19. "The Eagle and the Sceptre" (S2E3)

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_09]: Hmm?

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_02]: Ah!

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_09]: Hmm.

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_09]: Podcastica!

[00:00:06] [SPEAKER_09]: Celebrimbor claims these rings will give us the power to solve our dilemma.

[00:00:14] [SPEAKER_09]: I felt it my duty as a dwarf to bring you his offer.

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_08]: Is that all you've come to say?

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_08]: No.

[00:00:31] [SPEAKER_09]: What else?

[00:00:32] [SPEAKER_09]: That I am your son.

[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_09]: I'm hard as you, stubborn as you, as crusted with pride and, uh, I was wrong.

[00:00:56] [SPEAKER_09]: I was wrong to disrespect you.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_09]: And, uh, I'm sorry.

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_09]: You look terrible.

[00:01:17] [SPEAKER_09]: Miners of calloused fists, their punches land hard.

[00:01:25] [SPEAKER_09]: Wait till your children grow up.

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_09]: Father, um, this power in Eregion, I don't trust it.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_09]: You told me once the fate of elves is decided by wiser minds than our own.

[00:01:53] [SPEAKER_09]: That to try and alter it, to try and cheat death, might lead to an even greater catastrophe.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_09]: I keep wondering, what if you were right?

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Greetings, spider fighters, acrobatic elves and deal-making dwarves.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to our podcast.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Anwen.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Penny.

[00:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is the Cast of the Rings, episode 19.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_03]: In this episode, we're going to be covering season two, episode three of the Rings of Power, The Eagle and the Scepter.

[00:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And settle in, Penny, because I think it's going to be a long one.

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So much happened in this episode.

[00:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: It's unbelievable.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I really enjoyed this episode.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And I, like we were saying before we started recording, so much happened that I had to take a break.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I had to watch like half the episode and then like think about it for a while and then go back and watch the second half.

[00:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: They also do a thing a little bit like the end of Return of the King movie where there's always a lot of endings.

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Like one of the threads will finish and you'll be like, oh, that's got to be the end of the episode.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_00]: You expect it to go to black in the credits.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's another whole story.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And this happened with this one.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, wait, that's not the end.

[00:03:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, another massive thing is about to happen.

[00:03:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Twice.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It's true.

[00:03:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I kept expecting it to go to black.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And especially after the eagle flew away, I was like, all right, that's the end of the episode.

[00:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Surely, surely.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_00]: With the music all sweeping up and building.

[00:04:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's really cool.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Back to Celebrimbor's Forge.

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, it's all happening.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Fantastic.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So what did you think overall?

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Apart from it being densely packed?

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was great.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Just great.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_03]: So many things are in motion now and I totally understand why the first three episodes were released together.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Although I can't imagine watching all three of them like back to back because they're so much more.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_03]: There's so much going on by the time you get to the end of the third one.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I think I would be dizzy and lost if I had tried to do that.

[00:04:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it would be exhausting.

[00:04:46] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, I would just love to see some kind of stats on how people watch it.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when they first get those three, because there will be some who sat down the moment it was released and watched all three.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: If I wasn't podcasting and didn't have to space them out in order to talk about them fresh in between each one,

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I think I would have enjoyed one a night for three nights.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Would have been really cool.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It takes a little bit, but not too long to wait.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you kind of can see it as a whole in those first three episodes.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they did cover everything.

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So I really liked it and I think it's great that they dropped those three, even though it's made it a little bit of work for us.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: But that's all good.

[00:05:22] [SPEAKER_03]: That's all right. We'll get caught up and it'll be fine.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I loved it too.

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was great.

[00:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So much happened and there's something about episode three of eight episodes where it's just like, yeah, let's go.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00]: We have got all the setup done and now let's start with the real action.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that. It's really great.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Very different from those types of shows that have 24 episodes per season.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_00]: With eight, you can kind of see the arc early on.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: You can go, okay, well, after the next episode we're halfway.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So we know we have to have covered a lot of ground and they don't mess around.

[00:05:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's like with a classic play structure.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_03]: We have completed Act One.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And now it's what they call the rising action, if you're in a literature class.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Cool. Let's go.

[00:06:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Love it.

[00:06:12] [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[00:06:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to give people a quick note from last week.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned that when Calibrimbor makes Durin's door, the door that we see in the Fellowship of the Ring with a theildon on it that lights up in moonlight,

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_00]: that he made that with a dwarf called Navi.

[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And I said that he wasn't in this show, but there is a Navi.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it's the Navi, but I ended up watching it with subtitles, I think, actually after I'd done my notes for last week.

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I didn't realize that the dwarf who's the Delve Master, who we've seen a couple of times now, is named Navi.

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know whether he's going to be the Navi that makes the door and whether they're going to show that or whether it's one of those nods where they just use a name that we know from the lore.

[00:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But it is pretty cool and it would be awesome if we do get to see that because I kind of like, well, they've already shown us the a theildon.

[00:07:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So let's see whether they have time to put that in. There's a lot of other stuff that's got to happen.

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_00]: What would you like to start off with?

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I want to talk about Beric.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_03]: So it occurred to me that Beric, who is an example of this special kind of Numenorean horse that bonds with its rider and is smarter than other horses and stuff, is like Lassie.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Did you ever have the classic black and white television show Lassie?

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: We sure did.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Timmy's in the well.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_03]: It's such a corny, wholesome, sweet old show. At least my memory of it is like, you know, it's just mostly about a little kid who's constantly getting into physical danger and Lassie has to go get help.

[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Beric is like Lassie. Beric is like, no, Timmy's stuck in the well. Don't leave.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And at the end of season one, and they showed a little bit of it again, Elendil goes through this like, no, Beric, you have to come home with me. He's gone.

[00:08:15] [SPEAKER_03]: And Valendil is like, Beric doesn't think he's gone.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And it's this really melodramatic scene where Elendil has like tears behind his eyes and then he finally just lets Beric run free.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_03]: And so we pick up now with Beric and Beric runs into the woods.

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_03]: First, Beric has his own badass fight with a bunch of orcs where he like hoof kicks an orc into a tree branch and skewers it.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, I don't know. I was just so impressed with Beric's fighting abilities.

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And then he goes into the Black Forest or whatever they call it where nobody escapes and he finds Isildur like almost immediately.

[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Isildur is like tied up, but like he looks fine. Like he looked healthy and well fed and not like a spider had been like sucking his blood or anything.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And he was kind of awake and he was like, hey, Beric.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_03]: And then he just like gets that orcs knife and manages to get himself free.

[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_03]: They have another fight scene with the spiders. That was really disturbing and upsetting.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Giant spiders are scary as anything.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I actually said out loud, oh, are they filming this part in Australia?

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Because Australia is known for having just terrifying spiders.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And then they leave and he meets up with the Isildur meets up with Estrid and they.

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And then he gets captured by these like wild men and then Isildur eventually rescues him.

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I. Oh, also the scene where Isildur frees himself from the spider web and that other orc like falls over on him and then he's like, oh, he's dead.

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm OK. And then he's not dead. Was so walking dead.

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, oh, my God, it's a zombie. Run, run for the zombie. Headshot, headshot. Like, oh, my God.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Always double tap.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And I was I was like, wait, how long has Isildur been in that spider cave?

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_03]: It seems like from what we saw that Beric finds him like within a day or two. Right.

[00:10:31] [SPEAKER_03]: But when Isildur and Beric leave there, they meet Estrid and Estrid, we find out later, has taken the mark of Adar.

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_03]: So she's one of the humans who was captured by the orcs and enslaved and then freed because of the deal with Halbrand.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_03]: So that means that this meeting between Isildur and Estrid has to be enough time after the explosion of Mount Doom for everybody to leave the pyroclastic cloud, for Halbrand and Galadriel to go all the way back to Oregion, for Halbrand to heal, to work with Celebrimbor, for Galadriel to figure him out.

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And then he goes all the way back to the Southlands and is captured by and tortured by Adar for however long and then released.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_03]: So what is that? Eight weeks at least?

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I got it more that maybe she had been enslaved before and then escaped.

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that all of the branding and the enslavement of the people happened before the explosion.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I kind of thought, because it's very mysterious with her, like when, how did she escape? We don't know that.

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know that it was when Halbrand released everybody.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_00]: It could have been way before that.

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's some other story about how she got the brand and then how she escaped.

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't strike me, that's for sure.

[00:12:02] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't go, what just happened?

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I kind of thought it was quick as well.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was certainly, he didn't seem like he was in that cave for long and he didn't seem like he was spending too long, you know, day or two maybe coming out of the out of water towards where the forest turned green again.

[00:12:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think she's still a bit mysterious to me.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_00]: But I get what you're saying. If she was released only when Halbrand said, let the people go, because we never saw her in the camp.

[00:12:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, she's a completely new character.

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:12:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I just was like, it's a little wibbly wobbly timey-wimey magic going on here.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a little, okay, I'm going to look away.

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a fantasy show.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's the storyline so we'll let it go.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_03]: It bothered me.

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I am glad that Isildur goes back and rescues Beric from those horrible people.

[00:12:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Although I don't think it naturally follows that people who had been enslaved by Adar and then released are all like bad people who want to serve Adar, right?

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, if I had been a person in that situation and got captured and my choice was horrible death or taking the brand of Adar, I probably would have taken it.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And then when I left, I would have been like, well, I got to work with other humans.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, thank God I'm not a slave of this Orc King anymore.

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if I would then be like, we have to all serve Adar or whatever.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_03]: It's weird. Those people are weird.

[00:13:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm trying to remember.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Did they actually say we definitely serve him?

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I think Theo came up to them to say, oh, I also serve.

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_00]: But they were sort of questioning him and whether his mark was actually of Adar.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Are they really for him or just ruffians?

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, maybe they're just ruffians.

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_03]: They definitely have some attitude about the people who are in Pelargir.

[00:13:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Is that how you say it?

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Pelargir?

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_03]: They think those people are like, think they're better than them or something like that just because they have food.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Not clear if the people in Pelargir would have said like, oh, you were previously enslaved, but come to Pelargir with us now.

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe.

[00:14:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I do kind of like that they seem to have a lot of different groups of people just wandering around being affected by what's happening in the main stories.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Because quite often in these types of shows, you just have the main story people.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's quite cool to see that there's an effect on everybody who lives around everywhere, which is kind of cool.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And I did notice with that group of ruffians as well.

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I only noticed it actually on my third watch that they have a woman and a baby with them as well.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I didn't notice.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel like they're kind of trying to humanize all of the different groups of people.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Because, yeah, not that having a woman and a baby with you means that you're a nice person.

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But it does kind of give a little bit more of a depth or perspective to that group rather than just being a bunch of ruffian men.

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:15:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I enjoy Beric as a character.

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope we get more of like Beric being super horse and having somewhat, you know, extra abilities.

[00:15:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Lord of the Rings for me, one of my favorite characters was always Shadowfax.

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Even though it's not like Shadowfax talks or anything.

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I just was always fascinated by the idea of a horse that was sort of, I don't know, psychologically bonded to its rider.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And Shadowfax is also like magically fast and strong and things like that.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_03]: It seems like maybe these Numenorean horses might be similar.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And I would love to have a horse that was like extra special, lassie horse like that.

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_03]: That would be cool.

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're pretty amazing.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Shadowfax was one of the Merus, which is a magical horse.

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And I couldn't find on first glance any link between the Merus and the Numenorean horses, so there might be.

[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So if anyone knows that, please let us know.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_00]: But I love the idea too that they're spiritually bonded.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just, yeah, I hope Beric stays around.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_00]: They mentioned him really early on.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Remember that first couple of episodes were like, who's Beric?

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Why wouldn't he let Beric go?

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And then we get to see him in this.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I hope he sticks around.

[00:16:32] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of action to come up, so hopefully he makes it through.

[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_00]: It's really cool.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And what did you think of the spiders apart from looking like they're from Australia?

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_03]: They were really, really scary.

[00:16:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And I thought the spider fight scene was like slightly goofy because I've never seen a spider that big.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And when Isildur was trying to like fight it off by holding its like tusk things, which I know have a specific name and I don't remember what it is.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_03]: That looked a little like 80s horror movie to me, a little Nightmare on Elm Street-ish.

[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_03]: But the rest of the spider fight was really scary.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Anytime something can like drop off the ceiling on you is so scary.

[00:17:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And they're in a dark cave, so it's not like they're easy to spot.

[00:17:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And there were so many eggs.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It was terrifying.

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's always that spidery sound that they do that's like kind of dry and rustly, but also a little bit squelchy and kind of ticky, ticky, ticky.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_00]: That's just, oh, yeah, I thought it was super scary.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was so well done.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's very Tolkien.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_00]: He likes his spiders, does Tolkien.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's heaps of them in Middle Earth and they're all really huge.

[00:17:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Some of those spiders are descended from the giant Ungoliant, who was a Maya way, way back in the day.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_00]: In the early days, she was one of those powerful spirits and she took the form of a giant spider and served Morgoth, that first evil dude.

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And after she destroyed, she was actually the one that destroyed the two trees.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So the two beautiful golden and silver trees that we saw at the start of season one.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_00]: She destroyed the two trees and then she went to Middle Earth after that.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And she met a bunch of spiders there and she mated with them and devoured them and had many offspring, including Shelob.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: So Shelob is the one that bears Frodo in Return of the King.

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And then Shelob had many offspring of her own and they spread all throughout the Mountains of Shadow, which is around what eventually becomes Mordor.

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So there are just heaps of them around.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And the interesting thing I thought, and they did show this as well, it's really true to the writing, is that the spiders that we see in Tolkien's world are different to spiders that we know, not just in size.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_00]: But they've actually got compound eyes.

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So normally insects have compound eyes, but spiders don't.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And Shelob's eyes are clustered.

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: They describe them as being clustered, many-windowed and with a thousand facets.

[00:19:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And then also Shelob is described as having a sting and stinging, which has been taken to mean like a sting of some insects.

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_00]: But normal spiders don't have this.

[00:19:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So either Tolkien didn't know that much about spiders and how they worked or he did and he purposely made them different and more kind of combined with insects to be more scary.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It's really cool.

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was super gross and scary.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And always, always in any kind of horror type thing, when you see the baby spiders or the baby creatures, there's always going to be the mama.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_00]: She's always going to come out and oh my God, when it popped the orc's head, that was so revolting.

[00:19:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh God.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_03]: The whole thing.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And thinking about that cave where Isildur and any number of orcs were trussed up with spider silk.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Imagine being one of those people and you're just stuck there, tied to a wall, waiting to be eaten.

[00:20:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_03]: It's so scary.

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.

[00:20:23] [SPEAKER_00]: It's gross.

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So gross.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I loved the whole Isildur and Estrid thing while we're kind of still talking about that.

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And a couple of kind of callbacks as well to the main show or the main movies that we know.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_00]: When Isildur has been rescued by Beric and they're trying to get their way out of Mordor.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And he finds that little pond, that murky little pond, and he sees the bodies in the water.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was just like the dead marshes.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was really cool.

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And then that he saw the Numenorean sword and armor and was like, well, I might as well get some boots and stuff.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought, oh, he's going to feel really sad.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, yeah, but mostly he just wanted the boots and the sword.

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:21:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I really liked Isildur and Estrid together.

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought they had really good chemistry.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: And I liked that scene where she'd stabbed him and then he's like, oh no, it doesn't hurt.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh wait, now it hurts.

[00:21:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It kind of showed their innocence in a way.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, he's been in the battle, but he's still pretty young and innocent.

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00]: And she sort of seemed to not know what to do either.

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know how much of that is real or how much, like I said, she's mysterious.

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So we don't know.

[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But I really liked them together.

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And we know that Isildur survives for a while.

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_00]: We know if we've read Lord of the Rings or seen the movies, we know that he appears later.

[00:21:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And he does some pretty important stuff between now and then.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And he does have a wife and children.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_00]: So it might be time for them to meet pretty soon.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_00]: This could be her.

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know.

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_00]: His wife is never named in the book, so we can't say whether she's named Ystrud or not.

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: But this is what they've gone with for this character.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting that she never tells anybody that she was enslaved by Adar.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And she tries to burn off that mark in secret.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the mystery there.

[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_03]: She's ashamed of something.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of wondered whether Arondir was a bit suspicious of her.

[00:22:33] [SPEAKER_00]: He meets them both in the forest that first time.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And he almost is reluctant to admit to, or not admit to, but he sort of doesn't greet Isildur in the same kind of warm manner, I guess you'd expect.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's grieving and so on.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_00]: But still, I think it was just interesting that he didn't have a lot to say to her.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's hard to tell with that one.

[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I thought they were really cool.

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Just the whole thing with Pallagir was really interesting.

[00:23:11] [SPEAKER_00]: When they get there, I just think, yeah.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, first of all, let's just talk about Arondir.

[00:23:16] [SPEAKER_00]: He's so amazing.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_03]: When he comes flying out of the trees to rescue Isildur, I cheered.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I was so excited to see an elf flipping around and doing the arrow thing.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_03]: It was just really cool.

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And I never get tired of it.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And he's so good at it.

[00:23:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's so awesome.

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a few things.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes when I really love a show, I just don't want to see any trailers at all.

[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_00]: With this, we wanted to kind of be prepared and I was excited and wanted to get ramped up and everything.

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So I ended up that I did see the trailer.

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But there was a couple of moments in this episode where I really wish that I hadn't seen the trailer.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was one of them because I recognized that scene with the cart.

[00:24:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, Arondir's going to come and rescue them.

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_00]: It would have been fun if it was just a surprise.

[00:24:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And then he showed up because, yeah, the flips that he does.

[00:24:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so much fun with the elven moves.

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_00]: He's fantastic.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_03]: It's really, really cool.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_03]: He is really a joy to watch on screen.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_03]: His acting, his regular acting is great, but his physical performance is so graceful while also being so powerful.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's incredible, isn't it?

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And we talked about that another time with the difference between him and Legolas.

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So Legolas is all kind of lithe and acrobatic and Arondir is more muscled and down to earth and kind of, yeah, just fantastic.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_00]: He's fantastic.

[00:24:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And the sad face, oh my God.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_00]: And I only picked up, the first time I watched it, I was like, oh, what's that bundle that he's carrying?

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And then later on, I only picked up that he was collecting wood for the funeral pyre.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just thought, oh my God, that's so sad.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_03]: He was on this sad mission and in the middle of it, he's like, I got to go save some people.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And then they're like, we got to go back.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And he's like, do whatever you got to do.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I got this whole thing.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm busy, yeah.

[00:25:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And then they go to Pelagia and it's quite cool to see Pelagia on screen.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a little bit, again, sort of slightly different timeline from the book.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_00]: In the book, it was actually built later in the Second Age after Numenor kind of settles around the Gondor, Arnor area.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And it becomes a pretty large city as part of Gondor.

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's overrun again in the Third Age.

[00:25:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's where we see in The Return of the King, you know, when Aragorn gets his army of the dead and he meets the Corsairs coming up the river.

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_00]: That's at Pelagia and sort of comes in and overruns their ship.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's the same place, but I think it's cool that they've made this potentially ruined city.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_00]: They've just changed the timeline a bit.

[00:26:02] [SPEAKER_00]: That's fine.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I quite like how...

[00:26:06] [SPEAKER_00]: One thing that was quite funny was, I don't know if you watched it with subtitles, but there's this...

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_00]: When Arondir and Theo are collecting the wood, sorry, collecting the water, one little visual gag was

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Arondir's carrying one bucket and Arondir's carrying six.

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't catch that. That's funny.

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_00]: But also the subtitles in the background of that scene, when they're not speaking, but someone in like, you know, blah, blah, blah,

[00:26:32] [SPEAKER_00]: someone in the background, some person talking, the subtitles went on the screen.

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, what's happening here? We're hearing some random people talk about different stuff.

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's like, get that bundle of wood. No, the other one.

[00:26:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's completely not important dialogue at all.

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_03]: And I had the same thing because I watched it without subtitles and then I watched it with subtitles.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, what? I can't even hear that.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I turned the TV up and I was like, oh yeah, there is some conversation in the background.

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_03]: But if I hadn't had the subtitles, I never even would have heard that there were people talking.

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_03]: It's different if I watch with headphones on. I hear a lot more.

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And but the volume is kind of adjusted so that you know that it's background or sometimes even in headphones,

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_00]: it will come through one ear so you can hear that it's kind of over there rather than the action that's happening in front of you.

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. And yeah, the funeral, the whole funeral scene.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, it was so sad.

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And then they showed that little flashback of Bronwyn's face and it's just yeah.

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that Theo comes along, so Arondir's standing there and he's got the torch and he's going to light it.

[00:27:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And then Theo just comes along emotionless, grabs it, shoves it in the pyre, walks away and then doesn't watch.

[00:27:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when Arondir comes and puts his hand on his shoulder, he just shrugs it off.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Just broke my heart. It was so, so sad.

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when they're collecting the water, Arondir's kind of trying to counsel him a little bit.

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And he tells Theo that anger towards oneself is a thirst that can never be slaked and will drink you dry.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And then the most heartbreaking of all was Theo said back to Arondir, he's asked if he knows his knew his father.

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And then he says to him, I know this much. He wasn't you. Anything you were to me is ashes now.

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that just got me in the heart. I just could. Oh, so sad.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he doesn't want to risk losing someone again. He did get close to Arondir.

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And now that he's lost his mom, he's just like, nah, shut himself off.

[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I thought a lot about why he was angry at Arondir.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's because the only other target he has is himself.

[00:28:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Because he blames himself in part for Adar's success because, you know, he's the one who had that dagger or sword or whatever it was and didn't protect it.

[00:28:57] [SPEAKER_03]: But also he gave it to Arondir and then somebody got tricked.

[00:29:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, Waldrick got it. And so he does blame Arondir and himself for his mother's death.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_03]: It's really sad because they could really rely on each other in their grief, but they apparently won't.

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Well, I hope they come back together.

[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's not surprising at all the way he's reacting.

[00:29:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And also put on top of that, that he's a teenager or adolescent who finds it hard to process emotions anyway and doesn't have a fully formed frontal cortex.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_03]: He's just been through numerous traumatic experiences, you know, a volcano eruption and escaping from that and a war.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_03]: He's that's a lot for a kid to process.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I, you know, Isildur and Estrid have this conversation by the fire about survivor's guilt, which I thought was very interesting.

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And I looked it up on the Internet, so it must be true.

[00:30:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Per Psychology Today, survivor's guilt is the experience of psychological distress due to surviving or escaping a situation relatively unharmed or unaffected as compared to others.

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_03]: When one emerges relatively unharmed from an accident, conflict or pandemic, for example, while others have died or experienced significant loss, a person may experience survivor's guilt despite bearing no responsibility for the outcomes that occurred.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_03]: Which is especially true of Estrid, right? Like her intended is lost in the chaos of war and the volcano.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_03]: As far as we know, it's not like she caused either of those things, but she feels guilty for having survived.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_03]: She says it expressly, which prompts Isildur to share this story of how his mother died and how he feels guilty and feels driven to be worthy of her sacrifice.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I clipped the audio of that conversation I thought was interesting.

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_05]: It's hard not to blame myself.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_07]: What for?

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Being alive, for surviving when so many others didn't.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_07]: I was ten when I lost my mother. Swam out further than I was supposed to. Got caught in a riptide. She drowned, saving my life.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_04]: After my mum, I keep wondering what it's like for her now.

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_07]: Sometimes I see mine in dreams.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_04]: You seem to have found peace with it.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_06]: The truth is, what I just told you, back home nobody knows. I just told them she drowned.

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_07]: Nobody knows it was my fault. To try and do something singular, something special. To try and find a way to earn what she did.

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if you can earn a thing like that. I think you just have to accept it as a gift. One she gave freely because you were precious to her.

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I loved what Estrid says at the end there because I think a lot of people get stuck in transactional thinking when love and sacrifice doesn't add up that way.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_03]: It's not quantifiable and you can't ever trade enough things back and forth to make it even.

[00:34:05] [SPEAKER_03]: The story explains so much about Isildur and why he's always been pushing at the edges of his life, screwing things up, trying to stand out, trying to do something different.

[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_03]: It also tells us who the voice was that he heard whispering to him or calling to him when he was on a ship when we first met him, whatever episode that was.

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I was quite taken with the scene.

[00:34:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Me too and so much more depth to him. We've both found him a little bit annoying up till now. He grew on me so much in this.

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_00]: The fact that at the very least he can sit and listen and have a deep conversation with somebody which we haven't really seen before.

[00:34:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So much happened in that conversation as well. First of all I thought maybe that's why his dad is so cross with him all the time.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: They've got this tension in their relationship and then the revelation that nobody else even knows.

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Elendil doesn't even know that potentially Isildur thinks it was his fault that his mother died.

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_00]: That's absolutely huge. The idea also that we've got a bit more mystery with Estrid.

[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Again this conversation if you listen carefully she talks about so many others died and she didn't.

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_00]: How did she escape? Did she do something? Did she leave others behind when she talks about her mother but then she can't finish the sentence?

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like I really want to know what happened.

[00:35:49] [SPEAKER_00]: In the background you've got Theo listening and when he listens to them talk about their mothers that's when he finally cries.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_00]: This is really typical too isn't it with grief where sometimes you just have this block and you can't cry about the thing.

[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Then your heart opens a little bit to somebody else who's had a similar experience and then it all comes out.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_00]: That was really beautiful to see that in the background as well. It was a really great scene.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for playing it. It was fantastic.

[00:36:18] [SPEAKER_03]: I was thinking a lot about Theo and the fact that he is just a kid.

[00:36:25] [SPEAKER_03]: He is very moved by their conversation.

[00:36:29] [SPEAKER_03]: It's almost visible that he feels closer to Isildur as a result of overhearing the conversation but he doesn't let on to them that he heard it.

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Or say to Isildur, you lost your mom, I lost my mom.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_03]: But there was just a look in his eye like I found a brother.

[00:36:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe he can find in Isildur the mentor that he's not able to accept from our own dear right now.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I hope so. Let's see what happens in the forest next with them.

[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I head off into the forest and he comes across this camp that we've talked about.

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_00]: This camp of Ruffians.

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was a really cool scene when the dude is there and he's starting to chop the tree.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so tense when Isildur is sneaking up to Beric and then the guy at the fire turns to look.

[00:37:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Isildur has to hide behind Beric and keep really still.

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_00]: It's so suspenseful.

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Then Theo comes up to them and says, I'm one of the Adar's people and I've got this mark or whatever.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_00]: They're all suspicious of him.

[00:37:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Then stuff happens, action happens.

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_00]: The one Ruffian says, you've already attacked our camp three times.

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Something has been attacking these groups of people out in the forest.

[00:38:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Then we hear this loud noise and then all of a sudden these Ruffians start getting snatched up.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_00]: It was so horror movie-ish. I loved it.

[00:38:09] [SPEAKER_00]: They're running along and then suddenly they just get snatched and disappear out of our view.

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Then Theo runs along and he looks up slowly and you hear this creaking, cracking, grumbling sound.

[00:38:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I was pretty excited because I think we're going to see some ants.

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_03]: We talked about this before we started recording.

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I completely missed all the clues that this was an Ent situation.

[00:38:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was the hill troll or elves or orcs.

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_03]: It didn't even occur to me that it could be Ents.

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Once Anwen said Ents to me, I was like, what?

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god, you're right. That's exactly what that is.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm the biggest Ent fan in the world so it's ridiculous that I wasn't primed to see it.

[00:39:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Now that I see it, I am ridiculously excited for Ent action.

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Super, super cool, isn't it?

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It was only more obvious to me because I was so excited to see them in the trailer and I knew that they were coming out.

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I think they made it quite subtle with the attack on the camp and the people being removed from the path.

[00:39:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was much more clear when Theo sees the Ent because they really copied the exact kind of sounds that we saw in the Peter Jackson movies that we associate with the Ents.

[00:39:39] [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like creaking, cracking, groaning, grumbling, all those cool sounds that the Ents make.

[00:39:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I think we'll get into a bit more background about the Ents when we do get to see some more of them on screen.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_00]: It is really cool that also that Theo meets them because there is a little connection there with his mother Bronwyn.

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_00]: You remember in that scene early on before the first couple of battles when Arondia and Bronwyn were talking about the Valar that looks after growing things?

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_00]: That was Yavanna and she is the one that created the Ents.

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's really, really cool that you see Bronwyn's son Theo there getting to meet the Ents.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_00]: That's really nice.

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_00]: She would really like that.

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Can't wait to see more of them when they come up on screen.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_02]: Ents!

[00:40:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Yay!

[00:40:37] [SPEAKER_00]: What should we move on to?

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about, one of my headings here is called Dwarves be dealing.

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Last time we had Elves be elven, now we've got Dwarves dealing.

[00:40:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I called it the battle of the Durins.

[00:40:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Excellent, love that.

[00:40:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Let's go there next.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It was so awesome to see Deeser and Durin and all of a sudden here they are.

[00:41:02] [SPEAKER_00]: They're already there in Eregion.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It was quite funny because last time they were mushroom shopping and this time they go jewellery shopping.

[00:41:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was really clever use of forced perspective and camera angles.

[00:41:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course the dwarves are supposed to be a good foot or two shorter than humans.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_00]: You have these cool tricks that they use, like the actors standing behind things.

[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_00]: There's this kind of like, I don't know whether it was a banister or some kind of barricade thing.

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_00]: If you know the tricks that they use, it was clear that Caliburn Bull was standing and that Deeser and Durin were probably down there on their knees so they were the right height.

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_00]: They used a few camera angles as well just with them being further away and slightly below camera so that they made them look shorter.

[00:41:51] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was really cool.

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I love how Annatar tries to charm Durin and it slides right off him.

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was the best.

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_00]: That's true to form.

[00:42:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Dwarves are just really difficult to corrupt because they're just so grounded and they don't have the same kind of capacity for corruption as men.

[00:42:14] [SPEAKER_00]: They're not as convinced.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It just sort of slides right off him.

[00:42:18] [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, funny, didn't mention you.

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_00]: It was just like the absolute classic of testing him out to see whether he knows Elrond.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Later he says to Deeser, he doesn't know Elrond from a hole in the ground because Elrond would never say those nice things about me.

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I just thought, he's seen through Annatar so easily.

[00:42:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I love that so much.

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_03]: So quickly and so easily.

[00:42:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Annatar, it's very disrespectful the way that he tries to flatter Durin.

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_03]: It's so transparent.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_03]: He's like, Elrond told me you're the wisest of the dwarves.

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Is that not true?

[00:42:55] [SPEAKER_03]: You're talking to someone else?

[00:42:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Durin's like, no one else is coming here to talk to you.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_03]: You can't flatter me into whatever this scheme is that you have going on.

[00:43:08] [SPEAKER_03]: Although I guess it doesn't really matter because in the end the king accepts the deal.

[00:43:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I loved that Durin saw through Annatar.

[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_03]: I loved it.

[00:43:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I knew I liked you.

[00:43:21] [SPEAKER_03]: It's interesting to me that Deeser had a completely different perspective on the whole situation.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_03]: She was like, Annatar, whatever.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_03]: We have a huge problem and we should try every possible solution.

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_03]: She doesn't care about Annatar.

[00:43:38] [SPEAKER_03]: She doesn't care about Celebrimbor.

[00:43:40] [SPEAKER_03]: That was not what she was paying attention to at all.

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_03]: She was very practical, very focused on the potential resolution to the problem.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_00]: She's solution-focused rather than worrying about how it's delivered or who's delivering it.

[00:43:54] [SPEAKER_00]: That's great.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I love how she was so diplomatic as well.

[00:43:57] [SPEAKER_00]: When Durin started going off, she's like, what Durin is trying to say?

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_00]: She's so good at negotiating and smoothing over relationships.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_00]: It was great.

[00:44:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It's funny because Annatar had all worked on Celebrimbor.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_00]: He got right under Celebrimbor's skin, flattered him, said all the right things.

[00:44:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Celebrimbor is thousands of years old and then here's Durin who at this stage is probably only maybe 100, maybe 150 or so.

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_00]: There he is just not taking a bar of it.

[00:44:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I loved it.

[00:44:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I also thought it was interesting.

[00:44:33] [SPEAKER_00]: There's one point where Celebrimbor actually cuts Annatar off because Annatar is getting ready to say, no, no, no, there's not enough time.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_00]: We have to hurry.

[00:44:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Celebrimbor cuts him off and basically tells him to give Durin time to consider.

[00:44:47] [SPEAKER_00]: That look that exchanged between them, I thought, oh, Celebrimbor, you're in trouble.

[00:44:52] [SPEAKER_00]: He's going to come back and bite you.

[00:44:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Annatar looked quietly furious.

[00:44:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:45:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Celebrimbor was right.

[00:45:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Rushing was only going to make Durin more suspicious.

[00:45:09] [SPEAKER_03]: For whatever reason, Annatar, as much as he can't flatter the dwarves, he also can't understand them.

[00:45:16] [SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't get what motivates them at all because that's why he can't figure out how to manipulate them except for the most obvious thing, which is you have a problem and I can help you solve it.

[00:45:28] [SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't have any insight into their psyche the way he does with the elves.

[00:45:34] [SPEAKER_03]: He gets the elves.

[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_03]: He completely gets Celebrimbor and is so in control of him.

[00:45:42] [SPEAKER_03]: The scene at the end when they're actually forging the rings and they take the mithril chunk from the king and then Celebrimbor is about to put it in the smelt or melt or whatever it's called.

[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Annatar is like, no, give it to me.

[00:46:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Then he does this weird thing where he takes it from one hand, puts it in another hand and then hides his hand.

[00:46:11] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, this is basic sleight of hand, close-up magic stuff of changing hands.

[00:46:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Something is going on there.

[00:46:19] [SPEAKER_03]: It also reminded me of videos I've seen of people roofing someone's drink at a bar.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.

[00:46:26] [SPEAKER_03]: If you don't see exactly what's in their hand, don't trust the drink.

[00:46:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, what is he doing?

[00:46:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Is it his touch?

[00:46:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Is it just him touching it that is going to corrupt the ring and give him some kind of connection to them or is there something else that he put in the melt with it?

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_03]: What happened in that moment?

[00:46:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was quite obvious, wasn't it?

[00:46:51] [SPEAKER_00]: When I first saw it, I went, what is he doing?

[00:46:54] [SPEAKER_00]: He's switching it from one hand to another.

[00:46:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I think at the very least, it's the first one that he is putting his malice, his evil or his influence into this mix.

[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_00]: You could be right, there could be something else physical that he's putting into it.

[00:47:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like it's mostly just him holding it as long as he can to influence the essence of what goes into it.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_03]: We don't really know what his powers are, how the rings have his touch.

[00:47:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe this show will explain it, but it's always seemed a little vague to me.

[00:47:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And then the rings have power, okay.

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that'll become even more obvious later when he makes the one ring because there's always that famous line about how he poured all of his malice into the ring.

[00:47:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And so much of his essence actually got into that ring.

[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_00]: That's why later he's completely destroyed when the ring is destroyed rather than all these other times throughout his existence where he's been kind of smoked down, turned into a slithery blob, all that sort of stuff.

[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_00]: He comes back, whereas with the end of the Lord of the Rings when the ring is destroyed, he's properly destroyed because so much of him went into it.

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a horcrux.

[00:48:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.

[00:48:14] [SPEAKER_00]: So he's starting it now.

[00:48:15] [SPEAKER_00]: It's going to have 19 pieces instead of seven.

[00:48:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Earlier, after they talked to Durin IV, but before the king has come back with Mithril and Annatar and Celebrimbor are talking,

[00:48:34] [SPEAKER_03]: he does this amazing manipulation where he's all like, well, your king would not approve of this.

[00:48:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And he doesn't even really know I'm here.

[00:48:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And maybe we should.

[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And he sort of performs this reluctance like, oh, maybe we're moving too fast.

[00:48:50] [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I should back off.

[00:48:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And by doing that, he gets Celebrimbor to take much more drastic action.

[00:49:00] [SPEAKER_03]: He directly lies to the king, like bald-faced lie.

[00:49:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And says like, oh, I'm shutting down my forge and I'll join you in Linden soon.

[00:49:11] [SPEAKER_03]: That's just deceit written down on paper.

[00:49:15] [SPEAKER_03]: And it's very like another form, another sort of typical narcissistic abuse pattern where a narcissist will go, oh, you shouldn't love me.

[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not lovable.

[00:49:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not good.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not good enough for you.

[00:49:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And it inspires people often to be like, no, you're not.

[00:49:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I do love you.

[00:49:41] [SPEAKER_03]: We should be together.

[00:49:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And I kept seeing that in Celebrimbor's attitude of like, he's like, no, don't take this away from me.

[00:49:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And then suddenly the rings are his lifelong dream.

[00:49:55] [SPEAKER_03]: He's prepared for an age to make rings.

[00:49:57] [SPEAKER_03]: The rings are a new idea from just a couple of weeks ago.

[00:50:00] [SPEAKER_03]: But like Celebrimbor now thinks it's all his own idea.

[00:50:05] [SPEAKER_00]: This is masterful manipulation.

[00:50:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolute classic narcissistic behavior.

[00:50:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of another version of gaslighting is making the person think that it's their idea.

[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So that was how you do it and you solidify it.

[00:50:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's another indication of how much power Anatar has over Celebrimbor's mind.

[00:50:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not just that Celebrimbor thought, oh yeah, okay, cool.

[00:50:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I've always wanted to make something great and here's an opportunity to make the ring.

[00:50:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So this is my project now.

[00:50:36] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just way more than that and way deeper.

[00:50:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It's that he's got right under his skin and forced him to become obsessed with this.

[00:50:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And he just only has to feed them these little nuggets of, oh, maybe we should do this.

[00:50:48] [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, I'm going to do the other.

[00:50:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And just really goes all out with it.

[00:50:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was really dark, that scene.

[00:50:54] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was so foreboding.

[00:50:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when he's starting to write the letter and Anatar walks up the steps and he kind of comes around behind him

[00:51:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and he's got his long sweeping robes and just looks over his shoulder.

[00:51:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's chilling.

[00:51:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It's really incredibly done.

[00:51:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So creepy.

[00:51:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got Prince Durin going finally to his father after his little altercation with Disa

[00:51:20] [SPEAKER_00]: where she's like, yep, you weren't wrong before, but you are now.

[00:51:23] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got to sort this out.

[00:51:25] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just loved how they reconnected and I loved how Prince Durin said, I'm crusted with pride.

[00:51:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I just thought that was such a cool line.

[00:51:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a great metaphor.

[00:51:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And he says sorry and then he says that he was wrong to disrespect him.

[00:51:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just thought it was really cool to see.

[00:51:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And you kind of see it's, yeah, King Durin, it's sort of like he acknowledges it.

[00:51:48] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't fully accept it.

[00:51:49] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't really say that's okay or, you know, I accept your apology.

[00:51:53] [SPEAKER_00]: He just kind of acknowledges it.

[00:51:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And but then just as he's turning to go, Prince Durin sort of makes another plea to him

[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_00]: because he doesn't trust the power of these rings.

[00:52:03] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't trust it at all.

[00:52:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And you can see him trying to warn his father almost.

[00:52:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And obviously that doesn't happen because the next thing you see, they're all at the forge

[00:52:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and these rings are being made.

[00:52:12] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, that was quite powerful too.

[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_03]: So I went back and watched the scene in season one when the two Durins were arguing

[00:52:25] [SPEAKER_03]: about whether or not to help the elves.

[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going to play the clip.

[00:53:18] [SPEAKER_10]: He's dead.

[00:53:22] [SPEAKER_10]: Father, my friend is drowning, reaching for me to pull him to shore.

[00:53:33] [SPEAKER_10]: You expect me to swat his hand away because you're afraid of a bloody rockfall?

[00:53:37] [SPEAKER_08]: The fate of the elves was decided many ages ago by minds much wiser,

[00:53:45] [SPEAKER_08]: much farther seeing than our own.

[00:53:49] [SPEAKER_08]: Defy their will and this entire kingdom might fall.

[00:53:56] [SPEAKER_08]: Perhaps the entire Middle Earth.

[00:54:09] [SPEAKER_08]: I am sorry, my son, but your time has come.

[00:54:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And Prince Durin sort of throws this back in his face.

[00:54:21] [SPEAKER_03]: He was like, you said it wasn't safe or advisable or wise to help the elves

[00:54:28] [SPEAKER_03]: when they were facing a catastrophic problem.

[00:54:32] [SPEAKER_03]: But now you're willing to take on these rings with this fishy guy

[00:54:40] [SPEAKER_03]: to save us from our catastrophic problem.

[00:54:45] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's hypocritical.

[00:54:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And the king doesn't really answer that.

[00:54:49] [SPEAKER_03]: He just sort of leaves the room.

[00:54:51] [SPEAKER_03]: We don't know if Prince Durin is like a prince again.

[00:54:54] [SPEAKER_03]: Does he get his seal back?

[00:54:56] [SPEAKER_03]: Does he have to go back to the mines where those guys beat him up all the time?

[00:55:00] [SPEAKER_03]: We don't know what's going to happen next.

[00:55:02] [SPEAKER_03]: But I just think it's so interesting that the king was like,

[00:55:06] [SPEAKER_03]: we're not going to mess with dangerous stuff to help the elves.

[00:55:09] [SPEAKER_03]: But it's our people.

[00:55:10] [SPEAKER_03]: We're going to mess with dangerous stuff to help our people.

[00:55:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's the king.

[00:55:14] [SPEAKER_00]: He cares the most about his own people and he wasn't willing to cross that line

[00:55:18] [SPEAKER_00]: for another race, but he was for his.

[00:55:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's interesting there.

[00:55:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And I do love their relationship because even when they're at odds,

[00:55:26] [SPEAKER_00]: you can still see that closeness and that love between them.

[00:55:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And in all the scenes that we've seen,

[00:55:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that makes their conflict even more impactful

[00:55:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that you know that there's great love there as well.

[00:55:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's great.

[00:55:39] [SPEAKER_03]: They're very, very believable as father and son.

[00:55:43] [SPEAKER_03]: They have similar sort of facial expressions and voice patterns.

[00:55:52] [SPEAKER_03]: It's phenomenal acting.

[00:55:54] [SPEAKER_03]: The two actors must get together and practice sort of mimicking

[00:55:59] [SPEAKER_03]: each other's vocal patterns so that they can do this.

[00:56:03] [SPEAKER_03]: It's subtle.

[00:56:04] [SPEAKER_03]: It's not super obvious, but it gives this incredible feeling

[00:56:08] [SPEAKER_03]: of like, yes, this is father and son.

[00:56:10] [SPEAKER_03]: They are related.

[00:56:11] [SPEAKER_03]: They share a lot of traits and characteristics and history.

[00:56:18] [SPEAKER_03]: And I've said it so many times.

[00:56:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I love dwarves.

[00:56:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Everything they're doing about the dwarves is cool.

[00:56:23] [SPEAKER_03]: It's so interesting.

[00:56:25] [SPEAKER_03]: This family relationship is so interesting.

[00:56:27] [SPEAKER_03]: The only disappointment, of course,

[00:56:29] [SPEAKER_03]: is that I don't get to see dwarf children.

[00:56:31] [SPEAKER_03]: But Durin and Durin are, oh, I love them together.

[00:56:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I'll watch like 27 episodes of the two of them talking.

[00:56:40] [SPEAKER_00]: It's great, isn't it?

[00:56:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's not just, I think it's a huge amount, the acting,

[00:56:45] [SPEAKER_00]: but also I think it's really great writing.

[00:56:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that they've made it really clear, this relationship.

[00:56:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think they did the same thing with Isildur and Elendil as well

[00:56:54] [SPEAKER_00]: in the first season where we sort of see them talking

[00:56:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's almost like we're coming in the middle of a conversation

[00:56:58] [SPEAKER_00]: that's been going on for 10 years.

[00:57:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You really believe that these relationships are real

[00:57:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think that's great.

[00:57:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's really good writing, really good acting.

[00:57:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And it just gives much more depth to it.

[00:57:08] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not just suddenly seeing this snapshot of what's happening now.

[00:57:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It gives the characters more depth and perspective,

[00:57:12] [SPEAKER_00]: which is really cool.

[00:57:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I do love that.

[00:57:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, anything else on the dwarves?

[00:57:19] [SPEAKER_00]: That was all my dwarf stuff.

[00:57:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Brilliant.

[00:57:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Where shall we go next?

[00:57:24] [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much to talk about.

[00:57:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like we're just partway through.

[00:57:27] [SPEAKER_00]: What's next for you, do you think?

[00:57:30] [SPEAKER_03]: My last sort of big point is the burgeoning coup in Numenor

[00:57:36] [SPEAKER_03]: and all of the political unrest there.

[00:57:40] [SPEAKER_03]: We're introduced to it at the king's funeral

[00:57:44] [SPEAKER_03]: when Eaerlion is not approving of the way her father

[00:57:50] [SPEAKER_03]: is grieving for Isildur's apparent death.

[00:57:53] [SPEAKER_03]: She's very angry with her father

[00:57:57] [SPEAKER_03]: and she's not shy about it.

[00:58:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And then this pub scene where Kemen is talking trash

[00:58:04] [SPEAKER_03]: about Queen Myriel and Valendil gives him the what-for.

[00:58:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I very much enjoyed that.

[00:58:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I like this actor who plays Valendil.

[00:58:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope we get to see him more.

[00:58:15] [SPEAKER_03]: He's quite charismatic.

[00:58:19] [SPEAKER_03]: And Kemen was really reminding me a lot of Sebastian Milton

[00:58:23] [SPEAKER_03]: from The Walking Dead, season 11.

[00:58:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Just this privileged, whiny, thinks he's actually better

[00:58:31] [SPEAKER_03]: than other people because he comes from all this privilege.

[00:58:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Not just that he has a better life than other people.

[00:58:39] [SPEAKER_03]: It is intense.

[00:58:42] [SPEAKER_03]: What inspired me to go back and watch a little bit of last season

[00:58:46] [SPEAKER_03]: was actually these scenes because I couldn't remember

[00:58:51] [SPEAKER_03]: how it was that Eaerlion came to hear the king's dying words

[00:58:57] [SPEAKER_03]: and get the palantir.

[00:58:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And so what happened was while the queen was in Middle-earth

[00:59:05] [SPEAKER_03]: waging war, the king was clearly dying.

[00:59:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And Farazan calls together, he has these six interns

[00:59:14] [SPEAKER_03]: of the Architecture Guild and he's like,

[00:59:16] [SPEAKER_03]: the king is dying, we're going to need a tomb for him.

[00:59:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And then it's like Project Runway.

[00:59:22] [SPEAKER_03]: He's like, oh, you get an hour alone with the king

[00:59:24] [SPEAKER_03]: to sketch him, which is ridiculous.

[00:59:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Like, here are you six young people,

[00:59:30] [SPEAKER_03]: spend an hour alone with our dying king

[00:59:32] [SPEAKER_03]: in a room with no supervision.

[00:59:33] [SPEAKER_03]: It's weird.

[00:59:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But anyway, that's what happens and Eaerlion is drawing the king

[00:59:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and thinking as one does when one is designing.

[00:59:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And the king mistakes her for Miriel and says to her,

[00:59:47] [SPEAKER_03]: if the old ways of our people are not restored,

[00:59:50] [SPEAKER_03]: our kingdom will fall.

[00:59:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Which I interpret as the ways when they were closer

[00:59:55] [SPEAKER_03]: to the elves were the ways that they need to restore.

[00:59:59] [SPEAKER_03]: For whatever reason, Eaerlion doesn't think

[01:00:02] [SPEAKER_03]: that the king knows what he's talking about.

[01:00:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And then the king shows her the palantir.

[01:00:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And at the end of season one, she's just like standing

[01:00:10] [SPEAKER_03]: next to the palantir.

[01:00:12] [SPEAKER_03]: The fact that she stole it is something that gets revealed

[01:00:14] [SPEAKER_03]: in this episode when Miriel goes to find it

[01:00:17] [SPEAKER_03]: and then later she reveals it in the coronation scene.

[01:00:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Eaerlion makes me so angry.

[01:00:25] [SPEAKER_03]: First of all, the nerve, right?

[01:00:28] [SPEAKER_03]: She took the palantir?

[01:00:29] [SPEAKER_03]: What the?

[01:00:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, the audacity.

[01:00:33] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you have no right.

[01:00:35] [SPEAKER_03]: And then that she just, like she thinks she knows

[01:00:39] [SPEAKER_03]: better than everyone and she steps in to try

[01:00:43] [SPEAKER_03]: to help Farazan have a coup.

[01:00:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And they clearly cooked up that scene between

[01:00:48] [SPEAKER_03]: the two of them where she would, you know,

[01:00:50] [SPEAKER_03]: accuse Miriel of using the palantir

[01:00:53] [SPEAKER_03]: and then Farazan would be like, destroy it.

[01:00:56] [SPEAKER_03]: That's obviously a lie.

[01:00:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And then Miriel is forced to say, like, no,

[01:01:01] [SPEAKER_03]: that's mine and you can't destroy it.

[01:01:03] [SPEAKER_03]: We need it.

[01:01:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And that starts this whole kerfuffle,

[01:01:08] [SPEAKER_03]: which is interrupted by the giant eagle.

[01:01:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And at first it seems like the eagle is there

[01:01:14] [SPEAKER_03]: for Miriel, for her coronation.

[01:01:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And then Farazan sort of steps up and is like,

[01:01:20] [SPEAKER_03]: no, I'm going to take credit for the eagle.

[01:01:22] [SPEAKER_03]: And then what's that lord's name?

[01:01:25] [SPEAKER_03]: The really annoying one, Belzagar?

[01:01:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he starts the chant and Farazan,

[01:01:32] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, seizes the moment with his flair

[01:01:35] [SPEAKER_03]: for drama that he has and takes his sword out

[01:01:38] [SPEAKER_03]: and holds it across his chest and the eagle flies away.

[01:01:41] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a beautiful moment, but I don't necessarily

[01:01:45] [SPEAKER_03]: believe that the eagle favored Farazan

[01:01:48] [SPEAKER_03]: like people were saying in the room.

[01:01:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I think he's an opportunist and a very good one.

[01:01:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if my firm belief that Miriel

[01:02:00] [SPEAKER_03]: is the best ruler for Numenor is just because

[01:02:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I like her better.

[01:02:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what I think is the right answer

[01:02:07] [SPEAKER_03]: for Numenor or who should lead them,

[01:02:09] [SPEAKER_03]: but I know that I think Farazan is slimy.

[01:02:11] [SPEAKER_03]: So I prefer Miriel.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[01:02:14] [SPEAKER_03]: What do you think?

[01:02:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, knowing what happens later,

[01:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I think she's the best leader.

[01:02:21] [SPEAKER_00]: There's big mistakes happening right now.

[01:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a bit more in the spoiler section.

[01:02:26] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I agree.

[01:02:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I had such great hopes for Earian and Kemen

[01:02:30] [SPEAKER_00]: in that first season.

[01:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought they're really cute together

[01:02:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and maybe she's going to become this amazing architect

[01:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and she's going to end up going to Middle Earth

[01:02:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and she's going to design Minas Tirith

[01:02:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and all this cool stuff.

[01:02:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And then I just was like, oh no, this episode.

[01:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: She's gone full traitor to old Numenor

[01:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and that scene where she's having the drinks with them

[01:02:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and yeah, with this Lord Belzagar.

[01:02:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I just, he was so punchable.

[01:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Lord Belz, oh my God.

[01:02:56] [SPEAKER_00]: He's so irritating.

[01:02:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, I already hate this guy.

[01:03:01] [SPEAKER_03]: So then I looked up the actor.

[01:03:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, he must have played someone else I hate.

[01:03:05] [SPEAKER_03]: No, I haven't seen anything else he's been in.

[01:03:07] [SPEAKER_03]: He's just really good at being readable.

[01:03:08] [SPEAKER_00]: He's great.

[01:03:09] [SPEAKER_00]: He's really good.

[01:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And I looked up the name in case it was an actual named character

[01:03:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and it is an old Numenorean name.

[01:03:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It was actually the name of one of the earlier kings,

[01:03:18] [SPEAKER_00]: but there's no actual character like this Lord that we see.

[01:03:22] [SPEAKER_00]: But I do love that.

[01:03:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I love how they use similar names as they go through.

[01:03:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And I love the scene with Valendil

[01:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and when dirty old Kemen says,

[01:03:31] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, it's a pity that members of the common soldiery

[01:03:33] [SPEAKER_00]: weren't invited.

[01:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: I just like, nah, you get him, Valendil.

[01:03:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And he comes right back with,

[01:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: especially given the lower class of folk that were.

[01:03:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got these two lads

[01:03:42] [SPEAKER_00]: standing up facing off against each other

[01:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and all of the rest of the people in the bar

[01:03:46] [SPEAKER_00]: suddenly look like, you know,

[01:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: when people's attention gets peaked,

[01:03:49] [SPEAKER_00]: like, ooh, bar fight.

[01:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And it does settle down.

[01:03:53] [SPEAKER_00]: But again, interesting with Farazan

[01:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and he does this later as well.

[01:03:58] [SPEAKER_00]: He does it in the funeral scene

[01:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and he does it in the coronation scene

[01:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: for part of it as well,

[01:04:02] [SPEAKER_00]: is that he just watches and waits.

[01:04:04] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't get involved in that stuff.

[01:04:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So these two kids are about to tussle.

[01:04:07] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't try and intervene.

[01:04:08] [SPEAKER_00]: He's just like, let's just see how this plays out.

[01:04:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, in that funeral scene as well,

[01:04:18] [SPEAKER_00]: there's, remember that part

[01:04:20] [SPEAKER_00]: where the grieving mother comes up

[01:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and I thought it was really interesting

[01:04:24] [SPEAKER_00]: how they, instead of flowers on the grave,

[01:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: they put shells.

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that.

[01:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Showing sort of that there are seagoing people.

[01:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It was really, really beautiful.

[01:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And then instead of,

[01:04:33] [SPEAKER_00]: so this mother comes up and slaps Mariel.

[01:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I got such a fright.

[01:04:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought, oh my goodness, like, yeah,

[01:04:40] [SPEAKER_00]: most cultures would be.

[01:04:41] [SPEAKER_03]: If that happened on House of the Dragon,

[01:04:45] [SPEAKER_03]: before Mariel could even respond.

[01:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Instantly, yeah.

[01:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: But I just absolutely loved

[01:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: that Mariel shows her compassion.

[01:04:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So she asks who she's lost

[01:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and then she just hugs her

[01:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and just pulls her in.

[01:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was beautiful.

[01:04:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And the mother ends up sort of melting into her arms

[01:05:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's so, so beautiful.

[01:05:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we are jumping around a little bit here,

[01:05:05] [SPEAKER_00]: but there's so dense.

[01:05:06] [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much to talk about.

[01:05:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I can't even, I'm talking too fast

[01:05:09] [SPEAKER_00]: because it's so exciting.

[01:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And then we have this scene

[01:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: where you've got Farazan

[01:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: coming into Mariel's bedroom.

[01:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So first of all, creepy.

[01:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't knock.

[01:05:24] [SPEAKER_00]: He knows that she's black.

[01:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: He just walks right in.

[01:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: He just comes in.

[01:05:27] [SPEAKER_00]: That's gross.

[01:05:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And then he's talking about her

[01:05:32] [SPEAKER_00]: going through her father's things

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and he says,

[01:05:33] [SPEAKER_00]: possessions of the dead,

[01:05:35] [SPEAKER_00]: they become hallowed keys

[01:05:36] [SPEAKER_00]: into doors that are now forever shut.

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's so moved

[01:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: how she just slides it onto her wrist

[01:05:47] [SPEAKER_00]: and just pretends that she wasn't holding anything.

[01:05:48] [SPEAKER_00]: That was a really cool moment.

[01:05:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think she fooled him

[01:05:51] [SPEAKER_03]: that she wasn't hiding anything,

[01:05:53] [SPEAKER_03]: but I don't think he knew what she was hiding.

[01:05:55] [SPEAKER_00]: What it was.

[01:05:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.

[01:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't look at the bracelet.

[01:05:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.

[01:06:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And then he offers her,

[01:06:03] [SPEAKER_00]: he asks her to choose her coronation gown

[01:06:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and he offers her red for the future

[01:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: or white for the past

[01:06:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.

[01:06:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And it really stood out

[01:06:18] [SPEAKER_03]: because everyone else

[01:06:21] [SPEAKER_03]: in New Menor

[01:06:22] [SPEAKER_03]: is wearing like coral,

[01:06:24] [SPEAKER_03]: brown and blue.

[01:06:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[01:06:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So his crimson was just breathtaking.

[01:06:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Really beautiful.

[01:06:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Especially because he's so striking

[01:06:34] [SPEAKER_00]: looking with his hair

[01:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and his beard and everything.

[01:06:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But that scene where he's offering her

[01:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the different types of fabric

[01:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and then he strokes her face.

[01:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh,

[01:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: so creepy.

[01:06:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't like him.

[01:06:50] [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no.

[01:06:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And then she takes the bracelet

[01:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and she goes to look for the palantir

[01:06:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and I thought that was so beautifully edited.

[01:06:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I love it how it was cut with Iriarie

[01:06:59] [SPEAKER_00]: talking about how she found it

[01:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and then you see her going up to find it

[01:07:02] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's gone.

[01:07:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I thought that was brilliantly done

[01:07:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and so shocking when you see that it's not there.

[01:07:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought that was incredible.

[01:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And then at the coronation,

[01:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, there's all this unrest

[01:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: and there's these people calling out

[01:07:17] [SPEAKER_00]: mean things to Muriel

[01:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and she tries to smooth over the unrest.

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: She does it again.

[01:07:22] [SPEAKER_00]: She's so regal.

[01:07:23] [SPEAKER_00]: This just shows to me why she's such a good queen

[01:07:26] [SPEAKER_00]: is that she doesn't try and stamp things down.

[01:07:29] [SPEAKER_00]: She agrees with what people are saying.

[01:07:31] [SPEAKER_00]: She understands and she's compassionate

[01:07:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and she tells them that she shares their sorrow

[01:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and their anger, which is fantastic

[01:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and I kind of thought,

[01:07:38] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, she's going to win over the masses

[01:07:43] [SPEAKER_03]: and I didn't write it down

[01:07:44] [SPEAKER_03]: but her actual language was quite poetic.

[01:07:47] [SPEAKER_03]: She said something like,

[01:07:49] [SPEAKER_03]: their grief is sacred to me,

[01:07:51] [SPEAKER_03]: a prayer within these walls,

[01:07:53] [SPEAKER_03]: which I thought was beautiful.

[01:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so beautifully done.

[01:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, they're the masses.

[01:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: They'll just swing one way

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and then the other

[01:08:03] [SPEAKER_00]: depending on what the person is saying.

[01:08:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And we don't know how many of those people

[01:08:08] [SPEAKER_03]: might have been prepped by Farazan

[01:08:10] [SPEAKER_03]: and what's his name?

[01:08:11] [SPEAKER_03]: I cannot remember that guy's name.

[01:08:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Balzagar?

[01:08:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Balzagar, yeah.

[01:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, because we don't see

[01:08:18] [SPEAKER_00]: the end of that scene in the pub.

[01:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: We don't know how much other prep

[01:08:21] [SPEAKER_00]: that they've done with all these people.

[01:08:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And then Iarian comes along.

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I won't say it out loud

[01:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: but I wrote in my notes

[01:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: not a very nice word about it.

[01:08:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting

[01:08:35] [SPEAKER_00]: because she pulls out the palantir

[01:08:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and she calls it an elf stone,

[01:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: which I thought was interesting

[01:08:41] [SPEAKER_00]: because they're not known as elf stones in the book.

[01:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: They're known as seeing stones

[01:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: but it kind of made me think,

[01:08:45] [SPEAKER_00]: well, it just shows me again

[01:08:47] [SPEAKER_00]: that they don't actually know that much anymore

[01:08:49] [SPEAKER_00]: about elven ways

[01:08:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and the old ways of Numenor

[01:08:52] [SPEAKER_00]: because she calls it an elf stone.

[01:08:54] [SPEAKER_03]: It's also a word that she knows

[01:08:56] [SPEAKER_03]: will be incendiary.

[01:08:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, yeah.

[01:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Mention the elves for sure, yeah.

[01:09:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And in fact, in the books

[01:09:02] [SPEAKER_00]: the elf stone is a different thing

[01:09:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's not a palantir.

[01:09:11] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not as leaves

[01:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: but it had the clear light of the sun

[01:09:14] [SPEAKER_00]: imprisoned within it

[01:09:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and they said that anyone who looked upon the stone

[01:09:17] [SPEAKER_00]: would see withered and aged things

[01:09:20] [SPEAKER_00]: as whole and young again.

[01:09:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So it was kind of like this restorative power

[01:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and it also was claimed

[01:09:26] [SPEAKER_00]: that this granted any who wore the gem

[01:09:28] [SPEAKER_00]: the power to heal any hurts

[01:09:29] [SPEAKER_00]: of anyone that they touched

[01:09:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and it was way back in the history.

[01:09:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Edril gave it to her son Eärendil,

[01:09:36] [SPEAKER_00]: you remember Elrond's dad,

[01:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and he took it on his voyages with him.

[01:09:41] [SPEAKER_00]: He brought it back as a symbol from the Valar

[01:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: that they had not abandoned Middle-earth

[01:09:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and he gave it to Galadriel

[01:09:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and he said to Galadriel

[01:09:49] [SPEAKER_00]: that she would pass it on to one

[01:09:51] [SPEAKER_00]: who would also bear the name Alisar.

[01:09:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's Aragorn,

[01:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: so that's one of Aragorn's later kingly names.

[01:09:57] [SPEAKER_00]: But as with Tolkien,

[01:09:58] [SPEAKER_00]: there's lots of different versions

[01:09:59] [SPEAKER_00]: in all of his different writings

[01:10:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and some versions say that Galadriel

[01:10:03] [SPEAKER_00]: actually gave it directly to Aragorn as a gift.

[01:10:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Others say that she gave it to her daughter Celebrían

[01:10:08] [SPEAKER_00]: who gave it to Arwen

[01:10:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and you can see him wearing it as a brooch

[01:10:14] [SPEAKER_00]: in the coronation scene of Return of the King.

[01:10:16] [SPEAKER_00]: It's quite subtle but you can see it there.

[01:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And then other versions,

[01:10:21] [SPEAKER_00]: even more different versions,

[01:10:22] [SPEAKER_00]: say that the original one was lost

[01:10:24] [SPEAKER_00]: but Celebrían bore made a second one for Galadriel

[01:10:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and in those stories Celebrían bore

[01:10:30] [SPEAKER_00]: was in love with Galadriel.

[01:10:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they're going to go there

[01:10:32] [SPEAKER_00]: with this show but you know

[01:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: that's one of the stories.

[01:10:35] [SPEAKER_00]: He made her a nice piece of jewelry.

[01:10:37] [SPEAKER_03]: That would be so weird.

[01:10:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think those two

[01:10:43] [SPEAKER_03]: characters as they're portrayed in this show

[01:10:45] [SPEAKER_03]: would make any sense.

[01:10:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And if Celebrían bore is in love with Galadriel

[01:10:49] [SPEAKER_03]: and they actually play it on this show

[01:10:51] [SPEAKER_03]: it would be so creepy.

[01:10:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm 100% sure

[01:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: they're not going to go with that

[01:10:56] [SPEAKER_00]: and it is just one small version.

[01:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It's one small line that's mentioned

[01:10:59] [SPEAKER_00]: in part of the writing.

[01:11:00] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I don't think they're going to go with it.

[01:11:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got Farazan here.

[01:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So we see this palantir coming out

[01:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and Farazan says

[01:11:10] [SPEAKER_00]: a true leader would not use an elvish artifact.

[01:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And so he's this classic set up

[01:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: with the two of them.

[01:11:17] [SPEAKER_00]: He tells the guards to destroy it

[01:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and obviously just trying to make

[01:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Muriel own up to it

[01:11:24] [SPEAKER_00]: which it works.

[01:11:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And Muriel says no, don't destroy it

[01:11:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and admits that the palantir is hers.

[01:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And then Elendil grabs it

[01:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and he isn't able to hold it.

[01:11:35] [SPEAKER_00]: He has that big flash of light

[01:11:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and he gets thrown across the room.

[01:11:38] [SPEAKER_03]: That was so dramatic and cool.

[01:11:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was really cool.

[01:11:42] [SPEAKER_00]: He didn't really say much in this episode

[01:11:44] [SPEAKER_00]: but yeah, I just always love a bit of Elendil on screen.

[01:11:46] [SPEAKER_03]: I wonder why he couldn't pick it up.

[01:11:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Is it you have to be powerful

[01:11:51] [SPEAKER_03]: in order to hold it

[01:11:53] [SPEAKER_03]: because Eaerion was holding it no problem

[01:11:55] [SPEAKER_03]: although she had like a cloth

[01:11:57] [SPEAKER_03]: wrapped around it.

[01:11:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't think she had skin-to-skin contact with it.

[01:12:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a certain amount of power.

[01:12:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And you remember later on

[01:12:05] [SPEAKER_00]: when Pippin goes to touch it

[01:12:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and he can't handle the power.

[01:12:09] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of that's to do with because Sauron can see him

[01:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: and there's that mind meld thing going on with Sauron.

[01:12:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think his difficulty was

[01:12:17] [SPEAKER_03]: he couldn't let go, right?

[01:12:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Wasn't he kind of stuck to it?

[01:12:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[01:12:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Whereas Elendil was rejected.

[01:12:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's bounced off it.

[01:12:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Interesting.

[01:12:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And then the eagle lands

[01:12:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and like you say, I think opportunistic.

[01:12:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder whether Farazan would have

[01:12:35] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of gone towards taking that power

[01:12:37] [SPEAKER_00]: right away in that moment

[01:12:38] [SPEAKER_00]: if it hadn't been for some of that happening

[01:12:42] [SPEAKER_00]: or whether the whole thing was planned from the beginning.

[01:12:45] [SPEAKER_00]: But he definitely took advantage of Belzagar saying,

[01:12:49] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, oh, the eagle's here

[01:12:51] [SPEAKER_00]: and shouting out Farazan, Farazan

[01:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and everyone saying that they bless.

[01:12:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I like how they kind of preempted it

[01:12:56] [SPEAKER_00]: when he is talking to Mariel about the coronation

[01:12:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and she says, oh, all I can remember

[01:13:01] [SPEAKER_00]: is that my father wore white and there was an eagle.

[01:13:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And I loved that he sort of says,

[01:13:06] [SPEAKER_00]: well, yeah, this is a sign that your coronation

[01:13:09] [SPEAKER_00]: would be blessed if an eagle came.

[01:13:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And I've got a little bit of background about eagles here

[01:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: because I was so super excited to see one on screen.

[01:13:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was really cool.

[01:13:19] [SPEAKER_00]: So the eagles were birds that served as messengers of Manwe.

[01:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So Manwe's the king of the villa

[01:13:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and among those were the great eagles.

[01:13:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So these were massive birds

[01:13:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and they were sentient, they were capable of speech

[01:13:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and they often helped men, elves and wizards

[01:13:33] [SPEAKER_00]: in their quest to defeat evil.

[01:13:35] [SPEAKER_00]: They fought alongside the Vala, the elves

[01:13:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and the Edain to defeat Morgoth.

[01:13:41] [SPEAKER_00]: We see them in The Hobbit,

[01:13:42] [SPEAKER_00]: we see them in The Lord of the Rings as well.

[01:13:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if it would work if they spoke in this.

[01:13:50] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's quite good that it didn't speak.

[01:13:53] [SPEAKER_00]: It just flies in and flies out

[01:13:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and then they obviously take advantage of it

[01:13:57] [SPEAKER_00]: appearing to make it look as though

[01:13:59] [SPEAKER_00]: it is favouring Farazan.

[01:14:02] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a little bit of interesting stuff

[01:14:03] [SPEAKER_00]: that I'll leave some of it to the spoiler section

[01:14:06] [SPEAKER_00]: about Farazan but what I can say at this point

[01:14:09] [SPEAKER_00]: just around the eagles and how they don't really visit

[01:14:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Númenor much anymore.

[01:14:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So in the Second Age a pair of eagles

[01:14:18] [SPEAKER_00]: did live in an area in the king's house

[01:14:20] [SPEAKER_00]: in that city of Amenlos, which is the city that we see.

[01:14:23] [SPEAKER_00]: They don't really name Amenlos,

[01:14:24] [SPEAKER_00]: they just talk about Númenor but that's the city.

[01:14:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And they actually left when the kings of Númenor

[01:14:30] [SPEAKER_00]: turned away from the Vala.

[01:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: So all those previous kings before Muriel's father

[01:14:35] [SPEAKER_00]: who moved further and further away

[01:14:37] [SPEAKER_00]: from the Vala and the elves,

[01:14:41] [SPEAKER_00]: they left and they didn't hang out there much.

[01:14:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So they would only visit just very occasionally.

[01:14:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the main times that they would visit

[01:14:49] [SPEAKER_00]: was this ritual that they had called the Three Prayers

[01:14:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and this was a ceremony where the Númenoreans worshipped Eru.

[01:14:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So Eru is our creator god.

[01:14:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And the people would wear white

[01:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: and the king or the queen would make a fruit offering

[01:15:03] [SPEAKER_00]: on the summit of Meneltama.

[01:15:05] [SPEAKER_00]: So Meneltama is that highest peak,

[01:15:07] [SPEAKER_00]: the highest mountain there in Númenor.

[01:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And that ritual of the Three Prayers fell out of fashion

[01:15:14] [SPEAKER_00]: but it was actually reinstated by Tar-Palantir,

[01:15:18] [SPEAKER_00]: so Muriel's father, he brought the Three Prayers back again

[01:15:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and the eagles would visit.

[01:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know if they're going to bring that in

[01:15:26] [SPEAKER_00]: but it is interesting when we see the trailer

[01:15:29] [SPEAKER_00]: you've got Muriel wearing white

[01:15:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and she's kind of out near the cliff

[01:15:32] [SPEAKER_00]: surrounded by a bunch of people.

[01:15:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that's going to suffice for some of that

[01:15:35] [SPEAKER_00]: or whether it's going to be a whole different story

[01:15:37] [SPEAKER_00]: with what they do with Muriel.

[01:15:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I thought that was really interesting

[01:15:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and really cool to see the eagle as well.

[01:15:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Did you say at one point that there's a theory

[01:15:48] [SPEAKER_03]: that the eagles are Maya?

[01:15:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Or did I make that up in my head?

[01:15:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I think there was one theory

[01:16:00] [SPEAKER_00]: about that.

[01:16:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I actually have got something to read

[01:16:03] [SPEAKER_00]: from the Silmarillion

[01:16:05] [SPEAKER_00]: because one of the things that I also

[01:16:07] [SPEAKER_00]: absolutely loved about this episode

[01:16:09] [SPEAKER_00]: was that we see an eagle and almost an ant

[01:16:14] [SPEAKER_00]: in the first episode.

[01:16:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And what's really cool in the Silmarillion

[01:16:17] [SPEAKER_00]: is that eagles and ants are mentioned

[01:16:19] [SPEAKER_00]: in the same kind of scene for the first time.

[01:16:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll just read you a little bit of this.

[01:16:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you go back to, remember,

[01:16:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Eru made the elves and he also made men.

[01:16:36] [SPEAKER_00]: But the dwarves were made by...

[01:16:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Aule.

[01:16:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh God, his name's now got out of hand.

[01:16:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Aule.

[01:16:46] [SPEAKER_00]: So the dwarves were made by Aule

[01:16:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and then Aule's wife, Yavanna,

[01:16:54] [SPEAKER_00]: she's the one who loves all of the trees

[01:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: in the forest,

[01:16:58] [SPEAKER_00]: she actually made the ants

[01:16:59] [SPEAKER_00]: in a kind of response to him making the dwarves.

[01:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the background of the dwarves

[01:17:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and the ants and so on.

[01:17:06] [SPEAKER_00]: But there's this really cool part

[01:17:07] [SPEAKER_00]: where they mention the eagles as well as the ants.

[01:17:09] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll read that to you.

[01:17:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So Manwe, the lord, the king of the Valar

[01:17:14] [SPEAKER_00]: is there talking to Yavanna

[01:17:16] [SPEAKER_00]: and he says to her,

[01:17:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Dost thou not remember, Kementari,

[01:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: that's her other name, Kementari,

[01:17:23] [SPEAKER_00]: that thy thought sang not always alone?

[01:17:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Did not thy thought and mine meet also

[01:17:27] [SPEAKER_00]: so that we took wing together

[01:17:29] [SPEAKER_00]: like great birds that soar above the clouds?

[01:17:31] [SPEAKER_00]: That also shall come to me

[01:17:33] [SPEAKER_00]: by the heat of Ilúvatar

[01:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and before the children awake

[01:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: there shall go forth with wings like the wind

[01:17:38] [SPEAKER_00]: the eagles of the lords of the west.

[01:17:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Then Yavanna was glad

[01:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and she stood up, reaching her arms

[01:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: towards the heavens and she said,

[01:17:46] [SPEAKER_00]: High shall climb the trees of Kementari

[01:17:48] [SPEAKER_00]: that the eagles of the king may house therein.

[01:17:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But Manwe rose also

[01:17:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and it seemed that he stood to such a height

[01:17:54] [SPEAKER_00]: that his voice came down to Yavanna

[01:17:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and he said,

[01:17:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Nay, he said,

[01:18:00] [SPEAKER_00]: only the trees of Aule will be tall enough.

[01:18:03] [SPEAKER_00]: In the mountains the eagles shall house

[01:18:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and hear the voices of those who call upon us

[01:18:07] [SPEAKER_00]: but in the forest shall walk

[01:18:09] [SPEAKER_00]: the shepherds of the trees.

[01:18:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So I love that, it's really cool.

[01:18:13] [SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about eagles,

[01:18:14] [SPEAKER_00]: he's talking about the ents,

[01:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: he's saying that the trees of Middle Earth

[01:18:17] [SPEAKER_00]: are not going to be high enough

[01:18:18] [SPEAKER_00]: for the eagles to nest in,

[01:18:20] [SPEAKER_00]: they have to nest in the trees of Aule

[01:18:22] [SPEAKER_00]: so he means the mountains

[01:18:27] [SPEAKER_00]: which you get in the first few chapters

[01:18:29] [SPEAKER_00]: of the Silmarillion,

[01:18:31] [SPEAKER_00]: don't let that put you off if it's to

[01:18:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Thee and Thou and all that sort of stuff

[01:18:34] [SPEAKER_00]: because the rest of the story

[01:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: gets into quite a lot more story-based stuff

[01:18:39] [SPEAKER_00]: rather than just the creation stuff

[01:18:40] [SPEAKER_00]: but yeah I thought that was really cool

[01:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: how they introduced both in the same episode.

[01:18:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope we get a lot more eagles

[01:18:49] [SPEAKER_03]: in the show.

[01:18:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I know that in

[01:18:54] [SPEAKER_03]: The Lord of the Rings

[01:18:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and The Hobbit

[01:18:56] [SPEAKER_03]: they have a relationship almost

[01:19:00] [SPEAKER_03]: and there's a lot of

[01:19:01] [SPEAKER_03]: memes and stuff about

[01:19:03] [SPEAKER_03]: why didn't the eagles just take

[01:19:05] [SPEAKER_03]: the ring to Mordor and throw it in Mount Doom

[01:19:08] [SPEAKER_03]: which I think is because

[01:19:11] [SPEAKER_03]: possibly they are Maya

[01:19:13] [SPEAKER_03]: or agents of the Maya

[01:19:15] [SPEAKER_03]: and can't directly affect

[01:19:18] [SPEAKER_03]: things on Middle Earth

[01:19:19] [SPEAKER_03]: the way that the wizards can.

[01:19:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, that's the general thinking

[01:19:23] [SPEAKER_00]: they can assist but they can't

[01:19:25] [SPEAKER_00]: take over and do the thing.

[01:19:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[01:19:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so

[01:19:33] [SPEAKER_00]: that's most of my points

[01:19:35] [SPEAKER_00]: but I did want to talk a little bit about

[01:19:40] [SPEAKER_00]: the orcs

[01:19:41] [SPEAKER_00]: and that whole scene there.

[01:19:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah!

[01:19:45] [SPEAKER_00]: We finally got a baby orc!

[01:19:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Woohoo!

[01:19:49] [SPEAKER_03]: That's so exciting!

[01:19:51] [SPEAKER_03]: In my notes I just wrote

[01:19:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Orc Baby!

[01:19:54] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I was like

[01:19:55] [SPEAKER_03]: Orc Woman?

[01:19:58] [SPEAKER_03]: That's so cool.

[01:19:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Because that's the mother, right?

[01:20:00] [SPEAKER_03]: She doesn't look really different

[01:20:03] [SPEAKER_03]: from any other orc.

[01:20:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I guess she's smaller but

[01:20:07] [SPEAKER_03]: she wasn't overtly feminine

[01:20:09] [SPEAKER_03]: or anything.

[01:20:11] [SPEAKER_03]: But she had to be the mom.

[01:20:13] [SPEAKER_03]: That was like an orc family.

[01:20:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was a little orc family

[01:20:16] [SPEAKER_00]: and it sort of gave a little bit of weight

[01:20:19] [SPEAKER_00]: to the fact that that orc had said

[01:20:21] [SPEAKER_00]: do we really have to go to war?

[01:20:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Can't we just do our thing?

[01:20:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Because he's obviously there

[01:20:25] [SPEAKER_00]: wanting to protect his family

[01:20:26] [SPEAKER_00]: so it was great.

[01:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I have a bunch of things to say about that

[01:20:30] [SPEAKER_00]: but I think it's almost all covered

[01:20:31] [SPEAKER_00]: in a piece of news that we're going to read out

[01:20:34] [SPEAKER_00]: so I won't go too much into depth to that

[01:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: apart from to say that

[01:20:38] [SPEAKER_00]: through the years Tolkien changed

[01:20:40] [SPEAKER_00]: the explanation of the orc origin story

[01:20:42] [SPEAKER_00]: lots of times

[01:20:44] [SPEAKER_00]: and it went everywhere from

[01:20:46] [SPEAKER_00]: were they bred from stone?

[01:20:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Were they corrupted elves?

[01:20:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Were they just soulless animals

[01:20:54] [SPEAKER_00]: that couldn't speak?

[01:20:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a bunch of different things

[01:20:57] [SPEAKER_00]: that he said so we'll talk about that

[01:20:59] [SPEAKER_00]: in the news article

[01:21:00] [SPEAKER_00]: but I thought it was really cool to see

[01:21:01] [SPEAKER_00]: we finally see that

[01:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and as you're aware Penny

[01:21:04] [SPEAKER_00]: the internet was flooded with orc baby conversation

[01:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and articles after this episode aired

[01:21:10] [SPEAKER_00]: so that was really, really cool.

[01:21:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I liked that

[01:21:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and then I also liked the troll as well.

[01:21:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was great.

[01:21:19] [SPEAKER_00]: It was really great to see this troll

[01:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: come on screen

[01:21:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and the way it entered

[01:21:23] [SPEAKER_00]: where they're sort of looking up through

[01:21:24] [SPEAKER_00]: the kind of coverings

[01:21:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and then they just see this giant

[01:21:27] [SPEAKER_00]: slow moving beast walking along.

[01:21:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I love the way Adar was like

[01:21:32] [SPEAKER_03]: oh my three o'clock is here

[01:21:34] [SPEAKER_03]: excuse me, I have to go talk to

[01:21:36] [SPEAKER_03]: he was so businesslike about it

[01:21:38] [SPEAKER_03]: it really cracked me up.

[01:21:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh no, he's got putting all the pieces

[01:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: into place isn't he?

[01:21:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So trolls we've seen them before

[01:21:44] [SPEAKER_00]: we've seen them in The Hobbit

[01:21:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and the trolls were created

[01:21:52] [SPEAKER_00]: in mockery of the Ents

[01:21:54] [SPEAKER_00]: in the same way that orcs may have been created

[01:21:56] [SPEAKER_00]: in mockery of the elves

[01:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: so whenever

[01:22:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Eru makes something

[01:22:01] [SPEAKER_00]: or one of the Valar make something beautiful

[01:22:03] [SPEAKER_00]: the forces of darkness make something

[01:22:05] [SPEAKER_00]: an echo of that that is horrible

[01:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and at first the trolls were pretty stupid

[01:22:11] [SPEAKER_00]: but apparently Sauron taught them

[01:22:14] [SPEAKER_00]: through the ages

[01:22:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and increased their intelligence

[01:22:16] [SPEAKER_00]: with his evil influence

[01:22:18] [SPEAKER_00]: at first they couldn't go into the sunlight

[01:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and remember Bilbo's troll

[01:22:21] [SPEAKER_00]: in Trolls in The Hobbit

[01:22:23] [SPEAKER_00]: that turned to stone when the sun rose

[01:22:26] [SPEAKER_00]: but later on Sauron bred some

[01:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: that could withstand the sunlight

[01:22:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and this one that we see here

[01:22:32] [SPEAKER_00]: is from the Grey Mountains

[01:22:34] [SPEAKER_00]: the Ered Mithrin which is in the north

[01:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and on screen there he's named Damrod

[01:22:39] [SPEAKER_00]: there's no named trolls

[01:22:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think apart from Bilbo's ones

[01:22:43] [SPEAKER_00]: in the stories

[01:22:45] [SPEAKER_00]: but Damrod isn't necessarily a name

[01:22:47] [SPEAKER_00]: it's probably a troll name

[01:22:48] [SPEAKER_00]: it is a Tolkien name

[01:22:49] [SPEAKER_00]: it was actually one of the Athilian rangers

[01:22:51] [SPEAKER_00]: from the Lord of the Rings

[01:22:52] [SPEAKER_00]: one of Faramir's men

[01:22:53] [SPEAKER_00]: that's a pretty cool name

[01:22:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and he's up there from the Grey Mountains

[01:22:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and he's obviously come to help Adar

[01:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: but interesting that he says

[01:23:03] [SPEAKER_00]: where is Sauron

[01:23:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's ambiguous

[01:23:06] [SPEAKER_00]: is he wanting to serve Sauron

[01:23:07] [SPEAKER_00]: is he wanting to kill Sauron like Adar does

[01:23:10] [SPEAKER_00]: we don't know yet

[01:23:11] [SPEAKER_03]: and you know Adar says

[01:23:15] [SPEAKER_03]: you got our message

[01:23:16] [SPEAKER_03]: and he's like yeah

[01:23:17] [SPEAKER_03]: and he holds up an orc head

[01:23:19] [SPEAKER_03]: and I'm like alright he killed the messenger

[01:23:23] [SPEAKER_03]: but in the world of orcs and trolls

[01:23:28] [SPEAKER_03]: does that mean he liked the message

[01:23:30] [SPEAKER_03]: or didn't like the message

[01:23:31] [SPEAKER_03]: like I don't really know what the etiquette is

[01:23:34] [SPEAKER_03]: when it comes to trolls

[01:23:36] [SPEAKER_03]: and orcs and messages

[01:23:37] [SPEAKER_03]: like Adar didn't seem put out by that

[01:23:41] [SPEAKER_03]: he was like oh okay

[01:23:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I think when you're hiring thugs

[01:23:45] [SPEAKER_00]: any more evidence of their thuggishness

[01:23:46] [SPEAKER_00]: is a bonus

[01:23:47] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah it's like alright

[01:23:50] [SPEAKER_03]: orc head thank you

[01:23:52] [SPEAKER_03]: one thing I noticed in that scene

[01:23:55] [SPEAKER_03]: apropos of nothing

[01:23:56] [SPEAKER_03]: is that the sword Adar is carrying

[01:23:58] [SPEAKER_03]: is gorgeous

[01:24:01] [SPEAKER_03]: and impressively long

[01:24:02] [SPEAKER_03]: and therefore reminded me of Glamdring

[01:24:05] [SPEAKER_03]: the sword that Gandalf gets

[01:24:08] [SPEAKER_03]: during the Hobbit

[01:24:11] [SPEAKER_00]: absolutely massive wasn't it

[01:24:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't recognise the actual

[01:24:14] [SPEAKER_00]: sort of hilt as being anything

[01:24:16] [SPEAKER_00]: that we've seen before

[01:24:17] [SPEAKER_00]: but it was really cool

[01:24:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and it was definitely eye-catching

[01:24:21] [SPEAKER_00]: wasn't it

[01:24:22] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah very cool

[01:24:24] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah the only other thing I have

[01:24:26] [SPEAKER_00]: is just a general note

[01:24:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I just still love all the visuals

[01:24:30] [SPEAKER_00]: you know we haven't talked about it

[01:24:31] [SPEAKER_00]: for a while since the beginning

[01:24:32] [SPEAKER_00]: but the makeup, the hair, the costuming

[01:24:35] [SPEAKER_00]: all the set design

[01:24:41] [SPEAKER_00]: is just not jumping out at me as much

[01:24:43] [SPEAKER_00]: but I definitely noticed it again

[01:24:44] [SPEAKER_00]: in this episode

[01:24:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and I was wondering how many of the craftspeople

[01:24:48] [SPEAKER_00]: because the show got moved from New Zealand

[01:24:50] [SPEAKER_00]: to the UK

[01:24:50] [SPEAKER_00]: how many people still continue to work on season 2

[01:24:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and I know Daniel Reeve

[01:24:55] [SPEAKER_00]: who does all of the drawings

[01:24:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and the writings

[01:24:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and all of those maps and things that we see

[01:25:01] [SPEAKER_00]: is still involved with that art direction

[01:25:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and I found a really cool article

[01:25:05] [SPEAKER_00]: that I'll link in the show notes

[01:25:07] [SPEAKER_00]: from the Art Directors Guild

[01:25:11] [SPEAKER_00]: who's interviewed for about season 1

[01:25:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's really cool

[01:25:16] [SPEAKER_00]: it's got pictures

[01:25:17] [SPEAKER_00]: and visuals in it as well

[01:25:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and it includes him discussing

[01:25:21] [SPEAKER_00]: how he created the writing system

[01:25:23] [SPEAKER_00]: for the Halfords

[01:25:24] [SPEAKER_00]: you know that sort of hieroglyphic kind of way

[01:25:26] [SPEAKER_00]: that they had

[01:25:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and in fact he started out writing it in English

[01:25:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and then the showrunners said to him

[01:25:31] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah no we're not going to use actual words

[01:25:33] [SPEAKER_00]: we just need this to be pictures

[01:25:34] [SPEAKER_00]: so he had to make them a kind of symbolic system

[01:25:37] [SPEAKER_00]: it includes Caleb Rimbaugh's

[01:25:41] [SPEAKER_00]: and also Bronwyn's herbal notes

[01:25:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and the diagrams and things

[01:25:45] [SPEAKER_00]: from her books

[01:25:48] [SPEAKER_00]: so it's gorgeous

[01:25:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I'd highly encourage anyone

[01:25:51] [SPEAKER_00]: to go and have a little look at that

[01:25:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and see how these background things were made

[01:25:55] [SPEAKER_00]: so I thought that was great

[01:25:57] [SPEAKER_03]: That is so cool

[01:25:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope that the costumes

[01:26:01] [SPEAKER_03]: and props and things

[01:26:03] [SPEAKER_03]: from this show

[01:26:04] [SPEAKER_03]: eventually go on some kind of

[01:26:07] [SPEAKER_03]: you know museum tour

[01:26:09] [SPEAKER_03]: so that we can see them up close

[01:26:11] [SPEAKER_03]: because they are exquisite

[01:26:12] [SPEAKER_00]: That would be great wouldn't it

[01:26:14] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah I got to see the Lord of the Rings one

[01:26:16] [SPEAKER_00]: when that was in Wellington

[01:26:19] [SPEAKER_00]: they had Galadriel's gown

[01:26:20] [SPEAKER_00]: which was like one of the centrepieces

[01:26:22] [SPEAKER_00]: just incredible

[01:26:23] [SPEAKER_00]: like thousands and thousands of hand stitched beads

[01:26:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and oh it was fantastic

[01:26:27] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah all of the props were really cool

[01:26:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I just coincidentally was in Dublin

[01:26:32] [SPEAKER_03]: and the Game of Thrones costumes

[01:26:34] [SPEAKER_03]: were on display

[01:26:38] [SPEAKER_03]: and at some

[01:26:40] [SPEAKER_03]: it was like

[01:26:41] [SPEAKER_03]: I accidentally happened upon it

[01:26:44] [SPEAKER_03]: and I was like what

[01:26:45] [SPEAKER_03]: and then went in and saw this exhibit

[01:26:47] [SPEAKER_03]: and could get up close and personal

[01:26:49] [SPEAKER_03]: with all of these gorgeous costumes

[01:26:52] [SPEAKER_03]: from Game of Thrones

[01:26:53] [SPEAKER_03]: and the most shocking thing

[01:26:55] [SPEAKER_03]: was how tiny Daenerys is

[01:27:00] [SPEAKER_03]: Emilia Clarke

[01:27:01] [SPEAKER_03]: She's little

[01:27:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like oh my god

[01:27:03] [SPEAKER_03]: she's like is she five feet tall

[01:27:07] [SPEAKER_03]: she's tiny

[01:27:09] [SPEAKER_00]: and then next to

[01:27:12] [SPEAKER_00]: what's his name

[01:27:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Jasper Mamoa's character

[01:27:14] [SPEAKER_00]: it's pretty amazing

[01:27:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean he's particularly gigantic as well

[01:27:18] [SPEAKER_00]: that would have been so cool to see

[01:27:20] [SPEAKER_00]: oh that's awesome

[01:27:21] [SPEAKER_03]: yeah it was cool

[01:27:22] [SPEAKER_03]: so I'm hoping that these will go on tour

[01:27:24] [SPEAKER_03]: because they are quite beautiful

[01:27:26] [SPEAKER_00]: fantastic

[01:27:27] [SPEAKER_00]: alright did you have anything else

[01:27:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I have kind of a question

[01:27:32] [SPEAKER_03]: about the dwarves

[01:27:33] [SPEAKER_03]: how far away are other dwarf kingdoms

[01:27:39] [SPEAKER_03]: the other doomed dwarves

[01:27:40] [SPEAKER_03]: are in pretty dire straits

[01:27:42] [SPEAKER_03]: they have three months of food left

[01:27:44] [SPEAKER_03]: I know that

[01:27:46] [SPEAKER_03]: King Durin didn't want to trade for food

[01:27:49] [SPEAKER_03]: with the surface world

[01:27:50] [SPEAKER_03]: and he definitely didn't want to

[01:27:52] [SPEAKER_03]: reach out to the elves for assistance

[01:27:54] [SPEAKER_03]: but what about other dwarves

[01:27:56] [SPEAKER_03]: wouldn't their relations

[01:27:58] [SPEAKER_03]: with other dwarves be better

[01:28:00] [SPEAKER_03]: would he be more likely

[01:28:02] [SPEAKER_03]: to accept help from them

[01:28:03] [SPEAKER_03]: or would some of his dwarves maybe defect

[01:28:05] [SPEAKER_03]: and go join some other dwarf kingdom

[01:28:09] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah good question

[01:28:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't really know at this stage

[01:28:12] [SPEAKER_00]: in the story where the other things are

[01:28:15] [SPEAKER_00]: so later on we get the dwarves

[01:28:18] [SPEAKER_00]: that are around Erebor

[01:28:19] [SPEAKER_00]: which is the lonely mountains

[01:28:20] [SPEAKER_00]: we see that in the Hobbit

[01:28:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and that's much further north

[01:28:24] [SPEAKER_00]: but at this stage

[01:28:25] [SPEAKER_00]: in the second age

[01:28:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where all of the rest of them are

[01:28:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and what sort of relationship

[01:28:29] [SPEAKER_00]: they would have with them

[01:28:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and whether they would have that ability

[01:28:32] [SPEAKER_00]: to ask for help or to offer help

[01:28:39] [SPEAKER_00]: they've established that before

[01:28:41] [SPEAKER_00]: so it's easy for them to get there

[01:28:43] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah that would be interesting to know

[01:28:45] [SPEAKER_00]: how much of a relationship

[01:28:47] [SPEAKER_00]: they have with any other of the dwarven kings

[01:28:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I assume we're going to meet

[01:28:51] [SPEAKER_03]: the other dwarven kings

[01:28:52] [SPEAKER_03]: because there's seven rings

[01:28:53] [SPEAKER_03]: and they're going to give them

[01:28:55] [SPEAKER_03]: to the other dwarf kings at some point

[01:28:58] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah I don't know how much of that

[01:29:00] [SPEAKER_00]: is going to be shown

[01:29:04] [SPEAKER_00]: or whether it's going to be implied

[01:29:06] [SPEAKER_00]: it's a lot to be showing

[01:29:08] [SPEAKER_00]: six other dwarven kingdoms

[01:29:09] [SPEAKER_03]: yeah but I'm just wondering

[01:29:12] [SPEAKER_03]: if maybe we'll just see

[01:29:13] [SPEAKER_03]: the actual kings

[01:29:14] [SPEAKER_03]: maybe a montage?

[01:29:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I'm just very interested

[01:29:18] [SPEAKER_00]: will they come to Eregion

[01:29:19] [SPEAKER_00]: on a dwarf conference

[01:29:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and get given out their goodie bags

[01:29:22] [SPEAKER_03]: yeah some swag

[01:29:24] [SPEAKER_03]: with like a little Eregion

[01:29:27] [SPEAKER_03]: stress ball for their desk

[01:29:31] [SPEAKER_03]: fidget spinner

[01:29:32] [SPEAKER_03]: all the stuff you get at conferences

[01:29:35] [SPEAKER_03]: tote bags

[01:29:35] [SPEAKER_03]: they'll get some tote bags

[01:29:40] [SPEAKER_00]: that's brilliant

[01:29:41] [SPEAKER_00]: all right well

[01:29:43] [SPEAKER_00]: we are now going to take a break

[01:29:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and we will be right back

[01:29:47] [SPEAKER_00]: stay with us because there's heaps more to come

[01:30:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and we're back

[01:30:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and we have a couple of pieces of news this week

[01:30:18] [SPEAKER_00]: the first one is from GOTV

[01:30:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and it is about the Rings of Power star

[01:30:24] [SPEAKER_00]: reacting to a key shake-up in cast

[01:30:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Bronwyn, played by Nazanin Boniadi

[01:30:29] [SPEAKER_00]: was not returning to season 2

[01:30:32] [SPEAKER_00]: of the Rings of Power

[01:30:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and her on-screen love interest

[01:30:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Ismael Cruz Cordova

[01:30:36] [SPEAKER_00]: who plays Aramdia

[01:30:37] [SPEAKER_00]: shared his thoughts on her absence

[01:30:39] [SPEAKER_00]: it's funny to talk about love in this way

[01:30:41] [SPEAKER_00]: because it alters it entirely

[01:30:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and at the same, not at all

[01:30:44] [SPEAKER_00]: because it is just a continuation

[01:30:46] [SPEAKER_00]: of the depth of love that they have for each other

[01:30:48] [SPEAKER_00]: told comic book

[01:30:49] [SPEAKER_00]: this love story is always filled with a pull

[01:30:52] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, a push and a pull

[01:30:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and it's just another stage of that

[01:30:56] [SPEAKER_00]: so whether she is on screen or not on screen

[01:31:02] [SPEAKER_00]: the promises are in every single frame

[01:31:03] [SPEAKER_00]: of the entirety of our story

[01:31:05] [SPEAKER_00]: this is a minefield, he added

[01:31:07] [SPEAKER_00]: but people will feel it

[01:31:09] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to say that

[01:31:10] [SPEAKER_00]: if you've ever been in love

[01:31:11] [SPEAKER_00]: you'll know what the hell is going on

[01:31:13] [SPEAKER_00]: earlier, Nazanin opted out from season 2

[01:31:16] [SPEAKER_00]: of the Amazon show, explaining

[01:31:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I made the choice not to return

[01:31:19] [SPEAKER_00]: for season 2 of Rings of Power

[01:31:21] [SPEAKER_00]: this was unrelated to my subsequent decision

[01:31:23] [SPEAKER_00]: to prioritise my advocacy

[01:31:25] [SPEAKER_00]: she further wrote in her post on social media

[01:31:28] [SPEAKER_00]: throughout my career

[01:31:32] [SPEAKER_00]: about empathy and integrity

[01:31:33] [SPEAKER_00]: my character Bronwyn was committed

[01:31:34] [SPEAKER_00]: to these same ideals

[01:31:35] [SPEAKER_00]: in striving for a fairer world

[01:31:37] [SPEAKER_00]: which is why I connected so deeply with her

[01:31:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I look forward to sharing my latest projects

[01:31:41] [SPEAKER_00]: with you soon

[01:31:43] [SPEAKER_03]: oh, so I was labouring under the misconception

[01:31:47] [SPEAKER_03]: that those two things were related

[01:31:50] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah, I had heard interviews

[01:31:52] [SPEAKER_00]: that said she was doing that

[01:31:53] [SPEAKER_00]: in order to focus on her advocacy

[01:31:55] [SPEAKER_00]: so maybe it's something separate

[01:31:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and potentially we'll see her on screen

[01:32:03] [SPEAKER_00]: but other than that

[01:32:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I just think it's beautiful

[01:32:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and makes me have even more of a crush on him

[01:32:07] [SPEAKER_00]: because he's really nice

[01:32:09] [SPEAKER_03]: do you follow him on Instagram?

[01:32:11] [SPEAKER_03]: he is so charming

[01:32:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I do follow him

[01:32:15] [SPEAKER_00]: but I think my

[01:32:19] [SPEAKER_00]: what do you call that?

[01:32:21] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, the algorithm

[01:32:23] [SPEAKER_00]: I've got no words today

[01:32:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I think the algorithm is messed up

[01:32:27] [SPEAKER_00]: either that or I follow too many people

[01:32:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and I don't see him come up often

[01:32:30] [SPEAKER_00]: so I might need to go and visit him

[01:32:33] [SPEAKER_03]: he seems like the most enthusiastic participant

[01:32:38] [SPEAKER_03]: in this show

[01:32:39] [SPEAKER_03]: he often posts pictures of himself

[01:32:44] [SPEAKER_03]: he has this whole series

[01:32:46] [SPEAKER_03]: where he goes to see his billboard

[01:32:48] [SPEAKER_03]: in Times Square in New York City

[01:32:49] [SPEAKER_03]: and is all excited

[01:32:50] [SPEAKER_03]: he's like, that's me!

[01:32:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm up there!

[01:32:53] [SPEAKER_03]: it's so cute

[01:32:54] [SPEAKER_02]: it's so adorable

[01:32:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and then there's all these pictures of him

[01:32:58] [SPEAKER_03]: on the press tour

[01:32:59] [SPEAKER_03]: in his different very stylish outfits

[01:33:03] [SPEAKER_03]: and he looks so different

[01:33:05] [SPEAKER_03]: when he's Israel Cruz Cordoba

[01:33:08] [SPEAKER_03]: and not Aaron Deer

[01:33:09] [SPEAKER_03]: it's amazing

[01:33:10] [SPEAKER_03]: because I've been looking at his Instagram a lot lately

[01:33:14] [SPEAKER_03]: and then to see him in this episode

[01:33:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I was like, whoa!

[01:33:18] [SPEAKER_03]: everything about him is different

[01:33:19] [SPEAKER_03]: when he's Aaron Deer

[01:33:20] [SPEAKER_03]: he's such a good actor

[01:33:22] [SPEAKER_03]: I just love him

[01:33:23] [SPEAKER_03]: fantastic

[01:33:23] [SPEAKER_00]: and I also love when people

[01:33:25] [SPEAKER_00]: don't suddenly become too cool for school

[01:33:28] [SPEAKER_00]: when they're famous

[01:33:29] [SPEAKER_00]: famous people are just people as well

[01:33:32] [SPEAKER_00]: and I know that they fangirl and fangboy over things

[01:33:34] [SPEAKER_00]: so I love it when people get excited about things

[01:33:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and don't be all blase

[01:33:37] [SPEAKER_00]: like, oh I'm so cool

[01:33:38] [SPEAKER_00]: now I'm famous

[01:33:40] [SPEAKER_03]: being excited about being in Times Square on a billboard

[01:33:45] [SPEAKER_03]: that's a life-changing moment

[01:33:48] [SPEAKER_03]: enjoy it

[01:33:50] [SPEAKER_03]: so cool

[01:33:52] [SPEAKER_03]: we have one other news article

[01:33:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and I was really excited to find this one

[01:33:57] [SPEAKER_03]: it's from Nerdist

[01:33:58] [SPEAKER_03]: written by Rotem Rusak

[01:34:00] [SPEAKER_03]: called Yes!

[01:34:01] [SPEAKER_03]: There was a baby orc and an orc family

[01:34:03] [SPEAKER_03]: on the Rings of Power Season 2

[01:34:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Parentheses, get over it

[01:34:08] [SPEAKER_03]: One little orc Uruk baby

[01:34:10] [SPEAKER_03]: is in the middle of much discussion

[01:34:12] [SPEAKER_03]: among the lovers of Middle-earth in our world

[01:34:14] [SPEAKER_03]: During the Lord of the Rings

[01:34:16] [SPEAKER_03]: The Rings of Power Season 2's first episode

[01:34:18] [SPEAKER_03]: we got to meet the orc Glug

[01:34:20] [SPEAKER_03]: who seemed very concerned

[01:34:22] [SPEAKER_03]: about the orcs marching back off to war

[01:34:24] [SPEAKER_03]: after they just found a home in Mordor

[01:34:26] [SPEAKER_03]: but it turns out

[01:34:29] [SPEAKER_03]: that Glug's motivation for peace

[01:34:30] [SPEAKER_03]: runs deeper than just wanting a little quiet

[01:34:33] [SPEAKER_03]: The Rings of Power Season 2

[01:34:34] [SPEAKER_03]: reveals to us that Glug has an orc family

[01:34:37] [SPEAKER_03]: waiting in the wings

[01:34:38] [SPEAKER_03]: which includes an orc wife and an orc baby

[01:34:41] [SPEAKER_03]: It turns out that neither orc ladies

[01:34:43] [SPEAKER_03]: nor orc babies

[01:34:44] [SPEAKER_03]: have ever been depicted in a

[01:34:46] [SPEAKER_03]: The Lord of the Rings adaptation before

[01:34:48] [SPEAKER_03]: and for some, this was a shocking turn of events

[01:34:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I excerpted parts of the article

[01:34:55] [SPEAKER_03]: so there's some discussion

[01:34:56] [SPEAKER_03]: about what people are all upset about

[01:35:01] [SPEAKER_03]: but here's what J.R.R. Tolkien

[01:35:03] [SPEAKER_03]: has to say about orc babies

[01:35:05] [SPEAKER_03]: and orc families

[01:35:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Of course it's fair enough to ask

[01:35:09] [SPEAKER_03]: what J.R.R. Tolkien, the creator

[01:35:10] [SPEAKER_03]: of The Lord of the Rings world

[01:35:11] [SPEAKER_03]: would have to say about orcs

[01:35:13] [SPEAKER_03]: having families and babies

[01:35:14] [SPEAKER_03]: Handily, Tolkien does address these ideas

[01:35:17] [SPEAKER_03]: while also leaving the door open

[01:35:19] [SPEAKER_03]: in a way that 100% allows for

[01:35:22] [SPEAKER_03]: the Rings of Power's interpretations

[01:35:24] [SPEAKER_03]: of orc community

[01:35:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Most notably, Tolkien said of the orcs

[01:35:28] [SPEAKER_03]: in the Silmarillion

[01:35:31] [SPEAKER_03]: that Melkor breed the hideous race

[01:35:32] [SPEAKER_03]: of the orcs in envy and mockery

[01:35:34] [SPEAKER_03]: of the elves

[01:35:35] [SPEAKER_03]: of whom they were afterwards

[01:35:37] [SPEAKER_03]: the bitterest foes

[01:35:38] [SPEAKER_03]: For the orcs had life

[01:35:40] [SPEAKER_03]: and multiplied after the manner

[01:35:41] [SPEAKER_03]: of the children of Iluvatar

[01:35:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And not that had life of its own

[01:35:45] [SPEAKER_03]: nor the semblance of life

[01:35:47] [SPEAKER_03]: could ever Melkor make

[01:35:48] [SPEAKER_03]: since his rebellion in the

[01:35:53] [SPEAKER_03]: Anulandale, maybe?

[01:35:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I have no idea

[01:35:55] [SPEAKER_03]: before the beginning

[01:36:01] [SPEAKER_03]: of the Silmarillion

[01:36:01] [SPEAKER_03]: whom they served in fear

[01:36:02] [SPEAKER_03]: the maker only of their misery

[01:36:06] [SPEAKER_03]: Two important aspects

[01:36:07] [SPEAKER_03]: of that quote jump out

[01:36:09] [SPEAKER_03]: First, Tolkien makes it plain

[01:36:11] [SPEAKER_03]: that orc babies do exist

[01:36:12] [SPEAKER_03]: He literally says

[01:36:13] [SPEAKER_03]: orcs multiply in the manner

[01:36:15] [SPEAKER_03]: of the children of Iluvatar

[01:36:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, that's elves and men

[01:36:18] [SPEAKER_03]: So yes, orcs have sex

[01:36:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry to break this to you

[01:36:31] [SPEAKER_03]: In both The Hobbit

[01:36:31] [SPEAKER_03]: and The Lord of the Rings

[01:36:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Tolkien writes of the orc Bolg

[01:36:34] [SPEAKER_03]: and his father Azog

[01:36:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Tolkien notes in The Hobbit

[01:36:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Bolg of the North is coming

[01:36:39] [SPEAKER_03]: O Dane, whose father you slew

[01:36:41] [SPEAKER_03]: in Moria

[01:36:43] [SPEAKER_03]: Additionally, a footnote

[01:36:44] [SPEAKER_03]: in the Lord of the Rings

[01:36:44] [SPEAKER_03]: books notes Azog was the father

[01:36:46] [SPEAKER_03]: of Bolg

[01:36:47] [SPEAKER_03]: While he doesn't come right out

[01:36:49] [SPEAKER_03]: and say it, Tolkien implies

[01:36:50] [SPEAKER_03]: that Bolg seeks revenge

[01:37:01] [SPEAKER_03]: to eradicate family ties

[01:37:02] [SPEAKER_03]: and orc kin affinities

[01:37:04] [SPEAKER_03]: even though this, of course

[01:37:05] [SPEAKER_03]: is the darkest manifestation

[01:37:07] [SPEAKER_03]: of them

[01:37:08] [SPEAKER_03]: The full article will be

[01:37:10] [SPEAKER_03]: linked in the show notes

[01:37:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love that

[01:37:13] [SPEAKER_00]: All the different background

[01:37:14] [SPEAKER_00]: and the fact that definitely

[01:37:17] [SPEAKER_00]: they reproduced

[01:37:19] [SPEAKER_00]: they had to make other orcs

[01:37:20] [SPEAKER_00]: However, whichever story

[01:37:22] [SPEAKER_00]: you go with in terms of

[01:37:24] [SPEAKER_00]: how they were actually made

[01:37:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's cool to see that

[01:37:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And that quote again

[01:37:34] [SPEAKER_00]: from The Silmarillion

[01:37:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I like that because

[01:37:40] [SPEAKER_00]: basically it says in The Silmarillion

[01:37:42] [SPEAKER_00]: So the Ainu Lindalee

[01:37:44] [SPEAKER_00]: was the song

[01:37:45] [SPEAKER_00]: so that was the song of the Ainu

[01:37:47] [SPEAKER_00]: at the very, very beginning

[01:37:48] [SPEAKER_00]: so that's how the Valar and the Maiar

[01:37:49] [SPEAKER_00]: came into being

[01:37:50] [SPEAKER_00]: is the song of Oluvatar

[01:37:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and basically

[01:37:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Malcol wasn't allowed

[01:37:57] [SPEAKER_00]: to create anything bad

[01:37:59] [SPEAKER_00]: so he could corrupt stuff

[01:38:00] [SPEAKER_00]: but he couldn't make something

[01:38:02] [SPEAKER_00]: from the start be evil

[01:38:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and yeah, I mean

[01:38:06] [SPEAKER_00]: there you go

[01:38:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Old Tolkien was a Catholic

[01:38:09] [SPEAKER_00]: so you've got a lot of these

[01:38:10] [SPEAKER_00]: sort of themes coming through

[01:38:11] [SPEAKER_00]: but this evil was only able

[01:38:14] [SPEAKER_00]: to corrupt so that's where

[01:38:15] [SPEAKER_00]: that came from

[01:38:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a cool article

[01:38:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I look forward to reading

[01:38:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Almas Contreras

[01:38:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Hey Alma

[01:38:26] [SPEAKER_03]: who says

[01:38:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my goodness

[01:38:29] [SPEAKER_03]: that poor horsey

[01:38:30] [SPEAKER_03]: when they went in that cave

[01:38:32] [SPEAKER_03]: but yay he found his boy

[01:38:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Isildur

[01:38:35] [SPEAKER_03]: and she's got a little

[01:38:36] [SPEAKER_03]: like celebrating

[01:38:37] [SPEAKER_03]: noise maker emoji

[01:38:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Sauron taking on the elf form

[01:38:41] [SPEAKER_03]: saddens me because of his

[01:38:42] [SPEAKER_03]: sinister plan

[01:38:55] [SPEAKER_03]: and then the lady

[01:38:55] [SPEAKER_03]: sad face emoji

[01:38:56] [SPEAKER_03]: crying emoji

[01:38:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I hope this storyline gets

[01:38:59] [SPEAKER_03]: fleshed out more this season

[01:39:00] [SPEAKER_03]: kind of off topic

[01:39:02] [SPEAKER_03]: but can you ladies explain

[01:39:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Valinor to me

[01:39:04] [SPEAKER_03]: can't wait for the cast

[01:39:06] [SPEAKER_03]: kissy face emoji

[01:39:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much Alma

[01:39:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so Valinor

[01:39:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I can give you a little bit

[01:39:14] [SPEAKER_00]: of background about that

[01:39:15] [SPEAKER_00]: because they do mention it

[01:39:25] [SPEAKER_00]: in the story of the

[01:39:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Inoa and that's the

[01:39:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Inolindile that we just

[01:39:27] [SPEAKER_00]: mentioned before from the

[01:39:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Silmarillion so this music

[01:39:30] [SPEAKER_00]: of the Inoa brought into being

[01:39:32] [SPEAKER_00]: the Valar so the Valar

[01:39:33] [SPEAKER_00]: were these holy beings

[01:39:35] [SPEAKER_00]: and they went to this land

[01:39:37] [SPEAKER_00]: called Almarin and Almarin

[01:39:39] [SPEAKER_00]: was this island on an inland

[01:39:40] [SPEAKER_00]: sea in the middle of Middle

[01:39:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Earth and this stage Middle

[01:39:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Earth was just this big round

[01:39:44] [SPEAKER_00]: blob of a landmass and

[01:39:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Almarin was lit by these

[01:39:48] [SPEAKER_00]: two lamps and later on

[01:39:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Malkor who turned

[01:39:52] [SPEAKER_00]: into Morgoth so Morgoth

[01:39:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Malkor was his Valar name

[01:39:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and Morgoth was his evil

[01:39:57] [SPEAKER_00]: name he destroyed the

[01:39:58] [SPEAKER_00]: lamps and the destroying of

[01:40:00] [SPEAKER_00]: the lamps destroyed the

[01:40:01] [SPEAKER_00]: island and the sea and it

[01:40:03] [SPEAKER_00]: moved around the whole

[01:40:04] [SPEAKER_00]: continent of Middle Earth

[01:40:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and so the Valar thought

[01:40:07] [SPEAKER_00]: well this isn't good

[01:40:08] [SPEAKER_00]: this place has been

[01:40:09] [SPEAKER_00]: destroyed so they moved to

[01:40:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Valinor and Valinor is

[01:40:12] [SPEAKER_00]: the name that's given to

[01:40:13] [SPEAKER_00]: the inhabited part of this

[01:40:15] [SPEAKER_00]: other continent in the west

[01:40:16] [SPEAKER_00]: called Aman so really

[01:40:19] [SPEAKER_00]: the only name you need to

[01:40:20] [SPEAKER_00]: know is Valinor here and

[01:40:21] [SPEAKER_00]: it's just place in the

[01:40:23] [SPEAKER_00]: west so the Valar lived

[01:40:24] [SPEAKER_00]: there and it was lit by

[01:40:26] [SPEAKER_00]: the two trees that we saw

[01:40:27] [SPEAKER_00]: in episode one and then

[01:40:30] [SPEAKER_00]: after some time the Elves

[01:40:31] [SPEAKER_00]: after they've been created

[01:40:32] [SPEAKER_00]: in Middle Earth they were

[01:40:33] [SPEAKER_00]: invited to live there I

[01:40:35] [SPEAKER_00]: think we talked about this

[01:40:36] [SPEAKER_00]: a couple episodes ago some

[01:40:37] [SPEAKER_00]: of them went and some

[01:40:38] [SPEAKER_00]: didn't and this was

[01:40:39] [SPEAKER_00]: actually before the sun and

[01:40:40] [SPEAKER_00]: the moon were created so

[01:40:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the Elves that stayed in

[01:40:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Middle Earth lived in

[01:40:44] [SPEAKER_00]: starlight and so there you

[01:40:46] [SPEAKER_00]: have the years of the

[01:40:47] [SPEAKER_00]: trees it's a really happy

[01:40:48] [SPEAKER_00]: time it's also known as

[01:40:49] [SPEAKER_00]: the bliss of Valinor so

[01:40:51] [SPEAKER_00]: there's Valar living there

[01:40:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and there's Maiar and

[01:40:53] [SPEAKER_00]: there's Elves living there

[01:40:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and then Malkor who'd

[01:40:57] [SPEAKER_00]: already been doing some

[01:40:58] [SPEAKER_00]: naughty stuff like

[01:40:59] [SPEAKER_00]: destroying you know the

[01:41:00] [SPEAKER_00]: original land that they

[01:41:01] [SPEAKER_00]: lived in he'd been in

[01:41:03] [SPEAKER_00]: prison for a couple of

[01:41:03] [SPEAKER_00]: thousand years but they

[01:41:04] [SPEAKER_00]: actually set him free

[01:41:05] [SPEAKER_00]: they're like oh you've

[01:41:06] [SPEAKER_00]: done your time now we'll

[01:41:07] [SPEAKER_00]: set you free but then he

[01:41:09] [SPEAKER_00]: turned bad again and then

[01:41:10] [SPEAKER_00]: that's when he and

[01:41:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Ungoliant destroyed the

[01:41:13] [SPEAKER_00]: trees at that stage the

[01:41:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Valar made the sun and

[01:41:15] [SPEAKER_00]: the moon to light the

[01:41:16] [SPEAKER_00]: whole earth and for

[01:41:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Valinor most Elves can

[01:41:20] [SPEAKER_00]: go back there if they

[01:41:21] [SPEAKER_00]: either tire of Middle

[01:41:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Earth or if they die in

[01:41:23] [SPEAKER_00]: battle so if they die in

[01:41:24] [SPEAKER_00]: battle they go to the

[01:41:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Halls of Mandos which is

[01:41:27] [SPEAKER_00]: this kind of waiting room

[01:41:28] [SPEAKER_00]: they get sort of judged

[01:41:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and then they get a new

[01:41:30] [SPEAKER_00]: body and they end up in

[01:41:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Valinor and at first it

[01:41:34] [SPEAKER_00]: was a physical land that

[01:41:35] [SPEAKER_00]: anybody could just

[01:41:36] [SPEAKER_00]: physically sail there

[01:41:37] [SPEAKER_00]: they just weren't most

[01:41:38] [SPEAKER_00]: people humans weren't

[01:41:39] [SPEAKER_00]: allowed to go there but

[01:41:41] [SPEAKER_00]: later some other stuff

[01:41:42] [SPEAKER_00]: happens which I won't go

[01:41:43] [SPEAKER_00]: into right now but other

[01:41:44] [SPEAKER_00]: stuff happens later that

[01:41:45] [SPEAKER_00]: kind of closes off the

[01:41:47] [SPEAKER_00]: way to get to Valinor

[01:41:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and later in the story

[01:41:50] [SPEAKER_00]: some very few mortal

[01:41:52] [SPEAKER_00]: beings do get to go there

[01:41:53] [SPEAKER_00]: so ring bearers like

[01:41:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Frodo, Bilbo and Sam it's

[01:41:57] [SPEAKER_00]: most likely also that

[01:41:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Gimli did get to go there

[01:41:59] [SPEAKER_00]: as well due to his close

[01:42:00] [SPEAKER_00]: friendship with Legolas

[01:42:02] [SPEAKER_00]: and sometimes also known

[01:42:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Valinor is sometimes also

[01:42:04] [SPEAKER_00]: known as the Undying

[01:42:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Lands and that doesn't

[01:42:07] [SPEAKER_00]: mean that mortals live

[01:42:09] [SPEAKER_00]: forever there so if

[01:42:09] [SPEAKER_00]: you're mortal and you get

[01:42:11] [SPEAKER_00]: to go there like Frodo

[01:42:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and Sam and Bilbo you

[01:42:14] [SPEAKER_00]: could be healed and you

[01:42:15] [SPEAKER_00]: could live in bliss but

[01:42:16] [SPEAKER_00]: you still lived out your

[01:42:17] [SPEAKER_00]: normal lifespan

[01:42:19] [SPEAKER_00]: so that's Valinor

[01:42:20] [SPEAKER_00]: in a nutshell

[01:42:23] [SPEAKER_03]: Very cool, thank you

[01:42:26] [SPEAKER_00]: And we also had

[01:42:28] [SPEAKER_00]: a message from Erica

[01:42:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Price and Erica says

[01:42:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Way to go Beric

[01:42:32] [SPEAKER_00]: This reminds me of

[01:42:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Aragorn's bond with

[01:42:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Brego they were amazing

[01:42:35] [SPEAKER_00]: together

[01:42:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Just how did Isildur end

[01:42:37] [SPEAKER_00]: up in this spidery cave

[01:42:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Was it a baby orc and

[01:42:40] [SPEAKER_00]: a hill troll in the

[01:42:40] [SPEAKER_00]: same scene?

[01:42:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Amazing

[01:42:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Well I guess we know

[01:42:43] [SPEAKER_00]: now how they're handling

[01:42:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Bronwyn, poor Arondir

[01:42:45] [SPEAKER_00]: though

[01:42:46] [SPEAKER_00]: An eagle?

[01:42:47] [SPEAKER_00]: My heart!

[01:42:48] [SPEAKER_00]: They're ticking all my

[01:42:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Tolkien boxes with this

[01:42:49] [SPEAKER_00]: episode and I'm here for

[01:42:51] [SPEAKER_00]: it.

[01:42:51] [SPEAKER_00]: This is the best episode

[01:42:52] [SPEAKER_00]: yet.

[01:42:53] [SPEAKER_00]: In your episode 2

[01:42:54] [SPEAKER_00]: breakdown you mentioned

[01:42:55] [SPEAKER_00]: the moths and it made

[01:42:55] [SPEAKER_00]: me remember how Gandalf

[01:42:56] [SPEAKER_00]: used moths to summon

[01:42:57] [SPEAKER_00]: the eagles.

[01:42:58] [SPEAKER_00]: This was a really cool

[01:42:59] [SPEAKER_00]: tie in to this show.

[01:43:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry my feedback is

[01:43:01] [SPEAKER_00]: late, I was trying to

[01:43:02] [SPEAKER_00]: hold out and not watch

[01:43:03] [SPEAKER_00]: all 3 so quickly and

[01:43:04] [SPEAKER_00]: savour them but alas it

[01:43:05] [SPEAKER_00]: couldn't be done.

[01:43:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks so much Erica

[01:43:07] [SPEAKER_00]: and it was perfect

[01:43:09] [SPEAKER_00]: timing as you know we've

[01:43:10] [SPEAKER_00]: delayed episode 3 a little

[01:43:11] [SPEAKER_00]: bit, in fact episode 4

[01:43:13] [SPEAKER_00]: dropped last night and I

[01:43:14] [SPEAKER_00]: still haven't quite seen

[01:43:16] [SPEAKER_00]: it until after we've

[01:43:17] [SPEAKER_00]: recorded now so that was

[01:43:17] [SPEAKER_00]: really great timing.

[01:43:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I loved your feedback

[01:43:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and it kind of sums up

[01:43:21] [SPEAKER_00]: how I felt about it.

[01:43:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Loved the episode, so

[01:43:24] [SPEAKER_00]: much happened and I love

[01:43:25] [SPEAKER_00]: how you've just summed

[01:43:26] [SPEAKER_00]: it all up in one little

[01:43:27] [SPEAKER_00]: snippet, that's awesome.

[01:43:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And I had forgotten

[01:43:29] [SPEAKER_03]: about Gandalf using the

[01:43:31] [SPEAKER_03]: moth so thank you for

[01:43:32] [SPEAKER_03]: bringing that up because

[01:43:33] [SPEAKER_03]: that's a cool tie back.

[01:43:35] Thank you

[01:43:35] [SPEAKER_03]: for that.

[01:43:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's great.

[01:43:37] [SPEAKER_03]: We have one voicemail

[01:43:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and it is from Denise.

[01:43:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to play it

[01:43:41] [SPEAKER_01]: now.

[01:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Hello ladies this is

[01:43:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Denise back from season

[01:43:46] [SPEAKER_01]: 1 of Rings of Power here

[01:43:50] [SPEAKER_01]: to listen to you guys

[01:43:51] [SPEAKER_01]: for season 2.

[01:43:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back, glad to

[01:43:54] [SPEAKER_01]: have you guys on

[01:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: broadcasting again for

[01:43:56] [SPEAKER_01]: the show.

[01:43:58] [SPEAKER_01]: I will tell you I

[01:43:59] [SPEAKER_01]: listened to your first

[01:44:00] [SPEAKER_01]: two episodes as of this

[01:44:01] [SPEAKER_01]: recording and I will

[01:44:03] [SPEAKER_01]: tell you I am personally

[01:44:04] [SPEAKER_01]: happy with the way

[01:44:14] [SPEAKER_01]: they explained Adar

[01:44:15] [SPEAKER_01]: because I so did not

[01:44:16] [SPEAKER_01]: understand that character,

[01:44:18] [SPEAKER_01]: the point or purpose of

[01:44:19] [SPEAKER_01]: that character in season

[01:44:20] [SPEAKER_01]: 1.

[01:44:21] [SPEAKER_01]: And in 12.2 seconds here

[01:44:22] [SPEAKER_01]: in season 2 they

[01:44:23] [SPEAKER_01]: explained him perfectly.

[01:44:24] [SPEAKER_01]: I was happy.

[01:44:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I do like this version

[01:44:27] [SPEAKER_01]: of Farrow Waite.

[01:44:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I hope I said that

[01:44:29] [SPEAKER_01]: right, probably beat it

[01:44:30] [SPEAKER_01]: up.

[01:44:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Sauron, that is the

[01:44:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Sauron that I have

[01:44:35] [SPEAKER_01]: been waiting for.

[01:44:37] [SPEAKER_01]: I was impressed with

[01:44:39] [SPEAKER_01]: that particular version

[01:44:42] [SPEAKER_01]: of Sauron.

[01:44:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I wish we could have

[01:44:48] [SPEAKER_01]: kept that Sauron

[01:44:48] [SPEAKER_01]: version but I

[01:44:49] [SPEAKER_01]: understand because they

[01:44:51] [SPEAKER_01]: are trying to get him

[01:44:52] [SPEAKER_01]: to change and keep

[01:44:53] [SPEAKER_01]: changing and keep

[01:44:54] [SPEAKER_01]: changing.

[01:44:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Season 2, I love all

[01:44:58] [SPEAKER_01]: things Numenor.

[01:44:59] [SPEAKER_01]: That is my jam.

[01:45:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Numenor is my jam.

[01:45:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Farazan is absolutely

[01:45:04] [SPEAKER_01]: no joke.

[01:45:06] [SPEAKER_01]: If there is anything

[01:45:07] [SPEAKER_01]: of my knowledge of

[01:45:09] [SPEAKER_01]: the whole token

[01:45:10] [SPEAKER_01]: legendarium, it has

[01:45:12] [SPEAKER_01]: got to be Numenor.

[01:45:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I am still kind of

[01:45:15] [SPEAKER_01]: weak in the rest of

[01:45:16] [SPEAKER_01]: the 20 books that are

[01:45:17] [SPEAKER_01]: out there as part of

[01:45:18] [SPEAKER_01]: the legendarium but

[01:45:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Numenor is one of my

[01:45:21] [SPEAKER_01]: absolute favorites and

[01:45:22] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that Farazan

[01:45:23] [SPEAKER_01]: is, we have got a lot

[01:45:25] [SPEAKER_01]: of things coming

[01:45:26] [SPEAKER_01]: there.

[01:45:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I think

[01:45:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Isildur and Theol

[01:45:31] [SPEAKER_01]: are kind of dumb and

[01:45:32] [SPEAKER_01]: dumber and the

[01:45:33] [SPEAKER_01]: sooner we get

[01:45:34] [SPEAKER_01]: dealing with

[01:45:35] [SPEAKER_01]: those guys, the

[01:45:36] [SPEAKER_01]: better.

[01:45:36] [SPEAKER_01]: The horse, their

[01:45:38] [SPEAKER_01]: horse is smarter

[01:45:40] [SPEAKER_01]: than those guys.

[01:45:41] [SPEAKER_01]: It just drives me

[01:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: crazy with those

[01:45:42] [SPEAKER_01]: guys.

[01:45:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Protect the horse

[01:45:43] [SPEAKER_01]: at all costs.

[01:45:44] [SPEAKER_01]: I am glad that we

[01:45:48] [SPEAKER_01]: see Arondir back

[01:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and I am getting a

[01:45:54] [SPEAKER_01]: little tired of

[01:45:55] [SPEAKER_01]: the Wanderer

[01:45:55] [SPEAKER_01]: episode, the

[01:45:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Hobbit episode

[01:45:57] [SPEAKER_01]: and playing the

[01:45:59] [SPEAKER_01]: guessing game as

[01:46:00] [SPEAKER_01]: to who the

[01:46:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Wanderer is and

[01:46:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I know I am

[01:46:02] [SPEAKER_01]: speaking heresy

[01:46:03] [SPEAKER_01]: here but that is

[01:46:04] [SPEAKER_01]: my least favorite

[01:46:05] [SPEAKER_01]: arc of this entire

[01:46:06] [SPEAKER_01]: series.

[01:46:07] [SPEAKER_01]: They need to just

[01:46:08] [SPEAKER_01]: kind of like get

[01:46:09] [SPEAKER_01]: with the program,

[01:46:10] [SPEAKER_01]: figure out, call it

[01:46:11] [SPEAKER_01]: what it is, who

[01:46:12] [SPEAKER_01]: this individual is

[01:46:13] [SPEAKER_01]: so we can kind of

[01:46:14] [SPEAKER_01]: move on but I am

[01:46:16] [SPEAKER_01]: done wandering

[01:46:17] [SPEAKER_01]: planet Earth trying

[01:46:18] [SPEAKER_01]: to figure out who

[01:46:19] [SPEAKER_01]: the Wanderer is.

[01:46:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise, ladies,

[01:46:22] [SPEAKER_01]: glad to have you

[01:46:22] [SPEAKER_01]: back.

[01:46:23] [SPEAKER_01]: Look forward to

[01:46:24] [SPEAKER_01]: listening to your

[01:46:25] [SPEAKER_01]: future episodes.

[01:46:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Have a good day.

[01:46:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Awesome.

[01:46:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Denise, I love

[01:46:32] [SPEAKER_03]: your voicemail.

[01:46:33] [SPEAKER_03]: You have such

[01:46:34] [SPEAKER_03]: strong opinions

[01:46:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Denise.

[01:46:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I absolutely love it

[01:46:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and you are totally

[01:46:38] [SPEAKER_00]: allowed to have least

[01:46:39] [SPEAKER_00]: favorite stories in it

[01:46:40] [SPEAKER_00]: that is not heresy.

[01:46:41] [SPEAKER_00]: That is fantastic.

[01:46:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I get what you are

[01:46:43] [SPEAKER_00]: saying.

[01:46:44] [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it was

[01:46:44] [SPEAKER_00]: quite interesting I

[01:46:45] [SPEAKER_00]: think this time to

[01:46:46] [SPEAKER_00]: have no Half-Wits or

[01:46:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Wizards and no

[01:46:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Elves either.

[01:46:52] [SPEAKER_00]: That was really

[01:46:52] [SPEAKER_00]: cool actually just to

[01:46:53] [SPEAKER_00]: focus on the other

[01:46:54] [SPEAKER_00]: part of the story.

[01:46:55] [SPEAKER_03]: The only Elf we saw

[01:46:56] [SPEAKER_03]: was Celebrimbor.

[01:46:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.

[01:46:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So we didn't

[01:47:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder if it

[01:47:01] [SPEAKER_00]: was the first

[01:47:01] [SPEAKER_00]: episode ever that

[01:47:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Galadriel was not

[01:47:03] [SPEAKER_00]: in.

[01:47:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure if

[01:47:04] [SPEAKER_00]: there was others that

[01:47:04] [SPEAKER_00]: she missed out on with

[01:47:05] [SPEAKER_00]: the different story threads

[01:47:06] [SPEAKER_00]: in the previous ones but

[01:47:07] [SPEAKER_00]: it was there's no Elrond,

[01:47:09] [SPEAKER_00]: no Galadriel, no

[01:47:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Galadriel.

[01:47:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was kind

[01:47:12] [SPEAKER_00]: of cool to focus on

[01:47:12] [SPEAKER_00]: this bit but yeah.

[01:47:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Cool and again,

[01:47:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Denise, that was

[01:47:15] [SPEAKER_00]: fantastic.

[01:47:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely loved it.

[01:47:17] [SPEAKER_00]: It was brilliant and

[01:47:19] [SPEAKER_00]: if you want to write

[01:47:20] [SPEAKER_00]: in or leave us a

[01:47:20] [SPEAKER_00]: message, you can find

[01:47:21] [SPEAKER_00]: all our contact

[01:47:22] [SPEAKER_00]: information at

[01:47:23] [SPEAKER_00]: podcastka.com.

[01:47:24] [SPEAKER_00]: We love voicemails so

[01:47:26] [SPEAKER_00]: please send us a

[01:47:27] [SPEAKER_00]: message.

[01:47:27] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking to you.

[01:47:28] [SPEAKER_00]: If you're driving home

[01:47:29] [SPEAKER_00]: in your car, if you're

[01:47:30] [SPEAKER_00]: standing there at the

[01:47:31] [SPEAKER_00]: bench making your

[01:47:32] [SPEAKER_00]: dinner, I can see

[01:47:34] [SPEAKER_00]: you as well.

[01:47:35] [SPEAKER_00]: You're out there

[01:47:35] [SPEAKER_00]: running along or

[01:47:36] [SPEAKER_00]: going for a walk and

[01:47:37] [SPEAKER_00]: listening to us, I'm

[01:47:39] [SPEAKER_00]: talking to you.

[01:47:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Send us a message

[01:47:40] [SPEAKER_00]: because we'd love to

[01:47:41] [SPEAKER_00]: hear from you.

[01:47:42] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you have

[01:47:43] [SPEAKER_03]: strong opinions or

[01:47:44] [SPEAKER_03]: disagree with us, so

[01:47:45] [SPEAKER_03]: much the better.

[01:47:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Just makes it more

[01:47:47] [SPEAKER_03]: fun to have more

[01:47:48] [SPEAKER_03]: voices in the

[01:47:48] [SPEAKER_03]: conversation.

[01:47:49] [SPEAKER_03]: For sure.

[01:47:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And while you're over

[01:47:52] [SPEAKER_03]: there at podcastka.com

[01:47:53] [SPEAKER_03]: sending us a message,

[01:47:55] [SPEAKER_03]: you might want to

[01:47:56] [SPEAKER_03]: check out one or

[01:47:57] [SPEAKER_03]: two other shows.

[01:47:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Recently wrapped up

[01:47:59] [SPEAKER_03]: are The Bear which

[01:48:01] [SPEAKER_03]: was called, the

[01:48:02] [SPEAKER_03]: podcast is called

[01:48:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Let It Rip or

[01:48:04] [SPEAKER_03]: The Cobra Kai cast

[01:48:06] [SPEAKER_03]: has just wrapped

[01:48:07] [SPEAKER_03]: up.

[01:48:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And Walking

[01:48:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Dead is coming

[01:48:13] [SPEAKER_03]: back at the end

[01:48:14] [SPEAKER_03]: of September with

[01:48:15] [SPEAKER_03]: another season of

[01:48:17] [SPEAKER_03]: the Daryl

[01:48:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Dixon spin-off.

[01:48:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And our own,

[01:48:21] [SPEAKER_03]: the cast of us will

[01:48:22] [SPEAKER_03]: be covering that and

[01:48:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm looking forward to

[01:48:24] [SPEAKER_03]: that very much.

[01:48:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh and From is

[01:48:27] [SPEAKER_03]: coming back in like

[01:48:29] [SPEAKER_00]: two weeks.

[01:48:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, the next

[01:48:30] [SPEAKER_00]: season.

[01:48:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and they do

[01:48:42] [SPEAKER_03]: like drawing

[01:48:43] [SPEAKER_03]: contests and stuff.

[01:48:45] [SPEAKER_03]: It's really a fun

[01:48:47] [SPEAKER_03]: podcast.

[01:48:47] [SPEAKER_03]: It's called What

[01:48:48] [SPEAKER_03]: Is From.

[01:48:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And if you haven't

[01:48:50] [SPEAKER_03]: watched the show

[01:48:51] [SPEAKER_03]: From, it is dark

[01:48:54] [SPEAKER_03]: and twisted and

[01:48:55] [SPEAKER_03]: very, very well

[01:48:57] [SPEAKER_03]: made.

[01:48:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I recommend it

[01:48:59] [SPEAKER_03]: unless you are

[01:49:00] [SPEAKER_03]: easily

[01:49:00] [SPEAKER_03]: bored.

[01:49:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's

[01:49:03] [SPEAKER_00]: probably why I haven't

[01:49:04] [SPEAKER_00]: watched it yet.

[01:49:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Also, we have a

[01:49:08] [SPEAKER_03]: big election coming

[01:49:09] [SPEAKER_03]: up here in the

[01:49:10] [SPEAKER_03]: United States.

[01:49:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And I think

[01:49:13] [SPEAKER_03]: that our listeners

[01:49:14] [SPEAKER_03]: are the kind of people

[01:49:15] [SPEAKER_03]: who care about the

[01:49:16] [SPEAKER_03]: world around them.

[01:49:17] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I just want

[01:49:18] [SPEAKER_03]: to remind you

[01:49:19] [SPEAKER_03]: to make sure that

[01:49:20] [SPEAKER_03]: you are registered

[01:49:21] [SPEAKER_03]: to vote.

[01:49:22] [SPEAKER_03]: In the U.S.,

[01:49:23] [SPEAKER_03]: you can go to

[01:49:24] [SPEAKER_03]: vote.org and

[01:49:26] [SPEAKER_03]: find out one, if

[01:49:27] [SPEAKER_03]: you're already

[01:49:28] [SPEAKER_03]: registered or not.

[01:49:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And if not, how

[01:49:30] [SPEAKER_03]: to register to

[01:49:39] [SPEAKER_00]: vote, you can

[01:49:41] [SPEAKER_00]: just do a Google

[01:49:42] [SPEAKER_00]: search and just

[01:49:43] [SPEAKER_00]: ask how do I

[01:49:44] [SPEAKER_00]: register to vote.

[01:49:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's

[01:49:46] [SPEAKER_00]: just really important

[01:49:46] [SPEAKER_00]: that we all have our

[01:49:47] [SPEAKER_00]: say.

[01:49:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So get out there

[01:49:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and get into it.

[01:49:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I know a lot of

[01:49:51] [SPEAKER_03]: people think that

[01:49:52] [SPEAKER_03]: your vote doesn't

[01:49:53] [SPEAKER_03]: count or you feel

[01:49:54] [SPEAKER_03]: like maybe you live

[01:49:55] [SPEAKER_03]: in a place where

[01:49:56] [SPEAKER_03]: it's a foregone

[01:49:57] [SPEAKER_03]: conclusion who's

[01:49:58] [SPEAKER_03]: going to win.

[01:50:00] [SPEAKER_03]: But I

[01:50:00] [SPEAKER_03]: know that in the

[01:50:03] [SPEAKER_03]: U.S., voter turnout

[01:50:04] [SPEAKER_03]: doesn't just determine

[01:50:05] [SPEAKER_03]: who wins the

[01:50:06] [SPEAKER_03]: election.

[01:50:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Those numbers are

[01:50:08] [SPEAKER_03]: used to determine

[01:50:09] [SPEAKER_03]: spending and the

[01:50:12] [SPEAKER_03]: attention that elected

[01:50:13] [SPEAKER_03]: officials will give

[01:50:14] [SPEAKER_03]: to different

[01:50:15] [SPEAKER_03]: neighborhoods or

[01:50:16] [SPEAKER_03]: cities based on

[01:50:18] [SPEAKER_03]: voter turnout.

[01:50:18] [SPEAKER_03]: They'll say, well,

[01:50:19] [SPEAKER_03]: if 60 percent of

[01:50:21] [SPEAKER_03]: voters turn out in

[01:50:21] [SPEAKER_03]: this neighborhood but

[01:50:22] [SPEAKER_03]: only 30 percent in

[01:50:23] [SPEAKER_03]: that other

[01:50:24] [SPEAKER_03]: neighborhood, then

[01:50:25] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to make

[01:50:26] [SPEAKER_03]: sure that the 60

[01:50:27] [SPEAKER_03]: percent neighborhood

[01:50:27] [SPEAKER_03]: has all their

[01:50:28] [SPEAKER_03]: potholes filled.

[01:50:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, wow.

[01:50:30] [SPEAKER_03]: That's amazing.

[01:50:30] [SPEAKER_03]: That's a good reason

[01:50:31] [SPEAKER_00]: to vote.

[01:50:32] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a good reason

[01:50:33] [SPEAKER_00]: if that's the only

[01:50:34] [SPEAKER_00]: reason for sure.

[01:50:34] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got to have

[01:50:35] [SPEAKER_00]: your say and you've

[01:50:35] [SPEAKER_00]: got to get your good

[01:50:37] [SPEAKER_00]: share of public

[01:50:38] [SPEAKER_00]: spending for sure.

[01:50:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Fantastic.

[01:50:42] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you don't

[01:50:44] [SPEAKER_00]: mind a little bit of

[01:50:45] [SPEAKER_00]: spoilers for future

[01:50:47] [SPEAKER_00]: seasons or for future

[01:50:49] [SPEAKER_00]: episodes of this

[01:50:50] [SPEAKER_00]: show, I'd love you

[01:50:52] [SPEAKER_00]: to join us now for

[01:50:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Galadriel's Mirror.

[01:50:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to

[01:50:55] [SPEAKER_00]: have a bit of a chat

[01:50:56] [SPEAKER_00]: about how the show

[01:50:57] [SPEAKER_00]: compares to the

[01:50:57] [SPEAKER_00]: book and some of

[01:50:58] [SPEAKER_00]: the things that we

[01:50:59] [SPEAKER_00]: think might happen

[01:51:00] [SPEAKER_00]: next based on the

[01:51:00] [SPEAKER_00]: source material.

[01:51:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Not a huge amount in

[01:51:03] [SPEAKER_00]: this episode because

[01:51:04] [SPEAKER_00]: a bunch happened

[01:51:05] [SPEAKER_00]: anyway, but please

[01:51:06] [SPEAKER_00]: join us for Galadriel's

[01:51:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Mirror.

[01:51:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Will you look into

[01:51:10] [SPEAKER_05]: the mirror?

[01:51:11] [SPEAKER_05]: What will I see?

[01:51:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Things that were,

[01:51:17] [SPEAKER_05]: things that are,

[01:51:20] [SPEAKER_05]: and some things that

[01:51:23] [SPEAKER_00]: have not yet come to

[01:51:24] [SPEAKER_00]: pass.

[01:51:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Cool.

[01:51:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So I just had a

[01:51:27] [SPEAKER_00]: couple of bits here.

[01:51:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I am really looking

[01:51:29] [SPEAKER_00]: forward to reading

[01:51:30] [SPEAKER_00]: the first dwarf

[01:51:32] [SPEAKER_00]: in Ring.

[01:51:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So King Durin is the

[01:51:34] [SPEAKER_00]: first dwarf to get a

[01:51:36] [SPEAKER_00]: ring and in fact,

[01:51:36] [SPEAKER_00]: in a lot of the writing

[01:51:37] [SPEAKER_00]: it does talk about how

[01:51:38] [SPEAKER_00]: he gets it actually

[01:51:40] [SPEAKER_00]: quite a bit before

[01:51:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the other dwarves

[01:51:42] [SPEAKER_00]: get it and he keeps

[01:51:43] [SPEAKER_00]: it pretty much forever.

[01:51:44] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't ever

[01:51:44] [SPEAKER_00]: really give it back.

[01:51:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It just ends up

[01:51:46] [SPEAKER_00]: getting lost way down

[01:51:47] [SPEAKER_00]: the track, Durin's

[01:51:48] [SPEAKER_00]: ring.

[01:51:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's going to be

[01:51:50] [SPEAKER_00]: cool to see him get

[01:51:51] [SPEAKER_00]: that and how it's

[01:51:52] [SPEAKER_00]: going to affect him

[01:51:53] [SPEAKER_00]: in the story.

[01:51:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And then the other

[01:51:56] [SPEAKER_00]: main thing that I

[01:51:57] [SPEAKER_00]: want to talk about

[01:51:57] [SPEAKER_00]: was Farazan.

[01:51:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Dun, dun, dun.

[01:52:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Moustache twirling

[01:52:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Farazan.

[01:52:02] [SPEAKER_00]: And so this is

[01:52:04] [SPEAKER_00]: cool.

[01:52:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't expect it

[01:52:05] [SPEAKER_00]: this early on in

[01:52:07] [SPEAKER_00]: episode three for him

[01:52:08] [SPEAKER_00]: to be taking power.

[01:52:10] [SPEAKER_00]: This is obviously how

[01:52:11] [SPEAKER_00]: he becomes king in

[01:52:12] [SPEAKER_00]: this version of the

[01:52:13] [SPEAKER_00]: story by manipulating

[01:52:15] [SPEAKER_00]: politically and getting

[01:52:16] [SPEAKER_00]: all of the people to

[01:52:17] [SPEAKER_00]: pretty much say that

[01:52:18] [SPEAKER_00]: he needs to be king.

[01:52:20] [SPEAKER_00]: In the book, he marries

[01:52:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Muriel by force.

[01:52:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So basically, the

[01:52:25] [SPEAKER_00]: king dies, she becomes

[01:52:26] [SPEAKER_00]: queen and he marries

[01:52:27] [SPEAKER_00]: her so that he can

[01:52:28] [SPEAKER_00]: be the boss of

[01:52:28] [SPEAKER_00]: her and everybody.

[01:52:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[01:52:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think

[01:52:33] [SPEAKER_00]: they're going to go

[01:52:33] [SPEAKER_00]: there, but I do like

[01:52:35] [SPEAKER_00]: the fact that they

[01:52:36] [SPEAKER_00]: did that little creepy

[01:52:37] [SPEAKER_00]: face stroking thing

[01:52:39] [SPEAKER_00]: that he did to kind

[01:52:39] [SPEAKER_00]: of, that was maybe a

[01:52:40] [SPEAKER_00]: little nod to the

[01:52:41] [SPEAKER_00]: fact that in the

[01:52:43] [SPEAKER_00]: story he marries

[01:52:44] [SPEAKER_00]: her.

[01:52:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I like how this

[01:52:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Farazan on screen is

[01:52:49] [SPEAKER_00]: political and he's an

[01:52:50] [SPEAKER_00]: opportunist.

[01:52:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And we are going

[01:52:52] [SPEAKER_00]: to see him get very

[01:52:54] [SPEAKER_00]: greedy.

[01:52:55] [SPEAKER_00]: He wants to rule

[01:52:56] [SPEAKER_00]: everyone.

[01:52:56] [SPEAKER_00]: He wants everything

[01:52:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and he even

[01:52:58] [SPEAKER_00]: eventually gets

[01:52:58] [SPEAKER_00]: to the point where

[01:52:59] [SPEAKER_00]: he actually seeks

[01:52:59] [SPEAKER_00]: immortality.

[01:53:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And so we're going

[01:53:01] [SPEAKER_00]: to see a whole bunch

[01:53:02] [SPEAKER_00]: of stuff go down

[01:53:03] [SPEAKER_00]: with that and he's

[01:53:04] [SPEAKER_00]: going to end up

[01:53:05] [SPEAKER_00]: wanting to go to

[01:53:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Valinor to try and

[01:53:07] [SPEAKER_00]: ask for immortality,

[01:53:09] [SPEAKER_00]: the cheek of him.

[01:53:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And all of this

[01:53:11] [SPEAKER_00]: happens under Sauron's

[01:53:13] [SPEAKER_00]: influence.

[01:53:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're going to

[01:53:13] [SPEAKER_00]: see him and Sauron

[01:53:15] [SPEAKER_00]: hook up at some

[01:53:16] [SPEAKER_00]: stage and he's

[01:53:17] [SPEAKER_00]: going to get more

[01:53:18] [SPEAKER_00]: and more greedy.

[01:53:19] [SPEAKER_00]: He's going to get

[01:53:20] [SPEAKER_00]: really dark as well.

[01:53:22] [SPEAKER_00]: In the story, he

[01:53:23] [SPEAKER_00]: remember the three

[01:53:24] [SPEAKER_00]: prayers that I

[01:53:24] [SPEAKER_00]: talked about before

[01:53:25] [SPEAKER_00]: with the custom of

[01:53:27] [SPEAKER_00]: the three prayers.

[01:53:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So he actually makes

[01:53:29] [SPEAKER_00]: climbing up Meneltama,

[01:53:31] [SPEAKER_00]: the sacred mountain,

[01:53:32] [SPEAKER_00]: punishable by death.

[01:53:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And then there's a

[01:53:34] [SPEAKER_00]: whole lot of other

[01:53:35] [SPEAKER_00]: dark stuff.

[01:53:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how

[01:53:36] [SPEAKER_00]: far they're going to

[01:53:37] [SPEAKER_00]: go but there's human

[01:53:38] [SPEAKER_00]: sacrifice and all kinds

[01:53:39] [SPEAKER_00]: of stuff that goes

[01:53:40] [SPEAKER_00]: down in Númenor.

[01:53:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So how much we're

[01:53:43] [SPEAKER_00]: going to see of

[01:53:43] [SPEAKER_00]: that from him.

[01:53:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I've also heard in

[01:53:45] [SPEAKER_00]: interviews that

[01:53:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Kemen is going to

[01:53:47] [SPEAKER_00]: go really dark as

[01:53:48] [SPEAKER_00]: well.

[01:53:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So maybe he ends

[01:53:49] [SPEAKER_00]: up being like you

[01:53:50] [SPEAKER_00]: say, he's the

[01:53:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Sebastian of this

[01:53:52] [SPEAKER_00]: story.

[01:53:53] [SPEAKER_00]: The version of

[01:53:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Sebastian in Walking

[01:53:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Dead where he maybe

[01:53:57] [SPEAKER_00]: gets a lot more

[01:53:59] [SPEAKER_00]: power because his dad

[01:54:00] [SPEAKER_00]: is now in charge and

[01:54:00] [SPEAKER_00]: he's just going to get

[01:54:01] [SPEAKER_00]: to go dark and do

[01:54:02] [SPEAKER_00]: whatever he wants.

[01:54:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's going to be

[01:54:03] [SPEAKER_00]: really cool to see how

[01:54:05] [SPEAKER_00]: detailed they go with

[01:54:06] [SPEAKER_00]: that and how dark

[01:54:07] [SPEAKER_00]: they go.

[01:54:08] [SPEAKER_00]: The showrunners have

[01:54:09] [SPEAKER_00]: mentioned it's going to

[01:54:10] [SPEAKER_00]: get dark so let's

[01:54:11] [SPEAKER_00]: see.

[01:54:12] [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to be a

[01:54:13] [SPEAKER_03]: lot of fun to watch.

[01:54:16] [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it seems

[01:54:17] [SPEAKER_03]: really twisted for me

[01:54:19] [SPEAKER_03]: to say it'll be fun

[01:54:20] [SPEAKER_03]: to watch human

[01:54:21] [SPEAKER_03]: sacrifice but it's

[01:54:23] [SPEAKER_03]: fiction and they're

[01:54:26] [SPEAKER_03]: not really going to

[01:54:27] [SPEAKER_03]: sacrifice humans

[01:54:27] [SPEAKER_03]: so I can enjoy it on

[01:54:29] [SPEAKER_03]: TV.

[01:54:30] [SPEAKER_03]: It's okay.

[01:54:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and just to see

[01:54:32] [SPEAKER_00]: like, you know, this is

[01:54:33] [SPEAKER_00]: the fall of Numenor.

[01:54:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a huge part of

[01:54:35] [SPEAKER_00]: the legend and we're

[01:54:38] [SPEAKER_00]: going to start seeing

[01:54:38] [SPEAKER_00]: that and this is the

[01:54:39] [SPEAKER_00]: beginning of it when

[01:54:40] [SPEAKER_00]: we first saw Numenor

[01:54:41] [SPEAKER_00]: in season one.

[01:54:42] [SPEAKER_00]: It was all beautiful

[01:54:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and lovely and

[01:54:45] [SPEAKER_00]: everyone had their

[01:54:46] [SPEAKER_00]: job and it was all

[01:54:47] [SPEAKER_00]: this gorgeous,

[01:54:48] [SPEAKER_00]: gorgeous area and

[01:54:50] [SPEAKER_00]: it's just going to

[01:54:51] [SPEAKER_00]: descend into darkness

[01:54:52] [SPEAKER_00]: until it finally gets

[01:54:53] [SPEAKER_00]: completely destroyed.

[01:54:54] [SPEAKER_00]: So can't wait for

[01:54:56] [SPEAKER_00]: that.

[01:54:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Same with you.

[01:54:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Can't wait for

[01:54:57] [SPEAKER_00]: it to be destroyed

[01:54:58] [SPEAKER_00]: but in a good way.

[01:55:00] [SPEAKER_03]: It'll be fun and

[01:55:02] [SPEAKER_03]: we'll be there for

[01:55:03] [SPEAKER_03]: all of it so keep

[01:55:05] [SPEAKER_03]: listening to us.

[01:55:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, excellent.

[01:55:09] [SPEAKER_00]: All right.

[01:55:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think we've

[01:55:11] [SPEAKER_00]: covered everything there.

[01:55:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Anything else that you

[01:55:13] [SPEAKER_00]: wanted to ask about,

[01:55:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Penny?

[01:55:16] [SPEAKER_03]: No, I think that's

[01:55:17] [SPEAKER_03]: good.

[01:55:18] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm ready.

[01:55:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Fantastic.

[01:55:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm ready to watch

[01:55:21] [SPEAKER_03]: episode four.

[01:55:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, off you go.

[01:55:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Run away and

[01:55:24] [SPEAKER_00]: listen to it.

[01:55:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much

[01:55:26] [SPEAKER_00]: everybody for

[01:55:27] [SPEAKER_00]: listening.

[01:55:27] [SPEAKER_00]: We appreciate it.

[01:55:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It was quite a long

[01:55:29] [SPEAKER_00]: one today so thanks

[01:55:30] [SPEAKER_00]: for sticking with us

[01:55:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and that's our show.

[01:55:34] [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you again

[01:55:35] [SPEAKER_03]: everybody and in

[01:55:36] [SPEAKER_03]: the meantime,

[01:55:37] [SPEAKER_03]: remember there is a

[01:55:40] [SPEAKER_00]: saying in Khazar Doom,

[01:55:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the slow drip splits

[01:55:42] [SPEAKER_00]: the rock.

[01:55:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Give it time.

[01:55:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Time is a luxury we

[01:55:47] [SPEAKER_00]: lack.

[01:55:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Evil and Natar.

[01:55:53] [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for