149 – Good Times Bad Times

We resume the narrative with the first part of “The Ring Goes South”, as Frodo and his friends come to terms with the decisions made at the Council of Elrond. But the Ring isn’t going anywhere for a couple of months; and that leaves time for scouts to scout, smiths to smith, and Bilbo to get all nostalgic. As the roster of the Fellowship is filled and Frodo and Aragorn get (not really) new swords, we take another look back at the “incident” in the Hall of Fire, and lament the endless abuse piled onto Pippin by everyone’s favorite wizard.

Recommended Reading:

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings (Mariner Books, paperback) pp. 265-272, “The Ring Goes South”

McIlwaine, Catherine, ed. Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, hardcover)

Flieger, Verlyn. A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien’s Road to Faërie (Kent State University Press, paperback)

Tolkien, J. R. R. Tales from the Perilous Realm (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, hardcover)

Tolkien, J. R. R. Tree and Leaf: Including “Mythopoeia” (HarperCollins, paperback)

Hammond, Wayne G. and Christina Scull. The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, hardcover)

Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (Mariner Books, paperback)

Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit Facsimile First Edition (HarperCollins, hardcover)

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4 comments
  • Listened to some of the etomology of Narsil and discovered some other nuggets. Looks like Telcar the Smith also forged Angrist the mate of Narsil which was stolen by Beren from Curufin and was used to cut the Silmaril from Morgoths crown. Beren and Luthien “survived” to give birth to the Dunadan though Angrist “died”. Narsil is reforged/resurrected to defeat Sauron.

  • 33:58 “And where will they live?” Surely this is about Bag End. Yes there is Crickhollow but that plainly doesn’t count as home for Sam, it’s not even on his mental map.

  • 17:00 “There must be someone with intelligence in the party”. It’s ironic, self-deprecating/not self-deprecating, from the highly entitled Pippin. Imagine Hugh Laurie saying it as Bertie Wooster (Wodehouse is definitely an influence)

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