Chapter 1: What themes of comfort and storytelling are introduced?
Do you ever wish you could step away from the noise of the world for a From the inn on the lake to the downtown bookshop, from the farmer's market to a cabin in the woods, you'll hear warm, family-friendly stories designed to help you slow down, breathe easier, and feel at home. It's sort of like easy listening, but for fiction.
It's a bit like a grown-up version of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, gentle, thoughtful, and full of everyday magic. It's from the creator of the internationally beloved podcast, Nothing Much Happens, and the series expands the village into a rich, ongoing world. It isn't about falling asleep. It's about comfort, calm, and the joy of a good story. If you're new, try episode 84.
It's called All Animal Edition, and it is a delightful introduction to the village's quiet pace and fun whimsy. You can listen to stories from the village of Nothing Much wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, folks. Let me see if I can sum up Midnight Burger in about 25 seconds.
Really, big monster? Zero irony. Pardon me, Gloria. Might my husband and I have a word?
The radio is talking to me. So this is how it ends. Eaten by wolves in space. There's a pocket dimension in the deep freeze. This is the stupidest dystopia we've ever been to. What the hell is that? Because you're having a cigarette in 415 million BC. Where are we? Space. Can you narrow that down? The bad part? Ava. Yeah, that didn't work at all. At the Nexus of all things, there is a diner.
Look for Midnight Burger on your favorite podcasting app or just go to weopenat6.com.
Good evening, Little Masters, and welcome to episode 412 of the Prancing Pony podcast, where Matt is ever ready to gainsay me or to make little of my counsels.
Have you ever thought that just maybe you're no Gandalf? I know Gandalf, and you're no Gandalf. Folks, pull up a bench in the common room and join us. I'm Matt, the Nerd of the Rings, and I'm here with the man of the West who has no time for the simples of peasants, Alan Sisto. Don't insult our listeners like that, Matt. Wow. I wasn't calling them peasants. I was just saying in general. I see.
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Chapter 2: How does Saruman's jealousy of Gandalf manifest?
That's the proverbial deal with the devil. Yeah, it really is. They got what they wanted, but boy, the... Yeah, at what price? And that price is steep. As movie Aragorn says, they are the Nazgul, ringwraiths, neither living nor dead. And he's right, they are somewhere in between. They are not living, really, and they're not dead. They are unseen.
They don't have what we think of as corporeal physical existence, their bodies having faded long ago. Their spirits, their feyar, right, still carrying on, totally enslaved to the One Ring. So like both Gollum and Bilbo, how they were stretched... The Nazgul were stretched even further. They were like the tiniest sliver of butter spread over a million pieces of toast.
There's just no butter there anymore. They're far beyond the limits of their physical bodies.
Yeah. And it is a great illustration of what would happen if, you know, Gollum or Bilbo were to have the ring for much, much longer than they even did.
Exactly. I mean, I think even Gollum, had he had to use it more than he did. Yes. Had he worn it all the time, that would have been even more problematic. But he was living under the mountain. He didn't have to wear it very often. He was pretty much in hiding anyway. And then it's the same thing with Bilbo. Bilbo only used it a few times. It would have been better if he hadn't used it at all.
So for this next part, I want to go back to the timeline for a bit. So the rings that Sauron got after he took over Eregion, they were distributed sometime after that capture in Second Age 1697, but obviously sometime before the first Ringwraith's appearance, which was about 550 years later in Second Age 2251. Yeah. In those intervening years, a lot has happened, right?
The shadow has begun to fall on the men of Numenor as they're growing jealous of the serial longevity of the elves, even with or possibly because of the longer lifespans that they had.
And as we've talked about this season, both with Sara in our talks on Aldarion and Erendis, and then also with James in the story of Tal Elmar, the Numenoreans have also greatly expanded their power in the west of Middle-earth in this timeframe. So about a thousand years after they first appear, so now in 3262 Second Age, that's when Sauron is taken prisoner.
And you should hear the air quotes there because he very much used that as an excuse. He just wanted to get over there.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the Shire in Saruman's plans?
So yeah, let's talk about that. First, as we've seen in this chapter, if they're not wearing their robes or armor, their physical form is invisible. They clearly have a physical form or they wouldn't be able to wear clothing and
Right. Yeah, where does it go? It just collapses on the floor in a heap.
Exactly, yeah. So they clearly have some kind of physical form, and we see when Gandalf confronts the Witch King, we get this line, "...the black rider flung back his hood, and behold, he had a kingly crown, and yet upon no head visible was it set." The red fires shone between it and the mantled shoulders vast and dark. From a mouth unseen, there came a deadly laughter.
And we know what that laughter sounds like thanks to the Rankin and Bass Return of the King. That's right.
So all this to say they have bodies, but they are permanently invisible bodies, bodies that have completely faded from the scene world.
Next, their bodies are apparently invulnerable to ordinary weapons, as we see, right? They can only be harmed by something made to purpose. After Merry tries to recover the blade that he used to stab the Witch King on the Palinor, he finds it was smoking like a dry branch that has been thrust in a fire. And as he watched it, it writhed and withered and was consumed.
Well, the narrator goes on to explain why this happened, and it's absolutely essential to understanding why Eowyn was then able to kill the Witch-King with a normal sword after Merry stabbed him in the leg with that very special weapon. So passed the sword of the Barrow-Downs, work of Westerness.
But glad would he have been to know its fate, who wrought it slowly long ago in the North Kingdom when the Dúnedain were young, and chief among their foes was the dread realm of Angmar and its sorcerer-king. No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.
Mary Strike, with this sword of Westerness, the one they got from the barrows, the one that Peter Jackson forgot to tell us how he got it, broke a spell that essentially held the Witch King's body together and held it to his own power, his own will. That's what enabled him to then be killed by Eowyn Stroke, which fulfilled the prophecy of Gorphindel either way, right?
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Chapter 4: How does Gandalf's perspective differ from Saruman's?
Hey, what's up, King? What's going on? Oh, I'm supposed to be over there. Okay. I mean, it's like this combination of total slapstick comedy combined with pure psychological terror. Horror. Yeah. It's like a combination of the Keystone Cops and Psycho.
It's just like, what in the world? What do you think their reaction would be to finding out that humans are like 70% water? you know? Uh, yeah.
I mean, I think, I mean, they're not anymore, but they're, yeah, they're not much of anything.
That's kind of, that's good. Blow their minds. Yeah.
I think luckily they, they aren't said to eat us. So I think they just, yeah, no, that's true. Slay us or they take us to the halls of lamentation where we will suffer, you know, an eternity of torture.
You love that moment to the halls of lamentation. You away to the halls. I love that one.
Oh man, it's such a, it's such almost like a biblical description of hell. It is. Yeah. And it's just this sort of eternal terror. Everybody's got like gnashing of teeth kind of thing.
Yeah. Gnashing of teeth. It's, it's, yeah. And like as long and slow as our, our. Oh, as our arts of torture. Arts of torture can contrive or something like that. Like, oh man. It is awful stuff. Yeah. It's like, no, thanks. Thank you for the offer. But no, I would not like to go to your hall of lamentation.
I think I'm going to RSVP no. Yes. All right.
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Chapter 5: What does Gandalf think about Saruman's actions?
You know that if it had been the other way around, Saruman would have absolutely been spreading rumors and then finally coming out with some sort of ironclad evidence against Gandalf to mock him.
He would have waited to bring it up at a white council meeting or something to maximum embarrassment. Yeah. And Gandalf's like, I don't want anybody to go through that.
Yeah. I really like this. I think it's a very, this is one of those sort of, there's a lot of things that we can take from Tolkien, but I like this moment as sort of a this might be a good way for you to live your life. Like don't make such a big deal out of, out of people's stuff. Yeah. Yeah. As long as it's harmless.
Yeah. Still, whether smoking is a harmless secret or not, Gandalf's happy to see Saruman stop his visits to the Shire because at this point, you know, he's already got doubts about, about Saruman.
That's the thing.
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Chapter 6: Why does Gandalf choose to smoke during the council meeting?
Like he knows, or at least believes that Saruman's not a good guy anymore, but this isn't the reason why. So he's not going to make a big deal out of this. He's not going to say anything.
But at that point, of course, even Gandalf could not have imagined what we talked about last section, that his interest in the Shire would become an existential threat to the Shire, you know, and almost give victory to Sauron. I mean, if Frodo had not left when he did, if he left the next morning, it's all over. The Lord of the Rings ends in the first chapter. Right.
We have a story about Bilbo's party and that's the end of it. And it's just Bilbo's birthday party and then the destruction of the Shire. And then carnage. Yeah, that doesn't... That doesn't make for a good movie.
No, it'd be an interesting short story, but yeah, not the iconic piece of literature that gets voted best of the century and all that stuff.
We could rewrite The Lord of the Rings as a choose-your-own-adventure with like... Endings all the time. The ending of Frodo just chooses... Frodo has a cold and chooses to leave the next morning.
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Chapter 7: How does Saruman perceive Gandalf's gestures?
The Shire is destroyed. You know, or somebody says to Gandalf, why don't you take the Eagles? Oh, it's a good idea. Stories end.
No, I'm not letting you take that easy route. Don't fool these good people into thinking the Eagles are a viable option.
I know. Don't even dare. Turn to page 137 and then the story, you know, end of the story. Oh, man. But it wouldn't have worked. No, it wouldn't have worked.
It wouldn't have worked. That's a big, we won't get off on that tangent today.
The Eagle taxi, not a thing.
It would not work thing. And like Sauron's Sauron's watching. Oh yeah. And he has, he has winged creatures as well.
Yes, he does.
Yes.
Okay. I mean, it's only nine. He's only got nine pilots, but you know.
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Chapter 8: What is the significance of the timeline discussed?
Probably. He almost certainly did. Instead, we start this new text with a reminder of Saruman's fear and hatred of Gandalf. Which means they don't just like, I don't know, get together and let's just say record podcast episodes.
That's right.
They don't meet very often. Basically, they only get together when the White Council gets together. Because who's going to hang out with them, right? 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.
Yeah, and the text tells us that Pipeweed was first mentioned at this particular council meeting, but that wasn't the only thing on the agenda, believe it or not. That would have been an interesting council meeting.
The only thing on the agenda.
Why is this not an email? Exactly. The tale of years tells us that the white council meets Gandalf urges an attack on Dol Guldur. Saruman overrules him. Saruman begins to search near the Gladden fields.
And as the footnote to that entry tells us, Saruman overruled Gandalf because he had then begun to desire to possess the One Ring himself, and he hoped that it might reveal itself seeking its master if Sauron were let be for a time. That's dangerous.
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.
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