Speak Friend and Enter: A Lord of the Rings Podcast | Deep Dive - What Happens After LoTR?

Hosts Stephanie and Lydia discuss what happens after LoTR?

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. Hello, hello. Welcome back.

Hello, hello. This is a big episode because this is kind of our first episode on the other side of not reading the Silmarillion. We have finished it. Yeah, so all those little cheaty episodes where Stephanie was reading the Silmarillion and I wasn't allowed to read the Silmarillion. That's gone now.

She's like, I know everything you do. No longer. The noob has surpassed the master.

This is amazing. Yes. No, honestly, though, I do feel so educated and just like. I feel much more educated. Yeah.

The basics. But this is something that's interesting and I think it will come up in this episode as well. I constantly realize that Tolkien has more content, more written content and more stuff. So someday you'll be pouring over his actual notes with your bifolk glasses zooming in. You can start reading his letter.

There's just an insane amount of content. Yeah, he has letters that are compiled that he wrote to different fans about. I wrote too much. The man could write.

The man could write. And so this episode is really inspired because I feel like Silmarillion. We got a really big sense of where his world came from, how he pictured it, how he pictured the people. And then Lord of the Rings is like our favorite content, right? The Hobbit Lord of the Rings, where we get all of these incredible characters. But then Lord of the Rings ends and now with all of this backstory. And you're left dying and desperate for more.

Desperate for more. And so with all of this backstory about the universe and all of our knowledge about the characters, I thought it would be fun to just kind of be like, how did Tolkien picture or envision his world or his story kind of concluding? What happens to the characters and what happens to his universe and yeah, all of that good stuff. So I came up with some great notes and we can ask questions and I can try to find even more answers as we go along. But I think I have a good starting point and we can kind of discuss. Perfect. Also, I realized I think we are potentially going to be starting reading Lord of the Rings and doing episodes about that.

So this would be. I already cheated. I already started.

Did you start? OK, well, we have to schedule. We have to talk about when our first episode is going to be.

Then OK, well, I started a little minute ago, so it wasn't as cheesy as it sounds. Yeah, OK, well, we just have to schedule our first episode on that. Yeah, perfect.

Well, get there. OK, perfect. So what happens after Lord of the Rings? Obviously, we know so this is going to pick up at the end of Return of the King. Which which end all the ends? All the end. So we're talking like Frodo has sailed for Western shores and all that. Yes.

So this is going to include a little bit about that, but that is pretty much what we're talking about. So this is the end of the book as in like the ring is gone. Yeah, everyone is the fellowship. The fellowship is dispersing. Yeah. And we kind of get a question of what happens to people? What happens to Middle Earth after that?

Now, I will say a lot of these notes I was trying to find like where does where does this come from? Right about this. Yeah. And so what is really interesting is he has a few different sources. One is in Lord of the Rings, the Return of the King, depending on your addition, there's actually an appendices A through F. And it says what goes on in there. And so in the appendices, it will talk about like the different characters and what happened to them. It will talk a little bit about Gondor. It will talk a little bit about Rohan.

And so you get like a little bit of a tie up in terms of what's happening. Never read those. I have never read. And I'm like, I totally have. I've read Return of the King. Yeah. And I'm like, I didn't realize there was an appendices. It was my.

Times and I have never, ever even seen it. But it could just be like up to last page. I was like, well, I wonder what the rest of this half of the book is, but it could be.

I'm genuinely curious. Did I just not see it? I don't know. Or did my copy not have it? I don't know. But yeah, there's a whole appendices A through F. With a variety of different information, I can actually go.

Okay, let's see. What are in what are appendices A through F after Return of the King? It's interesting to think a little bit about the difference between an appendices versus an epilogue. And I feel like that really shows Tolkien and how he's so much more of a I'm writing a history sort of guy than he is. I'm writing a story because to keep it in character as an epilogue, I think is I personally think is the better choice.

But if you're not going to do that, then yeah, appendices are just fine. I because he's writing in that omniscient POV, I think it is kind of suited to it. Also, when we're talking about like Tolkien fantasy, I feel like we're really talking about like an academic view of fantasy versus like I come from this. He's an amazing storyteller, but like yeah, from more of the. He's definitely writing a history. He's writing a history, which is fine.

Histories are like very endangering sometimes. It's just a different style. It's a very different style. And it is weird to think of it as like, OK, what is Tolkien fantasy when that is what it is, it's it's fantasy written as if it was history. And then but people don't use it in that sense.

They use it to say, well, it's got Orcs and elves. Yeah. Well, you know, they take the barest trappings. Yeah.

And then reduce it to that. I think I think this is a hot take, which we're probably going to discuss. We do for later. But I do think like people have read the books and they've told me they're kind of long, they're kind of dry, but we love the movies, right? Like the plot of his stories is incredible.

Yeah. But him as a storyteller, as a resonate with everyone. A writer, I think, can sometimes feel very historical and a little bit dry. Yeah. So it is very intriguing. But yes, that is exactly his vibe for the appendices. We've got let me let me just read you a quick spattering of what he includes. He includes a history and genealogy of the new more new Menoran kings.

The airs. I'm sorry, but no, but needs a genealogy, not even scriptures. Just going to throw that out there. That is my hot take. And I feel strongly about it. It has the tale of Ergon and Arwen, their first meeting to death.

We should definitely read that. It has the House of Errol traces in history of the Kings of Rohan. It has the history of the doors of the line of Durran. It has like this is a lot of stuff.

Yeah. Last events concerning the members of the fellowship. It has the genealogy of the hobbits. That's where that is, because I used to read online.

People would be like, oh, this person is a descendant of this person. And I like, how did you know that? Where in the world? What chapter did you do that in? Oh, my gosh, Lydia, he has calendars.

The Shire calendar, the Gondorian calendar. OK, I did it. But also I'm still a little scarred from the Beleriand chapter. And like this could have all been resolved with a single drawn map. The geography. I needed all of it. We always need more maps. We always need more maps consistently. Oh, he has writings and spellings. OK. OK, anyways, we got we got a lot of good stuff.

That's quite a spread. But a lot of those are actually things that the reader wants to know at the end. Right. Because when I think about the doors, I am interested in knowing what's going on with Durran and his people. Because the fall of Moria happens so off screen. Yeah, so I'm very interested in knowing more there. But I think we have talked about it in previous episodes.

Yeah, there was more context. It'll be fun to revisit those appendices and now knowing what we know to read them. Yeah, so that is one source. This is all just preparation for where do we find this stuff?

Well, you're being you're being a good person inside in your sources. I would say here's what happens. I would do everything wrong.

I would say prove it and prove that I'm wrong. Well, honestly, it is a lot of info. And so you're like trying to figure out where is all this info coming from? Where what what happens from different places? So you have a pen to see and then what? The appendices, I didn't know this, but there is a set of unfinished tales Tolkien considered writing another book.

OK. He called these this book of unfinished tales a set of different stories a hundred years after Aragorn Aragorn's reign. OK. And there are some things entitled the new shadow, the disaster of the Gladden Field, and so we'll see that pretty much happening at Gladden Fields always.

Always. So pretty much as we go into it, things are pretty happy when LOTR finishes. Definitely an optimistic happy ending, I would say.

Slightly bittersweet, but mostly happy. Yeah. But then it sounds like he was playing with the idea of kind of circling back around.

We can talk more later about maybe why that didn't happen, but he has. Just out of curiosity, when they made the book of the Silmarillion, I guess I was under the impression that there was a, I don't know, a broad set of either the unfinished tales or notes or letters or something. And they took those writings and then they made the Silmarillion book. That is published out of it and that there is other versions of the stories that are unpublished and not the final published or I think Christopher Tolkien maybe edited them and worked with them.

And I think maybe Di-Caviel, whatever that guy's name is, that other author, Daviel Kay or something. So are the unfinished tales that you're talking about? Are they, do you know, if they're part of that group that eventually got turned into Silmarillion or is that separate?

I think this is separate. This is a whole segment of stuff that was supposed to have happened after part of the rings, whereas Simmarillion, I think was. Of course, it's only before and. And so unfinished tales is like Tolkien thinking about these things that could have potentially happened. Have I seen this in the library?

Have you seen this? Unfinished tales. I feel like I've heard of it.

I've heard of unfinished tales. I didn't realize that's what it was. I didn't realize that he had pondered going back and writing more. So that was a bit of a surprise to me. All right, I see a book. It's got a cover. Yeah. So curses will have to probably be that too. We're doing two D things. Adding new things.

We'll never get out. But yeah, I saw unfinished tales and I just thought, I don't know what I thought. I guess I thought it was like funny little stuff like Tom Bombadil or something.

Right. Yeah, maybe like a short story collection or something. Little short stories.

But it may be it is, but it's short stories of the material that you want to know about. Exactly. It's stuff that potentially happened down the road, which to be fair, I don't think he will I guess will spoil it. I'm not set in stone, right?

It's just that in stone. These were ideas and he didn't end up finishing this. This is why it's called unfinished. Tales. He didn't end up finishing it. But there were some interesting tidbits in that.

OK, OK. Yeah. So and then there's like a history of Middle Earth edited by Christopher Tolkien, which has like early drafts, alternative endings that he considered. Some letters, some commentary. So there's like a collection of other random writings that were not as official. This is good news because I find the read-along format easy. So we actually should read some of these. I think it would be fun.

I think it would be fun. I finally earned my street cred. So it really gives you a little cred. But when you say no, actually, I've read Tolkien's notes or the letters or I finished tales. I think that's kind of interesting. You know what we should do on like a different podcast is our episode is we should come up with a complete list of everything he's written because I'm like, the man just keeps having more and become completionists. We can walk through it and kind of talk about it and what everything includes. So people who maybe are like, what the crap has he written and what is in it? So in in my class at book club, we've been reading a lot of Livy recently. Oh, yeah. And you love Livy.

I do love Livy, actually. And we were just going to like post through on the first, you know, 20 books and books is a strong 20 books is a really strong word in this instance. It's basically chapters. They're small, they're small books.

So book one has like one through 10 and the but two has like, you know, the net set. Anyways, so we were going to do this. But then my brother, who is running the book club, has a kid he needs to name. And he wanted a good old namesake.

And he chose Paulus, who was a I was not like familiar with Paulus, but he was introduced to us, I think, in Livy. And and so my brother was like, all right, well, oh no, looks like we need to be Livy completionists. And I thought he was just, you know, wanting to like check off that box.

But no, he wanted to read more about Paulus to find out if he was a good dude or not, so that he could use that as a namesake. Can I name my kid after this? Yeah, just you've got to be thorough. Oh, I mean, talk about baby name research. But like street cred also, because now I've read all of Livy.

And in the end, it like devolves into fragments. So I mean, I've already been through this process and it worked. We can do it.

And it worked. We can. You are capable.

You're strong enough to face this journey. Exactly. I think that'd be a lot of fun. And and it sounds like what we'll talk about here are like all the potential like little radicals we can dive into.

Exactly. So I have a series of like stuff that I thought was intriguing. There might be more I can, you know, try to look up while we're talking. But this is kind of the main stuff that I thought was intriguing. OK. OK. So what happens after Lord of the Rings?

We talked about some of the places where this information is from. Obviously, we know that like at the end of the book, they officially call it the end of the third age and the beginning of the fourth age begins and is called like the age of men, right? Right. And so the elves have left and now we have unified Gondor and.

Exactly. So this is the elves really are departing like nobody's really sticking around. We can talk about, you know, a few of the stragglers, but as civilizations. Kind of people, people are leaving.

So I think we have to start kind of off with a fellowship first and then kind of dig into some generalities. OK, so Ergon King Elisar. Obviously, Mary's Arwen.

And then I think I knew this, but I didn't really think about it. He reigns as King of the Reunited Kingdom, Gondor and Arnor. Yes, I think I vaguely knew this, but like for never 20 years, we never see Arnor or at least in the movies, right? And we never see actually don't we don't see Arnor in the book. See, there are in the movies we see a fallen Arnor.

We see in the books, two minutes with Faramir, but it's also a Frodo and Sam scene and it's like a nobody watching that. Arnor is in Arnor is where Weathertop is. Oh, you're right. Where Frodo gets out. It's in the north near the Shire and all. But also isn't where they are.

Oh, maybe I'm totally off base. When Faramir kidnapped Frodo and Sam, isn't that also Arnor? That is part of Gondor, but it's it's all been kind of taken over. So now it's a little bit like it's a fallen part of Gondor. This is why I need more maps.

More maps, we need them or to look at the maps I have. All right. Yeah, that makes sense. Yes, Weathertop. So he was a ranger. We call him right like Strider that he's a Northern Ranger. This is the last of those people that last of those people. And so he got crowned in Gondor and I thought, well, there's not really a kingdom for him to rule in our North.

It's kind of all fallen and crumply. But it sounds like he reunited the two. So he was king of all of that area north and south and he ruled for 120 years. And so he's super long lived.

What are we talking about here? He's like super long lived. I think it's like 80 something in the books. He dies at the age of 210. All right, that's pretty good.

What does our window? Well, it's a little less fun, I feel like for our way. But I could be wrong. Let me just double check this. But I think from what I was reading, he chooses the time of his death. Oh, OK.

Double check, which I thought was really intriguing. I thought maybe we would just pass away. Yeah, like from old age or or getting stabbed or something. But it's actually he chooses to die as kind of like a gift to future generations. He's like, this is my time. Like I've been king.

I've done all of this stuff. And so it sounds like it just says a voluntary surrender of his noble life. It also says to avoid like growing weak and senile. He just wanted to be like, this is a clean, which I'm like, man, that would be nice if you could just be like, I'm out. OK, I'm done.

I think it just lies down and is like, let's let's give up the ghost. Fascinating. Because 120 years is I mean, if we're talking about a 40 year generation, which is like a generous definition, that's three generations. So like it's a lot. His great-grandsons are like full grown and possibly old men.

Let me see. How old is Eric Warren's son when he dies? I mean, his son.

Oh, I guess his son could also be quite long lived, right? When Eric Warren is just interesting to think about. Also, it is interesting that he didn't think or maybe Tolton didn't think that abdication was an option. You know, if he still had life left in him, why not just abditate and then, you know, sail off into the sunset with Arwen? But maybe there is a question of humility or something.

Maybe being like my body can only hold up for a little bit longer. So I think when Eric Warren died, he his son Eldarion was around 125, which is pretty old. That's like half of his. Well, that's like his half of his life. So he's already had his midlife crisis. Maybe that's why Eric Warren was like, all right, I'm comfortable leaving it all. I got to see a few things. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, but that's crazy. OK, what makes me sad and I don't really understand why this was different for her. But so Arwen, she is very sad when Eric Warren dies, I'm assuming they had to have had some kind of conversation to be like, hey, I think I'm going to kind of lay things down and her be like, OK. But rather than like sticking around and wanting to be there for her kids or grandkids more, she leaves Minas Tirith. So she she goes away from the capital. Minas Tirith is still the capital at this point. And she goes back to the Lothlorian. But what's kind of sad is we know that the elves have all kind of left.

I don't know if there were any stragglers there. Galagral left, right? Yeah, Galagral left with Frodo.

So she was one of the O.G. people to head out. There shouldn't really be anyone left there. And so when she goes to Lothlorian, what I'm picturing is just like a really faded kind of crumbly ruin of this beautiful Elvish city. You know what I mean?

Like we're not talking a big civilization. So it sounds like she just she went kind of home. She wanted to go somewhere really comfy. But then like a year later, she ends up passing away. Yeah, of course.

Heartbroken and living alone. And yeah, but why not Valinor? I don't know.

I don't know. She was resistant to Valinor. I guess what's funny is almost in the movies, you get the sense of like, if you don't go now, you can't come. You do get that sense. But I don't know if that's true, if that was just like raising the stakes. I don't know if that is true because later we'll talk about Legolas. And I'm not quite sure when he departed compared to when Aragorn died. Maybe we can look that up before.

But I don't know. You kind of get the sense that she stuck there. Yeah, it does feel different, I think, to me if because she chose to stay with Aragorn, she missed the last boat out. Yeah.

And that's more like that's that's actually better. Honestly, to me, it was like, OK, you have you you made a choice and you're sticking with it here. The consequences like, you know, yeah, it's harder for me to understand. I guess because grief is material and actually, to me, but like, it's harder for me to understand if you have the option of not going to Valinor.

So I just don't know if she had the option. I just looked at this because I know Legolas builds a boat and sails over to Valinor. He's like one of the last boats to leave. But he does it. Let's see.

I think right after Aragorn's death, like the same year that Aragorn dies. So I feel like if she wanted to, she probably could have been like, yeah, wait, it sounds like there was an option potentially. I kind of get this feeling. And maybe this is just me how I am inserting my own self into this, where she would be like, I don't want to leave because my kids are here. My family's here, all this stuff. And so she's like, I can stay.

I can make this happen. But then she's like, actually, this is too much. This is too heavy. Well, I wonder if it's because she doesn't stay in Minas Tirith and her. She doesn't stay in the year. Grandson's are fully grown.

Like I think they're all fully grown. I think it's probably the other way around where it's Arwen didn't want to let Aragorn go and she went to Valinor and continue to live her undying life. At some point, the memories of him would fade, right? Oh, really?

That's what I feel like it is. She didn't want to live longer, I guess is the way I would put that. Like, because, yeah, you know, another 2000 years and like, yeah, you know, I was once married. My first husband was great, but she didn't want to let that go. She's like, no, I want this to be my life. I want this to be my story.

I'm ready. Yeah, she was just done with it, which is sad. But like, you know, also, you know, quite remanted. Yeah, I mean, she couldn't maybe she couldn't really, she didn't want to imagine a life without him. Right.

Right. I just think, man, she stuck around for another year and then die. Like, I don't know. I guess what I'm confused at is if Aragorn could lay down and be like, now's the time. Why couldn't Arwen lay down and say now's the time to like when did the timing have to be off?

But anyways, that's that's Aragorn and Arwen. They had a very happy time together, life together. So I'm not going to feel too sad for a long time. Things went really well when they were potentially not going to. So I feel very happy for them overall. But it is, you know, Brian and my my partner and I like to talk about how funny it is in stories when, let's say, most or all of the story is happy, but something really sad happens at the end. And then we say, oh, it didn't have a happy ending.

Right. Like, how funny is it that we can take a life that maybe is like 80 percent joyful or 80 percent happy? And say it was those last few years because they were difficult. We like mark the whole thing as maybe not being happy. I think it's just a psychological thing of like, yeah, I don't remember the term for it, but it's recency bias is what it is. Yeah. People.

It's loss of version and recency bias. Yeah. I personally enjoy a touch of tragedy in story, not in my own life, obviously. Stay away.

Yeah, be gone. But stories, I do really enjoy it because I guess I enjoy it at the midpoint the most or maybe at the beginning, I'm not sure. But like you've got to have a little bit of that touch in there so that the happy ending to come around fuller feels smooth. Yeah.

I do think like there is enough going on in Lord of the Rings that you have that completely. So yeah, I don't feel so bad about it. I thought they did. They had they had a good ride. A good life. They had a good ride.

Yeah, I'm generally very happy for them. OK, so just to go a little bit into their kids. So they had Aldarian and he's the the crown prince. He's their son.

And I thought it was cute. His name means son of elves. So it's really referring to the Arwen and yeah. So he also becomes king of the reunited kingdom. And Tolkien doesn't really describe his personality, but he's just generally portrayed as like continuing on Aragorn's rule wise and strong and like doing a good job.

Right. This is like a true beginning of the age of men because at that point, pretty much all the elves are gone. I think it was interesting looking up Legolas's time when he left to and when Arwen died, because you almost get the sense that when Aldarian starts, it's almost like the elves are gone. Yeah, like only memories of Arwen. Arragorn was kind of like the the the the in between the hybrid. And then Aldarian's role for men on is kind of like this is the rule of men. OK. It does say that Tolkien wrote in that they had several daughters.

But she they don't really mention their names or like what their what their storylines are and following in the tradition of his of historians. I know, I know. Oh, that was one place you should should not have done. I know. And I thought it was interesting one second. Let's see. I was just looking to see if there is anything else about the daughters.

I think she does like a farewell to her children, but nothing, nothing super specific there. OK, awesome. So that's kind of what we have about Arragorn and Arwen and their kids. I do think it's really interesting, just a couple more things about the kingdom. So the capital is Minas Tirith, and then they do rebuild a northern capital. I've never seen this word and new Minas and a new Minas. I don't think we've even heard of that.

Is the city of Kings of Arnor. OK. So they they bring that back. So I think that was really interesting. OK, going down to some other peeps that we know and love, Legolas and Gimli.

We just love them. So basically a couple of interesting things happen to Legolas and Gimli. Um, Legolas and Gimli stay in Gondor for a while, and they're kind of like right hand people to Arragorn.

They're kind of helping go out throughout the land of Gondor and kind of helps. So many trusted administrators that did this going again. I know you imagine the bureaucracy. Honestly, and it's funny because we see the main evil kind of terminated at the end of the movie or end of the book with Soran. But there's like a whole bunch of Gondor that kind of needs like retaking back from like the Easterlings and the orcs and the Sutherlings. And there's a lot of stuff going on in that kingdom.

Totally read a cozy fantasy that was all about like restoring the administrative function of an empire. Over again. Just like, I don't know. I can see that bureaucracy. Politicking with like one one a hunty dude to like enforce your word.

And you go through a town after town by town restoring law and order. I love it. To order that. I love it.

Right. I feel like a lot of cozy fantasies just like slightly too low of states to me where it's like, you know, that one about the tea shop. And like, that's fine. I don't scream tea. So like, this is not meaningful for me.

I don't know. Pastries that often. Pastries are good. Wait. But do I think about kingdoms and the management of?

Yes. I think about that every day. I think that could be really good, actually. I think you could write that.

But I just say like there is a world in Lord of the Means where that is happening, where like, is drafting hundreds and hundreds of accountants to go to different like towns to like parts of the first time. I don't know. I just think it's really funny.

I think that's hilarious. Yes. And so Gimli and Gimli and Legolas are in that crew where they're kind of like they're helping to rebuild stuff up and rebuild, rebuild, gone door. And then like we were saying, reestablish Arnor, which I didn't even realize was a goal. Yeah.

And that would have involved some work, right? You have to send me a lot of money and you got to clear out. You have to like, I don't I don't think it would be as safe there as me, maybe in other places. Yeah.

And so I thought this was really intriguing. So Legolas does have some family in Markwood, right? And so he and a few of those elves actually come back and go to Cedal and Athelion, which I think is what you were thinking of in that scene when Faramir and I think is with Frodo and Sam. Yes. It's that kind of in between Gondor and Mordor. Yeah. Space that was kind of lost.

And then they recaptured. Do we know anything about what drives him to that particular place? Because they've been in Markwood a long time. It's not like, do they have claim on Athelion? It was mainly as like Legolas and doing something for Aragorn.

They led patrols and help establish like a border. That's what I was thinking. Like, you know, there's got to be some nastiness still hanging around Mordor. Therefore, a lot of stuff. Exactly.

Yeah. So they retake Athelion. Legolas kind of heads that up and he gets a whole bunch of people to come and settle there with him. And I think it's really cool because basically you have like Legolas. He's this a green elf or a woodland elf. And it sounds like they turn Athelion into like this garden paradise. That sounds super lovely about Mordor, which is so dusty and so nasty. And he just comes and he acts as border patrol and he just creates this really beautiful place. Can you imagine this? Ludlis for mayor, basically.

Yes. What's going on here? His face on campaign like posters and he's just gorgeous and nobody knows what his policies are, but they vote for him anyway. And yeah, I can see it now. And then you could even do some really funny like Propodanda art because it would be like gorgeous garden land of Athelion and then literally two steps out your door. Mordor dust bearing. Weak land. Yeah. Funny. Yes, exactly. So I just kind of loved that. That one, you know, he's doing something off obviously very much for for Aragorn to be able to establish this new place and make sure that it's safe. And and kind of being that border patrol. But I also love that he turns this place into like a beautiful, a beautiful location that people want to live and they want to come. Yeah, so that's really good. He's not doing good work.

And then he says at one point, you know, I hate beauty. It's time to leave this place. No, just kidding. But he he does decide to go to Valorant. Do we know why?

Like was he? I get the impression it's because of what we just read. He goes the same year that Aragorn dies. OK. So I think.

Again, his tie that was holding him here was sundered. I think so. I think it was really about Aragorn, their friendship, doing this thing together. And then once Aragorn is gone, he's like, you know, if Aragorn thinks the job is well done, who am I? Yeah, exactly.

Who am I to say I'm still needed? Right. And it sounds like that's kind of the the link there. But I love the fact that he built a boat. It's from a Thillion actually. So he built his boat in a Thillion and then that's where they set sail from. And he brings Gimli. Oh, does he? And Gimli is the only dwarf in the whole Middle Earth that gets to sail on a boat to Valinor with the elves. And it just kills me because he was so obviously the movies play this up for humor. But like so against elves, elves were opposite everything dwarf culture. And he gets to be one of the few dwarves, the only dwarf actually that gets to sail to Valinor. You know, that's that's really cool.

I don't think I knew that. Yeah, I kind of thought the idea of him reuniting with the ladrills still with his three. Could you have met? Oh, my gosh. Maybe that's why he was like, actually. Actually, I was like what I want to talk to you.

Yeah, he's not one person at least. Hilarious. That's a reason that I love that. And that that is a really nice touch. That's like the creme d'lacreme for the dwarf and elven friendship.

That is led to listen to me, which is friendship in general. But like, you know, we don't want to be parted. So let's not. And if we go to Valinor, we don't have to be.

We can go together. Yeah. And I think my impression and I could be totally wrong is that like you get long life in Valinor and I don't know how long wars live. Yeah, less than else. Right.

Definitely elongated. Yeah. So like this this really is probably a chance for them to just like be together for a longer. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I like that.

So really sweet touch. What Gimli was doing all this while. So he's with Legolas doing a lot of stuff. Pardon. Drinking.

So I didn't know this. But so after he kind of so he's doing stuff for Gondor and then after everything's kind of settled there, he goes back and he takes some, you know, a lead's a company of elves to go back to the glittering caves beneath Helms Deep in Rohan. So do you remember in Helms Deep, there is like this one exit that they can take where they send the women and children, the women children. And it's like they kind of show this in the movie, but there's all these stalactites and stalagmites.

They call it the glittering caves. And so Gimli actually goes back with a group of dwarves. And I'm sure because of everything he's done for Rohan, they're like, yeah, please. And so he goes in and he creates a whole new community in the glittering caves under Helms Deep and he becomes Lord of the glittering caves.

You know, I love that. I am curious that he doesn't go to Moria though. He doesn't go to Moria. If you had told me, where does Gimli go after the Lord of the Rings? I would have said, well, he takes a group of dwarves and he goes and purges Moria to give it its final happy, like happy ending. Retaking it. But maybe that's just not possible in a place like Moria anymore. You know, I don't know. It's obvious that he didn't think he needed to try.

Honestly, part of me thinks like maybe there would be so much pain and memory and like, he's just like, let's start fresh. Yeah. Interesting. So yeah, he becomes Lord of the glittering caves. Something I think is really sweet is they rebuild the gates of Ministeria.

We saw them get knocked down by Grand. I love Grand, but he builds it out of mithril and steel. And he gives it to Aragorn as a gift. Where is he getting that much mithril? Where is he getting that much mithril? Honestly, it's a glittering caves. Is that mithril?

What's in the glittering caves? Let me know. I don't know. No wonder.

Actually, that's fine. Maybe that's why he went back because he was like, yo, this glitter he knew what it was. Let's see what this is. Glittering caves and LOTR.

Is it mithril? That would be very interesting. OK. It doesn't say that the glitter, the glittering rock was mithril, but they did.

He must find some. They did forge. They did forge the great gate of Ministeria there with mithril. OK, that's neat.

Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, so he gives a very generous gift. Basically, it's so it's kind of fun because in the movies and in the books, you have that, especially in the movies, I feel like you have Frodo and Sam and Gollum off on their adventure. And then you have Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn kind of on their adventure.

They're pretty tight. And it's so interesting because in my head, like when I was first watching it, you kind of think, oh, but why isn't the fellowship together? And like, I don't know, it feels a little bit like how they separated everybody.

Mary and Pippin are kind of doing a crazy thing and. Feels a little disjointed. But I kind of love seeing like some of these core bonds because I don't know, you just get the sense like Legolas and Gimli and Aragorn where really I feel like kind of the leaders of their respective races when it came to like building peace and building community at this point in time.

Because they all got to go out and form these alliances. Yeah, right. I mean, I'm curious about Mary and Pippin with their various Gondor and Rohan and yeah, I think that'll be interesting. Yeah, well, it'll be interesting. Here, let's do let's do them next.

OK, so this cracks me up. So they go back to the Shire and remember in the books, they actually have to kick Sormon out and they have to do like a whole bunch of rallying and doing all this stuff. So they actually end up becoming very important and significant figures. So Mary becomes master of Buckland because remember, there's Buckland and then there's the Shire and then Pippin, which I don't know how he got this becomes Thane of the Shire, which is just mind blowing to me that anybody would want him.

But basically, oh, OK, here we go. So the Thane of the Shire was something that was created by the Hobbits after the King of Arnor disappeared and it's pretty much a hereditary and largely ceremonial role. Sorry, when they say the King of Arnor, are you talking about Erdogan? No, original King of Arnor. So like, remember the Northern Kingdom fell. And so the Shire apparently was kind of wrapped up in that. Which has been ceremonial. Yes, ceremonial.

Is it still? It sounds like Pippin is a took. And so he got the Thane title from his family. Um, not necessarily a governing position because then listen to this, our boys are just politicians. Samwise Gamgee becomes mayor of the Shire. OK, lots of a ceremonial position, I'm sure.

So mayor is. I love the idea of Pippin being like super ceremonial does nothing. And Sam is like actually doing it. Yeah, this is basically what I realized. So Mary is Master of Buckland, which is a slightly different area, right? It's kind of between the Shire and where the man actually working. Yeah, exactly.

That's where he's from. Pippin is Thane, which means he gets like this fancy title and people respect him that basically doesn't really sound like he's doing the administrative work. From our perspective, we could be doing him a dirty right now, but.

He might just be kicking back the ale and smoking his weed. Somebody's got to do it. And then Samwise Gamgee becomes mayor of the Shire. And he does all the administrative stuff, but listen to this. He does seven seven year terms. Whoa.

So he's basically mayor of the Shire for life, I feel like. Yeah. How old do hoppits live? It's crazy. They live pretty old though. They live pretty old. That's a lot of terms.

A lot of terms. He also has with Rosie Cotton 13 children 13 a big dozen. I'm like, dang, Rosie Cotton busy. Wow.

Okay. But then this is the thing that surprised me the most after Rosie passes away. Sam also sails west to the undying lands because he was also a ring bearer. I feel like I vaguely knew that maybe we had talked about it previously, but I had kind of forgotten. And I assumed it happened earlier than that, you know, but after 49 years and your wife dying, like that's a different circumstance. It is, you know, it makes me realize too, like Frodo could have stayed, but he was like, she needed to get out then.

This isn't for me. Yeah. Right. And he didn't have other ties. Like he obviously had like Sam and Mary and Pippin, but wasn't married. And, and I think the pain was fresher for him.

Yeah. You know, it really, I think brings home because Sam wanted to stay. He had, he felt like he wanted to build a life and create this thing.

But he tried for 49 years. Yeah. Do you think was there some light? Oh, I am feeling uneasy and restless here. Was it more like, well, you know, this is a new stage of life for me.

Maybe I'll go see Frodo. What, what, which vein do you think it is in? I think it was like, I love my wife and now that she's gone, there's not, there's not like a lot, like kind of almost I was sticking around for our life together.

And we've lived it and I'm ready for my next adventure kind of. Yeah, interesting. I do love the little like fine print of I too can take a boat over because I too want to help the ring.

Exactly. I was also a ring bearer. Yeah, really cute. I love that.

Really funny. Um, and then Mary and Pippin, this is sweet. So they have their, their positions in the Shire, but then later they travel to Gondor and they serve King Aragorn.

So it sounds like really the person who stayed in the Shire and loved the Shire was Sam. Okay. Yeah.

Sounds like Pippin and Mary served in the Shire. They took a little bit of a hey, it is. He took a break and then they were like, you know, we kind of miss. Yeah.

It kind of reminds me of Bilbo being like, I want to see mountains again. Yeah, we miss the action. Yeah.

Yeah. So they were like, we want to see mountains again and they went back to Gondor, they served King Aragorn and they died there and it's actually really sweet because they were buried beside him. Oh, so they were buried next to Aragorn and you just get this really, I feel like Tolkien actually did a really good job with these endings where you get this satisfying feeling of like Gimli's with Legolas, Pippin and Mary, you know, end up passing away or together with Aragorn and then even Frodo who at the end of the movie, you're like Frodo, all alone, but then Sam joins him. Even then Sam comes, comes after him. Right. Like you get this very nice fellowship togetherness. That does feel good.

It feels really good. Okay. So obviously we talked about Frodo and Gandalf because they get on the boat.

Yeah. Um, but I feel like he had really great kind of endings for the fellowship. Um, I wanted to talk a little bit about some other things that are like in, in Rohan or the Shire or the kingdoms that are kind of going on. Just going on.

Goings, goings on the gossip, the tea. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I thought this is really interesting. So they created Gondor and Arnor, but the Shire was officially protected by royal decree.

And so no one, no men could come and settle there. Ooh, nice. It was like a protected space. It's kind of interesting to see. Um, that just feels like a confirmation of the previous unofficial protection because I think there's a line somewhere where Aragorn talks about how Dandel had set him to guard the Shire and that he was deep in an eye on themes and I feel like there was a line somewhere that we read. Um, all about that. Or maybe I read it recently and, and I think that's really nice that like they had this unofficial protection. Um, but now it's made proper. Yeah. It was, it's really nice.

Yeah. And then Rohan, I think you would be, sorry, I just backed on the Shire. I really liked that because it's important that, I mean, the Shire has such a character in and of itself. That's such a character. It's important that the Shire have its happy ending.

Exactly. Because we see the raising of the Shire at the end of the book and you need to know that it's rebuilt and made, made whole and safe again. And I think that's really good. And I think what I like too is cause Arnor was this whole big kingdom. It was this grandiose thing. It'd be very easy. I feel like we're a king to be like, what's the Shire?

Like Arnor was this huge kingdom. We're reestablishing it. Why does it matter that you keep your little community the way that it is? Yeah. And that he very much is like, no, like this is a protected, this is a protected space because he knows what it means to the people.

That's kind of like having like a riparian reserve. Yeah. So I'm kind of like protected. Yeah. National space.

I love it. A national park. But you can't go there. Exactly. So that's really nice.

Rohan, I was really curious about Rohan because I know you love Rohan. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So basically what happens after Thayodin dies is his nephew, who's Aowyn's brother, Aomir, becomes king. And Aowyn marries Thayomir. They seem to have a really life.

They live in a Thillion with Legolas kind of doing that border patrol and protection. Okay. Um, and it sounds like she really turns to like healing and almost doing like more like medicine and stuff like that, which is intriguing.

Okay. Um, but in Rohan, basically they have an alliance with Gondor, which is very strong. And I was reading about like how Tolkien pictured that, I don't know, that going this whole kingdom and he very much said Rohan doesn't have an issue with corruption or have a big fall that ends it. It's an eventual fading. It's kind of like this kingdom that fades into this legend of men kind of leading to, I don't know, this historical version. Are they getting absorbed into Gondor slash Arnor? Sounds like they're separate.

Sounds like they are like brain drain, I guess, where it's like, oh, all the bid, you know, interesting projects are being helmed by Erdogan over here and I'll go help out and then like, oh, I just haven't been home to Rohan in 20 years. And I don't know. It did say that it was peaceful.

It's a peaceful end. And so I don't necessarily know. I got the, I got the impression that the kingdoms were pretty distinct because it was very much like an alliance. Like if someone needed the other, you would like go and help. But I guess going onward to that, something that I might say is we mentioned the unfinished tales.

Yeah. And the reason why I think this is intriguing is because in the unfinished tales, the new shadow, like a section of it, he sets about a hundred years after. And what was really intriguing is he wanted it. I get the impression he wanted it to be something less mystical and more tying into our world today because it's the age of men. So now even the shadows are men. Exactly. So it's like evil starts to creep back in, but not as dark lords or monsters, but men start to get corrupt and men start to be evil.

Like obviously we've had evil men and corrupt men in the past, but the villains were like, yeah, they were higher liens or like, you know, undersecretary to the bidi, the big bad. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the primary villains are men. And basically what you're seeing is like this cycle of men are going to be their own worst enemies and will men rise up? Sometimes they will, but sometimes they won't.

Yeah. And I thought this was really interesting reading about it because I think that could sound really compelling, but he ended up writing only a little bit, which is why it's called unfinished tales. It says he wrote a letter and it said it proved both sinister and depressing. There was no true tale left to tell only a picture of decay. Um, well, it is depressing reading about decay.

Let me tell you, do we follow the Roman Republic right now? I just, yeah. And so I think it's really fascinating because he was basically saying like, I've written the epic fantasy version of this story and he prefers his evil to be like metaphysical. Yeah. And he's like, I know. Yeah. He's like, I, we all know it's like, it's the evil of today.

That is what Gondor would become the age of men and men being their own worst enemy and men being their heroes. And it's too. Well, it is a, I guess too familiar is one way to put it, but it's a different genre. Yeah. For sure. So interesting. So I thought that was really intriguing. So I am surprised by the way Rohan goes out that it's like a slow fade. It sounds like Rohan was a slow fade that kind of ended in obscurity. Gondor, it sounds like to me has more dramatic feelings.

Like people get corrupt, political drama. Yeah. Yeah.

What's interesting to me is that it seems like peace till Rohan that that they were kept alive by the war and the threat and like, I mean, I don't know that I see them necessarily as more or less martial than Gondor say in the books, but it must be the case as more desperate. Oh, certainly more desperate. Certainly. Hold on and more desperate to like make a stand and more. Yeah.

I don't know. Certainly poorer. I mean, just compare their capital cities. Like this is not a people that has tons and tons and tons of resources or at least I just minister was built long ago.

So we can't really compare the mass accurately. But yeah, that is an interesting ending. I'm not opposed to it, but I am surprised. Yeah.

And it that has the touch of bittersweet, you know, because you want to think, oh, yeah, you know, in a 200 300 years, you know, the the lions between Gondor and Rohan is strong and they still have awesome horses and tool armor. And it's just not the case. So that's very interesting. Yeah. So that's what kind of happens there. And this this kind of ties back to two different, not different, but some intriguing endings to Middle Earth because we've we've talked so much about Lord of the Rings. We've talked a lot about the Simerillian and the concept of Middle Earth and what happens to it in the long run is I think the most common one that Tolkien said and the one that I think is very much canon is Middle Earth is our Earth.

Yeah. Tolkien loved history. We talked about how he wrote like he was writing a history and he viewed this as almost a forgotten or non recorded history of I think especially Britain, but also just like the Earth in general, the Earth in general. So with that take, I hadn't thought this quite through which age would our modern day or even just our historical day be considered. Is it also still the fourth age or do we pass into a fifth age? Yes, I looked that up.

Let's see. Did I put it on my note? I think I was seeing that he placed after the end of the third age.

Okay, I'm not sure, but he roughly placed it like 6000 to 7000 years before our time, but I don't know if that would just be the fourth age and we are the age of man. I kind of get that impression, right? Like unless there's something else that he recorded. I will have to review because I know we did an episode on the various ages.

Yeah. So I will definitely have to like revisit that because what makes sense to me and this is just real time influence coming in is that there are seven ages and so if there are seven ages, we have the third age, which is the story of Lord of the Rings. We have the fourth age, which is potentially the story of the age of men and then something happens, some apocalypse or light event at the end of each age and then so you'd have six, seven and then go back down to one, two. I don't know. That's just a wheel of time inspired version of it.

Yeah. Or maybe the world ends and you know, it just wraps up because I know you said that he did have a note of like, you know, Melkor has to come back. There's the final battle, the final, final battle and stuff like that. So that's that's the other one that I was kind of seeing online, especially after reading the Somerilian. It really just left me wondering like he has this hierarchy and this whole creation plan behind the earth.

What does that come into play at all? Yeah. So basically we talked about Morgoth. He's bound right now. He's bound in some kind of eternal darkness and there are kind of notes and writings where Tolkien talks about this Dagor Dagoron, which is like the battle of battles. This is Armageddon, right? The final battle. It's supposed it's Armageddon. It's Ragnarok like from Norse mythology.

It's like this ultimate on it with the name. So say it again. It's good. Dagor Dagoron. Love it. Two separate words. Yeah.

It's really good. Um, and so this is basically like the battle of all battles, right? So what he kind of wrote down or sketched out is Morgoth breaks through the door of night.

I think that's amazing returns from the void. Um, and basically the world of men is just shook, just trembles. And so what happens is things kind of open up that have been closed. So you have Fen-Golfin and Turin Turinbar and like heroes from the past who are basically the halls of Mando's their afterlife is opened.

Like these heroes from the dead basically come back to fight and defend. All right. That's very interesting. Um, I have a couple of things on that again, Wheel of Time. Um, so Wheel of Time also has a last battle Armageddon sort of thing where there's like a horn that can summon the dead heroes from the, from past ages. Yeah. And I did not realize that that was a Lord of the Rings influence.

Um, cause that's pretty clearly, I mean, now that I know of it, that's pretty clearly what he drew that off of. Also, I question putting Turin Turinbar on the list of heroes. I just never liked the guy. The tragic hero. I know, I know. I was, I had to mention that cause I was like, Oh my gosh, that's crazy. Maybe, but I don't know.

Did not love him. I know, I know, but that's really intriguing. Interesting. Um, but basically the thought process that he had behind this. So he, we have this idea of like this world is our world. We have this idea of maybe there's going to be some kind of final reckoning.

Yeah. But also he had this like, and we talked about this, he had this hesitancy to say yes, and this is how things are going to end and this is how the world works. So he even considered early stages, right? He hadn't decided. He can, he considered the dagger dog or off to almost be like this mystical prophecy rather than like this.

Yes. This is what's going to happen because he said he, he became less comfortable with the idea of elves and men returning from the dead. And he kind of preferred to let the world end in a mystery known only to Eluvatar, which very much gives me the same vibes of death that he talks about for men, right? Which is like, there is this ending something better about the mystery. Like whatever he came up with, somebody wouldn't like it.

But if he, you know, if it's a mystery, if we don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And I think he also, I think he does like to mirror things from reality, right? He obviously adds a lot of stuff, but he likes to mirror some of the feelings that you get, I think in reality, around death and life and all these things. And so the concept of men don't know what happens to them after they die.

And maybe we don't know what kind of God's intentions are for earth either. Um, yeah, I am trying to find this quote and I cannot find it. Hopefully somebody else will know what it is and I don't know. Somehow shoot me a message. There is an amazing quote. I think it's Mark Twain and it's it's from some book that he wrote where he wrote himself into a corner and just like, it's the end of the book. And it's just like, yeah, I don't know how this ends, but neither do you and neither do you know the end of your own life. And so that's it. Oh my gosh. At the end of the book. I think he breaks the fourth wall. That's crazy. Maybe it's not Mark Twain.

Maybe it's some other offer author. Um, but there is that aspect of like finishing the book. Wrapping things up is so hard. And which is why I feel like it's awesome that he was able to make the end of the Marines Lord of the Reans feel so satisfying. Um, it seems like in the unfinished tells, he's done a really good job of making everything feel really satisfactory there. But now at the end of the world, now we have to make a real Louveteau's plan satisfying on a higher level.

Each one of these is a higher level. So it's like, do we have a satisfying ending for the characters of order the Reans? Yeah. We have a satisfying ending for each of their civilizations. Yeah. Or like they're, they're various peoples. And then now we have to do it on like the world level and like the much broader like species level.

Like do we have a good ending for the elves in general and all that? And that feels that's financially harder to me. Um, so I kind of liked that. He just said, you know what?

That's a problem for somebody else. I'm about to die. How about I just leave the sun written? Well, and I think there's this really pretty quote and I'm trying to read.

I think this is not in the summer. Really. And it specifically said Christopher Tolkien admitted the prophecy of the dagger, dagger off from the similar one.

And because as Tolkien got older, he was more, he was more heads of 10 on it. Yeah. But it says a vision concerning the dagger, dagger off, right? A vision that elves hold of the end of Arda says whether it shall truly come to pass, none.

No, right? So you kind of have this idea of like, maybe there's this ending, right? Where this is all going to come to a reckoning, but also is that what a Lovatar has in mind? Who knows?

We don't know. So yeah, very interesting. I think we've mentioned this a couple of times throughout, but there is, you have to leave enough gaps when you're writing for people to fill in with their imagination. And this is a little bit too big of a gap to fill in with my imagination personally. But there's still the fact that not everything is so neatly wrapped up, made the universe feel large.

It makes it feel real. There's there's a delicate balance between them. And I think he did a good job on that. Yeah.

No, I think it's so interesting. We've talked about this before where like, I think I saw that clip of him saying that he wrote Lord of the Rings and kind of all this stuff to really grapple with the question of death. And I think now that we come to the end of the book, we come to the end of the story. And I mean, so really, and we come to the end of like, looking at learning about these characters about Middle Earth, it really does. We learn about elves and doors and how they're created and why they're created and men and how they're different. It really does, I think, make me think a lot about endings.

Yeah. And he had such a unique perspective on endings where we often want it to be known. We often want it to be happy. We want it to be a very particular way.

And I think he had a much softer, more open-ended version of it. And yeah, very intrigued, very intrigued by it. But yeah, did we miss anyone? That sounds like I'm just I'm just running through the list. I think that was one of the interests, right? I think that's kind of the core people.

Groups. Yeah. Let's see. What else?

I love that. You know, I will say, I do think it's interesting. I was thinking again about him saying like, this world is Middle Earth. It's just a later version of this and kind of like magic and spirituality. And that kind of like exiting and also thinking about the elves and so many things also exiting kind of around that time period. And it made me think about, I don't know, we've talked about the correlation between Christianity or certain religions. Elves almost as like this angelic kind of scary kind of spiritual, but beautiful figure. Like I've never thought of elves as almost like an angel comparison. Yeah.

But when you see Galadriel and you see Arwen or if you had put wings on them, nobody would bat an eye. Yeah. And so I just, I think it's intriguing this idea of like these beings being pulled from the earth or no longer with you, but there is this. And so some essence, some like vitality, some magic in the world has gone.

Yeah. And they do a good job portraying that like with Sam. There's some line where Sam says, you know, like something about seeing these elves because they see some elves leaving early on in the book one. I think something about it makes me feel sad. Mr. Frodo, you know, yeah.

Like something's leaving and not quite coming back. I know, I know. Anyways, Tolkien is so good and has great endings. Yeah. No, like overall, like the endings are really good.

And I think he did. It's made fun of a lot for having, you know, seven different endings to the return of the team. But I don't recall ever having an issue with that as I read it. And, you know, as we read through these scenes again, I'll be interested in looking at that because I think there was just a lot to wrap up. Um, and I don't mind it.

And I like how I don't know. I think people end so fast and such a satisfying way that sometimes it almost ruins the rest of the book. I mean, they're unsatisfying endings. Well, meaning that the endings are so satisfying that it just feels too simplistic for the level of world or plot that they were building.

And then they're like, and everything's good. Yeah. Two chapters. Everything is resolved way too fast. Yeah.

I'm with you on that. So I kind of like that he is like, no, there's multiple layers. Like there's war and then there's the fallout of war. Yeah, exactly.

Well, very did. Well, thanks for exploring that because that's yeah, or like researching all that that's helpful for me. I get to sit here and be like, yeah, but what about this? And then you have to struggle. I know. No, it's fun. It's fun. It's exciting. And I cannot wait.

I think we're going to start making episodes on the books and we can we can start discussing even more. Yeah, that's good. Okay. Till next time.

Bye. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.