By-The-Bywater: A Tolkien Podcast

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: the Scouring of the Shire. Both the title of the penultimate chapter of The Lord of the Rings and the event it refers to, the Scouring depicts what happens when Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin return home after all their adventures, only to discover familiar places changed beyond recognition, not to mention the spirit of the Shire in general. Ranging from family reunions and stirring moments of bravery to guerrilla warfare and final scenes of at times surprising horror, it’s a remarkable elaboration on the idea that—unlike in some fairy tales or their descendants—you can’t entirely go home again. How do the individual hobbits both collectively and individually react to their situations, and in doing so, what does that mean for what is the ‘right’ way to respond? What implicit comments could Tolkien be making not only about his own experiences in war but his wider thoughts on imperialism and destruction in general? What does it mean in terms of how the Scouring seems to be ultimately less vengeful than similar situations in our own world, and could it be a form of wish fulfillment? How do adaptations of the story handle the Scouring—or do they do so at all? And why did Jared’s mom need to plant more peonies anyway?

Show Notes.

Jared’s doodle. For spring has sprung, you see.

As was said in the insert segment, check out our fellow Megaphonic podcast The Spouter-Inn on The Fellowship of the Ring! (And the bonus episode with Oriana is out!)

So yeah, looks like Amazon is kicking down a LOT of money there for their TV show. Rob Bricken has a point.

Meantime, so much for Amazon’s separate Tolkien MMORPG. For now at least.

John Waters has been wanting to film Fruitcake for over a decade now.

Don’t Call It a Cult by Sarah Berman on NXIVM is a good read indeed.

Morfydd Clark is still dropping breadcrumbs...

Yeah, Scott Rudin. Piece of work, this guy.

The Glomar Explorer deal is classic 1970s shenanigans.

The Scouring has been represented in Tolkien artwork various ways. Alan Lee’s is one of the most famous and melancholy representations, Inger Edelfeldt’s among the most dramatic.

There’s no exact equivalent in Peter Jackson’s version, of course—the brief visions in the Mirror of Galadriel aside—but the scene itself has some striking elements: the older hobbit woman wondering what’s up, and especially the wordless toast at the Green Dragon.

Restorative justice is gaining in popularity and interest.

In re Indiana Jones—never choose poorly.

Letter 100 from the published Tolkien letters is a very interesting state-of-mind read at the end of World War II.

Here’s our episode on imperialism.

More on umbrellas in Seattle. And if you’re wondering about ACAB...

Support By-The-Bywater and all the Megaphonic shows on Patreon!

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Ned’s choice of topic: the 1977 Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit. Produced by the Rankin-Bass team and animated by Japanese animation studio Topcraft, 1977’s The Hobbit was a widely promoted effort for mainstream American network TV. As a result, it gave Tolkien’s work its highest profile in the US to that point, winning awards and eventually prompting a further Rankin-Bass sequel drawing on The Return of the King. However, it swiftly became more of a cult classic curio, more known of than known, deemed a product of its time and the attendant limitations the creative team had to work with by default. However it retained fans and, especially in the wake of Peter Jackson’s own three-film adaptation of the book, it gained a new wave of reappreciation in contrast to both that and the source text. What were some of the decisions made in the course of simplifying and adapting the story, and how did they change the overall impact of the effort as a result? Are the songs and musical performances handy complements to the whole or are they too perhaps just a little too much even in context? Are there any notable vocal acting performances among the ensemble and do they stand up to more familiar actors in other versions? And is there any final way to determine exactly why and how Rankin-Bass were actually able to create the film in the first place given that they didn’t have any formal license from the current rights-holders at the time?

Show Notes.

Jared’s doodle. Burn baby burn, Lake-town inferno.

It really has been two years since we started! If you’ve been along with us for the whole ride, we thank you again.

Deadline’s report on Wayne Che Yip joining the Amazon production.

The production’s photo from the unknown New Zealand beach.

Tom Budge’s Instagram post about leaving the production and the subsequent IndieWire story.

RuPaul’s Drag Race is definitely a thing. No Tolkien connection...yet.

News on the new Tolkien-illustrated edition of The Lord of the Rings via TheOneRing.net.

Yup, this trailer is twenty years old. Pre-YouTube downloads were where it was at.

Rick Goldschmidt’s history of Rankin-Bass is very much available.

Russell A. Potter’s key article about the making of The Hobbit can be found in Hogan’s Alley #20. There’s some extra illustrations included at this link.

The Rankin-Bass Hobbit can be viewed online various ways via streaming services/rentals. If you’d like to do what Ned did and replicate his youthful listening experience after that first broadcast, enjoy!

Luke Shelton’s 2020 piece about the shadowy 1960s Hobbit animation gives what info you need about that cryptic effort.

Here’s Middle-earth Enterprises’ own timeline for the general rights—worth remembering again that Rankin-Bass’s production was not licensed from them.

The major ‘in the moment’ preview feature for the Rankin-Bass Hobbit appears to have been John Culhane’s New York Times piece that ran just a day or two before the broadcast. Not only are Arthur Rankin and Orson Bean interviewed with a variety of anecdotes but also, regarding his own separate production, Ralph Bakshi.

Rick Goldschmidt’s interview with Arthur Rankin Jr. from 2003—The Hobbit is discussed starting around 12 minutes in.

Arthur Rackham’s influence continues in various ways, but ...

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Jared’s choice of topic: the Istari. Also known as the Five Wizards, the cohort of Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast, and the two mysterious Blue Wizards, these beings are superficially some of the most easily understandable characters in Tolkien’s mythology: old men who know magic and can cast spells, very much in a long standing mythological and folktale tradition. But while Gandalf may have made his debut in The Hobbit as just such a character, over time, as with so many other elements in his work, Tolkien deepened his background and that of his wizardly brethren in ways that still weren’t fully developed by his passing, ultimately leaving as many questions as answers. What’s suggestive about the two alternate possibilities of the fates of the Istari in Middle-earth—that they mostly failed, or that they mostly succeeded? What elements of Catholic theology are touched on in the conception of the Istari as incarnated spirits from Valinor in Middle-earth? How did Tolkien address what this was meant to represent in terms of what the Valar and Maiar had learned over time? Is it possible that Tolkien contrasted the methods of lore and knowledge Gandalf and Saruman favored in a way that had a personal relevance to his own work and life experience? And just how wonderfully human—if that’s the best comparison—is Gandalf in particular in his deeply down-to-earth ways throughout the major works?

Show notes.

Jared’s doodle. Who knows what, in the end, the Blue Wizards were up to elsewhere in Middle-earth?

Yup, it’s been a year. Stay well everyone.

No Amazon series news but you can read Oriana’s argument about what it should include.

Tolkien Gateway’s summary entry on the wizards of Middle-earth.

Our earlier episode on magic.

There’s plenty of discussion of how the Istari are essentially angels on Middle-earth - this article addresses it from a specifically Catholic perspective, and that’s just one of many.

Letter 156 from The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien features a discussion in more detail on what Gandalf was, specifically.

“Of Aulë and Yavanna” is a whole chapter of The Silmarillion for a reason.

To say there’s a lot of writing on ‘classic’ wizards in world literature and mythology is an understatement. Here’s one example.

And indeed, modern wizards in other media: Harry Potter! The Sorcerer’s Apprentice! The Sword in the Stone! Star Wars! Dragonslayer! (That does count.)

Gandalf’s letter to Frodo is such a fun-yet-important element.

Linked it before but Lindsay Ellis really did call it.

The figure on the edge of Fangorn remains a subject of debate...

Have a laugh with our Silver Call Duology episode!

Support By-The-Bywater: A Tolkien Podcast on Patreon along with all the other fine Megaphonic shows. (And thank you if you do!)

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: Orcs. While not the only ‘bad guys’ in The Lord of the Rings and Tolkien’s wider mythology by a long shot, they’re generally the most common, appearing in everything from the earliest versions of the Book of Lost Tales to the final years of his reconsiderations and potential revisions. But ultimately the Orcs themselves may also be the most mysterious, their exact origins and place in Tolkien’s wider cosmology unclear, their own culpability potentially up for question in the face of manipulation and lies at the hands of Morgoth, Sauron and their lieutenants, even as they cut literal swathes through green growing grasses and commit horrific acts of violence among other species as much as themselves. What actually does life itself mean in Middle-earth when Tolkien himself couldn’t square away who or what the Orcs were exactly? How does Tolkien’s own unsureness of the Orcs’ origins reflect upon demonizations of the ‘other’ in wider human history, especially given the unsettling implications that Orc genocide can be a solution? How best to address the unavoidably racist elements in the descriptions of the Orcs that Tolkien himself admits to within the scope of his wider themes, and how can they be envisioned in art and film? In what ways did Tolkien’s military experiences shape how the Orcs are often portrayed, and how does that signal ways in which he felt that being an Orc might be less intrinsic and more something created by circumstances? And why do Orcs sound a little like Cockneys, sort of?

Show notes.

Jared’s doodle. We love the little hat.

The Amazon synopsis! And it tells us...almost nothing that we didn’t already know!

Tolkien Gateway’s Orcs entry gives you the basics...but the basics themselves can and do shift.

Our episode on death, in contrast to this wider meditation here on life.

Morgoth’s Ring does have a lot of Tolkien’s later thoughts on Orcs and more. Relatedly, hröa and fëa are important topics here.

You can guess what we think about QAnon. We hope for the best for the misled.

The scene with the dead Haradrim soldier is justly famed, in whatever version.

Aphantasia, as Oriana mentions having.

Tolkien’s letter #210 from the published collection is his response to the proposed Morton Zimmerman script.

Porcs! They’re apparently coming back?

The concept of the Yellow Peril is one of the most pernicious things in human history—and that’s saying something. Fu Manchu is just one small outgrowth.

Totalitarianism in Middle-earth is a rich vein of study—and Tolkien clearly hated it in our world.

Sing along with the Orcs!

Tolkien’s Father Christmas goblins—presumably not like Orcs, but you never know.

You might be familiar with the 1984 film Gremlins. (Ned still remembers the ads.)

Oriana’s conlang piece in Vox (updated from when we last referred to it!). David J. Peterson was who Oriana was referring to.
Pompeii’s graffiti! Ah the glory that was Rome et al.

Support By-The-Bywater on Patreon (thanks!).

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: Sam Gamgee. For all that Frodo Baggins is the Ringbearer and makes something close to the ultimate sacrifice for the fate of the world—at least right until the very last moment—it’s Sam, son of Bag-End’s gardener who seems to only join Frodo at first to help take care of a new house in Buckland, who ends up being the key figure in The Lord of the Rings that helps Frodo on the quest and who remains most grounded in the whirlwind of fates surrounding his steps, down to having the book’s last words. Thanks to a variety of notable performance interpretations over the years, especially and most indelibly Sean Astin’s marvelous turn in the Peter Jackson films, he might just be the most warmly regarded character as well even beyond the book readers. What is the full meaning and understanding behind Tolkien’s well-known comment about Sam being a tribute to his batmen during World War I, and who were the batmen and private soldiers in general in that conflict? Does the understandable characterization of Sam as ‘just’ a simple hobbit belie a notable depth evident even from the start of the book, and how did Tolkien conceive of Sam as distinct from hobbits in general? What fully went into Astin’s portrayal of Sam in particular for the films, and how much of it was also something provided by other key creative forces? And what was the American radio production team from 1979 exactly thinking when they cast Lucille Bliss as Sam?

SHOW NOTES.

Jared’s doodle. What can you see on the horizon, indeed.

Wanna be like Oriana? Here’s how to apply to the Warner Bros.’ Writers Workshop.

A summary of the Lenny Henry radio interview with some key quotes.

Willow does have its fanbase, and this planned new series could be good.

The Wheel of Time is coming and we await with interest...

Dune, yes. We quite like it. (Tolkien himself did not.)

Letter 246 to Eileen Elgar, which has a lot of background information on Sam and other characters and their motivations and personalities.

You can find plenty of Sean Astin clips of him portraying Sam out there. As for the others? Some samples: Roddy McDowall for Rankin-Bass, Bill Nighy for the BBC, Michael Scholes for Ralph Bakshi and Lucille Bliss for NPR/The Mind’s Eye (skip ahead to 7:15 in that one).

The famed Tolkien/Sam Gamgee correspondence. Who knew, indeed?

Shakespeare’s rustic characters were something stock, and indeed were often termed ‘clowns’ rather than fools or jesters. Here’s a little more about that.

The Marx quote was from the Communist Manifesto, and indeed, ‘the idiocy of rural life.’

Our episode on friendship.

More on that hand-holding moment.

John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War is well worth a read.

Batmen are a thing, and nothing to do with DC.

Sean Astin’s autobiography There And Back Again is a very key read for anyone interested in the Jackson ...