Alan Sisto

I mean, Saruman doesn't want anything to do with Gandalf.

Gandalf's like, the less of Saruman I see, the better.

But speaking of council meetings, the text takes us back in time to the meeting in Third Age 2851.

I want to put this on the timeline for you because I think it's important.

We've talked before about how there's no connection between the Shire and the Ring yet.

There clearly isn't.

This is 90 years before Bilbo even finds the Ring.

It's 150 years before Bilbo leaves the Shire.

It's 167 years before the events of the War of the Ring.

The only thing on the agenda.

And yeah, he's gone from like wanting to study the rings to wanting to possess the one ring.

And he's already turned when he realized how far in the past this is.

90 years before The Hobbit.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

And probably a few generations if you're trying to breed.

So we're brought into the council meeting itself for the rest of the passage, actually really the rest of the chapter, as they met in Rivendell for this one.

Gandalf, not able to find the smoking section of the club, sat apart out on the patio.

It is, it is.

Probably sitting upwind, or I'm sorry, downwind, so that the smoke doesn't get blown back in.