Speak Friend and Enter: A Lord of the Rings Podcast | Deep Dive - Ages & Geography

Hosts Stephanie and Lydia discuss a broad overview of the ages and geography of Tolkien. 

What is Speak Friend and Enter: A Lord of the Rings Podcast ?

Speak Friend and Enter is a weekly discussion on all things Lord of the Rings hosted by friends Lydia & Stephanie. Come along with us as we explore the world of Tolkien through deep dives, read-alongs, and laugh-alongs.

Hi there, I'm Stephanie.

And I'm Lydia.

Come along with us as we explore and learn about the world of Tolkien through deep dives on lore, characters, beat-a-lons, and laugh-a-lons.

We are excited to have you as a new friend on this journey with us. Welcome to Speak Friend and Enter, A Lord of the Rings podcast.

Alright, welcome. This is Speak Friend and Enter, A Lord of the Rings podcast. I'm your host, Lydia, and my co-host. Hi, I'm Stephanie. And today we're going to talk about Ages and Geography. And I'll go out on limb here and confess that geography is my weakest, most weakest subject. I grew up, like, I had flags and maps all over my room and I swear I cannot find you several states. U.S. Geography is still a mystery. World Geography is something else entirely. And I know like two flags. So I don't know what I looked at. Clearly I did it like walking into my room probably three out of the four walls had maps and flags on them.

And obviously I never saw them a day of my life. So I'm hoping that today things go a little bit better. Yes, yes. I'll start off with a little bit about like kind of my impression of the topic because that's what I know, right?

I get the topic and then I just go off with my impression. So Stephanie has told me the topic is Ages and Geography and I instantly thought about Tolkien's maps, which have a very unique style. And I remember ages ago I was looking this up because I was also making a map and I thought, oh, I love Tolkien's style.

And that was what I learned that he hand drew them. And it really was his style. And I loved it. And it was beautiful. And obviously he started a trend in fantasy. You can't read a book without having a map.

I managed because I always, yeah, but I managed because I always opened the book and I instantly flip past the map. And at some point they're saying something like, and now this country over here and I'm like, what? I've never heard of this country.

Where is this country? And then I had to flip back. It's always the flip back of shame. Yeah, you're like, I wouldn't need it. Yeah.

But like my understanding, and I don't know if this is true, this could just be a rumor, is that he started with the maps and then my stories. Really? I actually don't know.

I thought it was language. I thought he started with the languages first. Yeah, we should investigate which one it is because I heard that it was maps. And that was always my impression. And I know like a lot of fantasy authors do this.

They're like, I'm going to, you know, draw a squiddle on a napkin. And that's my new map for my new world. And I just actually really, I don't work that way necessarily, but I love the idea of it because geography sets up so much like political and like just it sets up so much conflict. Yeah.

So I appreciate it for that, even though I'm very bad at it. And then the other aspect of the title, this is my last spiel, Ages. I just want to comment that Tolton was perfect. He named it the third age and there's nothing better than that.

Like, he could not have named it better. Like, if it was the fourth age, it'd be okay. But the third age is clearly superior.

Because it perfectly implies that there are before and after ages. Yeah. Right? And I don't know, it just rolls off the tongue. It's beautiful.

I'm very biased as well. Time chose also to set the story in the third age of their world. Really? Which is very enjoyable to me. So I have a few questions that I'll spreen on you later. Oh, gosh. But that's just setting the stage for my understanding of ages and my lack of geography.

I love that. Well, I'm so excited. I felt like we should talk about this, these two topics in a little episode because when we were trying to do our deep dives and we were talking about different, I don't know, different people and topics and events, I was like, wait, when is this happening exactly?

Where is this happening? And I realized as I was researching all of this stuff that there is so much information. So this is going to be like a high level.

We're wanting to start. No, no, no. Of course you can interrupt. But this is going to be like, we haven't started this in a while and yet. So that will give a lot of context. But this is supposed to be high level, just general. Just like the overview. Overview. Yeah. So it might be a little bit shorter, but overview of timeline, overview of some geography, because like to your point, Tolkien was very interesting with how he built out the geography and timeline of his world. I think this is kind of cool.

And maybe this would be a good place to kind of kick off and start with. And that is that technically Tolkien imagined Arda and Middle Earth as this ancient past for the earth that we live on, actually. I didn't know that. Yeah, he was picturing this long forgotten existence where all of the other peoples except for man no longer existed. And there is a reshaping of continents and everything is just disappearing. I have a question about this already. Bad news.

Okay, keep going. So, Wheel of Time, very similar where you have the Third Age, which is set prior to our modern day. But it is supposed to lead into, I think, one of the ages, maybe so that in Wheel of Time, there are seven ages. The story, the main story set in the Third Age. I think our age is meant to be somewhere around five or six. Interesting.

Okay. And I loved that. I felt like that gave, there's just like, I feel like it's a subgenre of fantasy where it's like semi post apocalyptic fantasy. But it's your world. Yeah. Like, I love the mythical beginnings to a modern earth.

I love that. I was not aware that Lord of the Rings was set that way. And it's very interesting because a lot of people accuse Wheel of Time of copying Lord of the Rings and for certain things, yes. And I love that that was what I was going to say copied. That's perfect.

Well, I don't know if it's that, like, discussed or talked upon. Uh huh. But it definitely was something that I think Tolkien mentioned and that his stories were kind of like this dim memory.

Yeah. This like, dim memory of folklore and legend because we have, and he loved folklore and legend, right? He loved digging into mythology. So we have, we have stories about elves and dwarves and dragons and all this stuff. And it's kind of like, where does all of that come from?

And then it got filtered down through our stories that we know across the world. So I don't know. It's kind of a cool. Yeah, I love that. Kind of a cool idea. So in Lord of the Rings, how many ages do we have? Are they declared? Are they stated?

So I was a little bit confused initially because there are ages and then there are, I guess, what I would call light sources. So just as a really quick overview, we have the creation of Arda this period of time before a light source where things are trying to get created. We have the first light source, which is called the lamps. We have the second light source, which is called the trees. And we have the third light source, which is called the Sun and the Moon. And so that's kind of the creation of Arda and the three light sources. The ages, it sounds like started being counted when the elves were born. And that was the beginning of the first age, but it was in the time of the trees. So that was the light source.

And you've told me this before, but I'm sure I forgot. So beginning of the first age, birth of the elves. End of the first age is Melkor.

End of the first age, I believe, is yes, when Melkor was defeated. And men were also born in the first age, but I would say a decent amount.

And they come into their power in the second age. Yeah.

Well, yeah, in a way, the second age. And so we're digging into that. We're digging into the timeline. But the second age, I would say, is kind of the era of Sauron and his deceit of the Numenoreans. The sinking of that island. All of that.

So first age, Melkor. Second age, Sauron. Third age, Lord of the Rings, as we know it. Coming back of Sauron. Oh, Sauron. Yeah. Sauron part two.

Part two. And that's what I think is kind of unusual about these timelines is the way that it's structured. They aren't equal in length. And you could even argue.

It's event-based. Yeah. And even the events, I'm like, well, why isn't Sauron just grouped into one age? Like why is that a double? And so I'm not entirely sure why that was particularly defined in that way.

But it sounds like the record-keeping. I know why. It's because Tolkien knew that if he said that his scene was set in the second age, it would not sound as cool.

I do think to your point. It made me start thinking about that. And I was like, the third age, it's not an even number. It sounds a little unfinished to me. Like there's something still in the works still happening.

Yeah, it feels there's stuff before, there's stuff after. It just, it makes the world feel lived in. And I love that.

So that's kind of what we're going to go over today is kind of what happened in those ages and also those different like light source eras. Maybe I'll call them eras.

Yeah. And then we'll go over some of the geography, which I don't have too much, but it's just interesting because it did change a decent amount over the timelines. That Tolkien wrote out. So I think maybe we start with the ages and the timeline. And then I can do a little bit of the geography to wrap it all up. And we can kind of, you know, think about, oh, and actually you had a question earlier of how many ages are there in Lord of the Rings. Yeah. And so we know that there's a fourth age.

Like when Aragorn becomes king. Yes, when Aragorn becomes king, he has children. There's a whole set of some things that Tolkien, I think, recorded about his children's children and kind of the history there. But then after that, we are unsure how many more ages there are. It's kind of, I think, an uncertain future. But there is kind of the record of almost this, this famous last battle, potentially, that's going to happen with Morgoth coming back from the void and the future of art being determined. If Sauron gets to combat, for sure Morgoth

gets to combat. Morgoth's got to have a comeback, right? Yeah. It seems like that would make sense. So we know from the beginning where we're at, but we don't know how much longer the world kind of continues on.

Okay, so there was another comparison I was going to make. So in Wheel of Time, you have seven ages. Oh, yeah. It's specifically delineated. And something I think that is really cool is they're called out as being cyclical. So it's a repeating cycle.

So it's very cool. So it's like, you have the first age, who knows what's happening there. You have the second age, which is the age of legend.

So this is like a time of extreme prosperity, et cetera, et cetera, peace, utopia. And then you get to the third age, which is where the story is set. And then it's implied that somewhere in like fourth or fifth is like our modern age. And then six to seven, it wraps around and all of a sudden you're back to there's magic in the world again, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's implied that the magic will leave the world and then come back. And I weigh like that cycle really caught my attention with Wheel of Time. So I was very curious to ask you if Lord of the Rings has a cycle attribute to it. It sounds like no, which is fine.

But I was very curious because it seems like if like this, this piece of information that Tolkien was kind of imagining Middle Earth and Arda being this, you know, very early as a precursor to our nowadays. Yeah. Then it seems like we would have kind of all of this magic, all of this happening, maybe this, this final battle where things no longer look the way that they used to look. Maybe the, you know, the people, the creatures, the things aren't necessarily the way that they used to be.

And then is the only person left. But I'm curious. Now I want to dig into like what did Tolkien foresee for the world? Yeah. Okay, cool. A future topic. And I don't know. Maybe there was some kind of like rebirth element, like what you're talking about with cyclical.

But yeah. I just, that was one of my favorite things of Will time. So I thought I gotta ask that. I gotta know if there's like any hint of that here. Yeah. And even if there's not, it's very cool.

It's fine. And I do feel like Tolkien definitely has a, there's something hopeful about the idea of it being a cycle where you can think, oh, in a future age, the magic would come back. And I, who doesn't like magic? I think that Tolkien, I know, right?

But like Tolkien has almost a different attitude, like with the diminishing of the elves, we're not giving any hint that that's not permanent. And it's, it's, it has a sadness to it that is very sweet. Yeah. And I appreciate that from the other end. I'm like, whoa. I know. That's very sad.

I'd love to do an episode on mortality and immortality because I do remember reading a quote from him, which was talking about how Lord of the Rings is a lot about like life and death. And it's really like how we approach death. And so I wonder if that's, you know, in terms of the world too, like how we approach decay and death and endings. I don't know. I think it makes me think about the fact that he was in World War One and how intense that experience has to have been.

But yeah. And I really like the word that he uses, at least with regards to the elves, where it's diminishing. Yeah.

I don't know why that word appeals to me so much. Yeah. I love that. It's almost got an extra touch of sadness to it. I don't know why, but I really enjoy that. Anyways, completely off topic. No, I love it. Back to Addis, Stephanie. Okay. Perfect.

All right. So now we're going to go a little bit more in depth into our timeline. I did a little bit of the overview there where we know we have our kind of creation era.

We have our three different light sources and then the ages built on top of that. So let's dig into it a little more. Okay. So we know that the world is created, right? We have that context. And then we have kind of like the years of the Valar, Valarian years, where the Valar come down and in essence, it's supposed to be this big building creation period where they're creating the world. But we also know when we talked about like Melkor Morgoth that he's out and about doing no good. Right? They can't make a lot of progress. He's hindering it.

He's hindering. So that age took probably 2000 years longer than it was supposed to.

So that age took a long time. And I have a couple of different timelines that, you know, people online are so amazing and they put up. So I'm referencing a couple of dates. And so it's interesting here because we have this beginning of the world and something I didn't talk about earlier with Melkor Morgoth that I think is interesting. They talk about the mauring of Arda. And I think it reminds me a lot of the fall where it's like Melkor Morgoth is not only like hindering, but he's kind of spewing these not great things into the world like plague and sickness and all of these kind of get the impression like Pandora's box. Kind of. That's cool. He's not just hindering. He's like kind of mauring as well.

And mauring implies permanence. So like once he's introduced, played the Valor cannot like they either have don't have the means or they don't have the capability to totally rid it.

Right. To totally get rid of that. Yeah. So we have this, this period of time where this is happening and then looking at a few of these different timelines, it looks like about, and I think this is so interesting, 1500. And this kind of pre period is when we have Tulkis, our kind of warrior Valor.

The man who got it done. Yes, coming out and he's like, okay, we're done with this. And he comes and Melkor flees into outer darkness. And that's kind of the end of this first war that we really see between the Valor and Melkor. And that would be, that's the end of the first age. So we're going from zero to 1500. That's not even considered an age at this point.

Oh my gosh. These are just the beginning years.

Wait, wait, wait. So, oh, sorry. So the first ages when the elves are born. Yes. So that's down the line. Thank you. I was like, where was my start? We're still in the pre. You're already seeing how bad I am at. No, no, you're going to, this was confusing for me.

So hopefully that as we talk through it, we can like add a little bit of clarity.

I have some more questions. We're going from zero to 1500. Melkor flees.

Yeah. Melkor flees. And then after that, we kind of get the spring of Arda, right? So these are the, this is when they're finally able to get to the creation that they've been wanting to do. They're building the world that they want. They're years behind schedule.

Years behind schedule. They've got to hurry. Yes. And so at the end of kind of this

pre-creation of Valarian years of the Valar, they create the, let's see, the two lamps, which is the first light source. Perfect. And they're doing really great.

They love these. You know, that is probably why it took them so long. They're doing everything in the dark.

They're doing everything in the dark. They love stars.

For some reason, like stars is a big thing. So I think the stars are there, but these light sources. Some more direct. For the, yeah, that have like the moon and sun vibes where they're just these bigger light sources.

I guess we're not there. So they're just working with the stars or whatever. So they set up the lamps. That's also in this, this pre area, but then Melkor comes back and he overthrows the lamps. Oh my goodness. Cause he destroys them. He destroys them. And then remember we talked about this is kind of interesting rather than being like, Oh, you're back and like grabbing him and casting him out.

They hid. They went into the West and they established Valinor. And so the lamps were destroyed and they went to Valinor and they created a new light source, which was the trees, the two trees. And so now, So those trees are specifically in Valinor. Yes.

They are. And so we have this pre-creation period. We have the first light source era, which is the lamps. Yep. Melkor comes destroys those. And then we have second light source era, which is the trees are created.

And they have dates for these. So we have like zero to 1500 is Melkor fleas. At some point he comes back and destroys the lamps. Yes.

So we have a whole bunch of creation after that. And then in 3450 Melkor comes back and destroys the lamps.

Okay. And then I remember they made the trees and then I remember him bringing un-goliant to suck those trees dry.

I know you're skipping ahead. You're skipping ahead. Oh no. Okay. So he overthrows the lamps and 3450. And then we have in like 33,500 they create the trees. Dang that took them a long time to figure out. I know. I don't know. Yeah. Anyways. So, oh, and it says interesting.

I thought this was really interesting. It says, so the lamps are overthrown, which is their very first light source. And Yvana, who's kind of this mother earth figure, she sets most of the living things to sleep.

So they're kind of sleeping because they don't have this light, this lights source anymore. So we're talking about like, you know, what are they going to do in the dark?

But sounds like she's putting this to sleep. That's a very interesting visual because if you were to see this on screen, you know, you see the lamp being destroyed and then you see like the leaves kind

of hungering down and everything going dormant. I get a sleeping beauty aspect. You know, like Disney and the fairies are like putting everything to sleep. Yeah, exactly. So everything's kind of hunkering down and frozen in time almost. And then they create the trees. And the reason why I think I feel like the lamps, that period of the lamps is kind of skipped over because it's a creation. There's not a, and Melcore destroys them, but things really start happening in the years of the trees. That's kind of when things start getting going.

Well, I think this is because we start getting, I guess you would call them beings that resemble humans more. So like we can, we can have more like empathy and sympathy for them. Like we understand them more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So, okay, we are now in the years of the trees and the Valar are dwelling in Valinor and Melcore is still kind of in middle earth, hunkering down, working on things and being devious. Yeah, being devious. And the Valar are kind of just staying aware of things, right? They're kind of keeping an eye on him, but things are kind of status quo, but things really change at the birth of the elves. And this is when we have the start of our first age is when we have kind of like these children of Eru.

And I remember you said it was like the vibe for the Valinor was very much, oh no, here they are, they came and now we're going to protect them and they go on the offensive.

And so once the elves are born, this is something that they knew that they were prepping the earth for, right? Like they knew that Eru was going to bring life to it. And so, but they didn't know when or where we talked about this being like kind of an interesting situation.

And so they know that it's going to happen. They've restored the light source. They kind of hunkered in and then suddenly they become aware that the elves are born. And this is years of the trees, first age. And this is a 1,050, 1,050 and the years of the trees. Yes. Okay. Got it. And then so that really is what set off a whole chain of events.

This is when we go from a different genre to action and adventure.

Exactly. So once they realize and we talked about Orom, one of the Valar is wandering the earth and he discovers them and he comes back and he's like, oh my gosh, we got to go. Something I thought was interesting is, you know, Melkor starts finds the elves first and starts kind of manipulating and afflicting them. And so they become orcs. So they come back, Orom comes back to the Valar and they're like, oh man, we got to go. We got to do something. And so 1090, they make a great war upon Melkor.

So this is when they go into Baradur or no, it's not Baradur.

It's Antunno.

Antunno. Is that thing? It's fortresses. That he's hunkered out. And they break the door open. They dip Melkor and they just leave every other strand completely loose and close off.

Yeah. And it sounds like it happens honestly rather fast, which is surprising to me.

It sounds like he pinnaped him. Yeah. Tocus comes. He probably wasn't seeing it, you know, coming necessarily. Tocus comes, chains him up with this chain that our friend Auley created and kind of puts him in, I would say, this like dungeon purgatory vibe, right? If it didn't, if we were in comedy, this would be the high smithy, you know, where you did the team together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, okay, let's get it on again. You got your who's the goodaway car. Exactly. I love it. But you're right. So they leave a lot kind of empty and a lot of strings loose here.

So they get him, they throw him in this purgatory prison, right? And this is still the first age? This is still the first age.

A lot happens in the first stage folks. Like there's a tongue going on. So they capture him, they throw him into this semi-prism and then they actually go to the elves and they say, hey, come with us to Valinor, right? Like you've been out here in Middle Earth, you've been kind of abused by this powerful entity. Come with us to Valinor where we can kind of like be, keep an eye on you, be with you. And the elves are a little bit gun shy. They don't initially want to go.

Yeah, because I think that's surprising to me. I was about to say who would take that deal? To the mortal realm.

Come to the holy land and live with the gods. Live with the gods. And so it sounds like there's a little bit of, because of things that have happened with Melchor and Morgoth, there's a little bit of distrust there, which is so interesting because you usually think of relationships not entirely, but between like people and gods as being very adoring. And it sounds like there was some mistrust in this situation. And so they send ambassadors and they finally get the elves to decide to migrate to come over to Valinor. Do all of them though?

It seems like pretty much everybody goes at this point. Okay. Okay.

And so. It's time for faction strife later. Yeah, faction strife is later. So they all come. And this is where, you know, there's a whole bunch of drama that starts ensuing because we know that Melchor Morgoth says, you know, I'm so sorry.

You should let me out. And this is when he starts whispering to like Faeanor and everyone. And this is when he snitches, right? Yeah.

And so then he, because the elves are now there and Manway gives him some, I almost think about it like he's on parole.

You know what I mean? You're out, but we're keeping an eye on you. You know what I mean? Like we're keeping an eye on you. So usually in Valinor with the elves and he starts teaching them and the elves are actually learning from our way how to build beautiful things.

Nobody learns anything good from our way. I'm so sad for him. He creates beautiful stuff. But anyway, so they're learning how to create beautiful things and they create the simileleons and Morgoth likes O'Rang. I like that. Those are precious. Right. Those are precious. Those look powerful and they look beautiful and like things that just really attract him.

Does he steal them before he like causes all the light before he lets loose about men or is that after? Not yet.

Yeah. So he basically tells all these lies or puts little whispers into the elves ears saying, you shouldn't trust the Valar. You know, there's, there's things they haven't told you, like all of this stuff and they're sensing discontent among the elves. And so they bring the of the Valar kind of brings the elves to them because they're sensing violence or sensing up people like stuff's happening and they're like, what's going on? And that's when the elves are kind of like, well, we've been talking to Melkor, and

he's been telling us all this stuff. Yeah, exactly. And that we're not gonna be the only beings, right? That there's gonna be men, there's gonna be all this other stuff. Such spicy drama.

And they're like, oh my gosh, of course it's him. And that's when Melkor takes his moment and he grabs the Simurals and he flees. And he flees. Before they can go after him.

And so, okay. Is that the end of the first stage? No, isn't that what we're doing? Oh my goodness.

Shut your mouth. I'm serious. Okay, so I'm trying to find the date. So all of this has happened. We know he was thrown into prison. Oh man, when was he thrown into prison? It was around like 10, 90.

Oh right, so he's off doing things. People are chasing him, but they eventually catch him. And when he's thrown into it, when he's chained properly.

So he was chained and then he grabs the Simurals and then he leaves. And let's see. When I wish, I'm trying to find a date for when he takes off. When does he take off? Well, let's see.

He spreads lies. Let's see, let's see. I'm gonna say it's somewhere around. So we can see that he starts spreading lies and having this discontent between like 1450 to 1490. So he was thrown in prison around like 1090.

And 1450, 1490 is when he's been released and he starts spreading some rumors. Okay, but he flees. And before the Valar can kind of gather their forces and go after him, he makes a Uncanny Alliance with this creature named Angoliant. And that's when he sucks the trees, right?

Yes, we know that Angoliant says very terrifying creature in the form of a spider who kind of represents the darkness in the world. And she comes and he attacks. He's very proactive this time because they were proactive last time and caught him on a wares.

And he kind of does the same thing. He comes back before they can regroup. He attacks them. They suck the trees dry of life and light.

And he kills a lot of people and then he leaves. And so all of that happens around 1495 in this first age and the era of the trees. Yeah, okay. And then after that, this is the part where I know less and that I think the Somerillian is going to really fill in. There's wars.

It's gonna be a mess up. Wars, wars, wars. So many wars. All over the Somerillians. All over the Somerillians, but also like the Valar trying to pursue Melkor slash Morgoth, trying to subdue him. There's elves who are fighting with each other over the Somerills. Men are born. Men are born in this first age, amid all of this chaos.

And an age of war. That's cool. And an age of war. That's cool. I love that. It's very thematic. And there is this tension between men and elves and Melkor. And it's just so much going on in this first age. It's kind of crazy.

And so this is at the point where the trees have been destroyed, it's still the first age. And then at about, let's say 1500, the creation of the moon and sun are finished. So we have a little bit of time between that 1490 something period where the trees are stuck dry and that 1500 when the sun and moon are put out. I love the concept that men are born into like starlight and darkness.

And then they see the birth of the sun and moon. I love that. Isn't that wild? Cause we always talk about like in our day, we're like, oh, you know, that was millions of years ago. And I'm like, it would be cool to see though.

It would be cool. It would be cool. And so then, oh, actually I wonder, do the men awaken after or before? It says the sun, actually it looks like it's very comparable.

The sun set sail, the first age, you know, is continued, but there's the awakening of men. So it's around the same time of the sun and the moon. Right around the same time maybe. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure, but that's interesting.

Okay. And then the first age continues. There's the Simarils, the wars, and we have our epic stories of like Baron and Luthien, which is that epic love story.

And we have all of the Simating stuff going on. And then finally, the Valar get looped in. People go to the Valar and they say, I think this was a rental, maybe?

I have to double check. But who goes to the Valar and say, we need your help. Right, like this has been going on for so long. We need your help to shut this thing down. And so that's when you kind of get the big guns coming in and they have, I believe it's called the War of Wrath.

They emerge again and Melkor slash Morgoth is officially overthrown. And this time they don't chain him up and put him in their basement. This time they're like, you are going out into the void. They're putting you somewhere a lot more difficult.

Yeah, a lot more difficult to get to. And so when the sun and the moon, it looks like, were implemented, they started counting years from the sun and the moons time period. And that was about 590 from the period of the sun and the moon that Morgoth was thrust into this timeless void. Okay. Now we are at the second age. And I actually think this one is kind of the most intriguing to me. I think the first age has so much going on. But the second age is where we get to see kind of Sauron coming out of the woodwork. He's a very prominent person in Melkor Morgoth

battle plan, but he is coming forward as a main character energy. Yeah, with main character energy here. So he goes into hiding, right? He goes into hiding, the Valar don't catch him. And then he comes out in a beautiful form. And he starts going around to different locations. He starts going around to the elves. He starts going around to the Numenoreans on the island of Numenor. And the Numenoreans were given, I think this isle, and a little bit longer life for some of their epic good works during the battles.

They have like a noble heritage, yeah, from the first age, which makes them a little bit different than just the typical man. And so he starts going and building these connections. He's alliances, he's going in a hidden way. And he starts, there's so many stories going on in this age, but I'm

very interested to read them because I just want to know like does, where does he say he's from? Like, oh, hey, young noble man, where are you from?

What does he say? When he goes to the elves, I think he says he's the Lord of Gifts and he just presents himself as a Myar, I think.

Oh, that would be an easy out because there's so many Myar, why can't you get away with that? Cause I looked at that, I'm like, it's the elves who live a long time.

They'd be like, hey, you haven't been around for 400 years, fresh blood, new faces, he's a hottie. Where are you coming from? It just seems like you have to say something. And I'm very curious, obviously, if he says he's the Myar. A Lord of Gifts, something.

It's true, it's true, but it's also a soapy lie. When his gifts are unwanted, you don't want his gifts. Okay, cool, I want to learn more about that. Yeah, and so this one I just think is a really interesting age. I'm excited to learn more about, but he goes around to the elves, he goes around to the Numenoreans, and he causes some strife in Numenor, where he starts saying he kind of creates an uprising with the Valar. And this becomes important later on when we talk about geography. He says, you don't have immortality, the Valar do. Like, you are going to die, you are man, and you are going to die, and you're not gonna have power.

He's so good at finding those little flexion points.

And you're not going to have life, and so you need a wage war kind of on the Valar because they're not, you think of them as gods, you think of them as like these divine beings that care about you, but they don't care about you, right? If they cared about you, they would give you immortality. Yeah, like they don't have your best interest at heart. I do, right? And so he kind of wages a war. It's war by proxy. Yeah, through these Numenoreans, and that is ultimately what gets the Isle of Numenor destroyed.

I think you mentioned this, this is an Atlantis where it like gets sucked into the ocean as sinkers.

It has a very similar story to Atlantis. And I think I read something, oh man, this was, I don't remember where I read this, but this was about Tolkien saying that he had dreams of a city sinking, and he thought it might, he was like, I don't know what it is, but there's something in my family where it might have even been his parents had dream, the same dream, and his son has the same dream. And so he's like, there's something I think in our coding that has this dream of this, the city sinking in new ways.

Yeah, I don't remember. I just sent it over to the war. I know what it is. And so he had this story in Lord of the Rings that he had these dreams of. And so, okay. And are they punished? Like this is a punishment from the Valar?

This is a punishment from Eiru. This is giving me, this is giving me like Noah in the Ark.

Oh that's like Noah's flood. Yes, exactly. This is like, this ain't happening. We don't do this. And then after that, men don't have long lives anymore, right? Because like they were special, special, and he saw where that pride got them.

Well listen to this. This is very Noah in the Ark. There were some people who were very consistent with their faith in the Valar and kind of like that. The general, you know, you get the impression like good religion, bad religion. And so they were very faithful and they left. They left Numenor before the islands sunk. And those are the ancestors of Aragorn. Yeah, those are the Dune or Dine that eventually came to Middle Earth with this flood line.

But even so their long life has definitely decreased, right? Yeah, well. It's not as long lived as Numenor. Or is that just like maybe they interbred with like other people?

They are Numenor, yeah exactly. I think it was more like they arrived and they still had this gift of a slightly expanded lifeline. But I think probably with being there and, you know.

Yeah, just like the blood got like, I don't know. The line weakened.

Probably, yeah. I'm assuming that Aragorn doesn't have as long of a life as maybe his ancestors Numenorians would have.

But I'd have to look into that, yeah.

I mean, that's a whole nother topic. But that line where he says, I'm 80. I was also mind blown. Yeah, you're like. I'm reading that. Excuse me? Excuse you? I guess I read it first in the book, but I didn't hit until I like saw the movie Christmas.

Yeah, and so that's, you know, that's part of the reasoning behind his age.

Yeah, I love that. Cool. I love that that is like a flood and a biblical punishment.

Like that's perfect. Really intense. So that happens in the second age. And then also this is the age of Soran's power, right? This is the age where he has given out the rings to men. He's given out the rings to elves. He's given out the rings to dwarves. And he has built his, he's thrown off his enchantments and kind of beautiful face facade. And he comes to power.

He's really, he's ready to reveal his true and ugly face.

And you know what's so interesting? So this is the point, cause when I saw Lord of the Rings and I heard about Aragorn's like ancestor Isildur and his father and how they were, you know, fighting against Soran and this epic war. I just thought, good dudes, there's this evil guy in land. They're trying to, you know, protect their land and their people. They're tearing him down.

This is like, think about this. This is the person who destroyed their home and people. They are refugee survivors of an island being sunk into the ocean. This is like.

And this is the person who destroyed their lives. The Aniad or something like that. Yeah. Like this is the evil force that destroyed their lives and is now coming after their new place of refuge on Middle Earth. And so like the veheminence, I feel like, but they would be going after this person is so much stronger than what I pictured.

Just watching the news. It really brings it to me to more personal. Makes it more personal. So I love this age.

I think it's so fascinating. We started with kind of the decline of Morgoth where he's thrown into the void and then it's ended when Isildur cuts the ring off of Soran's finger and Soran is kind of dissipated for a time.

And then the third age starts with a new low when Isildur does not throw it into the fire.

And Isildur made some bad decisions and he loses the one ring in the river, right? The river anyway. And the third age is what we know and love. The third age is like when Galadriel says in the movies she's like, and then myth became legend, right?

And legend became. I love that line. It's so good. You know, history or lore or whatever. And so it's that time period between Isildur and then Baggins, right? Bilbo finding the ring with Gollum, giving it to Frodo and then all the incredible epic that happens there. And because we all know that very well, I will move forward and just say that the whole third age is essentially the story that we know and love leading. But what is the defining moment that ends it? So the defining moment I believe is. Is it the destruction of the ring or is it the crowning of Errol? I think it's the crowning of Aragorn. Let me take a look. Let me see if I can double check. I guess they're basically almost the same time.

So maybe it doesn't matter. But it's kind of an interesting note to know whether it's destruction of evil or crowning of good. Yeah, yeah. And it is so interesting because it's different. Like that's what I'm curious about with the ages. Like how, why did we decide on what we decided on? I'm sure it was probably Tolkien based that he was the one who wrote it all up.

The defining event. Determined, yeah. So, okay, I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling. Let's see all my little notes. Which one is it? Did I just keep going down? There's so much in the third age that we know and love that we're gonna skip all of that. Do, do, do, do, do. Keep going.

Okay. Yeah, I think it's when, let's see, Eomir, right? Yeah, it's the good. It's like when Aragorn gets crowned, everyone goes home. It's cute, my little timeline has like Samwise, Mary's Rosie

Cotton, Adriel, Gidolph and Frodo, and Bilbo, the Great Havens. You know, like it's all of that good stuff. Kind of completing of literally an age. And the fourth age begins. And the fourth age is the one that we kind of discuss that he has written some things. Like this is the history of Aragorn's kids.

We have some really fun stuff in this age. Like, Gimli decides to go to the Unforgotten Lands with Legolas, right? Oh, really? Uh-huh, Legolas takes them with them. Oh, that's fun. When Gimli is like old, old, Legolas says, I'll stick around and you can go together.

Like there's some really cute follow-up stuff. We have all the way, so I'm trying to look here. So how long does the fourth age go? We have people are, you know, we have the death of Aragorn, so we have people dying. Let's see. How long does Aragorn last? 210? It's a pretty good lifespan. Pretty good lifespan.

Think of all the hobbies we could have if we looked over in 10.

And it sounds like they keep it going. They keep it going till... So the peace doesn't end with her. Great grandsons. We have death of Arowyn. So we have death of Arowyn happening in the fourth age.

So we have a lot of time passing here. Is that a natural death? I believe so, but it also... Elves don't have to die, right? No, and it says she was 2,900.

Nice. But it's because she gave up her immortality.

I think she gave up her immortality. Man, we should dig into immortality and immortality. But my vague understanding of it is she chose... She chose to live in Middle Earth, where there was not this renewing, valinarian sword from the world.

It was a slow decay of her life. That was my impression too. Yeah, and so all of that happens in the fourth age. And then after that is the unknown. We have crush mark, crush mark. We have that potential battle that was prophesied. The Dagor Dagoroth is what it's called. And so there's things like Morgoth potentially coming back in. A final battle, all of this stuff kind of happening.

And is there any hint about the ending? I'm sure I've asked you this because endings are very important to me. Because I feel like you can read the whole book, the whole series, whatever it is. And if the ending is bad, it just ruins it. So I'm very curious what note, what theme Tolkien wanted for his ending.

You know, it's interesting. Because I was seeing that there were writings that had like, there was a final battle where Morgoth comes in and then he is defeated in battle by the Valar and everybody else. We have, you know, Tolkien wrestling with Morgoth. We have someone named Turin, who I don't know who that is.

And destroying Morgoth. But I don't think this was finalized. I think he decided, I was reading somewhere else. It makes me wonder, because it was a very, not clean ending, but it was kind of an ending that you would anticipate, right? Like Morgoth comes back, there's a final battle. There's something that, you know, you conquer, good conquerors evil. But he never, I think, fully finalized that. Okay.

Yeah, I guess we can extrapolate from what we have, right? Because we have an entire age, we have the entire third age to extrapolate from it. We know the ending of that and like good wins, there are a lot of sad elements still. And I imagine the vibe would be very much the same. Like there's still a lot of sacrifice, there's still a lot of death.

I think it's supposed to be like Ragnarok and Armageddon and all of that stuff. That makes sense. Yeah. So, I am genuinely curious. I do see, so as I was looking around at like this battle, there is like a reference from Tom Bombadil, believe it or not, random gaster. And there's a reference that at a future time, the world will be mended in a song. And it's interesting because it makes me think about our creation story and how the world is. It's a sick little. And maybe things are sick little. And so, yeah. Oh, I love that. There's just like, there's this question mark here, but a lot of little tidbits that are just, yeah, yeah, a lot of little tidbits. Oh, I love that. Anyways, that's all I got in terms of the timeline.

Totally fine. What do we know about geography?

Yes, so geography I think is a little bit more concise, but it's interesting because it plays into.

Is there like some kind of like a Pangea?

Yeah, that's why I wanted to discuss it. Yeah, because I think it's interesting. So the world starts out flat. The world starts out flat. And when I was looking at some maps, it looks like there's two kind of like main continents. You have the continent to the west, which is called Amon.

And then you have the continent to the east, which is kind of like. How do you spell Amon? M-A-A, M, I can't talk. A-M-A-N. Amon. Amon. And that one, the continent to the west, is what eventually becomes Valinor.

Oh, right, because they basically said, here's an island, we can hold, we can defend this.

We can defend this, exactly. And then on the eastern front, that larger continent is what became Middle Earth. Okay. And kind of the populated more fight zone of the world. And in between you have a very large ocean. And what's interesting here is they also have like some kind of ridges, which are called like a western, I think an eastern wall on this flat earth, you know. Are these mountains? These are mountains. It looks like there's some kind of mountain range.

Yeah, but it's not necessarily populated. It looks like it's some kind of barrier. And so that's the initial setup. It looks like of Arda. And then there's different things that happen throughout all the battles in the first age and everything else. There's the western coast of Middle Earth, which is called Beleriand, I believe. And it sounds like with all of the wars and everything that was going on, there were pieces of that that like broke off and sunk beneath the ocean. And there was epic battles there and stuff like that.

You're unleashing Maiar and like every single battle that made sense.

Yeah, so you have things like that happening. You have things like Morgoth creating mountain ranges so that the Valar could not find him in certain places. You have like, so there's stuff happening where

things are sinking, mountains are rising. Did he create all the ranges around like Mordor as well because there's like an unnatural right angle to that mountain range?

I think his stuff was a little bit further north but it could be. That'd be cool.

I haven't looked into that. Yeah, but we have- You just wake up one day and there's a new mountain range

and you're just like, Mordor is in there somewhere. Yeah, but we have stuff going on which is like changing the face of Middle Earth with these epic battles and kind of counter tactics. And so all of that is going on. When does the world not become flat?

Like when do we come around? Yes, so in the second age, we have the Isle of Numenor and I think it's, oh man, I could be wrong, but I think it's created specifically as like this place for the Numenorians. I don't know if that island was existing before.

I'd have to double check that. But it's when those people start having the same agonistic thoughts towards the Valar and you know, Soran's there kind of whispering in their ear saying, sail west. So he says, get on your boat.

So west, go to Valinor. Go to Valinor, attack the Valar, right? And at that point in time, Irvoo decides to change the geography of the world.

He changes the geography of the world from flat to round and he lifts, he lifts Valinor up from the world.

It's in a different plane.

You can't actually get there anymore. So it is now in a different plane. There's some kind of straight road that you have to have some where mortals can't just sail there anymore by sail getting in their boat and sailing west. There's some kind of magical component to get in there.

So when the Numenorians sail west, do they just all expire? They like sail into the ocean and die? Like what happens to them?

So there's that big, they are sunk beneath the ocean and then the whole island gets destroyed by a tsunami.

Yeah, exactly, there's a huge, the continent of Valinor gets lifted up, the ocean covers and destroys that whole area. And essentially now if people were to sail west, it would just be circular. They would just be going from one side of the continent to the other. So yeah, that essentially is the geography that we know of.

That really makes it like a no-waste flood punishment. Doesn't it? It is. It's epic. That's next level. So this is the first time Irvoo, a Luvitar has reached down and really addressed things personally. I mean, in a huge way. In a massive way. This is very much addressed, it is solved.

Which I think is so interesting that that was, we should probably dig into that, the fall of Numenor. And like what specifically was so potent or intriguing about that storyline that it caused such a huge rift literally in the world.

But some of them are staped, right? So some of the Numenorians left before all this happened and they went to Amman.

They went to Middle Earth. To Middle Earth, yeah. Yeah, cause Amman is Valinor.

That got lifted up. Okay, okay, I got you.

Yeah, so that's kind of the general geography. Obviously people have like those beautiful maps like you were saying of Middle Earth that we know of. But that's kind of the broader worldwide geography.

Yeah, I need to probably go look up a map of the world because I'm pretty sure all the maps I've seen have been relatively focused.

It's like here's Rohan, here's Gondor, here's Sashire. It's just that area. I don't even know what the rest of it looks like. Yeah, and there's a northern part, eastern, southern part of Middle Earth. Like it's not, we are in a very specific part of the continent and all of that storyline. Okay, that makes sense.

Oh cool, that was fun. Okay, good, I was so glad. I love the flat world, that was awesome. It reminded me, have you read Discworld by chance? No, what is that? It's a parody, it's so amazing. It's like fantasy parody and like their world is like flat and it rests on the back of like a turtle that's like Oh, that's like an all night.

Swimming through the cosmic stars or something like that. I can't remember all of the layers to their world but it's hilarious.

Well, and I think it's interesting because he kind of addresses, we know that he envisioned this world as a precursor to ours and he's kind of addressing some of the roots of.

Yeah, he's like, of course the world was once flat here and it was changed to this.

So that must be why sailors thought it was that way, right?

Like there's some kind of seeds of little things. Yes, the seeds of myth that are like unfolding, I love that. Well, perfect.

Okay, well that's what I had for ages in geography. Thank you for listening in and yeah, had so much fun. I'm sure as we read this and more really and do other stuff we'll be able to expound even more but I hope this is helpful just giving some context for the world. Well, it helps me. So I appreciate it. I'm so glad. Okay guys, we'll see you next time. Thanks so much. Take care. Bye. Bye.

Bye.