Casen is really on a roll here. So impassioned! You both are probing such great depths. Would that we all had a friendship as strong as the one you both share. Glad to be along for the ride.
I really like what you said about how these stories are about life and acceptance of death. I love how Sam a major hero is gardener. All the heroes in this story have a deep relationship with life and growth.
This series is so damn good. I know you don't cover entire series anymore, but man, having you guys cover the film trilogy (and indirectly the book trilogy through the excellent comparisons you've done thus far) would be such a treat.
In the kind of language Tolkien was using when writing Lord of the Rings "Fly, you fools!" is just him telling them to run away. There are a number of things like that that have been misinterpreted, like when Eowyn calls the Nazgul's mount "Fell Beast" that's not its name but a lot of people use it that way, it just means it's an evil creature.
@@MiBrCo4177 There's an early Middle English meaning which is terrible, cruel, or angry. It's the root of modern words like felon. Tolkien just wouldn't use fell if he meant fallen. He was a philologist, a professor of language, he didn't confuse cases like that.
Gandalf reminds me A LOT to Saint Ambrose. He strikes me with the same personality, and with the same balance between huge intellect, deep intuition and meekness... that's what it took to convert a beast such as Augustine, anyway. He also has two "you cannot pass" moments; once against a roman emperor denying him communion after committing a massacre, and another against the soldiers that wanted him to forfeit his church to the Aryans. He even tried to escape his position as bishop, but the people appointed him anyways. I wonder if Tolkien used him as inspiration, at least vaguely... Anyway, one of your best videos so far...loved Casen's Gollum insight, never occurred to me before!!
The ending of the book specifically will make you look at your children, with so much love. That you kind of start to think if Sam saw Frodo with that love, and if that is the feeling we are supposed to feel for one another, to help and carry each other when we are down.
12 years ago I lost a close friend in HS in an accident. Her family was very into LotR (her dad and I would debate meanings of atories from the Silmarilion). At her funeral I was a pall bearer and Into the West played as we walked out of the church. I used to rewatch those movies a few times per year, but since then I think just once. I need to be ready to reconnect with a lot of different thoughts and feelings due to the beauty of the music and the words.
20:00 many years ago I had a once in a lifetime trip to Oxford and in the Bodleian Library there was a small Tolkien exhibit. It included a “page” that Tolkien himself made from Balin’s Book of Records in the Chamber where the Fellowship is trapped. Tolkien wrote the wording in Dwarvish runes and even singed the edges of the page, and he aged it to make it look discolored and exposed to the elements. To see and compare that to the same book in the movies-so cool
Plato said that for a true philosopher life is nothing but a preparation for death. However Plato also believed in some kind of afterlife (probably return to the world of forms).
I need sometimes made a spider web of connections of yours examples in various videos. 2:27:00 mushrom speach was superb and I will find it in my mind what video that was, I think it was in Planescape Torment. I re-watch your whole channel constantly so in a month I will sumble upon this quote for sure ;)
Look up Mike Brown Lord of the Rings. That should garner results for his analysis of the novel! He hasn't continued the analysis, I imagine he's quite busy, but the three chapters he covers make for excellent listening.
If either of you are into Metal music, Blind Guardian has a great album: "Nightfall in Middle Earth" it covers the events etc surrounding the war of wrath from the simarillion. I think they do an amazing job of capturing the essence of Tolkien through music. Its also probably the best representation of true nerdy, fantasy driven Power Metal out there; there's so many incredible riffs that sound literally like they were written in antiquity/the middle ages but being played on modern stuff. Its a cannot-miss album if you're into that style of music and Tolkien.
Because of these episodes I finally sat down to rewatch the trilogy, for the first time, and first time watching the extended version. Took me a weekend but it went by so fast! I also remembered something I don't remember if it was mentioned here, the present Galadriel gives Gimli. Did anyone mentioned that famous reddit image explaining the significance of the present and Legolas smile? I remembered that image while watching and noticed the more when Legolas takes offense by how the Rohan riders talk to Gimli. I was watching videos about the mythology it's there are some crazy ideas. There where was an "age of darkness", or something like that. The Elf really arrived on that world before the creation of the Sun and Moon, crazy. I just didn't liked the Silmaril... I don't get what so many people were so crazy about some shiny rocks and the way the sons of Feanor went to war because of those things... "are Elfs really that dumb?" lol.
2:23:20 I like the quote from Richard Payne, goes something like this, “Dying is fundamentally a spiritual experience with some biological side effects.”
Your personal life doesn't need to be talked about if you don't want to but I'm very curious what you're personal journey was when you talked about 'being born again'
May I know why the Final Fantasy videos are all privated? I miss watching them, especially 'how sephiroth became a gaming icon' they hold a lot of sentimental value to me..
According to Tolkien Gateway, the Argonath was constructed around 1250 TA - some 1770 years before the Fellowship reached them - making it about 130 years younger then than Hadrian's Wall is now.
The only thing I don’t like about Borimir in the movie as opposed to the book is when he realizes he’s become ensnared by the ring and regrets his assault on Frodo, it’s hard to tell in the movies if he’s really genuine when he calls out for Frodo for genuine forgiveness, or if he’s just sorry he didn’t get his way. Then his sacrifice is a suprise. In the book, since we’re given a base of who he is, we believe him and feel bad for him when he calls out for Frodo’s forgiveness, and we pity what he’s fallen to.
I think the pity for Golum has to do with the mark of Cain. He killed his own brother and has to walk the earth in shame, but nobody can touch him because there's a power protecting him. I read Herman Jesse's novel Demien a few months ago and they talk about the mark of Cain. On a side note I'm surprised you guys didn't bring up this novel when discussing Emil in your nier retrospective. I can see a lot of parallels between Emil and Emil Sinclair.
I will second the call to read more, and read older. In the case of Lord of the Rings in particular, Tolkien was influenced by all kinds of myth and folklore that was hundreds of years old. Tolkien is seen by many as the father of modern fantasy (which is debatable, but is still a common sentiment), but when you go back and read Welsh, Celtic, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon folklore, you see that while these are new characters that didn't exist before, the world, the races, the objects, the situations, and even parts of the languages have already existed. Tolkien just wrapped them together into this neat package. This is not to denigrate him at all or say he was "ripping off" anything. This is just how artistic influence works. You call on what's come before and you iterate upon it. But you can only do that if you read what came before. I've been reading the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda recently, and it's actually fascinating how much Norse myth made it into Tolkien, from the rings and dragons to the runes and dwarfs, and even the names of the dwarfs (and Gandalf). It's really fascinating. I'd recommend any fan of Tolkien find a good translation in their language and take a look.
Are they gonna do “Two Towers” and “Return of the King”? Please don’t get me wrong, I love and cherish “Fellowship”, but I’ve always considered the LOTR trilogy to be one complete story and not necessarily sequels. They seem to always just talk about “Fellowship” and not the other two parts. With that said, great analysis as always.
English is fundamentally a Germanic language - it's just that something like 50-60% of our vocabulary comes from French/Latin. You can basically think of English like japanese in a lot of ways. When the Japanese get a new piece of culture or technology, they don't make a new name for it. The Japanese word for computer is... Computer. The Japanese word for credit card is... Credit card. English did the same thing, only a thousand years ago. We stopped making new English names for new culture and technology and just used the names of whoever introduced us to those things. No need to make a new word when one already exists. That's why English makes no sense. (There's also the whole class divide thing like how our names for animals all come from Germanic old English - cow, pig, chicken, fish, etc, but our names for the meat that comes from those animals - beef, poultry, venison, etc - all come from French. It's because for a long time, only the rich and therefore french speaking people could afford to eat meat on a regular basis)
It makes me sad that Mike and Kaysen can never cover FFXIV, cause especially with Endwalker, that game deals with the essentials of life itself, but it's also a 300 hour journey MMO to get to that point at minimum, lol.
49:43 Its Sam's fault Gollum has to die. On the stairs of Kirith Ungol Gollum is on the cusp of repentance but it's Sam, the poor rural bigot who needs someone to persecute so he doesn't have to accept the truth that he's the real lowest of Middle Earth, who rejects Gollum and pushes Gollum over the edge.
Ironically, it might have been his own oath. 'Sméagol will swear never, never to let Him have it. Never! Sméagol will save it.' There's a hefty dose of anglo-saxon and middle english storytelling in Lord of the Rings and in those cultures oaths (and boasts) were incredibly important. This one sworn by the power of the One Ring was cosmically so, because despite his treachery it came true.
SOmeone have donated thousand of dollars worth of equipement and youtubers are complaining about as poor ones with phones and mics for the quality... From normal work I could not afford those types of equipement the modern youtubers get using croud support. It is like with Aragorn, many of us who need those are never be able to get it :) I would also felt reborn if everyone in my country gave me one dollar... I would be set for several lifetimes. Now I need to sacrifice a lifetime in meaningles, hard, poor jobs just to be at the bottom of life :(
1:27:26 - War is necessary though. It's how cultures and peoples vie for dominance and how they test themselves to be worthy or unworthy to continue on. Might will always make right - as detestable as we think of that. Tabula Rasa (Blank slate) is a huge fallacy for liberal principles that ignores that a person has a culture that's part of a history that's part of a people that's part of a larger chain going back to the beginning of the human species. The DNA you carry determines what's possible socially and that should be heavily valued regarding outcomes it produces in society. There are heavy implications that make people uneasy about this idea, but when you accept it you start to get a clearer picture about how the world works. Philosophical principle vs power.
Could you explain how the DNA we carry determines what's possible socially? Your post sounds like a very bombastic way of saying you believe in race memory and/or genetic determinism, but I'd like to give you a fair shot.
Be careful not to fall into natturalistic fallacy, though. If humanity has a history of war and conflict, that does not mean that that fact is good, or correct. It does not infer that war is necessary, only that it has shaped us historically.
@@coconutgun8814 Fair shot? Oh no. Facets of determinism are accepted at this point. You don't end up with certain characteristics unless they've been present in at least the last 4 generations of your family and probably longer. Race memory? Maybe. The most important characteristics of your 'race' is not skin color, but brain, heart, blood, and arterial development. This determines longevity, resilience to stress, drug and environmental resistance, IQ (heritability between 50-83+%), which affects brain region development, which determines spatial and abstract reasoning - essentially the ideas you can entertain, and therefore the societies and cultures in which you can create, maintain or participate. Once you have a significant number of people in the upper strata of 120+ IQ (higher competence), the state of a society becomes much different than otherwise.
@@ChristopherRoss. I don't think it's a fallacy to understand that force is necessary in all walks of life. You still need to manipulate things with your hands, you still need to apply force or pressure to create things. This goes doubly so for any society that polices itself to maintain law and order. It's a universal constant at this point and it will probably continue until the end of our species.
@@NicolasDeWolfe Thanks for the pile of unsubstantiated or hilariously outdated claims! You should write a book about how race science has definitely not been categorically disproved! 🤭
Casen is really on a roll here. So impassioned! You both are probing such great depths. Would that we all had a friendship as strong as the one you both share. Glad to be along for the ride.
the moment at 37:04 is so genuine. God bless nerds.
These podcast are such a treat.
I really like what you said about how these stories are about life and acceptance of death. I love how Sam a major hero is gardener. All the heroes in this story have a deep relationship with life and growth.
So much faster turnaround than last time, I very much appreciate it!
I JUST finished watching the previous episode, then this drops. I'm super excited! Time to nerd out.
Damn this episode is like straight up therapy
This series is so damn good. I know you don't cover entire series anymore, but man, having you guys cover the film trilogy (and indirectly the book trilogy through the excellent comparisons you've done thus far) would be such a treat.
one of the best podcasts you can put on the second monitor
Credit to Fran Walsh and Philipa Boyens as well. A lot of good stuff made it into the script cause of them too
In the kind of language Tolkien was using when writing Lord of the Rings "Fly, you fools!" is just him telling them to run away. There are a number of things like that that have been misinterpreted, like when Eowyn calls the Nazgul's mount "Fell Beast" that's not its name but a lot of people use it that way, it just means it's an evil creature.
"Fell Beast" is interpreted as a creature fallen from grace. At least to me anyway. It's always been that way in my head.
@@MiBrCo4177 There's an early Middle English meaning which is terrible, cruel, or angry. It's the root of modern words like felon.
Tolkien just wouldn't use fell if he meant fallen. He was a philologist, a professor of language, he didn't confuse cases like that.
@@AshenVictor gotcha, thanks the for reply. Learned a lil something today lol.
Tolkien used the term “fell beasts” when Frodo was surveilling Middle Earth from Amon Hen and seeing battles occurring in the Beornlands.
Yall convinced me to buy the Children of Húrin so cheers 😅
Gandalf reminds me A LOT to Saint Ambrose. He strikes me with the same personality, and with the same balance between huge intellect, deep intuition and meekness... that's what it took to convert a beast such as Augustine, anyway.
He also has two "you cannot pass" moments; once against a roman emperor denying him communion after committing a massacre, and another against the soldiers that wanted him to forfeit his church to the Aryans.
He even tried to escape his position as bishop, but the people appointed him anyways.
I wonder if Tolkien used him as inspiration, at least vaguely... Anyway, one of your best videos so far...loved Casen's Gollum insight, never occurred to me before!!
New viewer. First episode I caught was first LotR one. Keep up the good work. Love these.
I just love this series......your insight on the movies / books are amazing.
This is such a great series. I had to dip out during Xenosaga since I intend to play it eventually. Thanks guys.
The ending of the book specifically will make you look at your children, with so much love. That you kind of start to think if Sam saw Frodo with that love, and if that is the feeling we are supposed to feel for one another, to help and carry each other when we are down.
I am actually reading 'The Silmarillion' right now, thanks yo you, guys.
12 years ago I lost a close friend in HS in an accident. Her family was very into LotR (her dad and I would debate meanings of atories from the Silmarilion). At her funeral I was a pall bearer and Into the West played as we walked out of the church.
I used to rewatch those movies a few times per year, but since then I think just once. I need to be ready to reconnect with a lot of different thoughts and feelings due to the beauty of the music and the words.
20:00 many years ago I had a once in a lifetime trip to Oxford and in the Bodleian Library there was a small Tolkien exhibit. It included a “page” that Tolkien himself made from Balin’s Book of Records in the Chamber where the Fellowship is trapped. Tolkien wrote the wording in Dwarvish runes and even singed the edges of the page, and he aged it to make it look discolored and exposed to the elements. To see and compare that to the same book in the movies-so cool
Thank you for these videos.
Plato said that for a true philosopher life is nothing but a preparation for death. However Plato also believed in some kind of afterlife (probably return to the world of forms).
I need sometimes made a spider web of connections of yours examples in various videos. 2:27:00 mushrom speach was superb and I will find it in my mind what video that was, I think it was in Planescape Torment. I re-watch your whole channel constantly so in a month I will sumble upon this quote for sure ;)
Loving this series! Now you need to do HP to complete the HP FF LOTR combo that we grew up with
Aw yissss gimme some of that Demiurge on my western literature.
'It's time to wrap this video up'
Looks at time on video: over hour left.
At about 1:37:57 Mike mentions his own channel. How can I find that channel?
Look up Mike Brown Lord of the Rings. That should garner results for his analysis of the novel! He hasn't continued the analysis, I imagine he's quite busy, but the three chapters he covers make for excellent listening.
If either of you are into Metal music, Blind Guardian has a great album: "Nightfall in Middle Earth" it covers the events etc surrounding the war of wrath from the simarillion. I think they do an amazing job of capturing the essence of Tolkien through music. Its also probably the best representation of true nerdy, fantasy driven Power Metal out there; there's so many incredible riffs that sound literally like they were written in antiquity/the middle ages but being played on modern stuff. Its a cannot-miss album if you're into that style of music and Tolkien.
as a non native english speaker, fly literally meant fly for us. we learnt its actual meaning years after watching the fellowship
Because of these episodes I finally sat down to rewatch the trilogy, for the first time, and first time watching the extended version. Took me a weekend but it went by so fast!
I also remembered something I don't remember if it was mentioned here, the present Galadriel gives Gimli. Did anyone mentioned that famous reddit image explaining the significance of the present and Legolas smile? I remembered that image while watching and noticed the more when Legolas takes offense by how the Rohan riders talk to Gimli.
I was watching videos about the mythology it's there are some crazy ideas.
There where was an "age of darkness", or something like that. The Elf really arrived on that world before the creation of the Sun and Moon, crazy.
I just didn't liked the Silmaril... I don't get what so many people were so crazy about some shiny rocks and the way the sons of Feanor went to war because of those things... "are Elfs really that dumb?" lol.
I still think Michael Caine should have played Gandalf just for the balrog scene. "You're a big man, but you're out of shape."
2:23:20 I like the quote from Richard Payne, goes something like this, “Dying is fundamentally a spiritual experience with some biological side effects.”
Your personal life doesn't need to be talked about if you don't want to but I'm very curious what you're personal journey was when you talked about 'being born again'
May I know why the Final Fantasy videos are all privated? I miss watching them, especially 'how sephiroth became a gaming icon' they hold a lot of sentimental value to me..
According to Tolkien Gateway, the Argonath was constructed around 1250 TA - some 1770 years before the Fellowship reached them - making it about 130 years younger then than Hadrian's Wall is now.
I cannot unsee that Casen doesn't have shoes on.
The only thing I don’t like about Borimir in the movie as opposed to the book is when he realizes he’s become ensnared by the ring and regrets his assault on Frodo, it’s hard to tell in the movies if he’s really genuine when he calls out for Frodo for genuine forgiveness, or if he’s just sorry he didn’t get his way. Then his sacrifice is a suprise.
In the book, since we’re given a base of who he is, we believe him and feel bad for him when he calls out for Frodo’s forgiveness, and we pity what he’s fallen to.
I think the pity for Golum has to do with the mark of Cain. He killed his own brother and has to walk the earth in shame, but nobody can touch him because there's a power protecting him. I read Herman Jesse's novel Demien a few months ago and they talk about the mark of Cain. On a side note I'm surprised you guys didn't bring up this novel when discussing Emil in your nier retrospective. I can see a lot of parallels between Emil and Emil Sinclair.
I will second the call to read more, and read older. In the case of Lord of the Rings in particular, Tolkien was influenced by all kinds of myth and folklore that was hundreds of years old. Tolkien is seen by many as the father of modern fantasy (which is debatable, but is still a common sentiment), but when you go back and read Welsh, Celtic, Norse, and Anglo-Saxon folklore, you see that while these are new characters that didn't exist before, the world, the races, the objects, the situations, and even parts of the languages have already existed. Tolkien just wrapped them together into this neat package.
This is not to denigrate him at all or say he was "ripping off" anything. This is just how artistic influence works. You call on what's come before and you iterate upon it. But you can only do that if you read what came before.
I've been reading the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda recently, and it's actually fascinating how much Norse myth made it into Tolkien, from the rings and dragons to the runes and dwarfs, and even the names of the dwarfs (and Gandalf). It's really fascinating. I'd recommend any fan of Tolkien find a good translation in their language and take a look.
Casen, why, even in the summer, do you wear a long sleeved Henley under a long sleeved button up, in summer, hopefully not in flannel?
Are they gonna do “Two Towers” and “Return of the King”? Please don’t get me wrong, I love and cherish “Fellowship”, but I’ve always considered the LOTR trilogy to be one complete story and not necessarily sequels. They seem to always just talk about “Fellowship” and not the other two parts. With that said, great analysis as always.
you guys are beasts
To see your enemy, and to see *yourself* in him. FF14 Arc when?
Still water is also stagnant 1:45:24
Babe wake up, new resonant arc jus dropped 😎
English is fundamentally a Germanic language - it's just that something like 50-60% of our vocabulary comes from French/Latin. You can basically think of English like japanese in a lot of ways. When the Japanese get a new piece of culture or technology, they don't make a new name for it. The Japanese word for computer is... Computer. The Japanese word for credit card is... Credit card. English did the same thing, only a thousand years ago. We stopped making new English names for new culture and technology and just used the names of whoever introduced us to those things. No need to make a new word when one already exists. That's why English makes no sense.
(There's also the whole class divide thing like how our names for animals all come from Germanic old English - cow, pig, chicken, fish, etc, but our names for the meat that comes from those animals - beef, poultry, venison, etc - all come from French. It's because for a long time, only the rich and therefore french speaking people could afford to eat meat on a regular basis)
It makes me sad that Mike and Kaysen can never cover FFXIV, cause especially with Endwalker, that game deals with the essentials of life itself, but it's also a 300 hour journey MMO to get to that point at minimum, lol.
💖
❤🙏🏼
49:43 Its Sam's fault Gollum has to die. On the stairs of Kirith Ungol Gollum is on the cusp of repentance but it's Sam, the poor rural bigot who needs someone to persecute so he doesn't have to accept the truth that he's the real lowest of Middle Earth, who rejects Gollum and pushes Gollum over the edge.
Ironically, it might have been his own oath.
'Sméagol will swear never, never to let Him have it. Never! Sméagol will save it.'
There's a hefty dose of anglo-saxon and middle english storytelling in Lord of the Rings and in those cultures oaths (and boasts) were incredibly important. This one sworn by the power of the One Ring was cosmically so, because despite his treachery it came true.
SOmeone have donated thousand of dollars worth of equipement and youtubers are complaining about as poor ones with phones and mics for the quality... From normal work I could not afford those types of equipement the modern youtubers get using croud support. It is like with Aragorn, many of us who need those are never be able to get it :) I would also felt reborn if everyone in my country gave me one dollar... I would be set for several lifetimes. Now I need to sacrifice a lifetime in meaningles, hard, poor jobs just to be at the bottom of life :(
The only "reluctant king" we could've had in our lifetimes was Bernie Sanders.
1:27:26 - War is necessary though. It's how cultures and peoples vie for dominance and how they test themselves to be worthy or unworthy to continue on. Might will always make right - as detestable as we think of that. Tabula Rasa (Blank slate) is a huge fallacy for liberal principles that ignores that a person has a culture that's part of a history that's part of a people that's part of a larger chain going back to the beginning of the human species. The DNA you carry determines what's possible socially and that should be heavily valued regarding outcomes it produces in society. There are heavy implications that make people uneasy about this idea, but when you accept it you start to get a clearer picture about how the world works. Philosophical principle vs power.
Could you explain how the DNA we carry determines what's possible socially? Your post sounds like a very bombastic way of saying you believe in race memory and/or genetic determinism, but I'd like to give you a fair shot.
Be careful not to fall into natturalistic fallacy, though. If humanity has a history of war and conflict, that does not mean that that fact is good, or correct. It does not infer that war is necessary, only that it has shaped us historically.
@@coconutgun8814 Fair shot? Oh no. Facets of determinism are accepted at this point. You don't end up with certain characteristics unless they've been present in at least the last 4 generations of your family and probably longer. Race memory? Maybe. The most important characteristics of your 'race' is not skin color, but brain, heart, blood, and arterial development. This determines longevity, resilience to stress, drug and environmental resistance, IQ (heritability between 50-83+%), which affects brain region development, which determines spatial and abstract reasoning - essentially the ideas you can entertain, and therefore the societies and cultures in which you can create, maintain or participate. Once you have a significant number of people in the upper strata of 120+ IQ (higher competence), the state of a society becomes much different than otherwise.
@@ChristopherRoss. I don't think it's a fallacy to understand that force is necessary in all walks of life. You still need to manipulate things with your hands, you still need to apply force or pressure to create things. This goes doubly so for any society that polices itself to maintain law and order. It's a universal constant at this point and it will probably continue until the end of our species.
@@NicolasDeWolfe Thanks for the pile of unsubstantiated or hilariously outdated claims! You should write a book about how race science has definitely not been categorically disproved! 🤭
1:27:26 Thank you.