Speaker 2: All right, what's up.
Speaker 1: We're on the road, and not Cormack McCarthy's the road.
We will not be chomping on anybody's thighs or butts.
Speaker 2: We are on the road.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Now is the perfect time to return to it, just because.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: So we're going to start with the first half of
the Hobbits today.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Better ascetic struggle than.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: So Tolkien wrote that for his.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: For a couple of years.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: We've covered, such as C. S.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: But both of those writers.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: World War one and World War two world. So there's
a lot of.
Speaker 1: Negative attitudes, a lot of black pilling going on after
World War One and.
Speaker 2: World War Two.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: He'll help us.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Of course we'll get to that later on. That's not
the subject really of the.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Lost Work that.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: But as we pop it off here with your boy Bilbo.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: He's half Tuk, and the Tukes are said to be
the more.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: But he does operate quite similar to some kind of
an intelligence handler to the Dwarfs and to Bilbo. And
like most.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: And the Dwarves arrived because.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: So he needs just like he will need Frodo and Samuiz.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: The Dwarves I forgot. By the way, I forgot the
song that they sing is actually the same song they
sing in the movie.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: But they did sing that song.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 1: With the genetic engineering of the Aricai and Soromon basically
creates a sort of gunpowder.
Speaker 2: This kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: It's really just seen as a tool of dominance. And
that would become very clear.
Speaker 1: When we get to, of course, the the traitorous figure
of a Saramon.
Speaker 2: So Gandolf Leaves runs.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: What with fire.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Voice.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Trilogy and Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Now, to get back to.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: All over my bed, Isn't that right, Jamie? And so.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: But again remember Tolkien was himself intelligence.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Ancient Slavonic myths, ancient.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: So quite a few elements of classical.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: That is a map drawn up by Thorn's relatives.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Et cetera. So very much like Tolkien himself.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: So also interesting.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Reference or influence.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: But again, Gollum is MPD D I D.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: We still think in this way. In our church. We
still think in a liturgical way. And the Lord of
the rings world, Middle.
Speaker 1: Earth resonates with us because it is a universe re
impregnated with meaning and mystery and magic, so to speak.
Speaker 2: And by magic I just mean simply the spiritual world.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Perhaps it was an association.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Titans or the Giants.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: And this, I think is.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: So it's exactly like the world that we live in today.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Of this other predator or food.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating thesis that he's presented in a series
of videos.
Speaker 2: I'll try to remember to link that below.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: The animals have.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Blue associated with water. So that's the four elements right there.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Stephen King was open about that.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Of an Aledge good and evil, something like that.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly the genius.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: And wet and hungry.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Immersed in that.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: It takes you over.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: And so yes, we will get to more of this,
and then we will get deep.
Speaker 1: Into the lore of this big bad baby. This bohemos here,
which is probably the best version that I've seen.
Speaker 2: I also have.
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Of the Rings.
Speaker 1: 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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