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Ep 28- There Are Stages To Any Journey
22 Plays5 months ago
We're back! And we're in the darkest stage of our journey and not even the Phial of Galadriel can light our way out of this. Ryn & Sam talk ring corruption, the magic of friendship, orc bureaucracy, and true gay hobbit love!
Covers Book VI Chapter I: The Tower of Cirith Ungol & Chapter II: The Land of Shadow
If you like what you're hearing, give us a follow wherever you're listening to this and on our socials @fanapppod, send us an email at thefandomapprentice@gmail.com, and leave us a nice review!
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Transcript
Tattoo Adventures in Canada
00:00:00
Speaker
I know, and that's why I was there to help you. Listeners, we just got back from Canada. It was lovely. It was us and my spouse all together with our wonderful Canadian friends. And Rin decided to be very ambitious for her first tattoo and sit for ah approximately six hours, which is a very, very, very long time. And so yeah, towards the end of that six hours, I would not have expected you to remember the entire, what the fuck is the title of the poem? I've forgotten the title, so you've already got me to be there. It's not like officially titled, it's it's the Cat and the Moon from the Prancing Pony chapter.
00:00:42
Speaker
There is an inn, a merry old inn beneath an old gray hill. And there they brew a beer so brown, and the man in the moon himself came down one night to drink his film. Yeah, no, it was very fun. And then I tried to remember um Bilbo's whole speech from a long-expected party. And I did not get as far into that. That's understandable. You were a bit distracted. Yeah, and was we were mid-shading. But now you have a kick-ass tattoo of two crows who get to play eternally.
00:01:12
Speaker
You also have a kick-ass tattoo because we all got tattoos together. Yeah. I have a fluffy little pigeon and I named her Maple because she's sweet and autumnal and from Canada. And Miles got a cormorant, which they have decided to name that thing or that fucking thing, depending on your mood. Specifically modeled after the hanged man tarot card.
00:01:36
Speaker
It's very cool. It's very ominous. They describe it as being less of a bird and more an angel, but one of the scary angels. And I think it works. It has a very sort of otherworldly presence. A very be not afraid vibe. Yes, it does have a halo. And mine is just a cute fluffy happy pigeon. So that way, if somebody ever says they don't like pigeons, I can show them my little baby and say, are you going to say this to her? Are you going to say it to her face?
00:02:04
Speaker
And it's on my inner bicep. So if I flex my huge giant muscles, then she fluffs up even more. And if I rest my arm on things, or if I like rest my arm on my chest, it looks like she's all snuggled up on me or on that thing. And it's very cute. I'm a huge fan. Milo Lefort, if you are in Canada or wherever it is, he's moving to, he was in Montreal, but I think he's moving to the States soon-ish. I did not get that piece of floor.
00:02:34
Speaker
You were a bit distracted. Yeah. it' you Speaking of your huge muscles, my my lovely co-host is a gym rat. I am, yeah. And I have been away from the gym for two weeks because Milo told us a story of his friend who he tattooed, and then immediately went to the gym the same day and got fucking MRSA. And so he told me, don't go to the gym until you're fully healed. So I did not go today. Methicillin resistance. Staphylococcus aureus. Scientist. Please tell me I got that right.
00:03:07
Speaker
But I assume that's what you were angling for and as opposed to just complimenting how absolutely shredded I am. Listeners, I'm not absolutely shredded. I'm just in decent shape. You're very strong. Although, listeners, if you want to imagine me as some kind of powerful muscle mommy, by all means, that's an audio medium. You can imagine we look like whatever you want. You know who's also very strong? Samwise fucking Gamgee. He is is. Oh, he's so perfect.
Introduction to The Phantom Apprentice
00:03:52
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Phantom Apprentice. Happy New Year. This is part one of two for the chapters The Tower of Sirith Ungle, The Land of Shadow, and Mount Doom, the first three chapters of book six.
00:04:14
Speaker
I'm Rin, I'm one of your hosts. I read Lord of the Rings as a child and was very intimate. It was a very big part of my upbringing, of my developing my love of fantasy. It was a very big part of um my dad's life and how he taught me about his love of fantasy. And so I decided to share that with my best friend, Sam.
00:04:42
Speaker
Hello, I'm Sam. I'm the other one. I did not grow up with Lord of the Rings, but we are, as I feel like we say every show, reaching the last stage of our journey. And so I'm pretty well caught up by this point. There's still, there were some surprises in these chapters. I'm sure there will be surprises to come, but we are nearing the end of the main body of work here.
00:05:07
Speaker
Yes, yes, we are in the last book in the series. In Return of the King, the last volume which contains two books, books five and six, we are now in book six. Back with Frodo and Sam. Well, we're back with Sam.
Sam's Journey to Rescue Frodo
00:05:26
Speaker
We'll get to Frodo, event spoilers, we'll get back to Frodo.
00:05:29
Speaker
Yes, and if you recall, we last left them with Frodo being alive but taken by the enemy and Sam impersonating a giant elf warrior and trying to go after him. yeah Sam has the ring and Sam has Sting right now. Sam thought he was going to have to complete.
00:05:52
Speaker
the journey on his own because he thought Frodo was dead from Shelob Sting. But we arrive with Sam coming back to consciousness, having battered himself into unconsciousness against the doors of the orc stronghold at Sirathungal that Frodo was brought into. The doors are described as brazen, so that says to me that they're apparently made entirely of brass,
00:06:21
Speaker
That tracks, it seems like Sauron has an unlimited budget to build all of these ostentatious structures, so why not? the The fury that was propelling him earlier is just totally gone right now. And he's still trying to figure out like what he needs to do. He needss knows he needs to go rescue Frodo, but he's not hopeful about his ability to succeed.
00:06:46
Speaker
He says that perishing is more likely and it will be easier anyway. And I wrote down that Sam has become a Dadaist. Oh my God. And ah while he's sort of having his reflections, we also get anchored back in time a little bit. So this moment is while Aragorn is leading the Black Fleet.
00:07:06
Speaker
Mary is riding with the Rohirrim to the Stonewind Valley, and Minas Tirith is burning, and Pippin is watching madness growing in the eyes of Denethor. All of these events are happening simultaneously. and yeah Sam is thinking about his friends, thinking about the rest of our party, and wondering if they're thinking of him.
00:07:27
Speaker
And we learn from the narration that everyone is constantly thinking about Sam and Frodo, but they were far beyond aid and no thought could yet bring any help to Samwise Hamfast's son. He was utterly alone. And that's- Yes, because thoughts and prayers aren't worth shit. Gun control now, motherfuckers. Yes.
00:07:49
Speaker
Anyway, sorry. Yes, no, that's important. And I agree. So that's the energy that we're starting this chapter with. And Sam also realizes that he has no choice but to go in the main entrance of the tower. There's no secret way around. There's no sneaking past anybody, he just has to go in the front door. so So he puts the ring on again, and his hearing is sharpened like it was before, and he hears some kind of orc conflict coming from the tower.
00:08:24
Speaker
It does say, I want to make one comment on this. He says he was listening with all his ears. And I'm terrified by these implications. That hobbits have more than two ears. They might. Which some early reviews of the Hobbit compared them to rabbits, which Tolkien was not a fan of. But like, even if they are basically rabbit folk, it's still terrifying for them to have more than two ears. Mm hmm. Maybe you get special extra ears. Who's to say?
00:08:53
Speaker
I don't know. It also says that he wanders into Mordor. One would say he he... Simply? And Sam, with the ring on, simply walks into Mordor. You know, I've heard that one does not do that. One might not, but Samwise Hamfast's son does. So true. And in the text of the book, there's a paragraph break after he crosses the threshold into Mordor. And that was just a nice little visual threshold as well in the book that now we're in a new place, we're in a new paragraph. And I know stylistically this is what you're supposed to do anyway when you change locations, but it was very satisfying to have like a visual transition too.
00:09:42
Speaker
And we get him looking over this high ridge and just taking in the view of all of Mordor below him. And it is fucking bleak. Two lines from that that stuck out to me were, hard and cruel and bitter was the land that met his gaze. And he sees a wide lake of darkness dotted with tiny fires.
00:10:07
Speaker
We also get our first look at Mount Doom, which is casting a light on the cliffs that make them look like they're covered in blood, and Sirith Ungol is ridiculously fortified, and it just fucking sucks. Everything about this place screams evil stronghold.
00:10:24
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Sirith Uncle, interestingly, the Tower of Sirith Uncle, Sam notices it's built into the cliffside in such a way that it's not designed to keep people out of Mordor, as that's currently being used, but it looks as if it's to keep people in, because originally it was built after Sauron was defeated the first time by the Numenoreans. Mm-hmm. It was built by the Numenoreans after Sauron was defeated the first time.
00:10:50
Speaker
There's a line here, since his return to Mordor, Sauron had found it useful, for he had few servants, but many slaves of fear, and still its chief purpose as of old was to prevent escape from Mordor. Dictators and strongmen don't lead by loyalty, they lead by fear, and this is ultimately what causes their downfall. Everyone around them is clawing and vying for power and favor and tearing each other now they're down, trying not to fuck up instead of working effectively, like together.
00:11:19
Speaker
So I have to wonder, could Sauron have won the War of the Ring if he'd had better cabinet ministers? o If he had been willing to give up just a little tiny bit of ego and share the power around a little bit, just enough to keep everyone happy. But... share the love may and That is not to be. Or not to be.
00:11:42
Speaker
The ring is also getting much more powerful as it's approaching the place where it was made. And Sam feels overwhelmed by this choice to either forsake the ring or claim it and try to just fully take its power. And he has this vision of himself as Samwise the strong, hero of the age with a big flaming sword and turning Gorgoroth into a garden of flowers and trees and it's beautiful.
00:12:09
Speaker
But he is able to resist that vision, not only because of his love for Frodo and that taking precedence over his own desires, so but also just his good sense, his common hobbit sense. It says, the one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm, his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command.
00:12:32
Speaker
and That's beautiful and we can unpack that. But he also just understands that the vision is a trick and enjoys it for half a second and goes, okay, fine, but that's obviously never going to happen. So why would I listen to you? And I just love that this all powerful, evil, corrupting force, which still weighs on Sam. It's still difficult. He's just able to brush off and go, well, okay, that's obviously bullshit. Anyway, let's go rescue Frodo. So I have a little bit of fun analysis on this.
00:13:03
Speaker
Which is, first of all, he knows his limitations. Second of all, I think this is also the magic of friendship theory. Yes, the magic of friendship. Which we haven't up to this point, but I would like to go ahead and make this a rule of fantasy. Yay! Rule number five, friendship is magic. Yes! Oh my god. So we're establishing more universal laws of fantasy, obviously.
00:13:33
Speaker
Ooh, I have another, I have another thought, but you finish your thought first. So the other thought that occurs to me with this is that Sam Unlike everyone else in the party, we had previously noted that like the rest of the party and everyone else they've come across is some sort of leader, some sort of prince. You've got nobility, you've got princes, you've got heirs to thrones, you've got kings, you've got hi at like you know rich folk galore. The only two people that we've seen that are clearly subject to the corruption of the ring
00:14:12
Speaker
but not in ways that make them go out and harm others are Gollum and Sam Gamgee. I was about to say the exact same thing. Yes. I mean, Gollum killed Deagle. Fine. And we've previously noted that like perhaps proximity to the ring is in part what's making Sam so violent towards Gollum.
00:14:36
Speaker
But both of them are very focused on like protecting what is theirs. The little piece that they have, they're not seeking other power because neither of them grew up seeking that other power. like Neither of them grew up, yes, thinking that they had power. So neither of them are fooled by these illusions of power that the ring is putting in front of them.
00:15:04
Speaker
So good, yes. Anyway, that's my thought. No, I agree completely. So Sam overcomes this easily and then approaches the gate to Sirth Ungol, but there's a fucking force field.
00:15:20
Speaker
that seems to be generated or maintained by these figures, the two watchers, which are terrifyingly described. They were like great figures seated upon thrones. Each had three joined bodies and three heads facing outward and inward and across the gateway. The heads had vulture faces and on their great knees were laid claw-like hands.
00:15:45
Speaker
So these Watchers, I don't know if they have their own sentience or if they're just enchanted, but they seem to be responsible for deciding who gets in and who doesn't. Yeah, they have some ability to distinguish friend from foe. But Sam is able to sort of block this with the file of Galadriel. Yeah.
00:16:08
Speaker
And inside it's revealed about the those sounds of orc conflict that he ah heard. Because there's two groups of orcs that have been fighting and there's just a bunch of dead bodies.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yes. And I also just quickly going back to the moment where he enters. So disrupting the magic force field with the files, obviously not subtle. And so now everyone knows that he's there. And he says, that's done it, said Sam. Now I've rung the front doorbell. Well, come on, somebody, he cried. Tell Captain Chagrat that the great elf warrior has called with his elf sword too. And I i love that energy. It's going to go big or go home. Now all of China knows you're here.
00:16:49
Speaker
Exactly. But yes, they have been fighting, the orcs have been fighting and there's just bodies littered all over the place and it's eerily quiet. Let the bodies hit the flow, let the body. Anyway, yeah, the the orcs are divided into two factions. We see orcs emblazoned with the red eye and orcs with the death's head moon, like a moon with a skull inside of it, right? Which these are the orcs from Minas Morgul.
00:17:19
Speaker
which, as we noted previously, is a is the corrupted city that sits on top of what once was Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon. Oh, that makes sense. that they would Which is some very interesting imagery. I like that. Yeah. That's that's some fucking artist orc artist being real pleased with themselves.
00:17:42
Speaker
I love to, salmon so Sam bypasses all this and he starts going up the stairs and he runs into an orc who's fleeing down the stairs, but the dim light and the shadows that are being cast by the torches and by sting glowing in the presence of orcs works to his advantage because the orc then thinks that Sam is this giant cloaked warrior and runs screaming back up the stairs. I had totally missed that it was basically just a trick of the light and I thought that it was some kind of ring magic that the orc saw some projection of some mighty warrior. But no, that is so much funnier. I love it. It's very wonderful.
Frodo's Struggle with the Ring
00:18:22
Speaker
And then Sam reaches the top of the tower where the fighting has obviously been the most intense. And it is, quote, choked with dead orcs, unquote. Tolkien is really emphasizing that there is just bits and pieces and hacked off chunks of orc everywhere. And I would like to propose something.
00:18:41
Speaker
about yes or physiology, which is that they decompose very rapidly because we have shown a total disregard for the dead as it pertains to orcs. Other orcs don't really seem to care or be shown mourning or burying their dead, and they're just fucking scattered everywhere like dead flies. So in order to not totally poison the water and make everyone sick from all of this rotting flesh everywhere. It must be kind of like how horse poop just disintegrates into grass after a couple days. I need to believe that orcs just decompose so fast that they don't really have any negative impact on the environment, or at least not on the health of other orcs.
00:19:27
Speaker
And no one's coming to clean all these bodies up. They're not all going to be buried. There does seem to be some bureaucratic structure amongst the orcs, which I do want to talk about later. But it doesn't seem like anyone is coming to, there's no orc sanitation crew that's going to manage these bodies. So I have to assume that they manage themselves.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's fair. i I sort of was seeing it as like the orcs left the bodies. They don't care about their dead, but they like when we saw orcs dying to the hunters or the Rohirrim back in two towers.
00:20:08
Speaker
their other orcs were on a mission and so they just kind of like left their bodies out in the field. ah And here there's no one really left to take care of body disposal. Yeah. I also wonder if there's any orcs who live to old age and die of natural causes, you know, do all orcs just expect that they're going to die a violent death? I don't know.
00:20:32
Speaker
Are they Klingons? Who's to say? Sam gets to the top of the tower and hears two orcs arguing. One of them is our old buddy Shagrat. Shagrat! And the other is this other orc that fled from Sam named Snaga, who is clearly one of Shagrat's inferiors? No. Underlings? Underlings, that's a better word.
00:20:58
Speaker
But Snaga's refusing to go back downstairs and Shagrat is threatening him. And apparently we learn that Shagrat has killed Gorbag. So, so much- Well, he's tried to kill Gorbag. Yes, but so much for our dreams of a gay orc commune, I guess.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah, Dan, this is a messy fucking breakup because it turns out this fight was about Frodo's mithril shirt. And from amongst the piles of bodies, we see movement and realize that Gorebag is alive and he tries to kill Shagrat. Shagrat tramples him. And that's a sad end for our orcs. Yeah, kills him once and for all and also kills our ship, apparently. Which is very disappointing.
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, homophobic, but we will soldier on. And Sam decides to just attack Shagrat head on, which I love. He just, just like barging in the front door, has no fucks left to give at this point. He has nothing left to lose. So he just fucking go goes for it. And Shagrat does get away, but it gives Sam an opportunity to keep looking for Frodo in the tower.
00:22:09
Speaker
Yeah, it does say that ah Shagrat escapes with his quote unquote precious burden, which will bring problems down the line according to the narrator. isn't um Snaga managed to escape from Shagrat earlier because ah Gorbag happened to be still alive to attack Shagrat. Earlier too, just before this, ah Snaga informed Shagrat that either an elf or a tarp is on the stairs. Tark supposedly ah means Numenorean or a man of Gondor.
00:22:40
Speaker
Ooh. Christopher Tolkien also said it could mean wizard potentially, but the in-universe etymology is that it comes from Tarkil, which is the Quenya word meaning high man. um i just I just thought that was a fun little moment. Yeah. Yeah. So Sam is alone in the tower at the moment.
00:23:00
Speaker
and he climbs up to a passage that turns out to be a dead end and there's one single torch in the hall that sputters out and he is just left alone in the dark and then softly to his own surprise there at the vain end of his long journey and his grief not the end of his journey but anyway moved by what thought in his heart he could not tell Sam began to sing And then we get another song, which, you know, it's been a while. Did you have any thoughts on the song? Did you want to read any parts of the song? I do want to read a little bit of the song. um The second verse specifically, though here at journeys and I lie in darkness buried deep beyond all towers, strong and high beyond all mountains steep. Above all shadows rise the sun and stars forever dwell. I will not say the day is done nor bid the stars farewell.
00:23:55
Speaker
So a couple of things that occurred to me reading this is the first thing this very much reminded me in flow and in sort of topicalness of the last verse of Casey at the back. Oh, somewhere in this favorite land, the sun is shining bright. The band is playing somewhere and somewhere hearts are light and somewhere men are laughing and somewhere children shout, but there is no joy in Mudville. Mighty Casey has struck out.
00:24:25
Speaker
The other thing was sort of something that we've talked about on this podcast before. the That second verse really highlights the need for hope even behind the greatest darkness. And we mentioned at the beginning of the episode that we don't know what horrors have been unleashed on the world since we recorded this in late October. this By the time that this comes out at the start of 2025, no clue what's happening in the world.
00:24:54
Speaker
I would love to hope for good, probably bad. But, you know, if the world is still bleak, if things still look dark, if we're still dealing with war and climate disasters and genocide and looming fascism and political violence and mass shootings, and and remember,
00:25:10
Speaker
even in midst amidst all of that, above all shadows rides the sun and stars forever dwell. I will not say the day is done nor be the stars farewell.
00:25:21
Speaker
There is still light behind the darkness. There is still people out there doing good. There is still hope while you still live. I wish we didn't have to practice this skill so much, but it's still worth doing. Hope is a weapon. Hope is a skill. Hope is a thing you can care for or kill. is Exactly. And there's some answering whimpers from somewhere up above. Yeah.
00:25:51
Speaker
And then Snaga shows up. Yes. Snaga reveals that the entrance to the chamber where Frodo is being held, presumably, is a trapdoor in the ceiling. And that explains the dead end of the hallway. And this seems completely unnecessary. I don't know why he would need this set up with the ceiling trapdoor, but here we are. It makes it more dramatic. Yeah. And Snaga thinks that Frodo was the one who was singing. And so it goes to beat him.
00:26:21
Speaker
And Sam follows up the ladder and cuts off Snaga's arm and knocks Snaga down the ladder to break his neck. Fucking stone cold. So good. My notes for this say Frodo thank fuck we found him in all caps. He's there. He's alive.
00:26:45
Speaker
And then they have a little exchange where Sam is tearfully reuniting with Frodo. He says, I'd given up hope almost. I couldn't find you. Well, you have now, Sam. Dear Sam, said Frodo. And he lay back in Sam's gentle arms, closing his eyes like a child at rest when night fears are driven away by some loved voice or hand. And we have our little glimmer of hope that Frodo is at least somewhat conscious, but he is looking real bad.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, and he ends up falling asleep for a little while, and they and they sit like that for a moment until Sam is like, we need we need to go, and wakes him up by kissing Frodo on the forehead. Mm-hmm. Said, wake up, Mr. Frodo, he said, trying to sound as cheerful as he had when he drew back the curtains at Bag End on a summer's morning. How you feeling there, Sammy? My heart's fucking breaking, and also,
00:27:44
Speaker
You know, if this is their routine of a little forehead kiss and opening the curtains on a summer's morning, you can't say that they weren't in love before this. This is not just a casual thing that everybody's gardener does. It's not a part of gardening as far as I'm aware. Listen, Sam is planting his seeds in certain gardens, perhaps. So true. So true.
00:28:13
Speaker
Frodo is naked. He doesn't have a lot of marks on him besides a whip mark on his side, but he can walk. um He is completely distraught. He thinks they've taken everything. They took the ring. The quest is over. We've failed. And Sam reveals, no, wait, I have the ring. This is where Frodo has his own little golem moment.
00:28:39
Speaker
So he calls out you know like, give it to me, give it to me at once, you can't have it. yeah He panted staring at Sam with eyes wide with fear and enmity. And that moment passes very quickly, but and Sam forgives him, but that's really fucking scary. This is the most extreme ring corruption that we've seen from Frodo so far. Frodo manages to sort of modulate downward.
00:29:06
Speaker
He does, because Sam offers to help share the burden, and Ferto is absolutely against this. He thinks that Sam is trying to steal it from him, and then he he modulates down to like saying, no, i like I can't put this on you. This is my doom alone, which is still a possessiveness. It's just an acceptable possessiveness for now.
00:29:29
Speaker
So it's it's i I think it's still the ring. It's just Frodo's. Hobbitishness being able to still assert itself, but not enough to actually shake off that possessiveness. Yeah, that's a good point that hadn't fully registered with me when I was first reading it, but I think you're absolutely right, because if he was in his right mind, he would let Sam take it and.
00:29:57
Speaker
You know, the fact that he's not willing to shows how much of a grip it still has on him. Yes. But they prepare to leave. They assess what they have and where they're going next. And Frodo says, you I can't go all the way to run, Sam. I hope you've made inquiries about inns along the road, or have you forgotten about food and drink? Which this inquiry proves that Frodo is still a hobbit. Yes. He hasn't been corrupted enough by the ring.
00:30:27
Speaker
just like everyone else waking up from their traumatic experience. First question is about food. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But Sam forgot about food and drink. He meant, he's like, I completely forgot, which that one's fun because he's obviously still a hobbit, but this almost to me shows some current level of ring corruption on him as well, as much as he's able to resist. Oh, you think? ah Perhaps. I think it was just,
00:30:56
Speaker
I read it more as ah just the weight of all of his experiences and his single-minded focus on trying to get back to Frodo that, you know, he was so bereaved and so determined to get Frodo back that it even pushed thoughts of food from his mind. But then again, Frodo also has the ring. So I don't know if those things are connected. I can see it. I can see that angle. Yeah.
00:31:25
Speaker
They have Lembas for food, but they don't have any water. I had noticed here, Frodo is almost trying to take care of Sam now. yeah like he's He's trying to make sure that Sam is going to be okay through this journey.
00:31:42
Speaker
Um, and we've seen a lot of the like one-sided care of Sam towards Frodo. It's really, really nice to see it returned from Frodo to Sam. They managed to scrounge up some orc clothing and orc armor that they can blend in. And also Frodo doesn't have to go walk through Mordor naked. Yeah, that would be a lot. That's yeah.
00:32:08
Speaker
but they manage to escape the Watchers. They go out again with the file of Galadriel, and they also use the name of Elbereth. is it Frodo calls out, Ay-ya-an-ni-on-ankalima, which this has been used before. We've seen this before. We've seen ah this line earlier when Frodo first used the file. It means hail, brightest of stars.
00:32:37
Speaker
Earlier when Frodo used the file in She Loves Layer, he also called out the name of Elbereth in the middle of this line too. This comes from the first line of an Old English poem titled Christ One or Christ A. E alla Erendil engabiortas, or Hail the Erendil Brightest of Angels. Erendil is a figure in mythology which I learned about through this research.
00:33:04
Speaker
isn't their figure in Germanic mythology, also known as Orvandil by the Norse. This is not a figure that I'm familiar with, but I i do still need to here invoke rule number four of fantasy. It all comes back to Beowulf. Of course, because like in Beowulf, we are seeing an example of Christian writing referring to older mythological figures.
00:33:31
Speaker
because Yerendil or Orvandil was known in previous myths prior to Christianity, or it was the writings that we have are fairly contemporary with Christianization, but the suggestion is there that this figure was a pre-Christian figure in a pre-Christian dramatic religion, right? So we have Christian writers referencing this figure and being like, hey, actually, that's one of ours.
00:33:59
Speaker
Yeah, it's an angel, actually. Yeah, that's, that's an angel. No blasphemy here. It's all good. Yeah, no, it's great. It's fine. It's totally fine. You can still tell stories about them. It's fine. Yeah. It's an angel. It's great. It's very virtuous to tell stories about angels. Everyone should do it. Yeah, absolutely. And also this is just fun for Tolkien occasionally delving back into Anglo-Saxon literature for his references in world building.
00:34:20
Speaker
Also, just that line of logic of it's Christian now, so it's fine. Reminds me of a conversation that I was having with somebody yesterday. This is completely tangential, but I think it's funny. It's the tangent podcast. We can do this. Yeah. We were talking about.
00:34:34
Speaker
being young, queer people, raised in Christianity, they were raised Catholic, I was raised physical, and they were saying, you know, I remember just thinking, oh my God, I can't be gay because I'm gonna go to hell and I just can't, that can't be true. And I told them, I was like, I was so self-centered that I thought, I'm gay, therefore hell can't be real.
00:35:00
Speaker
Just two complete opposite ways of interpreting that. Literally, I was like, well, I'm clearly gay and it's fine. So obviously the rest of this is bullshit, but that that is a similar love similar level of hubris of going, I think I can bend the rules here and make this all totally cool.
00:35:23
Speaker
I don't think my gayness actually is what caused me to pull away from the church. I think it was, honestly, evolution, which I know is like so fucking basic, because that's what the Christians are like, you believe in evolution. it's it's That's what's corrupting our youth. Sorry, I'm a biologist to my core. That's very fair, honestly. I mean, I had other shit going on too, but yeah we don't have time to unpack all of that.
00:35:50
Speaker
So let's just throw away the whole suitcase or give it to the orcs because Chagrette ran off with it. Yes. The point is that I am so gay. I have personally erased the existence of Hell. So all you little gay people listening to the show, congratulations. You're good. Amazing. I just keep thinking that Hell sounds like a really interesting dungeon. It's where all the fun people are. I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun. Exactly.
00:36:16
Speaker
but Back to the chapter. Did you have anything else for chapter one, or should we move right along? A Black Rider begins diving on them. Oh yeah, of course, because now there's also the fucking Nazgul hot on their tails. Uh-huh. And they just, they run. They just take off running.
Escape from the Black Rider
00:36:36
Speaker
and they make it to a bridge into another valley, but coming up the road is the sound of hooves and marching feet, which is presumably reinforcements that either Shagrat or the alarm from Sam's incursion summoned, probably. And there's nowhere to go. There's a black rider behind them, there is a an army coming up the road,
00:37:02
Speaker
And so they leap off the bridge, not into like the Gulch that it was going over, but like they know it's now technically overland, but they don't know if it's like four feet down or 25 feet. isn' Yeah. Luckily they land in a bush. Unluckily, it is a thorn bush with thorns that are a foot long and just absolutely fucking them up through all of their orc armor. Yeah. Mixed results. But at least it's only Yeah, it's only about a 12 feet drop. They survive. They're okay. But that was a massive risk that they had no choice but to take. I did look up ah what sort of plants have like foot long thorns. And I didn't find any like examples. I found honey locust trees can have thorns up to a foot long. Yeah, that's what I was going to say is the only one that I know of it as a tree. Yeah, I didn't find any like
00:37:56
Speaker
bramble or bush type things. there's There are like certain cacti that also have really, really long thorns, but I didn't find any sort of like bramble type thing. So fantasy. you But they managed to extricate themselves from the the stabby pile. And they start walking and Sam is so thirsty. Yeah. You know, not just for, but like for water too.
00:38:26
Speaker
There's a time and a place for the other kind of thirst and I don't think this is the moment. I mean, people can cope with stress in various ways, but still I find that unlikely. That's probably a little more dehydrating than what they're going for. Yeah.
00:38:43
Speaker
And Sam says, if Chagrat himself was to offer me a glass of water, I'd shake his hand. yeah And then they they take a break and Sam falls asleep. And then it's Frodo who's waking him and takes on sort of the Sam role. And so, you know, like we said, Frodo's returning this love, but also Frodo's a little more talkative and more live feeling than when we saw him at the end of Two Towers.
00:39:07
Speaker
Yeah. And my theory here is that it's because he was temporarily separated from the ring. Ooh. Yeah. So he sort of regained a little bit of himself. It's, you know, no matter what tortures he was enduring, it wasn't the ring sapping his very life force. Mm hmm.
00:39:32
Speaker
It's like, i I have here, it's like getting your first tattoo in a super painful spot, so all the ones after that are super easy. The other thing that happens here is, you know, Furtow was separated from the ring for a bit, but now that he's back with the ring, and in Mordor, he now seems to have the ability to sense the writers even when they can't be seen.
00:39:58
Speaker
So he notes that there's like one way up in the clouds. I was thinking potentially this is like, he's gaining more powers, but now he's probably going to have a faster decline. Yeah. and was It wasn't before. Could he only see the riders if he was wearing the ring or they could only see him if he was wearing the ring? I think it was a little column A, little column B. It was, he sort of entered that like,
00:40:24
Speaker
border ethereal realm when the ring is on. And so he sees them in their true terrible forms. yeah But when the ring is on, like they sense him more. It's not that they can't find him without it.
00:40:42
Speaker
We also right around here, we get oriented in time again. We're informed that because like the sun is rising for the first time in days. And we're informed this is right when Theoden's dying on the Pelennor fields. And then shortly thereafter, when the Witch King of Angmar gets murked by A when I'm married. Which I love that word murked. It's just fun. That's very good.
00:41:07
Speaker
And also around this time, Sam kind of says offhandedly that if they saw Galadriel again and could ask her for more gifts, they would ask her for daylight and water. And so now we start to get this little faint daylight and then they also find some water and it's somehow both bitter and oily.
00:41:26
Speaker
But in their current state being so aggressively dehydrated, it's perfect. It is beyond all compliment. It is quenching their thirst. And so Sam says, like, damn, I'll have to thank Ladriel if I see her again.
00:41:40
Speaker
and I know that she couldn't possibly have been involved in this, but I'd like to believe that she was. Just pull in a little bit of strings from Lorian. That'd be fun. Potentially with with the death of the Witch-King. Maybe that would do it. there is a There is a line right when they identify that the Witch-King has died, which is, as it went out, it as it went, it sent out a long shrill cry, the voice of a Nazgul. But this cry no longer held any terror for them.
00:42:11
Speaker
was a cry of woe and dismay, ill tidings for the dark tower. The Lord of the Ringwraiths had met his doom." So I want to briefly talk about the humanity of the Ringwraiths. Yes, please. Because I have to wonder, does this indicate that they feel compassion for each other? Hm, elaborate on that.
00:42:34
Speaker
is Is this cry of woe and dismay for the death of their commander? Or is this cry of woe and dismay for the strike against Sauron's power? Do they feel dismay over the fact that their commander of 5,000 years is dead? We don't have a lot of information on the Ringwraiths in canon. We have the Witch King named, and there's only one other that has a name, Kamul the Easterling. And I believe we know that three of them were Numenoreans and the rest came from elsewhere. Yeah. There are a few.
00:43:20
Speaker
other names and titles and interpretations in derivative media. Lord of the Rings Online and Shadow of War give them other names and titles. In the Middle-earth role-playing game, they are named as Duar of Waa, Jai Endur Dondef, Akora Hill the blind sorcerer, Quorum Arath of Deer, Adunafel the quiet, Ren the unclean, and Uvatha the horseman.
00:43:49
Speaker
Um, and the witch king is, was named Eir Marazor and he, Akhil and Adunafel were Numenoreans and Adunafel in the, uh, middle earth role-playing game is a woman. Oh, girl boss. Uh, but fucking wild that she's Adunafel the quiet because women don't get to speak even as ringwrights. Of course. Of course not. But I like, I like this thought about the humanity of the ringwrights because we know that they are involved in internal Mordor politics, because if we think back on that first Shagrat and Gorebag conversation, they were talking about the Ringwraiths or the Nazgûl or his favorite noun, and you know? So there's some squabbling between different people in Mordor. And also, I mean, how many of them are there? Nine? Nine. So there's, as far as we know,
00:44:41
Speaker
Only, yeah, it's one for each of them. There's only nine of them. So if there's only eight other creatures like you in existence, then you're going to form an insular group. And if one of you dies, no matter what beef you've developed over the last 5,000 years, or how much of your emotions have been muted by the corrupting magic of shit. Yeah, that's a big loss. You've just lost one ninth of your total population.
00:45:10
Speaker
he In early drafts of the writings, apparently both elves and goblins also had ringwraiths. But in those early drafts, there's also more rings of power, including some that were given to goblins. That would be too many. I'm glad they pared it down a little bit. Yeah, the dwarves don't appear to have ever formed ringwraiths. Yeah, I wonder how much of their humanity they've maintained over the years. Do they they have hopes and dreams?
00:45:39
Speaker
Yeah. Are they vying for power? have Have the other eight been hoping for four and a half thousand years since they were ah revealed in the second age that they could rise up and take his position? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I have no idea either.
00:45:57
Speaker
And it's not like they've been actively engaged in looking for the ring this whole time. And I'm sure that Sauron has sent them on other quests, but they have to have downtime. They have to have stuff that they do when they're just hanging out. I don't know. Imagine them all sitting around in Venus Morgul playing cards, I guess. They find a place to sleep after they find the water in the stream. And Sam holds Frodo's hand until it's dark and then goes to look at the stars to feel some hope. Yeah.
00:46:27
Speaker
And then in the morning, they woke together hand in hand, which is so funny. Yeah, they did. And Sam has a dreamless sleep again and in keeping with his tradition of not seeming to be negatively affected by everyone else's sleep issues. But Frodo sleeps very badly and he has a lot of nightmares about fire. And they
Mordor's Dark Economy
00:46:51
Speaker
scramble over rocks for a while the next day and they remark on the lack of farmland and wondering how Sauron feeds his people.
00:47:00
Speaker
And we get a narrative aside that we, as the audience learned, there are these huge fields that run on enslaved labor and tributary lands that Sauron gets food for Mordor from.
00:47:13
Speaker
And I just enjoyed learning that little bit about the economy. Yeah. Because yeah, that's a good point is where do they get their fucking resources if everything is just bleak rocks everywhere? And it's a perfect way to have your evil cake and eat it too. It's down in South Mordor by the Sea of Nirnin, which ah means sad water in Sindarin because of course it does. Oh no.
00:47:37
Speaker
So Nernin is just such a pathetic sounding word. Sounds like a sad little wet cat. And yeah, it is the sad water. This actually made me think about the the endonym exonym thing because we know that these names in cinderan mean like the mountains of shadow and ash and mount doom and and the sad water and the path of the spider. Is there a different
00:48:09
Speaker
name for these in ah the Black Speech, which even the name of that is Dark and Evil. Like, is there a positive connotation to the Efel Duaf in the language of Mordor? Do they refer to Orodruen as Mount Doom? Do they refer to the Sea of Nirn as the Sad Water? Like,
00:48:32
Speaker
Yeah, like go take the family for a beach day at the sad water. Yeah. Do these have positive connotations? Are the, you know, are the mountains of shadow and the mountains of ash, in fact, like the Great Wall or the mountains of guard or something with like a positive connotation? Like, I don't know. Yeah. It just, it just made me think. I think they, they probably are. They probably have to be because people, and I actually have more thoughts about this that we can,
00:49:00
Speaker
dovetail into in a second. People are living their lives in Mordor. And granted, it seems like most people are orcs and most orcs are soldiers, but there's other stuff happening. You know, you can't spend every single moment of every single day just being emo about the worlds. You know, you have to just live in between those moments. But this connects actually really nicely to what we overhear, which is as they're going on, we overhear some orc bickering and we learn a couple of interesting things. The first one is that Gollum is out and about and working for the orcs, which is surprising to no one. And there's a remark about something being rebel talk. And I'm wondering if that implies that there's an organized or orc-anized, if you will, rebellion.
00:49:55
Speaker
And if so, against who? If it's against Sauron or if it's between the different factions of orcs, what does that imply? And there's also talk of giving someone's name and number to the Nazgul. So we can assume that there is some sort of bureaucracy that keeps track of the names and assigned numbers of all of the orcs, or at least the ones who are enlisted in the military. But presumably it's like a social security number type thing. Everyone has one.
00:50:25
Speaker
But yeah, it's I mean, just in the military, they have like a serial number that's like printed on their dog tags. But like, yeah, in like the US military, but like, so I have to assume either either that but or is or is it it's one assigned to all orcs like a social security number. Yeah.
00:50:42
Speaker
But regardless, that means there's some kind of bureaucracy. So there's some orc working in an office somewhere, keeping track of all these numbers. And also at the rate that orcs are constantly fucking dying, are these numbers ever reused? Is it unique numbers? Do they have some sort of sophisticated algorithm that can keep generating unique random numbers for each orc? Does it just go up? Is there an orc number one?
00:51:09
Speaker
or yeah Or is like, do they, do they, you know, think that an orc was dead and recycle the number and be like, no, I'm not seven, seven, four, three. He shag rat. I'm seven, seven, four, three rat shag. Not the same person. Don't worry about it. And then also you could get away with so much bullshit. If you get in trouble, you could just insist that your number is a different number. And what are they going to do? How could they check? Mm hmm.
00:51:35
Speaker
They're also being tracked by orcs of like different breeds with different specialties. and Like one that can smell with a big nose and one that's like big for like fighting and ah that like seems to be like the handler of the smelling orc. And unfortunately, because my brain is terrible and corrupted, my first two thoughts were simultaneously Did A, we just encounter pup play orcs? And slash B, did we just encounter Omegaverse orcs? We don't know anything about orc reproduction. So at this point, the canonical information that we have, there is nothing to disprove. There is nothing to say that the orc Omegaverse does not exist.
00:52:28
Speaker
does not exist um no yeah we don't we don't have any proof that it doesn't so i'm just gonna go ahead and believe that for the rest of time because we had that whole thing when we first met ah fuck i keep mixing up the first parts of their names, Gorebag and Shagrat. When we first met them, we were speculating. Exactly. We were speculating about their genders. And so we don't know the structure of orc sexes. We don't know orc reproductive anatomy. Yeah, orc megaverse. I don't want the Tolkien estate to ever listen to this podcast.
00:53:12
Speaker
by
00:53:14
Speaker
Because we have a great pitch for you for some supplementary material. Yeah, if I could just pitch the words Ork Megavirus and hope that they know what the Omegaverse is and then let them just There's somebody on TikTok who does these skits of the Old Man Insurance Agency and they pretend to be answering the phone and go to Old Man Insurance and, you know, give you suggestions for how to swiftly kill the rich old man that you have recently married. And so they just kind of draw things out of a hat. It's like, explain pegging to him. Tell him that, Russell Russell, Joe Biden, Russell Russell, is
00:53:59
Speaker
You know, something like that. So that would be, explain the Omegaverse. And he'll be dead before the end of the Hanamu moon. That seems like, that seems like the kind of thing you could do. The tracker kills the soldier and makes a run for it. So I guess is off to join the orc rebellion of some sort. So that's fun. You know, that situation.
00:54:26
Speaker
resolves itself and luckily for them Frodo really prepared during his time in Rivendell and he has a pretty good sense of the maps that he studied while he was there. And despite everything that's happened, his knowledge of where they are isn't super precise, but he is at least able to kind of get them on the main road going in roughly the right direction. Yeah. So clearly ah Frodo and Mary were in the library studying the whole time that they were there.
00:54:55
Speaker
Like as once Frodo was awake, they they spent their time in the library studying and Pippin spent his time hooking up with random elves. And I don't know what Sam was doing.
00:55:07
Speaker
That's a callback to our episode where we talk about Mary and Pippin spending their time in Rivendell effectively. There's no way through though, but like, cause they are still wandering through the Efel Duath inside the Efel Duath. So the Efel Duath is the mountains along the, uh, Western edge of Mordor.
00:55:27
Speaker
And they are wandering north from Sirith Ungol through the Efel Duath, through the Morgai, which is sort of like a secondary series of peaks. And they're trying to get from the Morgai down to the plains of Gorgoroth. And it sounds like there is no way down to the plains of Gorgoroth besides through another orc tower.
00:55:54
Speaker
isn And before braving that, they end up, they have dinner, they take another night's rest, and Sam gives the last of the food and water to Frodo. And then goes to get more water, but when he turns back, he spots Gollum in the darkness. Thought we were rid of that motherfucker, but sadly no. No, no, but he's gonna be helpful-ish, maybe. Ish, we'll talk about it when we get to it.
00:56:22
Speaker
and then As they get to the tower the next morning or after their rest and try to find their way around, there is a company of orcs coming up behind behind them. They were a gang of the smaller breeds being driven unwilling to their dark lord's wars. So a couple of thoughts on that. It screams to me of like peasant soldiers.
00:56:45
Speaker
Right? Who are shorter than the landed knights because they get less nutrition? Or are they the orcs who live at higher altitudes?
00:56:56
Speaker
who are typically shorter than the people living in the valleys, who end up getting conscripted in times of war versus a warrior class who are given command. And there's a group of orcs, like the commanding orcs are driving the smaller ones along. And one of them says, because they're driving them along with whips, one of them says, where there's a whip, there's a will, my slugs. And first off, I would love to call our D&D group my slugs.
00:57:24
Speaker
And it kind of feels like something a Disney villain would call their two bumbling servants. And as i as I was thinking about this, there's always two bumbling servants, two funny bumbling servants that end up messing up. but There's the hyenas and the Lion King. There's the demons in Hercules. There's Jasper and Horus and the 101 in Dalmatians. like there's There's always two of them.
00:57:44
Speaker
Where There's a Whip, There's a Will was adapted in the 1980 animated Rankin and Bass TV movie Return of the King by the composer Glenn Yarbrough into a song, Where There's a Whip, There's a Way. And frankly, if I was still on TikTok using this as an audio, I think I could do numbers on Kingtok. Oh, absolutely.
00:58:13
Speaker
come theres a
00:58:19
Speaker
theres open there is a But anyway, they are basically pressed into service. They're like, they are not recognized as hobbits. The people are or the the orcs that are driving them along think they're more small orcs and just like push them in. Oh my god, I didn't even I didn't even realize that until you pointed it out. Yeah, because I remember when they first got the orc clothes, I was thinking, okay, this is kind of stupid. You're obviously not orcs. You're so small. And the clothes that they found didn't really fit very well. No one is going to buy this for a second. But we have established that these are small orcs. So yeah, that totally makes sense.
00:59:02
Speaker
Yeah, maybe they're like small, small orcs, but they're they're the idea is that they're headed to Udun, which is sort of that natural like a natural fortress, like a natural little valley behind the Black Gate. um So this is, at this point, this is Sauron preparing for the arrival of the armies of ah Rohan and Gondor that we saw at the end of Two Towers.
00:59:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah, so the orcs make Sam and Frodo march with the others. There's more threats about taking names and numbers and reporting them. So more support for my Orf bureaucracy theory. And Sam is contemplating killing. Um, I'm not sure if there's just one slave driver or if there's multiple, but he's contemplating killing at least one of them. And he actually has his hand on the hilt of his sword.
00:59:57
Speaker
right up until the point that they get to Ujun where there's a ton of orcs milling about and they can kind of slip away. But he was ready to do violence and liberate them and so by extension, they're conscripted orc buddies. Yeah, the in in the chaos of like all different units coming together, they pretend to like fall in the chaos and they sneak just far away from enough from the line to get some fucking sleep. Anything more for this chapter or do we want to go on to chapter three. I'm ready for chapter three, let's do it. So next time you'll be able to hear the last stage of this journey as Frodo and Sam wrap up with the destruction of the ring, ah because that's about to come, and said spoilers, but that's what's happening in these chapters is the rings getting destroyed.
01:00:53
Speaker
But next time you'll be able to tune in and hear the rest of our coverage of these three chapters. Until then, you can follow us on our social media, Instagram, TikTok, Tumblr, and Twitter. That's the last one. There we go.
01:01:06
Speaker
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01:01:25
Speaker
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01:01:41
Speaker
The Phantom Apprentice is produced and edited by Rin and Sam. Our music was composed and performed by James, and our art is by