When the interviewer said that almost all the characters are portrayed as black or white, he seems to have forgotten Sam's musings in the chapter 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit': _He wondered what the man's name was and where he had come from; and if he was really evil at heart, or what lies and threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace--_
Yes, I love that scene too, in which Sam for the first time sees "the enemy," the other, the legendary Black men of Harad and realizes they are men, simply ordinary men, noble of face, powerful in body and skill, capable of good and evil, joy and suffering, and prey to hard circumstance. He mourns for a fallen man of Harad who, if not for the war, might have been a friend or neighbour, experiencing ordinary joys and hardships until forced to fight and die through the ambitions of the powerful. Tolkien would have seen this during his time as a soldier. Thank you for also noticing!
Today is September 2nd, 2023 and marks the 50th anniversary of the Professor's death. J.R.R. Tolkien's legacy endures today and for all time! Cheers to the Professor!
This is the first time I heard him speak. The man is just brilliant. Talking about the different races and each of their exaggerated human traits. "Well, you've got them on your hands, don't you?" I'm a writer, nothing like this man was, but what an inspiration on world and character building.
Tolkien's work is just a different level of fiction. The word 'genius' is so abused it's nearly lost it's meaning.... But I've no other word for this man. He was a genius.
Just the way he insightfully answers those frustratingly off topic questions with such integrity to his view whilst maintaining composure is yet one of many things that speaks to his depth of reasoning.
@@lnsullivan422 No, he was endlessly tinkering until he died. That's why it was left to his son to hurriedly collate his notes into The Silmarillion... They were eager to publish it.
For some unknown reason, Tolkien never hired an assistant to organize his papers and aid him in getting The Silmarillion ready for publication, which would have helped him a lot. He could certainly afford one for the last decade of his life, after LOTR blew up and the money came rolling in. He seemed to have been somewhat embarrassed by it all. Someone who could advise him to stop with the tinkering and that the 1967 version of Galadriel was probably the best lol. (It was the best, IMO.) Tolkien had no assistant when he wrote LOTR, except for his youngest daughter, who typed the drafts of it. All of his other children were grown. By the time of LOTR's publication, she was gone too. Christopher didn't take much of a role except for the maps, and didn't do much with The Silmarillion until after his father's passing. In terms of actual organization of his documents, Stephen King has one assistant. In the same vein, GRRM has two assistants. In all fairness, even the machine-man Brandon Sanderson has two assistants.
Saw the Jackson movies as a kid. I loved them, but never really cared to dive deep into Tolkien’s work until around a year ago. After about a year of just going further and further down the Tolkien rabbit hole (reading LOTR, The Silmarillion, letter 131), I’m still not done learning about this man and his works. He is THE GREATEST CREATIVE MIND OF ALL TIME in my opinion.
Certainly the greatest single storyteller of the 20th Century. Maybe ever. Creating an entire mythology equivalent to the mythology of an entire civilization's mythology is something I don't think anyone else has ever done. The Arthurian romances, the Celtic, Norse, Greek, Indian, Persian, Levant, Chinese etc. myths and legends were the product of many minds over centuries and millennia, and he managed to equal them. Dude was unreal.
With this interviewer as a foil, we can fully appreciate the wholesome, honest and down-to-earth quality of Tolkien's personality. JRRT is gentle and good humoured, but suffers no fools and will not be bullied--except by himself, when he goes to great lengths to out his own moments of "appalling grammar" (which, like the interviewer, I also did not notice, or else instantly forgave--I like "Elves" and "Dwarves" as plurals, like "leaves and wolves" and halves, knives, wives, lives, shelves, staves, selves... not fifes and gulfs!)
I know of no other fictional writing that is universally explored in such a serious way. The maps myths and histories of Middle Earth are peered over as if they were a real place that ought to be explored on foot. Tolkien surprised the entire world with his creation. A narrative that is universally loved but not entirely full of worn out tropes or cliches. Some might suspect that there was some reason or agenda for an oxford historian/professor to create this world. Every reason he's given points toward his desire to just touch his readers with an effective story. He does not presume upon the beliefs or backgrounds of his audience. He informs his readers that there is much inspiration he's taken from English and European history to help flesh out this world modeled after our own familiar human myths and histories. Yet the story being told is universal. The human spirit....perhaps the spirit itself found in the lives of the Humans, the Elves, the Dwarves, the Hobbits, the Ents and the trees etc and how they weigh against a great threat to their collective existence. He fleshed out the complicated interwoven / interdependent dynamics that every race has on the world. I could go on....the story is best enjoyed by a fire or on long journeyed walk in the forest. Im just in awe of the monumental work that is the lord of the rings.
I always thought it should be “chieves”…. Fuck it.. Tolkien and I say it’s chieves! I love what he says about religion, about native vs learned languages. Secret language vs outward language. There is so much more to his writing than he is letting on. I can tell. Absolutely fascinating
@@hjr2000I think it's easy to think that at times however after several listens you can tell he's a fan, has done his research and respects Tolkien. When he says 'i haven't noticed any' regarding Tolkiens admitted grammatical errors and particularly that sympathising whispered 'I know' when Tolkien talks about offering 'The Mythology' to the publishers before LOTR. Don't forget he's a BBC journalist and it was the '60s...they didn't pander too much then. I love this interview and listen to it often just to hear his voice ❤
I think Tolkien's theological thesis of good and evil as extrapolated through Christianity runs circles around C. S. Lewis'. It would have been fascinating for Tolkien to have written a book dedicated to his philosophy of Christianity, like Lewis did, I think his conception of ethics might have been quite different. Although he seemed shy and wanted to keep his conceptions to himself, preferring not to challenge or propose his own version of official Catholic dogma and to instead imply it through his art. When people reduce hobbits to being simple traditional Catholics, I think people miss the point of Tolkien's statement that as he says here, the good characters do more damage than the bad ones in the final outcome of the story - simple resistance and sacrifices of desires to temptation don't work out as they ought to. It might even be alluded to that in the end result, the one trait of Christ he says might be ascribed to Frodo, of enduring suffering, and bearing through persecution, may just as accurately, between the lines, be described as a trait of Gollum. Tolkien said Frodo does not embody all of the traits of Christ though, since for Christ it does not matter how much a person has sinner, the goodness of Christ is supposed to redeem the seemingly irredeemable who are in ''too sticky'' as he puts it a situation, a Christ figure in the stickiest situation redeems the sinner with no stickiness, and it would not have been able to alienated Gollum. And precisely that Frodo and Sam alienated Gollum while following what may seem as, the perfect Catholic dogmatic way of life at home, is where the paradox in Tolkien's religious impact his background had upon his books lies. C. S. Lewis, on the other hand, lazily just hands an allegorical Christ in the symbol of a silly talking Lion who has a perfect ethic of selflessness. It is tragic that with such a good character, the videogame of Gollum could not be more interesting.
Would've been interesting indeed. Oh just one point on Lewis' writing; he said didn't write Narnia as an allegory (it all started from pictures in his mind.) Rather he wrote Narnia (and space trilogy) as a supposal, a "what if God created other worlds, how would they differ, how would they play out, how would He interact with them?" Aslan isn't an allegory of Jesus but rather Lewis wrote of Aslan as if he was Jesus himself interacting with another world He created."
Tolkien reminds me s much of John Lennon. Both were free thinkers and created their own worlds. Nothing was right or wrong, everything was open to discussion.
And Lennon loved LOTR. Apparently he wanted to play Gollum in a possible Beatles version of it. The 60's counter culture embraced LOTR whole heartedly.
@@Hero_Of_Oldam I profoundly deaf or did Tolkien (oxford educated linguist) not say their language and naming is based on norse structure and customs,some names even coming from norse books?
He said both basically, some of the names were Norse, but he was really more saying that the traits (not physical traits) of the Dwarves were like the Jews. Likewise language has Semitic traits even though it was also inspired by the Norse.
@@garfieldodie3106 fair enough yeh but I dunno if it's so obvious by "their semetic language". But I dunno my hang up comes from not hearing the phonetic similarities so much
@@tmarritt this explains perfectly why they're portrayed as repulsive and downright unlikable in all of his writing. I never did like the dwarfs...like c'mon wreckin' bilbo's house with merry feasting and song? Enticing him to leave the comfort and safety of his home to seek GOLD??? Sound like anyone??? Classic Dwarf.
Yes. Frodo fails. Human beings, even the best of us, constantly fail under extreme duress, although our quest might ultimately succeed due to blind chance or the evil actions of others misfiring. Gollum, in his pitiable moment of triumph, after a murderous and miserable life, accidentally accomplishes the goal Frodo did not have the strength to complete. Gandalf was right about the necessity of practicing mercy, not dealing out justice, especially to the most despised, and he was right about the vicissitudes of chance. Gollum is, in effect, "part of that power which wills evil, but is constantly doing good" (Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust). In the end Frodo is lauded for his sacrifices and endurance, although he remains scarred by the experience. He is ultimately deemed worthy of the Undying Realm, warts and all, like Galadriel, who, as a Noldorin Elf, has seen so much destruction and death, and has been party to much folly and evil. All who oppose evil in the last effort against Sauron are tested by suffering, error and sacrifice, but in the end play their part in restoring peace for the good of others, are forgiven for their failures and admitted to paradise. I love this so much! Tolkien did not need to hit us over the head with sledgehammer Christian allegory in order to lay out his vision of flawed humanity striving imperfectly towards divine virtue.
![Bette Davis on The Dick Cavett Show 1971, Nov 17th [complete]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/jsKGXFuXbbo/mqdefault.jpg)
00:15 midgard
03:00 names (dwarves)
04:00 names (elven)
04:45 tree
05:00 not symbols
05:25 not symbols lol
05:45 hobbit fondness
06:00 childhood memory
06:45 childhood memory
07:40 Frodo
08:40 against odds
09:20 race
10:20 Elves
10:35 Dwarves
10:47 Men
10:55 Hobbits
11:30 longer life
11:59 love history
12:15 naming system / language
13:45 names
14:30 names start with a name
15:25 language influence
16:35 women in LOTR
17:25 reviewer lol
18:05 from hobbit to LOTR
19:10 dragons
19:30 writing LOTR & The Ring
20:01 Gollum
20:22 grey character & temptation
20:59 Sam and Gollum
22:20 reader feedback
22:45 take control
23:15 writing
24:33 maps
24:42 moons
25:05 started LOTR
25:30 lots typing, error
26:35 languages purpose
28:06 any guilt
28:47 allegory
28:53 world declining
30:03 god in LOTR
30:10 goodness
30:50 gods of men
33:22 high towers
34:11 Atlantis complex
36:08 if were the Vala
37:26 fan mails
37:40 success
38:06 theist
39:02 to be remembered
greatest timestamp comment in history
@@therealmvp1024
I agree !!!
Thank you so much for such precision
When the interviewer said that almost all the characters are portrayed as black or white, he seems to have forgotten Sam's musings in the chapter 'Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit':
_He wondered what the man's name was and where he had come from; and if he was really evil at heart, or what lies and threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace--_
Yes, I love that scene too, in which Sam for the first time sees "the enemy," the other, the legendary Black men of Harad and realizes they are men, simply ordinary men, noble of face, powerful in body and skill, capable of good and evil, joy and suffering, and prey to hard circumstance. He mourns for a fallen man of Harad who, if not for the war, might have been a friend or neighbour, experiencing ordinary joys and hardships until forced to fight and die through the ambitions of the powerful. Tolkien would have seen this during his time as a soldier. Thank you for also noticing!
Today is September 2nd, 2023 and marks the 50th anniversary of the Professor's death. J.R.R. Tolkien's legacy endures today and for all time! Cheers to the Professor!
Cheers !
Cheers to 51th
I love how Tolkien just dodges the Tom Bombadil question...
This is the first time I heard him speak. The man is just brilliant. Talking about the different races and each of their exaggerated human traits. "Well, you've got them on your hands, don't you?" I'm a writer, nothing like this man was, but what an inspiration on world and character building.
Tolkien's work is just a different level of fiction. The word 'genius' is so abused it's nearly lost it's meaning.... But I've no other word for this man. He was a genius.
I’ve said that to almost the exact point. Great comment.
Just the way he insightfully answers those frustratingly off topic questions with such integrity to his view whilst maintaining composure is yet one of many things that speaks to his depth of reasoning.
14:36 "you wouldn't much like a chap called 'Ugluk' would you". I love it lmao.
I laughed out loud 😂
I love this, this man, his thoughts and his world. And the interviewer does a better job then modern colleagues.
Far, far better...this is old good BBC school
I wish he published silmarilion in his lifetime and we had interviews on it aswell. It must be fascinating to hear JRRT talk on elder days
He tried to, but nobody would publish it.
It was that oath that caused all the troubles
@@lnsullivan422 No, he was endlessly tinkering until he died. That's why it was left to his son to hurriedly collate his notes into The Silmarillion... They were eager to publish it.
@@johnnyw525 Well, he did admit in the foreword to LOTR that his friends all felt no-one would ever publish his account on the Elder Days
For some unknown reason, Tolkien never hired an assistant to organize his papers and aid him in getting The Silmarillion ready for publication, which would have helped him a lot. He could certainly afford one for the last decade of his life, after LOTR blew up and the money came rolling in. He seemed to have been somewhat embarrassed by it all. Someone who could advise him to stop with the tinkering and that the 1967 version of Galadriel was probably the best lol. (It was the best, IMO.)
Tolkien had no assistant when he wrote LOTR, except for his youngest daughter, who typed the drafts of it. All of his other children were grown. By the time of LOTR's publication, she was gone too. Christopher didn't take much of a role except for the maps, and didn't do much with The Silmarillion until after his father's passing.
In terms of actual organization of his documents, Stephen King has one assistant. In the same vein, GRRM has two assistants. In all fairness, even the machine-man Brandon Sanderson has two assistants.
Saw the Jackson movies as a kid. I loved them, but never really cared to dive deep into Tolkien’s work until around a year ago. After about a year of just going further and further down the Tolkien rabbit hole (reading LOTR, The Silmarillion, letter 131), I’m still not done learning about this man and his works. He is THE GREATEST CREATIVE MIND OF ALL TIME in my opinion.
Certainly the greatest single storyteller of the 20th Century. Maybe ever. Creating an entire mythology equivalent to the mythology of an entire civilization's mythology is something I don't think anyone else has ever done. The Arthurian romances, the Celtic, Norse, Greek, Indian, Persian, Levant, Chinese etc. myths and legends were the product of many minds over centuries and millennia, and he managed to equal them. Dude was unreal.
Hey- even if people are hating on the interviewer for good reason, props to him for actually educating himself. He knows his stuff!
With this interviewer as a foil, we can fully appreciate the wholesome, honest and down-to-earth quality of Tolkien's personality. JRRT is gentle and good humoured, but suffers no fools and will not be bullied--except by himself, when he goes to great lengths to out his own moments of "appalling grammar" (which, like the interviewer, I also did not notice, or else instantly forgave--I like "Elves" and "Dwarves" as plurals, like "leaves and wolves" and halves, knives, wives, lives, shelves, staves, selves... not fifes and gulfs!)
what an eloquent man
When he starts dunking on Lewis 😂 I adore both writers and thinks their little squabbles with the others’ work is hilarious
You're an excellent archiviste congratulations, your standard is so high that should be threated as a museum.
What a brilliant man. I haven’t read LOTR but I did read The Hobbit as a child. I’m going to revisit this series and get a good dose of Tolkien.
He sounds exactly how I expected him too . 💙
Thank you!
Thank you! I had such a great time hearing this interview. More hidden gems like this! :)
26:01 - that “I havent noticed any” is so wholesome
Thank you very much! Great work! ❤
Currently readin LOTR TheTwo Towers its so much detail it’s amazing
I know of no other fictional writing that is universally explored in such a serious way. The maps myths and histories of Middle Earth are peered over as if they were a real place that ought to be explored on foot.
Tolkien surprised the entire world with his creation. A narrative that is universally loved but not entirely full of worn out tropes or cliches. Some might suspect that there was some reason or agenda for an oxford historian/professor to create this world. Every reason he's given points toward his desire to just touch his readers with an effective story. He does not presume upon the beliefs or backgrounds of his audience. He informs his readers that there is much inspiration he's taken from English and European history to help flesh out this world modeled after our own familiar human myths and histories. Yet the story being told is universal. The human spirit....perhaps the spirit itself found in the lives of the Humans, the Elves, the Dwarves, the Hobbits, the Ents and the trees etc and how they weigh against a great threat to their collective existence. He fleshed out the complicated interwoven / interdependent dynamics that every race has on the world. I could go on....the story is best enjoyed by a fire or on long journeyed walk in the forest. Im just in awe of the monumental work that is the lord of the rings.
What a great ITW.... and what a great channel !
Excited to see this. This channel is brilliant!
thank you
I always thought it should be “chieves”…. Fuck it.. Tolkien and I say it’s chieves!
I love what he says about religion, about native vs learned languages. Secret language vs outward language. There is so much more to his writing than he is letting on. I can tell. Absolutely fascinating
BRILLIANT !!!
this interviewever is a major fan of the lore
I think he's confrontational and arrogant
@@hjr2000I think it's easy to think that at times however after several listens you can tell he's a fan, has done his research and respects Tolkien. When he says 'i haven't noticed any' regarding Tolkiens admitted grammatical errors and particularly that sympathising whispered 'I know' when Tolkien talks about offering 'The Mythology' to the publishers before LOTR. Don't forget he's a BBC journalist and it was the '60s...they didn't pander too much then. I love this interview and listen to it often just to hear his voice ❤
I like his last comment. "I don't think I have much choice in the matter." Facts.
How my God , the interviewer is so bullheaded in persisting to extract an answer that he clearly did not hear but wanted. Tolkien is so patient.
I think Tolkien's theological thesis of good and evil as extrapolated through Christianity runs circles around C. S. Lewis'. It would have been fascinating for Tolkien to have written a book dedicated to his philosophy of Christianity, like Lewis did, I think his conception of ethics might have been quite different. Although he seemed shy and wanted to keep his conceptions to himself, preferring not to challenge or propose his own version of official Catholic dogma and to instead imply it through his art. When people reduce hobbits to being simple traditional Catholics, I think people miss the point of Tolkien's statement that as he says here, the good characters do more damage than the bad ones in the final outcome of the story - simple resistance and sacrifices of desires to temptation don't work out as they ought to. It might even be alluded to that in the end result, the one trait of Christ he says might be ascribed to Frodo, of enduring suffering, and bearing through persecution, may just as accurately, between the lines, be described as a trait of Gollum. Tolkien said Frodo does not embody all of the traits of Christ though, since for Christ it does not matter how much a person has sinner, the goodness of Christ is supposed to redeem the seemingly irredeemable who are in ''too sticky'' as he puts it a situation, a Christ figure in the stickiest situation redeems the sinner with no stickiness, and it would not have been able to alienated Gollum. And precisely that Frodo and Sam alienated Gollum while following what may seem as, the perfect Catholic dogmatic way of life at home, is where the paradox in Tolkien's religious impact his background had upon his books lies. C. S. Lewis, on the other hand, lazily just hands an allegorical Christ in the symbol of a silly talking Lion who has a perfect ethic of selflessness.
It is tragic that with such a good character, the videogame of Gollum could not be more interesting.
In Letters 329, Tolkien also writes "I neither preach nor teach". This sums up a major aspect between himself and CS Lewis.
Would've been interesting indeed.
Oh just one point on Lewis' writing; he said didn't write Narnia as an allegory (it all started from pictures in his mind.) Rather he wrote Narnia (and space trilogy) as a supposal, a "what if God created other worlds, how would they differ, how would they play out, how would He interact with them?" Aslan isn't an allegory of Jesus but rather Lewis wrote of Aslan as if he was Jesus himself interacting with another world He created."
The Ents marching on Isengard is the my favorite scene of fiction in the last 200 years.
Tolkien reminds me s much of John Lennon. Both were free thinkers and created their own worlds. Nothing was right or wrong, everything was open to discussion.
And Lennon loved LOTR. Apparently he wanted to play Gollum in a possible Beatles version of it. The 60's counter culture embraced LOTR whole heartedly.
Finally, someone besides myself drew comparison to Dwarves and Jews!
You're not the only one lmao. Its pretty obvious with their semetic language
@@Hero_Of_Oldam I profoundly deaf or did Tolkien (oxford educated linguist) not say their language and naming is based on norse structure and customs,some names even coming from norse books?
He said both basically, some of the names were Norse, but he was really more saying that the traits (not physical traits) of the Dwarves were like the Jews. Likewise language has Semitic traits even though it was also inspired by the Norse.
@@garfieldodie3106 fair enough yeh but I dunno if it's so obvious by "their semetic language". But I dunno my hang up comes from not hearing the phonetic similarities so much
@@tmarritt this explains perfectly why they're portrayed as repulsive and downright unlikable in all of his writing. I never did like the dwarfs...like c'mon wreckin' bilbo's house with merry feasting and song? Enticing him to leave the comfort and safety of his home to seek GOLD??? Sound like anyone??? Classic Dwarf.
Frodo had to fail otherwise the story wouldn't make sense.
Yes. Frodo fails. Human beings, even the best of us, constantly fail under extreme duress, although our quest might ultimately succeed due to blind chance or the evil actions of others misfiring. Gollum, in his pitiable moment of triumph, after a murderous and miserable life, accidentally accomplishes the goal Frodo did not have the strength to complete. Gandalf was right about the necessity of practicing mercy, not dealing out justice, especially to the most despised, and he was right about the vicissitudes of chance. Gollum is, in effect, "part of that power which wills evil, but is constantly doing good" (Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust). In the end Frodo is lauded for his sacrifices and endurance, although he remains scarred by the experience. He is ultimately deemed worthy of the Undying Realm, warts and all, like Galadriel, who, as a Noldorin Elf, has seen so much destruction and death, and has been party to much folly and evil. All who oppose evil in the last effort against Sauron are tested by suffering, error and sacrifice, but in the end play their part in restoring peace for the good of others, are forgiven for their failures and admitted to paradise. I love this so much! Tolkien did not need to hit us over the head with sledgehammer Christian allegory in order to lay out his vision of flawed humanity striving imperfectly towards divine virtue.
Farmer maggot is the true hero of the story