*We are the guests on this week’s That’s What I’m Tolkien About with Mary Clay Watt! Check out her show – it’s wonderful and we had a great time! Our episode comes out Tuesday, here’s the link: https://feed.podbean.com/tolkienaboutpod/feed.xml*

When Tolkien is on his game, he’s simply the best. This chapter is pitch perfect LOTR, an efficient and provocative exploration of Gollum and Sauron that gives us a whole lot to talk about. Our long-standing theories about seen/unseen and the connection between fire/enlightenment both crop up in Gollum’s characterization. Sauron inherits qualities from the Black Riders and Smaug and then evolves into his own unique sort of cancerous evil. Scenes from Fellowship and The Hobbit are recreated in heartbreaking echoes. There’s a wonderful undercurrent of religious imagery throughout the chapter too, full of subversive insights into prayer and leadership and the difference between faith and trust that is earned over time and validated by good works. The mists come back, Dante comes back, Les Mis and Harry Potter and A Christmas Carol drop in for visits. Cam brings in some Descartes too and argues that Gollum is the “first mover” of Middle-earth as we try to parse out the hierarchy of this small, uneasy new fellowship.

In our Second Breakfast, inspired by our recent move, we discuss the absence of home and its effect on the surviving fellowship, specifically focusing on Frodo. We chart the hobbit’s long road so far, saying goodbye to great homes and lesser homes alike while constantly losing companions. Mentors, friends, allies, shelter – the ideas themselves become unmoored at some point and Frodo very easily could have become Gollum. We discuss Frodo and Sam’s unique perspective on death and the hopeless nobility of their quest, before zooming out to consider LOTR as a story of struggle and attempting to identify the most effective tools Tolkien uses to hype up his villains while forever kneecapping his heroes.

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