All right, what's up.
We're on the road, and not Cormack McCarthy's the road. We will not be chomping on anybody's thighs or butts.
We are on the road.
And I thought it's perfect timing to return to the Lord of the Rings. I've not read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings in many, many years. Of course they read it, I think a couple times when I was in junior high and high school, and.
Now is the perfect time to return to it, just because.
And I also realized that a lot of the analyzes that are out there, they're really good. There are plenty that focus on this or that element, this or that, you know, layer or level of analysis, but not many people have done a significant deep dive covering all of the influences, the layers, the levels, and even the intelligence domain that I think is clearly there to influence Tolkien. And we're going to talk about all that. This is
probably going to be a several part series. It won't be just one, it's going to be multiple parts.
So we're going to start with the first half of the Hobbits today.
So we've gotten through actually more than the first half of this will be a Part one and a part too, So if you want to get access to the full video here, you'll want to subscribe to Jay's analysis and head on over to the website or here for members on YouTube and choose the four ninety five option or the sixty dollars a year option to get access to the full talks. Of course, I am still going to do the Old Boys Part two very soon. That will be in the midst of this ongoing series. But we
have a long journey ahead of us. We have our own little journey to Mordor as we go to Vegas in LA for host of podcasts, And so what.
Better ascetic struggle than.
The Lord of the Rings in the Hobbit. Now, a lot of people don't know, as we said that the Hobbit is kind of a little many Lord of the Rings. I've noticed that it's basically the same patterns, the same structure, And of course it was written for his children.
So Tolkien wrote that for his.
Kids, and then as they got older they would be a little more able to digest the intense complexities of the Lord of the Rings. But the Hobbit was a precursor to that kind of a prologue. You could say, but how's not just a lot of the same themes kind of in a shorter mini version. It also has a lot of different layers and symbolic structures that again
I think most people are not aware of. A key element to that is integral to my thesis is a recent declassification that occurred amongst British government and British Intelligence that, of course, you got it. Tolkien was an intelligence operative at least to some degree.
For a couple of years.
He worked at Bletchley Park for British Intelligence, which was the Enigma machine slash Alan Turing area of cryptography. So they were engaged in decoding World War two cryptographic communications by the tiny mustache man people and others. So I think that's a key component to where we can see that World War two tiny mustache man stuff plays a role. It is not all about that. People have obviously different theories. They think it's about money in the banking structure. All
of those things can be the case. And when we read this in tandem with other Inklings writings which.
We've covered, such as C. S.
Lewis's famous Space trilogy, we know that as we progress through one two and through the Space Trilogy. We covered that very in depth, maybe three years ago. One of those videos actually got anywhere. I think it was a quarter million, maybe even up to half a million, between all the different outlets of views between Lord Voldemort and the Fourth Hour when we did that bunch of other
outlets like acts. So in that we noticed that there's a specific reference in the appendix to Volume one of the Space Trilogy where Lewis notes that Professor Ransom is basically Tolkien. And in that appendix it discusses Tolkien discovering some neoplatonic medieval texts that he thought were sort of crucial to interpreting the world and reality and the Grand narrative. And so The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are kind of like Lewis's works, And I know there's
a difference between them. I've interviewed my godfather, Dean Arnold on some of their disagreements over literature.
But both of those writers.
Are trying to re interject a transcendent mythological worldview. And I don't be mean by mythology fake, I mean true myth, right myth containing truth and meaning, and that reality is no longer abstracted scientific data as the Enlightenment and Darwinian
ethos kind of scientific revolution gave the world. Now the world would be re interjected with meaning, and so Space Trilogy, Narnia, and all of the canon of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings Silmarillion included, they are an attempt to give a grand narrative and reintroduce meaning, especially in a post.
World War one and World War two world. So there's a lot of.
Negative attitudes, a lot of black pilling going on after World War One and.
World War Two.
And one thing that both writers have as a commonality is the return of Christian monarchy, the Christian king, the return of the king. Same theme in the Space Trilogy when Merlin comes back, he says, let's get the King of England.
He'll help us.
Out, and they're all like, uh No, that dude ain't gonna help you at all. He's part of the bad guys, He's part of Tavistok. And that's essentially what's going on in part three of the Space Trilogy. So we've covered all that though, but that's a key window into the fact that I think both writers were giving their insight and their wisdom about the twentieth century, and the dangers not just on a technological, spiritual or a technological worldly level, but also on a global level in terms of the
possibility of total information awareness, all seeing eye technology. That's exactly what's going on with Mordor and the Eye of Salron.
Of course we'll get to that later on. That's not the subject really of the.
Hobbit, but you do have some of the classic literary tropes and archetypes, like the dragon. The dragon basically feeding off of human desires and greed. We know that, of course Thorin is tempted with greed. And we'll talk about the races of Middle Earth and all that, but really the Hobbit, I think assess the stage for the introduction to Middle Earth and the idea of bringing back good and evil, that all of the races really have a common enemy, which is a spiritual enemy, something beyond merely
political factions or racial factions and tentions. Not that those things don't exist, but they're not the real sort of concern. Another thing that I think is crucial to understand is the.
Lost Work that.
Was going to be a sequel that Tolkien was going to do, which was called The new Shadow, and he mentions this in a couple of his letters, and he says that really the sequel to the Lord of the Rings was supposed to be, in his own words, a future Gondor about one hundred years after the time of Aragorn, where a dark Orc Satanic cult, and he calls it a secret Satanist religion had taken over, using secret societies
to subvert Gondor. And of course there's a lot of parallels between Gondor and Byzantium, and there's a lot of parallels between Numanor and Atlantis, and we'll get to all that when we get to Lord of the Rings. But the idea was that in the Fourth Age there would be the children of Arwin and Aragorn. They would be confronting some new rising evil where the Orcs would have a secret Satanic society seeking to overthrow the legitimate rulers
of Gondor, which will be the seat of Airyworn. And that again speaks to the loss of Christian government, Christian monarchy, Christian imperium, which was the norm throughout the Middle Ages East and West, the Byzantine Empire or the Eastern Roman Catholic Empire, not Roman Catholic in the papal sense, but Roman in the ROMIOI sense Catholic and the universal faith confession sense, which is what of course Orthodox Christians are. And this lost Byzantium, this lost Christian state is a
theme again that is there also. I think this could go back to, you know, Arthur Arturian legends in Britain and British literature, and of course Us and Tolkien and others were members of the Inklings, and many of the Inklings also, as we said, worked in British intelligence. They were also linguists, they were also literary scholars. In fact, Tolkien translated one of the deuteroconomical texts for the Jerusalem Bible, which is a Roman Catholic translation, so he was also
very familiar with the duteroconical text. And I've never seen anybody talk about the deuterocononical influence on the Lord of the Rings, which I've noticed, and I will be discussing that when we get to the trilogy.
But as we pop it off here with your boy Bilbo.
And we'll do Silmarilli into so we'll get into some of that for you nerds. But Bilbo is a relative of the Tukes.
He's half Tuk, and the Tukes are said to be the more.
The less respectable of the Baggin's touch lineage. So he has in his Hobbit DNA a wild side, and that's what Gandolf arrives to appeal to, because we know Gandalf is going to kind of be the main instigator, the sort of handler, right the if we could think of a Henry Kissinger, a major player, but not an evil Kissinger, like a good Kissinger, is essentially what Gandolf is.
But he does operate quite similar to some kind of an intelligence handler to the Dwarfs and to Bilbo. And like most.
Literary works or the Hero's Journey, Bilbo is of course cowardly at first. He's very in love with his security and with his amenities and with his luxuries that he has in hobbiton in the Shire, and he's very cowardly, right, He's afraid. He doesn't want to have anything to do with adventures. He eschees any adventures.
And the Dwarves arrived because.
Of course Gandolf has arranged this scenario and he needs somebody who has the cunning and the archetypal structure of a Hobbits to engage in a subversion and sneaking around Smog.
So he needs just like he will need Frodo and Samuiz.
In The Lord of the Rings to eventually get into Mordor when Saron is distracted right, which is a kind of a espionage secret you know, deflection tactic, because Sarn is focused on the war. This will allow the unsuspecting Hobbits to make their way into Mortar to destroy the Ring. But here we have a similar situation where Bilbo is chosen by Gandalf because Gandalf knows as Bilbo's handler that a burglar such as Bilbo would be perfect for the job.
The Dwarves I forgot. By the way, I forgot the song that they sing is actually the same song they sing in the movie.
I'm not really going to be focusing a lot on the movie. Obviously the book is better than the movie. I don't think the Hobbit movies are terrible, but you know, they're not as interesting as the novel.
But they did sing that song.
I forget exactly what goes, but I thought that was kind of funny. There's quite a bit of actually of like spitting bars in this. I don't know if you noticed, but the goblins they spit bars, so they actually.
Kind of rap, which is what I thought was kind of funny. They're like doing battle raps and disraps in the midst of the adventures.
But the Dwarves are missing their homeland and they wish to have their gold in their homeland back. There's a lot of discussion as to whether Dwarves represent Jews. I think there's some possibility of this. I don't think it's a one to one. I think that what Tolkien was doing, very similar to Lewis in the Space trilogy, was warning about the possibility of an international technocratic threat. That's one of the key prophetic elements that we'll especially see when we get to Lord of the Rings.
And it's not just the all seeing eye sort of symbolism of Salaron. It's also the tech warnings. And in fact, I was surprised in returning to the Hobbit to see some of those tech warnings in the Hobbit. I mean I expected it and I remembered it from Lord of the Rings.
With the genetic engineering of the Aricai and Soromon basically creates a sort of gunpowder.
This kind of stuff.
But I didn't recall that there's a specific discussion that Tolkien has of the goblins creating the weapons of mass destruction. He says, many of the implements that men use in war to kill mass numbers of people, he said, are Goblin inventions. So already in the prologue of the prequel, The Hobbit, we have again even the more esoteric, so to speak, themes of technology contrasted with nature and harmonizing with nature, that synthesis with nature that's at against the tech.
And specifically he says about the Orcs, they really just use tech to dominate and to destroy nature, right, So there's no respect for the natural world.
It's really just seen as a tool of dominance. And that would become very clear.
When we get to, of course, the the traitorous figure of a Saramon.
So Gandolf Leaves runs.
Gandolf, as we said, is this sort of wise archetype of this sage. He's also a kind of a Kissinger, sort of an intelligence handler figure who has an immense amount of knowledge. But he's also a member of a secret order, and this comes up later on. We know that he's a member of the order of the Secret Fire. He's a keeper of the Flame of arn Ore, and Gandalf will be consistently associated with.
What with fire.
And this is important because the different wizard in this world, whether it's Ratigast or whether it's Saramon, or rather whether it's Gandolf right, they're elemental in their associations. Gandalf is associated with fire, the flame of Warner. They keep it the secret secret flame. Ratigas the Brown is associated with earth animals, et cetera. He speaks to them, hence the Brown. So you have Gandalf the White. He's also when Gandalf is sort of reborn as Gandalf the White, it's through
the White Flame that he's reborn. Saramon is airror and breath. He engages in weather control. He builds towers up into the air to the sky, and he eventually wants to become Samon the mini colored right, so he wants to master all of the elements and have all the powers. He is very much an intellect, which again intellect is the higher the faculties again closer associated with air or mind.
Voice.
He uses a very hypnotic voice and magic power that he has through his words and so that's all sologain air and utilizes mind control, right in the case of when he mind controls the King of Rohan. So there are then these elemental associations that I think are necessary.
And again this is not surprising because, as I said, one of the key elements here is Neoplatonism and the neoplatonic association that they're associated with, you know, classical sort of magical texts, and that's something that I don't hear anyone else talking about. Also, by the way, when we get into the Simmlarillion, we'll see the neoplatonic idea of the creation myth with the Valar and others. Right, that's also part of this neoplatonic structure that undergirds both the Space.
Trilogy and Lord of the Rings.
And perhaps you could argue as well Narnia, because of course Oslin sings reality into existence, and we'll see that with Illuvitar's creation of Middle Earth as well.
Now, to get back to.
The Lord of the Rings, the Dwarves are seeking their homeland, so I think there is probably an analogy again thinking of World War two right to some elements of the history of the Jews. I don't think that Tolkien is intentionally trying to be some sort of a Zionists think. More so, he's concerned with the fact that the future technocratic antichrist sort of power that would rise in the world.
And again Lewis is making this point with Volume three of the Space Trilogy is something that would be against all of the race, is playing them against one another, and that's exactly what we see Suron and Saramon doing so. The dwarves are eager to get back to their homeland. They're very interested in jewels and gold, again suggesting certain Middle Eastern peoples. We have a introduction of the dragon, which is the archetype begin from scripture of the Serpent
that invades Eden. In the story, of course, we know eventually the Hobbit is a kind of a shame of the shot is a kind of Eden, and it eventually is threatened by the evil that's rising and mort or the Sorcerer the necro answer, who I think we will discover is Suron. But here the dragon is immediately associated with He devours men and dwarfs right. The dragon is essentially a completely malevolent force with no goodwill or intentions,
and is a pure force of destruction. But it's also connected with the association that it has to gold, because for whatever reason, dragons have to sort of uh, you know, make they crib and a bunch of gold, right, gold all over my crib, Gold.
All over my bed, Isn't that right, Jamie? And so.
The story here then is how to get back into the mountain. We have this prophecy, as we'll learn later, of the return of the King of Foreign Oakenshield with the return of the King and of the Mountain, mirroring again the return of the King of Aragorn at the end of The Lord of the Rings. So again there's a lot of parallels to the later trilogy.
But again remember Tolkien was himself intelligence.
He was for two years working in intelligence, espionage cryptography at Bletchley Park. And I think that's a key element that many people have not understood about this trilogy or about the books, because that would obviously influence what he's doing. That's why he's so interested in not just language and linguistics, but symbology and symbolism, ruins, et cetera, and history itself, Nordic history.
Ancient Slavonic myths, ancient.
Nordic tales, all of that plays a role in influencing this series. So as they embark on their journey, we find them in engaging in the standard sort of fantasy adventure stuff that you would expect a lot of this, by the way, it comes out of mythology too. There's
references to trolls the elves. But one thing I thought that was interesting was as they embark on the journey and they engage in these sort it's very similar to Odysseus, right, So when Odysseus is on his journey, he's constantly sort of tempted with giants and battling them, or when he's you know, tempted by the sirens to be you know, distracted from his course.
So quite a few elements of classical.
Literature kind of pop pop up here, whether it's Virgil or whether it's Homer. You can see a lot of parallels to ancient Western literature as well. But the elves are also engaged in, if you didn't catch it, a vast intelligence network. In fact, it's even explained that the elves have intelligence before anyone else. They know everything that's
going on. They even sing songs about Bilbo on his journey, and Bilbo doesn't even know how they knew this, presumably maybe through Gandalf, but again, they know everything that's going on. They don't exactly know when they get to the woodland elves, but the earlier elves that they meet before when they go to Rivendel, right, the el Ron and his elves are singing songs about them, and they have the intelligence necessary to decode the map.
That is a map drawn up by Thorn's relatives.
And l Rond is also again a kind of wise sage, wise man handler. He's spoken of as knowing extensively various languages, symbols, runes.
Et cetera. So very much like Tolkien himself.
I think Tolkien saw himself as an el Rond or as a kind of a Gandolf character, again being a master linguist, being a translator and working for British intelligence at Bletchley Park.
So also interesting.
Is times, dates and seasons that come into play when they mentioned during's day. You know, this is a world where there are ritual holidays, and those ritual holidays are connected to the sun and the moon, the signs, and the seasons. This is obviously part of liturgy because in Genesis we have the statement that God set the luminaries
in the sky for times and seasons. So in a way, the planets and the celestial spheres are like a giant clock, and so the whole universe is sort of a clock that at certain conjunctions has a religious connotation with it. In terms of the religious calendar and the Orthodox Church, we have the Orthodox Church calendar. Of course, Tolkien himself, being a traditional Catholic who was a big fan of the Latin Mass, he also understood this same type of
a world view. The reality and life is liturgical, and that's why Duran's Day is really important, because there's a conjunction that's going to occur between the sun and the moon at the same time it said, and there will be a thrush who is you know, knocking his acorns or whatever, And that's a sign that it's an opening for this doorway. At other times it doesn't open. We also find them encountering rock giants or titans. This could
have a reference to Cabbalistic mythology. Of course, we have the character Gollum himself could also have some degree of Cobbalistic.
Reference or influence.
I mean, I know that in the story the name qualam is because he sort of needs to clear his throat. Let me clear my throat, right, But it's also could be a double reference to the Jewish medieval myth of the Gollum, which is the mind controlled entity that is used by the sorcerer or the wizard to do his bidding. And that makes sense too because if you think about it, really he Gollum is essentially a multiple personality, right. He's possessed.
He has a split personality. He's always talking to himself, talking to the precious. He has this dark, demonic side, and he has this sort of normal, almost remnant of who he really was before he became this sort of goblin creature.
But again, Gollum is MPD D I D.
And there's something else again that I'm gonna I will bring up when we get to you know, Lord of the Rings and what's what's the name is it? I'm threw wheel, which is the sword that has to be put back together again. That's that exists in like you know, classic mythology and that kind of stuff ar thory in mythology with the Lady the Lake, but the Titans again out of mythology, the magical swords and objects that are necessary.
We think about this as sort of crazy in the modern world, but Orthodox Church we still think this way. We still think in this pre modern way because we think of objects like relics, holy objects, icons, et cetera.
We still think in this way. In our church. We still think in a liturgical way. And the Lord of the rings world, Middle.
Earth resonates with us because it is a universe re impregnated with meaning and mystery and magic, so to speak.
And by magic I just mean simply the spiritual world.
And when we eventually gets to under the mountain on this journey, and you know, Bilbo is separated from the rest of the of the crew when they're battling the goblins, we have that statement that goblins no technology, a Tolkien says, and they created the machinery that the humans use nowadays to kill at a mass scale. It's almost like Tolkien perhaps believes that the technology that we have perhaps comes from the demonic world. It's an influence that we got
from the demonic world. And this does parallel with Genesis six. Right now, keep in mind, we had just seen him talking about the Titans Rock Giants having the sort of battle when the Hobbits or Exhumei when Bilbo and the dwarves are on their journey and they have to take a different path through the mountain, and then it moves from the Titans to immediately discussing the goblins that know technology and helped to create the implements of war human WMDs.
What a wild statement again, as if the technology that we have comes from this ancient almost prediluvian world before the flood world.
Perhaps it was an association.
With Tolkien and the pre Deluvian and you know, Ananaki Nephelin type of world where we had things like Titans, which by the way, the deuter canonical text mentioned about four or five times actual references to the.
Titans or the Giants.
So the Deutero canon actually confirms that Genesis six is about humans and angels creating some strange race, which again parallels again because the Orocai are an abominable, interspliced genetic
experiment that are creative. But as we said, Gollum is essentially possessed because he's addicted to the Ring, and the Ring recalls, as we know, the Ring of Geige's which is book two of Plato's Republic, and this is a story that's told in order to introduce the idea that really having power is destructive unless you have virtue or you have limits on that power. Would be a way to act with that power in a virtuous or a good way, versus using your power in some nefarious, villainous way.
And so in the story of the Ring of Guigee's if the guy has the ability to be invisible while he goes and he bangs the queen and kills the king, right, and so the point is that without virtue, raw power like that will rot the soul. But also the Ring of Power is symbolic in many other ways, and we'll get into more of that when we get into the Lord of the Rings, where the focus turns to the Ring itself as the sort of it's sort of the
silent antagonist of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But it's also three sixty, right, So the the Ring is something that's three to sixty and it's all directions. It's not four directions, it's every direction. So in every direction, the Ring represents total dominance of time and space.
And this, I think is.
Even referenced obliquely in the beginning of the Silmarillion. We'll get to all that later, but there is a pull again not just from ancient classical texts of the West like Homer, but also from Plato's Republic again, which tells us that it is neoplatonic influence as well. He wouldn't be pulling from the Republic if there weren't also perhaps neoplatonic influence when we get to Elluvatar creating and the blar. Now,
magical technology is what we're talking about here. So the Ring has ability to also sort of transcend time and space. You become invisible, and we'll know we'll find out later
that it has other powers associated with Sarn. But just like the Palaeer Stones Petertioll's Pallaeer, there is the idea of espionage and spying and perhaps the elves, if I recall, I think the elves have a relationship to the Palanteer Stones, and I know the elves have a relationship to the rings too, But ultimately you could say a magical technology for espionage to rule Middle Earth.
So it's exactly like the world that we live in today.
Again, super prophetic, prophetic, and I think Tolkien and Lewis again see as Lewis's based Trilogy, Volume three. They knew about the plan to use technology influenced by demonic powers to create a technocratic total surveillance state, to enslave the earth and to deepop and I think both Tolkien and Lewis are warning about that. That's what's so amazing about these prophetic literary works. We also have some older references to thinking of the world, not just in terms of
by the way I mentioned there's a magic sword. Obviously, we have Glamdring and or Chris, the Goblin cleavers, Beat and Biter, and they're magical Elvin's swords. If you think about it, you mean, I know this. There's actually a reference to magic sword and the Maccabees. We'll talk about that when we get to the Lord of the Rings.
But again, Dudo kanonical influence that I've never heard anybody talk about oliphants also coming out of the Deutero canon, time and space being transcendent with tech, but also references to races, the races of Middle Earth, including the dwarfs, the elves, the men, races of abominable things or things that shouldn't exist, like the Rocai, the Goblins, and the orcs. Clearly they have a reference to the demonic. I think they absolutely represent demonic entities. But we also have amongst
the natural world the animal races or the species. Right the noble race of the Eagles of the Mountains is led by the Lord of the Eagles. Bayorn, is this sort of pre modern sort of skin changer, skin walker type of character who is not really a magical being so to speak. He's more of a natural being who has a of a natural magic so to speak. He's a force of nature, perhaps a Lord of the Bears or something like this, but he knows and speaks the
tongue of bears. This is a kin almost to Narnia, where the animals have a language as well, and he comes from a time quote before the Giants or before the Titans, so he's sort of a preternatural figure, perhaps like Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. We'll get to that debate
later on. But he does speak the tongue of bears, which is fascinating because a recent Japanese spurg scientist Dude, did multiple years of research on birds and is basically proven that birds have a language and they have actually different specific sounds like fifteen to twenty different sounds for specific things like warning of a snake or warning.
Of this other predator or food.
It's a fascinating thesis that he's presented in a series of videos.
I'll try to remember to link that below.
But I thought that was neat because, well, that's kind of what Tolkien and Lewis were saying, is it's interest that the animals have a language. Perhaps there's mysteries of nature the Tolkien and Lewis ners that we haven't even understood yet, right that we have that we're just now beginning to perhaps discover. But Bayron is also immediately associated with the bear. He is a bearer man or instead of a werewolf, he's kind of a bear wolf perhaps
man bear pig. And he keeps bees, which is fascinating because he's again one of these creatures that helps them on their journey, who's immediately associated and connected to nature. And you get this theme throughout both Narnia and Lord of the Rings that there's a battle between what's natural to man and the natural world and man's synthesis and harmony, which was originally there in Eden even to not eat
the animals before the fall. Right now, that relationship is allowed by God after the fall for human sustenance in our sort of fallen biological but originally death was not even natural or needed for the animal world. And so there is this return to Eden theme that's constant throughout, and the rightful rulership amongst man, just like amongst the animal kingdom.
The animals have.
A Lord of the Eagles, right, a Lord of the Bearers or whatever. Likewise, where's the king of the men. Well, we know that Christ is of course prophet, priest and king, and certainly that would be part of Lewis's symbology. But of course Aragorn er Strider is the rightful king by the time of the Lord of the Rings. But even here we have a rightful king in Thorn Oakenshield, who
will return to be the king under the mountain. Bajorn again is a character I think presaging a kind of Tom Bombadil, right, And this is everybody's favorite mysterious character in Lord of the Rings. Tom Bombadil and Goldberry. What are they? Who they represent? We'll get to that one
we get to the Lord of the Rings. But progressing, as we said, we talked about the elemental wizards, Gandalf representing fire, the flame of Ron or the keeper of the Secret Fire, Ratagas being the wizard associated with earth
and animals, Samon being air. So you have earth, fire, air, and then water, which is fascinating because there are references to the blue wizards, so this lets us know that he is intentionally doing the fourfold elemental structure, and then perhaps also the ether or something maybe that's Soromon is something like that as well, or Saron, who knows. But the Blue Wizards, we don't know a lot about them. They were just kind of referenced in passing Alatar and Palando.
They are the unknown wizards of the East, and they are then.
Blue associated with water. So that's the four elements right there.
And we begin in the first half to have a reference to the necromancer right in the south and his Dark Tower. So we have at this point the idea that there are good towers. There is originally the Tower of Sarromon Gondor has its towers, et cetera, which is that as kind of Byzantium, but we also have a inversion of that, which is the Dark Tower, and that of course would definitely influence Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
Stephen King was open about that.
He said, when I wrote A Gunslinger, it was you know westerns I liked, and Lord of the Rings, well, the towers are inversions of one another, right, and so likewise you have the Tree, the White Tree of Gondor. And originally there was going to be in the Satanic Cult episode that he never wrote the New Shadow, there was going to be a dark tree of evil, right, or perhaps referencing the Tree.
Of an Aledge good and evil, something like that.
But he said that it was going to be an evil tree in the Hearts of men. So perhaps not even necessarily a literal tree, we don't know, but that's what's in the background, of course, in Lewis's or Shumi and Tolkien's mind here. So the other thing I thought was interesting too is, as you might imagine, we're going to see a obvious progress, not just in the humility of the characters, right, because one of the key points of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit is that
humility is really what wins against evil. Evil has no humility. Satan his followers their chief sin is and begins in pride, and the humble Hobbit is a being that you are absolutely unsuspecting, right, you would never expect that this sort of cowardly, you know, luxury loving creature would venture all the way into smogs, you know, crib or all the way into mortar.
And that's exactly the genius.
Of Gandal's plans in both stories, both adventures, and at the same time, it's a learning curve, an ascetic struggle for Bilbo and for Frodo and Sam as they go on this asthetic journey, because throughout this journey they are craving the amenities of the shire, right, second breakfast, elevensies, they want their dainties, their treats, right, they want their pipe weed, they want their warm bed, and they're constantly
going through the struggle of overcoming the passions. And in fact, people were telling me, as I mentioned I was going to do this that a lot of Orthodox priests and people have recommended reading Lord of the Rings throughout Lent because you kind of go on that journey with Bilbo, with Frodo and Sam. And I remember the first time I've read Lord of the Rings, and you know, when they're just struggling through the marshes and they're so miserable.
And wet and hungry.
You could almost feel that, you know, back when I read that, when I was in you know, six or seventh grade, I was just like.
Immersed in that.
And I think that's telling because you never forget that imagery, and just like you never forget when the Ring raids show up, right. It's just powerful, creepy imagery when you're a kid reading that, and then now as you're in adult to reflect on it, and you see even in
your lifetime as a kind of a journey. Think about your lifetime like Bilbo or Frodo's journey right towards the end, towards the final battle with death, the final confrontation, and overcoming the passions, because the Ring, as you know, essentially excites all of those passions selfishness, hatred, anger, and the more that you use it, the more.
It takes you over.
Just like galum, so will Bilbo Begalam, will Frodo Begalam, etcetera. Right, they have to overcome that temptation to pleasure and to worship and love the self. And that's really what Souron is sort of offering here. Now this concludes the first half of the Hobbit. There's a lot more to say about the Hobbit. We're going to do part two very soon. I'm almost done with it. We have just a couple more hours left as we write it and listen to
it on the road. Yes, I've read it. I read it twice when I was a kid, so I don't feel like I'm cheating listening to it when we're driving for eight hours a day.
And so yes, we will get to more of this, and then we will get deep.
Into the lore of this big bad baby. This bohemos here, which is probably the best version that I've seen.
I also have.
I have I think four different versions. This one I like a lot because it has all the Alan Lee art in it. But also there are other, you know, good versions that I think come from the What's His Christopher his Son's editions, et cetera. So it's gonna be a fun series. This is the kicking it off, first half of the Hobbit. Hopefully you enjoyed this. I will also bring on people like Tim Gordon. Tim Gordon, for example, has done courses where he teaches symbology in the Lord.
Of the Rings.
He has a lot of interesting Christian symbology that he brings in Prophet, priest and King play a role in his analysis, so we're gonna hear his take on it. It's gonna be, I think, a good deep dive series. And I want you guys also underneath to comment on things that I missed, because I know a lot of you guys are nerd of the Rings people. A lot
of you guys have read it many times. You've probably read more than me on this, so fill me in on details that I'm not aware of other connections and associations. I know that even the Elvin lore with some of y'all Chad nerds goes super deep. Some of y'all nerds can even freaking speak Elvis. Probably all I can do is the taking the Horbits, Tuie and God, which is a pretty good legalist, I would say. Otherwise, hit like and share. Tell me what I missed below, and remember to head on over.
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