83. It’s Important to Have Hobbies You Don’t Monetize.

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: warriors. As we all know, one way or another, war has been an ever present part of human societies over the millennia, and so there are warriors, fighters, soldiers, whatever term suits. Add in Tolkien’s own experience as an officer in World War I and little surprise that his legendarium from the start has armed conflict and battle as part of the overall arc of their many stories, published or not. But while war is present, at the same time it’s notable how Tolkien does or more often does not tell what are often seen as ‘typical’ stories of war, whether in terms of old folk tales and myths or more modern portrayals and considerations of what it means to fight and how. How do the books differ from the Jackson adaptations in terms of centering war and warriors, and how are parts of the book transformed as a result? What ultimately are the vocations of people seen to be warriors in The Lord of the Rings in particular, or in contrast are those who find themselves in war, and how do they conceive or process what they experience or do? Are there particular patterns over the legendarium’s historical time cycles as to how war and warriors ends up being part of seemingly ideal societies? And what is Tolkien’s ultimate message to those who find themselves as warriors and how to consider what they experienced?

Show Notes.

Jared’s doodle. Make sure you have all parts to claim a warranty.

Jared’s Patreon, which we all encourage you to sign up for for his Lord of the Rings reread and much more!

The Patriots won, BTW. You might have heard about that. Bill Belichick, in contrast, did not.

TheOneRing with various hoo and hah on Aragorn recasting rumors.

Stuart Townsend on Shetland? Not bad, really.

Chalamet and his Christmas movie power. It’s there, it seems.

War! It sucks but it exists, so there are warriors.

The opening essay of Bret Devereaux’s series on ‘the universal warrior’ and differing definitions of what a warrior can be.

There’s no exact central web page about Ned’s dad’s service but there is this…

Faramir’s quote about not loving the sword for its sharpness.

Our orc episode.

Our Aldarion and Erendis episode.

Mablung and Damrod, the two Gondorian soldiers Frodo ends up in conversation with. (In slight contrast, Beregond.)

The quote about Sam and the dead Haradrim soldier; in the movie, it was given to Faramir.

Robert E. Howard and E. R. Eddison were all about warriors. To a fault.

Our episodes on the Rohirrim and Ghân-buri-Ghân. 

Our episodes on the Noldor and the dwarves. 

Michael Drout’s new book The Tower And The Ruin.

Our episode on the Silver Call Duology.

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