May 21, 2024 • 61 mins
Kritter and Jessica continue through The Two Towers chapters 8 through 10 this week. Listen along as they discuss the reuniting of some of our party, learning new words, & so much more about Saruman!
Don’t forget to follow us at But Are There Dragons on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and But Dragons Pod, just one t, on X, formerly known as Twitter.
You can find Kritter at Kritter XD on YouTube, TikTok, and X, and at Kritter _XD on Instagram.
You can find Jessica by searching Shelf Indulgence on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
Music credit to: Frog's Theme by Nobuo Uematsu, Noriko Matsueda, Yasunori Mitsuda
ReMix: Chrono Trigger "Theme of Frog's" - OC ReMix
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hello and welcome to, but Are there Dragons?
A podcast where two friendspick a book at least one of them
has not read and work their waythrough it a few chapters at a
time.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm your host, critter, and I'm your host Jess,
and we're continuing thisadventure with the Two Towers by
JRR Tolkien, with me as theresident Lord of the Rings
veteran.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And me as a Lord of the Rings first-timer.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
In this, our fourth episode of Season 3, we're going
to discuss Book 3, chapters 8through 10.
Before we dive in Jessica,what's new with you?
How are you feeling?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I'm good, these are some hefty chapters.
I'm excited to talk about this,yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I agree it was fun for multiple reasons reading
these for sure.
So let's just dive right intoit.
If you're game, I'm good, Okay.
So book three, chapter eighteight, the road to isengard.
The good guys come togetherafter the enemy was defeated at
helm's deep and we got theresult of gimli and legolas's
(01:13):
competition.
I'm not convinced that legolasdidn't throw it because he was
just happy that gimli was alivein the end after it looked like
he might have been lost.
Do you have a take on this?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
uh, I, I kind of had the same take, like I think that
both aragorn and legolas are sohappy to see him that they
don't care, um, but also myheart.
That breaks my heart just alittle bit, because I want him
to have won in his own right,yeah, and the other bit of
nerddom is that his answer is 42.
(01:46):
And so, as the nerdy middleschooler who read Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy, I'm like 42, it's the answer.
That's amazing.
So I thought that that wasawesome, that that just happened
to be the number he ended on.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I heard somebody, and Ithink I saw ack about this
actually very recently, maybefrom Dodd Marshall, who joined
us last season, but somebody waslike could this have been, or
why would Legolas have notgotten more kills after?
I want to say it was like hewas in like the upper 30s when
(02:20):
we checked in with them at onepoint and then he only gained
like a few um, and theexplanation that he gave was
maybe gimli really did winbecause legolas had to, like go
retrieve arrows right.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I'm just gonna say he ran out of arrows by his own
report and, uh, kudos to tolkienfor writing it that way,
because, uh, the never needingto refill your gun clip or your
arrow quiver is incrediblyfrustrating for lots of fantasy
fans.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to lie, I'm a.
I absolutely despise inventorymanagement in any game.
Like I know we're in a D and Dgame together and like bless her
heart.
But one of our party members isvery much into like who's gonna
take this gear?
Where are we gonna store it,all this other stuff, and I I
(03:11):
don't know that I've everresponded to a single message in
that regard because I justliterally can't be bothered with
inventory management.
Like I stopped playing pokemongo and I've I've gotten like
huge dry spells playing PokemonGo, like I won't play at all,
and the reason I don't play isbecause either my Pokemon
storage is full or my items arefull and that's why I can't
(03:34):
spend Poke stops and I don'twant to go through and like
figure out what to delete.
Like it is, it is a nightmareof mine and that's a lot of the
reason that I don't play a lotof uh like rpg video games,
because like it's so much, orlike escape from tarkov, like
there's so many games that youhave to have be really focused
on your inventory, and I justwon't, I just hate it.
(03:55):
And so I understand, like Ihave no problem with the
infinite quiver, like yes,please like, have it be infinite
, so you don't have to worryabout that.
But is it more realistic thatlegolas had to go find more
arrows?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
yes, absolutely, I understand I think that my take
would be that tolkien took thetime to put that in the story to
allow plausibility that gimbleydid in fact earn it oh, okay so
he's like no one's gonnabelieve me to take that, okay,
I'll, I'll allow it.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
That's fine, um, are you?
Are you as?
Do you despise inventorymanagement as much as me?
I have.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I have a middle of the road approach, so I am
someone who winds up answeringthat inventory management person
more than others.
Um, because it's right.
So we use D&D Beyond.
I use D&D Beyond to manage myinventory so I at least know
what we have, and I do try totake notes while we're
(04:56):
campaigning and follow up onthem.
But I would say I have likemiddling success and it does get
overwhelming so having to playa role where you have to have
specific components for spellcasting.
When I created a differentcharacter, I got her a staff
(05:23):
that counts as every singlecomponent she would ever need,
because I was like I don't wantto think about having to have
all of these pouches and gettingall of this stuff um yeah so I
feel like I'm kind of middle ofthe road.
I can do it.
It's not my favorite and itdefinitely is a weakness yeah,
that's fair, it's a huge we.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
it's a big blind spot for me.
Yeah, it's it, just it's.
Yeah, that's okay, though weall like what we like, right,
like I can, I can play call ofduty and actually there was a.
This is so so far of aside fromthis.
But like there's this game,valheim, that I love, where
you're like it's like norse,explorer, explorer type people,
(06:04):
right and uh, and there are modsto the game and you can expand
your inventory like ininfinitely, basically, so that
it like doesn't even matter howbig it is.
And it's like one of myfavorite things, because now I
can just put things in myinventory and never think about
them again.
So so it's like a bag ofholding.
It's like a bag of holding, yes, and so, like before that mod,
(06:26):
I would get so annoyed with likehaving to be like oh my God, I
have too many mushrooms so thatI can't pick up this thistle,
right, and now it's like, no,I'm going to pick everything,
everything I see I'm going topick up Because, like in the
game, I like to explore, like MrCritter likes to build and I
like to explore.
So it's kind of fun because Igo out and I forage and I
discover new places and I killthe bad guys and then I come
(06:46):
back and I have this amazinghouse because Mr Critters
created it for me.
You guys are a good team, we are, we are, we go very well.
Do we follow the stereotypes?
No, not at all.
Of like you know what you wouldexpect from women and men, but
that's fine, cause stereotypessometimes they're just strong,
they're just wrong.
Who cares about stereotypes?
Um, wow, we have been.
(07:07):
We're already just like fullyout of yeah, so let's come back.
Um, so there were men whofought with the orcs, which we
talked about last episode, akinto the shifty man that the party
saw in Bree, though the orcswere completely eliminated.
Many of the men surrendered andwere surprised that the men of
(07:30):
Rohan didn't burn them alive,like Saruman said.
They would.
This to me read like we are thesame and should all be on the
same team, but we also aren'tincorruptible in the face of
evil, right?
Did you read anything into thislittle sequence?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
This just brought me right back to where I was at
when we ended the last chapteris that Saruman is kind of
giving me master manipulationvibes, like he is really good at
finding the weakness betweentwo groups and, whether it's
truth or lies, you know,fostering a divide between them.
So yeah, I mean when it said,you know, the men of Dunland
(08:12):
were amazed.
I was like how do you tell them, like you told them that they
burn their captives alive?
That is, that's horrendous,like that's horrific.
Um, so I was like he went toany length to convince them to
be on his side and it was justit kind of threw me right back
to where I was, where we leftoff with the other chapter.
(08:34):
Theoden and the rest of thiscrew have agreed to go to
Isengard.
I'm like kind of the same thingwith seeing the trees go
through is like these people aregoing to Isengard.
I don't remember that happening.
(08:54):
It may have happened, but I'mlike I don't remember Theoden
going to Isengard.
So you know again, kind of,where I left off last week.
So you know again, kind ofwhere I left off last week,
started right off here going.
Maybe I really didn't watchthese movies who?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
knows it's going to be so fun whenever you go back
to them.
It's going to be great.
So yes, just to piggyback rightoff of what you said, gandalf
convinces Theoden to ride withhim to Isengard to meet Saruman
along with the small company.
Isengard to meet Saruman alongwith a small company.
And while they pass through thecreepy wood, legolas and Gimli
agree to disagree about themerits of caves versus forests
(09:30):
and eventually agree to traveltogether, if they survive the
conflict against Sauron, to giveeach other's cave and forest of
choice a chance.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Thoughts on this convo.
I lost it.
I could not like, like I wasright back in bromance heaven.
So I I started with.
I didn't realize and I probablyshould have what a tree nerd
legolas was.
He's a woodland elf like thisis not a big stretch, but it
just hadn't occurred to me.
So legolas nerding out aboutthe trees, rolling right into
(10:02):
gimley, talking about howincredible the caverns of Helm's
Deep are, and them making apact to vacation together to
visit their favorite places whenpeacetime comes, come on, I
could not say aww loud enough, Iknow, I think the bromance it's
official for me.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I know, I think the bromance it's official.
For me, I think the bromance inthe books is stronger than the
bromance in the movies.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yes, I think that that absolutely sends it over
the edge, because the idea ofthem vacationing together.
Yes, the soft feels that thatgave me.
I was like oh my gosh, you guyscouldn't be more precious.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Well, and they started out with Legolas being
like you know, or Gimli beinglike I would pay any amount of
money to go see this in thesecaves, and Legolas being like I
would pay any amount of money toget out and double that if I
didn't know where I was.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
If you'll sit through , my thing went from that to
like, yeah, let's go check thisout together.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I loved it.
I loved it.
It's uh.
Yeah, I'm, I was I've beenexpecting.
Well, we've gotten bits andpieces of the frodo and sam
bromance so far, uh, but we'regetting way more gimli and
legolas especially I miss thoseboys I do too gotten We've
gotten this far.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
It's been a long time .
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I know I'm so curious to see when and if we get to
them, how you'll feel about them.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
So the longer it takes us to get back to them,
though a little, I get a littlebit more afraid because even as
we saw so far with the partymembers that we have seen, we
saw so far with the partymembers that we have seen, the
chunks of time that we'reflip-flopping through are pretty
significant.
So I'm like how much stuff isgonna happen to these guys by
the time we get back to them?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
we might just hit the reset button full rewind jump,
jump all the way back.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We might we'll see, we'll see.
Um, the next thing for me isthat there are eyes in the
forest.
Legolas sees them and hisresponse is to immediately turn
around and go back to the creepyeyes.
Uh-huh, and I was just likehard.
No, no, thank you, I'm withgimli.
Like you could stop here.
(12:23):
I'm gonna get off the horse.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's gonna be a big no for me yeah, and so ents
walk out, and I wanted to pointout their description.
Okay, so tall as trolls, 12feet or more strong bodies,
stout as young trees, clad withraiment or hide of close-fitting
gray or brown long limbs, handswith many fingers, stiff hair
(12:49):
beards, gray-green as moss so itdoesn't mention skin made of
bark and I always pictured themas like trees with eyes,
basically With two trunks forlegs, two branches for arms, and
it sounds like that was kind ofinaccurate.
What was your mental image ofthem?
Do you think it was corruptedby the movies?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I also thought skin of bark.
And now I'm like now I want togo back and look at treebeard's
introduction.
I don't think it said that.
So the rest of that sounds verysimilar to the way treebeard
was introduced.
You know, 12 to 14 feetlong-limbed yeah, I guess I had
(13:31):
maybe.
We've definitely seen moviebias before.
Right, we definitely have.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, and the thing is is like whenever they show up
to the Entmoot, they're likethey will say like oh, this
one's more akin to an ash treeor whatever, but I guess like
that could be in coloring andmaybe like what their fingers
look like.
Like.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Like I'm really curious, or their raiment, so
they're worth if we're sayingthat they are wearing raiment of
some kind.
Maybe the raiment looks likebirch or ash yeah, yeah, exactly
.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
and it's so interesting and like, of course,
the green beard is like thebiggest, this is not a human.
Like it's clearly not a human,but everything else is just like
okay, two, two, like upright,two arms, two legs, eyes.
Like we're talking humanoidhere, which is not exactly how I
pictured them, not exactly Morelike Groot, but apparently not
(14:34):
Turns out.
Yeah, okay.
So the party camps beside thebed of the Eisen River as
they're heading to Isengardriver, as they're heading to
eisen guard, and overnight, astream of darkness, shrouded in
mist, whispering and groaning,passes by them.
How did that make you feel?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
um, unsettled, uh-huh , definitely unsettled, uh.
And then the fact that gandalfwas just like you know.
Pay it no mind, don't worryabout it.
Don't worry about it, but alsodon't move, yeah, stay freeze,
but it's all good, um, but againI just kind of wait and see,
(15:18):
because if nothing else, I dofeel like these books do pay off
.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So if you, give it a minute, we'll probably get to
find out After a minute.
The next morning they discoverthat the trees and the bodies of
the orcs that had beenscattered about were gone and a
big pit covered with stones hadbeen erected overnight.
It was called, from then on,the death down, and they're not
sure if the orcs that fled intothe trees and were never seen
(15:47):
again are included in this pile.
Clearly this you know, thisfuneral area of of the orcs.
So was this a creepy enoughsection for you?
How are you feeling?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
about it was it was creepy enough.
I think that it shows thelengths to which they will go.
I personally don't believe thatthere is any orc remains in
there, that it was only done outof passing respect for the
human remains.
I believe that the orc remainswere just completely eradicated,
(16:20):
whatever that means you knowlike they just found a way to
make them disappear, um, and whoknows who, they could have been
drugged to the sea for all weknow.
Um, because now I understandjust how mad the trees and the
ants are at the orcs.
So that's my personal opinion.
(16:42):
Yes, it's super creepy, butalso like the death mound is
technically them being like.
Here are the remains of yourconstituents and don't worry
about the orcs, we don't talkabout orcs we don't need.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
About the orcs we don't talk about orcs.
Okay, I like it.
So we get a description ofOrthanc Saruman's Tower once we
finally get to Isengard.
Orthanc meaning Mount Fang, andElvish and Cunning Mind in the
language of the Mark.
Did anything jump out at youfrom the description of
eisengard?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
uh, it sounds like a crater on a moon yeah, honestly
okay it sounds.
It sounds like a moon crater.
Uh, I couldn't.
I couldn't escape thatdescription.
They also use um.
They also tolkien mentionswizard's veil and it seems like
it seems like it's a synonym ofIsengard.
(17:40):
It's also being referred to asWizard's Vale, which is just an
example.
That's not the first timethat's happened in his books
where I'm like I think this is asynonym, but I can't quite
prove it.
And it was just about thispoint that I was like I was
having a second scooby-doomoment where I was like, oh,
(18:03):
these guys are coming up ontoeisengard immediately post the
ant attack, so they have no cluewhat they are walking into.
This is gonna be grand, um, sothat's, that's when that light
came on for me nobody has anyclue, except gandalf, who knows
all, apparently.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Um, but yeah, I love how they and it's like I don't
want to go there get.
I was like let's just seewhat's there.
Let's just, let's just go andsee what's up.
Yeah, um, so it became clear asthe party proceeded toward the
tower the power of saruman hadbeen overthrown, and then we
reunited, with two of ouroriginal fellowship members
(18:43):
lying at ease in the rubble.
How did you feel about thisinitial reunion?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I whooped I whooped, I was so excited um, and then I
immediately wrote down that Iloved Gimli's response woolly
footed and wool painted truants,so I come from a family who
will sometimes say not nicethings in an endearing way, and
(19:11):
so that is exactly how thatstruck.
Yeah, so that's that's what Igot from that.
Uh was like just that, oh youdidn't come poop or whatever.
You know.
Whatever, it sounds like notnice, but it's really loving
yeah, he's like.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
He's like discontent about all of that effort he
expended on the hunt for them.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
To just be fine and then to like, have the remains
of a feast in front of them,right insult to injury pippin
chimes in about gimley, uh,failing to find any wits while
hunting, which I thought I wasjust like got him.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh, it feels so good to be back with you know, the,
the, the gangs all together Notall of us, not all of them but
it felt like a really funreunion to me.
It was awesome.
So it was also interesting tome that the men of Rohan had
heard of hobbits, or at leasthalflings, and that Pippin found
(20:11):
Theoden to be a fine old fellow, quite polite.
Any thoughts for the end ofthis chapter?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
So to your point that you just made that, theoden.
Hello, quite polite.
Any thoughts for the end ofthis chapter?
So to your point that you justmade that, theoden.
I think it was Theoden who hadsaid we've heard of hobbits
because we are of the North aswell.
I feel like I might have knownthat before but had forgotten,
so I had highlighted it.
I was like, oh right, they camefrom the North.
I feel like this was we hadtalked about it in the context
(20:39):
of Aragorn's ancestry,potentially yeah.
And then the other thing thatwas here a lot of this imagery
as they're walking up toIsengard and everything.
A lot of it sounds really darkand dismal and ruined.
(21:01):
So there's definitely languagein there that talks about how
much Saruman has ruined thelandscape and the area of
Isengard, and it was oncebeautiful.
It also mentions that the towerthat is at Isengard is a
copycat, for you know, possiblya poor man's version of the Dark
(21:23):
Tower itself.
And then that a lot of theimagery that was described made
me think of like apost-apocalyptic,
post-industrial era.
So again, not to put words inTolkien's mouth, but he
(21:45):
describes things that are stillin their natural state in a very
beautiful, loving way, andthings that have been
industrialized or mechanized ina very dismal way, and so I was
left with a lot of mentalimagery that thinks of a land
that has been clear cut, forexample.
(22:07):
I was raised in a generationwhere they would show pictures
of where industries had gonethrough and clear cut an area
and then all of the land isruined and um, there's so much
runoff in the in the soil can'tbe, you know, they can't sow it
to grow crops or anything likethat.
So those are the kinds ofthings, just that decimation,
(22:29):
that careless umindustrialization of of an area,
regardless for the impact onnature.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Well, and it wasn't like back in Helm's Deep, we
didn't really address this, butonce again, saruman and his evil
creatures are associated withtechnology.
Right, because they had bombs,essentially, that they were
using to like bust into thewalls or whatever.
So, yeah, technology bad.
To put it just assimplistically as I can, that's
(23:00):
the vibe, for sure, that Tolkienhas given off.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
So I won't call it allegory, but I will say that
that's the kind of imagery itevoked for me.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
No, for sure.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And then I did have one other stray thought.
So one point in the chapter itsaid if the great sea had risen
in wrath.
One point in the chapter itsaid if the great sea had risen
in wrath.
So speaking to all the waterthat was kind of lingering
through eisengard, and at thispoint nobody knows why it's
there and I somebody has this.
I think the narrator had saidit looked as though the great
(23:30):
sea had risen in wrath, and sothat got me thinking and I
immediately went to a map and Iwas like wait, how is this
coastal?
How?
close are we to the close?
How close are we to the ocean?
Like galadriel had some not sogreat things to say about
coastal locations, so she did.
That's the scary part.
So, um, for the first time andI don't even know how many
(23:54):
chapters I looked at a map I,I'm just now doing it because
I'm curious and, yeah, notreally close.
Not very close.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And I feel like the.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Dark Tower is technically closer to coast, but
the mention of the Great Seakind of put me on my guard a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like anytime anybodymentions the sea, from now on
I'll be like get out of there.
Legolas, yeah, don't goanywhere near there.
Okay, so that's it for thatchapter, no further business.
Yeah, okay, plenty.
Book three, chapter nineFlotsam and Jetsam.
So the first time I ever heardthose words this is not in my
(24:33):
outline, but I just thought ofit was, I believe that was
Ursula's Moray Eels names in theLittle Mermaid.
Yeah, totally, I thought theywere just names.
I didn't know they meantanything.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Oh, yeah, and so then I saw it again and I was like
wait, no-transcript thrownoverboard, otherwise it's just
(25:25):
like crap that floats in water Ilooked it up, I I feel like if
it weren't for things like swissfamily robinson or robinson or,
uh, rob, robinson Crusoe LikeI've read just enough of those
stories when I was younger thatI that I didn't even know that
there was a real differencebetween Flotsam and Jetsam.
But I you remember how we hadthe conversation where I'm
(25:47):
looking it up and you're justlike all I think is landscape.
I'm kind of the same.
I'm like it's stuff floating inthe water.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's well well.
And there was another thing,like there's like a song or
something that says flotsam andjetsam and I, I think I just
like nothing, that like I hadheard the song before and I just
nothing did, but I want to knowI'll have to look, we'll have
to look, but it doesn't matter,because now I know what it means
.
I looked it up because I waslike, how does this have its
(26:18):
place in the lord of the rings?
Like what does this?
This has to mean something,that's awesome of course it does
mean something.
Yeah, um, so you mentioned thewater.
It's a water word, turns out.
Okay.
So theod and gandalf and themen of rohan ride off to meet
with treebeard, but aragorn,legolas and gimli stay behind to
(26:38):
catch up with Merry and Pippin.
They feast, they smoke and theychat about what had transpired
since they'd parted.
Any standout moments from thisreunion?
I've got several thingsoutlined, but just generally
from this reunion.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I love that we started with who's going to tell
their story first.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I love that we started with who's?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
going to tell their story first.
Yeah, so it definitely puts meright into the.
You know, rekindling thefriendship, rekindling the, the
kinship between them, all aboutwho's going to tell their story
first, and then there's a secondlunch happening, but ultimately
I'm with Gimli.
So Gimli is, like I should likea tale in the right order, so
(27:20):
he's voting for chronologicalwhich I always will vote for
chronological every time handsdown.
So those were my immediatethoughts.
And then Gimli actually spyingwith his little eye that the
hobbit's hair looks thicker andfuller and they appear that
(27:42):
they've grown a little bit eventhough that's not possible for
full-grown hobbits and findingout that that's because of the
drafts that the Ents were givingthem to drink.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yes, indeed.
So this is a fun thing for usto be talking about.
Because, was it you?
There was somebody on one of mytiktok videos a while ago where
I talk about the, the scene inthe lord of the rings where mary
and pippin drink the ent water,or something I just like.
Was that you?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
and I don't know if we did it I.
It might have been inconversation or via TikTok, but
I feel like, yes, it might havebeen me that you're stopped
(28:36):
lying.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
That doesn't happen, come to find out like it's in
the extended editions and Ihadn't seen the theatrical
editions in so long that I hadforgotten that that wasn't a
part of the movies Cause to methat that scene in particular is
just so such a fun part of thetree beard interaction that in
the two towers that I just yeah,I just assumed it was a part of
(28:57):
the theatrical, but it's not.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
And again, because I don't always.
You know, if I had a systemwhere every year, every October
or whatever I watch and I alwayswatch the extended edition,
that would be different.
But because I'm so chaos drivenand I'm just like, okay, this
is what's on streaming right now, so this is what I'm going to
watch For all I know, I've onlylike I know that I've seen the
extended editions for each ofthem because when the extended
(29:20):
editions were released, I made apoint of renting them and
watching them.
This is in the day of a videostore rentals.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Good old blockbuster yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, yeah, when you actually had to trot yourself
down and pick them up.
But I did in fact watch themwhen the extended editions were
released.
So I know I've seen all of theextended editions at one point
or another, at least once.
But I can guarantee you I hadno idea what the heck any of
that was about and I evenremember you talking about it.
(29:51):
And then you're like, well, itmust be in the extended cut and
I was like, okay, who cares ifthey drank something, I don't
get it.
And now we now.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Now I get it we get it and water is special.
It makes you grow, um, and yeah, so they're tall, they're like
tallest hobbits of all time asfar as we know, because they got
to grow a lot, a lot, a lot, um.
Okay, so another thing that Iwrote down in this initial kind
of conversation that they'rehaving is that Pippin had a
(30:24):
spare pipe on him and gave it toGimli because he didn't have
one, and then, even though Gimliwas so mad at them you know,
mad at them he admits that thatmore or less settles the score
between them.
Like, actually, it puts gimleyin pippin's debt.
I, I, I'd love that littleexchange.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I thought it was cute so I think the idea of carrying
a spare pipe, uh, you know,just in case also, I don't know
if you noticed this, but he saidthat he has a spare pipe, um,
and he makes, like a ring, acapital R ring reference.
I don't know if you could hearit, but it was capitalized.
I didn't know it was capital.
No, no, no.
So it's always funny to me whenI catch the capitalizations.
(31:07):
It's always kind of funny to me.
Hold on one second.
It didn't say, you know,because it was precious to me or
anything, but I was like, oh,he's making a ring reference.
Yeah, uh, let me just.
I'm almost there, I swear soit's.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
It's interesting to me, like, since you mentioned
that, like I didn't know it wasa capital r ring reference
there's.
Another thing is, when I'mmaking my outline, if I'm
looking through the physicalcopy of the book, I I don't
think um andy circus reads thelittle like footnotes.
So there was a footnote in thispassage that was like shire
reckoning there are 30 days permonth in shire reckoning or
whatever.
And that was like Shirereckoning there are 30 days per
month in Shire reckoning orwhatever.
(31:45):
And that was like a footnote.
I didn't hear it until, like, Isaw it on the page later.
So I found that interesting.
I like wonder how theydetermine which footnotes are
worthy of reading and which onesaren't.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
That is kind of interesting, because I assume
that it has to do with themfiguring out how many days had
passed.
And he told him you know whatthe day was by shire?
Yeah, and then he calculates ityeah, so it was pippin.
And he says I keep a treasureor two near my skin, as precious
as rings to me.
Capital r, capital r weird youknow, it's crazy so, just like I
(32:22):
don't get the benefit of all ofthe incredible indie circus
performance, but I do get to seesome of these fun little things
that have this extra emphasisfrom a written perspective and
it's always kind of fun to mewhen I find them Well.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And the footnotes apparently you do have
advantages.
For sure I don't have footnotes.
Well, there's okay, there's onein this one.
Let me like.
I'm sure I could probably findit really quickly.
Yeah, okay, so on mine, it'swhenever they're talking.
The 5th of March in the Shire,reckoning said Aragorn, yeah,
got it right here.
He made some calculations onhis fingers.
Only nine days ago he saidthere's an asterisk.
(32:56):
There is an asterisk and at thebottom every month in the
calendar had 30 days you areright, I am wrong.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I couldn't see that blue asterisk.
Um, yeah, no, I gotta.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Oh, I'm just showing people like if you're watching
on youtube, I just showed thelittle don't mind us miming
actions without actually talkingabout what we're doing.
Yeah, no, you're right, and I'mwrong, okay, well, I wasn't
trying to be right.
No, no, no, I was just pointingit out.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
That's wild to me, that I didn't notice it, you
know brushing over footnotes isnot.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
It's not unrelatable.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And I mean, it's just a stray asterisk.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, oh, so yours is like is it like at the end of
the book?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
No, so the asterisk is hyperlinked, and so when I
click on it, then it shows thefootnote.
So all I see is a straightasterisk.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Oh, so okay, Yours is different too, Cause you're,
you're reading the ebook.
Yeah, it's a little situation.
Okay, well, now that we'veestablished that, but it's been
nine days since they've seen him.
That's true, so we learn alittle more about the mysterious
trees.
(34:16):
They're called Huorns, andthey're basically Ents that have
gone rather tree-ish, wild anddangerous.
It turns out that, before theassault on Isengard, saruman had
sent his 10,000 orcs and menaway for the battle at Helm's
Deep and the Huorns a lot ofthem followed the orcs their
(34:38):
business, being with them.
I think some Huorns stayed,though, and they absolutely
wrecked riggity, wreckedIsengard Thoughts on the
Hobbit's tale about what hadtranspired.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I thought it was fascinating what's living in the
forest near Brandy Buck,because there's a comment in
there from somebody, Mary orPippin, about how you would be
terrified of meeting them ifthere were no true Ents about to
look after them.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
So I wonder if you know that forest is starting to
go a little bit more tree-ishand doesn't have an Ent Shepard
anymore, which was just a littleshivery.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
A little bit, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
And so then the idea that they were you know, they
were there to exact theirrevenge on the orcs, no matter
what.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, I found that kind of interesting too, because
it sounded like like after allof that had happened and the
Ents took over Isengard, gandalfshows up right, and it made it
sound like he talked toTreebeard about how they needed
help at Helm's Deep, andTreebeard was like the Huorns
(36:02):
will go, and so there must havebeen like a lot of horns left.
You know what I mean, becauselike it sounded like the horns
saw the orcs leaving andfollowed them, but then I guess
there were still horns left ateisengard and then those left
also after gandalf came right,so I guess there were two waves
of horns.
Is that what?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
you got?
Yeah, well, what I got was thatquite a few of them.
So it talks about those twoparties leaving and one takes
off south and one takes off east, or whatever.
Yeah and they definitely a lotof them followed a party, so to
me that implied that there'smore than one group, and so
there were still at least somehornsorns available to come and
(36:44):
help.
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
That makes sense.
I was just like I just picturedliterally all the Huorns being
like oh, that's where the orcsare going, I have business
elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
You know what I mean, but I guess not quite.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Um, yeah, so that makes sense.
So, and yeah, it's battle stuff.
The Ents took over.
It was amazing, like.
And then I guess, like, uh,saruman trapped himself up in
the tower, right, they tried tocapture him, but he ended up in
the tower and he lit some thingson fire, like like one of the
(37:20):
ends got completely caught onfire, so he was not undefended.
Basically it wasn't a total rowroute Kind of.
It was kind of a total route.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well, he sent his entire army out, and I think
that it might not have been thischapter, but someone at some
point pointed out that Sarumancompletely disregarded the ants,
and that was his shortcomingyeah, that he discounted them
entirely right, yeah, shouldhave thought about him can't
overlook him.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Um, so then Saruman's in the tower trap.
Then Wormtongue shows up.
After the sack of Isengard, andthanks to Gandalf's warning,
treebeard knew about his waysand forced him to enter the
tower rather than allowing himto run away.
And Treebeard acted verypleased with himself over it.
So I wouldn't have taken himfor like smug.
(38:14):
I don't know if it's like smug,but he was like really pleased
with himself.
That's not to say that I haveany problem with taking pleasure
in the punishment of evilpeople, but like did you?
Did you take anything away fromthis part?
Did you read into this at all?
Speaker 1 (38:28):
um, I don't know that .
I read into it at all.
I I do think that it's a littledifferent.
Uh, considering he, he was sucha proponent of like don't be
hasty.
Uh, you know, he kind of made asnap decision about this worm
tongue character.
But then also we find out thatthere was previous conversation
(38:49):
that took place, so he hadforeknowledge, so it felt like a
snap decision.
But then turns out, oh, he knew, he knew that the sky was no
good, so it only seemed like asnap decision.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I like how Theoden lets him go, do whatever you
want and then, like the momenthe shows up to saruman, his evil
overlord, they're like okay,well, we weren't going to trap
you back at rohan, but we haveno problem trapping you in this
tower because you are a bad guy.
So it's official now.
Um, all right.
So aragorn points out how weirdit was that saruman had some
(39:25):
pipeweed from the shire atisengard and it turned out that
the barrel was from two yearsprior, I believe.
Did this peak your interest atall?
Speaker 1 (39:35):
so two years prior would have been the party when
bilbo disappeared, right yes, Iguess.
Yeah, I didn't really likethink about the timeline that's
where, that's as far as I gotwith it.
Like it, certainly it predates.
(39:55):
It predates frodo and samleaving the shire.
For sure, yeah, for sure.
Um, but the idea that there isan informant, even loosely
attached to saruman, uh, in theshire, is really um unsettling
yeah, icky, yeah, like pre ringstuff like, like before anything
(40:23):
got bad as far as anybody inthe Shire knew it had actually
gotten bad.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
There were spies.
And not just Samwise Gamgee,who?
Speaker 1 (40:31):
was a spy who was a very good spy though.
Very good.
We love that kind of spy.
We love our Samwise.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah, it gave me the creeps.
It definitely gave me thecreeps.
At first I was like, of coursehe has it, it's legendary.
But then everyone keptemphasizing it's really far away
and it made me kind of cringe.
So that's the end of thechapter.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Do you have any final thoughts?
Um, I had, I had a couple ofquick notes.
Uh, someone in this chapterindicated that saruman was in a
cleft stick of his own cutting.
So you know, like he was in abind of his own making, and I
just thought that that was superclever way for Tolkien to word.
It.
Never had I.
And also, when I think of acleft stick, I think of how you
(41:18):
trap a snake head.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Whoa okay.
Pioneer woman up in here, WhoaOkay.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Pioneer woman up in here.
I mean, I am deathly terrifiedof snakes so I probably won't
right Like I'll scream and throwmy hands up and jump and run
away, but I have seen that wasneat.
I wrote down oh, in referenceto Treebeard and his you know,
(41:49):
their taking over of Isengard,the language, the way it was
written, is that he gotpositively hasty.
I thought that that wasabsolutely to die for.
Another thing that the Tolkiendid is to describe how kind of
(42:10):
terrifying and impressive whatthe Ents were doing.
It said the work of great treeroots in a hundred years, all
packed in a few moments.
So them grabbing rock withtheir hand roots and just
crushing it and and seeing, andI could really see that in my
mind as like a fast forward, youknow, fast forward of a tape in
(42:33):
my brain and I was like thatwas a really great image.
Yeah, I had another metaphor,simile that I didn't understand.
Okay, Like rabbits in a sandpit, I I don't even remember the
context, I couldn't even figureit out in the moment.
(42:55):
I was like I don't what ishappening.
I usually do so well rabbits?
Speaker 2 (43:01):
and yeah, I wonder I.
Now I'm curious about thecontext.
Okay, what's the context?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
they pushed, pulled, tore, shook and hammered and
clang, bang, crash, crack.
In five minutes they had thesehuge gates just lying in ruin
and some were already beginningto eat into the walls like
rabbits in a sand pit.
Hmm, and I'm like I okay Iguess rabbits have like under.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Do they have like underground?
Speaker 1 (43:33):
tunnels.
Well, they dig, they candefinitely definitely have dens,
but in a sand pit, I don't know, and it doesn't matter, right
like it doesn't even matter tothe story in any way, but but.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I'm just like what.
I didn't even think about that.
I didn't think too hard aboutthat one because I don't know.
I guess, like, have you seenwhenever there's like a rabbit
nest, mm-hmm, and where they'rejust like little tiny naked
things and they're all likepiled on top of each other,
mm-hmm?
I guess that's the image that Igot and I'm not sure, like the
(44:06):
sand pit has anything to do withit.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
me neither it probably doesn't I think the
sand pit is really what threw meoff more than anything yeah
okay, that's really funny.
Um, and then the other.
The only other thing that I hadspecific to this chowder
chowder chapter was, um, theents rerouting of water to flood
out isengard even though, again, it was represented in the
(44:30):
movie, was really very much more, uh, labor intensive and
impressive kind of in the book,yeah.
So I just wanted to call thatout that, yes, it made it into
the movie, but somehow in thebook I understood better what
like a massive undertaking itwas that they had gone and done
(44:50):
all this work to make sure allof this water flooded eisengard
yeah, yeah, it was definitelyaccelerated, at the very least.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
In the movie it was like, oh, there goes the water,
like amazing, we did it.
Good job, guys.
Uh, okay, is that it for thatchapter?
That's it for that chapter, allrighty.
Book three, chapter 10, thevoice of saruman.
So gandalf and a smallcontingent, advance on the tower
to speak with saruman.
When saruman responds to theircall, his voice is enchanting,
(45:24):
enthralling even so.
This feels like magic.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
No, yes but it also sounds like so I.
I liked this chapter because Ididn't understand quite what a
threat saruman was like as a assomebody who just watched the
movies, I thought that he wasjust an incredibly powerful
magician wizard.
Excuse me, but this is beyondthat.
(45:52):
And then, also, adding on towhatever layer of mysticism is
related to how enchanting andenthralling his voice is, he
says all of the right things.
So as we go through thischapter and he starts trying to
endear himself to the differentparties that have come to him,
(46:14):
I'm like holy smokes, this guyis.
This guy is again just a mastermanipulator, right?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Charisma level 1000.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yes, he's got advantage on every single
charisma role.
It's crazy.
He's very manipulative,incredibly smart and he knows
exactly what leverage to usewith whomever his audience is.
And then you add to it that heis an incredibly powerful wizard
and does seem to have some kindof magical capability that
(46:47):
amplifies that.
That's crazy, scary.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
It's, yeah, it's.
You hear about stuff like thiswith a lot of different like
fantasy.
You know, properties.
Gosh, this is like terrygoodkind, right, they have
confessors where if they touchyou or whatever anything they
say you do right.
Or there's compulsion in thewheel of time, right, where you
(47:15):
can cast a weave on somebody andjust like make them do whatever
you want and and that kind offeels like what this is.
It's like this, just like, well, and harry potter has to say
they, it's all, but then this isjust so-.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
The voice in Dune.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
The voice in Dune.
Yeah, perfect, exactly.
And so just seeing it out ofSaruman and like the way Andy
Serkis played, it was reallygood and we'll talk about like
the specific things that hetried to do to manipulate people
.
But the way Andy Serkis played,it was like when he was doing
the manipulation it was likethis like soft, melodious,
reasonable calm, and then hewould break the like if some, if
(47:49):
somebody interjected orwhatever, his calm would like
break.
And so it was just sointeresting to me to see that,
like saruman doesn't need aspell necessarily, he doesn't
need like to touch anyone, hejust has his voice and
apparently his voice is just,yeah, just that's it like he's.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
He's just incredible and I did like that in this read
that there were beats, rightthere were highs and lows, where
he was being incredibly melodicand, uh, persuasive and
everything, and then he wouldget frustrated, but then he'd
come back into it.
I liked that there weredifferent beats on that.
I just again had kind ofnothing that like, oh, it's just
(48:27):
a spell, and but I was like, no, he's using real logic.
So he's, you know, he hasamplified every advantage that
he might have by also usingstuff that could be, in the
right context, a good argumentin his favor.
So it just was that more, thatmuch more insidious to me,
(48:51):
because I was like, oh, this isfounded in little pieces of
truth from a certain perspective, and that just made it a little
bit more horrific.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah, another example that actually the timing was
wild, because I was like readingthis and writing the outline
for it at the same time that I'mwatching.
I'm rewatching Mad Men, whichis one of my absolute favorite
shows, and no spoilers oranything.
But there's the scene where oneof the account men, which are
basically sales guys, they'retalking to someone and the
(49:22):
person is like so what do youeven do?
Right, because it's aboutadvertising, and so there are
creative people who come up withthe ideas for the ads, there
are art people who like make theimages and whatnot.
And then there are accountpeople who basically get the
clients right, and the guy askshim what he does, and the
account man responds and he'sjust like well, let me tell you,
(49:43):
like, what do you do?
You're, you're, you're aprofessor, right, like.
And then he just like buttershim up.
He just like he just, you know,ingratiates himself with him so
much in the span of like 10seconds.
And then the guy is like sointo, like he's feeling good
about himself, right, he's liketalking about himself.
And then the account man stopsand he's feeling good about
(50:06):
himself, right, he's liketalking about himself.
And then the account man stopsand he's like that's what I do.
She's like oh god, it's saruman, it was uh.
It was interesting that I I sawthat scene at the same time that
I'm reading about saruman,because it felt very right
because we'll start with theoden.
He starts in on theoden,confounding him and his
companions, basically being likemy friend, my neighbor, my
neighbor, you never came over.
I wanted to talk to you, wecould be allies, I could help
(50:29):
you.
There's so many things thathe's just buttering him up and
Theoden is just frozen right, hejust doesn't say anything.
And then Gimli pushes back,which I mentioned, saruman gets
a little testy and then Eomerultimately calls out the
description, sorry, thedeception, noting it's as a
(50:50):
trapped wolf would speak to thehounds if he could.
And Saruman tries to turn hishoneyed words on Aemmer, but
Theoden finally chimes in,breaking free from the spell,
saying we will have peace whenyou and all your works have
perished.
So I know that was a lot of metalking there at once, but did
you see this going in adifferent way?
How did you feel?
Speaker 1 (51:09):
about the Theoden interaction.
I like the fact that Tolkienleft room for doubt.
So, as they're describing, ashe was describing the beginning
part of the Theoden interaction,he said that Theoden I'm
paraphrasing Theoden remainssilent and you can't tell if he
remains resolved in that silenceor if he remains resolved in
that silence or if he'sstruggling in that silence and I
like the fact that he left itopen-ended like that and
(51:30):
ultimately he never actuallyclarified right.
So after Éamir spoke and thenThéoden responded, he spoke
thickly.
I think it was described aslike he was breaking free.
He spoke thickly, I think itwas described, as you know, like
he was breaking free.
So you can infer, but hedoesn't actually say, and I just
(51:52):
thought that that was reallywell done.
So really subtle, really subtlestuff.
But in the moment reading thatI was like this is so very well
done.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yeah, it felt so realistic and I was so glad for
for amor to chime in there andghibli too, and it was, and you
could.
They also mentioned that someof the other writers or whatever
were kind of in the background.
Like gandalf's never this nice,like all you know.
They're just like being soinfluenced by saruman.
But the narrator, or gandalfmaybe had told us, like you know
(52:24):
he'll, he'll influence theweaker minds or, you know,
people who aren't as resolvedwhatever, and so, of course,
like the random standby peoplewho are halfway in Wormtongue's
pocket apparently, are going tobe like let's go with Saruman.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Well, and also the nuance, uh, played out again the
beauty of being able to read itinstead of trying to
communicate it on screen, whichwould probably have been very
difficult.
I can't even imagine how youwould accomplish it.
That the persuasion capital, pfor persuasion that he's
performing to whatever extentyou believe that it is just
(52:58):
strictly magical or whatever, um, you know, it kind of morphs
and and and changes throughoutthe experience, where it just
starts out with where you justreally want to believe him, you
really want to support him.
But if you are mentally strongenough to kind of avoid that
piece, then the ploy changes toyou think poorly of Gandalf or
(53:23):
you think mistrustfully ofsomebody else.
That is wild, like that isabsolutely insane and not, um,
not easily replicated.
You know, just not somethingI've ever seen to that level of
detail in a story.
I thought it was incrediblyinteresting to read yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
So Saruman turns his silver tongue on Gandalf, but
ultimately Gandalf laughs in hisface, which I just love.
And then Saruman turns to leaveand Gandalf commands him to
return and he is compelled toobey.
So who's got the powerful voicenow?
Saruman?
(54:06):
So ultimately Gandalf commandshis staff broken, him ejected
from the council, and the staffbreaks.
And as Saruman turns to fleeback into the tower, Wormtongue
throws a dark globe from one ofthe windows that almost hits
Gandalf and misses.
Pippin retrieves it, butGandalf takes it from him.
Did you expect Saruman to keeptrying with Gandalf, of all
(54:26):
people?
And how do you feel about howthis went down, Gandalf?
Speaker 1 (54:29):
roundly stomped him.
Part of the scene was alsoGandalf pointing out that now I
am Gandalf the White and now youhave no color and you have been
removed from the council.
That defeat was a great finalpunctuation on that message that
(54:54):
you are no longer Saruman theWhite, I am now Gandalf the
White, and I am now Gandalf theWhite and I am a force to be
reckoned with in my own right.
I loved it, and so the fact thathe compelled him, the fact that
he broke it, and then you know,wormtongue, throwing something
(55:14):
over the edge, handy, superhandy, and the chapter ends with
it doesn't seem to be a thingthat Saruman would have wanted
thrown over the edge.
So that's cool, can't wait.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Very helpful Thanks.
So yeah, the party goes to partways with Treebeard, and
Treebeard notes that he willmiss the hobbits and that he
officially added them to the oldlist just under the Ents, as
follows Ents the earthborn, oldas mountains, the wide walkers,
water drinking and hungry ashunters, the hobbit children,
(55:50):
the laughing folk, the littlepeople.
So I found this to be athousand percent precious.
How did it hit you?
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Oh yeah, exactly the same.
I was like, yes, of course theyneed to be added to the song,
and I love the fact that treebird, as the oldest living thing
on middle earth was, you know,his horizons were broadened and
he was exposed to hobbits, and Itruly believe that everybody
who's exposed to hobbits isbetter off for it at the end,
(56:17):
and I feel the same way abouttree beard yeah, and I feel like
, if I'm remembering right,pippin suggested a verse for the
hobbits and it was somethinglike lives in the ground or like
, obviously paraphrasing, but itwasn't this.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I don't think and the fact that treebeard didn't just
take the you didn't just stealpippin's homework, basically.
But like, learned about hobbits,became friends with hobbits and
then gave them theirdescription in the list like and
they're so perfect hungries,hunters, hobbit children,
laughing folk, little people,just I, just I really I don't
know.
It hit me my heart reallywarmed up with that one
(56:53):
personally.
Um, okay, so basically the endof the chapter, gandalf asks the
ents to watch for sarumanbasically to continue flooding
so he can't escape out of thetunnels assuming there are
tunnels and and that's it.
Basically treebeard's like yeah, we got this, bro.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Any final thoughts before we do mvp uh, there was
one other super random thingsarumanuman referred to the Ents
as wild wood demons and Ithought that that was hilarious.
Yeah, you know, if I were anEnt, I would get that like put
on a T-shirt or something.
(57:30):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Just embrace it, play with it.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
That's mine Lean into it, and that was really it.
Just another little one-offthing where I was like that's
hilarious.
But yeah, no, that's what Ihave.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
Okay, all right.
So we've got a tradition wherewe pick an MVP from the chapters
we've read for each episode.
Cue the music, jessica.
Who would you name as your MVPthis episode?
Speaker 1 (58:03):
This episode was so hard, I know Can I do.
Mary Ann Pepin.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
I mean, we're co-hosts here.
Do you think we should have twoMVPs?
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
Like does it count?
As a half a point no, we can'tset that precedent.
It would be rough.
Yeah, it would be rough.
Um, I'm gonna go with pippin asrepresentative of marion pippin
and he just, you know, takes itby a nose because of the pipe,
okay, but having them back andthe role that they played and
(58:44):
the reuniting and just all of it, like it was delish.
Speaker 2 (58:48):
So it's marion, it's marion pippin, but pippin is a
representative okay, okay, thiswas so hard for me, like I'm
right now still thinking aboutit and like part of me wanted to
go with pippin because this wasso hard for me, like I'm right
now still thinking about it, andlike part of me wanted to go
with Pippin because he was sofrickin' funny.
Right, like he On that hunt,you clearly didn't find your
(59:10):
wits.
And he's giving them a feast.
He's the gatekeepers.
They're the gatekeepers ofIsengard.
He gives the pipe.
It's just he, he really henails it.
But then, like gandalf, thoughgandalf, talking to saruman,
command, laughs in his face,commands him to return, which he
(59:34):
is compelled to do, commandshis staff broken and it breaks,
which he is compelled to do.
Commands his staff broken andit breaks.
Like I don't know, I got.
Like I'm Gandalf really.
Speaker 1 (59:44):
He hit it Very.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
OP, he, yeah, and I just love, like I don't know why
I just love to hear somebodywho just really knows their
worth and like wields theirpower.
That Okay.
So I'm going to be honest.
Part of me is like, because youpicked Pippin, I should pick
(01:00:06):
Gandalf.
But no, I think I want to pickPippin Because that was my
instinct and he was delightfuland he inspired the rhyme from
Treebeard and it was just niceto have him back with the boys.
So Gandalf, a close second,because, dang, that exchange was
fire it really was, but it'sPippin for me as well.
(01:00:28):
Just because he had the, he wasthe comedic relief and I, just,
he, just, yeah, he really did itfor me.
These chapters, okay, okay,okay.
So read for next week bookthree, chapter 11, and book four
, chapters one and two.
(01:00:49):
So we're getting into book four.
What does it mean?
What does it mean?
We'll see.
Very exciting.
We both want to say thank youso much for tuning into episode
four of season three of but arethere dragons brought to you by
your hosts, jessica sadai andcritter xd, me?
Don't forget to follow us at.
But are there dragons onyoutube, instagram and tiktok?
(01:01:10):
And?
But dragons pod?
Just one t on x.
You can also find your hosts onsocial media as critter xd and
shelf indulgence.
That's it for today.
We're workshopping newcatchphrases for season three,
so let us know on social mediahow you feel about this one.
This is a direct quote fromthese chapters.
So here it is.
It is the end.
(01:01:32):
Let us go.
Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Bye, bye.
Hello and welcome to, but Are there Dragons?
A podcast where two friendspick a book at least one of them
has not read and work their waythrough it a few chapters at a
time.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I'm your host, critter, and I'm your host Jess,
and we're continuing thisadventure with the Two Towers by
JRR Tolkien, with me as theresident Lord of the Rings
veteran.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
And me as a Lord of the Rings first-timer.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
In this, our fourth episode of Season 3, we're going
to discuss Book 3, chapters 8through 10.
Before we dive in Jessica,what's new with you?
How are you feeling?
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I'm good, these are some hefty chapters.
I'm excited to talk about this,yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I agree it was fun for multiple reasons reading
these for sure.
So let's just dive right intoit.
If you're game, I'm good, Okay.
So book three, chapter eighteight, the road to isengard.
The good guys come togetherafter the enemy was defeated at
helm's deep and we got theresult of gimli and legolas's
(01:13):
competition.
I'm not convinced that legolasdidn't throw it because he was
just happy that gimli was alivein the end after it looked like
he might have been lost.
Do you have a take on this?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
uh, I, I kind of had the same take, like I think that
both aragorn and legolas are sohappy to see him that they
don't care, um, but also myheart.
That breaks my heart just alittle bit, because I want him
to have won in his own right,yeah, and the other bit of
nerddom is that his answer is 42.
(01:46):
And so, as the nerdy middleschooler who read Hitchhiker's
Guide to the Galaxy, I'm like 42, it's the answer.
That's amazing.
So I thought that that wasawesome, that that just happened
to be the number he ended on.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I heard somebody, and Ithink I saw ack about this
actually very recently, maybefrom Dodd Marshall, who joined
us last season, but somebody waslike could this have been, or
why would Legolas have notgotten more kills after?
I want to say it was like hewas in like the upper 30s when
(02:20):
we checked in with them at onepoint and then he only gained
like a few um, and theexplanation that he gave was
maybe gimli really did winbecause legolas had to, like go
retrieve arrows right.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
I'm just gonna say he ran out of arrows by his own
report and, uh, kudos to tolkienfor writing it that way,
because, uh, the never needingto refill your gun clip or your
arrow quiver is incrediblyfrustrating for lots of fantasy
fans.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to lie, I'm a.
I absolutely despise inventorymanagement in any game.
Like I know we're in a D and Dgame together and like bless her
heart.
But one of our party members isvery much into like who's gonna
take this gear?
Where are we gonna store it,all this other stuff, and I I
(03:11):
don't know that I've everresponded to a single message in
that regard because I justliterally can't be bothered with
inventory management.
Like I stopped playing pokemongo and I've I've gotten like
huge dry spells playing PokemonGo, like I won't play at all,
and the reason I don't play isbecause either my Pokemon
storage is full or my items arefull and that's why I can't
(03:34):
spend Poke stops and I don'twant to go through and like
figure out what to delete.
Like it is, it is a nightmareof mine and that's a lot of the
reason that I don't play a lotof uh like rpg video games,
because like it's so much, orlike escape from tarkov, like
there's so many games that youhave to have be really focused
on your inventory, and I justwon't, I just hate it.
(03:55):
And so I understand, like Ihave no problem with the
infinite quiver, like yes,please like, have it be infinite
, so you don't have to worryabout that.
But is it more realistic thatlegolas had to go find more
arrows?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
yes, absolutely, I understand I think that my take
would be that tolkien took thetime to put that in the story to
allow plausibility that gimbleydid in fact earn it oh, okay so
he's like no one's gonnabelieve me to take that, okay,
I'll, I'll allow it.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
That's fine, um, are you?
Are you as?
Do you despise inventorymanagement as much as me?
I have.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I have a middle of the road approach, so I am
someone who winds up answeringthat inventory management person
more than others.
Um, because it's right.
So we use D&D Beyond.
I use D&D Beyond to manage myinventory so I at least know
what we have, and I do try totake notes while we're
(04:56):
campaigning and follow up onthem.
But I would say I have likemiddling success and it does get
overwhelming so having to playa role where you have to have
specific components for spellcasting.
When I created a differentcharacter, I got her a staff
(05:23):
that counts as every singlecomponent she would ever need,
because I was like I don't wantto think about having to have
all of these pouches and gettingall of this stuff um yeah so I
feel like I'm kind of middle ofthe road.
I can do it.
It's not my favorite and itdefinitely is a weakness yeah,
that's fair, it's a huge we.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
it's a big blind spot for me.
Yeah, it's it, just it's.
Yeah, that's okay, though weall like what we like, right,
like I can, I can play call ofduty and actually there was a.
This is so so far of aside fromthis.
But like there's this game,valheim, that I love, where
you're like it's like norse,explorer, explorer type people,
(06:04):
right and uh, and there are modsto the game and you can expand
your inventory like ininfinitely, basically, so that
it like doesn't even matter howbig it is.
And it's like one of myfavorite things, because now I
can just put things in myinventory and never think about
them again.
So so it's like a bag ofholding.
It's like a bag of holding, yes, and so, like before that mod,
(06:26):
I would get so annoyed with likehaving to be like oh my God, I
have too many mushrooms so thatI can't pick up this thistle,
right, and now it's like, no,I'm going to pick everything,
everything I see I'm going topick up Because, like in the
game, I like to explore, like MrCritter likes to build and I
like to explore.
So it's kind of fun because Igo out and I forage and I
discover new places and I killthe bad guys and then I come
(06:46):
back and I have this amazinghouse because Mr Critters
created it for me.
You guys are a good team, we are, we are, we go very well.
Do we follow the stereotypes?
No, not at all.
Of like you know what you wouldexpect from women and men, but
that's fine, cause stereotypessometimes they're just strong,
they're just wrong.
Who cares about stereotypes?
Um, wow, we have been.
(07:07):
We're already just like fullyout of yeah, so let's come back.
Um, so there were men whofought with the orcs, which we
talked about last episode, akinto the shifty man that the party
saw in Bree, though the orcswere completely eliminated.
Many of the men surrendered andwere surprised that the men of
(07:30):
Rohan didn't burn them alive,like Saruman said.
They would.
This to me read like we are thesame and should all be on the
same team, but we also aren'tincorruptible in the face of
evil, right?
Did you read anything into thislittle sequence?
Speaker 1 (07:50):
This just brought me right back to where I was at
when we ended the last chapteris that Saruman is kind of
giving me master manipulationvibes, like he is really good at
finding the weakness betweentwo groups and, whether it's
truth or lies, you know,fostering a divide between them.
So yeah, I mean when it said,you know, the men of Dunland
(08:12):
were amazed.
I was like how do you tell them, like you told them that they
burn their captives alive?
That is, that's horrendous,like that's horrific.
Um, so I was like he went toany length to convince them to
be on his side and it was justit kind of threw me right back
to where I was, where we leftoff with the other chapter.
(08:34):
Theoden and the rest of thiscrew have agreed to go to
Isengard.
I'm like kind of the same thingwith seeing the trees go
through is like these people aregoing to Isengard.
I don't remember that happening.
(08:54):
It may have happened, but I'mlike I don't remember Theoden
going to Isengard.
So you know again, kind of,where I left off last week.
So you know again, kind ofwhere I left off last week,
started right off here going.
Maybe I really didn't watchthese movies who?
Speaker 2 (09:09):
knows it's going to be so fun whenever you go back
to them.
It's going to be great.
So yes, just to piggyback rightoff of what you said, gandalf
convinces Theoden to ride withhim to Isengard to meet Saruman
along with the small company.
Isengard to meet Saruman alongwith a small company.
And while they pass through thecreepy wood, legolas and Gimli
agree to disagree about themerits of caves versus forests
(09:30):
and eventually agree to traveltogether, if they survive the
conflict against Sauron, to giveeach other's cave and forest of
choice a chance.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Thoughts on this convo.
I lost it.
I could not like, like I wasright back in bromance heaven.
So I I started with.
I didn't realize and I probablyshould have what a tree nerd
legolas was.
He's a woodland elf like thisis not a big stretch, but it
just hadn't occurred to me.
So legolas nerding out aboutthe trees, rolling right into
(10:02):
gimley, talking about howincredible the caverns of Helm's
Deep are, and them making apact to vacation together to
visit their favorite places whenpeacetime comes, come on, I
could not say aww loud enough, Iknow, I think the bromance it's
official for me.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I know, I think the bromance it's official.
For me, I think the bromance inthe books is stronger than the
bromance in the movies.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yes, I think that that absolutely sends it over
the edge, because the idea ofthem vacationing together.
Yes, the soft feels that thatgave me.
I was like oh my gosh, you guyscouldn't be more precious.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Well, and they started out with Legolas being
like you know, or Gimli beinglike I would pay any amount of
money to go see this in thesecaves, and Legolas being like I
would pay any amount of money toget out and double that if I
didn't know where I was.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
If you'll sit through , my thing went from that to
like, yeah, let's go check thisout together.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I loved it.
I loved it.
It's uh.
Yeah, I'm, I was I've beenexpecting.
Well, we've gotten bits andpieces of the frodo and sam
bromance so far, uh, but we'regetting way more gimli and
legolas especially I miss thoseboys I do too gotten We've
gotten this far.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
It's been a long time .
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I know I'm so curious to see when and if we get to
them, how you'll feel about them.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
So the longer it takes us to get back to them,
though a little, I get a littlebit more afraid because even as
we saw so far with the partymembers that we have seen, we
saw so far with the partymembers that we have seen, the
chunks of time that we'reflip-flopping through are pretty
significant.
So I'm like how much stuff isgonna happen to these guys by
the time we get back to them?
Speaker 2 (11:56):
we might just hit the reset button full rewind jump,
jump all the way back.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
We might we'll see, we'll see.
Um, the next thing for me isthat there are eyes in the
forest.
Legolas sees them and hisresponse is to immediately turn
around and go back to the creepyeyes.
Uh-huh, and I was just likehard.
No, no, thank you, I'm withgimli.
Like you could stop here.
(12:23):
I'm gonna get off the horse.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's gonna be a big no for me yeah, and so ents
walk out, and I wanted to pointout their description.
Okay, so tall as trolls, 12feet or more strong bodies,
stout as young trees, clad withraiment or hide of close-fitting
gray or brown long limbs, handswith many fingers, stiff hair
(12:49):
beards, gray-green as moss so itdoesn't mention skin made of
bark and I always pictured themas like trees with eyes,
basically With two trunks forlegs, two branches for arms, and
it sounds like that was kind ofinaccurate.
What was your mental image ofthem?
Do you think it was corruptedby the movies?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
I also thought skin of bark.
And now I'm like now I want togo back and look at treebeard's
introduction.
I don't think it said that.
So the rest of that sounds verysimilar to the way treebeard
was introduced.
You know, 12 to 14 feetlong-limbed yeah, I guess I had
(13:31):
maybe.
We've definitely seen moviebias before.
Right, we definitely have.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yeah, and the thing is is like whenever they show up
to the Entmoot, they're likethey will say like oh, this
one's more akin to an ash treeor whatever, but I guess like
that could be in coloring andmaybe like what their fingers
look like.
Like.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Like I'm really curious, or their raiment, so
they're worth if we're sayingthat they are wearing raiment of
some kind.
Maybe the raiment looks likebirch or ash yeah, yeah, exactly
.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
and it's so interesting and like, of course,
the green beard is like thebiggest, this is not a human.
Like it's clearly not a human,but everything else is just like
okay, two, two, like upright,two arms, two legs, eyes.
Like we're talking humanoidhere, which is not exactly how I
pictured them, not exactly Morelike Groot, but apparently not
(14:34):
Turns out.
Yeah, okay.
So the party camps beside thebed of the Eisen River as
they're heading to Isengardriver, as they're heading to
eisen guard, and overnight, astream of darkness, shrouded in
mist, whispering and groaning,passes by them.
How did that make you feel?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
um, unsettled, uh-huh , definitely unsettled, uh.
And then the fact that gandalfwas just like you know.
Pay it no mind, don't worryabout it.
Don't worry about it, but alsodon't move, yeah, stay freeze,
but it's all good, um, but againI just kind of wait and see,
(15:18):
because if nothing else, I dofeel like these books do pay off
.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So if you, give it a minute, we'll probably get to
find out After a minute.
The next morning they discoverthat the trees and the bodies of
the orcs that had beenscattered about were gone and a
big pit covered with stones hadbeen erected overnight.
It was called, from then on,the death down, and they're not
sure if the orcs that fled intothe trees and were never seen
(15:47):
again are included in this pile.
Clearly this you know, thisfuneral area of of the orcs.
So was this a creepy enoughsection for you?
How are you feeling?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
about it was it was creepy enough.
I think that it shows thelengths to which they will go.
I personally don't believe thatthere is any orc remains in
there, that it was only done outof passing respect for the
human remains.
I believe that the orc remainswere just completely eradicated,
(16:20):
whatever that means you knowlike they just found a way to
make them disappear, um, and whoknows who, they could have been
drugged to the sea for all weknow.
Um, because now I understandjust how mad the trees and the
ants are at the orcs.
So that's my personal opinion.
(16:42):
Yes, it's super creepy, butalso like the death mound is
technically them being like.
Here are the remains of yourconstituents and don't worry
about the orcs, we don't talkabout orcs we don't need.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
About the orcs we don't talk about orcs.
Okay, I like it.
So we get a description ofOrthanc Saruman's Tower once we
finally get to Isengard.
Orthanc meaning Mount Fang, andElvish and Cunning Mind in the
language of the Mark.
Did anything jump out at youfrom the description of
eisengard?
Speaker 1 (17:19):
uh, it sounds like a crater on a moon yeah, honestly
okay it sounds.
It sounds like a moon crater.
Uh, I couldn't.
I couldn't escape thatdescription.
They also use um.
They also tolkien mentionswizard's veil and it seems like
it seems like it's a synonym ofIsengard.
(17:40):
It's also being referred to asWizard's Vale, which is just an
example.
That's not the first timethat's happened in his books
where I'm like I think this is asynonym, but I can't quite
prove it.
And it was just about thispoint that I was like I was
having a second scooby-doomoment where I was like, oh,
(18:03):
these guys are coming up ontoeisengard immediately post the
ant attack, so they have no cluewhat they are walking into.
This is gonna be grand, um, sothat's, that's when that light
came on for me nobody has anyclue, except gandalf, who knows
all, apparently.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Um, but yeah, I love how they and it's like I don't
want to go there get.
I was like let's just seewhat's there.
Let's just, let's just go andsee what's up.
Yeah, um, so it became clear asthe party proceeded toward the
tower the power of saruman hadbeen overthrown, and then we
reunited, with two of ouroriginal fellowship members
(18:43):
lying at ease in the rubble.
How did you feel about thisinitial reunion?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I whooped I whooped, I was so excited um, and then I
immediately wrote down that Iloved Gimli's response woolly
footed and wool painted truants,so I come from a family who
will sometimes say not nicethings in an endearing way, and
(19:11):
so that is exactly how thatstruck.
Yeah, so that's that's what Igot from that.
Uh was like just that, oh youdidn't come poop or whatever.
You know.
Whatever, it sounds like notnice, but it's really loving
yeah, he's like.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
He's like discontent about all of that effort he
expended on the hunt for them.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
To just be fine and then to like, have the remains
of a feast in front of them,right insult to injury pippin
chimes in about gimley, uh,failing to find any wits while
hunting, which I thought I wasjust like got him.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Oh, it feels so good to be back with you know, the,
the, the gangs all together Notall of us, not all of them but
it felt like a really funreunion to me.
It was awesome.
So it was also interesting tome that the men of Rohan had
heard of hobbits, or at leasthalflings, and that Pippin found
(20:11):
Theoden to be a fine old fellow, quite polite.
Any thoughts for the end ofthis chapter?
Speaker 1 (20:18):
So to your point that you just made that, theoden.
Hello, quite polite.
Any thoughts for the end ofthis chapter?
So to your point that you justmade that, theoden.
I think it was Theoden who hadsaid we've heard of hobbits
because we are of the North aswell.
I feel like I might have knownthat before but had forgotten,
so I had highlighted it.
I was like, oh right, they camefrom the North.
I feel like this was we hadtalked about it in the context
(20:39):
of Aragorn's ancestry,potentially yeah.
And then the other thing thatwas here a lot of this imagery
as they're walking up toIsengard and everything.
A lot of it sounds really darkand dismal and ruined.
(21:01):
So there's definitely languagein there that talks about how
much Saruman has ruined thelandscape and the area of
Isengard, and it was oncebeautiful.
It also mentions that the towerthat is at Isengard is a
copycat, for you know, possiblya poor man's version of the Dark
(21:23):
Tower itself.
And then that a lot of theimagery that was described made
me think of like apost-apocalyptic,
post-industrial era.
So again, not to put words inTolkien's mouth, but he
(21:45):
describes things that are stillin their natural state in a very
beautiful, loving way, andthings that have been
industrialized or mechanized ina very dismal way, and so I was
left with a lot of mentalimagery that thinks of a land
that has been clear cut, forexample.
(22:07):
I was raised in a generationwhere they would show pictures
of where industries had gonethrough and clear cut an area
and then all of the land isruined and um, there's so much
runoff in the in the soil can'tbe, you know, they can't sow it
to grow crops or anything likethat.
So those are the kinds ofthings, just that decimation,
(22:29):
that careless umindustrialization of of an area,
regardless for the impact onnature.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Well, and it wasn't like back in Helm's Deep, we
didn't really address this, butonce again, saruman and his evil
creatures are associated withtechnology.
Right, because they had bombs,essentially, that they were
using to like bust into thewalls or whatever.
So, yeah, technology bad.
To put it just assimplistically as I can, that's
(23:00):
the vibe, for sure, that Tolkienhas given off.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
So I won't call it allegory, but I will say that
that's the kind of imagery itevoked for me.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
No, for sure.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
And then I did have one other stray thought.
So one point in the chapter itsaid if the great sea had risen
in wrath.
One point in the chapter itsaid if the great sea had risen
in wrath.
So speaking to all the waterthat was kind of lingering
through eisengard, and at thispoint nobody knows why it's
there and I somebody has this.
I think the narrator had saidit looked as though the great
(23:30):
sea had risen in wrath, and sothat got me thinking and I
immediately went to a map and Iwas like wait, how is this
coastal?
How?
close are we to the close?
How close are we to the ocean?
Like galadriel had some not sogreat things to say about
coastal locations, so she did.
That's the scary part.
So, um, for the first time andI don't even know how many
(23:54):
chapters I looked at a map I,I'm just now doing it because
I'm curious and, yeah, notreally close.
Not very close.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
And I feel like the.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Dark Tower is technically closer to coast, but
the mention of the Great Seakind of put me on my guard a
little bit.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Yeah, yeah.
I feel like anytime anybodymentions the sea, from now on
I'll be like get out of there.
Legolas, yeah, don't goanywhere near there.
Okay, so that's it for thatchapter, no further business.
Yeah, okay, plenty.
Book three, chapter nineFlotsam and Jetsam.
So the first time I ever heardthose words this is not in my
(24:33):
outline, but I just thought ofit was, I believe that was
Ursula's Moray Eels names in theLittle Mermaid.
Yeah, totally, I thought theywere just names.
I didn't know they meantanything.
Speaker 1 (24:46):
Oh, yeah, and so then I saw it again and I was like
wait, no-transcript thrownoverboard, otherwise it's just
(25:25):
like crap that floats in water Ilooked it up, I I feel like if
it weren't for things like swissfamily robinson or robinson or,
uh, rob, robinson Crusoe LikeI've read just enough of those
stories when I was younger thatI that I didn't even know that
there was a real differencebetween Flotsam and Jetsam.
But I you remember how we hadthe conversation where I'm
(25:47):
looking it up and you're justlike all I think is landscape.
I'm kind of the same.
I'm like it's stuff floating inthe water.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, yeah, it's well well.
And there was another thing,like there's like a song or
something that says flotsam andjetsam and I, I think I just
like nothing, that like I hadheard the song before and I just
nothing did, but I want to knowI'll have to look, we'll have
to look, but it doesn't matter,because now I know what it means
.
I looked it up because I waslike, how does this have its
(26:18):
place in the lord of the rings?
Like what does this?
This has to mean something,that's awesome of course it does
mean something.
Yeah, um, so you mentioned thewater.
It's a water word, turns out.
Okay.
So theod and gandalf and themen of rohan ride off to meet
with treebeard, but aragorn,legolas and gimli stay behind to
(26:38):
catch up with Merry and Pippin.
They feast, they smoke and theychat about what had transpired
since they'd parted.
Any standout moments from thisreunion?
I've got several thingsoutlined, but just generally
from this reunion.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
I love that we started with who's going to tell
their story first.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I love that we started with who's?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
going to tell their story first.
Yeah, so it definitely puts meright into the.
You know, rekindling thefriendship, rekindling the, the
kinship between them, all aboutwho's going to tell their story
first, and then there's a secondlunch happening, but ultimately
I'm with Gimli.
So Gimli is, like I should likea tale in the right order, so
(27:20):
he's voting for chronologicalwhich I always will vote for
chronological every time handsdown.
So those were my immediatethoughts.
And then Gimli actually spyingwith his little eye that the
hobbit's hair looks thicker andfuller and they appear that
(27:42):
they've grown a little bit eventhough that's not possible for
full-grown hobbits and findingout that that's because of the
drafts that the Ents were givingthem to drink.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
Yes, indeed.
So this is a fun thing for usto be talking about.
Because, was it you?
There was somebody on one of mytiktok videos a while ago where
I talk about the, the scene inthe lord of the rings where mary
and pippin drink the ent water,or something I just like.
Was that you?
Speaker 1 (28:12):
and I don't know if we did it I.
It might have been inconversation or via TikTok, but
I feel like, yes, it might havebeen me that you're stopped
(28:36):
lying.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
That doesn't happen, come to find out like it's in
the extended editions and Ihadn't seen the theatrical
editions in so long that I hadforgotten that that wasn't a
part of the movies Cause to methat that scene in particular is
just so such a fun part of thetree beard interaction that in
the two towers that I just yeah,I just assumed it was a part of
(28:57):
the theatrical, but it's not.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
And again, because I don't always.
You know, if I had a systemwhere every year, every October
or whatever I watch and I alwayswatch the extended edition,
that would be different.
But because I'm so chaos drivenand I'm just like, okay, this
is what's on streaming right now, so this is what I'm going to
watch For all I know, I've onlylike I know that I've seen the
extended editions for each ofthem because when the extended
(29:20):
editions were released, I made apoint of renting them and
watching them.
This is in the day of a videostore rentals.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Good old blockbuster yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:30):
Yeah, yeah, when you actually had to trot yourself
down and pick them up.
But I did in fact watch themwhen the extended editions were
released.
So I know I've seen all of theextended editions at one point
or another, at least once.
But I can guarantee you I hadno idea what the heck any of
that was about and I evenremember you talking about it.
(29:51):
And then you're like, well, itmust be in the extended cut and
I was like, okay, who cares ifthey drank something, I don't
get it.
And now we now.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Now I get it we get it and water is special.
It makes you grow, um, and yeah, so they're tall, they're like
tallest hobbits of all time asfar as we know, because they got
to grow a lot, a lot, a lot, um.
Okay, so another thing that Iwrote down in this initial kind
of conversation that they'rehaving is that Pippin had a
(30:24):
spare pipe on him and gave it toGimli because he didn't have
one, and then, even though Gimliwas so mad at them you know,
mad at them he admits that thatmore or less settles the score
between them.
Like, actually, it puts gimleyin pippin's debt.
I, I, I'd love that littleexchange.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
I thought it was cute so I think the idea of carrying
a spare pipe, uh, you know,just in case also, I don't know
if you noticed this, but he saidthat he has a spare pipe, um,
and he makes, like a ring, acapital R ring reference.
I don't know if you could hearit, but it was capitalized.
I didn't know it was capital.
No, no, no.
So it's always funny to me whenI catch the capitalizations.
(31:07):
It's always kind of funny to me.
Hold on one second.
It didn't say, you know,because it was precious to me or
anything, but I was like, oh,he's making a ring reference.
Yeah, uh, let me just.
I'm almost there, I swear soit's.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
It's interesting to me, like, since you mentioned
that, like I didn't know it wasa capital r ring reference
there's.
Another thing is, when I'mmaking my outline, if I'm
looking through the physicalcopy of the book, I I don't
think um andy circus reads thelittle like footnotes.
So there was a footnote in thispassage that was like shire
reckoning there are 30 days permonth in shire reckoning or
whatever.
And that was like Shirereckoning there are 30 days per
month in Shire reckoning orwhatever.
(31:45):
And that was like a footnote.
I didn't hear it until, like, Isaw it on the page later.
So I found that interesting.
I like wonder how theydetermine which footnotes are
worthy of reading and which onesaren't.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
That is kind of interesting, because I assume
that it has to do with themfiguring out how many days had
passed.
And he told him you know whatthe day was by shire?
Yeah, and then he calculates ityeah, so it was pippin.
And he says I keep a treasureor two near my skin, as precious
as rings to me.
Capital r, capital r weird youknow, it's crazy so, just like I
(32:22):
don't get the benefit of all ofthe incredible indie circus
performance, but I do get to seesome of these fun little things
that have this extra emphasisfrom a written perspective and
it's always kind of fun to mewhen I find them Well.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
And the footnotes apparently you do have
advantages.
For sure I don't have footnotes.
Well, there's okay, there's onein this one.
Let me like.
I'm sure I could probably findit really quickly.
Yeah, okay, so on mine, it'swhenever they're talking.
The 5th of March in the Shire,reckoning said Aragorn, yeah,
got it right here.
He made some calculations onhis fingers.
Only nine days ago he saidthere's an asterisk.
(32:56):
There is an asterisk and at thebottom every month in the
calendar had 30 days you areright, I am wrong.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
I couldn't see that blue asterisk.
Um, yeah, no, I gotta.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Oh, I'm just showing people like if you're watching
on youtube, I just showed thelittle don't mind us miming
actions without actually talkingabout what we're doing.
Yeah, no, you're right, and I'mwrong, okay, well, I wasn't
trying to be right.
No, no, no, I was just pointingit out.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
That's wild to me, that I didn't notice it, you
know brushing over footnotes isnot.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
It's not unrelatable.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
And I mean, it's just a stray asterisk.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, oh, so yours is like is it like at the end of
the book?
Speaker 1 (33:44):
No, so the asterisk is hyperlinked, and so when I
click on it, then it shows thefootnote.
So all I see is a straightasterisk.
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Oh, so okay, Yours is different too, Cause you're,
you're reading the ebook.
Yeah, it's a little situation.
Okay, well, now that we'veestablished that, but it's been
nine days since they've seen him.
That's true, so we learn alittle more about the mysterious
trees.
(34:16):
They're called Huorns, andthey're basically Ents that have
gone rather tree-ish, wild anddangerous.
It turns out that, before theassault on Isengard, saruman had
sent his 10,000 orcs and menaway for the battle at Helm's
Deep and the Huorns a lot ofthem followed the orcs their
(34:38):
business, being with them.
I think some Huorns stayed,though, and they absolutely
wrecked riggity, wreckedIsengard Thoughts on the
Hobbit's tale about what hadtranspired.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
I thought it was fascinating what's living in the
forest near Brandy Buck,because there's a comment in
there from somebody, Mary orPippin, about how you would be
terrified of meeting them ifthere were no true Ents about to
look after them.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
So I wonder if you know that forest is starting to
go a little bit more tree-ishand doesn't have an Ent Shepard
anymore, which was just a littleshivery.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
A little bit, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
And so then the idea that they were you know, they
were there to exact theirrevenge on the orcs, no matter
what.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, I found that kind of interesting too, because
it sounded like like after allof that had happened and the
Ents took over Isengard, gandalfshows up right, and it made it
sound like he talked toTreebeard about how they needed
help at Helm's Deep, andTreebeard was like the Huorns
(36:02):
will go, and so there must havebeen like a lot of horns left.
You know what I mean, becauselike it sounded like the horns
saw the orcs leaving andfollowed them, but then I guess
there were still horns left ateisengard and then those left
also after gandalf came right,so I guess there were two waves
of horns.
Is that what?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
you got?
Yeah, well, what I got was thatquite a few of them.
So it talks about those twoparties leaving and one takes
off south and one takes off east, or whatever.
Yeah and they definitely a lotof them followed a party, so to
me that implied that there'smore than one group, and so
there were still at least somehornsorns available to come and
(36:44):
help.
That makes sense.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
That makes sense.
I was just like I just picturedliterally all the Huorns being
like oh, that's where the orcsare going, I have business
elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
You know what I mean, but I guess not quite.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Um, yeah, so that makes sense.
So, and yeah, it's battle stuff.
The Ents took over.
It was amazing, like.
And then I guess, like, uh,saruman trapped himself up in
the tower, right, they tried tocapture him, but he ended up in
the tower and he lit some thingson fire, like like one of the
(37:20):
ends got completely caught onfire, so he was not undefended.
Basically it wasn't a total rowroute Kind of.
It was kind of a total route.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Well, he sent his entire army out, and I think
that it might not have been thischapter, but someone at some
point pointed out that Sarumancompletely disregarded the ants,
and that was his shortcomingyeah, that he discounted them
entirely right, yeah, shouldhave thought about him can't
overlook him.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Um, so then Saruman's in the tower trap.
Then Wormtongue shows up.
After the sack of Isengard, andthanks to Gandalf's warning,
treebeard knew about his waysand forced him to enter the
tower rather than allowing himto run away.
And Treebeard acted verypleased with himself over it.
So I wouldn't have taken himfor like smug.
(38:14):
I don't know if it's like smug,but he was like really pleased
with himself.
That's not to say that I haveany problem with taking pleasure
in the punishment of evilpeople, but like did you?
Did you take anything away fromthis part?
Did you read into this at all?
Speaker 1 (38:28):
um, I don't know that .
I read into it at all.
I I do think that it's a littledifferent.
Uh, considering he, he was sucha proponent of like don't be
hasty.
Uh, you know, he kind of made asnap decision about this worm
tongue character.
But then also we find out thatthere was previous conversation
(38:49):
that took place, so he hadforeknowledge, so it felt like a
snap decision.
But then turns out, oh, he knew, he knew that the sky was no
good, so it only seemed like asnap decision.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I like how Theoden lets him go, do whatever you
want and then, like the momenthe shows up to saruman, his evil
overlord, they're like okay,well, we weren't going to trap
you back at rohan, but we haveno problem trapping you in this
tower because you are a bad guy.
So it's official now.
Um, all right.
So aragorn points out how weirdit was that saruman had some
(39:25):
pipeweed from the shire atisengard and it turned out that
the barrel was from two yearsprior, I believe.
Did this peak your interest atall?
Speaker 1 (39:35):
so two years prior would have been the party when
bilbo disappeared, right yes, Iguess.
Yeah, I didn't really likethink about the timeline that's
where, that's as far as I gotwith it.
Like it, certainly it predates.
(39:55):
It predates frodo and samleaving the shire.
For sure, yeah, for sure.
Um, but the idea that there isan informant, even loosely
attached to saruman, uh, in theshire, is really um unsettling
yeah, icky, yeah, like pre ringstuff like, like before anything
(40:23):
got bad as far as anybody inthe Shire knew it had actually
gotten bad.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
There were spies.
And not just Samwise Gamgee,who?
Speaker 1 (40:31):
was a spy who was a very good spy though.
Very good.
We love that kind of spy.
We love our Samwise.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah, it gave me the creeps.
It definitely gave me thecreeps.
At first I was like, of coursehe has it, it's legendary.
But then everyone keptemphasizing it's really far away
and it made me kind of cringe.
So that's the end of thechapter.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Do you have any final thoughts?
Um, I had, I had a couple ofquick notes.
Uh, someone in this chapterindicated that saruman was in a
cleft stick of his own cutting.
So you know, like he was in abind of his own making, and I
just thought that that was superclever way for Tolkien to word.
It.
Never had I.
And also, when I think of acleft stick, I think of how you
(41:18):
trap a snake head.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Whoa okay.
Pioneer woman up in here, WhoaOkay.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
Pioneer woman up in here.
I mean, I am deathly terrifiedof snakes so I probably won't
right Like I'll scream and throwmy hands up and jump and run
away, but I have seen that wasneat.
I wrote down oh, in referenceto Treebeard and his you know,
(41:49):
their taking over of Isengard,the language, the way it was
written, is that he gotpositively hasty.
I thought that that wasabsolutely to die for.
Another thing that the Tolkiendid is to describe how kind of
(42:10):
terrifying and impressive whatthe Ents were doing.
It said the work of great treeroots in a hundred years, all
packed in a few moments.
So them grabbing rock withtheir hand roots and just
crushing it and and seeing, andI could really see that in my
mind as like a fast forward, youknow, fast forward of a tape in
(42:33):
my brain and I was like thatwas a really great image.
Yeah, I had another metaphor,simile that I didn't understand.
Okay, Like rabbits in a sandpit, I I don't even remember the
context, I couldn't even figureit out in the moment.
(42:55):
I was like I don't what ishappening.
I usually do so well rabbits?
Speaker 2 (43:01):
and yeah, I wonder I.
Now I'm curious about thecontext.
Okay, what's the context?
Speaker 1 (43:07):
they pushed, pulled, tore, shook and hammered and
clang, bang, crash, crack.
In five minutes they had thesehuge gates just lying in ruin
and some were already beginningto eat into the walls like
rabbits in a sand pit.
Hmm, and I'm like I okay Iguess rabbits have like under.
Speaker 2 (43:31):
Do they have like underground?
Speaker 1 (43:33):
tunnels.
Well, they dig, they candefinitely definitely have dens,
but in a sand pit, I don't know, and it doesn't matter, right
like it doesn't even matter tothe story in any way, but but.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
I'm just like what.
I didn't even think about that.
I didn't think too hard aboutthat one because I don't know.
I guess, like, have you seenwhenever there's like a rabbit
nest, mm-hmm, and where they'rejust like little tiny naked
things and they're all likepiled on top of each other,
mm-hmm?
I guess that's the image that Igot and I'm not sure, like the
(44:06):
sand pit has anything to do withit.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
me neither it probably doesn't I think the
sand pit is really what threw meoff more than anything yeah
okay, that's really funny.
Um, and then the other.
The only other thing that I hadspecific to this chowder
chowder chapter was, um, theents rerouting of water to flood
out isengard even though, again, it was represented in the
(44:30):
movie, was really very much more, uh, labor intensive and
impressive kind of in the book,yeah.
So I just wanted to call thatout that, yes, it made it into
the movie, but somehow in thebook I understood better what
like a massive undertaking itwas that they had gone and done
(44:50):
all this work to make sure allof this water flooded eisengard
yeah, yeah, it was definitelyaccelerated, at the very least.
Speaker 2 (44:59):
In the movie it was like, oh, there goes the water,
like amazing, we did it.
Good job, guys.
Uh, okay, is that it for thatchapter?
That's it for that chapter, allrighty.
Book three, chapter 10, thevoice of saruman.
So gandalf and a smallcontingent, advance on the tower
to speak with saruman.
When saruman responds to theircall, his voice is enchanting,
(45:24):
enthralling even so.
This feels like magic.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
No, yes but it also sounds like so I.
I liked this chapter because Ididn't understand quite what a
threat saruman was like as a assomebody who just watched the
movies, I thought that he wasjust an incredibly powerful
magician wizard.
Excuse me, but this is beyondthat.
(45:52):
And then, also, adding on towhatever layer of mysticism is
related to how enchanting andenthralling his voice is, he
says all of the right things.
So as we go through thischapter and he starts trying to
endear himself to the differentparties that have come to him,
(46:14):
I'm like holy smokes, this guyis.
This guy is again just a mastermanipulator, right?
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Charisma level 1000.
Speaker 1 (46:25):
Yes, he's got advantage on every single
charisma role.
It's crazy.
He's very manipulative,incredibly smart and he knows
exactly what leverage to usewith whomever his audience is.
And then you add to it that heis an incredibly powerful wizard
and does seem to have some kindof magical capability that
(46:47):
amplifies that.
That's crazy, scary.
Speaker 2 (46:54):
It's, yeah, it's.
You hear about stuff like thiswith a lot of different like
fantasy.
You know, properties.
Gosh, this is like terrygoodkind, right, they have
confessors where if they touchyou or whatever anything they
say you do right.
Or there's compulsion in thewheel of time, right, where you
(47:15):
can cast a weave on somebody andjust like make them do whatever
you want and and that kind offeels like what this is.
It's like this, just like, well, and harry potter has to say
they, it's all, but then this isjust so-.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
The voice in Dune.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
The voice in Dune.
Yeah, perfect, exactly.
And so just seeing it out ofSaruman and like the way Andy
Serkis played, it was reallygood and we'll talk about like
the specific things that hetried to do to manipulate people
.
But the way Andy Serkis played,it was like when he was doing
the manipulation it was likethis like soft, melodious,
reasonable calm, and then hewould break the like if some, if
(47:49):
somebody interjected orwhatever, his calm would like
break.
And so it was just sointeresting to me to see that,
like saruman doesn't need aspell necessarily, he doesn't
need like to touch anyone, hejust has his voice and
apparently his voice is just,yeah, just that's it like he's.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
He's just incredible and I did like that in this read
that there were beats, rightthere were highs and lows, where
he was being incredibly melodicand, uh, persuasive and
everything, and then he wouldget frustrated, but then he'd
come back into it.
I liked that there weredifferent beats on that.
I just again had kind ofnothing that like, oh, it's just
(48:27):
a spell, and but I was like, no, he's using real logic.
So he's, you know, he hasamplified every advantage that
he might have by also usingstuff that could be, in the
right context, a good argumentin his favor.
So it just was that more, thatmuch more insidious to me,
(48:51):
because I was like, oh, this isfounded in little pieces of
truth from a certain perspective, and that just made it a little
bit more horrific.
Speaker 2 (49:02):
Yeah, another example that actually the timing was
wild, because I was like readingthis and writing the outline
for it at the same time that I'mwatching.
I'm rewatching Mad Men, whichis one of my absolute favorite
shows, and no spoilers oranything.
But there's the scene where oneof the account men, which are
basically sales guys, they'retalking to someone and the
(49:22):
person is like so what do youeven do?
Right, because it's aboutadvertising, and so there are
creative people who come up withthe ideas for the ads, there
are art people who like make theimages and whatnot.
And then there are accountpeople who basically get the
clients right, and the guy askshim what he does, and the
account man responds and he'sjust like well, let me tell you,
(49:43):
like, what do you do?
You're, you're, you're aprofessor, right, like.
And then he just like buttershim up.
He just like he just, you know,ingratiates himself with him so
much in the span of like 10seconds.
And then the guy is like sointo, like he's feeling good
about himself, right, he's liketalking about himself.
And then the account man stopsand he's feeling good about
(50:06):
himself, right, he's liketalking about himself.
And then the account man stopsand he's like that's what I do.
She's like oh god, it's saruman, it was uh.
It was interesting that I I sawthat scene at the same time that
I'm reading about saruman,because it felt very right
because we'll start with theoden.
He starts in on theoden,confounding him and his
companions, basically being likemy friend, my neighbor, my
neighbor, you never came over.
I wanted to talk to you, wecould be allies, I could help
(50:29):
you.
There's so many things thathe's just buttering him up and
Theoden is just frozen right, hejust doesn't say anything.
And then Gimli pushes back,which I mentioned, saruman gets
a little testy and then Eomerultimately calls out the
description, sorry, thedeception, noting it's as a
(50:50):
trapped wolf would speak to thehounds if he could.
And Saruman tries to turn hishoneyed words on Aemmer, but
Theoden finally chimes in,breaking free from the spell,
saying we will have peace whenyou and all your works have
perished.
So I know that was a lot of metalking there at once, but did
you see this going in adifferent way?
How did you feel?
Speaker 1 (51:09):
about the Theoden interaction.
I like the fact that Tolkienleft room for doubt.
So, as they're describing, ashe was describing the beginning
part of the Theoden interaction,he said that Theoden I'm
paraphrasing Theoden remainssilent and you can't tell if he
remains resolved in that silenceor if he remains resolved in
that silence or if he'sstruggling in that silence and I
like the fact that he left itopen-ended like that and
(51:30):
ultimately he never actuallyclarified right.
So after Éamir spoke and thenThéoden responded, he spoke
thickly.
I think it was described aslike he was breaking free.
He spoke thickly, I think itwas described, as you know, like
he was breaking free.
So you can infer, but hedoesn't actually say, and I just
(51:52):
thought that that was reallywell done.
So really subtle, really subtlestuff.
But in the moment reading thatI was like this is so very well
done.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yeah, it felt so realistic and I was so glad for
for amor to chime in there andghibli too, and it was, and you
could.
They also mentioned that someof the other writers or whatever
were kind of in the background.
Like gandalf's never this nice,like all you know.
They're just like being soinfluenced by saruman.
But the narrator, or gandalfmaybe had told us, like you know
(52:24):
he'll, he'll influence theweaker minds or, you know,
people who aren't as resolvedwhatever, and so, of course,
like the random standby peoplewho are halfway in Wormtongue's
pocket apparently, are going tobe like let's go with Saruman.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Well, and also the nuance, uh, played out again the
beauty of being able to read itinstead of trying to
communicate it on screen, whichwould probably have been very
difficult.
I can't even imagine how youwould accomplish it.
That the persuasion capital, pfor persuasion that he's
performing to whatever extentyou believe that it is just
(52:58):
strictly magical or whatever, um, you know, it kind of morphs
and and and changes throughoutthe experience, where it just
starts out with where you justreally want to believe him, you
really want to support him.
But if you are mentally strongenough to kind of avoid that
piece, then the ploy changes toyou think poorly of Gandalf or
(53:23):
you think mistrustfully ofsomebody else.
That is wild, like that isabsolutely insane and not, um,
not easily replicated.
You know, just not somethingI've ever seen to that level of
detail in a story.
I thought it was incrediblyinteresting to read yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:45):
So Saruman turns his silver tongue on Gandalf, but
ultimately Gandalf laughs in hisface, which I just love.
And then Saruman turns to leaveand Gandalf commands him to
return and he is compelled toobey.
So who's got the powerful voicenow?
Saruman?
(54:06):
So ultimately Gandalf commandshis staff broken, him ejected
from the council, and the staffbreaks.
And as Saruman turns to fleeback into the tower, Wormtongue
throws a dark globe from one ofthe windows that almost hits
Gandalf and misses.
Pippin retrieves it, butGandalf takes it from him.
Did you expect Saruman to keeptrying with Gandalf, of all
(54:26):
people?
And how do you feel about howthis went down, Gandalf?
Speaker 1 (54:29):
roundly stomped him.
Part of the scene was alsoGandalf pointing out that now I
am Gandalf the White and now youhave no color and you have been
removed from the council.
That defeat was a great finalpunctuation on that message that
(54:54):
you are no longer Saruman theWhite, I am now Gandalf the
White, and I am now Gandalf theWhite and I am a force to be
reckoned with in my own right.
I loved it, and so the fact thathe compelled him, the fact that
he broke it, and then you know,wormtongue, throwing something
(55:14):
over the edge, handy, superhandy, and the chapter ends with
it doesn't seem to be a thingthat Saruman would have wanted
thrown over the edge.
So that's cool, can't wait.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
Very helpful Thanks.
So yeah, the party goes to partways with Treebeard, and
Treebeard notes that he willmiss the hobbits and that he
officially added them to the oldlist just under the Ents, as
follows Ents the earthborn, oldas mountains, the wide walkers,
water drinking and hungry ashunters, the hobbit children,
(55:50):
the laughing folk, the littlepeople.
So I found this to be athousand percent precious.
How did it hit you?
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Oh yeah, exactly the same.
I was like, yes, of course theyneed to be added to the song,
and I love the fact that treebird, as the oldest living thing
on middle earth was, you know,his horizons were broadened and
he was exposed to hobbits, and Itruly believe that everybody
who's exposed to hobbits isbetter off for it at the end,
(56:17):
and I feel the same way abouttree beard yeah, and I feel like
, if I'm remembering right,pippin suggested a verse for the
hobbits and it was somethinglike lives in the ground or like
, obviously paraphrasing, but itwasn't this.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
I don't think and the fact that treebeard didn't just
take the you didn't just stealpippin's homework, basically.
But like, learned about hobbits,became friends with hobbits and
then gave them theirdescription in the list like and
they're so perfect hungries,hunters, hobbit children,
laughing folk, little people,just I, just I really I don't
know.
It hit me my heart reallywarmed up with that one
(56:53):
personally.
Um, okay, so basically the endof the chapter, gandalf asks the
ents to watch for sarumanbasically to continue flooding
so he can't escape out of thetunnels assuming there are
tunnels and and that's it.
Basically treebeard's like yeah, we got this, bro.
Speaker 1 (57:10):
Any final thoughts before we do mvp uh, there was
one other super random thingsarumanuman referred to the Ents
as wild wood demons and Ithought that that was hilarious.
Yeah, you know, if I were anEnt, I would get that like put
on a T-shirt or something.
(57:30):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Just embrace it, play with it.
Speaker 1 (57:34):
That's mine Lean into it, and that was really it.
Just another little one-offthing where I was like that's
hilarious.
But yeah, no, that's what Ihave.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
Okay, all right.
So we've got a tradition wherewe pick an MVP from the chapters
we've read for each episode.
Cue the music, jessica.
Who would you name as your MVPthis episode?
Speaker 1 (58:03):
This episode was so hard, I know Can I do.
Mary Ann Pepin.
Speaker 2 (58:13):
I mean, we're co-hosts here.
Do you think we should have twoMVPs?
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
Like does it count?
As a half a point no, we can'tset that precedent.
It would be rough.
Yeah, it would be rough.
Um, I'm gonna go with pippin asrepresentative of marion pippin
and he just, you know, takes itby a nose because of the pipe,
okay, but having them back andthe role that they played and
(58:44):
the reuniting and just all of it, like it was delish.
Speaker 2 (58:48):
So it's marion, it's marion pippin, but pippin is a
representative okay, okay, thiswas so hard for me, like I'm
right now still thinking aboutit and like part of me wanted to
go with pippin because this wasso hard for me, like I'm right
now still thinking about it, andlike part of me wanted to go
with Pippin because he was sofrickin' funny.
Right, like he On that hunt,you clearly didn't find your
(59:10):
wits.
And he's giving them a feast.
He's the gatekeepers.
They're the gatekeepers ofIsengard.
He gives the pipe.
It's just he, he really henails it.
But then, like gandalf, thoughgandalf, talking to saruman,
command, laughs in his face,commands him to return, which he
(59:34):
is compelled to do, commandshis staff broken and it breaks,
which he is compelled to do.
Commands his staff broken andit breaks.
Like I don't know, I got.
Like I'm Gandalf really.
Speaker 1 (59:44):
He hit it Very.
Speaker 2 (59:45):
OP, he, yeah, and I just love, like I don't know why
I just love to hear somebodywho just really knows their
worth and like wields theirpower.
That Okay.
So I'm going to be honest.
Part of me is like, because youpicked Pippin, I should pick
(01:00:06):
Gandalf.
But no, I think I want to pickPippin Because that was my
instinct and he was delightfuland he inspired the rhyme from
Treebeard and it was just niceto have him back with the boys.
So Gandalf, a close second,because, dang, that exchange was
fire it really was, but it'sPippin for me as well.
(01:00:28):
Just because he had the, he wasthe comedic relief and I, just,
he, just, yeah, he really did itfor me.
These chapters, okay, okay,okay.
So read for next week bookthree, chapter 11, and book four
, chapters one and two.
(01:00:49):
So we're getting into book four.
What does it mean?
What does it mean?
We'll see.
Very exciting.
We both want to say thank youso much for tuning into episode
four of season three of but arethere dragons brought to you by
your hosts, jessica sadai andcritter xd, me?
Don't forget to follow us at.
But are there dragons onyoutube, instagram and tiktok?
(01:01:10):
And?
But dragons pod?
Just one t on x.
You can also find your hosts onsocial media as critter xd and
shelf indulgence.
That's it for today.
We're workshopping newcatchphrases for season three,
so let us know on social mediahow you feel about this one.
This is a direct quote fromthese chapters.
So here it is.
It is the end.
(01:01:32):
Let us go.
Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Bye, bye.
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