the director's cut. Brief background biography. Sure. He was born in 18 gonna I'm gonna. Okay. So this will not be the director's cut brief background biography. Sure He was born in 1892 in South Africa. Okay. His family was originally German as you might note from the sound of his name. They had come into England in the 16th century. Okay and His so by the time he was born his whole family was thoroughly English culture Maybe you know in every way all but name. Yeah, his father was was thoroughly English, culturally, you know, in every way.

All but name. Yeah. His father was a bank manager in South Africa. Okay. He came to England at age three with his mother on what was supposed to be a long family visit and while they were there, his father died. Oh. Which created a problem because this was 1895 and there really was no prospect for him or his brother.

Now that their father was dead, and their mother was a widow with two very young children. They were left literally orphans in the sense that it was used at the time, fatherless. Right. And so they, he grew up in very strange circumstances. Money was always an issue. They were always depending on family or other people.

Kindness of others. Yes, he learned to read by the age of four. Wow. Wrote fluently by the age of five and his mother instilled in him a love of languages from the very start to teach him Latin, as a matter of fact, basically at five or six. When's that ever gonna do anybody any good?

Yeah, I don't know. You might be able to get a jab as a Latin teacher, but who the fuck would I do that? I am a cautionary tale professor. I tell them that regularly. If you do really well at this, be careful. You might become a cook on a separate, which is another story.

Now his mother converted to Catholicism. You might become a cook on a separate, which is another story. Now his mother converted to Catholicism. In 1900, now her family were Baptists. Her husband's family were Church of England. She became a Catholic because the teachings of the Church gave her a great deal of comfort in the face of the hardship she was facing as a widow with two young children. Makes a lot of sense. And she died of diabetes in 1904. Now did they know to classify it as such at the time? Yes. Okay. She had diabetes malitis. It was only like

10, 15 years later they came up with insulin. Yes. She was one of the last casualties on a historical scale. One of the last casualties of diabetes molytis. She lived to be about 37 if I remember the number correctly, which was about as long as diabetes patient could expect to live. At that time, by that time, he was 12 and that left him and his brother in the care of father Francis Xavier Morgan. Now is his brother older younger than younger?

Okay. And his mother left them in the care of this friend and kind of mentor of hers father Morgan. Partly out of concern that her own family or their father's family would pull them away from the church. Oh, okay. have concerned that her own family or their father's family would pull them away from the church. Oh, okay. So. He earned a scholarship to King Edwards School in Birminghamshire, a boy's school of notable

prestige. Okay. And then attended and graduated with first class honors in 1915. And so he's roughly 15, sorry, 1915 he graduates with honors from Exeter College in Oxford that got scrambled in my notes. When he was 16 years old and Edith was her name she was a couple of years older. He met the woman who became his wife and the love of his life and the story is quintessential early 20th century bourgeois melodrama. His father figure, father Morgan, forbade him to see her because he was afraid, one, she

was a distraction from his studies, and two, she was a Protestant. Her family did not approve of him because he was an orphan with no prospect. And a Catholic. And he was ordered not to speak to her until he was 21. They were parted for five years. This is so British. It's so intensely British. It's something out of a drawing room drama.

Yeah. They were separated for five years. And he followed Fadamorgans instructions. He did not want to go against the man who had taken over the role of his father. Okay. And he said to his son years later that I put your mother through a great deal of suffering and, you know, I feel badly for it, but I couldn't have done it any differently. Uh, and then at the end of five years.

That is so British. At the end of five years, he wrote to her. Uh-huh. And he said, uh, I have never for a day loved you any less than I did five years ago. Will you still you know consent to you know be with me. Let us court. She had accepted an offer of engagement from another man who she broke it off with. It sounds like my grandparents. It's talking. Okay. And so they got married. Okay.

And everybody thought there was, there were doomed because we had no prospect. She converged to Catholicism in order to marry him. And so by this time of course, we were talking about, you know, 1914, 1915, the war has started. Yes. And at the outset of the war Tolkien got a

deferment in order to finish his degree. This really sounds like my grandparents there. Yeah. But after graduating in 15 he had either joined up or be ostracized. As he put it, the hints from family were becoming pointed. Is this the white feather campaign? Yes. Oh yeah. By the way, four feathers, one of my favorite old timing movies. Okay. The newer one with Heath Ledger. Yeah. Very good as well. Okay. By newer, I mean it's 17 years old now. Yeah. At least. Yeah. Very good as well. Frankly, gets deeper into the pathology and the emotionality of it. Yeah, but I'm still a sucker for the first one. Okay, I have to look it up.

That's really good. So he got a second Lieutenant's Commission in the Lancashire Fusileers, spent 11 months in training with them. Okay. And then in June 1916, he was sent to France, arriving at the front just in time to participate in the Battle of the Song. Bad timing. Bad timing. Bad timing. I know a lot about the Battle of the Song.

Yeah, okay. Well, you can fill in some of the gaps here in my notes. He participated directly in the assaults on the Schwab and Raidout and Lipsig salient. Did he survive? Good one. Thank you. Well, because he has like a one in 50,000 chance. Yeah, yeah. No, he has because he has like a one and 50,000 chance not yeah, no He has so really a miracle by the way the battle of can I yeah Hannibal versus the Romans yeah They lost more people in that battle that day than the battle of the Psalms first day Really and I would just like to put that in a perspective because those guys were all using swords and The battle of the song and stabby swords

Well muscle-powered kinetic weaponry right whereas the battle of the song is you are shun guns, shelling grenades Yeah, and you don't get to run you have to walk because you don't want to be tired by the time you get to the German trench Yeah, like they that was a special. Yeah, like and and no armor by the way. Yeah, the German trench. Yeah. Like, that was especially. Yeah. And no armor, by the way. Yeah. The Romans had to stab through armor. Yes.

And they lost, by the way. Yeah. Like the Hannibal and his folks, they stabbed through Roman armor and shields. Yeah. Well, part of the key there is, if you're a professional soldier in that area, you know where the points are, you keep to hit. Also true. And you know how to make a gap and shield unwieldy.

Also, the other fun fact about the battle of Canai, the Romans found themselves backed up against a lake. Yeah. It doesn't go well when you're back against a lake. It never does. Historically, that's a bad way to go. Also, a lot of their city leaders were involved in that war. Oh yeah. So yeah. I was political. But yeah battle of the song, 5,000 dead today. Pretty terrible. Yeah. Shobin Raidout, Lips Exalian. And then he was never the most physically robust individual

Okay, and he wound up because of the circumstances that they were having to sleep in. He was at one point attacked by Lice as Thousands of other men were and came down as a result of that. He came down with trench fever. Oh wow He was medically invalidant for the rest of the war. Wow spent time in and out of hospitals for another year And then from 1917 on he was in homefront positions, still serving, serving on homefront. And what we mentioned, I don't remember which episode it was recently, but talking about super weapons. World War I was the first major mechanized war. Yes.

Okay. Machine guns had been invented 20 years before, at least 10 years before. We had galling guns, which are a kind of machine guns. The first really self-loading machine guns are creation of the early 20th century. Right. But machine guns, really huge, large-scale master artillery, the earliest weapons of mass destruction, the form of gas, trench warfare, all of them sold, and this is an important point,

I want to bring up because it has bearing on They were all sold as scientific methods to make warm or efficient They were all sold as the Army that has the machine gun will be insurmountable We have maximum gun and they the difference is that we have the maximum gun and they have not That's Kipling's poetry talking about something else some gun and the the differences that we have the maximum gun and they have not that's Kipling's poetry talking about something else. But you know these were no there's no way it doesn't make any sense. Why would you fight when somebody you know a crew of two men, manning a liquid-cooled machine gun can cut down a platoon?

Now I want to I want to point out I want to I want to for everybody listening. I want to point out the importance of it being a crew weapon. Had it not been a crew weapon you would have not seen the lethality that you saw with it. And here's why. The amount of soldiers who refused to fire on their fellow men in war was somewhere to the tune of 90%. They still fired, but they would fire and miss. Over their heads, fire and miss. And some of that is panic shooting, oh God.

And a lot of that is it's hard to kill a man. As much as we think, oh, it's getting worse, we've got way more civilized. Now in World War One, to train a soldier, you have him shoot at a bullseye. Yes. You don't start having soldiers shooting at, um, Kazooontite. Humanoid. Yeah, a humanoid, uh, silhouettes until Vietnam, maybe Korea. Because they're still shooting at bullseyes in World War Two. And as a result, it's hard to transfer that skill over to, that's an actual person, that's my brother. You also had during the first Christmas, you had the Christmas truce.

Yes. You had all these instances where people clearly don't want to kill each other. A crew weapon on the other hand though. You are no longer accountable only to yourself in your own conscience. You are accountable to somebody else. And as we've seen in bullying, as we've seen in using the use of chariots in Britain against the Romans, when you have another person that you're responsible to, you have to kill more. And so when you have a two man or even a three man, because you also have the spotter, a three man crew, that's when the lethality

really rips them open. I mean, yes, you're throwing hundreds and thousands of rounds down range. But now it's, I can't portray these guys in front of me. Yeah, I don't have the ability to shirk hitting the target. Right. So very important. That is an important point.

Also an important point is the conceptualization of the way command structure altered over the course of the war, The way staff developments had happened in the end of the 19th century. The idea of a general staff, you know, coming up with these war plans, the mechanistic way in which that was now handled. The quote, scientific way in which it was all handled, you know, war colleges becoming a thing. Right. in a very modern sense the idea There being a staff core within the army at the high levels of command right was a creation of

Shortly before Napoleon. Yeah, and people's jobs were specifically to come up with plans for different things You've got the pigeonholes. holes for the Vongely-Fans. These developments, yeah. And so all of these things, all of these developments were supposed to make it so that, look, we're going to be the winning side. We have these tools, we have these techniques, we have the stuff. Super piece. Yeah, just like what's the point? You really come up.

And then you've had politics run completely out of control and the opportunity for any one actor at the beginning of the war to say whoa, whoa, hold up, was eliminated, especially when you got a guy like, you know, guys are fucking will hell running Germany. I could go as we've learned. I could devote an episode to what a shit bag will helm was, like as a human being, not even as a crowned head of state, just as a person, what a complete asshole he was. My favorite part is that he left afterwards. Yeah. And it's like, goddamn it.

Sort of. It's face some justice. Hey, some kind of something. Yeah. Um, and so all all of these developments were supposed to make war or scientific make it modern, make it effectively unwaigable. Sure. They did make it a lot more efficient, but because everybody was playing with the same murderous toy box, it just up to the lethal. And it just up the level and the scale of the destruction. And it turned everything into a dragging muddy, hideous, maiming war of attrition. Yes.

And, you know, if you think about the trenches, in order to cope with the defensive capability, because at this point, machine guns are big, heavy, and they're not mobile weapons. They're not mobile, you can't pick them up and carry, but you don't see that until the browning on a medic rifle and your government developments in World War II. In World War I, they are a fixed emplacement,

they are a defensive weapon. Well, here's the deal, you march up as far as you can, and then you build your own defensive emplacement, they are a defensive weapon. Yes. Well, here's the deal. You march up as far as you can, and then you build your own defensive emplacement. So they can't advance out of there. Yeah, it's just, you know, and then you wind up building a city of moles. And you sit there in the rain and the mud, and everybody gets sick, and everybody gets cold,

and then on the German side particularly supply chains start running short toward the end of the war. So everybody's hungry, nobody has dry shoes or socks, everybody's equipment is falling apart. Oh and by the way you've brought in your colonials so you can't even talk to the guys next to you anyway. Yeah. And you've got good old fashioned racism.

And you've got good old fashioned classism. And you've got the, you know we talked about Rod Sirling a few episodes back. You've got what made Rod Sirling such a wonderful writer was the fact that in World War II, there was a guy in his unit, I think he was in the Pacific, who was standing underneath a palm tree, doing something or other. I think entertaining the troops. And something either knocked a coconut loose and it killed him or no, it was a supply drop crushed him. Jesus. Out of the fucking blue. Oh my God. And I might have compressed the story with something funny, but it was a very unexpected and chaotic death.

Yeah, and unnecessary. Yes. Pointless unnecessary random. And you had that in World War One, in the trenches. Deathwood, could and would come at any moment. A sniper catching you when you let your guard down. The enemy starts shelling, and you're not able to get a cover in time your buddies munitions go off for no good reason good reason You know on top of all that other misery. Yeah, well, and then and then the manner in which men were dying right was

Hittiest yes, you know in in I mean if you look at skeletons out of a mass grave for antiquity You know in in I mean if you look at skeletons out of a mass grave from antiquity, they died ugly too But you know, I mean you can see sword wounds predictably, but but it's predictable the the Repidity with which it happened was I mean, you know, you could see the the Carthaginian you know bringing his brain his felt catta down and when it hits your buddy's skull you're like well That's what was gonna happen and my buddy was standing there trying to stab with the glenys stab him with the glenys so that's what happens right in this case

Like out of nowhere. There's an explosion and the guy standing next to you is half gone Mm-hmm, and you're not and you're not and tomorrow you might be the guy And and so it's it's hideous in a way warhead men before it's unpredictable and chaotic in a way We're ahead and then before and it's also more personal because they had the program of signing up with your neighborhood Yes, they had the pals program. Yeah, and so you're not just seeing a guy It's I mean you and I've been friends for years. Yeah. And if we were in a situation like that, that would be awful, obviously. And the surviving one would just be like,

oh my god, I lost my friend. But we didn't grow up together. Yeah. You know, that is profoundly different. Oh yeah, it's devastating. Yes. Devastating, especially with scale casualty. Knowing that you're gonna have to go back to his family.

Yeah. Knowing that you're gonna walk down the street. You're gonna be the one, you're gonna be the one to go back to town and kiss the girls. Mm-hmm. You know, and he's not gonna have a lot of chance. And you're not gonna have a lot of chance. And yeah, and nobody, nobody planned it, no more.

And you're now walking by the same bookstore you two used to sit down and read books at. I mean, just for drinking tea and an inclusive Tolkien and his friends from school. There you go. Um, and so it was the casualties for the sum for British Empire units. So, okay.

And Colonials, top half a million. Right. And it was massive losses for gains of yards of territory. Yeah, I think. Not even miles. Right. You know, less than a mile of territory. Yeah.

Over the course of those offenses and by the end of the war I told him lost nearly all of his childhood friends to the conflict and like I'm talking about no doubt as a lieutenant commanding Mm-hmm. All of these soldiers he no doubt witnessed first-hand Random pointless ugly horrible death everywhere around him and if he's a Officer then he has to actually write up reports about this too. He has to write up reports and he has to be the one to blow the whistle for his men to go over the top. Yeah.

So there's a lot of survivor guilt going on. Intense, intense, I mean all kinds of that stuff. Also, real quick, you had the battle of the psalm. Yeah, the other side too, you had the battle of the psalm. Yeah, you had the other side too you had the battle over done Yeah, where the actual plan was we're gonna lose five every two they lose Mm-hmm, and that's how we'll win. Yeah Oh my god, well because and again, we're talking about a tradition plans We're well, it's a word of attrition and we're talking about again plans being made by a general staff Yes, who are looking at the math

Mm-hmm and are removed from the blood and the mud and the shit and you know the the and you kind of have to be well and you have to be for from for for you in the role of a military acting as the violent arm of a nation state protecting its interests. You have to do that. Yes. And so, you know, there is the easy moral argument that, oh my God, monsters, which is legitimate, but you also have to take into account, you know.

We have to be, but that's Sherman too. We have to be monsters so that they quit. So that they quit. We have to force them to put down their weapons. Right. And it's going to suck. Yeah. But we got to do it. Yeah.

So in World War II, John Ronald Rool had three sons. John Francis, Michael, and Christopher. John Francis was born in 1917, became a priest. Michael served during the Battle of Britain in an anti-aircraft artillery. And Christopher served briefly in the RAF. No way, wait, who's their father? John Ronald Rural. Tolkien. Oh, the author. I didn't know that that was his name. Yeah. John Ronald Rool, Tolkien. Oh, the author. I didn't know that that was his name. Yeah, John Ronald Rool, Tolkien, in Ronald to the family.

Oh, we called him Ronald. Really? Yes. Because there were other Johns around. So. Yeah. I've never heard his name until this moment. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. So it's interesting talking about his youngest son, Christopher, toward the end of the war, wasn't old enough to join up until actually beginning of 45, or late 44, beginning of 45. And he wrote to his father talking about flying aircraft and all this stuff. And talking about aircraft being used in war, of course, by this time Tolkien had started writing fellowship with the Ring, the other Ring books. He said that he felt about

aircraft being used by the RAF in a way Sam or Frodo might feel about Hobbits mounting orc birds to defend the shire or Nazgul birds. The huge, you know, Dracula's face. Yeah, he, he, he, military technology. After his experiences in the First World War, he was like, no man, yes, I am a loyal citizen of the Empire. I'm going to serve.

I understand Hitler's monster. We got to do what we got to do. But I don't loyal citizen of the empire. I'm gonna serve. I understand Hitler's monster. We gotta do what we gotta do. But I don't have to fucking like it. Wow. You know. And so he himself initially got a code, got called up to serve in a code breaking unit. Okay.

And he said, if that's what you need me to do, I'll do it. And they eventually determined that they had other people Bletchley Park. Oh, that's right. They had mathematicians and they figured out the mathematicians were gonna be able to do it more effectively the linguists Okay, thank you doctor Tolkien. We don't need you. Okay. Now he was a linguist. He was a linguist. Okay. Yes And so all of them witnessed the Battle of Britain, had all the other terrible things that happened over the course of the war. Sure.

Brought about by Blitzkrieg, the use by both sides of total war tactics. Right. Ultimately of nuclear weapons. So how does this inform the Lord of the Rings? Okay. I'm seeing some threads here. There's some, you see some stuff forming.

Yeah. He wrote it first of all to create a mythology for England, told him started with the Silmarillion in 1914, while he was waiting to go to France. He got bored and started writing. Now what is the Silmarillion? The Silmarillion is the story of the creation of Middle Earth, and in the Lord of the Rings you hear that

this is the third age of Middle Earth. He's still early in his story of the first age and the second age. And he never finished it in his lifetime. He was constantly tinkering with it because he never quite got everything right. And after his death, Christopher, who is the most active of his sons and terms of his family legacy, edited everything because he'd been acting as his father's editor. Ready. Okay. And, and you know, went to publishers and said, okay, look, if we include all these notes, I think we can put this together and not betray what my father wanted to do. And so if you're a hardcore Tolkien nerd, hi, how you doing? You've read it.

You have. And I have it. And so, Sauron is the bad guy. Lord of the Rings, the ultimate baddie, the big bad guy. The huge eye. The gigantic eye is Sauron. Okay. Sauron was not the first dark lord.

The first dark lord was a guy named Melkor who later took the name more Goth And let me get pointy headed about Tolkien for a minute and just explain to you that Even in trying to create a pantheon of gods for his mythology. Uh-huh. Tolkien couldn't stop being a Catholic Eru the one the source of everything God God okay sang into the void okay Eru, the one, the source of everything. God? God. Okay. Sang into the void.

Okay. And out of his song, we're born the Vailar. Okay, and the Vailar are essentially his versions of the Greek gods. We have a monway who is the God of the sky and air and eagles. We have Ulmo, who is the Lord of the waters. We have Oromay, who is the Lord of the wilderness and theagles. We have Ulmo, who is the Lord of the waters. We have Oromai, who is the Lord of the wilderness and the hunt. Sounds very Norse. Yes. Yes. A lot of the time in the depicted is looking more Greek, more classical, but there's a lot of that involved. And then amongst them mightiest of them, and most cunning of them was Melkor, who was the spirit of fire.

And Iru directed them all to sing a chorus, and he said, just sing. And they began to sing, and they fell into harmony. Melkor heard the harmony, and said, I can make it better. That's very Catholic. Very Catholic. That's loose for a human. And he sang, yes, and he sang his own counterpoint, which caused everybody else to fall off key

and creation, and basically the punchline of all that was what they were singing was they were singing creation into existence. And where Melchor had fucked with the melody you had the broken not quite right weird ugly dark parts of creation or No, they come later. Oh, okay, but but yeah, okay, and so Melkor saw creation and immediately wanted to dominate it. He wanted to own it. Okay. And in the process of turning away from Aero, turning away from the rest of the Vailar, he became

Morgoth, the dark one, the foul one. Okay, so Melkor is Morgoth. Melkor and Morgoth, the same guy. Okay. Basically, it's... Anakin is... is Darth Vader. Okay. Lucifer. Okay. Is Satan is yes. Okay now the Vailar saying again and out of creation were then born the lesser angels

Called Meyer who were powerful spirits, but not gods. Okay, one of them who's important going forward is named Myron Who originally served one of vanilla nebish name. Kind of, yeah. Myron. Yeah, it still sounds like Myron. Yeah. Myron. And so he was he's got a pouch protector. Yeah, you know, yeah, pocket protector. Well, he's a nerd because because he's a my are in service to Alley the Smith who is the the God of is essentially a faced is crafting right making stuff building things Sure kind of artificially kind of craft Fire the four the fire of the four original stuff and so

originally he was the servant of this creator, Crafter God, and then Melkor talked to him and was talking about, no, I'm going to impose order on creation. The mayor on went, I dig that. So he's kind of the anti-locke? I dig that, kind of. And I dig that, and eventually he became Evil unethical twisted whatever you want to call it like

Moregoth because his pride corrupted him in turn away from what he was supposed to be doing more machine now that man Yes, he became Sauron So Sauron was was an angel. Okay as opposed to a valar who was essentially a god scale kind of you know dnd gods you know power and so he saw domination of order in position of order and creation and domination over it wait wait wait okay so the the thing that made him all yeah what was that thing? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero? Aero. Aero. Aero Lovator of the one. So it's Queen Victoria. And then she has a bunch of grandkids. Okay.

And then the little shitty one is Bill Humb the second. Guys are, yeah, okay. And he goes around rattling his sword. And he's like, I'm going to impose German order on everything else. Right. Okay. I'm with you now. It's just funny if you've studied medieval and early modern history because the Germans are

the biggest fucking barbarians in Europe up until the Russians are in America. Oh god, the Romans are scared, chill, or something. Well, I'm talking about the Roman period. They're not only Roman, early modern period. The last person on Earth you'd want to engineer anything was a German. Yeah. Because they're drunken, loud, barbaric, louds. Oh, there's a fun little part in Caesar's develop galica work.

There's a couple where it's obviously he ate magic mushrooms because he talks about these animals that don't have knees and then if they fall over they can never get up. That's like really? Do. Really. Yeah. And then he talks about like these weird astromanic tribes were like they will raise geese for fun Yeah, we can eat them

Uh, and then there's British tribes where they can eat rabbits Yeah, and they can eat chickens and they can eat other and it's just like this weirdest hodgepodge and he mentions the orrox Yes, and the orrox is extinct by 1634 Yeah And as we discussed in a previous episode the reason why is because there were redheads having sex in the black forest that wiped out all the rocks yeah yeah but anyway so yeah you're gingers right so so that's why we mate with others now yeah yeah so so think about the Battle of Five Armies in the Hobbit.

I haven't gotten to that movie. And... Oh, okay. No, it's the next one. Okay. Here's the thing. I mentioned the movie, and I need to reass... Let you know I do have some Geek Cred when it comes to this series.

Okay. My dad read to me. It was one of the first things I... No, I'm adopted by my dad. Yeah. Right. And I met him when I was about four. And because he was dating my mother and she's my biological mother. Anyway, one of the first books he read to me was her copy, the green copy of the Hobbits.

And at that time that book cost like $25 when she bought it and she was making a buck 25 an hour. Then she went and bought the red book of Lord of the Rings and that cost her $75, you know $85 at a buck 25. So he read to me the entire Hobbit. It has been read to me at a very young age. So it's in here somewhere. I don't remember dick about the battle of five armies. Okay. So, interestingly, five armies sounds a lot like a certain amount of central and allied powers fighting each other. A little bit.

Yeah. If you leave out the target. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but thematically. Hmm. So at the end of the Hobbit, uh, the dragon is dead. Good.

I don't have to watch it. Yeah, well... Did the dragon get poured like gold on it in the book? Because that happens in the movie. Spoiler alert. Yeah, that's not that that is an invention for cinematic. Oh, okay. Because Julian and I both, my daughter and I both love the fact that the red dragon became a gold dragon briefly.

Yeah, momentarily. Yeah. Just long enough to be like, oh, hey, this hurts. It's a D&D nerd. Yeah, that's kind of funny. Yeah, you're immune to fire, so you know, drop it on you really doesn't do much, right? Right, you know, it makes a hard for you to fly. Yeah, okay, so battle the fire on me.

Battle fire on me. The battle's enemies. The dwarves, the elves. Dwarves what elves? The men of Lake Town. Right, that makes sense. The goblins. Okay, they're back. And the eagles. All wind up fighting. Now, originally, the battle is started

because Thoroughno can shield is gold mad crazy Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. Oh man. So he starts a fight that's originally three armies. Okay. Okay, him versus the elves and the men of Lake Town.

Oh, okay. Then the goblins show up because they're all fighting and if we kill all, while they're all fighting, it's easier for us to kill all of them. Right, that's the thing. Take over easier for us to kill all of them. Right, that's it. Take over the mountain, and set ourselves up. Sing your songs.

Yes, and then the Eagles show up to save everybody's ass, because, because, because, now I'm gonna harp on this, because this is an important point, talking about Tolkien and allegory, you don't ever plan anything around the Eagles Because the Eagles represent the grace of God. Okay, you heathen bastards. Okay, so anybody who wants to try to say Why didn't they just ride the fucking Eagles into Moore door? You're missing the fucking point. Okay, I just every time you mention the Eagles I think Don Henley. I can't help

but I'm like, okay, so where were the Eagles? Were they sitting on a corner and winds low or something? You know, they've got the seven rings on their mind. Yeah, I like it. Now it's go want to rule me, the goblins wantins wanna rule me. Yeah, you know, you could feel that. Oh yeah, keep working on that. Okay, well done. So, so, anyway, these five armies wind up all fighting against each other. Yeah.

And what's important about the way it is portrayed. Remember, he took all of this sorts material out of Nordic, Germanic myth, is the archetypes that he's working from. Right. And in those myths. There was a witchy woman more fit well yes, but If those myths the warrior archetype was

Was the thing and warfare sure was was almost the goal right? You got to take it to the limit for it. Yes, for dramatic tribes Good day, sir for dramatic tribes Warfare was how a man Attained self-actualization attained his place in society attained, you know status. Right. And so... Found his center. Yes. Yeah.

So in Germanic myth and the sources that Tolkien is essentially kind of working from. Sure. War was this glorious, purposeful thing. Sounds very British World War I too. Yes. But the way he writes the Battle of Five Armies is anything but it is random, it is pointless from the very beginning. Bilbo is saying why the hell are we fighting? So Bilbo is the every man for us.

God saves Bilbo is the every man for us. And the leadership are all champing at the bit to get fighting over stuff that the every man is like, okay, look, there's plenty of this this to go around why are you willing to kill people over it this is stupid right just like the Imperial powers World War One right and the experience of the battle is chaotic and random and ugly Bill Bo is an unreliable narrator throughout the whole book the sure part of the literary criticism. So he just wants to give it to home. Well, yeah.

Like every British soldier. By the end of it, yeah, by every top, like every Tommy, he just wants to get home. And in the middle of the Battle of Five Army, he gets knocked on the head by a rock dropped by a goblin, and he misses the whole ending of it, which by the way, has kind of similar to what happened in Tolkien in World War.

Oh my god, yeah, so Bill Bo is Tolkien. Bill Bo is in many ways a self-insert, not perfectly, but in many ways he fulfills that role. It's a massive battle of attrition. It's ended by the intervention of the Eagles, maybe aircraft, and Bayorn, remember him, the were bearer. Oh, yeah, that guy was cool. Yeah, he gets cooler. I want to say too much, but dude nice And he shows up and by the way tanks

Oh, okay about the way a bear bear shape druid and D&D works. Yeah, they weren't essentially I was you do. Yeah, so and and as foreign is lying on his deathbed after the battle in the book, right? He says to to Bilbo because Bilbo apologizes for you know, causing trouble and all the stuff and and Thorin says no No, no, I'm the one who needs to apologize to you. He has he has a screech That's cool that he's got the humility a couple times. Yeah, and he says If more of us valued food and sheer and song above hordered gold it would be a mario world So he really wanted a peaceful easy feeling nice and

In the battle I'm not even gonna dig to fight Thorin finally and Kylie of the band dwarves are all killed Uh-huh going to dignify it. Thorin, Phile and Kylie of the band dwarves are all killed. And the whole thing is described. Like I said, as being terrifying, ugly, random, just stupid, apocalyptic, apocalyptic, and stupid. The stupidity part I can't overemphasize. Now, Lord of the Rings, Sauron. Again, like I explained, started out as a lesser angel who served a god of essentially technology. Okay? Okay, yeah, he served. Okay, so he was an apprentice god of technology. Right. He was the most cunning maker of stuff that there was

among the mayor. Sure. Okay. And he fell from grace by wanting to impose his own will on creation, like his master Melkor and Morgoth. Part of the, this is part of the Catholic background of the whole thing. I'm not, I'm trying not to touch on too hard. I'm going to go great. Well, you know, again, it's going to be a two-part episode. You know that. Again, the book was three parts.

Yes. So, and so Soran fell from grace by wanting to impose his will on creation just like Morgoth had. And when Morgoth was eventually after doing all kinds of horrible things, Morgoth got crumpled up into a black, essentially a black hole, a sphere, and flung out, out outside of creation, out onto the edge of existence, where he's chained down and imprisoned, and we'd never hear from him. It's like a perverse version of what happens to Loki on the Isle of Silence. Yes, or what happens to the Titans. Prometheus, even. Yes, who is a Titan Isle of Silence. Yes, or what happens to the Titans. Prometheus even.

Yes, who is a Titan himself, I believe. Yes. More Maui from Moana. It will. Nice. That's from my daughter. I like that. When I read to her all the Greek myths,

her first thing was like, and I read to her about Prometheus, she's like, well, that's like what happened to Maui. It's insane. OK, she's six. She's like, well that's like what happened to Maui. It's insane. Okay. She's six. She has like all these, yes she is. She has all these choose your own adventure books. I bought her a bunch, right? And so I'm reading her Norse mythology now. And so I'm reading to her all these stories and like have the, you know, have the characters. She's like, oh I met him already. Oh I met her already oh I met her already I'm like what are you talking about she's like in the oh okay and then she's like comparing it to the Greeks. Oh yeah so no you

yeah um I'm trouble. No I'm stoked. So Sarron sets himself up in Mordor. Okay now Sarron is not Morgoth. No Sarron. Sarron is like Morgoth's apprentice. He's the Mickey Mouse to Morgaugh's. Okay. Yeah. So he sets himself up in Morgaugh and he starts creating ork. Well, he starts creating more orks, orks are originally a creation of Morgaugh. Okay. And evil cannot create anything In the only pervert what has already been made right so more got kidnapped Some of the earliest elves and broke them and twisted them and turned them into orcs, right? Which interestingly means that absent Misapp goblins and orcs are immortal the same way elves are explain So elves right, I know are immortal the same way elves are. Explain.

So elves, I know what it is. Absent Miss Hal. Absent Miss Hal, they're gonna live forever. Right. So he took elves, twisted them up, broke them up, turned them into orcs. Okay.

Well here's the deal. Yeah. Tolkien never really explains to this exactly how they reproduce other than saying it has to do with spawning, that they're no longer male and female that they somehow you know do so. You get them wet after midnight. Yeah they come up out of the mag was yeah. Yeah. Magwai yeah. Um and so but the thing is. Magwais is by the way Sam Wais is father.

Nice. No it's a little gaffer. Gaffer. Jesus, he's got a name. Yeah, wow. God damn right, he's got a name. That's true, I mean, he's talking, told me. Yeah, he'd spent four chapters on a donkey. Yeah, he spent five pages describing the curls in the hair on Bilbo's feet. Of course, Samwise, I'm exaggerating a little bit.

But only by a little. Yeah. That's actually what turned my mother off from ever being able to read the books The furry feet was was was the dislike how much time you spend describing this. Oh my god is something gonna fucking happen And she put the book down and went on to other things my dad and I of course are like oh yeah Hit that pain. So, um, so, why or so, so, um, it never says anywhere, but in the process of doing that, he takes away their, in mortality, and we know that there are goblin kings, goblin chieftains, there are quirks that showed up two generations previously to be trouble for somebody in somebody's ancestry who show

up in the books. And so they're in, they have the same lifestyle. They are immortal. And D&D were used to hearing that orcs have a nasty brusch, you know, which were... But that could be cultural, not biological. Yeah, but in Tolkien, no, they're living under the mountain as long as, you know, nothing happens to them.

Right. Crawling around with dark places, etc. So, so he's making more Orcs, he's crafting the weapons and the tools for his orcs and his armies to use in his efforts against the free peoples of the world. Now real quick, he's in Mordor. He's in Mordor. What was in Mordor before he got there? It was an empty wasteland. It was like bad land. It's essentially the Ruravali. Okay. So Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings is described as pumping all this horrible black smoke into the air. It really is the Ruravali. Yeah. And he is not only is it just Mount Doom, but it's all the forges and the foundries and all the Everywhere that all the weapons and armor and equipment and massive siege tools and everything for his army are being crafted

Right and so There's this mechanized the forces of evil have this mechanized industrial right So it's staying They're not making craft work. Like the elves, because the elves have like, work history or whatever it's called. Orchrist. Yeah.

Glendering. All these cool sounding, very pretty, very white, very swoopy curvy. Yes, sorry. You get the idea that they were made with great care and great art. And like each one was hand crafted, et cetera, et cetera. So like probably the fire they use was even pure. Yeah. You know, whereas you get the feeling that in in Mornor it's we're pumping out gladiuses.

Come on. Let's just get on. Oh, not even gladius. If you look at you know, you look at what the Urukai. Yeah, they're just like in the movie they're just sharpened pieces of metal with a spike sticking off the back. Yeah. And that was an intentional choice on Jackson's part in creating the aesthetic of the film to keep with the spirit of what Tolkien described in Mordor being this essentially industrial wasteland. Right. Right in more door being this essentially industrial wasteland right so it's like pumping out so much smoke that it's it's trying to yeah, to kill a sunrise You can have a hearty tonight expect expect to hear from my second sir So and then there are three great sieges now real quick real quick, Soron is an eyeball at this point.

He's not a man. Yes. He has not yet been able to take physical form. What happened was, what happened to him. He never had physical form. No, he did have physical form. Okay. At the dawn of creation, like the other Vailar in my hour, he had a physical form. Okay. The only way this would be more fun is if I

had gotten drunk first, and then you're explaining it to me. Oh yeah, or if I had gotten drunk and you were asking me these questions. Oh my god, that'd be so much better. Yeah. We might have to do a separate episode. So at the beginning of creation, all the Vailar all the velar had physical form. I also really liked the fact that like to answer my question, you literally have to say, okay, but at the beginning of creation, you got to go to the beginning. Yeah. And then over the course of the first age, Sauron's form,

originally he was beautiful to behold, all of them were beautiful to behold. Sure. Morgoth turned to selfishness and evil in his own plots and he became corrupted and looking like a vampire. Sauron once he became Sauron following Morgoth, he imagined Vader under the mask. Right. So he kind of salowasted. What they made a worm tooth or a worm tongue to look like. Yeah, in many ways. Yeah. Yeah.

And then and then at the end of the second age, the first age ended with more growth being banished like I described. Sure. And then a Sauron managed to talk his way out of getting punished. Okay. At the end of the first age because he was very cutting and very fluent, you know, and he got back into the good graces of the elves who were living at that time. We're not a forgiving race. Generally right. No. He got on their good side. Okay. And then he, wait, hold on, I'm sorry, I'm screwing this up. Morgoth got multiple strikes before he was finally banished. He was the one who got in good with the elves. Okay.

Sauron wound up traveling from Middle Earth where he had been with Sauron when Sauron was finally thrown out of the universe. Okay. And he was taken prisoner by the army that had defeated Morgoth. And the gods, the Valar, gave men, by this time it entered the world, their own island. In the middle of the ocean, between Middle Earth and the sunny lands of the far west where the gods dwelt. They got their island. And

Morgoth talked the kings of men into taking him back with them to the island. And he was so contrite and he was so very sorry. We love a good redemption. Yes. And over time he corrupted the kings of men into driving them to rebel against the gods. The Vailar. And the Vailar smashed the island. And the ancestors of Erogorn are the loyalist kings and their followers who fled the island before that happened. Okay. Okay. And so he in the destruction of the island, he was, he lost his physical form and he became a specter and he had to flee. Okay. And that's beginning of third age. Okay, so he's a giant eyeball. Yes, and as he gains more power and regains control, he's gradually becoming more and more physical. And depending on what interpretation you have of the text,

at some points and some of his notes, Tolkien indicated that, no, no, Saron does have a form at the base of dull gold or at the base of his tower. There is a physical form there, but he's not strong enough yet to venture out. And so the eye is how he interacts with the world. You guys have a physical form, coalescing, or no, he's still just the eye, but if he gets

up into the ring, he'll be able to get a physical form. So, he's out there in Mordor, building his stuff up. How to put, do people know he's out there building his stuff up. Yeah. How do I how to put do people know he's out there building his stuff up. So all that smoke's gotta be raised. You've seen now you've seen the first couple of parts of the hobbit. Yeah. Okay. There's two movies. Okay. So all of that stuff going on in Markwood with the Necromancer. Yes. That is the first time anybody twigs to the fact that oh shit Sarah is up right and that happens 50 years before Lord of the rings right so by the time of the Lord of the rings Oh, yeah, they know he's there because he's built enough of an army on God or is we've been holding on for the war

Yeah, so they know they know it's him. They know he's there, okay, but they don't have They don't stop from before and stop to it. Okay, I don't have they don't stop them before I'm up to it okay they don't have they don't know how to end him right until they end him they can't win gotcha and the rings have existed this whole time yeah well Sauron Cree was was responsible for the creation of the rings he tripped an elvish crafter into making the three the seven and the nine And then he created the one right as a master ring over all of them. He basically built code in a technology sense he built code Into the master ring to hack all of the others and if you have one of the other rings of power on and he has the master ring on right.

He knows where you are and he can you know do stuff. You lose all of your bonuses to your saving throws against anything he wants to do to you. Right. Okay. So as soon as he put the one ring on the elves and the dwarves were spiritual enough to recognize that oh shit. They took the rings off. Men, being men, being mortal, being limited,

didn't pick up on it and they became the Nazgul. Gotcha. So anyway. Okay. So in Lord of the Rings, there are these three great sieges that happen. And again, this echoes trench warfare. Okay.

There is the siege of Helm's Deep, in which there are thousands of Rohanian civilians stuck in a fortification that Saruman has ordered his orcs to completely wipe out. Okay. So we see total warfare. Or think where Saruman has his tower and is finally defeated by the ants. Yeah.

Okay, and that is... Okay, I remember that one from the movie. Literally nature versus industry. Right. You know, that's... That's Eric Maria-Romark. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's still a butterfly, you know. And then Minas Tirith, the siege of the city of Minus Tirith. That's where he gets all the ghosts to come help him, right? Well, that's the Battle of the Pelinor Fields, which happens outside of Minus Tirith. But it's the relief of the siege, right? And that represents World War, because the forces that are besieging Minus Tirith are not only the orcs from Warordor, but they are men from near and far Harad, men from Kand, and the Dunlendings, who were enemies, ancestral enemies,

the men of the Westmark, the men of Rohan. So we have all of these nations that are enslaved by Sauron or who willingly worship him, acting as his servants, the Olafont being from Far Harad, the Corsairs being from Near Harad, and all these different groups, it's World War fighting against all the masked forces of the free peoples who show up. Okay, so we have all of these parallels to both world wars going on there. And I got more to say about who the heroes are and how they interact and how all that works and how that ties in with his experiences in the war. Cool. But we've hit the hour mark. Yeah. And we are going to need to break this up. So what do you think coming out of this? What is what is your takeaway from what I've told you so far other than the fact that oh my god this dude is a fucking dork No, actually that's not I wasn't thinking that Well, I gotta say like obviously you know, here's here's what I'm seeing He is a man informed way more by his experiences than most writers

Make obvious He is a man informed way more by his experiences than most writers make obvious. Maybe it's because of our proximity to him in age. Maybe it's because of the fact that the things that informs his experience were such world-breaking things that we've studied them quite a bit. But it's so clear. And you talked about him not liking allegory. But it's so clear that he's not writing allegory, he's writing his life just in a different way. It's allegory.

But he's not doing it on purpose. He's not purposely going, he's not animal farming it. You know what I mean? He's not, he's, he's, he's, you know, there's a thing that my English teacher friends and I say You know what I mean? He's it. He fully tilted into it though. Yeah, he leaned in. He absolutely did. It's given me more of an appreciation for him

because for the longest time, I've kind of been, I'm not an anti-tokenist, but more like, here's a guy who needed an editor. And I haven't read his, he did have a tinier for poetry. Yeah. As a super fan. Yeah.

Some of the poetry is just egregiously awful. Well, and I, you know, I've only had the books read to me. I've never read them myself. Yeah. And I anticipate I'll probably be reading them with my kids soon. And so I've only ever seen the movies. Well, it just so happens that the guy who I'm like, this guy needs an editor, found the one director,

or the director who found his works and decided, I'm gonna make movies as, is the one director who's like, this guy needs an editor. Mm-hmm. You know, because I, Well, at least in the Lord of the Rings series. In every series. In every series.

He writes, in terms of like, he just goes on and on with it. I'm not saying that he wrote bad movies at all, even. I loved the Lord of the Rings movies. I don't need to watch him for another 20 years again though. Yeah. Like when my brother and I went and saw King Kong. Yeah. I turned my brother two hours into it.

I'm like, oh my god, how long is this movie? And his response was to turn to me. His when he's back from Iraq, right? And just briefly though, he turns to me, he's like, it's a Peter Jackson movie. And I was like, oh, shit. No, it's true. It's a thing. Yeah, what's interesting is, you know what genre it was, Peter Jackson originally got his bones in. If you if you say dramatic shorts I'm gonna laugh. No. Okay. Horror.

Well, a lot of people do. Dead alive. I don't know. Okay. It's a truly only a New Zealander could have come up with it. Zombie movie. Okay. It is way over the top.

It is horribly disgusting like oh my god and the thing is if you if you want to break down the Lord of the Rings movies and looking the way they are shot. Oh he's still pulling on it. It is critically important whoever did at the very least the fellowship of the ring needed to be a horror director. And I can talk more about that in our next episode. Please do. And get all point ahead and philosophical about.

Please do. His Catholicism is an influence too. Sure. But Tolkien's Catholicism attacks him, I don't know what his leanings are, but you get what I'm saying. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah, no, I like that.

I'm a sucker for, yeah, I'm a sucker for, like, you know, I teach the I need. So I teach like, oh, by the way, here's what was happening at the time. That's why you have this line right here. And so I'm a sucker for that. And I studied a lot of history around World War One. So it is gratifying to see a lot of that coming

through and stuff that I've shown my kids. Partly because it'll make it easier to explain World War I and World War II to them, but also because you know, those are things that I dig. So that's what's coming out for me. I still am wondering how the Halhtom Bombadill figures into all of it. So are an awful lot of literary critics. Yeah, so... And the only thing I can think of is he was so into world creation that, again, here's a guy who needs an editor.

You know, he made a sandbox and the character is just tapping a walk through that. Yeah, there are all kinds of theories about what his intent was. There is a lot of evidence that Tom Bombadill and his wife are just straight up, I'm going to insert myself and my wife whom I love dearly and think is most beautiful. Oh, well, okay. Into this story as these characters who have a role, but aren't really the driving force behind the story. So it's director camera.

They're here, yeah, director cameo. They're here. They impart some wisdom, but that's it. And they're gone and we move on. And yeah, because he was, it's really, really sweet. How effusive he was about how just besotted he was with Edith. Interesting. Like all his life.

Do you think that some of that had to do with the fact that his mom died early? Well they were both orphans. Yeah. He was an orphan, she was an orphan, and they were both looking for love and connection, and they were able to give it to each other. Yeah. Okay. So. and we could give it to each other. Yeah. Okay. So,

alright, I think it's appropriate to ask for book recommendations in light of who we're talking about. I need to sell my land. Okay. And I'm done. Cool. Yeah, that's what I have to say right now. Okay.

Cool. I am not going to recommend a book because this whole thing is an advertisement for Lord of the Rings and the Hobbits. So there you go. Alright, well... If you want to shout at us, if you catch me making an error regarding the timeline of Seraan's descent into evil, which I know I've made, but please remind me where I did, you can shout at us at at Geek History Time. You can also get a hold of me on Twitter at at ehblaloc. And I'm at at the harmony. And yeah until next time I'm

Damien Harmony. And I'm at Blaloc and keep rolling twice. only twice.