Swords, Sorcery, and Socialism - The Shire: Cottagecore Utopia?

Episode Date: June 23, 2022

We are officially diving in to the Lord of the Rings and continuing our discussions about utopia. Is Tolkien's Shire as idyllic as it seems, or is even his best imagined society still plagued by the greatest of pests, landlords?patreon.com/swordsandsocialismFollow the show @SwordsNSocPodEmail us at [e-mail]: @Himbo_AnarchistKetho: @StupidPuma69 patreon.com/swordsandsocialismEmail: [e-mail] The Show: @SwordsNSocPodAsha: @Herbo_AnarchistKetho: @MusicalPuma69

🎵 Bro. Are you fucking real, man? Come on. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Sword, Sorcery, and Socialism, a podcast about the politics and themes hiding in our genre of fiction. As always, I'm Darius and with me is my co-host, Ketho. How's it going, Ketho? It's going pretty good. My voice is now cleaner. I know we've got both of us now have kind of real mics. You don't have to listen to my old laptop headset anymore.

Moving on up. This is what we do with the big bucks um today we are going to be talking about a sort of a pet topic of mine we are doing our first official dive into the lord of the rings now of the endless things i will talk about about Lord of the Rings eventually on this podcast. I'm sorry, all of you who aren't huge Tolkien heads. My apologies. I'm a fanboy. Get over it. Today, though, we're, as I mentioned last time, we're sort of continuing a little theme here about various versions of Utopia. And I wanted to talk about specifically the Shire, because I have seen a number of

people of, you know, sort of the sort of anarchist variety, more of the, I don't know what you want to call it, but sort of the more pastoral, I guess, inclined people say that the Shire sort of represents a kind of utopia. I don't know if you've seen this online, Kethel, but I know I have. That's maybe because I participate in Tolkien discourse regularly. Participate in the Tolkien discourse. Trust me, there's plenty. Trust me, there's plenty. So again, I've seen this idea that the Shire represents sort of an idyllic life for a lot of people, that there's a lot of things in there to be like, I guess you could use those goals, things you would want to do or look for today because I think it is both right and wrong. And I think I want to start off by talking about the things about that that are right.

The things about the Shire that are actually cool and good. Now, I also want to make clear as we start, I don't think I'm going off the rails by claiming that the Shire is more or less what the author, the good professor himself, would have described as being Utopia. I think that's pretty cold take. Pretty ice cold take for me is that if Tolkien could create a world that in his mind would be as close to perfect as possible, it would be the Shire. I mean, he described himself as a hobbit. It's clearly the place he had the most love for. So what I'm describing in this conversation about whether it's a utopia or not,

I may reference it as being his version of utopia. And I just wanted to make it clear that I don't think that's a wild take to claim that this is his version, not just a version within his book. You know what I mean? So I don't think even he would argue that like Gondor was utopia or anything. No, no, no. He wouldn't argue that like the Manish kingdoms are utopia.

I mean, he's almost. I don't know. I feel like almost the way he presents it, because the of man comes after a long downslide, essentially. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where the age of man is necessary and inevitable, but also kind of bad, but also kind of good. He's like, oh, it's the march of progress. Oh, and he starts to vomit a little bit. Yeah, it's a very, we'll talk about his worldview at some point. Like, because I think it's better than Mordor, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, Gondor is good because it reminds him of things farther in the past that were even better. So the Shire, what is good about the Shire? I think what's good about the Shire is the things that spring to most people's mind immediately when you talk about it. And for you, if I, you know, you,

you random, random person, sir, if I say what, what, what's the Shire like, what are like those sort of first things that pop into your head? It is very pastoral,

cozy. Homes are cozy. You get to kind of layer well some the people it's meant for get to lay around but what i'm saying is you had to correct yourself there because your first thought was you get to lay around yeah that was the first the first initial thought because i mean yeah we'll get into that so your first thought it's it's cozy. It's pastoral. It's comfy. It's homely. I would also say that- Homely in the British sense. Yeah.

I would also say that generally most people would tend to think of it as being fairly relaxed, right? Like he talks all the time about how the hobbits spend time chilling. They have parties. They like go to the inn all the time. You know what I mean? It's very like it's slow paced. People just sort of farm and hang out. And it is a very idyllic picture. And on the one hand, a lot of that stuff is pretty cool. I mean, depending on your specific idea of

how society should be structured, you know, if you're like a, I don't know, sort of like a techno futurist or something, like obviously the Shire is not great for you, but if you're, if you're big into sort of the, like, you know, that pastoral ideal, the sort of like everything's covered in plants, most people are generally doing some version of self-sustaining farming. Your small communities where there's little to no oversight by government of any type at all to enforce any rules. Everyone just sort of gets along. See, as described right now, sounds pretty great. Because that's the shire you get

right more or less and particularly the one i think people imagine in their minds is like you know farmer maggot just like hangs out in farms you know what i mean like people just like sort of live their lives do what they want to do the community is all sort of there. Everyone knows each other. Everyone gets along more or less. There's like family spats, but yeah, violence is essentially unknown within the Shire. Like there's no like interpersonal violence to speak of within the Shire. There's no like theft or assault or anything like that. At least it's mentioned. So I mean, Mary and pippin yeah but

even their like stuff of like setting off fireworks and stuff is more like mildly inconvenient hijinks yeah that's and not like property crime you know what i mean like it's viewed very differently and so for all these reasons that that stuff is, that's good. Like all those things are things that I, I would want in, um, you know, from a society that I lived in, you know, like they technically have sort of a cop called the sheriff. There's a few of them, but the sheriff spelled fricking weird. Yeah. It's sheriff as in Shire reef Reeve. It's English.

Yeah, it's sheriff as in Shire Reef. It's English. It's from Old English Reef, which was a position within feudal England. It's a whole thing. Just so everybody knows, there's two R's and two F's. Yes, because it's Tolkien and he had to do an etymology of his own language that's also based off English. And it's only I's. There's no E. Yeah, it's a sheriff.

Because again, it's a Shire. Yeah, it's a sheriff. Because again, it's a shire. Yeah, yeah. But they exist, but their entire thing is like finding lost farm animals. It's kind of their deal. They don't really like do crime and punishment. There's no prisons. Well, sort of. They have the capacity to do so, but it's pretty clearly described that like

there's really never a need for it um it is specifically like uh an edition of saruman when as as sharky he takes over the shire at the end of the novel and they do the scouring of the shire it's specifically an introduction of his and his men of like prison cells and locking people up like that's the thing that they do so it's clearly like tolkien clearly presents it as a bad thing like the idea of having industrial society brings prisons yes which i think would not be that controversial of a point among a lot of people at least of our sort of milieu right i mean yeah they probably would we'd probably go back far enough and be like. Civilization has prison.

State force. Da, da, da. Society. But you could argue that like you could argue that Saruman and his men taking over the Shire are essentially introducing centralized state violence. state violence. Because up until that point, again, there's like three sheriffs, four sheriffs in the entirety of the Shire.

It's not like they can go around locking people up because they just can't, right? Yeah. Once Saruman takes over, suddenly- The Shire has made all the material conditions ready for the abolition of prisons. So again, you're joking joking but i don't think you're entirely wrong i yeah the things that are good about the shire is that generally society has been has organized in a way that incarceration is not necessary yes um at least

from the perspective of the person writing it. Correct, which obviously is the perspective that we have. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's really the only perspective there. There is. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, whatever. So I would argue that that is like a point Tolkien is trying to make is that Hobbit society is harmonious enough and everyone has cared for enough

that the sort of of crimes that we of that we in our modern society imagine people being locked up for just don't happen generally they're just the you know the preconditions for crime have more or less been eliminated within the shire okay all of that to me, pretty sweet. That's pretty sweet. You get to chill. You get to farm. You get to drink a lot. You get to party.

No one goes to jail. You hang out with the homies all day, more or less. Like, seems pretty dope. Go out, do what you want. Yeah, everyone goes to the fucking inn at the end of the day, to the Green Dragon.

Does a little jig. Everyone, even the people that don't really like each other. It's more just like, I don't like that guy, but that's it. You know what I mean? There's no like sort of inter community scuffles or anything like that. That is all pretty, pretty sweet. And I think that's all you would get if you just sort of read just kind of read the book once or particularly if you just watch the movie that's all you're going to get because you only see really the idyllic bits but the reason why i'd talk about it is because if you dig into it just a little bit

there's kind of a lot going on there that i would argue is not super cool number one not everyone just gets to hang out all day doing nothing not to say it's not everybody in the book we definitely see people just hanging out doing nothing all day but we don't realize is because all four three sorry three of the four main characters that are hobbits are all children of wealthy privileged families who have literally so actually and have literally never had to work a day in their lives frodo has frodo despite you know he is an orphan unfortunate uh then adopted by his fabulously rich uncle yeah the uncle who was already rich before he came back with the shit yeah we're talking we're talking for we're talking bilbo before he stole money from a dragon bilbo was already rich and then frodo never got even more and then he got

even more rich which is just an indicator of the fact that bilbo could afford to just leave his property for like a year. It just shows you again that the only way to get rich is to already be rich. So Frodo's never worked a day in his life because he's like the heir of a massive fortune. Pippin is the child of one of the three most important families in the entirety of the Shire. The other two being the Bagginses and the Brandybucks, who we're going to get to in a second. And the Tooks are one of the oldest and most prestigious and rich families in the entirety of the Shire.

And Mary is a Brandybuck, who is the child of a guy who is literally the ruler of an autonomous region of the Shire. Because Buckland is not officially part of the Shire. It's a territory that was colonized by hobbits that is adjacent to the Shire, but not within its boundaries. It is outside the boundaries of the four farthings, north, and west and so he is an autonomous um ruler more or less of a hobbit area it's like it's like a hobbit colony it's a hobbit colony um i mean it's only hobbits but that is ruled over by a hereditary lord is too strong of a word but like it's kind of a lord obviously tolkien goes through great lengths to explore that these titles we're about to talk about are almost entirely symbolic

and figureheads but i want to highlight that it's mostly they still do have power. I think a vast majority, just something I've noticed, is that a vast majority of utopias, when devised, like we're talking, say, even like Starship Troopers, if you're considering it a utopia from the perspective of Heinlein,

in this instance, the Shire being what is probably a utopia from the perspective of Tolkien there's always at least one contrivance where they just have to wave away an explanation about something or they have to like double down and be like oh it's actually not this way when it's clear that it would end up that way the contrivance here is that though the Shire has three positions of authority that we're going to talk about, two of which are inherited, that society is organized in such a way that those positions are almost entirely symbolic and don't actually have to exercise power. And the people within them. Then. Almost unfailingly choose. Not to exercise power.

From those positions. That's essentially. That hobbits by nature. Don't do that sort of authoritarian stuff. So yeah. This utopia would be like. You can't be human. Literally his contrivance here. Is that only hobbits can do this. only hobbits have the inherent personalities to not

seek to dominate which you can't say is a throwaway thing because it's literally integral to the plot of the entire story that's why frodo and bilbo could hold the ring for so long without it because they don't have the ambition to do anything with it. It's because they do not have the ambition to rule. Like the ring plays on people's ambitions to be powerful. That's what the ring does. The ring is domination. And so the fact that hobbits have no inherent desire to dominate others is why Frodo and

Bilbo are uniquely suited to hold the ring for so long without succumbing to it. So you can't say that that's an integral part to the story. You can't argue otherwise, but that is also necessary for Hobbit society to function the way he set it up for these positions to not be like authoritarian rulers. Is Hobbit just have to inherently not be authoritarian just because they are yeah now it's like it's you might argue as some anarchists might that given enough years within a society that is constantly battling against authoritarian overreach and hierarchy that you could essentially reach a society where

people more or less would generally choose to not be that way. But given the length of the time the shards existed, I feel like it's impossible. If there were men, it would be even, even Tolkien would argue that if they were men doing this, one of them would have just become King by now. Yeah. I mean, I mean, that's why why the that's why the mortal men couldn't handle having their own rings because they above they above all other things desire power so so this is this is like the thing about this i think from tolkien's perspective is that unlike Heinlein, who is like prescribing what the world should look like, the Shire is what Tolkien wishes the world could be like, but doesn't think the world could ever be like.

Correct. I think that is a key difference is that Heinlein is like, this is what the world should be like. And I think we could make it that way. Tolkien is saying, this is what I wish the world could be, but it will never be this way because humans are incapable of it so i do think is an important caveat yes um i think that makes the shire like an interesting study distinct from most utopian fiction like if we're talking

uh or utopian elements in fiction like if we're again if we're talking starship troopers that's prescriptive even if you're talking something like, if we're talking Starship Troopers, that's prescriptive. Even if you're talking something like, even if you're talking something like The Dispossessed, there's a lot of clear belief in the potentiality of it present in those. Like, you know, even if you're the news from nowhere, it's like, these are stories written by people

to explore the potentiality of the thing that they're talking about. And that believe that something similar to it is possible. Whereas Tolkien using utopian elements in fiction is almost using it as a foil to say everything else. This may have been true once upon a time, but it is not a thing that we can any longer see i don't i don't even know if he believes that it was a thing no he draws on

a lot of elements from older england uh but i think uh but i think you're right i don't think he even he believes this ever actually existed yeah because i because i mean tolkien understood i mean honestly gondor and things like that are far more in line with the romanticized vision of what medieval Europe looked like. Yeah, Gondor and Rohan because Rohan specifically is just Anglo-Saxons. Yeah, that's like – it's very like British Isles. Yeah, I mean – yeah, so you're right. I think that he is – yeah, sort of designed a utopia that he doesn't think could ever be. He's just daydreaming with the Shire and wishing he was Bilbo sitting on a freaking stump smoking pipe weed.

So that does two things. One, it sort of excuses us from like, you know, a little bit of the criticism of him because even he's like, this couldn't really actually work. Like, you know, a little bit of the criticism of him because even he's like this couldn't really actually work. But I still think it's worth discussing sort of these other parts of it, even in his utopia that he thinks is too good to be true. Yeah, because it still has something. Still has authoritarian elements within it. Now, OK, it's a stretch to call the actual hobbits as written authoritarian. But we have to imagine putting them in the hands of men, of people. authoritarian, but we have to imagine putting them in the hands of men, of people. So I, sorry,

when I, when I, in this conversation, when I say in the hands of men, I'm speaking of it in the way that Tolkien references these things when he uses men as the species. You know what I mean? I'm not trying to be gendered here. I mean, only the males could have these roles, even though in his world they do. I, when i say men specifically in this context i'm speaking the way tolkien writes about it which is you know men the race mankind as opposed to hobbits or elves or whatever even though hobbits are like a weird offshoot of man yeah hobbits are an offshoot of men let's not get into that right yeah the genealogy of the stuff in tolkien's work is something super contentious even even from his own perspective. Yeah, he contradicted himself frequently.

So for us, we're imagining Hobbit society as one that could be made up of people, of non-Hobbit people. So let's look again at those sort of negative elements that stand out pretty quickly. I'm going to first talk about the smaller ones that people might not know about as much. So let's look again, those sort of negative elements that stand out pretty quickly. Let's talk. I must first talk about the smaller ones that people might not know about much. I'm going to finish with Bilbo, Bilbo and Frodo, our eponymous heroes. Let's start with, again, we already kind of mentioned it, but let's talk about Buckland. So Buckland, like I said, is an autonomous shire colony that's adjacent to the shire. It officially becomes part of the shire after Aragorn becomes king and reconstitutes the kingdom of Arnor.

Don't worry about it. The head of Buckland is just called the Master of Buckland. And the Master of Buckland is just the head of the Brandybuck family who is just, I'm assuming, the oldest living male at the time. Or I think, actually, I'm pretty sure it's not the oldest living. It's not seniority.

It's just started from whoever founded the house of Brandybuck and then his eldest child, the eldest son. Son. Going on down. Doesn't actually have, the site I'm looking. Um, doesn't actually have the, so I'm looking at right now. It doesn't even have a G does the exact genealogy,

but essentially it is. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a hereditary position that gets passed down from father to son. And they have authority over, uh, over Buckland and the marriage technically in East Farthing,

even though again, they mostly don't do anything. They are the ones that can sound an alarm to Marshall people, the battle during the scouring of the Shire. Buckland actually doesn't get taken over because they pull up the bridges. And anytime the men try to cross the bridges, they get shot at with bows and arrows. And Buckland also has a wall.

Oh yeah. It's got the hedge. It's got, it's got the high hedge and they have gates and stuff but so this is again a essentially hereditary lord over an autonomous region that's not even part of the greater shire now if you think that could go on for a long time in the hands of people uh without one of them being like it'd be cool to have more power. I think you're fooling yourself.

It'd be cool to start extracting more rents from the people that live on my land. From the entire clan that lives in, who lives in what, essentially one giant building, more or less, a giant complex of their hall, a brandy hall. Like, obviously that's, they live in there,

but also that whole area is populated by many other families of hobbits who, let's be clear, all exist on land controlled by the master of Buckland, and I guarantee you, pay rent. Because that's how the brandy bucks make their money. Yeah, I mean, they would have to tithe. you pay rent because that's how the that's how the brandy bucks make their money yeah they absolutely i mean they would have to tithe like it's it's they literally a mad this is this is and we're talking to uh getting into it now i think sort of the main conceit of what's what the bad part

of the shire is it's essentially set up like late feudal england let's say it's still a very very specifically and very strictly a classed society it's a class society it's feudal england let's say it's still a very very specifically and very strictly a class society it's a class society it's feudal england before enclosure is what it is because you have these big farmlands and grazing pastures and all this other stuff but they're all owned by landlords they're all owned by a ruling class who pass their land down via inheritance and the people that don't own the land pay rent on it like so that guarantee that is what's happening in buckland that is how the brandy books make all their money mary has never had a job and will and does will does never have a job until he on his own time becomes master of buckland by the way again of our four main hobbit characters three of them

go on to be the three most important people in the entire shire and the other one leaves middle earth the other one leaves and goes to heaven essentially elf heaven yeah so await the end of the world let's go well now he goes there and dies yeah yeah but say they die when they get over there but uh but like so mary regardless of the adventure of lord of the rings mary was going to end up as master of buckland one way or the other he was going to end up in this position so i'm a man i'm trying to imagine pre leaving the shire mary he's a spoiled little brat that's why well they'd be stealing crap actually actually let's be clear uh book mary is much less of a brat that's true yeah we're definitely thinking a movie because they're a lot more mature book mary is actually a like basically the same age

as sam and frodo and is about more responsible pippin is the child of them, and he's the one that's more like impish. They made Mary more Pippin-like for the movies, so they'd have a better sort of buddy cop dynamic. But still, he just would have been in a hair position. He just would have had. Like, he just gets to be Master of Buckland and hang out all day. Speaking of Pippin, Pippin is a Took.

The Tooks actually hold the title uh the head of the toque family hold the longest like reigning title in the shire which is that of thane yeah i was about to say i i think it's arguable that the toques are the most powerful family in the shire they are they 100 are in part because the brandy bucks aren't actually in the shire. They are. They 100% are. In part because the Brandy Bucks aren't actually in the Shire, technically. But also because the Tukes are older than the Brandy Bucks and have been important for longer. That's true. Well, actually,

it's a little iffy because technically the Brandy Bucks had the title of Thane before they gave it to the Tukes when the Brandy Bucks migrated to Buckland. The first two Thanes were old bucks, but whatever. we're getting in the weeds here, but I would say the toques are sort of the biggest and most important family within the Shire.

That is true. I mean, Bilbo's own mother was a toque, which we get reminded of. That's why he's adventurous. Oh yeah. Cause the toques. Yeah.

So the toques have the title of Thane. So the Tooks have the title of Thane. Thane was a title bestowed upon sort of the leader of the Shire when it was still part of the human kingdom of Arnor, the Northern Kingdom, when Gondor was one big united realm. Even once it got split into a Northern Kingdom and Southern Kingdom, the Northern Kingdom essentially bestowed upon the house the title of thane which is like the rulers of the of the shire in the name of the king that's what a thane see i know it's spelled differently but whenever i hear it i just think i just think of lydia yeah skyrim we're clear i think i'm sworn to carry your burdens it is i mean it is that exact

same position more or less when yeah and it's derived from exactly the same etymological origin yeah when that when when the jarl is like i name you thane of white run it's like you have an authority position at my grace which the king of arnor gave to you had in the shire when the northern Kingdom fell, they just essentially still had a Thane going for a little while. And then they eventually made the Thane a hereditary title that the Tuke family took over. Now, according to Tolkien, over time, the position of Thane became less authoritative.

So in this case, the Tu toques and the thane are um you know are marxist leninists in that the authority of the state withered away over time a thing that famously happens so a thing that is famously possible famously possible for the state to wither away because the thane earlier on had more authority because it was literally a direct like counselor that answered to the king and eventually became the sort of just the head of the shire and then eventually it became again a largely ceremonial position especially since arnor ceased to exist he ceased to be so the first couple Thanes were Old Bucks who then abdicated and gave it to the first the Took family.

And then the Took family held it for, if I look here, if I'm counting 1, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

Pippin is the 20th Took Thane of the Shire. Jeez Louise. Hobbits live freaking ever. Hobbits live a hundred more or less. I mean, Bilbo was old for a Hobbit because of the ring. And he made it to, he was a hundred. Famously Lord of the Ring starts at his 111th birthday. So about a hundred years old. But then there's like 30 more years and then he goes off. But that's, again, that's Lord of the Rings starts at his 111th birthday. So about 100 years old.

But then there's like 30 more years and then he goes off. But again, that's because of the ring. He's an exception. Aside from the old Took, who is also specifically really long lived for a hobbit. Give or take 100 years for hobbits. Pippin, again, through hereditary means regardless of his adventures during the book becomes thane and is the 20th to thane the 22nd thane overall

and then give and then pippin eventually abdicates and gives it to his son who he names faramir because he's because they're all cool like that and named their kids after. Yeah. Got to name them after your people, you know? And then it just says that the, an un there's an unknown number of took things who continue their title into the fourth age.

So it is an unbroken line of, of, of head to the Duke family with a hereditary leadership position within the Shire. How would this work out if this were people? How's it gone for people generally to have 20 generations of the same family holding an office of authority? Woof.

That's looked pretty. Let's call up, you know, I don't know, the Habsburgs. Actually, to be fair, I don't know many, even European monarchs that made it 20 generations. I don't know if anybody made it 20 generations in their own. I mean, to be fair, 20 generations is a long time.

Or I should say 20 in a row. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, but it's still a long time. I don't even know if there were ever 20 Habsburg monarchs total. Yeah. I don't think know if there were ever 20 hapsburg monarchs total yeah and i don't think there were no i mean well there's not they're not a lot of unbroken chains you know like dynasties changed a lot um yeah famously not super good at doing that yeah like maintaining this sort of unbroken because everyone who came next was like oh i will become the new origin of the dynasty i

remember just the head of the dynasty the beginning of this i gotta i gotta start at sub house man you're like dude weren't you already the kid of someone who had their own they tried to make their own thing so again hereditary leadership position regardless of his adventures. Let's talk about the third, uh, the third title in the Shire. The only, the third most, one of the three most important people, arguably the most important position in the Shire supposedly, and the only one that's elective. This is the mayor of Michael Delving or Mikkel Delving. Um, it's technically the mayor of that one city, but that city is considered essentially the capital of the Shire. So if you're the mayor of Mikkel Delving, you're the mayor of the Shire. And it is the most important title among hobbits.

The position is elective and held for seven years. Also presides over large events where leadership is wanted or necessary. is chosen at the free fair in life held every seven years at the white downs i'm wondering who's i actually didn't look um know who's allowed to vote if it's every hobbit just the male hobbits i don't know probably just the landed gentry if it's if we're consistent with the setting it's probably hobbits that own land or something so over over time, throughout the Third Age, as the hereditary positions became less important, this elected one supposedly became more important. He's chosen every seven years at a big fair, presides over banquets and over big meetings. He's also the postmaster and first sheriff.

um he's also the postmaster and first sheriff um this one is the mayor of the beginning of the lord of the rings is a hobbit named will whitfoot i have no idea what he's about um really i don't talk about him much the fact that he got imprisoned by sarman uh during the scouring of the Shire. Then Bill Afroto acts as deputy mayor for six months while Will recovers. And then later on, Sam gets elected mayor seven times. Yeah, consecutively. Are they consecutively? Yep.

Oh yeah, they are. So seven times seven, that is a lot. 44? I don't remember. Seven times seven is 49. So, sure. I hate the number seven. It's stupid.

The math is awful. Sam, by virtue of being one of the companions that undertook the quest for the ring and becoming a somewhat, as Tolkien would put it, like elevated hobbit. Gains a lot of notoriety and fame among the hobbits and for being a leader during the scouring of the Shire. He becomes the mayor of the Shire for 49 uninterrupted years. Now, Sam, however, is somewhat a positive note because Sam began as one of the lower class in the Shire. Sam is our only main character that did not come from a landed family of gentry so he

essentially got to like ascend classes through two things one like the adventure and his association with Aragorn you know the High King Elessar and two all of Frodo's money because when Frodo

leaves to go to paradise he leaves all of hisdo's money. Because when Frodo leaves to go to paradise, he leaves all of his money to Sam. Sam gets rich quick? No, it took a long time, actually. It took quite a while. It took him essentially being Frodo's manservant for his entire life up to that point.

No, basically his entire life. His servant. I meant the adventure. The whole quest for the ring takes like a year, like a year and a half, something like that. So Sam is already like

one feel-good story within the Shire because he gets to go from being one of the poors to being mayor for 50 years. But in order to do so, he had to go on the most like impressive adventure

a hobbit's ever done, become friends with the high king and inherit a bunch of money from his rich friend. And the others would have gotten their title just by being them. And Mare and Pippin would have gotten theirs either way, which leads us, because Sam is inextricably linked from Frodo, let's talk about Frodo and Bilbo. Frodo and Bilbo, while not having hereditary titles and coming from a family, the Bagginses, who are not as rich or important

as the Brandybucks or the Tooks, are still incredibly wealthy. They've lived in their house in Hobbiton forever, more or less at Bag End. And at minimum, all of the houses on Bagshot Row are owned by them. Oh, yeah. They're the Bagginses.

Once again, landlords. It is explained in there that the Baggins side of Bilbo, because Bilbo is half Baggins, half Took. The Baggins side was the poorer of the two sides, but that's relative considering the Tooks are the most important family in all of the Shire. Yeah. but that's relative considering the Tukes are the most like important family in all of the Shire. Yeah. So he, his father essentially gave him Bag End and Bagshot Row,

but then he also inherited a bunch of other land from his mother. As explained, I was looking through it and looking up different explanations and stuff. And I found this sort of explanation that bagshot rose specifically mentioned but there are other lands involved as well including largely farmland uh bilbo also apparently if you read the text uh did money lending oh that's okay although it's not not explained anywhere how much interest he charged bilbo did lend money to people, but seeing as the Shire is pastoral,

it's not like there's industry for him to be involved in. It's mostly just farming. So he inherited most of his land and then lived off of being a landlord. Again, think sort of late medieval England landed gentry. He is just a rich fop who hangs out and gets paid rent. The Gamgees have been living on Bagshot Row as tenants of the Bagginses for generations. Like they have just always been their gardeners.

Yeah, long enough that they historically have the same job for them. Long enough that they historically have the same job for them. Like Sam, Sam is Frodo's gardener because Gaffer was Bilbo's gardener. Like that's and on and on. That's how that works is essentially a man, a hereditary servant, which if you remember, if you remember history quickly, those are serfs. The Gamgees are more or less serfs of the bagginses now you could argue to what extent they truly are serfs because like if the gamgees wanted to move can they i think so yeah probably they're allowed to so they're not like tied to the land the way a surf is but like also i imagine

within the hobbit society tolkien created just moving for the sake of moving isn't something anybody really did it's it's sort of explained as being a wild thing for frodo to want to move from bag end out to you know whatever the fuck that secondary place was that he pretended he was moving to before he left the sh that secondary place was that he pretended he was moving to before he left the shire i don't even remember it anymore because it matters so little but you know what i mean have you seen the place it's beautiful it's beautiful but you know what i mean like the idea of like moving to another town within the shire is very like oh i would do that for i mean to be fair if you moved it would just end up being the same. Yeah, but it could be.

Like, landed gentry really can't move because they're tied to their land in a way. Tied to their land. But you know what I mean. It's just very like moving is not a thing you do. Yeah, but if the gaffer and Sam moved, they would just move and be someone else's gardener. Mm-hmm. So. I move somewhere else. And the skills I bring with me are we were the Baggins's gardeners for five generations.

We can be your gardeners in this other place now. Yeah. So the material situation wouldn't change based on where they went. So in the countryside, are there like hobbits that own their own and farm their own land? Probably some. Maybe. But the vast majority of farmland is owned by people like Bilbo and the Tukes and the Brandy Bucks. And, you know, like who just are essentially absentee landlords and you just,

you know, pay your tithe or your rent to them every year. So you have the right to work the land. So Bilbo literally never worked a day in his life. Until the whole adventure thing. No wonder he's. Yeah. No wonder he's so soft and they start their adventure.

Yeah. Do anything. No wonder Sam is the only competent one in the entire party. Yeah. no wonder he's yeah no wonder he's so soft when they start their adventure yeah do anything no wonder sam is the only competent one in the entire party yeah the one who like picks everybody up and and it is pretty clear in the book sam is the one that carries like everything oh yeah he's the one who has the bag the bag on yeah the big bag because sam is the servant Yeah, the big bag, because Sam is the servant. Like, this gets spun in, like, because they're also definitely displayed as being, like, friends. It is clear within the book that Frodo is his master.

Like, he refers to him as master constantly. Yeah, they edited that for the movie for good reason, I think. Sam is Frodo's servant. And he's not his master in, a in like an interesting bdsm way like he's his it's something tells me tolkien to be a little like to be a little taken aback but frodo is the master in that like he is the landed gentry who is above you socially and therefore must be listened to and supported because he is your social better. That's how that works. And there's even weird getting into Tolkien's ideas a little bit and pulling

back from his sort of ideation of, you know, feudal England, the way that he in the text looks down on people like the sackville bagginses and to a lesser extent ted sandyman are because those are people who make money through like physical means the sackville baggins has made all their money through trade they're the ones that are like lotho is the main contact of selling pipeweed to sarma that's how the sackville bagginses get rich at in a way it's kind of like it's yet again another thing that gets used in the scouring of the shire to be like a attempted invasion of industrialization um but also kind of i feel like the way that landed gentry looked at

the up-and-coming bourgeois yes like when it really started to take off and over and in a lot of places overtake gentry it is 100 a landed gentry's opinion it's really funny because it just means both groups fucking suck yeah i mean it's a very much let them fight sort of thing but we all know that like you know anyone who's forced to read like a i don't know a bronte sister's book or like a jane austen novel or something like all those books about sort of you know victorian england or whatever you know, Victorian England or whatever, you know how the opinions were between like landed families and family and new money, you know,

families who got rich through capitalism. Yeah. They're like owning businesses and working, working with air quotes. Yeah. So the Sackville Baggins is working relative to aristocrats. Yeah. So the Sackville Baggins is,

they're looked down upon because they made their money through trade, through like doing things. And Lotho ends up like, you know, being an accomplice for Saruman, at least for a little while. An accomplice of industrial society. Of industrial society.

Ted Sandiman, who runs the mill, which that's a weird thing. I don't even, that might be a whole discussion for another time. I think it is because a whole other discussion is Tolkien's, you know, opinions about sort of industrialization and, you know, progress versus nature and that sort of thing. But Ted Sandy, the mill must exist in order to take care of grain, right? Like that's a necessary

piece of technology. Yes. But to Tolkien, that is also essentially like a gateway into industrial society. And you see Ted Sandeman is one of the only people that benefits from like the scouring of the Shire because they build more mills and he's in charge of them or whatever. Yeah. Like he's not in charge of them because he's a hobbit and the humans are. them because he's a hobbit and the humans are but like he's he's one of the people that welcomes saruman at first before he gets betrayed um and subjugated like everyone else because he is a gateway to industrialism and so people that make their living that way are like looked down upon within the shire if you're not landed money you don't count i mean again it's a it's another reflection on how it started with individual mill owners and you know water wheel factories essentially yeah i mean it became

you know that's how which i mean does speak to tolkien's actual knowledge of history that's true uh that like he knew clearly as a medievalist and someone who hated modernity, more or less, he was well knowledgeable on the fact that, you know, the people that were the beginning of the sort of industrial capitalism were mill owners and, you know, mercantile trades people like these were the people that were the drivers of sort of extractive industrial capital they were the ones who were cutting down all of his beloved trees to like build factories and run the mills which again i think his environmentalism is a place where tolkien gets positive points in my book. And I, and I could argue in, you know,

at some other point, how much that affected my view of sort of technology because of how much I read this book when I was young. Technology is just Saruman. Yeah. I mean, again, that's just here to uproot the trees and kill us with weird genetically

altered Uruk-hai. I mean, it's Saruman who's just a disciple of Sauron by the end. Sauron, who's a disciple of Morgoth. And all... Well, Sauron and Saruman, who both at one point were students of Aule, who is

the god of craftsmanship, which is a whole other thing about the fact that basically being people that make things with your hands and craftsmanship which is a whole other thing about the fact that basically being people that like make things with your hands and craftsmanship is a slippery slope into pride how how very interesting for a pure academic to say love not too i mean he is a big fan of the quote love not too much the work of thine own hands oh that's true how how very religious of him there we go yeah it's very much a thing that he incorporated it's it's the old it's the old uh i don't know

why i suddenly thought of stelaris and how spirituality and materialism are on opposite sides of the governance spectrum that's right baby um I mean, in short, Tolkien's argument is that if you are a person that creates things, makes things like a Smith or, you know, that you're a creator of items, that is one of the easiest ways to become prideful because you become proud of the work you create. And then you essentially become convinced yourself that you are creating things that are above sort of God's creation. Yeah. Pride.

Yeah. It's pride, which is like the Cardinal of the sins. And that is pride is the main fall of more goth and Sauron and Saruman because you create things you think your things are better than God's things so then you become prideful which then leads you to corrupting God's things to make more of your own things and that's how industrialism works um now learning to hate industrial society through Christian theology I I mean, yes.

Again, I don't think that's within the scope of this episode specifically, but we will talk about that at some point. I think that there's definitely his love of nature and pastoralism is inherently tied into his Catholic faith. I think you can't extract the two from each other. It's sort of the, I love God's creation too much that we shouldn't be despoiling it with smokestacks, but bring it back. So the Shire best case scenario for most of us, you're essentially a tenant farmer. Now that does come with the benefits that people have pointed out that a lot of sort of

medieval ish because the shire is also not really medieval it's sort of on the edge of early modern with like their technology the things they have you know like they drink tea and they like you know have a levity you know i mean like the, the further away from the Shire you go, the more into like feudalism and ancient history you get. The Shire is very much like a sort of Victorian early modern type of place. Yeah, like you were saying, feudal, you know, mercantile. Essentially the era when the commons started beginning to be enclosed, but before that happened. It's sort of like right before enclosure starts. We're talking like the Age of Exploration.

We're talking like right before all the trade markets in Amsterdam popped off. We're talking like right before that. like right before that whereas if when you get out to Rohan or Gondor he intentionally made it they're essentially moving back through the mists of time into a further more futile past that's how that works it was intentional on his part but so at best in the Shire for most of us is you're just a tenant farmer or you work at the Green Dragon as like a brewer or you're ted sandyman in the mill you know what i mean like you're still just essentially working a job again it comes with some of those benefits that medieval like sort of serfs or peasants kind of had where like you do generally get more leisure time, more or less.

You do get more days off, sort of. If you want to hear about that specifically, there's a podcast called We're Not So Different, which is about like looking at like sort of the feudal era, the medieval times and how what things actually were like compared to the popular narratives. They have a whole series of episodes about sort of free time and holidays and such for medieval peasants. Um, some of that's true. That whole thing you've seen on Twitter where it's like the medieval peasants had more vacation time than us. It's like true, but it's not true. It's complicated. They did work less. That is true. And so that's good. But at the same time, if you and I are hobbits in the shire

we're still just paying rent to someone like bilbo who sits on his fat butt all day doing doing jack all translating elvish poetry because he can yeah what if you want to do that oh nope can't do that sorry got a garden well because i mean bilbo is also described as being sort of highfalutin because of how like learned and lettered he is. Like it was an outstanding thing in an act of great generosity that he bothered to teach Sam how to read and write. Again, that's not portrayed in the movies, but it's in the book that the gaffer can't. The gaffers are literate. Sam knows how to read and write because Bilbo liked him and decided to teach him that's the only reason sam knows his letters

oh that's right now it's all coming back to me that line specifically he knows his letters yeah because bilbo taught him like for free because he's a generous guy so i mean obviously that's fine for me because i'm illiterate now but like if you're anybody else that's objectively worse in most people's opinion it's pretty whack to like you could be i mean farmer maggot i think knows his letters because he's a pretty successful like independent farm owner but like for most of the people that are just like you know i'm i'm you know fort and brass harfoot you don't know how to read or write you just like sit on your farm all day like that's it that's your whole life you go into town every once in a while and like like, that's it. It got at me.

That's there's some downsides there, I would argue. Not super egalitarian, actually. No, not at all. Like, sure, life's pretty great if you go back and you're one of Pippin's like cousins who just gets to like dick around and be a rich toque and never really have to do anything. around and be a rich toque and never really have to do anything or you know you're like mary's younger brother who doesn't even actually have to have an inherited title or some shit you just get to like sit around being a rich guy and do absolutely nothing you don't even have the responsibilities of office yeah however limited those might be however those might be but even then like mary spends most of his life once he becomes master of buckland like writing books about herbs like he becomes a herbologist i don't i don't

remember if that's the word for people that studies botanist that's the word i was gonna say herbology is uh a made-up thing most famous though not originally from thing most famous though not originally from but most famous from the esteemed JK Rowling's Harry Potter series

nevermind yeah Mary is essentially just a botanist he's rich and sits around all day writing books about plants and like exchanging them with people in gondor who

do the same thing that's like his whole deal oh my god he has gondorian pen pals yeah i mean he's well he's pen pals he's literally pen pals with faramir oh that's right he names his kid faramir and faramir who becomes like you know guardian of athelion or whatever a real job yeah he actually has like feudal responsibilities he's got you actually gotta do they like they like exchange books about plants like that's that's what mary does for the most of his life while he's master of buckling pippin i don't know probably just smokes a bunch of pipe weed and hangs out oh yeah definitely i could look it up i don't i'm not gonna like sam of all of them is actually the one with the most responsibility probably a good thing

he's probably the one who can handle it yeah the mayor of mickle delving actually has to do stuff from time to time he handles the postal service so like he actually has to be in charge of things and that's fine because sam's also the only one that actually knows how to work yeah and so we've rambled a bit but my conclusion here is that like while there's a lot of aspects of the Shire and Hobbit society, which I think are utopian. Again, the fact that like everyone is supported enough that we've more or less eliminated the preconditions for most crime. There's essentially no cops. In fact, cops showing up is like a hallmark of saruman and progressive society that are bad right like cops are explicitly a bad thing that they have to exist

you know you get your sort of pastoral lifestyle it's non-extractive more or less from the land um a lot of positive things the flip side of it though, is that there's also landed gentry who are essentially your social betters that are always going to be higher and more important and richer and better off than you. And there's nothing you can do about it because they're landed gentry. And even if you do get rich somehow, they're going to look down on you for being a young upstart. Even if your family got that money like three generations ago, like you're still new money to them because you know, the toques have been Thane for 20 generations.

Oof. Like there's nothing you can do for that. Right. So you're still in a hierarchical structured class society. It's just a society where the people have decided they're just not going to be mean. Yeah, it's essentially a hierarchical society where the Lords have decided that it's, they don't feel like being mean to the people under them, simply through their own, their inherent nature as hobbits.

And they got super lucky that all of the surrounding nation was a big fan of them. Actually, to be fair, the only reason the Shire is peaceful is because the Rangers constantly patrol its borders and fight anything that would fuck it up. So I think that's something I almost forgot to mention. The Shire maintains this peaceful, ignorant pastoralism. And Tolkien calls it essentially ignorant of the outside world.

Only exists because the Dúnedain constantly patrol its borders, killing any orcs or wolves or trolls or orcs that might invade it due to their like the inherent good nature duty bound culture of the dunedin like let's say there's just a lot of innocent people in the shire yeah so they do they would be willing to protect that yeah by by virtue of being the descendants of the men of the northern kingdom the dunedin see it as their as their inherited responsibility to allow the shire to continue its blissful, peaceful existence. And to a lesser extent, Bree. And the other two little towns, the other little towns near Bree, whose names I don't remember because they're not important. Because we don't go there.

We don't go there, but they are mentioned. But like, so despite this idyllic society, they partly exist because an outside force keeps them safe at all times. and then once you know the main threat has passed like you it's still that it's still that way because the former dunedain leader becomes high king becomes high king and reincorporates the Shire into the restored kingdom of Arnor. And to be clear, then makes the positions of mayor, Thane, and master of Buckland, the three official chancellors of the Shire that answer to the king. So those three positions that were largely ceremonial now become official titles within the restored kingdom of god guys it's okay the king's a good guy yeah let's not get started about philosopher kings that's i think that we save that for the episode about tolkien's actual political beliefs and we talk about the one honest to god anarcho-monarchist i'm serious yeah i want to live it wants to live

in the shire but also philosopher king there i think there is one there was only ever one honest and anarcho-monarchist it was tolkien we'll talk about it at some other point but so yeah again the shire even so when the threats that used to plague their borders is gone it's because they've been incorporated into a larger still entirely feudal kingdom yes and they just get to exist as their little bubble within the kingdom because aragorn likes them wow did token not i guess he wouldn't take 30 seconds to think wow what if somebody who wasn't as cool as aragorn was king well i mean even within his book aragorn is an exceptional character i mean if you read the history of the former kings of gondor i mean they lost their kings for a long time because some of the former kings were dumb cunts yeah like i mean i i i agree but it's like

oh so this blissful experience of the hobbits will probably end eventually because that's a lot of really nice farmland. Yeah, well, if you follow Tolkien's logic to its extent, we currently live within the world that Middle-earth existed in. And where are the hobbits now? Gone. Oops, all gone. Oops, all displaced even in the opening to the book i don't remember if the opening to the lord of the rings the opening to the hobbit even he explains that there are still hobbits around but humans have become so overwhelming that hobbits now have essentially

become so good at hiding from us that we don't know that they're there anymore. So even within Tolkien's own world, that little idyllic shire does not last. And I guarantee you what happens is it eventually gets overrun by men because men eventually just take it over and colonize it. And the hobbits get slowly pushed out to the point where they are, you know, now, quote unquote now, where they technically are still around probably, but they're so hidden from us that they might as well not exist. And they don't remember the glory days of being in a semi-independent shire anymore. So again, we've circled back to our original point, which is that even within this world,kien sets up a utopia that by his own logic cannot exist and will cease to exist and will cease to exist even within the special conditions he created for it to exist

even he acknowledges that it cannot continue indefinitely again we're i'm gonna quickly compare this to heinlein who was like if this is the way it was, it would be perfect forever. Pretty much explicitly is like, this is forever perfection. OK, perfect. Now we're done. I mean, he takes time out of the novel to explain why there's never been a revolt against their new government and why there never will be. Like, well, everyone who ever could fight ever is. Yeah, anyone anyone who has the spirit to fight joins the military and therefore

gets indoctrinated and therefore can't fight a rebellion like where the hobbits require mag magnet magnanimity require the men the humans around them to be magnanimous. Yeah, which can only last so long. Yeah. Again, by his own worldview, we are in the age of man now. By his own worldview, the Shire is on a timer.

Because it's the age of men. Tolkien is the only not entirely shitty return guy. Entirely. I'm not going to say, I shouldn't say he's the only not entirely shitty return guy. Entirely. I'm not going to say, I shouldn't say he's the only one. People are going to come at me with a lot of comments about all these other people. Look, I'm being hyperbolic.

And yeah, a lot of aspects of his return shit are bad. I do like some of them. Because I do like trees. And I don't really like industrial capitalism. He and I can agree on that, that burning all the trees in a giant smokestack is bad and that I do wish some trees would come to life and beat the shit out of industrial capital. Yeah, you know, watching some ants come back

and fucking find, I don't know, just... Like rampage through Texas tearing down oil derricks. Cool. Fucking great. Be pretty great. Cover a big swath of Texas in a in a like a like a Huron, like a Huron forest. Just transplant a bunch of trees to like the middle of Texas. Be pretty dope.

But obviously some parts of his ideology are like problematic and bad. All I'm saying is, you know, that he's like the one return guy who isn't doing it entirely for like white nationalist reasons. It's not really have any more thoughts except that the Shire is actually super hierarchical. Kind of most of the time would probably not be that great for most of us.

If we live there and can only exist uh through a very specific set of circumstances that he doesn't believe can work which to be fair is sort of a uh essential to his idea that the world we live in is not one in which perfection can be because it's been marred by evil from its inception. But I still thought it would be an interesting or useful little, you know, talk to have, do you have any final thoughts?

I've rambled a lot this episode. That's because, well, you know, I'm sort of the Tolkien guy. So I have, I'm totally okay. You know,

letting you kind of take, take the reins on an episode like this because I wouldn't be able to add anywhere near as much. Look, we've all got our specialty subjects. Yeah. Mine's, you know, the professor is my specialty subject on this podcast. That and sports, but we never talk about sports. Yeah, yeah.

No, tune in for a bonus episode where i talk about the labor politics of international soccer or something just kidding not on this podcast hey you know if you ever you know want to invite somebody on to talk about that cool bonus episode i'll probably check out yeah um. So yeah, any final thoughts? Do you want to live in the Shire? I mean – Even if you could live in the Shire and it's like golden sort of age, which is like most of the third age and I'm assuming most of the fourth age, would you choose to essentially be an equal level person? I'm saying like socially sort of... Because you can't say, oh, I'm going to move to the Shire and be Pippin.

I mean, yeah, I'm a dumbass in this world too, but I'm not going to go suddenly be a rich one in another world. So imagining your current station, would you trade it? Just because the place is... It's still hobbit land where people are still nice even when in positions of power

i i might be willing to be a gamgee in a in this in a it would still suck but my life's you know how different is it really i said i might be willing though i think this is actually this is honestly tough for me. I just thought honestly, if I'm going to be honest, like how I grew up, it'd probably be closer to me being in like Farmer Maggot's family or something. Then it would be which which, again, not that bad. Not that bad. Because Farmer Maggot, as I said, is, I think, an independent farmer. He's he's a petite bourgeois.

Yeah, I mean, he's a petit bourgeois. Yeah. I mean, he's a, he's a fucking shit. What was the fucking Kulak? I'm just kidding. Um, no, like it is,

his land is referred to as Matt farmer maggots property. So I think by definition, like he owns his own farmland. So like, that's actually not that bad. I mean, the problem of that being is that if he's doing that much land he might have people working for him he does he's got his he's got his sons and i think and i think i think he has i think he has some other ones too if i remember correctly he has

some other hobbits that like come and work for him like he has like farm employees because he does have a lot of land so yeah he's again real like sort of petite bourgeois, I guess. Yeah, again, I mean he kind of is like a rich peasant more or less. Like he's a peasant, but he's a rich peasant, which did exist. There were lots of rich peasants, like lots relatively, but like there were some. If you translate my position, how I was growing up up i would be a gamgee like in in the shire like my dad was just a laborer in a factory right so if you translate that over that means my dad is just like a farm hand i i've uh i guess the the closest thing my dad my dad would be working

for the only thing the mayor does the postal service postal service um so we i mean yeah we were still blue you know we my parents didn't know the business we were still in the blue color yeah but um even given all of that would i would i choose to be the son of a farm hand now the question is or amgi in the shire the question isn't is the shire that good the question is is current society bad enough that the shire is better i i think we we i think i would say yes yeah i was about to say i think we have a bit of a biased perspective on that mostly because we exist within this world and the grass is always greener on the other side but um that is true the hobbits would fucking kill for a lot of the food we have access to absolutely but hobbit food also pretty good

looks pretty great i think the only the i think the only peep the only book we've talked about where the people wouldn't switch for our food is Redwall. Oh, yeah, because they go into intricate detail. Their food's already great. But I do think that Hobbits, though, I think inherently would not want to live in the world that we live in. They wouldn't trade plays with us because it's too industrial. It's too busy. It's too big. It's too loud it's too like honestly not like screw it i would i would live in the shack i'd be i would do it but i mean i think i also have part of me that is even you know the shire aside more drawn to that sort of more independent pastoral lifestyle than i am to sort of you like a techno

futurism type of like oh well yeah just period i mean i don't mean that disparagingly towards you know my anarchist friends that are into you know technology or any of that sort of thing it's just not for me i would i'm the older i get the older i go for tech the older I get, the older I get for tech, the older I get, the more I like the idea of living on a, on a farm. Like when I was a kid, I wanted to live in a city. And now every year that goes by,

I'm like, man, live it out, live it out in the countryside would be, would be pretty sweet. Yeah. If I think, so I think the older I get,

the more hobby hobbity I've gotten. I mean, I feel like, yeah, I mean, personality wise, I feel like I've always been a hobbit. Every passing year I become more hobbit.

It's like, was it carcinization where everything becomes crab? Everything become crab. It's hobbitization. Every, over time I inherently become a hobbit hobbit where i would prefer to sit at home with good food uh and that's about it and have multiple meals a day a lot of them like eight i mean yeah also i'd be enormous all right that's it i think it's a new

test we should institute whenever we talk about a book that has a utopian element to it is would you want to live there? The Shire, I say yes. Obviously, Starship Troopers is a hard no. Starship Troopers can go fuck itself. It's a hard no. If anyone says yes to that world, that is – listen. That should not be your friend. If anyone is out there and they're in a nerdy-ass relationship with a nerdy-ass person, if you or just even know anyone who's a nerdy-ass person

and you get the impression that they would enjoy living in the Starship Troopers universe, run. Run. Far and fast. Push them down a well. Just scream and run. GTfo yeah gtfo if they say they want to live in the shire maybe they might be cool yeah i would say you got a 50 50 shot there you know 50 50 shot they might they might just be cool like you know based sort of self you know self-sustaining farmers you ecologically sustainable, or they might be

weird white nationalists. Got to find that out the hard way. That's trial and error. You should be able to figure that part out pretty quick, though. And you know, next time when we talk about William Morris, we'll see how we feel about his utopian, if we'd want to live there. Yeah, it's probably a little better than

Heinlein. There's not much that would be worse. Yes, you're right. Thank you everyone for listening. If you didn't know, we have a Patreon. You can check it out. We do about one bonus episode a month where we talk about a non-book

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