The Bee Reads LOTR Episode 3: The One Ring And The Shadow
From the heart of the Shire, through the depths of Moria, to the ends of Middle-Earth, it's The Babylon Bee Reads The Lord Of The Rings! In this episode of The Babylon Bee Reads, Kyle and Dan are joined by Jonathan Watson, creator alongside his two friends of TheOneRing.Com, which can also be followed on Facebook. Kyle, Dan, and Jon are on a quest to joyfully dig through Chapter 2, The Shadow Of The Past, which gives us plenty of exposition about the one ring, the stirring forces of evil in Middle-Earth and explains why Frodo is no longer safe in the Shire. Be sure to check out The Babylon Bee YouTube Channel for more podcasts, podcast shorts, animation, and more. To watch or listen to the full podcast, become a subscriber at https://babylonbee.com/plans. Chapter 2 - The Shadow of the Past Frodo is an oddity like Bilbo was and becomes restless. He continues celebrating Bilbo's birthday and shows signs of 'good preservation' even as he approaches age 50 the same age when Bilbo left on his journey. Tolkien is telling history before it happens (the developing of his myth like Mad Baggins) We hear about his close friends... Fredegar Bolder and Folco Boffin are mentioned but Merry and Pippin are closest and are anxious about him as Frodo takes to taking long walks farther away from home in the hills under the stars and becoming obsessed with maps and dreaming of mountains he has never seen before. "The old paths seemed too well-trodden" Frodo is seeing the elves going west as they leave M-E for good. And dwarves are coming west to the Blue Mountains. They provide a lot of news from outside the Shire... Ominous tidings. "They were troubled, and some spoke in whispers of the Enemy and of the Land of Mordor." the evil power in Mirkwood had been driven out by the White Council only to reappear in greater strength in the old strongholds of Mordor. The Dark Tower had been rebuilt, it was said. From there the power was spreading far and wide, and away far east and south there were wars and growing fear. Orcs were multiplying again in the mountains. Trolls were abroad, no longer dull-witted, but cunning and armed with dreadful weapons. And there were murmured hints of creatures more terrible than all these, but they had no name." Gandalf hasn't been seen for 9 years, after a time of coming and going and being concerned about Frodo's health (what does he suspect?), and just as well since the people of the Shire suspect he had something to do with Bilbo going mad and disappearing "'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo. 'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'" The discussion of the fall and corruption of Smeagol and a discussion on the pity of Bilbo. The depiction of Sméagol not being wholly ruined. A discussion of fate in The Lord of the Rings: Bilbo was meant to find the ring and Frodo was meant to have it. Wills of secondary agents.Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. I have not much hope that Gollum can be cured before he dies, but there is a chance of it. And he is bound up with the fate of the Ring. My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least. We get introduced to Samwise Gamgee w/ the convo at The Green Dragon at Bywater!! (He believes in "fairies" or at least dragons and ents) Has a love for elves and has a childlike wonder about the world nurtured by Bilbo's stories. "I dare say there's more truth in some of them than you reckon." G.K. Chesterton wrote about the importance of fairytales as did Lewis and Tolkien… "Fairytales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairytales tell children that dragons can be killed." Frodo seems to have some trust issues with Gandalf. You say the ring is dangerous, far more dangerous than I guess. It would overcome anyone of mortal race. The ring would possess the possessor 'A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, walks in the twilight under the eye of the Dark Power that rules the Rings. Yes, sooner or later – later, if he is strong or well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last – sooner or later the Dark Power will devour him.' The ring can also shrink or expand at will to slip of a finger if it wanted. Gandalf began to think something odd about it right when Bilbo found it and lied about winning the ring from Gollum. He talks about Saruman and whether Bible will be harmed. He voluntarily gave up the ring! Among the Wise I am the only one that goes in for hobbit-lore: an obscure branch of knowledge, but full of surprises. Soft as butter they can be, and yet sometimes as tough as old tree roots. Greatness vs Morality Subscriber Portion Mail-bo Baggins! Jonathan's take on the Movie adaptations Movie Differences
From the heart of the Shire Through the depths of Moria To the ends of Middle-earth It's the Babylon Bee Reads the Lord of the Rings With your hosts Kyle Mann and Dan Coates
Yes, hello everyone.
Welcome to the Babylon B Reads Lord of the Rings.
I'm Kyle.
I'm Dan.
And we're joined today by a guest.
We're on episode three and we already have a guest.
We already have a guest.
This is Jonathan Watson, creator of the1ering.com.
Not .NET.com.
Not that .NET is bad, right?
No, they're great guys.
Does this have like a rivalry, like gang territory?
Maybe originally, but it's timbered down.
I'll send you guys there.
We're friends on Facebook.
So does that count for something?
Okay.
Friends on Facebook.
Cool.
So the1ering.com is the Lord of the Rings Tolkien fan site and it's movie agnostic.
It is how you described it.
Yeah.
I mean, we became known as the sort of, we don't really enjoy the movies as much as the books.
Yeah.
And we're going to be able to do it.
Are there people who enjoy the movies more than the books?
Are there people?
There are plenty.
You know, I saw the movies first and then dive into the books afterwards.
You like the movies better than the books?
No.
No, I'm just saying I saw them first and I like them for what they are.
I'll just kick you off the podcast, man.
I didn't say it.
Try not to like the movies more than the books is, I think, as long as you read the books and realize you're wrong.
Yeah, I mean, I agree with that.
I like the movie.
I mean, I wouldn't say a movie agnostic, but I do think the book is the definitive and the movies are an interpretation.
To be fine.
Yeah.
They're fine.
Do you want us to move some of our movie memorabilia out of here?
Is this offensive to you?
Fine.
As long as there are some books, you have one at least.
Yeah.
That's good.
I mean, there are three movie things, but we could add some more books maybe in the future.
I'll come by later.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah.
So that we do that.
And we've got, you know, we have a whole list of film changes on the site to come through.
So if you want to read the books, you can see exactly where the movies got it wrong and what they should have been doing.
And actually in the subscriber portion today, we're going to go through.
We'll have our buddy Patrick slash Jamie back there pull up the article.
We can go through some of the changes.
So we're going to do that in the subscriber portion.
What kind of resources does thewondering.com have?
You got articles on Tolkien?
We do.
We have articles.
We have tons of images.
Maps.
Probably the most, the favorite thing that people find on there is all the maps of Middle-earth.
Those are linked from there.
We've got message boards, but mostly articles and upcoming news.
And there was a lull in between the time that us who worked on it had kids, but we're kind of back up and running now.
But yeah, it's just a great resource.
We've got Facebook groups and our Facebook group, Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram.
All the stuff you need nowadays that we didn't need 20 years ago.
Gotcha.
We try.
Okay.
You ever do any cosplay, dress up as Elrond or anything like that?
No, my kids do.
Oh, really?
I've got a good Gandalf beard for them that they go around with every once in a while.
But not like the movie.
They dress up like the book, Gandalf.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, they have the sorry wheel the power and one is rabbit-assed with the poop coming down his side.
He has to do the film.
No.
That was a weird riding ass.
Yeah.
And the Hobbits.
We won't talk.
Okay, we don't.
No, no, that's not Tolstoy.
The movies that must not be named is what we will call the Hobbit films.
But yeah, okay, so today we're talking about the shadow of the past, which is chapter two of Fellowship of the Ring.
So so far we did the forward prologue and long expected party, and it ends with Frodo kind of looking over back in, and it says, Gandalf did not return for a long time.
So that's where we live off.
So in Shadow of the Past, when we start off with the chapter here, this is, I think, probably one of the first major deviations from the book that we see or from the movies that we see here in chapter two is just this time gap.
Because in the movies, Gandalf goes off to Gondor, and it's, I don't know if they ever say how long it is in the movie.
I don't know.
It's like the Rocky Month.
It's just like a fireman.
And then he's like, is it secret?
Is it safe?
Yeah.
That's pretty much.
Well, and then the time gap, he says, keep it secret, keep it safe.
He leaves.
And then like three minutes later, he's like, you just told me.
Yeah.
Went to bed and you're back.
Yeah, there's no indication.
That was one of the big problems with people having with that part of the story.
It's like there is no time for you to get to know Frodo at all and sort of his history.
I mean, they do that in the beginning more, but yeah.
Here you really do get a better sense of who Frodo is through these pages.
Okay.
So yeah, so Shadow of the Past, when we start out, the Shire is still a buzz.
Hobbiton is still a buzz with talk about Bilbo's party and his sudden disappearance and Gandalf doing a little flash of light.
And then everybody thinks that Gandalf is the one who like spirited him away or something like that.
They're celebrating their birthday every year, still celebrating Bilbo still alive to Frodo.
So it's every year toasting to Bilbo's health.
Yeah.
And people are beginning to notice that he's well preserved.
So he's getting closer to age 50 instead of 33.
And they're noticing that something's weird about Frodo.
He's not aging.
So does he have the same preservation from the ring that Bilbo did?
Because he's not using it, right?
Because he keeps it on a chain.
He keeps it on a chain, but it still says Frodo.
It's just the mere presence and proximity.
So if you had some bread that was going stale, you could just throw it out there.
Put the one ring on there.
That's why they need Sam to tune the growing.
Yeah.
I love this.
Right in the beginning of the chapter, it talks about this legend of Mad Baggins that comes about.
It's like future history now.
It's like, you're pushing yourself even up further.
I like how the history of now is being told.
But this is how Tolkien thought, because he thought in terms of history and linguistics and how things develop, how languages develop, how myth develops, how folk stories develop.
And so he has this event that happens in the book.
And then he talks about 100 years from now, the kids still, it's like how Santa Claus comes about.
Like there's Mad Baggins.
It makes you wonder a little bit because in the previous episode or previous chapter, it's been, what, 100 years since Gandalf came with fireworks too.
And so you can kind of almost see that there's that history there with the fireworks and like the lore around that.
And now they're already pushing forward another 100 years.
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Yeah, there is a real difference between the way that Tolkien sees these things developing.
He's not right.
You get the sense that Tolkien didn't sit down and go like, here's my 30 narrative beats for the story that I need to hit.
I mean, I don't even see you get the sense.
That's what happened.
He built this world.
Or a lot of authors say the story is going to tell itself while I'm writing it.
And like, no, he did 50 years to write the story, essentially, like 40 years.
And he knew exactly there's a reason for everything.
Nothing is left without reason in this story.
What's fascinating is it still does hit all the story beats that you need.
And it still just reads like a just cracking novel.
You don't have to dig into Silmarillion and the histories and stuff to get it.
It's all this bonus material, really, but it was written before, which is fascinating.
I like the picture we get of Frodo.
He's going on these long walks under the stars.
And he's got this growing anxiety about him that he's longing for adventure the way that Bilbo kind of raised him.
Absolutely.
He's going on these paths and he says the old paths are too well trodden.
So you're starting to get like this desire.
He doesn't talk about the maps.
Like he sees the maps.
He sees the white borders beyond the end of the shire.
And he's like, I wonder what's out there, you know?
Is there the Tookish side or whatever they would say?
Yeah, I got this feeling of like foreboding, almost a, this is the wrong term, but almost a Lovecraftian horror feel when he talks about you always see Frodo like wandering through the woods at night under the stars.
And like you just get this image of this, of this ominous shadow that's starting to spread over.
And some of that is seen in the way that Frodo is starting to kind of wander further and further.
And not only that, he's noticing the strange people walking through now.
Yes.
And why are they walking through?
And there's no reason given for that.
I mean, I think later in the chapter there is, but it adds to the tension of the story without having to be direct about it.
And like in a movie, you'd have to be.
Yeah, so I think maybe here is where we first get this background plot point that the elves are leaving.
And Tolkien does this great job where, I mean, obviously he's writing these histories.
And at this point, the third age is winding down.
And you get the feeling that this isn't just set in some random time in Middle Earth.
I created this world, Middle Earth.
What year is it?
I don't know.
Like it is this declining age.
And that's one of the main themes of the book, I think, is this shift in ages and shift in season.
And so, yeah, he talks about he sees the elves, they were leaving Middle Earth and were no longer concerned with its troubles.
Frodo now often met strange dwarves of far countries seeking refuge in the West.
They were troubled and some spoke in whispers of the enemy and of the land of Mordor.
So what a great way to like, I don't know, he's offering us some exposition without really doing any exposition, just this background of who Frodo is meeting out there.
And I love this line, again, this almost horror.
This would be in a horror novel, right?
And there were murmured hints of creatures more terrible than all these, but they had no name.
Like, what is that?
You're just like, what creatures have no name?
I'm freaked out now, you know?
Yeah.
And he doesn't leave that as just something that we don't worry about.
It actually happens in the very first step when you hit the Nazgul and the watcher in the water and the courts, right?
I mean, the watch in the water are crazy creatures.
It's hard to imagine what it is, but you know, it's terrifying and horrible.
Yeah.
So it's, yeah.
Like you said before, he had it all planned out.
It's not left.
It's not left alone to be undealt with later.
I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but yeah, the Nazgul stuff is just insane.
Like these invisible creatures wandering around in cloaks, questioning people.
I mean, I'm getting ahead of it because I think that's probably in the next couple of chapters.
Though he does mention Ike, who they are was built here, whereas in the books, it was, you know, or in the movies, they gave that to us right away.
Whereas here, they talk about it and you don't really know when the Nazgul first protests.
Is that who he's talking about?
Are we hearing that?
But here they talk about the nine mortal men doomed to die who are the Nazgul in the end.
And that's for the down.
I think one thing, one of the things that drew me into Tolkien a lot was the way that he crafted his words.
There's one phrase in one of the chapters coming up that just hit me really hard.
But I think one of those phrases in here was when He's with Gandalf and the line is, everything looked fresh and the new green of spring was shimmering in the fields and on the tips of the tree's fingers.
And I think in such a small phrase, he can capture the very beginning of spring without going into way too many adjectives and adverbs and other things that we don't really care about.
But just the spring was shimmering in the fields and on the tips of the tree's fingers.
I love the way he crafted words.
And I think that was one of the things that drew me into him so much is that he was so good by capturing your like capturing your heart and your emotions without using so many words that you'd have to trip over them.
Yeah.
So that was one of the phrases in this chapter that I just thought was beautiful.
It's better than George R. Martin.
He uses the phrase multiple times, useless as nipples on a breastplate.
That's right.
Not quite as poetic, I don't think.
Not quite as much.
I don't think it's in Return of the King.
So I love this chapter.
I think it's one of the oldest of the tale that Tolkien said he wrote down first.
And I really enjoy how it's happening in the Shire.
So you still get those glimpses of like normalcy.
All the hobbits are just going about their business.
They're in the tavern in the green dragon at Bywater.
And you get introduced to Samwise Gamgee.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, he gets brought in, one of my favorites.
And we'll talk more about that.
But just you have these glimpses of these ominous tidings.
And all these hobbits are completely clueless.
They're just bumbling around, enjoying life, going to the tavern.
Yeah, one thing I lost, I think they lost in the films was didn't this whole thing happen at night?
And what I like about this is it's actually daytime.
It's daytime when they're talking.
So it's like everybody's happy, everybody's oblivious, and then they're like in the secret meeting, like, hey, you know, you mean with Gandalf and Frodo talking.
Yeah, yeah.
So in the movie.
I remember right, it was at night.
Yeah, in the movie, yeah.
Yeah.
Because here it's important that it's a day because Sam is walking around cutting the hedges or whatever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I love that we're introduced to Sam Gamgee sitting at the Green Dragon.
And I think that's kind of like a Chestertonian thing about him that he believes in myth.
He believes in like the wonder of the world.
He's talking about dragons.
Yeah, so we meet Sam first at the Green Dragon.
They're just doing Hobbit things, drinking and talking about stories.
So he's sitting there with the Miller and they're talking about, there's talk about things going on.
Everybody's like, good crop this year.
And Sam's like, so dragons.
And everyone's making fun of him for fireside tales and children's stories.
But Sam retorts and says, I dare say there's more truth in them and some of them than you reckon.
Right.
That's just Tolkien.
Take dragons into the story there.
Yeah.
So I just love that.
That's how we get into Sam and who he is and what he's about.
And I will say the movies did capture a little bit of that, I think, with how much he wanted to see elves, which is at the very end of the chapter too here, where clearly Sam, like Sam has no hesitation in wanting to go with Frodo, wanting to be with Frodo.
Although, I think one of the things to look at here is that a lot of the folks who see Sam as a friend of Frodo, the relationship is completely different in the books.
He calls him Master Frodo because he's kind of his employee, right?
And that's the reason he goes along with him.
And so it's a different relationship.
And there's sort of a fatherliness to their relationship in the books that you kind of lose in the films, which probably wouldn't come across very well anyway.
But that's one of the things I appreciate here is that there's Maryadoc and Pippen, right?
And they're the friends.
But Sam is the guy who's going to help and who's not going to stop helping, right?
There's a reason for him.
And it's more than just being friendship.
It's because he sees him as his benefactor in a way.
Yeah, and Frodo has protectiveness over Sam.
He feels more responsible for him.
Yeah.
So Frodo is the CEO and Sam is the underpaid employee.
That's right.
Frodo's the one for Sam.
Frodo Musk.
Yeah, so Sam's talking about dragons.
He brings up Ents.
So that's kind of Tolkien's masterful way of just kind of mentioning them.
Hey, there's this thing called Ents, maybe.
And maybe you'll get into that later.
Dragons, Ents, and then he's talking about the elves going away.
And this is at this point, everyone in the green dragons just laughing at him.
I just love that childlike wonder that Sam has.
It's just so beautiful.
Here's another one of those great lines of prose.
It was early April and the sky was now clearing after heavy rain.
The sun was down and a cool, pale evening was quietly fading into night.
He walked home under the early stars through Hobbiton and up the hill, whistling softly and thoughtfully.
And then right then, we're introduced to Gandalf returning.
So is this, this is 17 years later, or am I getting the time?
Yeah, 17 years because the great party was when he turned 33 and now he's approaching 50.
And Gandalf appears.
Gandalf's back.
So in between here, he's going to do all this exposition of what he's been up to.
So one thing that I think we were just talking about, what is brilliant about this chapter is it is this is exposition dump, which is a big no-no in writing a fantasy novel.
Like you don't want to start out and be like, here's 100 pages of backstory and then we'll get to our characters.
And yet Tolkien does it in this way that this is one of my favorite chapters.
I'm just reading Exposition and I'm like, what?
What?
And I think by hooking it into the narrative where you don't know where Gandalf has been, you have these rumors that are coming of dark things and Gandalf suddenly reappears.
I think that really is what draws me into this.
And then, yeah, again, just that beautiful juxtaposition where they're sitting there, the sun is shining.
You hear the gardener outside with his weed whacker, you know, and they're just talking and Gandalf's like, hey, you know, you have a super weapon in your house.
Yeah, we gave you the red button.
Yeah, I just think this is really one of the great expositional chapters.
And one of the interesting things through the exposition is I think it's three times Frodo asks Gandalf, how long have you known this?
Like he's like, he still doesn't trust Gandalf in a way because Gandalf's been gone for 17 years.
He comes back.
And so there's, because Frodo has the distrust in reading through it, we're still not like, are we sure?
Like, who, like, Gandalf?
Like, what's he?
Yeah.
He seemed like a nice guy, but clearly he knows a lot more than we ever thought if you've read through The Hobbit.
And Frodo just can't seem to wrap his mind around what's going on because he keeps asking, how long have you known this?
It happens with him.
Like four paragraphs here.
And through the exposition, he grows into accepting it now and trusting Gandalf.
And so through that, like we end up trusting Gandalf too.
Yeah, and we get that picture of Hobbits who are very slow to have a fire lit under their behinds.
And yet when they do, they are these faithful, trustworthy, determined creatures.
But yeah, it is a growth moment for Frodo where he's like, I don't know, you know, and continually doubts throughout like, how can we be sure this is that one ring, you know, even when he's got the final proof of like, you just threw it in the fire.
Yeah, it's all right.
It's cool.
Yeah.
I like that picture of when Gandalf just takes the ring and tosses it in the fire.
And Frodo goes, no, it says like he's very distressed about what's happening.
He's already got that attachment to it.
Like, you know.
Yeah, he's not even using it.
He's not even using it.
Yeah.
And there's exposition of the ring, of what it is, how it's like how Sauron poured his power into it, and what the ring will do to you if you hang on to it, especially if you use it, how you just kind of like, you grow older or you gain life, but you don't really live.
You just kind of become stretched out and worn out.
You will merely continue.
You'll merely continue.
Or something like that.
There's something really creepy about that line, too.
I probably have it highlighted somewhere, but where he says you'll merely continue and become this like empty shadow floating around the world.
It's just like, whoa, geez.
I mean, let's talk about the, you know, this is the famous line.
I wish it need not happened in my time, said Frodo.
Need not have happened in my time, said Frodo.
So do I, said Gandalf, and so do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
I mean, what a great line.
In the movies, Mook Temoria, if I remember right.
But here, I mean, just it's a great moment, and I think it is better here in the books because it is where Frodo is still, he hasn't made that, we haven't hit that plot point where he goes, okay, I will go on this journey.
He's still questioning, you know, do I go on this journey?
So I think that's important for that bit of wisdom from Gandalf.
And Gandalf's one who's, you know, I don't know how old he is here, a thousand years.
I think he came in the beginning of third age.
Well, to Middle-earth.
Yeah, when he came to Middle Earth.
Yeah, yeah, no, but I mean, he's beginning to.
Yeah, he's an archangel-type character.
I think he came to Middle-earth maybe a thousand years before this.
And he is seeing evil rise and fall.
He's seen these changes in the ages.
So he's telling them like, hey, there's good times and bad times.
There are these changes of season, and you don't get to decide which one you live in.
He's saying it.
He's not just saying it as some old grandpa who's like, hey, sometimes things are hard, but he's actually been through it.
Yeah, yeah.
And the next line is like, and says, and already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black, which is an interesting word when you think, like black.
Our time is beginning to look bleak or scary or black.
And that conjures so many different things, like the blackness covering Middle-earth.
And I don't know how far I want to jump ahead here, but there was another line that when he speaks about that our time is becoming black, further down the road here.
Here it is.
He wrote, okay, no, this is not it.
In any case, he makes the point that it's the shire that grounds him.
Like when he thinks of the shire, he thinks of the good things.
He comes back to that in his thoughts.
And so when he sees that our time is becoming black, like to him, it's going to come over with the shire and then I'm going to lose my footing too.
And that lends a lot of gravity to the word black in my opinion.
Like it's all going to be gone.
It's just going to be black.
It's like shriveling away like that.
It's the same sort of idea.
There's nothing left.
Yeah.
Well, are we jumping ahead if we start talking about Golem?
Because I think Gandalf, he's talking about the ring, talking about Sauron.
He kind of brings in these other things about Saruman, how Saruman knows all about the rings, but he knows about other things like the hobbits.
So they're talking about all this world building and all this exposition of like what's at stake and what's going on.
And then he starts talking about how the ring came to him through Bilbo and Bilbo got it from Golem.
And what I have found interesting about that part is that he's concerned that he's got this ring.
What's it going to do to him?
And then they start talking about Golem and how he's related to the Hobbits and how Frodo is like very distressed.
Like, I can't believe he was related to the Hobbits.
Like, there's no way.
And how he became.
Maybe we can talk a little bit about what the ring did to Smeagel slash Golem.
Because he's worried about Bilbo.
Is Bilbo going to be okay?
And Gandalf kind of tells him, well, he voluntarily gave up the ring.
Yeah, that's what he said.
That's the most important thing that he was able to let it go, even with struggle.
But Golem never did that.
He had the ring taken from him.
Yeah, let's talk about Smeagol a little bit.
I mean, was there already something dark in Smeagel's heart?
I mean, that's how it seemed to me when he goes for the ring.
It's not like the ring made him do that.
No.
Yeah, he killed his friend to get the ring.
I mean, obviously there was a wheel of the ring that was doing that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And clearly his grandmother already had it out for him because he ended up kicking him out a little bit later.
It's all grandma's fault.
Yeah, he never came across as an okay guy, right?
Tolkien never took the step to say, you know, he was loved by his people or anything along the way.
He wasn't like this happy guy.
He was already down that road.
There was nothing like a Bilbo who, you know, pity would have stayed his hand.
Pity did not stay his hand in killing his brother.
Yeah.
And so he's, yeah, he's not a good guy from the start.
I really agree with that.
I like the description of him.
He kind of, he's like running away from the sun, running away from the light.
And there's like that exposition of him.
It's like one day he just looks up and he's like, I hate that thing.
He shakes his fist at the sun and then he's like, he looks and sees the mountain.
He's like, I bet I can go very deep and get under there and get away from the sun finally.
Just kind of something interesting about.
There's nothing there.
Tolkien makes the point like, there was nothing there.
There was no sun, but there was nothing.
Yeah.
It's an allegory for, uh, no, I'm just kidding.
Yeah.
We need shot callers or something.
Anytime he was his allegory, one of the good things I like about reading about Golem is that Gandalf makes the point that he's not wholly ruined, that there's still parts of him.
There's a corner of his mind that's still perhaps redeemable or savable or he's not beyond being reached.
So he talks about how when he met Bilbo in The Hobbit, how being around him and having a conversation and doing the riddle game with him, how that sparks these things that he remembers of goodness.
Yeah.
I thought that that was interesting.
He's got these distant images in his mind of like, yeah, his goodness.
Yeah, he remembers the wind through the trees and the sun on the grass.
And so he remembers with fondness, like the good memories still.
I thought that was an interesting thing.
Yeah, it says there was a little corner of his mind that was still his own and light came through it as through a chink in the dark, light out of the past.
Like, how cool is that?
And he says that there's little hope of redemption for him.
He says, but yet not no hope.
So Gandalf's already got some idea of what may be in store for, or that something, I don't know, but Gandalf knows what's going to be in store, but he knows there's something maybe in store for Golem in the future.
I mean, other key passages, he hated it and loved it as he hated and loved himself.
He could not get rid of it.
He had no will left in the matter.
I want to talk a little bit too about fate and the role of fate in the finding of the ring, both when Smeagel found it and when it passed on to Bilbo.
Because just this story that this giant fish, like, there's like a huge fish that like pulls him down.
And I remember watching it in the movie, I think it was maybe in the extended edition.
He's a fellowship in the ring.
I was like, that wasn't in the book.
And I go back and read it, and that's actually in the book.
This big fish grabs the line and like pulls him right down to where the ring is lying.
And I wonder if there's a sense of fate there.
Either that's the will of the ring or the will of, I don't know.
I don't know if Tolkien would see it as a Louvatar or whatever or God.
But this other, and that's what he talks about here.
It was not Golem, Frodo, but the ring itself that decided things.
The ring left him.
And then he says, but there was more than one power at work.
The ring was trying to get back to its master and it slipped from a Sieilder's hand.
It betrayed him.
It abandoned Golem only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable, Bilbo from the Shire.
There was something else at work beyond any design of the ringmaker.
I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the ring and not by its maker, in which case you also were meant to have it.
And that may be an encouraging thought.
I mean, I love that concept of this fate, that evil has this will that it's trying to bring about, but there's another will at work.
Yeah.
It's maybe more subtle and not quite as visible.
And that goes to the line that he says later, too.
It was when, you know, it was pity that stayed his hand.
It was that just the one little good thing that he did that changed the course of the entire history of the world at that point.
If the ring had wanted to do what it wanted to do, it wouldn't have been able to, but fate had something else in store for him.
Or the powers that clearly are defined in the Silmarillion.
Maybe they interjected a little bit there.
And I think with that longer exposition, when you watch the movie, I don't think you quite get that idea that the ring wanted to leave Golem, but it didn't.
Well, the ring wanted to leave Golem, but it didn't intend to get picked up by Bilbo, right?
Right, right.
That was not part of the design.
That was not part of, no.
I mean, I probably hoped in order to hold it.
And clearly in the movies, they don't ever hearken back to anything other than the power of Sauron.
Right.
And everything's always about the ring and the ring wants to get back to its master.
It's trying to get back to its master.
And it even hints, I think, a little bit at it would use whatever it could to get back to its master, including hobbits.
And so I think that the whole idea that there are two powers at work is kind of lost here.
But the power of the small goodness of the Bilbo can still overcome the greater power of a Sauron just by wanting his five meals a day instead of like wanting to be invisible and taking over the rest of the world.
Did we talk about that?
I think we talked about it.
I don't remember if we talked about it so far on the recording, but talking about the idea of the powerful versus goodness and greatness versus goodness, I think in the mind of Tolkien.
This is the chapter, right, where I read ahead, so I don't remember where it is, but where Gandalf rejects the ring, where Frodo says, why don't you take the ring?
And Gandalf turns all towering and fills the room.
Don't tempt me, Frodo.
I think that whole idea of the little good things, and I don't have necessarily a specific part of Tolkien's history I'm thinking of other than I know that it was in World War I where he saw the goodness of helping his friends right in the trenches and the massive destruction of the two, of the good power versus the huge evil power battling together.
But it was those little good things that sort of helped him along and seeing his friends and remembering what he had before.
So, yeah, I don't know.
It's tough to know exactly where that would.
Yeah, that line that Frodo says says, you are wise and powerful.
Will you not take the ring?
So there's this idea that you're more powerful.
You can handle it.
And the idea is that, no, being more powerful would be worse.
There's no, cried Gandalf, springing to his feet.
With that power, I should have power too great and terrible.
And over me, the ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.
So the idea of like that power getting more power just corrupts you.
And the power would be over you, not you over the power.
And I think Tolkien sees, I don't know if power is the right word, but he sees greatness as distinct from morality.
Like you can be a really great man and be really horrible.
Like the more talented, wise, strong you are, the more you can be used for evil or good.
And I think that's where he saw that ring as having that potential to slide him all the way to the other side.
I don't know how humble of Gandalf, even though he's like this archangel to be like, nope, that's not for me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I don't know if this is hearkening back too far, but when you go back to the Silmarillion, the power of creating those Silmarilles, right?
And they were beautiful and they were good and they were lovely and they drew people together until they didn't because they were so powerful and everything went haywire after that.
People wanted that.
Yeah, and I saw an echo, like this is, you know, in the way that history kind of repeats itself and goes through these cycles.
And I think maybe that was something that Tolkien was kind of alluding to with the Silmarilles having these huge wars over these beautiful jewels are filled with light or whatever, you know.
And the same thing here.
We have this beautiful, even though this was created by evil.
Yeah.
But still, the juxtaposition of beauty and destruction is real here, too.
And he makes that point is like, beautiful doesn't mean good.
Right.
And beautiful might mean a lot of power, but it causes a lot of destruction when you deal with beauty too, like that, like massive beauty that has just been injected with so much of personal responsibility and like how much how much you put on that object itself.
In the end, it's just not worth it.
So you're saying this is an allegory?
Totally not.
I do see a parallel too in the way.
I see a parallel too in the way the Silmaroles are cast.
That is how it ends.
I cast this into the sea, it casts them into the sky and the earth or whatever.
And then this one, it's like cast it in the fire.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And they're both gone forever.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Quite so.
Quite.
Well, is this a good point to break into subscriber?
I think.
Yeah.
So we answer questions from subscribers, comments, questions you have.
We dive more into the discussion.
And we're going to go through the article on the1ering.com that talks about the differences between the movies and the books.
I know we won't get to the whole thing, but we'll hit some of the main points.
Before we wrap up, or as we wrap up, we do have the first mention of Aragorn in this chapter, which is important.
And I love the ending that Sam has been cutting the grass the whole time and Gandalf grabs him.
And then just the very end there where he says, Sam fell to his knees trembling.
Get up, Sam.
I thought of something better than that.
He was threatening to turn him into something or whatever.
Something to shut your mouth and punish you properly.
You shall go away with Mr. Frodo.
Me, sir, cried Sam, springing up like a dog invited for a walk.
Me go and see elves and all?
Hooray, he shouted and then burst into tears.
I love the dry, subtle humor of Tolkien.
We're into the depths of the history of Middle-earth and it ends with a hooray.
This guy just starts crying because he's so happy or whatever.
Like, that's just fantastic.
And Sam's a great character.
I mean, we'll be able to follow them through this whole thing, which is great.
So sad he never got to meet.
Well, you know, we'll talk about that.
All right.
So thanks for coming on, Jonathan.
You guys check out the1ering.com.
Follow along with us.
Please read chapter three, three is company, I think it's called, before next time.
And we're going to walk through that next time.
I'm sure if you enjoyed this, we can have you back for future episodes and as much time as you have.
Sure.
Check out the1ering.com.
And then if you're a subscriber, join us in the pub.
The pub.
We're going to talk about the differences between the movies and the books.
All right.
There we go.
Peace out, everybody.
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But between some of the humor, Gandalf being kind of klutzy and, you know, completely confabulated all the time.
He's like, oh, where's the ring?
Like, it just felt very much not like the Gandalf that I already knew.
Maybe it's hard for me to separate them.
Like, since I saw them first, it's hard for me to read the book and remove all the images that are burned into my brain.
Oh, this is what Aragorn looks like.
Put a breastplate on him.
Can I have nipples?
With nipples on.
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Until next time, this is Austin Robertson.
The voice of the Babylon Bee reads The Lord of the Rings.
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