July 14, 2025 • 48 mins
Our 2025 Silmarillion journey continues with Chapter 21 of Quenta Silmarillion - Of Túrin Turambar.
The tale of Túrin Turambar is a long one, rivaling “Of Beren and Lúthien” and “Akallabêth” as the longest chapter in The Silmarillion. It is also quite tragic, as we shall see. After giving a bit of background on Túrin’s ancestry, it picks up where the last chapter left off, with Túrin’s father Húrin imprisoned in Angband. The chapter then focuses in on Túrin’s life.
Silm Guide Link: https://www.tolkienroad.com/silmguide/sg24/
To support our work here, please visit Patreon.com/TolkienRoad.
Enjoy!
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Video of this episode: https://youtu.be/ekQQ69g6J8E
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Listen AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/70440300
Buy Tolkien Road merch @ True Myths Press
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The tale of Túrin Turambar is a long one, rivaling “Of Beren and Lúthien” and “Akallabêth” as the longest chapter in The Silmarillion. It is also quite tragic, as we shall see. After giving a bit of background on Túrin’s ancestry, it picks up where the last chapter left off, with Túrin’s father Húrin imprisoned in Angband. The chapter then focuses in on Túrin’s life.
Silm Guide Link: https://www.tolkienroad.com/silmguide/sg24/
To support our work here, please visit Patreon.com/TolkienRoad.
Enjoy!
OTHER LINKS:
Video of this episode: https://youtu.be/ekQQ69g6J8E
Watch AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/133983955
Listen AD-FREE: https://www.patreon.com/posts/70440300
Buy Tolkien Road merch @ True Myths Press
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-tolkien-road--5222755/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, fellow travelers. Our twenty twenty five Silm Mirillion
journey continues with chapter twenty one of Quintisilmarillion of Turin Turinbar.
The Tale of Turin Turunbar is a long one, rivaling
of Baron and Luthian and a kalibate as the longest
chapter in the Silmarillion. It is also quite tragic, as
we shall see. After giving a bit of background on
Tourin's ancestry, it picks up where the last chapter left off,
(00:21):
with Turin's father Hurin, imprisoned in Angband. The chapter then
focuses in on Turin's tragic tale. While you're listening, check
out Silmguide dot com. That's silmguide dot com for guides
to individual chapters. You can find that link in the
show notes. To support our work here, please visit Patreon
dot com slash Tolkien Road enjoy. Hey there, fellow travelers.
(00:43):
Welcome to the Tolkien Road Episode three zero one three one.
GRETA Happy twentieth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Ah, thanks John, Happy twentieth tou too, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Our anniversary. Twentieth anniversary was yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, so she forgot so I had to remind her
right now.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So not not true.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
A typical woman, typical wife, totally not the anniversary.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
What I don't understand that is how it's been twenty years,
because I'm definitely not old enough to have been married
twenty years. Well, I don't feel old enough anyway. I
mean I am technically old enough, I guess.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, yeah, I know it. It definitely feels a like
a like twenty years.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, and it's mind boggling.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's crazy, it's crazy. Yeah, but the numbers don't lie.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I mean, well, I want to get just really briefly,
I'm you know, just a little mushy in tolkenny in terms,
and just say thank you for being my Luthian because
you truly are, you truly are, and I'm just very
thankful for you.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Oh thank you, babe. I'm super thankful for you, all right,
and you're you're my baron.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Oh well, thank you, I mean, yeah, I just I
just keep barn with you. Yeah, it's true, all right. Well,
I don't want to, like, you know, I don't want
to gross everybody out or anything like that, but you know,
we do this podcast and I just thought it was
appropriate to you know, say, hey, we've been married twenty
years and we're both pretty darn happy about that and
(02:16):
looking forward to many many many more years, many many
more years. Only one of us gets out of this alive,
maybe maybe all right.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
All right, oh yeah, that was lovely. Thank you?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
All right, well, thank you all for putting up with
that h mushy stuff. You're not a fan of it,
so we'll move on now.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
We promise not to do it again for at least
another Well.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Hey, look, if you're talking fans, I mean, you gotta
you gotta be okay with that kind of stuff to
some degree, you know, I mean, it's not a romance
novel overre you, but but you know, just a little
bit of acknowledgment of like of the beauty of of
of romantic love. You know, that's that's definitely there in
the in the middle earth works, so for sure, for sure.
But uh, you know, uh, we're gonna be talking about
(03:01):
maybe just this incredibly romantic and you know, fairy tale
of a story of tour and tourn bar. Actually it's
kind of the reverse of that. It's like the most
uh probably like that. It's just interesting that like our
you know, being like twentieth anniversary, and now it's like,
now we're going to talk about this super tragic story.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Right. We timed that wrong. I know we should have
We should have figured it out somehow to uh for
today's episode be Barren and Luth But yeah, oh wow,
it's okay, tur and turn bar Yeah, it's it'll make
for some good conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Oh yeah, oh yeah for sure. Well, before we get started,
we'd like to give a double up air five to
our patrons. Get them hands up there people, three two
one O. Nice good special. Thanks to this episode's executive
producers John R. Caitlin of t with Tolkien, Jacob Blockham,
John H and Scotchy Bobo. Shout out to our newest patrons,
(03:57):
Garrett P. Matt R and Lauren H. Thank you all
so much. Thank you all so much for joining our
fellowship over at patreon dot com slash Tolkien Road. And
a shout out to Richard Kay, who was already a
patron but boosted, boosted and annualized his pledge.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
So that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Richard.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Appreciate you become a patron by visiting patreon dot com
slash Tolkien Road your financial support helps the Tolkien Road
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what's on your mind in the comments below. All right, Hey, Also,
(04:38):
we did episode three hundred last time. Hopefully you guys
all listen to it, kind of a personal take on,
you know, on the last three hundred episodes and you know,
the last seven years of doing this thing. We are
running this promotion on pre trumsspress dot com where you
can take twenty percent off of anything in our store
from now until the end of August if you use
(04:58):
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(05:21):
you want to use that code. Let me know, all right,
So let's talk about torn Tour and barally talk about
to turn Tour and Bar. So the quote of the
week comes from tourn Tour and Bar, and I think
this just about sums it up right. Then Glaurrung died
and the veil of his malice was taken from her,
and she remembered all the days of her life looking
(05:43):
down upon Tour, and she cried farewell, Oh twice beloved
Ah Tour and tourn Bar Turun Ambartanen Master of Doom
by Doom mastered, Oh happy to be dead. Yeah, kind
of gives you the flavor of darkness that's you know,
that's that's there in this tale. Yeah. So the Tale
(06:05):
of Turn Tournbar is a long one, rivaling of Baron
and Luthian and a Kalabaith as the longest chapter in
the film million. It's also quite tragic, as we shall see.
After giving a bit of background on Torren's ancestry, it
picks up where the last chapter left off, with Torren's
father Hooran, imprisoned in Angband. The chapter then focuses in
on Torren's life, like of Baron and Luthian. This chapter
(06:28):
summarizes one of the great tales of the First Age.
In fact, many of you may already realize that The
Children of Hooran is a novel length telling of this story.
Remember that's that, you know, one of these books that
came out posthumously, you know about this Children of Orn
came about out about fifteen years ago at this point,
and it's a full length novel version of this particular story.
(06:52):
Given that this chapter really represents only one entry in
the larger saga of the film Mirillion, we're going to
keep this episode relatively brief, relatively right. You know, there's
still we're going to talk about quite a bit, but
you know, we're not gonna hit every single detail. And
the reason is, I'm thinking that in twenty twenty three
we will probably do a chapter by chapter read through
of The Children of where In. It's about time we
(07:14):
did that, and you know, we've hit you know, these
other major works of Middle Earth and this story the
Children of Whooren is. You know, it's obviously a very
heroing one, a very tragic one, but there's just so
much to think about and one of the most interesting
questions that we'll talk about towards the end of this
episode is why the Tolkien put this story in here,
(07:35):
right because in a way, it doesn't really seem to
fit with the rest of the vibe of Middle Earth
right now. It's not to say that the stories of
Middle Earth are all like just happy go lucky all
the time, but this story, it's like the ending doesn't
quite seem to be the normal kind of Middle Earth ending,
right So there's a lot to talk about when it
(07:55):
comes to this tale and its uniqueness and the overall
Middle Earth scheme of things. So disclaimer, as always, you
should read this story before you listen to this episode.
As with each episode, we won't be covering every detail
of this chapter, but instead doing our best to hit
the high points and unpack interesting and important details. And
if we miss something you guys want to discuss more,
(08:17):
let us know, let's talk about it. So all right,
So timeline, we got our timeline again from the War
of the Jewels Wold eleven of the History of Middle Earth.
You look at the Gray Annals and it'll tell you
the different years of years of the Sun that the
events happen in the Silmar Million. This is from this story.
(08:38):
Spans from the years four sixty four to four ninety
nine of the year years of the Sun, and it
just happed four sixty four is the year that Torn
is born. It just happens to be the year that
also Baron and Luthian meat. So there's overlap here between
those two stories, right, all right, let's talk about let's
(08:58):
talk about Tourn and turn Bar. So we learned in
this story that obviously turn is the son of Horn
who we met. We've met in previous chapters and of
course had a really kind of not very happy ending
to the last chapter for Horn or for anybody really.
(09:19):
But this name turn Bar is one that comes along
later for Turin in this chapter, and it means master
of doom, master of doom. And you just if you've
read the chapter already, you already know this is kind
of the key term because if anything, Torren isn't the
master of doom, he is the one that's mastered by doom. Right.
(09:40):
As great a figure as he is, as you know,
as strong, heroic in many ways as he is, he
is one of the great men of the First Age,
he is ultimately mastered by his doom, and that seems
(10:01):
to be the overarching theme of this of this particular
tale is the role of fate in the lives of
all of us, right, the roles of the role of
fate in the lives of all of us. We're unable
to you know, we'll tour and I won't say we
I'm saying tour and seems unable to escape sadness and misfortune, right,
and just really kind of like man that sucks, like
(10:23):
kinds of kinds of events. Right, So let's sit on
some of the major's disasters that befall him. So the
first is really what happens not to him but to
his to his father, because this kind of sets the
stage for everything that's going to happen to him. It
does kind of happen to him, of course, because he
(10:44):
loses his father. Now he loses his father in the
narnaiath arnoid Yad, which of course was the previous chapter here,
but now he doesn't lose his father in the sense
that his father dies. It's actually maybe even worse than that, right,
because his father is in and given kind of special
attention by mor Goth. And so let's read this, you know,
(11:08):
this little snippet about Hoorin and his fate at the
end of chapter twenty Greta, do you want to read
this passage right here?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Sure? Therefore Hooren was brought before Morgth, for Morgth knew
that he had the friendship of the King of Gondolin,
but Hoorin defied him and mocked him. Then Morgth cursed
Huron and Morwin and their offspring and set a doom
upon them of darkness and sorrow, And taking Hoorin from prison,
he set him in a chair of stone upon a
(11:36):
high place of Thangorgeum. There he was bound by the
power of Morgoth, and more Goths standing beside him cursed
him again, and he said, sit now there and look
out upon the lands where evil and despair shall come
upon those whom thou lovest. Thou hast stared to mock
me and to question the power of melchor, master of
the fates of Arda. Therefore, with my eyes thou shalt see,
(12:00):
and with my ears thou shout here, and never shalt
thou move from this place until all is fulfilled, until
its bitter end.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah. So this is the curse that's laid upon Hooran,
the father of Turin, because he is captured by more
Goth and then mocks more Goth. Right, A couple of
things I want to pick out from here, which I
think are very relevant to the story of Turin. First
of all, more Goth curses Horn and Morwin, Torren's mother
and Horn's wife and their offspring. Right, So he lays
(12:33):
this curse upon them, And then he calls himself more
Goth calls himself the master of the fates of Arda. Right,
fate doom kind of the same idea. Right, So more
Goth here is saying, I'm the master of I'm the
master of Doom, i am turn bar right, I'm the
(12:53):
master of the fates of Arda. So we see the
irony in Turin later calling himself tour and bar right master,
the master of Doom. Right, It's almost like more Goth
is setting himself up to say, like, you know, I'm
I'm the powerful one here, right, I'm the powerful one
that rules the fates of these of the people of
this world. Right. That seems to have been the thing
(13:15):
that more Goth most wants to assert all along the way.
And and then finally he tells Horin that with my
eyes thou shalt see and with my ears, thou shalt hear.
So you know, and I think you know, you go
to you go to on fairy stories. And one of
the key the key aspects of fairy tales that Tolkien
(13:36):
calls out as being kind of this this thing that
they do for us is they they they do this
thing called recovery. They help us to see the world
as it was meant to be seen. Right And and
that's a positive thing when Tolkien's talking about it and
on fairy stories, But here we have kind of the
reverse of it. Right, We're going to see it through
the most in the most hateful lens possible, right through
(13:58):
these hateful eyes, right, and and and just and just
kind of this evil spin on everything we were. It
was heard from a friend earlier today and was kind
of texting with him about his situation right now, and he's,
you know, there's kind of you know, working through some
some difficult things, and you know, I said, man, that
(14:22):
really stinks. And he came back and he said, you know,
he said something really positive. He was like, you know,
it's it's it's just all part of like you know,
of this. He really kind of said, it's like, you know,
it's all just kind of an exercise and trust, right,
And and I was like, you're right, that's the right
way to view it, right, That's always the right way
to view you know, like the things that happened to you, right,
(14:44):
And you know, so that's kind of like that's a
recovery like he was doing. He was he was giving
me recovery in that moment, right. But more Goth seeks
to do the exact opposite. More Goth seeks to do
wants to make you see things in the worst possible light, right,
you know, he wants to see view others in the
(15:06):
worst possible light. Right, your fate in the worst possible light. So, yeah, anyway,
I think that's a really powerful passage there that describes
Whoran's you know, Hoorn's fate, and just some interesting things
to consider as we go into the story of torn
torn Bar, which is really the story of the children
of Hoorn, right, it's the story not just of Turin,
but of Neonor and then of course Leliath as well,
(15:32):
who we don't really get much word about her, but
it is her story as well.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, so is like the story we get, It's not
it's not like I mean, Horn is seeing it, right,
but he's seeing it through Malcor's like, he's not the narrator.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Uh no, he's not the narrator of the story. No.
And it's interesting because I don't really think that's intended
to apply like a frame narrative for this story like that,
you know, we're all of a sudden like zooming in
on how Horn sees all these things. But Horn does
come back into play later on in the you know,
in the grand scheme of things. So so, you know,
(16:13):
it's just interesting to consider that ultimately because we know
that so much of what happens, what befalls Turin and
neon Or is driven by more Goth's specific focused and
hatred for their father.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Right, So and really ultimately as a result of his cars, right,
I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, yeah. So that's the first thing. He loses his
father at the age of eight and is cursed as
a result of that by more Goth. The next thing
that we learn of, and this actually happens before well
is it before. I'm not sure actually if this is
before or not, let's let's double check this. So he
(16:54):
has he has a younger sister named Lalaith, which we
learned about at the very beginning of chapter twenty one, Leliath,
maybe I'll say it a little more deliberately Thereleliath. It
says a daughter they had also who was called Eliath,
which is laughter, and she was beloved by Torn, her brother.
So yes, her I believe the timing would have been
that her death would have been before or maybe just
(17:16):
right after this curse. This curse happens, so Soliath and
her name means laughter, right, So literally, Touring is Torren love.
First of all, it says Torren. She was beloved of Torrn,
So Torren really loved Eliath, his little sister. And and
then her name means laughter, and then Torren loses her,
(17:38):
so literally he loses this beloved laughter right in his life. Right.
And then you know you contrast that with leonor right
her birth and her name means mourning, right, So it's
like you have one sister named laughter, one sister name morning. Right.
You know you can kind of get where the is going, right,
(18:02):
you lose laughter and you get mourning. Okay, we see
some we can definitely see some symbolism going on there,
but nevertheless, you know, this is a very tragic thing
obviously that happens to a young torn and then Torren
has to move you know, touring after the Nyronia arnoidyad.
(18:24):
His mother begins to worry about him at some point
after that because of the the Easterlyns who come and
they're kind of dominating the men that, you know, the
people of who are and the others that are left
behind and so more. When Tourn's mother sends it has
connections in Dorioths, so sends Tourin off to kind of
(18:45):
be a vassal or to serve entingles court right over
there in Dorioth. So that at least is kind of
a positive development for him, right, But he has to
leave his mother and his you know, his new sister
behind as a result of that.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
In a way, he probably feels like an exile.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah, which not fun. Yeah, I mean, it can't
be fun for a young you know, for a young
man to leave behind his mother, especially when he when
he knows his mother is in a difficult you know,
it is in a difficult situation. So you know it
on one hand, it's good for him, but on the
other hand, it's you know, probably feels very tragic for
him as well. But along the path, you know, he
(19:27):
really develops well, at least initially in Dorioth, but he
comes a foul. He runs a foul of this elf
named Sarahs, and Sarah's doesn't like Turin and kind of
pokes fun at him, and Turin doesn't isn't one to
just take that kind of stuff lying down. So he
(19:48):
ends up accidentally killing Saros and and and kind of
imposes a self banishment upon himself, even though even though
when all the facts are laid out on the table,
Thingle wants him to come back right. Thingle wants him
to come back right.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, which is clearly that's a pride issue.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
With Turin for sure, for sure, and you know, let's read,
let's read a little passage about this. So but in
the pride of his heart, Turan refused the pardon of
the king, and the words of Baileg were of no
avail to change his mood, and he, for his part,
urged Baileg to remain with him and in the lands
(20:29):
west of Syrian. But that Baileg would not do. And
he said, hard, you are torn and stubborn. Now the
turn is mine if you wish, indeed to have the
strong bow beside you. Look for me in dimbar, for
thither I shall return. So Turn refuses, you know, goes
into this self imposed exile, refuses to return, and you know,
(20:52):
we can kind of see that there's you know, there's
some pride in operation here as well, which is not
you know, in a tragic tale, often pride comes into play,
you know in some way. Right, that's almost kind of
part of the fate of character, right, is that you
just can't you can't lay down your pride enough to
do the thing that would ultimately be in your best
interest and the best interest of others, right, Yeah, or
(21:14):
especially of those who care about So.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It's almost like this like self imposed martyrdom, right, I mean,
you have all these other people saying, hey, we forgive you,
we know it was an accident, like please come back,
and you're like, no, I just I can't. I couldn't
live with myself if I did, you know. I mean,
it's just it just is so unnecessary.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and after that, Torrin, you know,
he kind of goes on. There's kind of a lot
of adventures that happen with him. He falls in with
this band of other men who are kind of like,
you know, kind of like a band of sort of criminals,
but Toryn, you know, like kind of rises up and
becomes you know, kind of their their leader and everything,
(21:57):
and he becomes like respected among men, but kind of
like the men of the wilderness, you know. And so
in the in the whole course of things, it eventually
comes back around and Baileg, this, this character, Baileg, Bailex
Strongbow is uh is inadvertently killed by Turan. So there
(22:21):
he right, it says, truest of friends. Bileg is called
truest of friends. He's inadvertently killed by by Baron, by
Bye Tauran. So again we have this, you know, this,
this tragic event obviously not something tour And wanted. And
it says, thus ended Bailex's strongbow, truest of friends, greatest
and skill of all that harbored in the woods of Bellerion,
(22:43):
and the evil in the elder days at the at
the hand of him he most whom he most loved,
and that grief was graven on the face of tourn
and never faded. So he has to live with having
not only killed this elf he didn't like, but then
he has to you know, uh, he has to live
with having killed his best friend Baileg, so another very
(23:03):
tragic event, just just hovering over him, hovering over him. Yeah,
and you know, so it's it's not like just that
these things are about the bad things that happened to Baron,
But it's kind of like he has this like I'm sorry, Tour,
and I keep on saying Baron in place of Torn.
It's not like these bad things are just like things
that happen to Tourn and just suck for him. But
(23:25):
it's like whoever is around him is affected by this curse.
It would seem right, and you know, and and the
you know kind of gets sucked into this whirlpool of
tragedy that he is.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
So we move on a little bit and then Touring
eventually comes to Nargathrond, right, one of the one of
the Kingdom's or a dreth is the you know, is
now ruling Nargathron since Finnrod has died at this point,
and he comes to Nargathrond and through a whole nuh
(24:00):
their course of events, he ends up kind of bringing
the Sack of Nargathron, the end of Nargothron upon itself, right,
and this one is again more, there's more pride and
operation here, right, because he defies the words of Olmo.
Now we know enough about Olmo at this point and
the Selm million to know that if Olmo is telling
(24:22):
you something, Olmo is like the valor that you should
trust the most. Almo is like the valor that like like.
He's still looking out for all of the banished people
and the exiles, right, he still has them in mind,
cares about them as trying to give them messages. And
in this case, tour End ignores it, you know, and
(24:44):
not only ignores it himself, but encourages or address to
ignore the words that Almo gives them. Greta, do you
want to read this almost warning right here?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Sure? Here are the words of the lord of waters,
said they to the king. Thus he spoke to cure
it on the ship. Right, the evil of the North
has defiled the springs of Syrian, and my power withdraws
from the fingers of the flowing waters. But the worst
thing is yet to come.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Forth.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Say therefore to the Lord of Nargathron, shut the doors
of the fortress and go not abroad. Cast the stones
of your pride into the loud river. That the creeping
evil may not find the gate Wardrath was troubled by
the dark words of the messengers. But Turin would by
no means hearken to these councils, and least of all
would he suffer the great bridge to be cast down,
(25:31):
For he was become proud and stern and would order
all things as he wished.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, and so what does this do? Well, Eventually, not
too long after that, Nargathron is assailed by forces from
Angband and.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Because he didn't want to take the bridge down.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Because he didn't want to take the bridge down. You know,
it's like, dude, if Olmo is telling you to take
the bridge down, then you take the bridge down, right.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
But again he did eventually, but it like it was
too late.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, little too late, too little, too late.
And you know we see in all this that like
torn he's a natural like hero and leader, like he
keeps on rising up, you know, to these positions of
influence and trust, and you know, and he eventually, you know,
he just like I said, he's like the people who
(26:22):
around him, the people who invite him in, they get
sucked into this whirlpool of the tragedy that you know,
that surrounds him, right, and sometimes he brings it on himself, right,
sometimes he brings it on himself. And the last and
probably you know, the most just just kind of hideous
of all these things is that through all of you know,
through all a series of unfortunate events, he and his
(26:46):
now grown sister nan Or, who he hasn't seen since
he was very very young, meet and they don't they
don't know, they don't recognize each other, and and they
fall in love and they marry and neon Or conceives
their child. Right, So we have this, you know, really
like just very kind of tragic final note in all
(27:08):
of this, and the interaction with glaou Rung, right, this,
this great dragon of Angband is kind of the thing
that you know where we see we see Morgoth's It's
almost like Glowrung is the is the mouthpiece of Morgoth, right,
and of like telling you how to view these things. Right.
So glaou Rung says this, and this is actually after
(27:33):
after Turin has really uh you know, Turin has really
done you know, defeated Glaucrung, right, But Glowrung and kind
of his last breath says there at Glawrung stirred for
the last time. Ere he died, and he spoke with
his last breath, saying, Hail nan Or, daughter of Hohoran,
we meet again ere the end. I give thee joy
(27:54):
that thou hast found thy brother at last. And now
thou shalt know him a stabber in the dark, treacherous
to foes, faithless to friends, and a curse unto his kin,
Toran son of Hoorn. But the worst of all his
deeds thou shalt feel in thyself. Then Glowrung died and
the veil of his malice was taken from her, and
she remembered all the days of her life. Right, So,
(28:18):
so we have this kind of final Oh there you go. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I just thought that it needed a dramatic sound effect.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Dramatic sound effects.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I have a question about that though. So I understand
money and Or didn't like recognize him because that spell
had been passed on her by the dragon, right, and
she forgot everything it Like, there's no way that Turin
would have recognized her, like they wouldn't like they didn't
see each other.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Well because he initially like discovers her in the wilderness, right.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
And Okay, so that is their first meeting, That's what
I was wondering. Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, so he hadn't
seen her before that, No, no, he did. It may
have been like as Abe, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Exactly right, it had been it had been a very
very long time, okay. So and she would have looked
very different as what he probably would have looked very different.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
But they were warnings about this too, right, I mean
there was another guy started to bee. I feel like
that basically that loved.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Well, uh wait, you're thinking of gwendor right, like Gndor
and Fenduillas.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
No, I thought there was somebody else that that loved
Leonora and wanted to marry her and like and he
even like had like he he counseled them like, don't
do this, but they just ignored him because they yeah,
maybe right, because they thought that that he was just
saying it out of like selfish reasons because he loved
(29:45):
Leonora too. So if I'm remembering that correctly, my only
point is that like they they again, they just didn't
heed sound advice, like they just you know, did what
they wanted to do. Yeah, I mean it was it
was toward the end I don't bring my copy out here.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
But anyway, yeah, well, I mean we do, we do
have kind of the you know, the the scene of
Gwyndor counseling fanduilis right the war dreath, and I'll get
to that here in just a moment. You know. Ultimately,
Uh tour and succeeds in one major thing, and that's
(30:27):
slaying Glowrung, right, slaying glow Rung. So let's read. Let's
read a little passage of that. Then Turumbar summoned all
his will and courage and climbed the cliff alone and
came beneath the dragon. Then he drew gore Thong, and
with all the might of his arm and of his hate,
he thrust it into the soft belly of the worm,
even up to the hilts. But when glou Rung felt
(30:49):
his death pang, he screamed, and in his dreadful throat,
he heaved up his bulk and hurried himself across the chasm,
and hurled himself across the chasm, and there lay lashing
and coiling in his agony. And he set all in
a blaze about him and beat Altar ruin until at
last his fires died and he lay still. So Torrian
does succeed in this one major thing, and this one
major thing of of really you know, destroying this great,
(31:12):
great dragon, right, killing this great dragon.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Which is a huge feat absolutely.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
And and you know, I mean there's arguably he does
other good you know, in his life as well. But
you know, he's a seemingly heroic character, but he keeps on,
you know, just bringing tragedy along with him and even
even with you know, even with glow Wrung. Just the
fact that glow Wrung has one last gasp ends up
leading to the death of Neonor, right because after neon
(31:41):
Or speaks the words that we already read, she then
hurls herself into a chasm and and dies and along
with their child.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
So yeah, yeah, I found that I was thinking it
was so Yeah. It says that that Braun deer foreboded,
he knew not what and saw to restrain her from
marrying Turin, rather for her sake than his own or
rivalry with Torren bar So again it was just you know,
(32:11):
advice and counsel gone unheeded.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
So anyway, yeah, it's all it's incredibly, incredibly tragic for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, well, I mean.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Did you talk about Torren killing himself?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
No, I didn't. He does, and I was going to
read this little passage here, you know where it's you know,
because Torren, he's he's kind of the anti Baron, right,
not in the sense of being like a bad guy,
but in the sense of being you know, Barren we
think of like kind of coming. Also, he was this
like man who found himself in the wilderness, you know,
(32:51):
having to deal with a lot of hardship, and he
finds Luthian, and Luthian and him, you know, Luthian kind
of saves him, right, saves him, But with Turin he
ultimately dragged like drags down anybody who would you know
(33:11):
in theory save him, right, and leads to the death
of many of them. Right. And this is what Gwendor
the elf said to Finduilas, who was one of the
who was an elf maiden that you know that loved Turin.
Gwendor says, it is not fitting that the elder children
of a Luvitar should wed with the younger, nor is
(33:31):
it wise for their brief and soon pass to leave
us in widowhood while the world lasts. Neither will fate
suffer it, unless it be once or twice only for
some high cause of doom that we do not perceive.
But this man is not barren. A doom indeed lies
on him, as seeing eyes may well read in him.
But a dark doom. Enter not into it. And if
you will, you shall your love shall betray you to
(33:54):
bitterness and death. For hearken to me, though he be
indeed a gar Wayne's son of Umarth. His right name,
his right name is Torren, son of Horn, whom more
Goth holds an agband, and whose ken he has cursed.
Doubt not the power of more Goth Balugler, Is it
not written in me?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
So because Gwendor had also been captured and tortured.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, yeah, well and uh yeah, that's right. That's right.
So you know, there's obviously this is there's a lot
more to the story. We kind of hit some high
points about like the different the different tragedies that befall Torn,
and you know, we really were going to deal with
this in a lot of depth when we go work
chapter by chapter through the Children of Horan. I'll say
(34:39):
you should get Children of Horn on audible because uh,
if you uh, the audible audiobook is narrated by Christopher Lee,
who of course was Saramon in the Peter Jackson films,
and it's he's just great. He's so great reading it.
(35:02):
So anyway, you should definitely check that out. Great way
to experience it. And there's going to be so much
more to talk about this as we do a chapter
by chapter discussion of it, and I'm very much looking
forward to that. But you know, I just want to
like kind of wrap things up by saying, what is
this story? It's an odd one, Like it's really, as
(35:23):
we hinted at before, it it doesn't seem to fit
with the rest of the middle or story in a
lot of ways, right, because despite all of the darkness,
all the tragic things that happened throughout the story, there's
always kind of like something happens that's kind of like
a little glimmer of hope and a little glimmer Even
in the darker, darker chapters. Sometimes it's a big eu
(35:43):
catastrophe of hope, and sometimes there's just a little glimmer
of hope, like the doors open just enough to hope.
But this one just seems to end and it's like boom,
that just all sucks right, that's just like that.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And his mother is lost too.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
We didn't mention that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, just
this guy his life and it's just a wake of
tragedy and disaster that follows him. And there's no like,
there's no silver lining. Doesn't seem to be any silver
lining to any of it, you know what's going on there? Like,
why do you think Tolkien and this is a story?
(36:17):
This is one of the first Middler stories, right, this
is one of the first tales that Tolkien wrote in
this legendarium. I mean, what do you think, Greta, Like
why what place does this story have in the overall
scheme of things in your mind? And I don't have
an I don't have an answer to that. To me,
that's going to be like one of the things we
wrestle with when we when we read the whole book.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah. I feel like maybe we've talked about this previously
on the show, but in a way, stories like this
are just they're more real, Like it's it's what we
see in the day to day, and you know sometimes
and I've probably talked about I love for Grammarine on
(37:01):
this podcast before, but that's one of the things I
really appreciate I appreciate about his writing, is like you
rarely get a happy ending with him, and and it
just seems like a lot of the time that's what's
more appropriate, because happy endings don't like they're they're way
(37:22):
less common than non happy endings, and tragedy is just
more of a reality for a lot of people to
this extent, hopefully not, but it's more relatable I think
in certain ways.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, well yeah, you think I think that's I think
there's some true Like I think I h the high
the idea of like real you know that it's more
real this way. And I was thinking about it, and
I was like, there are like in this world, so many,
so many people's lives reflect like traged like sometimes you know,
sometimes you'll hear about people and you're just like, man,
(38:00):
and they just like had tragedy after tragedy followed through
and follow them in their life, right, and you know,
like we we none of us really like to spend
a lot of time thinking about that, right because it's
it can be a real downer and then you can
start to think, like, oh man, what if that ever
like happens to me, What if I just ever start
rolling like you know, rolling, you know, just just just
(38:24):
continually drawing the wrong card, you know, in this hand
of life, right, you know, and and so much of
it seems in Turan's case faded, right. It's like he
can't escape, he cannot escape, and that's scary, right, Like
it's you know, and you know, you can argue like, yeah,
(38:44):
maybe he can't escape his pride, but it's not all
it's not just his pride that does this to him.
It's like it's it's kind of he's kind of set
up for this, right, And he's also set up for
it because you know, not even the sins of his father,
because his father was a total hero and was captured
and mocked more goth right, and he's punished. He's punished
(39:06):
for that, you know. And it's the kind of thing where,
you know, we talk about a lot on the show,
like you know that you know Tolkien's Catholic beliefs and
you know, is his ultimate like kind of Christian hope
and the resurrection, that death is not the end of
the story. And but sometimes you're just confront like you're like, Alluvatar,
(39:27):
where are you? Where are you in all this? Like
why didn't she help out. Why didn't she help out touring?
You know, why does he just have to suffer all this?
Sometimes that's life, right, Sometimes you're just like God, what
in the world, Like, why are you letting this person
suffer like that? I mean, and we don't know, Like
we just don't know in this life. All we can
(39:50):
all you know is Christians all all I feel like
I can as a Christian all I feel like I
can do with that sometimes and just be like God,
it's up to you to work that out. Then, you know,
account for all all the things that befell that person,
because it was not all on them. It was not
all on them, right, you know, maybe some of it,
but you know, at the end of the day, you
(40:11):
set the stage, right. I don't know, it's just one
of those stories that it's just it's this, it's this
story that makes you wrestle with the deeper existential realities.
I just like, you know, we talked to you know,
so we shared our twentieth anniversary, you know, at the
beginning of this podcast, and you know, I was thinking
about that the other day and I was just like,
(40:32):
you know, all of the things that had to conspire
to bring us together and this like in this marriage
that I'm just exceedingly happy in like that, I just
like I'm just like like like life without Greta does
not even just seem possible at this point. Like it's
just like you know, and and yeah, I'm being a
little gushy, but it's also true, like it feels existentially
true right like that, like how could this not have happened?
(40:57):
Like it seems like it was fate right and for
so many reasons. But you know, but then you have
tour like you have, you have tourn and all the things,
like he's like he did he didn't bring all of
this on himself. So I don't know, I don't know.
(41:20):
It's just it's just one of these stories that you're like,
Baron got the happy ending ultimately right through death and touring.
At least he doesn't, you know, he didn't get his
happy ending yet. And that's all you can say, is
yet right, And just hope that somehow, in the end,
in a way that we can't understand, there will that
there this wrong will be righted in the words of Sam,
(41:43):
that even this sadness will come untrue right for Turin,
for Morwen, for Neon, or right that all of this
sadness will you know, for for Bailic, right, for Lolaeth right,
that all of this sadness will come untrue? You know, yeah,
(42:04):
you know, you just think about like ra Gorn rushing
into the h you know, rushing in. You know, it's
like for Frodo, and it's like ra Gourn. You know
you should have said like for Turin, right, for Nea Noor, right,
for Lolaieth right, because you know this, I'm sure Aragon
knew this story right, for all of these things, right,
Like you just want to go in and just like
(42:25):
you just want to go at evil full boar, right, Yeah. Yeah, anyway,
it just fills me with thoughts like, yeah, you know,
with these kind of bigger thoughts as I think about
the story, and I think that's maybe why it's I'm
really looking forward to discussing it, you know in detail.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, same, same, yeah, And it's a you know it
really it's just a different because you know, I mean,
the story is just as real as the story of
Baron Luthian and the story of you know, a Caliba,
and the story of the Mariner's wife, Like this is
(43:03):
just as real as all of that, right, but it's
profoundly more sad and you know, and I think it's
good to wrestle with that, with that, you know, with
with sadness and and you know, and and maybe regret
(43:25):
and things like that, because it's it's part of life.
You know. I was talking to my mom when we
were up in Maryland last week and we started talking
about lamenting and how lamenting is. It's a you know,
I mean, it's a part of it can be it's
(43:45):
a type of prayer ultimately, but it's a really it's
an important piece I think of coming to grips with
different things. And I think it's maybe overlooked a lot
because it can be misconstrued into something where you're questioning,
you know, the powers that be or what have you.
But lamenting is a very healthy thing, and it's it
(44:11):
can help you, Like, it's good to wrestle with these
questions and with these issues because, like you said, this
like this is live, Like this kind of thing happens
every day to some extent. So it's something I don't
think we should shy away from.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I love this. You say it's
a form of prayer because you know, I know, for me,
my you know, having becoming Catholic, I started praying what's
called the Liturgy of the Hours on a regular basis,
And that really means that you're praying the psalms, like
several times a day, praying through the psalms. And you know,
(44:50):
with the psalms you get so many different you get
a lot of psalms which kind of have this flavor
right where it's just like God, where are you? In fact, one,
there's one psalm that is part of the night prayer
on Friday, which is like like ends, like you're just
like whoa, Like it's not like but God will work
it all out in the end. It's like all I
(45:11):
have left is darkness, right, like you know, and and
I'm like it. So as a Christian, I'm like, Okay,
I'm supposed to be doing this. I'm supposed to be
like God, what gives? Like why are you letting this
happen to this person? Right? Why are you letting these
people in this country suffer through this horrible war? Right?
You know? Why? You know, just like all the things
(45:32):
and and ultimately like why you know that man, that's
just a that's a deep question, like why does if
God if God indeed put those psalms there, like then
he wants you to pray, you know, it's like he
wants you to say these things to him. So what's
up with that? Right?
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Man? Yeah, just some some deep kinds of things to ponder,
and I'm looking forward to pondering it more deeply when
we get to reading through the children. Yeah yeah, alright,
you guys. Well, let's let's do some haiku. All right,
Rock paper scissors, shoot, boom, you go first? All right?
(46:14):
Locked in evil doom, cursed by the dark Lord's vengeance,
no fault but his fate. M.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
That's good. I like that. Thanks, you're welcome. All right,
here's the man, an epic tale of doom, disaster, Death
Done is touring torn Bar.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Nice. Thanks, good stuff. All right, we got one from
red Hawk Most Woeful of Tales touring and nan Or
both Dragon Cursed to Fail.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
That's really good, good stuff, good stuff, all right, you guys. Well, hey, subscribe, rate,
and review us on iTunes or the platform of your choice.
If you are a five star fan of the Tolkien Road,
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(47:21):
and uh you know, drop us a line wherever you
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Speaker 2 (47:32):
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Speaker 2 (48:15):
Absolutely, we will.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Alady, bye, y'all, Bye, Bye,
Hey there, fellow travelers. Our twenty twenty five Silm Mirillion
journey continues with chapter twenty one of Quintisilmarillion of Turin Turinbar.
The Tale of Turin Turunbar is a long one, rivaling
of Baron and Luthian and a kalibate as the longest
chapter in the Silmarillion. It is also quite tragic, as
we shall see. After giving a bit of background on
Tourin's ancestry, it picks up where the last chapter left off,
(00:21):
with Turin's father Hurin, imprisoned in Angband. The chapter then
focuses in on Turin's tragic tale. While you're listening, check
out Silmguide dot com. That's silmguide dot com for guides
to individual chapters. You can find that link in the
show notes. To support our work here, please visit Patreon
dot com slash Tolkien Road enjoy. Hey there, fellow travelers.
(00:43):
Welcome to the Tolkien Road Episode three zero one three one.
GRETA Happy twentieth anniversary.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Ah, thanks John, Happy twentieth tou too, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Our anniversary. Twentieth anniversary was yesterday.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah, so she forgot so I had to remind her
right now.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
So not not true.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
A typical woman, typical wife, totally not the anniversary.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
What I don't understand that is how it's been twenty years,
because I'm definitely not old enough to have been married
twenty years. Well, I don't feel old enough anyway. I
mean I am technically old enough, I guess.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Well, yeah, I know it. It definitely feels a like
a like twenty years.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Yeah, and it's mind boggling.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It's crazy, it's crazy. Yeah, but the numbers don't lie.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
I mean, well, I want to get just really briefly,
I'm you know, just a little mushy in tolkenny in terms,
and just say thank you for being my Luthian because
you truly are, you truly are, and I'm just very
thankful for you.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Oh thank you, babe. I'm super thankful for you, all right,
and you're you're my baron.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Oh well, thank you, I mean, yeah, I just I
just keep barn with you. Yeah, it's true, all right. Well,
I don't want to, like, you know, I don't want
to gross everybody out or anything like that, but you know,
we do this podcast and I just thought it was
appropriate to you know, say, hey, we've been married twenty
years and we're both pretty darn happy about that and
(02:16):
looking forward to many many many more years, many many
more years. Only one of us gets out of this alive,
maybe maybe all right.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
All right, oh yeah, that was lovely. Thank you?
Speaker 1 (02:31):
All right, well, thank you all for putting up with
that h mushy stuff. You're not a fan of it,
so we'll move on now.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
We promise not to do it again for at least
another Well.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Hey, look, if you're talking fans, I mean, you gotta
you gotta be okay with that kind of stuff to
some degree, you know, I mean, it's not a romance
novel overre you, but but you know, just a little
bit of acknowledgment of like of the beauty of of
of romantic love. You know, that's that's definitely there in
the in the middle earth works, so for sure, for sure.
But uh, you know, uh, we're gonna be talking about
(03:01):
maybe just this incredibly romantic and you know, fairy tale
of a story of tour and tourn bar. Actually it's
kind of the reverse of that. It's like the most
uh probably like that. It's just interesting that like our
you know, being like twentieth anniversary, and now it's like,
now we're going to talk about this super tragic story.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Right. We timed that wrong. I know we should have
We should have figured it out somehow to uh for
today's episode be Barren and Luth But yeah, oh wow,
it's okay, tur and turn bar Yeah, it's it'll make
for some good conversation.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Oh yeah, oh yeah for sure. Well, before we get started,
we'd like to give a double up air five to
our patrons. Get them hands up there people, three two
one O. Nice good special. Thanks to this episode's executive
producers John R. Caitlin of t with Tolkien, Jacob Blockham,
John H and Scotchy Bobo. Shout out to our newest patrons,
(03:57):
Garrett P. Matt R and Lauren H. Thank you all
so much. Thank you all so much for joining our
fellowship over at patreon dot com slash Tolkien Road. And
a shout out to Richard Kay, who was already a
patron but boosted, boosted and annualized his pledge.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
So that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Richard.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Appreciate you become a patron by visiting patreon dot com
slash Tolkien Road your financial support helps the Tolkien Road
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(04:38):
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(04:58):
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(05:21):
you want to use that code. Let me know, all right,
So let's talk about torn Tour and barally talk about
to turn Tour and Bar. So the quote of the
week comes from tourn Tour and Bar, and I think
this just about sums it up right. Then Glaurrung died
and the veil of his malice was taken from her,
and she remembered all the days of her life looking
(05:43):
down upon Tour, and she cried farewell, Oh twice beloved
Ah Tour and tourn Bar Turun Ambartanen Master of Doom
by Doom mastered, Oh happy to be dead. Yeah, kind
of gives you the flavor of darkness that's you know,
that's that's there in this tale. Yeah. So the Tale
(06:05):
of Turn Tournbar is a long one, rivaling of Baron
and Luthian and a Kalabaith as the longest chapter in
the film million. It's also quite tragic, as we shall see.
After giving a bit of background on Torren's ancestry, it
picks up where the last chapter left off, with Torren's
father Hooran, imprisoned in Angband. The chapter then focuses in
on Torren's life, like of Baron and Luthian. This chapter
(06:28):
summarizes one of the great tales of the First Age.
In fact, many of you may already realize that The
Children of Hooran is a novel length telling of this story.
Remember that's that, you know, one of these books that
came out posthumously, you know about this Children of Orn
came about out about fifteen years ago at this point,
and it's a full length novel version of this particular story.
(06:52):
Given that this chapter really represents only one entry in
the larger saga of the film Mirillion, we're going to
keep this episode relatively brief, relatively right. You know, there's
still we're going to talk about quite a bit, but
you know, we're not gonna hit every single detail. And
the reason is, I'm thinking that in twenty twenty three
we will probably do a chapter by chapter read through
of The Children of where In. It's about time we
(07:14):
did that, and you know, we've hit you know, these
other major works of Middle Earth and this story the
Children of Whooren is. You know, it's obviously a very
heroing one, a very tragic one, but there's just so
much to think about and one of the most interesting
questions that we'll talk about towards the end of this
episode is why the Tolkien put this story in here,
(07:35):
right because in a way, it doesn't really seem to
fit with the rest of the vibe of Middle Earth
right now. It's not to say that the stories of
Middle Earth are all like just happy go lucky all
the time, but this story, it's like the ending doesn't
quite seem to be the normal kind of Middle Earth ending,
right So there's a lot to talk about when it
(07:55):
comes to this tale and its uniqueness and the overall
Middle Earth scheme of things. So disclaimer, as always, you
should read this story before you listen to this episode.
As with each episode, we won't be covering every detail
of this chapter, but instead doing our best to hit
the high points and unpack interesting and important details. And
if we miss something you guys want to discuss more,
(08:17):
let us know, let's talk about it. So all right,
So timeline, we got our timeline again from the War
of the Jewels Wold eleven of the History of Middle Earth.
You look at the Gray Annals and it'll tell you
the different years of years of the Sun that the
events happen in the Silmar Million. This is from this story.
(08:38):
Spans from the years four sixty four to four ninety
nine of the year years of the Sun, and it
just happed four sixty four is the year that Torn
is born. It just happens to be the year that
also Baron and Luthian meat. So there's overlap here between
those two stories, right, all right, let's talk about let's
(08:58):
talk about Tourn and turn Bar. So we learned in
this story that obviously turn is the son of Horn
who we met. We've met in previous chapters and of
course had a really kind of not very happy ending
to the last chapter for Horn or for anybody really.
(09:19):
But this name turn Bar is one that comes along
later for Turin in this chapter, and it means master
of doom, master of doom. And you just if you've
read the chapter already, you already know this is kind
of the key term because if anything, Torren isn't the
master of doom, he is the one that's mastered by doom. Right.
(09:40):
As great a figure as he is, as you know,
as strong, heroic in many ways as he is, he
is one of the great men of the First Age,
he is ultimately mastered by his doom, and that seems
(10:01):
to be the overarching theme of this of this particular
tale is the role of fate in the lives of
all of us, right, the roles of the role of
fate in the lives of all of us. We're unable
to you know, we'll tour and I won't say we
I'm saying tour and seems unable to escape sadness and misfortune, right,
and just really kind of like man that sucks, like
(10:23):
kinds of kinds of events. Right, So let's sit on
some of the major's disasters that befall him. So the
first is really what happens not to him but to
his to his father, because this kind of sets the
stage for everything that's going to happen to him. It
does kind of happen to him, of course, because he
(10:44):
loses his father. Now he loses his father in the
narnaiath arnoid Yad, which of course was the previous chapter here,
but now he doesn't lose his father in the sense
that his father dies. It's actually maybe even worse than that, right,
because his father is in and given kind of special
attention by mor Goth. And so let's read this, you know,
(11:08):
this little snippet about Hoorin and his fate at the
end of chapter twenty Greta, do you want to read
this passage right here?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Sure? Therefore Hooren was brought before Morgth, for Morgth knew
that he had the friendship of the King of Gondolin,
but Hoorin defied him and mocked him. Then Morgth cursed
Huron and Morwin and their offspring and set a doom
upon them of darkness and sorrow, And taking Hoorin from prison,
he set him in a chair of stone upon a
(11:36):
high place of Thangorgeum. There he was bound by the
power of Morgoth, and more Goths standing beside him cursed
him again, and he said, sit now there and look
out upon the lands where evil and despair shall come
upon those whom thou lovest. Thou hast stared to mock
me and to question the power of melchor, master of
the fates of Arda. Therefore, with my eyes thou shalt see,
(12:00):
and with my ears thou shout here, and never shalt
thou move from this place until all is fulfilled, until
its bitter end.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah. So this is the curse that's laid upon Hooran,
the father of Turin, because he is captured by more
Goth and then mocks more Goth. Right, A couple of
things I want to pick out from here, which I
think are very relevant to the story of Turin. First
of all, more Goth curses Horn and Morwin, Torren's mother
and Horn's wife and their offspring. Right, So he lays
(12:33):
this curse upon them, And then he calls himself more
Goth calls himself the master of the fates of Arda. Right,
fate doom kind of the same idea. Right, So more
Goth here is saying, I'm the master of I'm the
master of Doom, i am turn bar right, I'm the
(12:53):
master of the fates of Arda. So we see the
irony in Turin later calling himself tour and bar right master,
the master of Doom. Right, It's almost like more Goth
is setting himself up to say, like, you know, I'm
I'm the powerful one here, right, I'm the powerful one
that rules the fates of these of the people of
this world. Right. That seems to have been the thing
(13:15):
that more Goth most wants to assert all along the way.
And and then finally he tells Horin that with my
eyes thou shalt see and with my ears, thou shalt hear.
So you know, and I think you know, you go
to you go to on fairy stories. And one of
the key the key aspects of fairy tales that Tolkien
(13:36):
calls out as being kind of this this thing that
they do for us is they they they do this
thing called recovery. They help us to see the world
as it was meant to be seen. Right And and
that's a positive thing when Tolkien's talking about it and
on fairy stories, But here we have kind of the
reverse of it. Right, We're going to see it through
the most in the most hateful lens possible, right through
(13:58):
these hateful eyes, right, and and and just and just
kind of this evil spin on everything we were. It
was heard from a friend earlier today and was kind
of texting with him about his situation right now, and he's,
you know, there's kind of you know, working through some
some difficult things, and you know, I said, man, that
(14:22):
really stinks. And he came back and he said, you know,
he said something really positive. He was like, you know,
it's it's it's just all part of like you know,
of this. He really kind of said, it's like, you know,
it's all just kind of an exercise and trust, right,
And and I was like, you're right, that's the right
way to view it, right, That's always the right way
to view you know, like the things that happened to you, right,
(14:44):
And you know, so that's kind of like that's a
recovery like he was doing. He was he was giving
me recovery in that moment, right. But more Goth seeks
to do the exact opposite. More Goth seeks to do
wants to make you see things in the worst possible light, right,
you know, he wants to see view others in the
(15:06):
worst possible light. Right, your fate in the worst possible light. So, yeah, anyway,
I think that's a really powerful passage there that describes
Whoran's you know, Hoorn's fate, and just some interesting things
to consider as we go into the story of torn
torn Bar, which is really the story of the children
of Hoorn, right, it's the story not just of Turin,
but of Neonor and then of course Leliath as well,
(15:32):
who we don't really get much word about her, but
it is her story as well.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Yeah, so is like the story we get, It's not
it's not like I mean, Horn is seeing it, right,
but he's seeing it through Malcor's like, he's not the narrator.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Uh no, he's not the narrator of the story. No.
And it's interesting because I don't really think that's intended
to apply like a frame narrative for this story like that,
you know, we're all of a sudden like zooming in
on how Horn sees all these things. But Horn does
come back into play later on in the you know,
in the grand scheme of things. So so, you know,
(16:13):
it's just interesting to consider that ultimately because we know
that so much of what happens, what befalls Turin and
neon Or is driven by more Goth's specific focused and
hatred for their father.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Right, So and really ultimately as a result of his cars, right,
I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah, yeah. So that's the first thing. He loses his
father at the age of eight and is cursed as
a result of that by more Goth. The next thing
that we learn of, and this actually happens before well
is it before. I'm not sure actually if this is
before or not, let's let's double check this. So he
(16:54):
has he has a younger sister named Lalaith, which we
learned about at the very beginning of chapter twenty one, Leliath,
maybe I'll say it a little more deliberately Thereleliath. It
says a daughter they had also who was called Eliath,
which is laughter, and she was beloved by Torn, her brother.
So yes, her I believe the timing would have been
that her death would have been before or maybe just
(17:16):
right after this curse. This curse happens, so Soliath and
her name means laughter, right, So literally, Touring is Torren love.
First of all, it says Torren. She was beloved of Torrn,
So Torren really loved Eliath, his little sister. And and
then her name means laughter, and then Torren loses her,
(17:38):
so literally he loses this beloved laughter right in his life. Right.
And then you know you contrast that with leonor right
her birth and her name means mourning, right, So it's
like you have one sister named laughter, one sister name morning. Right.
You know you can kind of get where the is going, right,
(18:02):
you lose laughter and you get mourning. Okay, we see
some we can definitely see some symbolism going on there,
but nevertheless, you know, this is a very tragic thing
obviously that happens to a young torn and then Torren
has to move you know, touring after the Nyronia arnoidyad.
(18:24):
His mother begins to worry about him at some point
after that because of the the Easterlyns who come and
they're kind of dominating the men that, you know, the
people of who are and the others that are left
behind and so more. When Tourn's mother sends it has
connections in Dorioths, so sends Tourin off to kind of
(18:45):
be a vassal or to serve entingles court right over
there in Dorioth. So that at least is kind of
a positive development for him, right, But he has to
leave his mother and his you know, his new sister
behind as a result of that.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
In a way, he probably feels like an exile.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah, which not fun. Yeah, I mean, it can't
be fun for a young you know, for a young
man to leave behind his mother, especially when he when
he knows his mother is in a difficult you know,
it is in a difficult situation. So you know it
on one hand, it's good for him, but on the
other hand, it's you know, probably feels very tragic for
him as well. But along the path, you know, he
(19:27):
really develops well, at least initially in Dorioth, but he
comes a foul. He runs a foul of this elf
named Sarahs, and Sarah's doesn't like Turin and kind of
pokes fun at him, and Turin doesn't isn't one to
just take that kind of stuff lying down. So he
(19:48):
ends up accidentally killing Saros and and and kind of
imposes a self banishment upon himself, even though even though
when all the facts are laid out on the table,
Thingle wants him to come back right. Thingle wants him
to come back right.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Yeah, which is clearly that's a pride issue.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
With Turin for sure, for sure, and you know, let's read,
let's read a little passage about this. So but in
the pride of his heart, Turan refused the pardon of
the king, and the words of Baileg were of no
avail to change his mood, and he, for his part,
urged Baileg to remain with him and in the lands
(20:29):
west of Syrian. But that Baileg would not do. And
he said, hard, you are torn and stubborn. Now the
turn is mine if you wish, indeed to have the
strong bow beside you. Look for me in dimbar, for
thither I shall return. So Turn refuses, you know, goes
into this self imposed exile, refuses to return, and you know,
(20:52):
we can kind of see that there's you know, there's
some pride in operation here as well, which is not
you know, in a tragic tale, often pride comes into play,
you know in some way. Right, that's almost kind of
part of the fate of character, right, is that you
just can't you can't lay down your pride enough to
do the thing that would ultimately be in your best
interest and the best interest of others, right, Yeah, or
(21:14):
especially of those who care about So.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It's almost like this like self imposed martyrdom, right, I mean,
you have all these other people saying, hey, we forgive you,
we know it was an accident, like please come back,
and you're like, no, I just I can't. I couldn't
live with myself if I did, you know. I mean,
it's just it just is so unnecessary.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, and and after that, Torrin, you know,
he kind of goes on. There's kind of a lot
of adventures that happen with him. He falls in with
this band of other men who are kind of like,
you know, kind of like a band of sort of criminals,
but Toryn, you know, like kind of rises up and
becomes you know, kind of their their leader and everything,
(21:57):
and he becomes like respected among men, but kind of
like the men of the wilderness, you know. And so
in the in the whole course of things, it eventually
comes back around and Baileg, this, this character, Baileg, Bailex
Strongbow is uh is inadvertently killed by Turan. So there
(22:21):
he right, it says, truest of friends. Bileg is called
truest of friends. He's inadvertently killed by by Baron, by
Bye Tauran. So again we have this, you know, this,
this tragic event obviously not something tour And wanted. And
it says, thus ended Bailex's strongbow, truest of friends, greatest
and skill of all that harbored in the woods of Bellerion,
(22:43):
and the evil in the elder days at the at
the hand of him he most whom he most loved,
and that grief was graven on the face of tourn
and never faded. So he has to live with having
not only killed this elf he didn't like, but then
he has to you know, uh, he has to live
with having killed his best friend Baileg, so another very
(23:03):
tragic event, just just hovering over him, hovering over him. Yeah,
and you know, so it's it's not like just that
these things are about the bad things that happened to Baron,
But it's kind of like he has this like I'm sorry, Tour,
and I keep on saying Baron in place of Torn.
It's not like these bad things are just like things
that happen to Tourn and just suck for him. But
(23:25):
it's like whoever is around him is affected by this curse.
It would seem right, and you know, and and the
you know kind of gets sucked into this whirlpool of
tragedy that he is.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
So we move on a little bit and then Touring
eventually comes to Nargathrond, right, one of the one of
the Kingdom's or a dreth is the you know, is
now ruling Nargathron since Finnrod has died at this point,
and he comes to Nargathrond and through a whole nuh
(24:00):
their course of events, he ends up kind of bringing
the Sack of Nargathron, the end of Nargothron upon itself, right,
and this one is again more, there's more pride and
operation here, right, because he defies the words of Olmo.
Now we know enough about Olmo at this point and
the Selm million to know that if Olmo is telling
(24:22):
you something, Olmo is like the valor that you should
trust the most. Almo is like the valor that like like.
He's still looking out for all of the banished people
and the exiles, right, he still has them in mind,
cares about them as trying to give them messages. And
in this case, tour End ignores it, you know, and
(24:44):
not only ignores it himself, but encourages or address to
ignore the words that Almo gives them. Greta, do you
want to read this almost warning right here?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Sure? Here are the words of the lord of waters,
said they to the king. Thus he spoke to cure
it on the ship. Right, the evil of the North
has defiled the springs of Syrian, and my power withdraws
from the fingers of the flowing waters. But the worst
thing is yet to come.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Forth.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Say therefore to the Lord of Nargathron, shut the doors
of the fortress and go not abroad. Cast the stones
of your pride into the loud river. That the creeping
evil may not find the gate Wardrath was troubled by
the dark words of the messengers. But Turin would by
no means hearken to these councils, and least of all
would he suffer the great bridge to be cast down,
(25:31):
For he was become proud and stern and would order
all things as he wished.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, and so what does this do? Well, Eventually, not
too long after that, Nargathron is assailed by forces from
Angband and.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Because he didn't want to take the bridge down.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Because he didn't want to take the bridge down. You know,
it's like, dude, if Olmo is telling you to take
the bridge down, then you take the bridge down, right.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
But again he did eventually, but it like it was
too late.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, little too late, too little, too late.
And you know we see in all this that like
torn he's a natural like hero and leader, like he
keeps on rising up, you know, to these positions of
influence and trust, and you know, and he eventually, you know,
he just like I said, he's like the people who
(26:22):
around him, the people who invite him in, they get
sucked into this whirlpool of the tragedy that you know,
that surrounds him, right, and sometimes he brings it on himself, right,
sometimes he brings it on himself. And the last and
probably you know, the most just just kind of hideous
of all these things is that through all of you know,
through all a series of unfortunate events, he and his
(26:46):
now grown sister nan Or, who he hasn't seen since
he was very very young, meet and they don't they
don't know, they don't recognize each other, and and they
fall in love and they marry and neon Or conceives
their child. Right, So we have this, you know, really
like just very kind of tragic final note in all
(27:08):
of this, and the interaction with glaou Rung, right, this,
this great dragon of Angband is kind of the thing
that you know where we see we see Morgoth's It's
almost like Glowrung is the is the mouthpiece of Morgoth, right,
and of like telling you how to view these things. Right.
So glaou Rung says this, and this is actually after
(27:33):
after Turin has really uh you know, Turin has really
done you know, defeated Glaucrung, right, But Glowrung and kind
of his last breath says there at Glawrung stirred for
the last time. Ere he died, and he spoke with
his last breath, saying, Hail nan Or, daughter of Hohoran,
we meet again ere the end. I give thee joy
(27:54):
that thou hast found thy brother at last. And now
thou shalt know him a stabber in the dark, treacherous
to foes, faithless to friends, and a curse unto his kin,
Toran son of Hoorn. But the worst of all his
deeds thou shalt feel in thyself. Then Glowrung died and
the veil of his malice was taken from her, and
she remembered all the days of her life. Right, So,
(28:18):
so we have this kind of final Oh there you go. Yeah, right.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
I just thought that it needed a dramatic sound effect.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Dramatic sound effects.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
I have a question about that though. So I understand
money and Or didn't like recognize him because that spell
had been passed on her by the dragon, right, and
she forgot everything it Like, there's no way that Turin
would have recognized her, like they wouldn't like they didn't
see each other.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Well because he initially like discovers her in the wilderness, right.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
And Okay, so that is their first meeting, That's what
I was wondering. Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, so he hadn't
seen her before that, No, no, he did. It may
have been like as Abe, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Exactly right, it had been it had been a very
very long time, okay. So and she would have looked
very different as what he probably would have looked very different.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
But they were warnings about this too, right, I mean
there was another guy started to bee. I feel like
that basically that loved.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Well, uh wait, you're thinking of gwendor right, like Gndor
and Fenduillas.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
No, I thought there was somebody else that that loved
Leonora and wanted to marry her and like and he
even like had like he he counseled them like, don't
do this, but they just ignored him because they yeah,
maybe right, because they thought that that he was just
saying it out of like selfish reasons because he loved
(29:45):
Leonora too. So if I'm remembering that correctly, my only
point is that like they they again, they just didn't
heed sound advice, like they just you know, did what
they wanted to do. Yeah, I mean it was it
was toward the end I don't bring my copy out here.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
But anyway, yeah, well, I mean we do, we do
have kind of the you know, the the scene of
Gwyndor counseling fanduilis right the war dreath, and I'll get
to that here in just a moment. You know. Ultimately,
Uh tour and succeeds in one major thing, and that's
(30:27):
slaying Glowrung, right, slaying glow Rung. So let's read. Let's
read a little passage of that. Then Turumbar summoned all
his will and courage and climbed the cliff alone and
came beneath the dragon. Then he drew gore Thong, and
with all the might of his arm and of his hate,
he thrust it into the soft belly of the worm,
even up to the hilts. But when glou Rung felt
(30:49):
his death pang, he screamed, and in his dreadful throat,
he heaved up his bulk and hurried himself across the chasm,
and hurled himself across the chasm, and there lay lashing
and coiling in his agony. And he set all in
a blaze about him and beat Altar ruin until at
last his fires died and he lay still. So Torrian
does succeed in this one major thing, and this one
major thing of of really you know, destroying this great,
(31:12):
great dragon, right, killing this great dragon.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
Which is a huge feat absolutely.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
And and you know, I mean there's arguably he does
other good you know, in his life as well. But
you know, he's a seemingly heroic character, but he keeps on,
you know, just bringing tragedy along with him and even
even with you know, even with glow Wrung. Just the
fact that glow Wrung has one last gasp ends up
leading to the death of Neonor, right because after neon
(31:41):
Or speaks the words that we already read, she then
hurls herself into a chasm and and dies and along
with their child.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
So yeah, yeah, I found that I was thinking it
was so Yeah. It says that that Braun deer foreboded,
he knew not what and saw to restrain her from
marrying Turin, rather for her sake than his own or
rivalry with Torren bar So again it was just you know,
(32:11):
advice and counsel gone unheeded.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
So anyway, yeah, it's all it's incredibly, incredibly tragic for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Yeah, well, I mean.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Did you talk about Torren killing himself?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
No, I didn't. He does, and I was going to
read this little passage here, you know where it's you know,
because Torren, he's he's kind of the anti Baron, right,
not in the sense of being like a bad guy,
but in the sense of being you know, Barren we
think of like kind of coming. Also, he was this
like man who found himself in the wilderness, you know,
(32:51):
having to deal with a lot of hardship, and he
finds Luthian, and Luthian and him, you know, Luthian kind
of saves him, right, saves him, But with Turin he
ultimately dragged like drags down anybody who would you know
(33:11):
in theory save him, right, and leads to the death
of many of them. Right. And this is what Gwendor
the elf said to Finduilas, who was one of the
who was an elf maiden that you know that loved Turin.
Gwendor says, it is not fitting that the elder children
of a Luvitar should wed with the younger, nor is
(33:31):
it wise for their brief and soon pass to leave
us in widowhood while the world lasts. Neither will fate
suffer it, unless it be once or twice only for
some high cause of doom that we do not perceive.
But this man is not barren. A doom indeed lies
on him, as seeing eyes may well read in him.
But a dark doom. Enter not into it. And if
you will, you shall your love shall betray you to
(33:54):
bitterness and death. For hearken to me, though he be
indeed a gar Wayne's son of Umarth. His right name,
his right name is Torren, son of Horn, whom more
Goth holds an agband, and whose ken he has cursed.
Doubt not the power of more Goth Balugler, Is it
not written in me?
Speaker 2 (34:14):
So because Gwendor had also been captured and tortured.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, yeah, well and uh yeah, that's right. That's right.
So you know, there's obviously this is there's a lot
more to the story. We kind of hit some high
points about like the different the different tragedies that befall Torn,
and you know, we really were going to deal with
this in a lot of depth when we go work
chapter by chapter through the Children of Horan. I'll say
(34:39):
you should get Children of Horn on audible because uh,
if you uh, the audible audiobook is narrated by Christopher Lee,
who of course was Saramon in the Peter Jackson films,
and it's he's just great. He's so great reading it.
(35:02):
So anyway, you should definitely check that out. Great way
to experience it. And there's going to be so much
more to talk about this as we do a chapter
by chapter discussion of it, and I'm very much looking
forward to that. But you know, I just want to
like kind of wrap things up by saying, what is
this story? It's an odd one, Like it's really, as
(35:23):
we hinted at before, it it doesn't seem to fit
with the rest of the middle or story in a
lot of ways, right, because despite all of the darkness,
all the tragic things that happened throughout the story, there's
always kind of like something happens that's kind of like
a little glimmer of hope and a little glimmer Even
in the darker, darker chapters. Sometimes it's a big eu
(35:43):
catastrophe of hope, and sometimes there's just a little glimmer
of hope, like the doors open just enough to hope.
But this one just seems to end and it's like boom,
that just all sucks right, that's just like that.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And his mother is lost too.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
We didn't mention that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, just
this guy his life and it's just a wake of
tragedy and disaster that follows him. And there's no like,
there's no silver lining. Doesn't seem to be any silver
lining to any of it, you know what's going on there? Like,
why do you think Tolkien and this is a story?
(36:17):
This is one of the first Middler stories, right, this
is one of the first tales that Tolkien wrote in
this legendarium. I mean, what do you think, Greta, Like
why what place does this story have in the overall
scheme of things in your mind? And I don't have
an I don't have an answer to that. To me,
that's going to be like one of the things we
wrestle with when we when we read the whole book.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah. I feel like maybe we've talked about this previously
on the show, but in a way, stories like this
are just they're more real, Like it's it's what we
see in the day to day, and you know sometimes
and I've probably talked about I love for Grammarine on
(37:01):
this podcast before, but that's one of the things I
really appreciate I appreciate about his writing, is like you
rarely get a happy ending with him, and and it
just seems like a lot of the time that's what's
more appropriate, because happy endings don't like they're they're way
(37:22):
less common than non happy endings, and tragedy is just
more of a reality for a lot of people to
this extent, hopefully not, but it's more relatable I think
in certain ways.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Yeah, well yeah, you think I think that's I think
there's some true Like I think I h the high
the idea of like real you know that it's more
real this way. And I was thinking about it, and
I was like, there are like in this world, so many,
so many people's lives reflect like traged like sometimes you know,
sometimes you'll hear about people and you're just like, man,
(38:00):
and they just like had tragedy after tragedy followed through
and follow them in their life, right, and you know,
like we we none of us really like to spend
a lot of time thinking about that, right because it's
it can be a real downer and then you can
start to think, like, oh man, what if that ever
like happens to me, What if I just ever start
rolling like you know, rolling, you know, just just just
(38:24):
continually drawing the wrong card, you know, in this hand
of life, right, you know, and and so much of
it seems in Turan's case faded, right. It's like he
can't escape, he cannot escape, and that's scary, right, Like
it's you know, and you know, you can argue like, yeah,
(38:44):
maybe he can't escape his pride, but it's not all
it's not just his pride that does this to him.
It's like it's it's kind of he's kind of set
up for this, right, And he's also set up for
it because you know, not even the sins of his father,
because his father was a total hero and was captured
and mocked more goth right, and he's punished. He's punished
(39:06):
for that, you know. And it's the kind of thing where,
you know, we talk about a lot on the show,
like you know that you know Tolkien's Catholic beliefs and
you know, is his ultimate like kind of Christian hope
and the resurrection, that death is not the end of
the story. And but sometimes you're just confront like you're like, Alluvatar,
(39:27):
where are you? Where are you in all this? Like
why didn't she help out. Why didn't she help out touring?
You know, why does he just have to suffer all this?
Sometimes that's life, right, Sometimes you're just like God, what
in the world, Like, why are you letting this person
suffer like that? I mean, and we don't know, Like
we just don't know in this life. All we can
(39:50):
all you know is Christians all all I feel like
I can as a Christian all I feel like I
can do with that sometimes and just be like God,
it's up to you to work that out. Then, you know,
account for all all the things that befell that person,
because it was not all on them. It was not
all on them, right, you know, maybe some of it,
but you know, at the end of the day, you
(40:11):
set the stage, right. I don't know, it's just one
of those stories that it's just it's this, it's this
story that makes you wrestle with the deeper existential realities.
I just like, you know, we talked to you know,
so we shared our twentieth anniversary, you know, at the
beginning of this podcast, and you know, I was thinking
about that the other day and I was just like,
(40:32):
you know, all of the things that had to conspire
to bring us together and this like in this marriage
that I'm just exceedingly happy in like that, I just
like I'm just like like like life without Greta does
not even just seem possible at this point. Like it's
just like you know, and and yeah, I'm being a
little gushy, but it's also true, like it feels existentially
true right like that, like how could this not have happened?
(40:57):
Like it seems like it was fate right and for
so many reasons. But you know, but then you have
tour like you have, you have tourn and all the things,
like he's like he did he didn't bring all of
this on himself. So I don't know, I don't know.
(41:20):
It's just it's just one of these stories that you're like,
Baron got the happy ending ultimately right through death and touring.
At least he doesn't, you know, he didn't get his
happy ending yet. And that's all you can say, is
yet right, And just hope that somehow, in the end,
in a way that we can't understand, there will that
there this wrong will be righted in the words of Sam,
(41:43):
that even this sadness will come untrue right for Turin,
for Morwen, for Neon, or right that all of this
sadness will you know, for for Bailic, right, for Lolaeth right,
that all of this sadness will come untrue? You know, yeah,
(42:04):
you know, you just think about like ra Gorn rushing
into the h you know, rushing in. You know, it's
like for Frodo, and it's like ra Gourn. You know
you should have said like for Turin, right, for Nea Noor, right,
for Lolaieth right, because you know this, I'm sure Aragon
knew this story right, for all of these things, right,
Like you just want to go in and just like
(42:25):
you just want to go at evil full boar, right, Yeah. Yeah, anyway,
it just fills me with thoughts like, yeah, you know,
with these kind of bigger thoughts as I think about
the story, and I think that's maybe why it's I'm
really looking forward to discussing it, you know in detail.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yeah, same, same, yeah, And it's a you know it
really it's just a different because you know, I mean,
the story is just as real as the story of
Baron Luthian and the story of you know, a Caliba,
and the story of the Mariner's wife, Like this is
(43:03):
just as real as all of that, right, but it's
profoundly more sad and you know, and I think it's
good to wrestle with that, with that, you know, with
with sadness and and you know, and and maybe regret
(43:25):
and things like that, because it's it's part of life.
You know. I was talking to my mom when we
were up in Maryland last week and we started talking
about lamenting and how lamenting is. It's a you know,
I mean, it's a part of it can be it's
(43:45):
a type of prayer ultimately, but it's a really it's
an important piece I think of coming to grips with
different things. And I think it's maybe overlooked a lot
because it can be misconstrued into something where you're questioning,
you know, the powers that be or what have you.
But lamenting is a very healthy thing, and it's it
(44:11):
can help you, Like, it's good to wrestle with these
questions and with these issues because, like you said, this
like this is live, Like this kind of thing happens
every day to some extent. So it's something I don't
think we should shy away from.
Speaker 1 (44:26):
Yeah, you know, yeah, I love this. You say it's
a form of prayer because you know, I know, for me,
my you know, having becoming Catholic, I started praying what's
called the Liturgy of the Hours on a regular basis,
And that really means that you're praying the psalms, like
several times a day, praying through the psalms. And you know,
(44:50):
with the psalms you get so many different you get
a lot of psalms which kind of have this flavor
right where it's just like God, where are you? In fact, one,
there's one psalm that is part of the night prayer
on Friday, which is like like ends, like you're just
like whoa, Like it's not like but God will work
it all out in the end. It's like all I
(45:11):
have left is darkness, right, like you know, and and
I'm like it. So as a Christian, I'm like, Okay,
I'm supposed to be doing this. I'm supposed to be
like God, what gives? Like why are you letting this
happen to this person? Right? Why are you letting these
people in this country suffer through this horrible war? Right?
You know? Why? You know, just like all the things
(45:32):
and and ultimately like why you know that man, that's
just a that's a deep question, like why does if
God if God indeed put those psalms there, like then
he wants you to pray, you know, it's like he
wants you to say these things to him. So what's
up with that? Right?
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Man? Yeah, just some some deep kinds of things to ponder,
and I'm looking forward to pondering it more deeply when
we get to reading through the children. Yeah yeah, alright,
you guys. Well, let's let's do some haiku. All right,
Rock paper scissors, shoot, boom, you go first? All right?
(46:14):
Locked in evil doom, cursed by the dark Lord's vengeance,
no fault but his fate. M.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
That's good. I like that. Thanks, you're welcome. All right,
here's the man, an epic tale of doom, disaster, Death
Done is touring torn Bar.
Speaker 1 (46:40):
Nice. Thanks, good stuff. All right, we got one from
red Hawk Most Woeful of Tales touring and nan Or
both Dragon Cursed to Fail.
Speaker 2 (46:56):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
That's really good, good stuff, good stuff, all right, you guys. Well, hey, subscribe, rate,
and review us on iTunes or the platform of your choice.
If you are a five star fan of the Tolkien Road,
you can really help us out by heading over to
iTunes or your preferred source for the show. And dropping
us a rating and review. When you do that, it
helps get the word out about the Tolkien Road, which
helps us to keep on everring on. Yes, yes, all right,
(47:21):
and uh you know, drop us a line wherever you
find us. Let's talk, all right, guys, Thank you to
our amazing patrons, especially the following, John R.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
Caitlin of t with Tolkien.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Jacob Lockham, John H. Scotch You, Bobo mi Is, Anonymous,
Andrew T. Red Hawk, Shannones, Ryano, Emilio P. Zekef, James A,
James L, Chris L, Chuck F, ozzyv Ish of the Hammer,
Teresa C.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
David of Pines with.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Jack, Jonathan D, Eric B, Johanna T, Mike M, Robert H.
Paul D, Julia Ward T, Matthew.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
W, Joe Bigelman, Chris K, Jacob Ez, Don J, Richard K,
Matt R. And Garrett P.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
As well as those celebrating their Patriot Anniversary this month
in August of twenty twenty two. Jonathan L, Henry B,
Austin B.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
And Caitlin H.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
All Right, All well, thanks so much, guys. We appreciate
you listening, and we will talk at you next time.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
Absolutely, we will.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
Alady, bye, y'all, Bye, Bye,
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