Speak Friend and Enter: A Lord of the Rings Podcast | Deep Dive - The Maiar

Hosts Stephanie and Lydia discuss the lesser angels of Tolkien's heavenly hosts: the Maiar. 

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, read-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. Hi there, welcome to Speak Friend and Enter, A Lord of the Rings podcast. My name is Stephanie and I'm with my friend.

Lydia. And we're so excited you can join us today. Today we are doing a deep dive topic and looking into the world of the Maiar, or the Maya if you're speaking of one singularly. And we're also really excited because this is our first episode that we're doing remote, all of our other episodes. Yeah, we're in person.

Fingers crossed, we forget how to do it, we'll see.

Yes, hopefully the sound is sounding, it's sounding good. I'm really excited about this one actually. As I was kind of putting some stuff together, I realized that this might be one of my favorite groups of, I don't know, people,

creatures, whatever you want to talk, we gotta call it entities. There's just so much here and it's really interesting.

So, do you want me? Later we'll have to rank entities. Yes, oh my goodness, we could definitely do that. You know, talk tier, load tier.

Yeah, maybe it's like a riff episode, we can kind of say, okay, yeah, what's the best of the best? I'd love that. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so do you have any thoughts when it comes to the word Maya or Maya?

I do, I have been only, okay, I feel like I've been slightly spoiled because I read somewhere once on Accident. I was tearing on with my normal daily life and then all of a sudden I read some line that said something like, and Dandel's not even human and it just blew my mind. Because my interpretation of a wizard was very much based in like, you know, later derivations and fantasy where it's, yeah, it's just if somebody who has magic and is like pretty powerful, usually a wise old crone or a wise old man, etc, etc. And I just assumed that that was a case and then I go out and I find out that Dandel's not human. I just don't know what to do with myself and after that, I did not delve further, but it really, really shocked me.

I know, and I was just reading about that. Oh, that's such an interesting topic too. Kind of like immortality versus mortality for some of these groups, but it is so fascinating. And you talked about my favorite Maya, which is of course Gandalf. I love him.

I'm actually only vaguely aware that there are other ones. I mean, obviously there's Saruman, but I don't really know any of the other wizards.

I know. So there's other wizards that are all Maya and then there's other creatures.

So that's like a necessity. You have to be a Maya to be a wizard. This is a subset.

I guess. Yeah, they are a subset. It was interesting because it's kind of a role that they were to staffed with like they were asked to be. And so that's a role that they took on that we can talk about that more.

I wonder if they were, I wonder if they were a voluntold.

I think Saruman doesn't seem very willing, you know, like obviously he had like a time of righteousness, I assume. But by the time we did to him, it just seems like he's not going, it's not been going great for him, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. I wanted, so we will talk about that a little bit, which would be fun. This was a little bit tricky for me because there were some topics or people that I would like, man, I would love to do a deep dive just entirely on these people like Gandalf or Saruman or like some of the other ones that we're talking about. So I'm trying to toe the line here a little bit of keeping it high level. So let's

talk about them as a group first. I'll talk with them as a group first. And then we can go into a little bit of some of the stories of individual ones. And then hopefully that will be a good jumping off point for if we decide to come back into a deep dive. So the way we've talked about it before was you have a Lou Eluvatar, a Rue Eluvatar. You have the Valar and then you have like a slightly lesser angel ish. Yes. And that's the Meyer. And then there's like a multitude of them. There's many more of them than the Valar.

Yes, actually, this is the perfect place to jump off. Amazing. Yeah. So correct assumption from all of our other discussions. We know that the Valar were kind of this premortal spirits that helped sing the world into existence. And the Meyer are very similar. But it sounds like they are on a different level when it comes to power and capacity. They might not have the same responsibility and ability, but they are very numerous. And so with the Valar.

So when they lack in quality, they may top it for a number.

It sounds like the Valar might be a little more, you know, there's fewer. And the Meyer, it's, I kind of get the impression is the rest of these existing spirits with these interesting capacities and abilities.

And they were all part of the Great Bit Choir of Creation, right?

Yes, they were all part of Great Bit Choir. Because some of the Meyer followed Mordreda's song. Yeah, so we know. At the time. Yeah, we know that there are some that were kind of.

So we have temptation from the very beginning. Saruman was definitely singing with those things.

Oh my gosh. He was like, ooh, nice song. Yeah. So that is kind of the foundation and the start of the Meyer is they are in this premortal existence with the Valar and with Eru.

And what I think is really interesting is so when the Valar go down, we kind of talk to about them being more almost like the God tier and other mythology for the world where they are responsible for different things like the waters and the skies and the earth.

Right. Finishing out the creation. Yeah, finishing out the creation. And it sounds like different Meyer actually came to earth with the Valar to kind of help them and yeah, help them with their mission.

Help to. And this is what you were saying a little bit earlier, right? Where you said some of these Meyer have particular associations with particular Valar. Maybe as under studies or apprentices.

And that's what I think is so interesting. So Meyer came. Maybe they kind of aligned themselves with different Valar and they were there to kind of help flesh out those Valar and their jobs of building the world and creating it. But something that I think is really interesting as I was kind of looking into some of the stories of the different Meyer. It sounds like we only have names and kind of like personalities and purposes for a handful of them. Right. It sounds like there's a lot more than we are technically aware of.

But as I was, if it was, if it was any other author, I would say they're just pretending to have those scenes, you know, they're just, you know, they're trying to make the world feel like it's got a lot of depth with Tolten. I just, I know that somewhere in a secret subterranean dungeon, there is a list of the thousands of Meyer and all their special stories. Like for sure he knows. It's so funny, you know, with anyone else, I'd be like, oh yeah, they're just, you know, making the world seem deep. More complex.

I know what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure there's hopefully a ton that he had like names and backstories for that there is a handful that I could see.

Can I ask a few like clarifying questions? Because like for me, I'm thinking of them as like the Valar, Jods, the Meyer, our angels equivalents. But this brings up some interesting questions, right? All right. So now we know Dandalf or Saruman. They're not human. So like what, like one, how old is he really? Is he immortal?

Like what is going on with that? And then other things that occurred to me because like it feels like there's a power hierarchy here that I was not aware of. So like are the elves on the same level as some of the Meyer?

Because some of the elves seem awfully powerful. Like you look at Deladriel. Yeah. And she has one of the reams, right? So, but, but she's not right because the Meyer, the Meyer are still above the elves in power. I believe so. Yes.

Okay.

And so the elves are sort of immortal. So the Meyer are probably immortal too. Right?

Such good questions. So yes, as we're digging into this, we'll kind of look at some of the complexities there.

You have to pull me back when I should have. No, because I definitely want to talk about this. I think we'll talk about this next. Something that I thought was interesting though, and I think it kind of feeds into your question a little bit.

And then maybe we can talk about like the immortality and lifespan and et cetera for this group of people. But so we do have kind of this power dynamic where we have the Valar and then we have the Meyer that are kind of similar. And we're kind of serving them. But something that I think was interesting that it's not just them being there to help with the creation. It's them being almost kind of the intermediaries between this godlike tear and the other children of Eluvistar.

Yeah, or I kind of get the impression like demigods. You know how there's always like those Greek mythology curduals. They're sent down to accomplish like missions, right? Yeah, they're sent down for missions.

And that's what I think is so interesting because typically you'd be like, okay, the Valar sound bomb, right? Like they're the gods. They're the ones that are kind of creating things. But the Meyer are so cool to me because they're the ones that have this like maybe a higher purpose, this higher calling. But they're in the world executing, right? Like you don't always see that for the Valar.

Yeah, that's a really interesting thing. And I feel like Tolkien had to do that by necessity almost because if your story was gods with godlike power, that is just so hard to write and bring it down to realistic like to a level where a single man or single elf or anyone more mortal can have any real impact, right? And those are the stories that are real to us humans, right? Yeah. Those are the ones that have pathos.

So you've got to have this lower level below the Valar so that they are, they're demigods. They're still cool. They still have powers, but they have weaknesses. They have blind spots. Yeah. They have frailties.

They get sucked in by greed or power. Yeah. Yeah. So it made sense to me that in order to have a good story, you must by necessity have a demi, like a station lower than God. That's acting in the world. But I like that it's like I'm sent on a mission. I'm a Meyer. I'm sent on a mission to do a particular theme. Do we know a lot about those missions? Well, so we know some of them.

But so I really love that. I think that's so interesting. That's part of the reason why I think they're my favorite group. But also I wanted to dig into the life thing and then we can kind of go into some of the individual ones and some of the missions that maybe they have. Yeah. But all right.

So I was Googling this and it was so interesting because I found a philosophy paper actually on mortality in Tolkien's world. Oh, really? Yeah. So I think that's the content and thoughts off of that.

I'll try to include the link when we publish this episode. But it was really interesting because they were talking about the Valar and I think before we had kind of said, I think they're immortal. I don't think they can die. And this paper was saying that they think that's because they technically haven't taken on like a form, like a physical form. Like they're still kind of almost in this Godlike spiritual state and they can shift form. They don't necessarily have this body to kill.

Yeah, they don't have like this physical matter to really be subjected to. Interesting though that they did say that Morgoth did decide to take on a physical form.

He did decide to take on a body. And maybe he was rare among the Valar. Sounds like it. Maybe he was the only one who did. I think he might be the only one who decided to take on a body. And so it's interesting because then we talked about different things that happened in the Simmerillion, which we're probably going to learn more about as we actually read the Simmerillion. But one of them is when they conquer Morgoth and they kind of send him into the void. Yeah, they sent him into the void. You get the impression like maybe that's just his spirit.

Like maybe they killed his physical form and sent his spirit out into the void. Like there's something there that's interesting. Interesting. So that is kind of the impression you're getting about the Valar. The Maiar, it sounds like are similar in the sense that they're the spirits, right? And they can kind of shift forms when you, I don't know, read about Sauron and his Manichinian against over the years.

There's different like forms that he takes. But it also, and we know that Gandalf, right, technically comes back in a new form, which is a white wizard. And so, but it sounds like basically their spirit is enduring, even if their physical body can be killed.

But then this is the question that I had and some of the thoughts that, you know, I was reading is it sounds like it's difficult to re obtain that physical body. So it's like, yeah.

Well, if you don't mind, I actually want to like dive into that. Yeah, yeah. Because like this whole question of like Maiar immortality, that is a very fun way of doing it's like, you're immortal in the sense that your spirit endures, but maybe the challenge of getting a body is not only just like, it's not only challenging, but maybe almost impossible again. Like, I don't know. That's a very interesting style of immortality. Yeah. So then when Gandalf dies, and he comes back as the white wizard, would you call that a resurrection?

Because there's no other place in the Lord of the Rings that I'm aware of currently, where somebody has been resurrected. So I thought that seems like very unusual. What's your thought on that? Would you call that a resurrection?

I'm in between on it because he comes back with a similar face and body to what was known, right? So that almost makes me think of resurrection of his previous form.

Yeah, but it's likely not because he has new magic, right?

Or it's implied. But he comes back as this different type of wizard with almost this different mantle. And so that...

And they're very specific about, I have a new name, I'm no longer Gandalf the Grey, I'm Gandalf the White. That person, and this person.

Yeah.

And so is that reincarnation? So maybe it's just a body that looks like his old body.

Yeah, so I'm torn between resurrection and reincarnation on that one. Okay. Where it's like his spirit entering this new form, as you were saying. But yeah, so that's my thought there. And from what I was reading, that seems like that was an act from above.

Whether that is... It seemed like, the way it's implied, it seems like this was an act by Eru Eluvatar personally. To make sure that Gandalf... To say you're coming back.

...gets reincarnated. Yeah. And that goes into like two whole topics.

One that I think would be fun is like, first off, has... Obviously Saruman has been up to no do with it for some time. But was he like instantly demoted at that point? Because I'm pretty sure no, like he still has access to all his powers. So it's not like, I don't know, in D &D you would be like a cleric and you have powers that are derived from your God. And if you like break your faith with your God, you lose your powers. Yeah. Obviously this doesn't happen to Saruman. Well, and... So his powers are somewhat innate to himself.

I was listening to something, and this was a while ago, so I might not have this perfectly. But it was something to the effect of towards the end of the books when they're talking about Saruman, he looks disheveled. Right?

I think they've captured him. So he's losing some of his glamour. He's losing some of that. He's losing some of his...

I don't know that white wizard aura, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And so I don't know if that's because it's like a slow sucking away of his powers. Maybe it's like a degradation.

It's slowly going away. Or if... I'm not sure. Or if it's just because of his allegiance changing. Or if it's because a distinct change happened where Gandalf became the white wizard and so it's gone. I don't know if it was a slow thing or if it's just that's no longer your mantle. It's gone. Interesting.

Because I love the implication that there are only a select few wizard slots. And Gandalf being sent back as Gandalf the White while Saruman was still technically Saruman the White. I loved that exchange, that tension.

Yeah, I did think I read some more. I'll have to dig into this more. Maybe we can do a deep dive on the wizards. But I think there were specific roles that when those wizards were tasked to come to Middle Earth, they were supposed to fulfill. To be part of their missions. To be part of their mission. And so it sounds almost like, okay, you're not fulfilling your mission. We're re-assigning your mission to this person.

Re-assigned. Do you want to talk about the missions? Yes, I do. Or something else first? Because I have one other question which is basically I'm only aware of the wizards being Maiar. Yeah, yeah. I think you implied a little while ago and that also blew my mind that the Balrogs were Maiar. Yes.

Which was mind-blowing. But who are the other, like do we know specifically of other good Maiar that are not wizards? Yes. And do we know of other bad Maiar that are not Balrogs? Yes. Okay.

So on both sides. So I'm very interested in those two. Yes, so and there might even be more. But so the main ones that we know are the Ishtari, which is the name for kind of the wizards in Tolkien's world. And so that's Gandalf, Sormon, Radagast, good old Radagast. I've heard of him. He was in the Hobbit movies and sent by Yavanna actually. Okay. The Earth Mother. And you can just see that and how he cares for the animals. Kind of funny, kind of cute.

And then. I couldn't name anyone else though. That's the only one. Those are the only ones I know.

Two blue wizards technically came before, I believe Gandalf and Sormon and Radagast. And we don't know what their mission was. We know their names. We know they came before and we know they had a mission. And we have no idea where they are during the. We don't know where they are during waterfalls. We don't know where they are.

And so people have like speculated. They're like, I think they were supposed to go into the East, right? And so in the movies, they talk about like men coming from the East. So there, there is some thought process. Maybe that mission didn't go very well. Cause I don't think the East men, I don't think the Easterlings are good guys.

Also that could just be a subset. Maybe there was their own drama and political tension and stuff going on in that area that we have no clue about. So those are the Ishtari that we're aware of. All my are.

Gandalf, Sormon, Radagast. So we're, we'll see that about five.

Yeah. At that time that we're sent. And then we have kind of on the other good guy spectrum, but not wizards. We have someone called Ayanwe, who is technically one of the heads of the Myar. So I didn't realize this when we talked about Manwe, who's like the head of the Valar.

There's, there's a male and female head chiefs of the Myar, which sounds like it would be a much harder job because there's so many of them. It does. Cause you're trying to corral everybody cause they, like the Valar, we only really know of, you know, Morgoth going astray. But the Myar, you have a lot of different division and personalities and stuff happening there. So we have.

So the Valar are the ones that were specifically sent down to Arda. Yes.

To kind of manage the creation and. Yeah.

But it sounds like not all of the Maya were sent down because otherwise we'd have a whole lot more demigods running around. So that's what's. So like the chief, chief of the Myar, they never, Maya, they never went down.

I think they, I think they did. I think they did. I think so. Interesting. Because Ayanwe actually has a really big role in the Someralian. Okay.

I'm excited for that. We're going to, I guess we can deep dive into some individuals now since we kind of talked about Myar and their immortality and stuff like that.

Oh, I didn't want to say on the immortality front. Other than Gandalf, another interesting one to think about is Soran because he is technically also a Myar, which, um, or a Maya. He is a Maya.

Yeah. Um, which is really interesting to think about that he is the main evil character of our story and yet is on the same playing field as Gandalf as, you know, about Ragh as some of these other groups that we've talked about. And it makes me think about that scene in the movie and the Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo is like, why don't you take the rain? He offers it to Gandalf and Gandalf's like, you know, I would take this ring to do good, but through me it could wield something really terrible.

And yeah, like, and when you think about the scale of his power in the sense of he's an immortal being that was sent down here, like that makes more sense.

He could, I mean, it sounds like there were different powers and different skills and maybe Soran was a little more powerful in terms of his skills.

Or maybe he's grown more powerful. He's grown more powerful. But he could essentially become another Soran. Like that's, that's the kind of seed of, um, I don't know, capacity that we're talking about here when it comes to all of those players being on the same playing field, which is so interesting to me. Yeah, I love that. But okay.

So moving on. So some of the ones that stood out to me that I wanted to talk about was Aonwe who is one of the heads of the Maiar. He shares that role with, um, Ilmar, which is a female chief of the Maiar. And then there were a couple of others that I thought I would talk about. Um, and then I thought we could do a little bit more on Soran, a little bit more on Gandalf and a little bit more on Balrogs and kind of just ended there.

Um, but okay. So I was really intrigued because I didn't know about these other Maiar. So Aonwe, it sounds like had a pretty big role in the Simoerillian, um, which is kind of the first age. Uh, I think our next episode is going to be a brief rundown of like timing and geography.

So you can go over more there. But he was known as being like the banner bearer of, um, the Valar and Manwe. And his, I thought it was interesting. They said they referred to him as the greatest of arms in Arda because he was really good with weapons. And they said he was a Maiar. So he wasn't the most powerful necessarily. Maybe the most skilled. But he was very skilled. So a very skilled fighter here. And when it comes to kind of the first stage we've talked about, Morgoth had a lot of battles with elves, with men, um, the Simoerillians, the fights over those, he sounds like he was actively engaged in kind of those battles and working with men and elves during that time period.

So someone who was very involved and acting as, yeah, a messenger, kind of a soldier for the Valar, which is interesting. It's kind of interesting to think, maybe this is kind of a small question. Do we know what is the extent of like Maiar power? Because it's interesting to me that in my mind, like Gandalf is clearly powerful.

Yeah. But his power is pretty, like it's vade, it's not, it's ill-defined, especially in comparison to like hard magic systems of Valar's fantasy. And, but it's clear that he's powerful, but he very much fits that wizard archetype of, like, he pulls out his sword, but generally when his staff hasn't worked or as a backup. So it's interesting to think about, like, this guy as he seems more like a soldier, more like the sword is his preference or the weapon is his first go-to. Whereas I'm like, so does he have magic? Like, you know, to what extent does he use it? Maybe his weapons are infused with

power or something, but it's just an interesting thought. Yeah, he's like a force on the battlefield is the sense that you get.

It's got to have a little extra oaks. Maybe he just has insane stamina or something. Something, I know that's a really interesting thought because something I think is interesting is when we talked about how the Maiar can act as like different, I don't know, apprentice to the Valar, they have different interests. They have different personalities.

Like all of them care about slightly different things or are interested in slightly different things, which I think is interesting. So I think that kind of speaks to your question a little bit where it's like, maybe that was real. He was just really into the weaponry. And maybe that was just like how he used his power.

It's a manifest in different ways for different Maiar, but it's just interesting from my perspective because we look at people. Oh, you have magic. You're a wizard. Yeah, you do this type of thing. You fight in this sort of way. And obviously that's not true. Just told just doesn't even use weapons. So it's just interesting. It's fun. It is a fairy tale. It is a very fairy tale vibe to me.

Interesting rather than it being so structured that you like know the capacities of every single character. Yeah, I just like, yeah, I like that. It's fun. That's fine. Okay. I love that. Yeah, I would be interested. I'll have to see if I can find more definitive rules, but I feel like Tolkien was kind of, he

thought through it so much, but at the same time, he wasn't like, and here's all the answers, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay, so the other chief of the Maiar was Ilmer. And she was the handmaiden to the Queen Valar Varda. And so it sounds like kind of along with that, we talked about Varda was, you get the impression kind of like the goddess of the night sky, the goddess of the stars, right?

And how the elves loved the stars and there was that association. So her handmaiden is known as the guardian spirit of the stars. So someone to kind of guide the stars, be there for the stars. So very much an interesting, like I'm here to serve this Valar and kind of that particular purpose. And then kind of along with that, it sounds like there's two other Maiar who were specifically tasked with guiding the stars. There's the sun.

And that one is named Aryan. And then there was a particular Maiar that was tasked with guiding the moon through the sky. And their name is Tillion. And I thought that was so interesting. Because in Greek mythology, we do have like the chariot, who is it?

That carries the sun along its course. It's Helios. Yeah, Helios who carries the sun along its course. And so that really made me think of these two myar. And yeah, I like that they're kind, they are in the myar subcategory. Because in Greek mythology, I feel like you'd have these gods that have incredible power. And then you'd have gods that have very, I don't know, like very small, Yeah, small chunks and very specific focuses. So it's kind of interesting there. But that is kind of an interesting thing. Because like that brings to mind, or that brings to my mind the question of, all right, so we have these gods whose entire purpose is to make sure that the sun rises and sets, right? Which is like, that's a pretty all-encompassing task. That's a pretty big deal. And it makes me wonder, like, that was not Gandalf's purpose, obviously. No, no. So it's interesting that you can have some myar who are assigned to do this task here, and some who are, you must go to Middle Earth in the third age and meet these people and do that theme.

Do something very... Like it just feels so much more like in the weeds, in the minutiae of things. And I wonder if they volunteer for these different tasks. I wonder if Gandalf was more interested in going to Arda and dealing more with people, because I think of him as a people person.

Yeah, well, and maybe that's a good segue. We can talk about the Istari and kind of there. So that was a specific subgroup of the myar, which included Gandalf.

But it's funny because Saruman also was clearly assigned something similar. I do not think of him as people people.

Yeah, well, and that's so interesting. And we can talk about Gandalf with that. So we'll segue into that. But what's interesting when I was looking at Gandalf and kind of some of his origins here is so we talked about how he served Manway in a previous episode. He served Varda and he also served Nienna. Remember the goddess of like kind of like sorrow and mercy. The lady of the gray. And yeah, it was so interesting because it was said that he loved to walk among the world. Right? Like kind of walk among the elves.

So that was life deliberately stated. Because I get that vibe and I hadn't read that.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that was something that he would kind of like walk among the world. And they are saying because of his experience with Nienna he would like take pity and like listen to the children of a lewd tar, whether it is the elves or the people like he would listen and he would, I don't know, he was compassionate is the impression that you get.

And so. He was a good old classic saint. Yeah, a good old great guy, Gandalf. And going along with that, so I know you said that these wizards seem to have such a specific task. And it definitely seems like that was the case because so when I was looking at the Ishtari and kind of what brought them to Middle Earth it is a very specific mission that Manway had a council with the rest of the Valar. And he said.

Was this pre or post Mordoth expulsion?

This is post I believe, but they had not.

We've gotten rid of the bid back. We still have problems, we foresee

issues, et cetera, et cetera, so the cleanup. It's a cleanup method. And so they had not gotten Sauron. And what's funny is cause I don't know, I feel like there are times that I'm like, I feel like you have some loose ends, you know as I read through the history.

They're just like not. Ignore this over here. What are you doing? You have like some big things left over from your project. Don't mind the stuff you just swept into the closet. Yeah, exactly. But it sounds like they were more aware than I was giving them credit for. Okay, very good.

So some of the Ishtari, oh, that would be interesting if the Ishtari's mission was specifically to deal with Sauron. It was. Because, okay. Cause then Sauromon failed big time. He's holding cow. Yes.

And so that's what's so interesting.

That's what's so interesting. It's the work that I thought it was. I know it's more of a betrayal. You love a good betrayal. I do, I do. But yeah, so Manway had a council. It sounds like, and he specifically was discussing with the other Valar Sauron and the potential, the potential that Sauron could be out there and he could return to power. And so they had a discussion and they decided that they wanted to send some emissaries. And I thought this particular wording was interesting. That is very interesting.

That I was reading. So they wanted to send some emissaries that were going to kind of keep an eye out for Sauron, be a hindrance to his return, but also kind of like reassure the people of the free, like the free peoples that, and like they weren't forgotten.

Like the Valar and the powers and not forgotten. Cause when you said emissary, I actually had a different reaction to that. I thought, interesting. Manway is sending emissaries to Sauron. Like they were specifically sent to negotiate.

This is just to the people. That's hardcore. I know that would be hardcore, but

they're just sending them to the people. This is comfort. We're trying to comfort them.

People are distressed. We've not abandoned you. Yes, we've had upheaval, but we're here to deal with it. And we're going to keep an eye out. They're there to establish like stability and probably race civilization again. We haven't abandoned you and we're going to keep an eye out for potentially Sauron if anything comes up, kind of hinder him, right?

Okay. And so they had this council and I think it's so interesting they go into this level of detail. They said two Maiar volunteered. And those two, one was Saruman.

Oh, no. One was Saruman.

And then the other one, I believe is one of the blue wizards. Interesting. Let's see. Gandalf was voluntold. More and, I'm trying to read this name, more in Nitar, more Nitar was one of the blue wizards. And so what's interesting is they were sponsored by different Valar. So Saruman was sent by Owlay, our blacksmith dude.

I love Owlay, but the problem is he has the worst Maiar. All of his Maiars suck.

Okay. We need to do Valar ranked by their Maiar. Like their ability to teach their protegees.

He seems like such a nice dude, but everybody uses their, his power is against them. Anyways, and then Arul. Yeah, it is wet. The hunter that kind of rode through the world. He's the one who sponsored the one blue wizard. And then this is the thing. So those two volunteered in this council. And then Manway went and he summoned Gandalf. So Manway, the head honcho, summoned Gandalf and he said, will you go as a third messenger?

Which I think I know what was going on here. So all of this volunteering is making me very suspicious. I'm pretty sure Mordoth volunteered to be chief of the Valar.

Pretty sure like seriously, all these volunteers are very suspicious. Probably that blue wizard was evil too. We all know that Gandalf was down in the Shire smoking. And that's when he got stubborn.

He's like dang it, they're calling me back to headquarters. He's like, oh no. Got him before back to corporate. I love that. But I also think that's like a really, and such kudos to Gandalf, like the head honcho. Manway's like, where's my man Gandalf? Technically, I guess his name.

That says a lot. Yeah, his name that his spirit self was Aloran. So, but it was like, where's my man? And so he calls him in and he says, hey, I want you to go as a third messenger.

And I think, yeah, Gandalf, my man would step up. He sent at the time, at this time. So he calls him to ask to go as a third. But this is the thing.

This is the drama. Gandalf says he fears he's too weak and it wouldn't be able to compete against Sauron. So what's fascinating to me is Gandalf. So there must be levels of power in the Mire.

There must be something because Gandalf, he just seems so like, yes, I'll go, I'll fix this. And it's fascinating to me. It gives me more respect for him. To see him be like, I'm worried. No, this mission is too hard. I'm worried that I'm not the right person here.

Right? Like, I don't know if I have what it takes. And I'm just like, yes, you do, you're amazing. But I think that it's so interesting that he was like, No, baby, Gandalf, you can do it.

You can do it. But he was like, I don't know if I've got it, right? And then Manway says, I love this little write up that I was writing. It was like, that's all the more reason to go and said, you're going.

Yes, he's not fooled. And so, and then we have a few other people added on. So Yavanna said, hey, take Radagast.

And Radagast is betrayed kind of. Get him out of my hair. Get him out of my hair. But also he takes really good care of the animals, which I'm sure she loved. And then one of the other, Valar said, take this other, Mire as well, who became the second blue wizard as a companion. And so that's how we got the five as Tarry. And then they slowly started coming over to Middle Earth.

I don't think they all came at the same time, but they have. So prior to going down as in a starry, they had already gone down because it was, Gandalf already visiting Middle Earth prior to this calling that as a starry.

So it sounds like he could kind of wander Middle Earth, but it

doesn't sound like he was given a form. But maybe not under the auspices of, I'm a wizard and I'm here to help you do X, Y and Z.

It doesn't sound like he was given a sturdy form to go down until they sent him as Gandalf.

Where did they send him first? To the elves? Did each one of them have a station or did they just end up building? Saruman has Isengard. Did he have it right away? Or was that something he came to later?

Because obviously that's his base. I'm actually not sure about Isengard, yeah. But I know, I think when I was reading this, it was months ago.

Because Gandalf is a wanderer. He is, and I think that's part of his role. Like he for sure doesn't have his own place. Yeah, I think that's part of his role is almost like being able to go to the different peoples yeah, and go to the different lands and really be a messenger and emissary.

I'm using that word again. That between people, because I believe we know that the blue wizards were sent to the east. And so that means Radegas, so that's two of them. And that means that Radegas, Soran and, Soruman and Gandalf were in that kind of western area of the Middle Earth continent to kind of look over that. But I'm not sure, we have to dig into that more with the story and be like, okay, what are, where exactly were they going? What was their development? Why did they cover what they covered? Yeah, do we know anything else on the specifics of their mission? So we know it was Suhinder Sauron.

Yes, that's the overall. Yeah, but do we know things like Gandalf, you are required to make best friends with Rohan and do this and do that. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. Did he know is that explicit or is that part of why he felt unprepared? It's like, I don't know how to do the thing that you're asking me to do because I know Soran is super tricky.

Yeah, I don't think it was explicit to the point of like, this is a to-do list, but I do think I remember listening to a YouTube video about the different roles. And like, I think Radegas specifically was to take care of the land and the creatures. Gandalf, I think was more of the people, take care of the people, go between the people, make sure people are okay. And then I believe Soran was more of a strategic role. Like he was supposed to keep his eye out for the return of Sauron and kind of be the strategic player.

Almost like a battle commander or something. Yeah, exactly, kind of like the battle commander, which went poorly as we know, but he got seduced. I mean, he was battling and he was commanding. You want to command? Yep. But so that's my understanding of kind of like their roles. What is it in soccer when you shoot the ball into your own goal? He's self-gold. Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, kind of funny when you think about it in that way, because I wonder if that was a particular, I'm actually curious about Soran, like if that was a particular design of Soran to say, okay, I know that there are people here sent by the Valar and I'm going to try to come after one of them. For sure.

Do you think that that was like a goal? I bet he tried it on all of them. You think? I would if I were Sauron. Yeah. Like why not? You never know which one.

I just felt you never know which one is the weak link until you try. And I bet he was surprised it was Sauron. He's like, whoa, cool. Okay. Yeah, he's like trying everyone outside. All right, this is going to be harder than I think. And he like touches Sauron. Barely pushes him and boom, he flips. He's like, oh no.

Well, that happened as soon as I saw. I'm sure it actually took a lot more effort than I'm making fun of Sauron. But yeah, I bet he tried it with all of them.

So I would be very curious to know what the temptation that was thrown at Gamble was if that's written anywhere. Yeah. Okay. We'll have to go into that. I'm intrigued. I'm intrigued. Yeah.

Because I can't imagine. And maybe he's just like more wily and like tanny. Maybe he was able to look at them and be like, well, there's no chance of me tempting this one. So I won't try. Yeah. But I go with you never know. You've got to try. Never know.

And yeah, no, I really love it. So they are a really interesting subset of the Meyer. I want to go into some of the, so like Sauron, but also the Balrogs. I think they're so interesting. So it sounds like with Balrogs, they were Meyer who ultimately were swayed by Morgoth's vision of the world.

And the idea of power and dominion. And did he say to them, my vision of you is to have horns and fire and shadow? Well, and they said, yeah, that sounds good.

That's interesting. And so it's they were corrupted into his service and they turned themselves into like, I guess, with Morgoth's power and with their power, they turned themselves into these creatures of fire, cloaked in shadow.

And I love that is very interesting because one, that phrase is amazing. And two, the idea that they did it voluntarily rather than like because with the because with the orcs, you're like, oh, they're twisted and demented. Yeah, Sauron made them. So exactly. I love that. I'm sorry, I took you off. What are you trying to say?

It was fire, cloaked in shadow, fire, cloaked in shadow. And I love there's a little there's a little footnote because we know this is a heated topic. But and it is unknown whether or not they had wings because in the movies, I think they kind of have some wings there. But technically, people are like, I don't know if that's completely accurate.

So we that is unknown. But I do think it's so interesting where you have these servants that, you know, they're they're seduced by this idea of this power and this domination and they decide to turn it. And maybe I'm sure probably with more gosh encouragement, maybe manipulation, they get turned into something that's, you know, so intimidating, so scary, so powerful.

It's so interesting to think about because there's a scene in I think there's two towers, maybe where Saruman is watching them did some the Eurychai watching the birth of the Eurychai digging it out of the gross mud pulling the placenta off that whole scene. And it's disgusting. Saruman is standing there watching with his look on his face like, ah, yes, I'm doing the right thing. And I just it makes me laugh every time I see it.

But it really begs the question. Like when you look at a Eurychai and you think to yourself, ah, yes, this is the thing I made. I made the good thing. I'm doing the right thing. I'm not a baddie. And then you look at the Balraj where they say I'm going to turn Maya Angelic fair Maya self into this thing.

Which actually makes more sense to me because the Balraj looks sick. They are pretty cool. So I can get I can get more behind that. But it is interesting. I guess it's almost like a lack of self awareness.

Like, I guess we're the baddies, obviously, because we are physically the baddies. I know. And they're at a point where it doesn't matter. Like they don't care because they need the power so bad. But it's funny to the viewer to me.

I know it's so interesting. And I thought it was interesting when we were talking about life's fans. Something I read was like with Balrogs, technically, because they were Maya. We don't know if it's a similar thing where like they're just kicked out of their bodies and they're also a wandering spirit that can't find another body. Or if they tied themselves so tightly to this new body in form that it's like so detrimental to them when they're gone.

I'm not sure. But they are so interesting to me. And then I was reading up because when we had a conversation about like creatures, who made those?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked a little bit about dragons and how we have kind of unknown origins for those and someone proposed. They said, well, Balrogs were basically like form shifted because we know that Morgoth somehow bred or created dragons in Tolkien's world.

That's what you said that. And I reluctantly wrote it down as theme sustained Morgoth for.

Yeah, I know. You're like, because they're so freaking cool. And so that's the thing where people are like, well, maybe he bred them through other animals and, you know, mythical creatures, but also like some by some unholy means. But what if they are magic, you know, but what if they dragons are my are turned into a different form because we have Balrogs and they look intense. So some of the most intimidating dragons of, yeah, the earlier ages are those potentially my art as well.

Question mark question mark. Yeah, question mark question mark. But I'm willing to believe this lie. I think that could be. Oh, I would love that. So do we have like a match from like dragon powers to my art powers? And obviously dragons are inherently magical. Yes, they are tremendously powerful. They're cunning, but like they're corrupted, right? They have that level of greed in them. They have all that.

Yeah. Huh. Well, what's interesting is we know so Balrogs were in some of the main battles of the earlier ages with Morgoth, some of his main soldiers, right? And it sounds like there's technically, I think in his earlier writings, he was unsure of how many Balrogs there were.

It went from like a really large scale to maybe just like three to seven. I think was in his final scope. But they were these big soldiers for that for Morgoth. And I'm curious, because dragons, there's this particular dragon that really was influential in his earlier battles. Did the dragons fight for Morgoth? Yeah. Or did they fight on any side or fight for themselves?

For Morgoth at the beginning. So. OK.

OK, how is that fair? So here you are a dude on the battlefield. You look out and you see Balrogs and dragons. I would give in.

I would give in. I would give in.

The first dragon was called. And I don't know, like smog. I don't know if he fought for Morgoth, but like some of the earlier dragons were particularly bred and in those battles by Morgoth. So I think in Calagon is the name of the first dragon that was bred by Morgoth. And it sounds like he was intimidating to put it gently. Like he was in the battles quite a bit. And so it makes sense ish to me that he was trying to create through any any spirit that was willing to follow him. He was trying to create the most powerful weapons.

He wanted to turn them into weapons. Something powerful and intimidating for him. So I could see it. I wonder if that was like like you can take a Maier and they have, you know, let's call it power level 100, but some of their powers are like innately good. Like, oh, you could get trees to grow. And he's like, but we need you to be power level 100, but only bad only weapons. And that's why he had to change their bodies.

You want something very specific from you, right?

Yeah, we want something very specific to you. So all of your power, all of whatever your innate ability is, is channeled into this one purpose. And maybe that accentuates the power because it seems to me like obviously there's a specific intent behind the body and form of a baller out in the body and form of a dragon and, you know, other than the sheer coolness of it. Yeah, we were making fun of his terrible, no good taste. Obviously it improves. I know, I know.

So anyways, I think super interesting. I thought I would kind of just wrap up with a little bit on Sauron because he's like, I love freaking Gandalf, but of all the Maier like Sauron, he's got to be the most intriguing. He's got to be the most intriguing. Because he's.

Do we know if he had a purpose originally? Well, so he came down, he was a helper to Owl-e.

He was just a helper to help create. Freaking Owl-e. OK, he seems great.

We've got to do this whole like, Valor, oh, I'm writing this down, Valor, Rait. Yeah. By Bear, Renadade, Maier.

Well, it's funny because I think he's used honestly because he loves to create and he is an amazing creator. But he does it with good intent like we talked about before. But I think that power is just really craved by a lot of people who go kind of crooked.

So you see, yeah, yeah. You see Morgoth was really intrigued by his skills. You see Sauron was intrigued by his skills.

It makes so much sense when you realize that he was, you know, kind of a pupil of his and really loved smithing and handiwork that he would create something like the ring. It has so much tie.

If this were a comedy, though, if this were a comedy, though, Owl-e would be like this absent minded professor character who would be just like, hopefully giving tips on how to be evil by accident and like

actually turn all of his people's evil and having no control over that.

I just like there should be a comedy for this. Yeah. So that was kind of his there being there, learning the handiwork of creating and kind of helping out that Valar.

And he went crooked really, really. Yeah, he went crooked pretty early on, right? Because yeah, because when Morgoth started causing trouble was very quickly.

Yeah, so he was there all this and then really kind of being like the second man. And it's interesting and we should do a deep dive on him in general.

But I love these little details that kind of give a little more context of who he was before all of his story arc. It was saying like some of his greatest virtues were like his love of order and perfection and like detail. And it's interesting because it was saying like Melkor really wanted to either control or like completely destroy Middle Earth and how it was created by the Valar and the air and air room. But it sounds like Soran was like he really wanted everything to be like perfect according to his designs. He wanted to control people. He wanted to like control creatures and people to do exactly how he wanted things to play out and be seen. And I think that's such an interesting differentiation between the two because you really see that in the rings that he hands out to the men, to the dwarves, to the elves, like his desire for perfection in a way of like I'm going to control it.

Interesting. I love the idea that Mordoth and Soran were working at least partially cross purposes, you know, Sauron's in the bid bad meeting at headquarters. And Mordoth announces, all right, we're we're changing up plans.

We're going to destroy Arda. At least he did himself. Well, it's interesting to me that they weren't perfectly well, they were pretty aligned, but but they had different motives.

They were relatively aligned, but like there is, yeah, different motives and not particularly different methods, but I guess probably there's some variation there once we know more. It's just like I love the idea that there's this like variation and evil because you can go all the way to cartoonish, you know, bond villain. I will destroy the world that I happen to live on, you know, that level. And then just like you go back just a few increments and you're down to we won't destroy the world, but it would be better if we had, you know,

it's going to be so controlled because we're going to it's going to be so controlled and so corrupted and changed. I did back to Alway. I just really suspect that he is the guy that's got this really

bad taste that he's affecting all his partages with like Melkor. I know he's got a lot of redeeming to do because Melkor and Sauron both have pretty bad taste. Where did they get it from? I wonder though, if that's my gosh.

OK, I know.

Is it maybe I should be fine. All the way because maybe Sauron's like, hey, I know you like nice things. Take a look at this. I know you like creating a nice hand. Take a look at this. Yeah, that's how to.

You're a tiny face. Yeah, OK, so we'll have to take into how much for among corrupted. Maybe it was a whole recruiting plan, but anyways. OK, so that's what I had. That's what I had on my kind of overview and then digging into some of the most notable groups and people, but my favorite category by far, I think it's very cool.

Yeah, it's very cool. I have maybe one last question or maybe it's more of a statement, but I was thinking about Dandalf in particular, because that's the only Meyer I was like really aware of. And I was thinking about how interesting it is that Dandalf has so many names.

And I think we'll obviously talk more about this in the future, but I don't know if that's a commentary on Dandalf and the fact that what we just discussed is like his mantle, his mission was to be this wanderer, to go throughout the different peoples. And by necessity, every people is going to name him. I just thought that was really interesting. He seems unique in that because I don't think we hear people calling some other names.

I think it is. To your point, I think that is kind of special to him because there are. So I think Soromon did have kind of like his spirit name before he had this form. He has his Soromon title. But then I think a lot of people also have, they'll have either like Cinderan Elvish or Quinian Elvish name. But Dandalf is the one who has like his spirit name, his, he has a name from Roland. He's got names from Rondor, from the doors.

I just think it is more specific. Yeah. And when, when I was thinking about that, I thought, you know, somebody else who probably has names like that is Sauron. So I feel like they're more matched in that than anything else because

I just saw him did it the other way. Right. He's going around. And I think you mentioned this. He, he moved around. He changed his form so that he couldn't be known. And so everyone knows him kind of under a lie, but they all have different names for him and everyone knows Dandalf in his true form, but none of them understand him. And so they all have different names for him for the particular aspect that they see of him. So I just thought that was like a really interesting, almost parallel. The fact that Sauron is getting different names under different lies and Dandalf is getting different names under different truths. That's so bad.

I'm so excited. I'm just saying I need to get it back. And Sauron, but they're excellent, excellent characters. Yeah. I'm Sauron.

Sauron. I'm afraid that Sauron is throwing on me.

Why? I'm getting worried about it. Yeah. He's, he's turning very interesting. Cause like we got to like go into like all his different forms and who he was kind of coming towards.

And see, this is the thing I do. I'm worried I'm going to like him. Let me talk to that. He seems a little bit more brute force. He had a little bit of cunning when he was, you know, but it wasn't his first reaction.

But it wasn't his first reaction. It sounds like he gets angry.

You know what I mean? Like he's like, oh, and he has a strong force of emotion. Um, yeah.

Whereas I know Sauron seems a little bit more sneaky to me, just from like the little tidbits that I read about his life. Yeah. Okay. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. We had such a good time being able to chat through this topic with you and we hope you'll join us again soon. Take care. Have a great rest of your

day.