226. The Lord of the Rings
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.
Join Tom and Dominic in the second of two episodes on the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien, where they discuss the themes of encroaching industrialisation, the air defences of Mordor, and whether the Scouring of the Shire was an allegory for post-war Attlee Britain...
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Bingo and Trotter Meet the Gnomes is a lost The Kinks album I'm sure
Hahahahaha brilliant comment!!
I think if you can't see the comparisons of the genius of the work and the characters of the time ,their appearance, their world and actions ,I think some folks may need to lose up and broaden your expanses. Absolutely wonderful.
Watermelons. I heard someone once say, green on the outside, red on the inside with little black hearts. Wow!
Cool episode though. Tolkien was a cool dude 😎
Finally!!! One of the greatest works of World Literature.
It really is.
That was very enlightening - and by a strange coincidence inspiring for a piece for my blog I'm working on. It will be - partly - about a historical queen who was exiled, and died fighting to regain her lost kingdom. (Queen Katarina of Bosnia). To have Aragorn's story spelled out so clearly really made it click. So thank you for that.
How cruel of you to end on that quote, leaving me teary-eyed.
On your defence of his descriptions of the servants of Mordor, I am glad you brought it up. Its a weak defence. I noted the descriptions when I read the book in 1997 and shrugged it off then as I did today. I preferred then as I do now to focus on the story. This is one of your more brilliant episodes and I have recommended it to many of my friends who have read the book.
Worth pointing out that Tolkien had seen Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen"...might have got a few ideas from old Herr W....
It is important to note that in the Scouring of the Shire, the arch-villain is 'Sharkey', who turns out to be Saruman, come to mess things up in the Shire after his own stronghold was destroyed. The hobbits do then overthrow and cast him out and start the long clean up.
Brilliant! Thank you!
The pub closing thing at around 36 mins could specifically refer to Bourneville and the Quakers forbidding pubs. The stranglehold on licensing would continue in a lesser form in Birmingham right in to the 1980s.
Fiiiiiine, I guess I'll read 'em. What vivid context :]
Saruman the White loses his whiteness when he turns evil - he shows off to Gandalf that his white robes now shimmer with many colours. Then when Gandalf is resurrected, he becomes Gandalf the White to replace Saruman, who can no longer claim to be 'the White'. So im not sure of Dominics analysis on this point.
That said, each wizard has their own colour, including 100% good guy Radagast the Brown, so its probably not right to make the wizards colours into a race thing at all.
There is one very oblique reference to Christ. Aragorn, near the end, says the world cannot be healed except perhaps by someone yet to come.
10:10 "Tevildo, prince of Cats" is an obvious reference to Tybalt from Shakespeare, but I think he ultimately disliked the Shakespearean tradition and took it out
Thanks gents. Hadn't spotted the Stanley Baldwin similarity, but North/South Arnor/Gondor very analogous with West/East Rome/Constantinople.
I guess in 1453 there were no Winged Hussars or Mounted Monners from the Marches available to save the day.
Custer, Jesus, LOTR, what a channel
There is some mention in the Lord of the Rings of the Valar, i.e. the Gods of the Silmarillion. They are obscure references and it always seems to be the Elves who are aware of the Valar, but its there.
The allegories of LOTR are profoundly ironic given Tolkien’s famous aversion to allegory.
I suppose old Tolky would say it's applicability rather than allegory. It's hard to argue Leaf by Niggle isn't allegorical though 🙂
Tolkien can use Norse myth because, as one of the Church Father's said, there are seeds of the Gospel in pagan culture.
Christian imperialism...stealing other's cultures
Frodo is a Christ-like figure: the journey up Mount Doom is like the carrying of the Cross up to Calvary. But Frodo is not Christ: he fails. The destruction of the ring is the (providential?) result of Frodo's act of mercy in sparing Gollum's life.
Mordor kicked like an anthill with troops moving around to face the offensive is straight out of the first world war, with marching regiments colliding into each other and NCOs demanding service numbers 😑
Tolkien was a keen observer of detail and a great travel writer 😕
'his vision of the ideal form of government is 6 3 7' (at 39:29) - what does this mean ?
Not "6 3 7", but "637" as in the year. 637 AD: Anglo-Saxon warrior kingships, the Heptarchy, Arthurian legend, all that jazz. 🙂
😊
Not another F..kin elf 😆🤣
Everyone should play LOTR: Battle for Middle Earth 1 or 2. You’re welcome
I did enjoy The Hobbit as a child. As an adult I find Tolkien the repetitive, juvenile and protacted. Any criticism of the Allied bombing campaign of German or Japanese cities during WWII is completely naive.
The Scouring of the Shire is my favorite bit of the whole corpus; maybe excepting the Ringwraiths chasing the boys through the Shire.
You chaps love Tolkein and his tales. You don't have to apologise for that to any blue stocking.
Oh gents... a superb channel and a pretty good video, but you fell into the wokist net with this one... there is no way that Tolkien would ever have considered a 'black' hobbit, that's projecting and you know it full well. This isn't 'racist' it's just stating the bleeding obvious. That apart, keep up the good work. 👍
I think it was Lenny being from the West Midlands which made him appropriate.
@@jimb9063Indeed, his voice is spot on for it. But the reality is that in the 'British mythology' Tolkien created, hobbits certainly weren't black, so it was poor & politically motivated casting. Suggest casting white actors to play roles in an 'African' mythology and its ridiculousness becomes obvious. 👍
@@ginojaco Yes I don't disagree there might be other motivations involved as well which I don't personally find helpful in most other circumstances.
Don't think it would've even ruined the LOTR story as far as Hobbits were concerned for me anyway, even if it isn't exactly correct, and while I've not seen the Rings of Power, they aren't Hobbits exactly, and from what I've heard it's one of the more trivial complaints.
Incredibly insightful well done
The 25th of March is the beginning of Spring.....Spring and renewal have always been important to humanity.
So was Christianity. And who knows, maybe will be again.
Ur analysis of the scouring of the Shire is misleading . The returning hibbits have a magic trumpet that when blown brings the down trodden hobbits to fight with the invading louts & the corrupted hobbits & they kick them out of the shire - so it's a much more positive finale to the story & Sam gamgee former gardener has a magic box of fertiliser so the trees & gardrns grow back in double quick time & Aragorn & Arwen live hundreds if miles away so the Shire very quickly gets back to its old ways of beer drinking & pipe weed smoking . 41:37
13 Dwaves it is very important that it was 13 Dwarves, not 12. Had there been 12 of them they wouldn’t have been any need for Bilbo.
I loved this. For me, in sync and as well as all you have mentioned, LOTR is about love and death and grief and the inevitable sacrifices we must give for that love and life and, in the end, about what survives beyond losing everything. That’s why, as we get older, I think we come to more consciously understand when we re read it, what we unconsciously felt before we knew what life would bring. In this way, it is a sacred text beyond religion that bleeds with inevitability of death, the ask for courage without promise of reward, and the immortality of Love beyond even our existence. I always read it when I need to go Home to the very heart of things, when I need beauty, when I need love, when I need to know someone understands the true grief of life, as it feels like the deepest witness to what life is really like. In this way, it is no fantasy. Sigh…So hard to find words (which is why I’m glad Tolkien did)…Thank you for talking about it so deeply and carefully. I so appreciate you both.🙏🏻
🔥🔥
Lord no, can't do two episodes. Apologies.
Why do Lib women hate lord of the rings
@@user-bo1sl7gs9x Because they aren't little boys?
@@user-bo1sl7gs9x It's obvious.