Alan Sisto

Why doesn't he trust me?

Now I'm mad.

That's right.

You should at least believe how trustworthy I pretend to be.

going back to the beginning of his spying on the Shire, Tolkien explains it wasn't from any sort of evil purpose at that point.

It was just a folly born of pride, right?

I mean, once again, we come back and pride and jealousy are both so interrelated.

I mean, they're really almost two sides of the same coin because you could only be jealous of somebody else because you're so proud that you can't accept that somebody else has the, you know what I mean?

Like, I mean,

I think I've heard it described as sort of like pride is the root sin and jealousy is one of the fruit sins.

You know, like so many things come from that root of pride and jealousy is one of them.

Yeah.

This wasn't like Saruman.

Oh, I've found perhaps people that I could rule over, you know, and be the master of.

It's more like,

I'm only spying on the Shire because I want the leaf, but I don't want anybody to know about it.

It's a folly board of pride.

That's where we get to the heart of this week's episode, which is that connection to pipe weed.

That's exactly right.

And I love the way the narrator puts it here.