But Are There Dragons Podcast
Episode 4: The One with Well-Earned Comforts & a Chat with Saruman
Kritter and Jessica continue through The Two Towers chapters 8 through 10 this week. Listen along as they discuss the reuniting of some of our party, learning new words, & so much more about Saruman!
Don’t forget to follow us at But Are There Dragons on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and But Dragons Pod, just one t, on X, formerly known as Twitter.
You can find Kritter at Kritter XD on YouTube, TikTok, and X, and at Kritter _XD on Instagram.
You can find Jessica by searching Shelf Indulgence on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
Music credit to: Frog's Theme by Nobuo Uematsu, Noriko Matsueda, Yasunori Mitsuda
ReMix: Chrono Trigger "Theme of Frog's" - OC ReMix
Kritter and Jessica continue through The Two Towers chapters 8 through 10 this week. Listen along as they discuss the reuniting of some of our party, learning new words, & so much more about Saruman!
Don’t forget to follow us at But Are There Dragons on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and But Dragons Pod, just one t, on X, formerly known as Twitter.
You can find Kritter at Kritter XD on YouTube, TikTok, and X, and at Kritter _XD on Instagram.
You can find Jessica by searching Shelf Indulgence on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
Music credit to: Frog's Theme by Nobuo Uematsu, Noriko Matsueda, Yasunori Mitsuda
ReMix: Chrono Trigger "Theme of Frog's" - OC ReMix
Hello and welcome to, but Are there Dragons? A podcast where two friends pick a book at least one of them has not read and work their way through it a few chapters at a time.
Speaker 2:I'm your host, critter, and I'm your host Jess, and we're continuing this adventure with the Two Towers by JRR Tolkien, with me as the resident Lord of the Rings veteran.
Speaker 1:And me as a Lord of the Rings first-timer.
Speaker 2:In this, our fourth episode of Season 3, we're going to discuss Book 3, chapters 8 through 10. Before we dive in Jessica, what's new with you? How are you feeling?
Speaker 1:I'm good, these are some hefty chapters. I'm excited to talk about this, yeah.
Speaker 2:I agree it was fun for multiple reasons reading these for sure. So let's just dive right into it. If you're game, I'm good, Okay. So book three, chapter eight eight, the road to isengard. The good guys come together after the enemy was defeated at helm's deep and we got the result of gimli and legolas's competition. I'm not convinced that legolas didn't throw it because he was just happy that gimli was alive in the end after it looked like he might have been lost. Do you have a take on this?
Speaker 1:uh, I, I kind of had the same take, like I think that both aragorn and legolas are so happy to see him that they don't care, um, but also my heart. That breaks my heart just a little bit, because I want him to have won in his own right, yeah, and the other bit of nerddom is that his answer is 42. And so, as the nerdy middle schooler who read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I'm like 42, it's the answer. That's amazing. So I thought that that was awesome, that that just happened to be the number he ended on.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm. Yeah, I heard somebody, and I think I saw ack about this actually very recently, maybe from Dodd Marshall, who joined us last season, but somebody was like could this have been, or why would Legolas have not gotten more kills after? I want to say it was like he was in like the upper 30s when we checked in with them at one point and then he only gained like a few um, and the explanation that he gave was maybe gimli really did win because legolas had to, like go retrieve arrows right.
Speaker 1:I'm just gonna say he ran out of arrows by his own report and, uh, kudos to tolkien for writing it that way, because, uh, the never needing to refill your gun clip or your arrow quiver is incredibly frustrating for lots of fantasy fans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to lie, I'm a. I absolutely despise inventory management in any game. Like I know we're in a D and D game together and like bless her heart. But one of our party members is very much into like who's gonna take this gear? Where are we gonna store it, all this other stuff, and I I don't know that I've ever responded to a single message in that regard because I just literally can't be bothered with inventory management.
Speaker 2:Like I stopped playing pokemon go and I've I've gotten like huge dry spells playing Pokemon Go, like I won't play at all, and the reason I don't play is because either my Pokemon storage is full or my items are full and that's why I can't spend Poke stops and I don't want to go through and like figure out what to delete. Like it is, it is a nightmare of mine and that's a lot of the reason that I don't play a lot of uh like rpg video games, because like it's so much, or like escape from tarkov, like there's so many games that you have to have be really focused on your inventory, and I just won't, I just hate it. And so I understand, like I have no problem with the infinite quiver, like yes, please like, have it be infinite, so you don't have to worry about that. But is it more realistic that legolas had to go find more arrows?
Speaker 1:yes, absolutely, I understand I think that my take would be that tolkien took the time to put that in the story to allow plausibility that gimbley did in fact earn it oh, okay so he's like no one's gonna believe me to take that, okay, I'll, I'll allow it.
Speaker 2:That's fine, um, are you? Are you as? Do you despise inventory management as much as me? I have.
Speaker 1:I have a middle of the road approach, so I am someone who winds up answering that inventory management person more than others. Um, because it's right. So we use D&D Beyond. I use D&D Beyond to manage my inventory so I at least know what we have, and I do try to take notes while we're campaigning and follow up on them. But I would say I have like middling success and it does get overwhelming so having to play a role where you have to have specific components for spell casting. When I created a different character, I got her a staff that counts as every single component she would ever need, because I was like I don't want to think about having to have all of these pouches and getting all of this stuff um yeah so I feel like I'm kind of middle of the road.
Speaker 1:I can do it. It's not my favorite and it definitely is a weakness yeah, that's fair, it's a huge we.
Speaker 2:it's a big blind spot for me. Yeah, it's it, just it's. Yeah, that's okay, though we all like what we like, right, like I can, I can play call of duty and actually there was a. This is so so far of aside from this. But like there's this game, valheim, that I love, where you're like it's like norse, explorer, explorer type people, right and uh, and there are mods to the game and you can expand your inventory like in infinitely, basically, so that it like doesn't even matter how big it is. And it's like one of my favorite things, because now I can just put things in my inventory and never think about them again. So so it's like a bag of holding. It's like a bag of holding, yes, and so, like before that mod, I would get so annoyed with like having to be like oh my God, I have too many mushrooms so that I can't pick up this thistle, right, and now it's like, no, I'm going to pick everything, everything I see I'm going to pick up Because, like in the game, I like to explore, like Mr Critter likes to build and I like to explore. So it's kind of fun because I go out and I forage and I discover new places and I kill the bad guys and then I come back and I have this amazing house because Mr Critters created it for me.
Speaker 2:You guys are a good team, we are, we are, we go very well. Do we follow the stereotypes? No, not at all. Of like you know what you would expect from women and men, but that's fine, cause stereotypes sometimes they're just strong, they're just wrong. Who cares about stereotypes? Um, wow, we have been. We're already just like fully out of yeah, so let's come back. Um, so there were men who fought with the orcs, which we talked about last episode, akin to the shifty man that the party saw in Bree, though the orcs were completely eliminated. Many of the men surrendered and were surprised that the men of Rohan didn't burn them alive, like Saruman said. They would. This to me read like we are the same and should all be on the same team, but we also aren't incorruptible in the face of evil, right? Did you read anything into this little sequence?
Speaker 1:This just brought me right back to where I was at when we ended the last chapter is that Saruman is kind of giving me master manipulation vibes, like he is really good at finding the weakness between two groups and, whether it's truth or lies, you know, fostering a divide between them. So yeah, I mean when it said, you know, the men of Dunland were amazed. I was like how do you tell them, like you told them that they burn their captives alive? That is, that's horrendous, like that's horrific. Um, so I was like he went to any length to convince them to be on his side and it was just it kind of threw me right back to where I was, where we left off with the other chapter.
Speaker 1:Theoden and the rest of this crew have agreed to go to Isengard. I'm like kind of the same thing with seeing the trees go through is like these people are going to Isengard. I don't remember that happening. It may have happened, but I'm like I don't remember Theoden going to Isengard. So you know again, kind of, where I left off last week. So you know again, kind of where I left off last week, started right off here going. Maybe I really didn't watch these movies who?
Speaker 2:knows it's going to be so fun whenever you go back to them. It's going to be great. So yes, just to piggyback right off of what you said, gandalf convinces Theoden to ride with him to Isengard to meet Saruman along with the small company. Isengard to meet Saruman along with a small company. And while they pass through the creepy wood, legolas and Gimli agree to disagree about the merits of caves versus forests and eventually agree to travel together, if they survive the conflict against Sauron, to give each other's cave and forest of choice a chance.
Speaker 1:Thoughts on this convo. I lost it. I could not like, like I was right back in bromance heaven. So I I started with. I didn't realize and I probably should have what a tree nerd legolas was. He's a woodland elf like this is not a big stretch, but it just hadn't occurred to me. So legolas nerding out about the trees, rolling right into gimley, talking about how incredible the caverns of Helm's Deep are, and them making a pact to vacation together to visit their favorite places when peacetime comes, come on, I could not say aww loud enough, I know, I think the bromance it's official for me.
Speaker 2:I know, I think the bromance it's official. For me, I think the bromance in the books is stronger than the bromance in the movies.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that that absolutely sends it over the edge, because the idea of them vacationing together. Yes, the soft feels that that gave me. I was like oh my gosh, you guys couldn't be more precious.
Speaker 2:Well, and they started out with Legolas being like you know, or Gimli being like I would pay any amount of money to go see this in these caves, and Legolas being like I would pay any amount of money to get out and double that if I didn't know where I was.
Speaker 1:If you'll sit through, my thing went from that to like, yeah, let's go check this out together.
Speaker 2:I loved it. I loved it. It's uh. Yeah, I'm, I was I've been expecting. Well, we've gotten bits and pieces of the frodo and sam bromance so far, uh, but we're getting way more gimli and legolas especially I miss those boys I do too gotten We've gotten this far.
Speaker 1:It's been a long time.
Speaker 2:I know I'm so curious to see when and if we get to them, how you'll feel about them.
Speaker 1:So the longer it takes us to get back to them, though a little, I get a little bit more afraid because even as we saw so far with the party members that we have seen, we saw so far with the party members that we have seen, the chunks of time that we're flip-flopping through are pretty significant. So I'm like how much stuff is gonna happen to these guys by the time we get back to them?
Speaker 2:we might just hit the reset button full rewind jump, jump all the way back.
Speaker 1:We might we'll see, we'll see. Um, the next thing for me is that there are eyes in the forest. Legolas sees them and his response is to immediately turn around and go back to the creepy eyes. Uh-huh, and I was just like hard. No, no, thank you, I'm with gimli. Like you could stop here. I'm gonna get off the horse.
Speaker 2:That's gonna be a big no for me yeah, and so ents walk out, and I wanted to point out their description. Okay, so tall as trolls, 12 feet or more strong bodies, stout as young trees, clad with raiment or hide of close-fitting gray or brown long limbs, hands with many fingers, stiff hair beards, gray-green as moss so it doesn't mention skin made of bark and I always pictured them as like trees with eyes, basically With two trunks for legs, two branches for arms, and it sounds like that was kind of inaccurate. What was your mental image of them? Do you think it was corrupted by the movies?
Speaker 1:I also thought skin of bark. And now I'm like now I want to go back and look at treebeard's introduction. I don't think it said that. So the rest of that sounds very similar to the way treebeard was introduced. You know, 12 to 14 feet long-limbed yeah, I guess I had maybe. We've definitely seen movie bias before. Right, we definitely have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing is is like whenever they show up to the Entmoot, they're like they will say like oh, this one's more akin to an ash tree or whatever, but I guess like that could be in coloring and maybe like what their fingers look like. Like. I don't know.
Speaker 1:Like I'm really curious, or their raiment, so they're worth if we're saying that they are wearing raiment of some kind. Maybe the raiment looks like birch or ash yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:and it's so interesting and like, of course, the green beard is like the biggest, this is not a human. Like it's clearly not a human, but everything else is just like okay, two, two, like upright, two arms, two legs, eyes. Like we're talking humanoid here, which is not exactly how I pictured them, not exactly More like Groot, but apparently not Turns out. Yeah, okay. So the party camps beside the bed of the Eisen River as they're heading to Isengard river, as they're heading to eisen guard, and overnight, a stream of darkness, shrouded in mist, whispering and groaning, passes by them. How did that make you feel?
Speaker 1:um, unsettled, uh-huh, definitely unsettled, uh. And then the fact that gandalf was just like you know. Pay it no mind, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it, but also don't move, yeah, stay freeze, but it's all good, um, but again I just kind of wait and see, because if nothing else, I do feel like these books do pay off.
Speaker 2:So if you, give it a minute, we'll probably get to find out After a minute. The next morning they discover that the trees and the bodies of the orcs that had been scattered about were gone and a big pit covered with stones had been erected overnight. It was called, from then on, the death down, and they're not sure if the orcs that fled into the trees and were never seen again are included in this pile. Clearly this you know, this funeral area of of the orcs. So was this a creepy enough section for you? How are you feeling?
Speaker 1:about it was it was creepy enough. I think that it shows the lengths to which they will go. I personally don't believe that there is any orc remains in there, that it was only done out of passing respect for the human remains. I believe that the orc remains were just completely eradicated, whatever that means you know like they just found a way to make them disappear, um, and who knows who, they could have been drugged to the sea for all we know.
Speaker 1:Um, because now I understand just how mad the trees and the ants are at the orcs. So that's my personal opinion. Yes, it's super creepy, but also like the death mound is technically them being like. Here are the remains of your constituents and don't worry about the orcs, we don't talk about orcs we don't need.
Speaker 2:About the orcs we don't talk about orcs. Okay, I like it. So we get a description of Orthanc Saruman's Tower once we finally get to Isengard. Orthanc meaning Mount Fang, and Elvish and Cunning Mind in the language of the Mark. Did anything jump out at you from the description of eisengard?
Speaker 1:uh, it sounds like a crater on a moon yeah, honestly okay it sounds.
Speaker 1:It sounds like a moon crater. Uh, I couldn't. I couldn't escape that description. They also use um. They also tolkien mentions wizard's veil and it seems like it seems like it's a synonym of Isengard. It's also being referred to as Wizard's Vale, which is just an example. That's not the first time that's happened in his books where I'm like I think this is a synonym, but I can't quite prove it. And it was just about this point that I was like I was having a second scooby-doo moment where I was like, oh, these guys are coming up onto eisengard immediately post the ant attack, so they have no clue what they are walking into. This is gonna be grand, um, so that's, that's when that light came on for me nobody has any clue, except gandalf, who knows all, apparently.
Speaker 2:Um, but yeah, I love how they and it's like I don't want to go there get. I was like let's just see what's there. Let's just, let's just go and see what's up. Yeah, um, so it became clear as the party proceeded toward the tower the power of saruman had been overthrown, and then we reunited, with two of our original fellowship members lying at ease in the rubble. How did you feel about this initial reunion?
Speaker 1:I whooped I whooped, I was so excited um, and then I immediately wrote down that I loved Gimli's response woolly footed and wool painted truants, so I come from a family who will sometimes say not nice things in an endearing way, and so that is exactly how that struck. Yeah, so that's that's what I got from that. Uh was like just that, oh you didn't come poop or whatever. You know. Whatever, it sounds like not nice, but it's really loving yeah, he's like.
Speaker 2:He's like discontent about all of that effort he expended on the hunt for them.
Speaker 1:To just be fine and then to like, have the remains of a feast in front of them, right insult to injury pippin chimes in about gimley, uh, failing to find any wits while hunting, which I thought I was just like got him.
Speaker 2:Oh, it feels so good to be back with you know, the, the, the gangs all together Not all of us, not all of them but it felt like a really fun reunion to me. It was awesome. So it was also interesting to me that the men of Rohan had heard of hobbits, or at least halflings, and that Pippin found Theoden to be a fine old fellow, quite polite. Any thoughts for the end of this chapter?
Speaker 1:So to your point that you just made that, theoden. Hello, quite polite. Any thoughts for the end of this chapter? So to your point that you just made that, theoden. I think it was Theoden who had said we've heard of hobbits because we are of the North as well.
Speaker 1:I feel like I might have known that before but had forgotten, so I had highlighted it. I was like, oh right, they came from the North. I feel like this was we had talked about it in the context of Aragorn's ancestry, potentially yeah. And then the other thing that was here a lot of this imagery as they're walking up to Isengard and everything. A lot of it sounds really dark and dismal and ruined. So there's definitely language in there that talks about how much Saruman has ruined the landscape and the area of Isengard, and it was once beautiful. It also mentions that the tower that is at Isengard is a copycat, for you know, possibly a poor man's version of the Dark Tower itself.
Speaker 1:And then that a lot of the imagery that was described made me think of like a post-apocalyptic, post-industrial era. So again, not to put words in Tolkien's mouth, but he describes things that are still in their natural state in a very beautiful, loving way, and things that have been industrialized or mechanized in a very dismal way, and so I was left with a lot of mental imagery that thinks of a land that has been clear cut, for example. I was raised in a generation where they would show pictures of where industries had gone through and clear cut an area and then all of the land is ruined and um, there's so much runoff in the in the soil can't be, you know, they can't sow it to grow crops or anything like that. So those are the kinds of things, just that decimation, that careless um industrialization of of an area, regardless for the impact on nature.
Speaker 2:Well, and it wasn't like back in Helm's Deep, we didn't really address this, but once again, saruman and his evil creatures are associated with technology. Right, because they had bombs, essentially, that they were using to like bust into the walls or whatever. So, yeah, technology bad. To put it just as simplistically as I can, that's the vibe, for sure, that Tolkien has given off.
Speaker 1:So I won't call it allegory, but I will say that that's the kind of imagery it evoked for me.
Speaker 2:No, for sure.
Speaker 1:And then I did have one other stray thought. So one point in the chapter it said if the great sea had risen in wrath. One point in the chapter it said if the great sea had risen in wrath. So speaking to all the water that was kind of lingering through eisengard, and at this point nobody knows why it's there and I somebody has this. I think the narrator had said it looked as though the great sea had risen in wrath, and so that got me thinking and I immediately went to a map and I was like wait, how is this coastal? How?
Speaker 1:close are we to the close? How close are we to the ocean? Like galadriel had some not so great things to say about coastal locations, so she did. That's the scary part. So, um, for the first time and I don't even know how many chapters I looked at a map I, I'm just now doing it because I'm curious and, yeah, not really close. Not very close.
Speaker 2:And I feel like the.
Speaker 1:Dark Tower is technically closer to coast, but the mention of the Great Sea kind of put me on my guard a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I feel like anytime anybody mentions the sea, from now on I'll be like get out of there. Legolas, yeah, don't go anywhere near there. Okay, so that's it for that chapter, no further business. Yeah, okay, plenty. Book three, chapter nine Flotsam and Jetsam. So the first time I ever heard those words this is not in my outline, but I just thought of it was, I believe that was Ursula's Moray Eels names in the Little Mermaid. Yeah, totally, I thought they were just names. I didn't know they meant anything.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, and so then I saw it again and I was like wait, no-transcript thrown overboard, otherwise it's just like crap that floats in water I looked it up, I I feel like if it weren't for things like swiss family robinson or robinson or, uh, rob, robinson Crusoe Like I've read just enough of those stories when I was younger that I that I didn't even know that there was a real difference between Flotsam and Jetsam.
Speaker 1:But I you remember how we had the conversation where I'm looking it up and you're just like all I think is landscape. I'm kind of the same. I'm like it's stuff floating in the water.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's well well. And there was another thing, like there's like a song or something that says flotsam and jetsam and I, I think I just like nothing, that like I had heard the song before and I just nothing did, but I want to know I'll have to look, we'll have to look, but it doesn't matter, because now I know what it means. I looked it up because I was like, how does this have its place in the lord of the rings? Like what does this? This has to mean something, that's awesome of course it does mean something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, so you mentioned the water. It's a water word, turns out. Okay. So theod and gandalf and the men of rohan ride off to meet with treebeard, but aragorn, legolas and gimli stay behind to catch up with Merry and Pippin. They feast, they smoke and they chat about what had transpired since they'd parted. Any standout moments from this reunion? I've got several things outlined, but just generally from this reunion.
Speaker 1:I love that we started with who's going to tell their story first.
Speaker 2:I love that we started with who's?
Speaker 1:going to tell their story first. Yeah, so it definitely puts me right into the. You know, rekindling the friendship, rekindling the, the kinship between them, all about who's going to tell their story first, and then there's a second lunch happening, but ultimately I'm with Gimli. So Gimli is, like I should like a tale in the right order, so he's voting for chronological which I always will vote for chronological every time hands down.
Speaker 1:So those were my immediate thoughts. And then Gimli actually spying with his little eye that the hobbit's hair looks thicker and fuller and they appear that they've grown a little bit even though that's not possible for full-grown hobbits and finding out that that's because of the drafts that the Ents were giving them to drink.
Speaker 2:Yes, indeed. So this is a fun thing for us to be talking about. Because, was it you? There was somebody on one of my tiktok videos a while ago where I talk about the, the scene in the lord of the rings where mary and pippin drink the ent water, or something I just like. Was that you?
Speaker 1:and I don't know if we did it I. It might have been in conversation or via TikTok, but I feel like, yes, it might have been me that you're stopped lying.
Speaker 2:That doesn't happen, come to find out like it's in the extended editions and I hadn't seen the theatrical editions in so long that I had forgotten that that wasn't a part of the movies Cause to me that that scene in particular is just so such a fun part of the tree beard interaction that in the two towers that I just yeah, I just assumed it was a part of the theatrical, but it's not.
Speaker 1:And again, because I don't always. You know, if I had a system where every year, every October or whatever I watch and I always watch the extended edition, that would be different. But because I'm so chaos driven and I'm just like, okay, this is what's on streaming right now, so this is what I'm going to watch For all I know, I've only like I know that I've seen the extended editions for each of them because when the extended editions were released, I made a point of renting them and watching them. This is in the day of a video store rentals.
Speaker 2:Good old blockbuster yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, when you actually had to trot yourself down and pick them up. But I did in fact watch them when the extended editions were released. So I know I've seen all of the extended editions at one point or another, at least once. But I can guarantee you I had no idea what the heck any of that was about and I even remember you talking about it. And then you're like, well, it must be in the extended cut and I was like, okay, who cares if they drank something, I don't get it. And now we now.
Speaker 2:Now I get it we get it and water is special. It makes you grow, um, and yeah, so they're tall, they're like tallest hobbits of all time as far as we know, because they got to grow a lot, a lot, a lot, um. Okay, so another thing that I wrote down in this initial kind of conversation that they're having is that Pippin had a spare pipe on him and gave it to Gimli because he didn't have one, and then, even though Gimli was so mad at them you know, mad at them he admits that that more or less settles the score between them. Like, actually, it puts gimley in pippin's debt. I, I, I'd love that little exchange.
Speaker 1:I thought it was cute so I think the idea of carrying a spare pipe, uh, you know, just in case also, I don't know if you noticed this, but he said that he has a spare pipe, um, and he makes, like a ring, a capital R ring reference.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you could hear it, but it was capitalized. I didn't know it was capital. No, no, no. So it's always funny to me when I catch the capitalizations. It's always kind of funny to me. Hold on one second. It didn't say, you know, because it was precious to me or anything, but I was like, oh, he's making a ring reference. Yeah, uh, let me just. I'm almost there, I swear so it's.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to me, like, since you mentioned that, like I didn't know it was a capital r ring reference there's. Another thing is, when I'm making my outline, if I'm looking through the physical copy of the book, I I don't think um andy circus reads the little like footnotes. So there was a footnote in this passage that was like shire reckoning there are 30 days per month in shire reckoning or whatever. And that was like Shire reckoning there are 30 days per month in Shire reckoning or whatever. And that was like a footnote. I didn't hear it until, like, I saw it on the page later. So I found that interesting. I like wonder how they determine which footnotes are worthy of reading and which ones aren't.
Speaker 1:That is kind of interesting, because I assume that it has to do with them figuring out how many days had passed. And he told him you know what the day was by shire? Yeah, and then he calculates it yeah, so it was pippin. And he says I keep a treasure or two near my skin, as precious as rings to me.
Speaker 1:Capital r, capital r weird you know, it's crazy so, just like I don't get the benefit of all of the incredible indie circus performance, but I do get to see some of these fun little things that have this extra emphasis from a written perspective and it's always kind of fun to me when I find them Well.
Speaker 2:And the footnotes apparently you do have advantages. For sure I don't have footnotes. Well, there's okay, there's one in this one. Let me like. I'm sure I could probably find it really quickly. Yeah, okay, so on mine, it's whenever they're talking. The 5th of March in the Shire, reckoning said Aragorn, yeah, got it right here. He made some calculations on his fingers. Only nine days ago he said there's an asterisk. There is an asterisk and at the bottom every month in the calendar had 30 days you are right, I am wrong.
Speaker 1:I couldn't see that blue asterisk. Um, yeah, no, I gotta.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm just showing people like if you're watching on youtube, I just showed the little don't mind us miming actions without actually talking about what we're doing. Yeah, no, you're right, and I'm wrong, okay, well, I wasn't trying to be right. No, no, no, I was just pointing it out.
Speaker 1:That's wild to me, that I didn't notice it, you know brushing over footnotes is not.
Speaker 2:It's not unrelatable.
Speaker 1:And I mean, it's just a stray asterisk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, so yours is like is it like at the end of the book?
Speaker 1:No, so the asterisk is hyperlinked, and so when I click on it, then it shows the footnote. So all I see is a straight asterisk.
Speaker 2:Oh, so okay, Yours is different too, Cause you're, you're reading the ebook. Yeah, it's a little situation. Okay, well, now that we've established that, but it's been nine days since they've seen him.
Speaker 2:That's true, so we learn a little more about the mysterious trees. They're called Huorns, and they're basically Ents that have gone rather tree-ish, wild and dangerous. It turns out that, before the assault on Isengard, saruman had sent his 10,000 orcs and men away for the battle at Helm's Deep and the Huorns a lot of them followed the orcs their business, being with them. I think some Huorns stayed, though, and they absolutely wrecked riggity, wrecked Isengard Thoughts on the Hobbit's tale about what had transpired.
Speaker 1:I thought it was fascinating what's living in the forest near Brandy Buck, because there's a comment in there from somebody, Mary or Pippin, about how you would be terrified of meeting them if there were no true Ents about to look after them.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I wonder if you know that forest is starting to go a little bit more tree-ish and doesn't have an Ent Shepard anymore, which was just a little shivery.
Speaker 2:A little bit, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so then the idea that they were you know, they were there to exact their revenge on the orcs, no matter what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I found that kind of interesting too, because it sounded like like after all of that had happened and the Ents took over Isengard, gandalf shows up right, and it made it sound like he talked to Treebeard about how they needed help at Helm's Deep, and Treebeard was like the Huorns will go, and so there must have been like a lot of horns left. You know what I mean, because like it sounded like the horns saw the orcs leaving and followed them, but then I guess there were still horns left at eisengard and then those left also after gandalf came right, so I guess there were two waves of horns. Is that what?
Speaker 1:you got? Yeah, well, what I got was that quite a few of them. So it talks about those two parties leaving and one takes off south and one takes off east, or whatever. Yeah and they definitely a lot of them followed a party, so to me that implied that there's more than one group, and so there were still at least some hornsorns available to come and help. That makes sense.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. I was just like I just pictured literally all the Huorns being like oh, that's where the orcs are going, I have business elsewhere.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, but I guess not quite.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, so that makes sense. So, and yeah, it's battle stuff. The Ents took over. It was amazing, like. And then I guess, like, uh, saruman trapped himself up in the tower, right, they tried to capture him, but he ended up in the tower and he lit some things on fire, like like one of the ends got completely caught on fire, so he was not undefended. Basically it wasn't a total row route Kind of. It was kind of a total route.
Speaker 1:Well, he sent his entire army out, and I think that it might not have been this chapter, but someone at some point pointed out that Saruman completely disregarded the ants, and that was his shortcoming yeah, that he discounted them entirely right, yeah, should have thought about him can't overlook him.
Speaker 2:Um, so then Saruman's in the tower trap. Then Wormtongue shows up. After the sack of Isengard, and thanks to Gandalf's warning, treebeard knew about his ways and forced him to enter the tower rather than allowing him to run away. And Treebeard acted very pleased with himself over it. So I wouldn't have taken him for like smug. I don't know if it's like smug, but he was like really pleased with himself. That's not to say that I have any problem with taking pleasure in the punishment of evil people, but like did you? Did you take anything away from this part? Did you read into this at all?
Speaker 1:um, I don't know that. I read into it at all. I I do think that it's a little different. Uh, considering he, he was such a proponent of like don't be hasty. Uh, you know, he kind of made a snap decision about this worm tongue character. But then also we find out that there was previous conversation that took place, so he had foreknowledge, so it felt like a snap decision. But then turns out, oh, he knew, he knew that the sky was no good, so it only seemed like a snap decision.
Speaker 2:I like how Theoden lets him go, do whatever you want and then, like the moment he shows up to saruman, his evil overlord, they're like okay, well, we weren't going to trap you back at rohan, but we have no problem trapping you in this tower because you are a bad guy. So it's official now. Um, all right. So aragorn points out how weird it was that saruman had some pipeweed from the shire at isengard and it turned out that the barrel was from two years prior, I believe. Did this peak your interest at all?
Speaker 1:so two years prior would have been the party when bilbo disappeared, right yes, I guess. Yeah, I didn't really like think about the timeline that's where, that's as far as I got with it. Like it, certainly it predates. It predates frodo and sam leaving the shire. For sure, yeah, for sure. Um, but the idea that there is an informant, even loosely attached to saruman, uh, in the shire, is really um unsettling yeah, icky, yeah, like pre ring stuff like, like before anything got bad as far as anybody in the Shire knew it had actually gotten bad.
Speaker 2:There were spies. And not just Samwise Gamgee, who?
Speaker 1:was a spy who was a very good spy though. Very good. We love that kind of spy. We love our Samwise.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it gave me the creeps. It definitely gave me the creeps. At first I was like, of course he has it, it's legendary. But then everyone kept emphasizing it's really far away and it made me kind of cringe. So that's the end of the chapter.
Speaker 1:Do you have any final thoughts? Um, I had, I had a couple of quick notes. Uh, someone in this chapter indicated that saruman was in a cleft stick of his own cutting. So you know, like he was in a bind of his own making, and I just thought that that was super clever way for Tolkien to word. It. Never had I. And also, when I think of a cleft stick, I think of how you trap a snake head.
Speaker 2:Whoa okay. Pioneer woman up in here, Whoa Okay.
Speaker 1:Pioneer woman up in here.
Speaker 1:I mean, I am deathly terrified of snakes so I probably won't right Like I'll scream and throw my hands up and jump and run away, but I have seen that was neat. I wrote down oh, in reference to Treebeard and his you know, their taking over of Isengard, the language, the way it was written, is that he got positively hasty. I thought that that was absolutely to die for. Another thing that the Tolkien did is to describe how kind of terrifying and impressive what the Ents were doing. It said the work of great tree roots in a hundred years, all packed in a few moments. So them grabbing rock with their hand roots and just crushing it and and seeing, and I could really see that in my mind as like a fast forward, you know, fast forward of a tape in my brain and I was like that was a really great image.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had another metaphor, simile that I didn't understand. Okay, Like rabbits in a sand pit, I I don't even remember the context, I couldn't even figure it out in the moment. I was like I don't what is happening. I usually do so well rabbits?
Speaker 2:and yeah, I wonder I. Now I'm curious about the context. Okay, what's the context?
Speaker 1:they pushed, pulled, tore, shook and hammered and clang, bang, crash, crack. In five minutes they had these huge gates just lying in ruin and some were already beginning to eat into the walls like rabbits in a sand pit. Hmm, and I'm like I okay I guess rabbits have like under.
Speaker 2:Do they have like underground?
Speaker 1:tunnels. Well, they dig, they can definitely definitely have dens, but in a sand pit, I don't know, and it doesn't matter, right like it doesn't even matter to the story in any way, but but.
Speaker 2:I'm just like what. I didn't even think about that. I didn't think too hard about that one because I don't know. I guess, like, have you seen whenever there's like a rabbit nest, mm-hmm, and where they're just like little tiny naked things and they're all like piled on top of each other, mm-hmm? I guess that's the image that I got and I'm not sure, like the sand pit has anything to do with it.
Speaker 1:me neither it probably doesn't I think the sand pit is really what threw me off more than anything yeah okay, that's really funny.
Speaker 1:Um, and then the other. The only other thing that I had specific to this chowder chowder chapter was, um, the ents rerouting of water to flood out isengard even though, again, it was represented in the movie, was really very much more, uh, labor intensive and impressive kind of in the book, yeah. So I just wanted to call that out that, yes, it made it into the movie, but somehow in the book I understood better what like a massive undertaking it was that they had gone and done all this work to make sure all of this water flooded eisengard yeah, yeah, it was definitely accelerated, at the very least.
Speaker 2:In the movie it was like, oh, there goes the water, like amazing, we did it. Good job, guys. Uh, okay, is that it for that chapter? That's it for that chapter, all righty. Book three, chapter 10, the voice of saruman. So gandalf and a small contingent, advance on the tower to speak with saruman. When saruman responds to their call, his voice is enchanting, enthralling even so. This feels like magic.
Speaker 1:No, yes but it also sounds like so I. I liked this chapter because I didn't understand quite what a threat saruman was like as a as somebody who just watched the movies, I thought that he was just an incredibly powerful magician wizard. Excuse me, but this is beyond that. And then, also, adding on to whatever layer of mysticism is related to how enchanting and enthralling his voice is, he says all of the right things. So as we go through this chapter and he starts trying to endear himself to the different parties that have come to him, I'm like holy smokes, this guy is. This guy is again just a master manipulator, right?
Speaker 2:Charisma level 1000.
Speaker 1:Yes, he's got advantage on every single charisma role. It's crazy. He's very manipulative, incredibly smart and he knows exactly what leverage to use with whomever his audience is. And then you add to it that he is an incredibly powerful wizard and does seem to have some kind of magical capability that amplifies that. That's crazy, scary.
Speaker 2:It's, yeah, it's. You hear about stuff like this with a lot of different like fantasy. You know, properties. Gosh, this is like terry goodkind, right, they have confessors where if they touch you or whatever anything they say you do right. Or there's compulsion in the wheel of time, right, where you can cast a weave on somebody and just like make them do whatever you want and and that kind of feels like what this is. It's like this, just like, well, and harry potter has to say they, it's all, but then this is just so-.
Speaker 1:The voice in Dune.
Speaker 2:The voice in Dune. Yeah, perfect, exactly. And so just seeing it out of Saruman and like the way Andy Serkis played, it was really good and we'll talk about like the specific things that he tried to do to manipulate people. But the way Andy Serkis played, it was like when he was doing the manipulation it was like this like soft, melodious, reasonable calm, and then he would break the like if some, if somebody interjected or whatever, his calm would like break. And so it was just so interesting to me to see that, like saruman doesn't need a spell necessarily, he doesn't need like to touch anyone, he just has his voice and apparently his voice is just, yeah, just that's it like he's.
Speaker 1:He's just incredible and I did like that in this read that there were beats, right there were highs and lows, where he was being incredibly melodic and, uh, persuasive and everything, and then he would get frustrated, but then he'd come back into it. I liked that there were different beats on that. I just again had kind of nothing that like, oh, it's just a spell, and but I was like, no, he's using real logic. So he's, you know, he has amplified every advantage that he might have by also using stuff that could be, in the right context, a good argument in his favor. So it just was that more, that much more insidious to me, because I was like, oh, this is founded in little pieces of truth from a certain perspective, and that just made it a little bit more horrific.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another example that actually the timing was wild, because I was like reading this and writing the outline for it at the same time that I'm watching. I'm rewatching Mad Men, which is one of my absolute favorite shows, and no spoilers or anything. But there's the scene where one of the account men, which are basically sales guys, they're talking to someone and the person is like so what do you even do? Right, because it's about advertising, and so there are creative people who come up with the ideas for the ads, there are art people who like make the images and whatnot. And then there are account people who basically get the clients right, and the guy asks him what he does, and the account man responds and he's just like well, let me tell you, like, what do you do? You're, you're, you're a professor, right, like. And then he just like butters him up. He just like he just, you know, ingratiates himself with him so much in the span of like 10 seconds. And then the guy is like so into, like he's feeling good about himself, right, he's like talking about himself. And then the account man stops and he's feeling good about himself, right, he's like talking about himself. And then the account man stops and he's like that's what I do. She's like oh god, it's saruman, it was uh.
Speaker 2:It was interesting that I I saw that scene at the same time that I'm reading about saruman, because it felt very right because we'll start with theoden. He starts in on theoden, confounding him and his companions, basically being like my friend, my neighbor, my neighbor, you never came over. I wanted to talk to you, we could be allies, I could help you. There's so many things that he's just buttering him up and Theoden is just frozen right, he just doesn't say anything. And then Gimli pushes back, which I mentioned, saruman gets a little testy and then Eomer ultimately calls out the description, sorry, the deception, noting it's as a trapped wolf would speak to the hounds if he could. And Saruman tries to turn his honeyed words on Aemmer, but Theoden finally chimes in, breaking free from the spell, saying we will have peace when you and all your works have perished. So I know that was a lot of me talking there at once, but did you see this going in a different way? How did you feel?
Speaker 1:about the Theoden interaction. I like the fact that Tolkien left room for doubt. So, as they're describing, as he was describing the beginning part of the Theoden interaction, he said that Theoden I'm paraphrasing Theoden remains silent and you can't tell if he remains resolved in that silence or if he remains resolved in that silence or if he's struggling in that silence and I like the fact that he left it open-ended like that and ultimately he never actually clarified right.
Speaker 1:So after Éamir spoke and then Théoden responded, he spoke thickly. I think it was described as like he was breaking free. He spoke thickly, I think it was described, as you know, like he was breaking free. So you can infer, but he doesn't actually say, and I just thought that that was really well done. So really subtle, really subtle stuff. But in the moment reading that I was like this is so very well done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it felt so realistic and I was so glad for for amor to chime in there and ghibli too, and it was, and you could. They also mentioned that some of the other writers or whatever were kind of in the background. Like gandalf's never this nice, like all you know. They're just like being so influenced by saruman. But the narrator, or gandalf maybe had told us, like you know he'll, he'll influence the weaker minds or, you know, people who aren't as resolved whatever, and so, of course, like the random standby people who are halfway in Wormtongue's pocket apparently, are going to be like let's go with Saruman.
Speaker 1:Well, and also the nuance, uh, played out again the beauty of being able to read it instead of trying to communicate it on screen, which would probably have been very difficult. I can't even imagine how you would accomplish it. That the persuasion capital, p for persuasion that he's performing to whatever extent you believe that it is just strictly magical or whatever, um, you know, it kind of morphs and and and changes throughout the experience, where it just starts out with where you just really want to believe him, you really want to support him. But if you are mentally strong enough to kind of avoid that piece, then the ploy changes to you think poorly of Gandalf or you think mistrustfully of somebody else. That is wild, like that is absolutely insane and not, um, not easily replicated. You know, just not something I've ever seen to that level of detail in a story. I thought it was incredibly interesting to read yeah.
Speaker 2:So Saruman turns his silver tongue on Gandalf, but ultimately Gandalf laughs in his face, which I just love. And then Saruman turns to leave and Gandalf commands him to return and he is compelled to obey. So who's got the powerful voice now? Saruman? So ultimately Gandalf commands his staff broken, him ejected from the council, and the staff breaks. And as Saruman turns to flee back into the tower, Wormtongue throws a dark globe from one of the windows that almost hits Gandalf and misses. Pippin retrieves it, but Gandalf takes it from him. Did you expect Saruman to keep trying with Gandalf, of all people? And how do you feel about how this went down, Gandalf?
Speaker 1:roundly stomped him. Part of the scene was also Gandalf pointing out that now I am Gandalf the White and now you have no color and you have been removed from the council. That defeat was a great final punctuation on that message that you are no longer Saruman the White, I am now Gandalf the White, and I am now Gandalf the White and I am a force to be reckoned with in my own right.
Speaker 1:I loved it, and so the fact that he compelled him, the fact that he broke it, and then you know, wormtongue, throwing something over the edge, handy, super handy, and the chapter ends with it doesn't seem to be a thing that Saruman would have wanted thrown over the edge. So that's cool, can't wait.
Speaker 2:Very helpful Thanks. So yeah, the party goes to part ways with Treebeard, and Treebeard notes that he will miss the hobbits and that he officially added them to the old list just under the Ents, as follows Ents the earthborn, old as mountains, the wide walkers, water drinking and hungry as hunters, the hobbit children, the laughing folk, the little people. So I found this to be a thousand percent precious. How did it hit you?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, exactly the same. I was like, yes, of course they need to be added to the song, and I love the fact that tree bird, as the oldest living thing on middle earth was, you know, his horizons were broadened and he was exposed to hobbits, and I truly believe that everybody who's exposed to hobbits is better off for it at the end, and I feel the same way about tree beard yeah, and I feel like, if I'm remembering right, pippin suggested a verse for the hobbits and it was something like lives in the ground or like, obviously paraphrasing, but it wasn't this.
Speaker 2:I don't think and the fact that treebeard didn't just take the you didn't just steal pippin's homework, basically.
Speaker 2:But like, learned about hobbits, became friends with hobbits and then gave them their description in the list like and they're so perfect hungries, hunters, hobbit children, laughing folk, little people, just I, just I really I don't know. It hit me my heart really warmed up with that one personally. Um, okay, so basically the end of the chapter, gandalf asks the ents to watch for saruman basically to continue flooding so he can't escape out of the tunnels assuming there are tunnels and and that's it. Basically treebeard's like yeah, we got this, bro.
Speaker 1:Any final thoughts before we do mvp uh, there was one other super random thing sarumanuman referred to the Ents as wild wood demons and I thought that that was hilarious. Yeah, you know, if I were an Ent, I would get that like put on a T-shirt or something. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Just embrace it, play with it.
Speaker 1:That's mine Lean into it, and that was really it. Just another little one-off thing where I was like that's hilarious. But yeah, no, that's what I have.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right. So we've got a tradition where we pick an MVP from the chapters we've read for each episode. Cue the music, jessica. Who would you name as your MVP this episode?
Speaker 1:This episode was so hard, I know Can I do. Mary Ann Pepin.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're co-hosts here. Do you think we should have two MVPs? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like does it count? As a half a point no, we can't set that precedent. It would be rough. Yeah, it would be rough. Um, I'm gonna go with pippin as representative of marion pippin and he just, you know, takes it by a nose because of the pipe, okay, but having them back and the role that they played and the reuniting and just all of it, like it was delish.
Speaker 2:So it's marion, it's marion pippin, but pippin is a representative okay, okay, this was so hard for me, like I'm right now still thinking about it and like part of me wanted to go with pippin because this was so hard for me, like I'm right now still thinking about it, and like part of me wanted to go with Pippin because he was so frickin' funny. Right, like he On that hunt, you clearly didn't find your wits. And he's giving them a feast. He's the gatekeepers. They're the gatekeepers of Isengard. He gives the pipe. It's just he, he really he nails it. But then, like gandalf, though gandalf, talking to saruman, command, laughs in his face, commands him to return, which he is compelled to do, commands his staff broken and it breaks, which he is compelled to do. Commands his staff broken and it breaks. Like I don't know, I got. Like I'm Gandalf really.
Speaker 1:He hit it Very.
Speaker 2:OP, he, yeah, and I just love, like I don't know why I just love to hear somebody who just really knows their worth and like wields their power. That Okay. So I'm going to be honest. Part of me is like, because you picked Pippin, I should pick Gandalf. But no, I think I want to pick Pippin Because that was my instinct and he was delightful and he inspired the rhyme from Treebeard and it was just nice to have him back with the boys. So Gandalf, a close second, because, dang, that exchange was fire it really was, but it's Pippin for me as well.
Speaker 2:Just because he had the, he was the comedic relief and I, just, he, just, yeah, he really did it for me. These chapters, okay, okay, okay. So read for next week book three, chapter 11, and book four, chapters one and two. So we're getting into book four. What does it mean? What does it mean? We'll see. Very exciting. We both want to say thank you so much for tuning into episode four of season three of but are there dragons brought to you by your hosts, jessica sadai and critter xd, me? Don't forget to follow us at. But are there dragons on youtube, instagram and tiktok? And? But dragons pod? Just one t on x. You can also find your hosts on social media as critter xd and shelf indulgence. That's it for today. We're workshopping new catchphrases for season three, so let us know on social media how you feel about this one. This is a direct quote from these chapters. So here it is. It is the end. Let us go.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye.