Discussion of The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter Eight

Join Cam and Maggie for (hopefully) the last ever appearance of Tom Bombadil. Oh no wait, Frodo summons him back the second we get rid of him. We struggle through another chapter of nonsense words and third person singing, but this time it is punctuated by bits of action, intriguing symbolism, and – Dementors? Luckily, we just rewatched Prisoner of Azkaban, so we’re in a good position to catch the thirty thousand parallels between this chapter and that book. Oh boy. Cam finds some more evidence that Goldberry is a ghost and Maggie breaks down some of the surreal nature description that Tolkien does here while constantly referencing The Evil Dead (lots of fog and severed arms!) We also work through the many Tom / Gandalf comparisons and try to identify the real Daddy of Middle-earth. Cam stretches himself and attempts to analyze a dream, and he even manages to go a whole episode without mentioning Winnie the Pooh. The conversation grinds to a halt so we can appreciate Tom’s wonderful, portly old horse – Fatty Lumpkin. And then finally, finally, the chapter ends with the journey truly beginning. We celebrate and do some post-mortem on the three-chapter Tom Bombadil saga that derailed the entire book’s sense of momentum and urgency. Does Tom redeem himself with this appearance?

In our Second Breakfast segment, Cam leads us on a jolly philosophical excursion inspired by the newly released 4K versions of The Lord of the Rings. Topics include: when is art finished? When should we stop paying attention to revisions? What is the definitive version of a work of art? We work through these ideas with unkind references to Star Wars, as well as more charitable comments about Saw, It, The Hateful Eight, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

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