Alright, I'm really darned. And this is Serophan Assist, the Blackass, where fans have everything. Welcome. Today I am joined by Matt Ham.
To talk about the Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, the third book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We talk about the extra insight into Mary and Pippin, the interesting presence of Denathor as a morally gray character, and how long the ending goes on for. Lord of the Rings is a spectacular series that earns its credit as the progenitor of modern fantasy, and it was a great time discussing it with Matt.
On a discussion. Hello everyone. I'm here with Matt Ham of The Simpsons Show, another podcast that I do with Matt. We're talking about elves.
This is elves and dwarves and Hobbuses. There's only one door to be fair in this one. That's true, but you know, there's also Hobbuses. There's lots of Hobbuses.
Yeah, not much. There's very little Gollum in this. Gollum barely appears. That's true.
I mean, his presence is felt quite a bit in the same amount of section, but you know, he only shows up in the last, I don't know, 20, 30 pages. Yeah, he's like around, and then they like same season once, and then he shows up at the end. We're not really the end because this book, the ending, that movie, does not, everyone complain about the ending of Richard and the King, the movie. The book does it one better or two better or three better with the amount of endings.
Well, I mean, it has the one ending and then the epilogue that, oh, BT dubs, we're also going back to the Shire, where it turns out Saruman's still being a jerk. We'll talk about that at some point. This contains, this is Return of the King, contains books five and six, which are the War of the Ring and the End of the Third Age, but basically they are everyone's doing stuff except for Sam and Frodo. And then book six is basically just Sam and Frodo.
Yep, it's them against a whole bunch of Nameless Orcs and Gull. And yeah, they're just, they're in the ring, basically. You know, they're fighting the ring the entire time as well. What'd you think, Matt?
It was good. I would say it's probably better than Fellowship, not quite as good as Two Towers, which seems to happen a lot in trilogies, because I mean Fellowship really suffers from that whole Tom Bombadil sidetrack, but you've also got the Mines of Moria, which is a really great part, so it kind of evens out. This one is surprisingly short. Many of you may not realize if you have the book known as Shelf, and I've never actually read it, the actual content of Return of the King is only what?
300-ish pages, Robbie? Maybe? Two-thirds? Two-thirds of the book, basically.
Two-thirds of the pages, the rest are all appendices about dwarves and human lineages, which I did not read at all. I tried. I tried hard, and I was just like, this is just not important anyway. I don't need to read like lore about the people.
I think, I don't know, there's a lot of people who are very, very obsessed with the lore of Middle-Earth and of that lineage and of all the history of all these characters and the history of the characters that are just mentioned and aren't even necessarily in the book. It just feels like, certainly that stuff, it feels like it robs some of the magic from, like I know some people think it enhances all these things that happen in the books. It feels like, for me, it robs the books of a lot of thrill and charm, because it makes it kind of, it feels like joyless and psychopedias. I don't know.
Oh, it is, and I think that's one of the reasons that they say you don't have to read it. That's why it's an appendices and not in with a text, George RR Martin. It's basically, so you don't have to care about it. Yeah.
I mean, I think it is good. And I think, I don't know, I have a hard time ranking them because I think they're not, they're all different from each other. And they're all effectively one big story. You can easily, it would be intimidating because of the length of it, if you read this as just a single book, as the Lord of the Rings, and not as Fellowship as Two Towers as Return, or as the six books were initially supposed to be released one at a time, or, you know, I think we mentioned one of our previous podcasts.
The format of this was initially supposed to be a big giant book, but publishers were literally like, that would cost so much money to publish. We're not doing that. It would be practically impossible physically to make into one book. It's, I mean, you could do it.
It'd just be very unwieldy. It'd be a big doorstop. But it effectively is one long story. And I think right breaking it up into three books, they make it, you know, Fellowship is kind of the loss of innocence.
Two Towers is kind of the dark middle chapter, as you say. It's not really. It's more about that. It's more about focusing on individual character choice.
And this book is like, this book is actually kind of like the action movie, like part of the series, like this is like, there's a lot, like, there's a lot of walking in one and a lot of walking into, especially with Sam and Frodo. There's lots we have trudging. Yeah, it seems like in a modern context, aka what would happen if you watch the movies is they would mix up these two plots because this book is structured exactly the same as two in that the first half is all about, you know, what's happening to Legolas and Mary and Pippin and Gimli and Ganonoff and Ganothor and there's battles and there's so many people and like, things are going left and right. No, there's this person died.
This person betrayed him. And it's very epic in scope. And then the second half of the actual story is just a very personal Sam and Frodo story. And most, I feel like most people who would make a film or a book today would intersperse those two.
So, you know, it wouldn't all be so concentrated. You wouldn't get so bored in the Sam and Frodo part, which I did not get nearly as bored in the Sam and Frodo part in this one as I did in the two towers. But if you just had, you know, a couple chapters of everyone else, couple chapters of Sam and Frodo, couple chapters of everyone else, you would get that like rise and fall that, you know, every movie today seems to subscribe to, which it gives you a chance to, you know, catch your breath in between big moments. It just, it seems more interesting that way.
Yeah. I mean, I think it is, I mean, it's not like people writing books at the time when, when this originally came out, it's not like people didn't already understand how to structure adventure novels or whatever. Like, I think Tolkien, even at the time, this was a strange anomaly and the structure of it is just as much of a anomaly as anything else. And I think that it is largely the structure is, is, is attributed to what a lot of this, what a lot of the, I don't know what, like it's not necessary.
It's like all the things he was using, like the fairy tales and the myths and the epics of, you know, Beowulf and Homer and all that stuff, which, you know, Tolkien studied and translated. And I, those, I think he wanted to communicate the same kind of feel as they did. And they weren't structured like typical, like a story would be in the typical, like way we think about it now and the way that the movies are structured, where you have, yes, rising and falling action, and you want to give the, you want to give the reader or the viewer time, you want to give them breaks and like, Hey, yes, you have escalate action, and then a big moment. And then, okay, we need to escalate because we don't want to keep the emotional attention at the same level.
We want to either want to keep it down, push it down or pushing even further higher, you know, and control the readers and our viewers and keep their emotions kind of in check. We want to make sure that they feel exactly what we want them to get exactly the time we want them to do it. And we want to keep them entertained. And we want to keep them, I don't think Tolkien honestly cared about any of that when he was writing this.
I think he didn't care if like, Oh, I don't, I don't care if I adhere to like the normal kind of pattern of of falling and rising action and cutting back and forth between characters and all that like he does that, he does cut back and forth between characters, but they are isolated to their books. Like he does not even like he has, he certainly has characters, both Mary and Pippen, especially in book five, talk about Sam and Frodo all the time. They're constantly on hand, I miss I miss them. I wonder what they're doing.
I'm gonna try and I'm gonna fight because of them. I don't know what they're doing right now. I hope they're doing okay. I hope they're, they're going to succeed, but they don't, we don't want to see the perspective until book six, we have no idea what's going on with them.
I, we assume that the world has not ended yet. Like they haven't, the, the, the Mordor and Sauron hasn't taken the ring because they have the world's not over yet. Like they're, they're, they're, we, the humans and managed to fight back all the forces of Mordor. I mean, it's, um, but I don't think Tolkien cared about, hey, I, he's like, I think he had it in mind.
Like, this is the way I want to do it. I'm going to have book five be this and book six be this. And it to be fair book six, as soon as the ring gets dropped in the, the, into Mount Doom, he kind of breaks away from it, just me in the same and Frodo show because that's true. It happens.
It's the point where it's like, Oh, you know, it's almost as if the ring was keeping, what was keeping them apart. And once their task was done, then they could combine with everyone else again and go back to their lives. I mean, he, I mean, it just, it, it, he goes to a bunch of different perspectives basically after that point, because it's that, and then we, we got back to the gates of Mordor. Like as soon as the ring is destroyed, we go back to the gates of Mordor where the forces of Mordor that are about to kill all the good guys, they flee because their rings been destroyed.
And then we, we have the Eagles pick up Gandalf. He goes to save Frodo and Sam. We, you know, that we are at weddings. We're at houses of healing.
We're on trips through woods. We're back in the Shire and then we're, then Frodo is leaving middleers behind. And I don't, I think it's, I think it's particularly he had in mind that the, you know, the, there are two struggles here. And I don't, I think he did not want them to intermix.
I think they were, because they are different, because they were different, different tenor of, of threat. I feel like he definitely considered the threat of the ring was the most important and should be segmented off its own thing. I, I don't know. I think, I, I'm okay with it.
I, I think I'm fine with it. I don't think if I was writing a story, I would definitely not do it this way. But that doesn't mean this is wrong. I think it, it works because of, because it is so, so singular to Tolkien's vision.
It, I think it, it, it works. And because it, I think it also works because the battle, the huge epic battle at, at Minnisteris with all the humans and fighting off the, the big army of Mordor is this big epic thing. And then because the struggle of same Frodo is so small, it's like just them basically trying to climb a mountain and not get killed by orcs. Well, and avoid an army of orcs, you know.
I mean, it's not really an army. It is forces that are just around. They're not like, I mean, there's that one point where they're, they're in the orc camp, like they're on the way to the orc camp and they find a way to, you know, get out even because they're dressed up like orcs. So I mean, it's almost like a combination, it's kind of like a World War II movie, which ironic, this is written before World War II, where you have, you know, the big war going on somewhere else and then Sam and Frodo, the two guys trapped behind enemy lines to do some kind of, you know, skull dudgery.
It was sort of written before World War II. I mean, it was written in the lead up to World War II. He, he, I'm fairly certain Tolkien did rewrite large portions of it after World War II. He wrote it and then we wrote it and I don't know how much of it stuck around.
I, I, it's easy to really like to like the, the, the battle part more because it's, it's more exciting. Well, yeah, because yeah, lots of different stuff going on. You still got multiple perspectives where literally the only perspective you see in the Sam and Frodo section is Sam. Whereas the other one, you've got Mary, you've got Pippin, you've got Gandalf, you occasionally goes from Aragorn's perspective.
That's where you got different ways to look at things and it's just really interesting. Lots of stuff is happening. You know, it's more fun and more interesting, but you know, that's not, that's not always what makes great entertainment essentially. No, I don't, I don't think it, not necessarily, but I think it's also easier to like, because it is, it's the, the, there is just so much suffering in the Sam and Frodo section, where they're like, they're like just trying to find water.
Like Mordor is so desolate and so barren. Like even the water they find, the very little water is like acidic. Like they, like they talk, oh yeah, it's drinkable. That's as much as they can hope for.
And their lips are parched, they're like surviving on Pembus, like just eating crumbs at a time. Um, but I don't know the, the, the big battle is really cool. I do think that I'm more interested, honestly, and I, it's not that the, the, they don't talk about it. Cause then you talk, talking, talking does right about it, it's quite a bit in the book.
It's, I, I kind of am more way more fascinated in the kind of denothor slash Gandalf relationship. Yeah. That's one of the best parts is their conflict, essentially. I'm going to say, nope, we're not going to win this.
I'm taking my son with me. Like that was harrowing. I felt really bad for the, the guard one, the guard guy with the, sort of the B, I don't remember his name. Beringal, I think, or something else.
Yeah. So he had to cut down his own men just to, to get in there to say Ferramere. Yeah. And I think that's, it's that, because it's, I think it's the contrast of the fact that we are having words, like there's this huge battles going on with, you know, thousands of men and works fighting each other with giant monsters with trolls and ogres and, uh, what, uh, all the, all the fonts, is that what they are?
The big elephant things, the elephants that are, you know, eight times as big as a real light with giant, the giant tusks and stuff like that. Um, it, it, it, I think is because of the fact that they are these great, this great battle waging outside in that you have this personal, journey, personal kind of conflict between, um, denothor and Gandalf and the fact that denothor and kind of, it is, we see someone who, I think the really, the thing I like most about denothor and I, I mean, he's not likable. Uh, he's kind of, he's a terrible person at a certain point, you know, especially at the end, he seems like it was a decent person and then the death of his son, death of the board mirror kind of, drove a little, little mad, but he is a great kind of, he's a great kind of character. He's not a pure, good guy and he's not a pure, bad guy, at least not until the very end.
Yeah. He is, he's in the middle, you know, he is a conflict, a conflicted character and like the only other one that even has a hint of that is kind of Frodo and that's, and that's only because of the ring. Like everyone else are following, they are good, you know, Gandalf good, Ergorn, Glegalus, Gimli, all good guys, uh, Mary Pippin, Sam, Frodo are all innocent little children. That's like the whole point of the Hobbits is that they're like the best pure little creatures, especially with the humans when they're in, uh, in, uh, ministereth, do you have Mary, though, is it Mary's in there or is that Pippin?
I believe that's Mary. I believe Pippin was, uh, with, uh, the, the, the Royal Hero. Right. That's what I always get them mixed up, but his little, his little time with the humans that humans are like, you're amazing.
You're like a little guy. You're, you're great. And like, and it's just very, like, even though the, there's awful like death clouds above them at all times and they can look out into the, the, the planes and see the armies gathering to besiege their fortress, it is still kind of hopeful and happy and we're like, oh yeah, everyone's nice. Everyone's good.
Like even Ergorn is like, yeah, going into the paths of the dead. Um, they're so good. You know, you're like, oh, okay. Well, I don't, but it's not because they need to like make some dark packs.
It's just like everyone's like, I'm going to have to, to have a chance. I'm going to have to try and elicit the help of like an army of undead ghosts men. So you only help her one battle. Yeah, they'll do their one deed and then they're done.
So I got to use them now. There's no turning back, but they're all good and they all have good intent. They're all pure of heart. Death war is gray.
Like he definitely wants people, he wants to, the humans to survive. He wants to win the battle and he wants to take care of me in his spirit. I don't think he has any, ill intent to the town or the city or humans or gondor. I think he is actually quite proud of gondor.
He is like, he thinks gondor is the best. He's just, he has no hope for winning and would rather go out on his own terms, which there are two ways of doing that. One is just sort of giving up, which is essentially what another does. And another is fighting the last and making sure you're out there for the final battle, which he's not really that kind of guy.
And he's, he's not, he can't do anything. He can't really fight. You know, he can, he can go and fight, but he would probably almost certainly die very quickly. He's not in these two old to be like a true fighter anymore.
He's not a sons. And you know, we see him reportedly tear up, like brutally cold to Fermir after border dies. And you get like, you see like, oh yeah, he's this like, I think it helps that we see him first through Mary's eyes, because Mary is, no, it's Pippin. Pippin, I think.
Yeah, he went and Mary are out in the battle, right? Maybe? Yes. Pippin is in the city, Mary's out with you and all in all of them.
Pippin, we see him through Pippin's eyes. And Pippin is like, look at this wise little man. He's this is, I, like, he pledges the service to him and all that. And I think Pippin sees like, oh yeah, this guy is, he's a steward of gondor.
He's been taking care of the city. He's, he's, he was responsible for it. And we get him built up as this kind of mythic, smart, like, like as a rival to Gandalf and a not, he's doesn't wilt when Gandalf presses him. And then, you know, I, it's not necessarily like something that we like because we like Gandalf and we think Gandalf's smart.
We probably think most people should do what he says. But also Gandalf is very intimidating. He is literally like an angel and very powerful. And yet this dude, Dennis, we're just like, I'm not back.
I'm not backing down from Gandalf. If I don't disagree with him, I'm going to tell him. And he's been looking at the pallet chair for so long. He's just like, Oh, yeah, I got this.
I know at least as much. Mm hmm. Which that, that, you know, that reveal of, Oh, yeah, he's actually, it's not that he's evil really. And it's, and I think that's the other nice thing about it.
It's like, there's a lot of, you know, oh, you use this thing and it makes you evil. You know, that's what we get a lot with the ring. It's like you use the ring and you start using it too much. You just, it, there's a point of no return.
And he's looking at the pallet here. And he's doing it for theoretically good reasons. He wants intel, but it's corrupting him. And it's not, and like, I think that's the other interesting thing about Dennis Thor, his corruption is not one of like turning to the dark side or anything.
He's not like, Oh, I'm gonna betray them to Sauron. It is one of sadness. It is one of sorrow. He gets, he gets turned into like, he's corrupted by hopelessness.
Basically, yeah, like, there's a point where you have to realize even in hopelessness, you still have options. And I think Dennis Thor is basically a warning against that. Yeah, and I think that's like, that is a big message of the, of what Tolkien was trying to say is like, and it's like one of the biggest sins, like, Denthor is of like, kind of the minor antagonist of this thing, like, by the end of that story. And it feels very much like it's pushing, hey, hopelessness is bad.
Like, don't fall into that. Always have hope. Always have faith. Don't lose that.
Because if you do, you're, you're gonna, you're kind of be, that is, it is a form of corruption. It is, it is dark. It is just as bad as, you know, falling completely into betrayal and power hunger from the power of Sauron or whatever, Mordor. Yeah.
And like, that's really the, it's Mary and Pippin are really like, the stars of these, this first, the book five, they really are like, there are main perspectives, they're, we don't get really, we get some of the little bit of air going a little bit of everyone, like a little bit of Gandalf, but it's mostly Mary and Pippin. And then I think that's really interesting because you don't get a bunch of them, you know, isolated like this in the earlier books. You know, it's, you get some of them with the, the ends in the two towers, but there's not a lot of them, they're, they're kind of comic relief. They don't, they don't really feel like full characters in this book.
They definitely are. Yes, that's for sure. Because in two towers, Mary and Pippin are basically just hobbits wandering into the woods. They have, they don't fight, they don't feel like they're like matter anymore.
They're just, they're basically point of view characters, which you know, most of the Lord of the Rings is from the perspective of hobbits. So in, in two towers, you basically have them as point of view to meeting the ends and then taking over and in return to the king, we get them split up doing their own thing, you know, joining two different military orders and becoming like badasses, basically. Yeah, and I think they are them and, and you know, and they are all like, they, they are all struggling not to be left behind, not to be forgotten in this great war. Like they want to do their part.
They don't want to be, they don't want to be forgotten or left behind. They want to fight. They may not be as strong or as skilled in fighting as some others, but they definitely don't care. Like they, they want to continue their struggle.
They don't like, I feel like Mary and Pippin in particular, they, I think they see Sam and Frodo going out and trying to destroy the ring. And they want to contribute in a similar fashion. They don't want to be the also rans, which I think is like something the book does way better than the movie. Because it's their, the chapters are personal, the, like the chapters are much from their perspective, and then, and they are like just as much stars of this book as they are, as Sam and Frodo are in throughout the whole series.
Like in the movie, I still feel like they are just supporting characters, they're lesser thans, you know, they're just like, Hey, yeah, Pippin around, they're doing stuff and like they do stuff in the movies. I think that's like, we've talked a lot about how the movies are like to feel like they defined what I think of Eric Warren and what we think of it like a loss of Gimli and all the rest of the cast like they did such a good job of casting those characters. But I feel like the book gives Mary and Pippin a do that the movie does not. Well, yeah, because like you said, you can, you can feel their thoughts, you can see that, you know, what they really want, they want to contribute.
They were like, this is a bad thing. The world is going to come to an end. And if it's because I'm not out there fighting, bad stuff is going to happen. I don't want that to be case, especially Mary out there fighting with Awen.
If it wasn't for him, they probably would have lost. I mean, they still probably would have won because Frodo would have destroyed the ring, but they would have had much heavier losses than me. It's to earth. Yeah, because the, which king, they killed the king of the, the wrath, whatever's the, the ring lords, whatever you want to call them, ring wraiths, dark writers, lots of names for him.
But I think that they are, they are given, they're like, I haven't, I've forgotten all about that. I've forgotten about Mary and Pippin being such important characters in the book. And I think it makes a way more sense. Like, it makes sense.
Oh, yeah, like, it's not just Sam and Frodo as like, we talk a lot about Sam and Frodo being so important because they're hobbits. And they're from the Shire and the Shire is this kind of innocent place and Frodo and Sam in particular are very innocent characters facing this kind of evil for the first time and seeing the world for what it is. And they're because of who they are, because of that, the innocence and goodness, that's why they're uniquely qualified to carry the ring to take it to Mount Doom. But it's not just that.
It is Mary and Pippin as well. They are, it is, it is something unique about the hobbits, about these four hobbits that they are out on this journey. And the way they, they kind of bond with the humans, the way that they, they interact with, you know, with Denithor, with Feremir, with Awen, with Aragorn and Legos and Gimim before they go off into the past of the dead, which they kind of disappear until they come back for the Grand Finale, the Calvary arrives, which is like, see, that's the other thing I want to say. Like, this book is very much like, hey, the Calvary arrives multiple times.
Like, literally, the first time literally it is the Calvary arrives, because the writers are really at show up and help take out a lot of works. And then, oh, no, then there's a counter attack with the Oliphons and those guys. And then, oh, no, then the dead derive and they are, they kill everything. It's like a real battle.
It's like, that's why battles go. They swing back and forth all the time. All the time? Yeah, quite frequently, yes.
I mean, usually it's not because a new army showed up. It's because, oh, the commanders in the back, you know, kept this one section reserved. Oh, look at the cavalry. Oh, look, literally, that was one of the cavalry's jobs in so many battles, is to hang back and, oh, go shore up these ones.
One of the reasons that the Romans were such great fighters is because they developed a system based on the recent phalanx, but basically it had multiple sections so they could push in whatever spots they wanted to. So this is a unique case, because as we said, like, people that they didn't even know were going to join the battle show up and help them win. But, you know, that's the basic idea of battles. You don't put everyone in your front lines.
You hold back some to shore up the weak spots, which they did. They just didn't know they were going to get it. Yeah, and I don't know. I think that it does a good, like it's hard.
I mean, I see the movie so many times I've read the books before. It's not like I'm worried they're not going to make it. You know, I'm like, oh, yeah, I know. They're going to know the writers are going to show up.
And then the, the dead under, under Ergorn's command are going to show up and kill everything, kill all the works and, you know, they're the wrestle flea. And then, you know, I, it's not like, oh, I'm in suspense. Like, oh, no, they're going to lose. But they said, they, they, I think they do, it's not as simple as I think the Eagles might be a little bit, um, that might be a little bit of, of like, why are we just calling the Eagles now?
Like, what's, why are we waiting for this moment for the Eagles to help out? They seem really good. We should maybe use them. But everything else is set up.
It is a lot of stuff of us of Ergorn and the rest of the fellowship, you know, establishing relationships with the, especially of Rohan. Like, we get a lot of, a lot of how, how Rohan works and how they are being kind of called into action to help fight Sorhan, even though, you know, they don't, they're not the same as they once were, you know, the writer Rohan or not. Like, like, it is constantly kind of a struggle between entropy, and even human, humans, humanity is facing that. You know, we talked previously about, and that's kind of the end of the book as well as like, the elves are going away, you know, they're, they're kind of leaving.
It's their times past, but they're, everyone here is fighting that it's humanity is the one going to be largely taking care of Middle Earth from now on. It's not Sorhan, you know, it's not the forces of Mordor. It's not Orcs. Yeah, because before it was basically Sorhan, who is essentially kind of sort of on the same line as Gandalf, he's just kind of like the Eel version and more powerful, obviously, versus, you know, the elves that now it's down to two men.
And one of the things very interesting that they track through the beginning of the appendices is how Ergorn comes from a long line of basically half elves, first they're half elf and then quarter elf and now they're like way less percentages. But that's the reason he's like 80 year old in the book and, you know, in the movie, he'll say he's 40 something. And, you know, they're just going to have to learn to live with the fact that humans only live to be about 80 years old, especially in semi-medieval era medicine, although, yeah, although they have the, that's the one thing they say, we can't fix all age. We can't solve it.
We have medicine for a lot of other stuff, but we just can't fix all age. And also apparently Ergorn is some kind of medical genius. I mean, he knows about that one thing that helps fight off the curse of the nobody else in society knows about. He's a king.
They say the king is a healing hand or whatever. Yeah, come on. I think they own up to the, they own up to the kind of semi, he's magic, man, I'm not like Ergorn's magic. I'm not, I don't think that's not knowledge.
I think that literally is kind of some semi-magic. Possibly. It's just, it's weird. Why is Ergorn magic?
Why is he spent? Because he's a king. He has the king's blood in them. They say it.
They sing a song. Fine, whatever. Okay, I'm not going to, the book, one of many things you can criticize about the book is, you know, Tolkien's kind of like Adderation, apparently, of royalty, of the, like, of monarchies, of like a philosopher king, so to speak, is what Ergorn is. And, you know, it's not great.
There's plenty of bad kings, and I mean, I think he shows that, but it's like, it feels like Ergorn, he's a great guy, and he's like, because he is the true king, the one true king, the return of the king. And it feels like that is very much a little bit of the message. It's like, oh, yeah, he has the, the, the right blood. So that's all that matters.
And that, that pure blood makes him so good. And he's come back and he's managed to reforge the sword of what else to wear and all that. I don't, you know, it's fine for fantasy. I don't, I don't try and apply too much of it to real life, but kings are magic in Lord of the Rings map.
I'm not saying that's good, but kings are definitely magic, especially Ergorn. He's like, super king. He's like a super king. He has super magic.
And he can fix people's, you know, cursed arms or whatever, because they stabbed a witch king. Speaking of things that I would criticize about the book, and I, we've mentioned it a couple times, is, um, sure are a bunch of white people in this, in this book. Oh, of course, people from the east, you know, people who have slightly darker skin are obviously evil. Yeah, that's the, like, all the evil.
And it is a thing that I think we've, uh, I don't know, I want to say all, but a lot in most, I hope most, I would definitely say a lot of people now who write fantasy. It's not solved. It's not a solved problem. But I think we're more knowledgeable about the fact you don't substitute the word black for evil.
You know, you use the word, you can dark is okay. Darkness is the absence of light, but black, you start using the words black a lot to describe both skin color and then evil, you know, you get, you can flake those words. And that's not good. That's wrong.
And I think there is, there has been discussion and online and in, in a lot of circles of people who discuss talking about how racist is Lord of the Rings. You know, there's no really, there's no real black characters in, they're all white, white people to varying degrees. And then when you talk about different species, obviously those are stand ins. Okay.
They're not the, that's not necessarily better in some cases. When you make dwarves Jewish, that's Jewish people are dwarves all of a sudden, or got, like, there's lots of weird conflation of race and in real life and with fantasy races, which I think mostly is bad. But I don't, you know, I think we've mentioned this before, but Tolkien was not a racist in like real life. He was an isolated European guy, largely, everyone he ever knew was white.
Yeah, so I'm sure he knew some black people, but I doubt he went in social circles with a significant amount of black people or black culture at the time or knew anything about any of it. You know, I think he was, he was Eurocentric and the book reflects that, you know, the things that are, you know, the harder thing is to excuse as George R. Martin, who's still doing that, that stuff in 2019, now, or wins of winter, ever comes out. He's that there's still some, there's also a lot of that game of thrones.
And that is less excusable. But I, I don't think it's, I don't think Tolkien realized what he was doing necessarily. I think it is wise pointed out and realize what it is. But I don't, I'm not going to blame him for it.
I'm not going to, you know, call him a racist, you know, it's just simply a product of what when he was writing up who he was and what where he grew up, how he was taught. But it is there, it isn't his book. And I feel like that's the strange things are all like, yeah, all the dark evil forces are there from the east or from the dark, the deep south. They are the works are the, this work had the darkest skin and he was evil.
And I'm like, I don't think that Tolkien really meant it to like imply that, oh, yeah, the people of color are evil or whatever. He just had a cast of a bunch of white people because the fairy tales and the myth that he would he learned were all white people, or at least taught as start featuring all white people. And so this is he just patterned it after that. And then to make your villains, I think he simply chose like, hey, I need my villains to be different.
So how do I do that? And what's what is a strange thing to me writing in the 40s and the 50s, you know, the, oh, it's the Far East strange and weird Africa, it's strange and weird. We don't know, it's still like, it's still like, weird, weird reports of things that I don't know what they are coming from, like, where he was not in the connected world, we are in the day, you know, where you can access information about any world anywhere in the world at any time you want to. So it's a product of that.
But I think you, if you're reading this, you should be aware of it. And I think you should see it and be aware of it whenever you're reading any kind of older text, you have to understand the context of where the when and how they are written. Yeah, it's one of the fun things about bringing older stuff is you have to understand not only what is in the book, but what is the circumstances around it is, you know, authorship, because things change a lot based on the perspective you're writing from. Right.
But they win, like, it's not like, yeah, they win the big rape battle and it's very epic. And it's very exciting. And then you get to Fredo and Sam trudging through the dark, fighting off works as much as they do, they don't flight really, they don't, they mostly run from works or hide. But it is much shorter.
Their little, their little part alone is pretty short. Well, yeah, because basically the whole thing is photo rescue means, or same Russian photo, them walking for about 10 pages getting caught up with the orks and then they're practically at Matt and do him right there. Matt, do him. It's your wrestling gimmick.
Yeah, exactly. You're Matt too. They, they, and I think that's wise, I think it makes sense because we've already seen so much of the battle and so much struggle. And I think you've just, he token gets just the right amount of it.
And because Golan's not there, really, he appears, but he's not really important until the end. They, they just have to, it's more about just focus on the struggle, focus on the kind of degradation of Frodo and kind of falling apart physically. And Sam trying to just carry him as far as he can, sometimes literally. And I also forgot how, how Peter Jackson literally just took direct different moments from this, these books and put them in the movies.
Because it's just, it's basically word for word. He's like, well, I can't carry the ring, but I can carry you. You know, Sam carrying Frodo's body also carrying the ring. Does that, that's like, seems like a cheat to get around the power of the ring.
Yeah, it's like the ring is like, I'm definitely curving the person that's holding me. Okay, what if it's dead body? Well, in that kit, uh, we're, well, it's okay then. We have five people who just all they do is carry the kind of unconscious body of Frodo until we get knocked out, like they just gave him a nice anesthetic.
Exactly. And you just hold on to the ring and then you get to up to there and then you just like shake it off as you just take his hand and shake it off. You're like, get off their ring. You pour some like oil on there and then just like shake his hand over the lava or whatever it is.
And then you don't have to worry about it, but you know, he just got a singer off. You know, I mean, in the end, it doesn't matter because that's exactly what I mean. I'd rather my finger cut off it bitten off. Yeah.
You imagine the infection he must have gotten out of his nest. I think golem is like a dog in that his mouth is actually quite clean. Sure. All those fishy eats.
Uh huh. It's from a fish or clean Matt, fish don't do two infections. That's true. They're not as bad as poultry.
You can eat rare. I eat raw fish all the time. I'm fine. Fine, whatever.
Whatever. You just don't like golem. You're right. I don't golem is terrible and boring.
Eh, he serves a specific purpose and he fulfills it. I think that's he is there to bring out character in Sam and Fredo, and he does that. That is true. He is a reminder of what can happen to you and is also a reminder that you never should forget your mercy, even for something as terrible as golem.
You know, I think at this point, they are not and there's no doubt in anyone's mind about what what golem is. I think they both understand that golem is now you can't trust him. The ring has been too corrupted by the ring over his life. There is no way to trust him and they tried to be friendly with him in the two towers and it just ended up hurting them in the end.
But say, you know, in the two towers, we talked a lot about Fredo making that choice. No, we spare him. He is like, he's specifically telling humans who are going to kill him at any moment. They're like, no, don't kill him.
We need to keep him alive. Spare him for me. Do it. And you know, stopping Sam from hurting him multiple times.
And that was, you know, that's talking a lot about how you can't lose your mercy and lose your humanity, so to speak, in times of struggle and conflict. And here we see Sam has learned that lesson. Sam could easily kill golem and no one would blame him. They're about to throw the ring in.
Golem tries to stop him. Why would he not kill golem right there and then? But then he remembers, like, no, he has a bigger, he could still have a bigger part to play and I should remember my mercy. He doesn't kill golem and it's because of golem that they win.
It's because of this little weirdo, little fish monster that, you know, golem fights off the ring, falls into the lava. That's true without golem, a photo of taking the ring and going on a walk. So golem was actually what won. So yes, mercy is basically a good thing to have.
Right. And I think that's the, it is, I think it is, I think it is really interesting, like, to have that happy the way that the ring falls into the mountain. I think that's really interesting how it's like a, it is not, it's not, because I think as a writing decision, as a story decision, I would think my first thoughts would be like, make how Frodo make the choice and struggle with it. And then ultimately, he decides to throw the ring in.
And somehow find something inside of himself that makes the, you know, the decision in him to get rid of the ring. But I think it's, I think it ultimately is a better decision to have golem be the one who doesn't, who kind of accidentally destroys the ring. You know, he just trips and falls. But I think it ultimately is, it's a testament to both the power of the ring in the story and the power of what the ring represents out of the story.
You know, the ring is this force of corruption and it's, it is literally power. And how we see Frodo is like the best person and he's still at the end is corrupted by it. He just simply cannot take it because no human can, but his decisions earlier when he still was himself, to spare golem is the thing that ultimately saves him and saves the world. And I think that's a, it's not as neat a story.
Like it's a little, it's messier, but I think ultimately actually is better. And that's, it's really, it's really interesting choice. I like, it's really easy to just think of this thing as kind of an abstract story not to be engaged with, but because it is so kind of told and like we talked about it like the way that this split up into two separate stories and it's like kind of an alien artifact almost the way that it's not, it defies kind of categorization in like, story crafting and stuff like that. But it's sort of really interesting that golem is the thing that ultimately destroys the rank even by accident.
Like, I think that's the, the also, I think Gandalf says it himself, like the measure of how large fate and luck could play into things like this. Why did not the Eagles kind of help out earlier Matt? I've heard some of the things. One of the first ones was that the dark writers would have taken them out because before they were all gone, they could catch up with the Eagles on their flying mounts and whatever.
And then what is that they could not actually get into Mordor because Soron would strike them down. Those are the two I've heard. Okay. I just, I wish they could have acknowledged it a little earlier in the story.
I wish Gandalf could have said offhand at some point, I sure would like to use the Eagles, but the writers would kill them or I, I, it does feel like of all the things that I feel like, oh, they just suddenly arrive to help. It does suddenly feel very much like a death. Yes, I fucking know where the eels show up and like rescue Sam and Frodo from, you know, Mountain Exploding and whatever. And they also saved, they saved Gandalf earlier, like twice they do Saruman.
You know, obviously the dark writers aren't hanging out on Saruman's tower. Okay. I mean, that's mine. I don't, I'm not saying I don't like the Eagles.
I think Eagles are great. I loved a, hey, giant talking Eagles. They're also like pure and like good and will happily kill works. That's a pretty cool thing to me.
I just, it does feel like, of all the complaints, it is the thing that actually feels kind of close to be ever seen them before. There's no mention of them. We saw them save Gandalf one time and then suddenly they're gone again and you're like, what happened on those eagles? We're not talking about that anymore.
And then they suddenly show up at the end. Yeah. Okay, I want to talk about the ending for all the endings. What do you mean the ending of Saruman and the Shire?
Yeah, that's really what I talk about. The rest of it, I think it's fine. It's a little long-winded because I don't, I don't really need to see everyone wrapped up because we see everybody. Like they have to stop and say hi to every character.
Like the people, the people at the bar in that little human town. Yeah, why? I don't care. That's so that was too much.
I don't care about that. That was all about that. Basically, the hobbits tracing their path back home and like that was supposed to be a slow realization of hey, things at home aren't great. Bad things have happened since we were last at home.
That's what they were trying to get across there. And they did, but you're right. They really could have been more brief about that because the whole point of that I'm pretty sure is to show that these hobbits have changed. They are now leaders.
They have seen war. They have become more than what they were. They've grown up essentially. And so that way, you know, whoa, these people showed up with some clubs and our heroes are like, you just got some guys with some clubs and they organized the hobbits into an army and basically fight back.
It's to show you how much they have changed that they left the first time. Yeah. And I don't think that's wrong. I just wish it was it feels like it feels like the goonies was tacked on to the end of and it's like a thing you forget about a lot if you just watch the movies.
You're like, Oh, right. It doesn't end here. It ends with them doing a goonies adventure for 50 pages. And then it actually ends with Frodo leaving to the elves going off with the elves, everyone leaving.
And like, it feels a little too silly to me. Like, I agree that like, yeah, it's interesting to see that. Oh, yeah. Shire is not exempt from the effects of a war.
And sure, I don't really care if Saran is there trying to get revenge or whatever, but he becomes like Scooby-Doo. Scooby-Doo where like, I get killed by his own minion at the end. I mean, it's a slightly bloodier Scooby-Doo, but it is very much like, Oh, yeah, it feels so small. It feels like such a small like, Oh, yeah, there's guys who are taking all their stuff.
And then they they all they partner up and they beat up, they beat up all the thugs, and then they take on Saran and beat him and, you know, then grime, worm, worm tongue kills him. And you're like, okay, that's, it feels a little anticlimactic. And I understand why they made the change in the movie. Well, yeah, because there's just no need for that.
I mean, we get it. We see what the hobbits do in the final battle. This does not, it's not necessary to, you know, show them taking back their homeland. It's completely pointless.
I mean, I like, I think I'd rather just say the hey, the Shire isn't bad shape, because it there were raiding parties or, you know, there's infighting among them because there's lack of supplies or whatever. And then they help clean it up. I like that way more than suddenly there's a mafia in the Shire and it's run by Saramon, but he's given himself the name Sharky, which is not a great name for whatever. It's, it's, I think I get more, I get more character out of the kind of, of the change in front of the fact that Frodo has to leave, because the rest of the hobbits have changed, but they're not, not irrevertibly kind of inhuman.
They're not like, they're not, they've not seen the true corruption of evil. Like, because Frodo experienced it, you know, Frodo became completely corrupted. And then the ring was taken from him and destroyed and then it was removed from him. But he had to recover from all that.
And then he can't really is what the book is saying. Yeah, he has basically been traumatized. The point where he cannot go back to his normal life, which is really sad because I feel like he would have a really great life there with went back, but it's just, it's not enough for him. He needs to go where people who understand it, which for him is the elves.
Yeah, and like, that's, it's very much when I think the book does a good job of demonstrating like what the elves are and why they're leaving. And like, they're the, this, you know, this amazing race that has fallen to entropy and there's just no recovery, it's just a part, it is nature doing this. And there's no fighting it. And then by including Frodo with them, them leaving out, leaving middle earth for good, it makes it very clear that like, yeah, the, the rest of the hobbits, they live happy lives and they're, they're stronger because of their, their journeys and they're better, you know, because they've fought evil and won and realized the strength and determination needs to do things like that.
But Frodo, there is no going back. He's, he's paid the ultimate cost. Like of, he is, it, like, it's not, in a certain way, it's like, I don't know if it's worse than death, but it is, like, he didn't die and he didn't win and then die in the doing. He won, but then has to leave the place he saved.
Like he has to leave his home after he saves it. It's almost like a metaphor for what essentially PTSD. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of talk about Tolkien who was a member, like there's an in college, he was a group with a, he has a group of friends who were all like very promising young men who thought they were had a lot, like a big lives ahead of them. And they all went into World War I and they either died or came back or ritably changed.
And like, there's certainly a lot of that in this book. It is certainly a lot of, you know, and I think, you know, they talk about Tolkien's love of like, idyllic England and that's what Shire is and the dangers of industrialization and all that stuff. But I mean, that's, I don't want to make that as important as what happens in the book. You know, I think there's, there's, for a long time, any scholarly work about authors had to include all their background and why they chose to do things and stuff like that, but largely the text is what's most important.
And it's like, Frodo is a great, like a good guy and suffers more than anyone and then has to leave, you know, you can't just disappear along with Bilbo. And it's because Bilbo is the same. Bilbo is, had the ring, carried the ring too long. You know, it's too dangerous.
He can't, he's not normal anymore. He's not a person, really. He's sort of like, he's kind of there. He's also incredibly old, so it's not a big deal.
Yeah, hopefully when he goes to the, you know, the western lands that things don't die there, right? I'm very sure Elf Magic can keep you alive if they want to. Even though I don't know how many Elves are left in total. How many here?
No. That's what I want to forget. What did you want to talk about, man? Anything that we haven't talked about yet?
No, we had pretty much it. I just wanted to make sure people know that this book, Sam and Frodo section was a lot more interesting than the previous one because, you know, I really appreciated Sam's rescue of Frodo in the tower. Like Sam is being an all-out baller throughout that entire section. He is crazy terrified, but, you know, he knows what his duty is to be and he runs and he faces his fears and he wins.
I mean, honestly, a lot of that is luck. That's not a lie here, but, you know, it's pretty impressive. And I think they really highlight, totally highlights the kind of the infighting of the orcs, how they're constantly struggling when there's, when there's not a villain, there's not any present for them to fight. They often fight amongst themselves and that has become kind of a hallmark of the orcs throughout all fiction, the infighting.
And I think they also, it also does a, I highlight a part where they talk about like, Sam asks Frodo's like, do you think they eat? Like, they were looking for food and water and like, do works eat? And like, I think that is, they establish like, no, orcs are, orcs are living things. They need to eat, they need to drink.
They're like kind of genetically engineered, basically. So they don't need to eat or drink as much as we do or as good equality, food or water, I guess. Like, they could probably eat garbage and it wouldn't matter. Kind of like, you know, carrion.
But they do need to eat and drink. They talk. They have feelings. And then that's the thing like, I like it in one regard because it grounds them and makes them like, not, they're not supernatural.
They're still animals. Like us, you know, they have a biology. They need a function. But they're also so much like, why are they inherently evil?
Why is it, you know, there's a few little things they have that make them that way. But quite frankly, this seems a bit much. Seems like if they had just, you know, been given a shot, like, here's some land, go do your own thing. And yeah, I don't know.
It always comes down to the whole, what is it, the, you know, nature versus nurture thing. Yeah. And I don't like, this book, again, it's not really interested in answering any, like, important questions like that about like, oh yeah, men are made evil or, or orcs are because they're, I think you have to buy an suspension disbelief. They are inherently evil, just like, you know, they are, they are, they are nameless zombies.
They might as well be zombies. You can kill them. You don't feel guilty about it. They're bad.
You know, I think that's largely what they are. What happens to the orcs after Sauron dies? I mean, they start retreating. We don't really see what happens to them, but they definitely, you know, leave the gate and just run off.
Right. But where do they go? Do they go further it back in a Mordor? And then there's no, like, they're, I'm assuming that the humans continue like freeing, you know, slaves and kind of trying probably to finish off the rest of Mordor's forces.
When it's left of them, I'm assuming a lot of the, the, the, uh, the insollary forces of Mordor go back to their homes, you know, to the far east and the south, whatever, wherever they are, cross the seas, the various seas of the earth. And then there's left is orcs, and like, and like, maybe occasionally trolls or whatever, but they have to live somewhere, or they just go kill them all. They just exterminate all the orcs. It's possible.
And genocide was not out of the, uh, the asking. Yeah, no, it's not the orcs are thing. They're not people. So it's okay to kill them all.
But, you know, I think I, it's interesting to like, I know it doesn't really matter to apply this story because, you know, they're routed and without Sauron, their true powers kind of go on. And there's won't be any more orcs, theoretically, theoretically, unless they figure out how to procreate. Well, I can't, can they? I have no idea.
Maybe that was in the, some of the, some of the lore indices. I'll call up Stephen Colbert and see what he says. Exactly. He'd be the one to be like, yeah, actually, like the bla bla bla bla.
There's this bit in the similarly, and why don't you even read that? I don't know. Um, I don't know. It's, it, I also don't, again, I think I put this on a footnote in every bit that I think Tolkien's prose is very unique and very elegant and mostly and very kind of, kind of it is the ultimate power of flow and rhythmic prose, rhythmic and lyrical prose, even when he's not writing the songs.
Like, it is very kind of, he's like singing to you the entire book. It's, it feels, it feels like a song more than anything. I think that, you know, you can attribute that to, again, the epics and myths and fairy tales that he was using as inspiration. But it still does not discount the ability required to, to do it.
It's, it's, despite the fact it's so, this book in particular is very like dark and there's constantly fights and battles and struggles. It still is kind of peaceful to read. It is because the battles are simple, essentially. They're basically, the battles don't read like battles.
They, they mostly read like things that are just happening to other people. Like, it's almost as someone who's describing what's happening in a movie to you. You don't feel the visceralness of the battle. I mean, I don't, and I don't think that's a bad thing, honestly.
I think it captures what Tolkien is trying to do really well. And I think it, it's, it's kind of, it's, I think I talked about this with a fellowship is that it's kind of just charming. It's kind of just sweet. And I feel like that's what this book all, all three books together.
It's like, it's like, it's just this very comforting story about how good we'll win. You know, we will, we, we give into our best nature. We give into mercy and hope and, and, and determination in the face of evil. Good will win.
It will happen. And there will be costs. There will be entropy. You can't fight that.
However, you, the good will still win. Like you, you just have to negotiate with entropy and nature and understand, understand how, how everything is limited by time and life. But it doesn't force us to make compromise, doesn't force us to compromise on evil. Right.
That's, that's, that's, and I can't, there's no, there's no way that I can be meet angry about that. Like it's just, it's a nice, and especially now, where every day feels like I'm being bombarded with like terrible things. This book is kind of a reminder of like, no, we, good can defeat evil. It can happen.
It will. You just have to keep struggling, keep fighting. You know, it will happen. It's nice.
It's a, it's a very good versus evil simple story. Yeah, but it's told in a very elegant way. And I don't, like that's, I think this is what you point to when people say like, like, when saying, like describing simple as a pejorative, simple is not pejorative. Like the story is, the story is very simple, but it is told in a very elegant and beautiful way.
And it re is reaffirming. I don't, there's, and it created a whole entire genre of fiction. So it did that too, which we've covered a lot in previous books. Any final thoughts, Matt?
Not really. This is a good one. Read, ignore the appendices. But it's an early end.
And the like eight other books written by his son. I know those too. I'm curious, but I don't think I'm curious enough to read them. Yeah, that's where I'm.
I've got a lot of things to read. I don't have, I don't need to read that. Matt, I will be doing, we're going to be reading the dark tower next. The, the epic, the fantasy epic from Stephen King.
Have you read the dark tower before Matt? I have not. Actually, I read the first book, and I stopped after that for some reason. Not sure why.
So hey, it'll be interesting. It's, the first book is very short, and then they get longer every time. It's like a very, it's actually very much like Harry Potter. Yeah, I have not read the books, but Marv has been putting out a, you know, a comic book version of them for quite some time, and they stopped for the recently, but at the end of book three, when I kept up with those, so I know based most of the story.
It's not, again, it's not complicated of a story. It's, it's pretty simple. It's more about the manor telling, but we're going to start that next, not our next time we release this thing, God knows when I'll be a month or two, maybe. Matt, is there anything you'd like to plug before you?
No, I don't really do much besides this. Not even a particular kitten themed Instagram account? Oh, well, I suppose I could do that. If you guys like seeing adorable kittens go from sickly and, you know, barely loving people to happy little things, you can follow my wife's Instagram.
It's kitten interns, K-I-T-T-I-N-T-R-T-E-R-N-S. I like, I'm actually struggling with it, spelling it every time. Of course. I mean, I'm holding a little Milo right now.
If you live in Central Florida, you can adopt one of those lovely cats. So we have four of them right now, and they're all incredibly cute. They are. My wife, every day, Matt, once you know this, every day she goes, Milo is so cute.
I'm like, or whatever cat it is, you know, whichever kitten it happens to be. I'm like, of course they're cute. They're kittens. They're always cute.
Matt, thank you for joining me. Of course. Thanks again to Matt for joining me. You can find me on Twitter, at RobbieDarmon, and the show's website is cerebralphonassist.com.
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