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The War of the Rohirrim: New LotR Film · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
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  creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name is Julia Golding. I'm
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  an author, but I also run the activities of our Centre. And joining me today is like a
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  friend Jacob Renica, who is sitting over in Seattle. And Jacob is an expert on Tolkien,
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  but also works within the games industry and obviously knows about fantasy from the
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  putting it on a board and getting you to play with it side of things as well. Is that fair
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  to say, Jacob? Yeah, completely fair. Good. Alright, so there's a new game in town or
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  a new film in town, which some of you might already have heard about, but you're now here
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  a lot more, which is at the end of the year, there is going to be a new Lord of the Rings
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  film. No, this isn't the hunt for Gollum. That's some way off. This is an anime version
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  of the War of the Rohirrim. Now, some of you may be scratching your heads thinking, where
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  is the War of the Rohirrim in Lord of the Rings? So I'm going to pass that one over to you,
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  Jacob. If people want to know the source material for this film, where should they look?
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  So you have to, it's in the books that you have Lord of the Rings, actually. So you
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  already, you probably already have it, but you have to flip all the way to the end of
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  the Return of the King in Appendix A. And then once you get to Appendix A, you have to
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  keep flipping until you get to the House of A or all. So yeah, keep going, keep going,
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  keep going, very, very in. And so yeah, so it's in Appendix, Appendix A at the end of
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  Return of the King. And it's going through the different kingdoms.
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  And it's called the House of A or not the War of the Rohirrim, because the War of the
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  Rohirrim is the chosen title for this film. So that is not a novel. What you have there
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  is, I think three pages, more or less, plus there is one of these Tolkienian timelines
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  where it goes through the dates for the Rohirrim, which actually has a lot of little details
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  within it, which aren't in the prose three pager. So do read on past the prose three
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  pages. Would you like to just sketch out what the House of A L is in terms of that three
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  pages? It's a summary, isn't it? Yeah, it's just, it's a summary, because it's trying
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  to, this is something that to tease a future podcast on Tolkien's letters, something
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  that's interesting, understanding Tolkien's purposes and the publisher's purposes for putting
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  in this material, because there's so much, as you know, reading through Lord of the Rings,
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  there's so much history that is implied that the characters speak about places that they
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  visit, right, artifacts, buildings, areas, place names. And so there was a desire to put
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  more of that out without including the entire Silmarillion into, yeah, with the entire
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  to publish it with Lord of the Rings, which is what Tolkien preferred. And so the compromise
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  was adding some appendices that could put relevant portions of the history. And this was so
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  difficult for Tolkien to say like, what is most important from this entire span of history
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  that I've created for this entire world? And so the appendix there, so this is kind of highlighting
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  significant elements from the larger legendaryium that he felt shed a particularly relevant light
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  on the happenings of Lord of the Rings particularly. So we have elements in there like the House of
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  Gondor going through the history there. And so this is kind of coming after that broader history.
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  And also, you know, you have your history, the new menorah courses coming in to play there and
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  weaving in and out of that. So that's where this is. And so summarizing so it's coming after
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  it's not the first element from the appendices. There's a appendix A. There's a number of other
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  you know, kingdoms and peoples that it's kind of following trajectories and kind of snippets from
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  larger background material. But this one, yeah, so this is going specifically from House of Aero
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  and how the roharem kind of become established where they're living, how they even came into
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  yeah, came into a people of peoplehood to be called a roharem and then kind of the waxing and
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  waning of their kingdom. Different forces that came in tried to write so how even when they came
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  in themselves, who was pushed out, right? So we have people that existed and were living in that land.
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  The Dunlendings. Yes, the Dunlendings, right? So these are and they're Dunlendings and this
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  is interesting, I think for the purpose of this conversation this and the film is the primary antagonists
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  for this particular section that they're going to be it's with a sliver of something that is
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  happening within the entire scope of the kingdom of roharem. This is one particular several year
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  stretch of time within that where the primary antagonists are the Dunlendings and so these are
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  people who were descendants of humans who did not leave for Newman or at the beginning of the
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  second age. So there's people kind of stayed stayed behind and they were settled in this area and
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  then are eventually pushed out thanks to Newman orians kind of coming in, displacing them,
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  Rohan becoming settled in the in the area and so these are people who are actually
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  you could say indigenous to that area or the first I won't say that so indigenous if anyone
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  there's nothing that's completely indigenous but they're people who are right so we're kind of like
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  who have had a long standing relationship with the area who have been living in an area who then
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  kind of get displaced by Rohan and then are kind of trying to work their way back into the lands
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  that they feel they connect this to the films. I'm not sure I think it's only in the extended
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  version but if you have seen the extended version there is a scene in I think in the two towers
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  where Saruman is walking amongst a lot of hairy guys with sort of torches and he says
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  the horse lords have stolen your lands and it's your time to take it back and then you see them
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  sort of invading and along with not just the Saruman's orcs who are attacking these people are also
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  involved. So there is a potential here for a narrative about waves of colonisation and colonialism
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  well maybe it is colonialism but as a UK person raised on history about how Britain happened
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  is very familiar so we have in our sort of first century after Christ we have waves of people coming
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  in over the North Sea and the Channel who then settle different parts of particularly England
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  and then push other people further and further over so you've wets where the angles and the
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  Saxons come from. So this idea I think that's probably what Tolkien is thinking because that's
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  the kind of school education he would have had as well that the creation of kingdoms is these waves
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  of people travelling in and taking over other lands sometimes into marrying sometimes warfare
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  it's a very mixed picture so it's a very it feels very familiar to me this story and the trajectory
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  here is rather in the UK you think of it as people coming in from a sort of south east and eastern
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  direction Rohan they're coming in from the north east so they're dropping down through so if you
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  think of your map of middle earth and you think of the spine of the misty mountains the people of
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  Rohan are coming in at the top of the map and dropping down on the eastern side of those mountains
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  and and then forming a friendship with the people of Gondor who are like the you know they're like
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  the Anglo-Saxon kings they're the chief guys of the region and they form an alliance because they
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  come to help them in the battle of Kellebrant so that's the sort of history background and Rohan
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  just to connect it in case you're still scratching your head and thinking who are these guys they are
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  the horse culture who in the films you've got the wonderful Bernard Hill who died recently his
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  King Ferdin and his nephew Emma who's the next king and Erwin Ferdin's niece is the one who kills
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  the witch king it's that group of people but this film isn't about that war it's going to be set
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  I kind of like halfway up the history line because if you look at the connection of the kings you've
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  got El as you've heard coming in and settling and then Tolkien says in his source material and the
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  king about whom other stories are told is Helm now we've heard about Helm before haven't we where
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  have somebody who's watched the film heard about Helm yeah there's a particular location the name
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  should yeah the sound of the name should sound familiar that's Helm's deep where we have in
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  the in the two towers the film you would have seen a great deal of action happening there so this
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  is this place is named after this Helm hammerhand it says full full name I don't think people
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  mess it called him Mr Hammerhand but yeah that's what he's referred to here yeah King Hammerhand
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  yeah King Helm yeah it's interesting I'm not sure yes what he must have been so in terms of his not
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  an immediate generation it would be like say we're taking the current royal family in the UK it would
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  be like talking about an ancestor of theirs back in Tudor times you know there's quite a lot of
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  generations and quite a lot of years passed but he is regarded as being the great hero after the
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  founding King El and that's where you get Shadowfax and the Miras and all that legend of the horses
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  but they're more like mythic whereas Helm is more historical if you can sort of feel the
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  difference between those two okay so that's you know these three pages do produce a lot of
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  material so let's before we look at what they might be doing let's talk about why it's being made
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  and who is making it so the answer to why it's being made there is one cynical answer which is
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  new line of all of brothers need to keep hold of the rights and part of that is to carry on making
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  Lord of the Rings films they're not yet ready to start again and do another Lord of the Rings films
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  in the same way Sony keeps on making Spider-Man films to keep the the rights they are mining the
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  appendices to Lord of the Rings for this source material and I presume the choice of doing an animated
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  film means that they felt it was going to cost less and they could keep their rights ticking along
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  so that's the practical commercial side of it because I'm not sure there was a huge demand out
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  there you know making for a home hammer hand by okay yeah yeah but on the other hand it does have
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  a relationship with the team who made Lord of the Rings because Philippa Boyans who was the one of
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  the three screenwriters on that one along with Peter Jackson and Fran Wash is sort of part of the
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  team on this one and she is teamed up with a younger generation of writers let's get their names
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  correct and that is let me just check yes her daughter I believe if he be getting so if I got
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  that right and her daughter's partner Arty Papagiorgio so that is a quite an interesting choice
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  in and of itself is that they're thinking of involving within the family literally but a new
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  generation of writers and and the the filmmaker on the sort of actual producing the anime style is
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  Kenji Kamiyama and I was looking at his filmography and I think he was last most sort of famously
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  associated with a spin off of the Blade Runner universe called Black Lotus which I'm afraid I don't
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  know much about so I'm I'm not a great consumer summa of anime I don't know if this has come
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  across your your desk at all or your screen thank you no no I'm not I'm not I'm not as well
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  versed there as I will as I will be before December comes yeah so I'm not sure how important the anime
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  part of this is because there could be I mean people could be out there saying there's like I was
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  whole history of anime films which I need to be educated about but we've seen other animations
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  attempts to animate Lord of the Rings of course but I think noticing the style of anime and looking
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  at the sort of treatment of war you're getting something which is quite well it's not exactly
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  comic book it is it's closer to reality the the way it's they're using underlying performances
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  voice actors and and faces to sort of inform their characters so it's not like their completely surreal
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  fantasy figures like in the original Lord of the Rings the Bakshi version cartoon right I think
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  it's got a more of a close close association with a sense of real world speed of movement and human
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  body proportions and all that kind of thing there is there is very little actually released yet
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  about how it's going to look um but that's right the few the shots I've seen that's what it suggests
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  right and there is definitely to the anime style there is a sort of dynamism uh and a sort of
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  kind of like heightened reality um to a certain point so definitely because this is action uh they're
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  going to be able to uh use some visuals that you can't do with your doing kind of like a hyper
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  realistic um warm some of the angles some of via the expressions are definitely going to be
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  more stylized than at certain at certain points uh to heighten uh the mood um and movement so
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  yeah that's so this will be really interesting I know that's yeah one of the things that um
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  has been mentioned is that the the story here fits one of the reasons I'm important to choose
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  anime is because the of the certain dynamic for action um sequences uh and as there will be
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  a good deal of the action here um but also uh another reason is that the anime medium if
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  somebody is a fan of Tolkien the the kind of intersection between fans of anime uh anime fantasy
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  and okimean uh broader fantasy there's a good deal of overlaps isn't a completely foreign medium
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  um for um many fans of Tolkien yeah and absolutely if if I'm sure there are listeners out there who
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  know far more about this than than we do so I'd be really interested when when we see a bit more
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  of the visuals we're not yet able to really judge be very interested to hear what you think about
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  it and how what direction they've taken um and of course we must mention the cast because the cast
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  tells us what what line they've taken through the story so that we've got Brian Cox famous from
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  succession amongst other things as Helm Hammerhand we've got Gaia Wise as his daughter who's a
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  they've given her the name Heira which they've invented for her because she is unnamed in the Tolkien
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  three-pager we've got Luke Pasquilino as Wolf who is the um well we'll get into the story in a second
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  and we've got Sean Dooley as Freckha who is Wolf's father and we've got Lawrence Ubon Williams
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  as Freerluff Hilderson who is the uh the Emma figure in this he is the nephew who comes in at the end
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  it is a tragedy uh potentially this nexus of characters because uh there are lots of people die
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  um and I've written in my notes this feels a bit like House of the Dragon with Horses um because
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  there is a lot of inter family ruthlessness going on but interestingly we also have Miranda Otto
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  as Airwin which who isn't alive at this time and it suggests they're giving her a
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  narratorial role to make the connection to the Lord of the Rings you know fandom one wonders if
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  she's going to be doing like a kind of Galadriel preface type introduction it would be interesting
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  to see what they do with that character um because if you do read the appendices you will find out
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  after the end of Lord of the Rings she is happily ever after with Farahmeer and Ethylian so
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  one can imagine her telling these stories to her own children I'd love it if we kind of had a glimpse of
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  that just yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah anyway right and this
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  that's on my wish list and I um yeah and I think and I think that the like kind of like oral
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  narration that that feels like fits well with this culture right with this kind of the
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  kind of like Anglo-Saxon culture of like oral history like your bail that are kind of your
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  oral performances and so the way that the the Tolkien even writes the way these appendices are
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  presented is very much in line with a traditional kind of historical records where sometimes
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  they'll be giving you a list of kings and then suddenly there's kind of a detour where they
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  tell flesh out an entire story and then kind of go back to the rest of the less notable
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  kings and their happenings and so the way that it's it's laid out in the appendices fits very
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  well with kind of a larger kind of oral storytelling tradition and so I think this is a fun move a
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  way to connect it for people who are familiar with the films it gives them a base of kind of like
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  familiarity they say oh I know this character I know the sound of her voice and that kind of
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  provides this bridge for those people who aren't familiar with the appendices or the larger
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  legendary kind of helps to ease them into it so I think that's a brilliant a brilliant move on
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  their part okay so what is the story um think it if they're going to do a three act film in like the
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  the standard structure how it breaks down with those characters is as follows so Helm is at the
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  height of his power this great man who is this big leader um he has two sons and a daughter
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  and a rival upstart leader called Frecker who is uh part Rahirim but there also seems to be a
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  suggestion that he is part Dunlending as well um he comes to the council and he asks for
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  hearers hand in marriage for his son Wolf which it suggested as if this is some sort of inappropriate
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  ask Helm says to him let's go outside after the meeting and sort this out and they have a
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  he feels insulted so he strikes a blow but causes Helm Hammerhand uh he manages to kill Frecker
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  with one blow which wasn't he I'd think the bear the feeling is that he's not intending to kill him
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  um but it's like the fatal moment which then starts up the tragedy in a big way um so we have
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  Wolf the son and Heerah who is our main POV character according to what we've heard about this film
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  um you presumably need to establish some kind of relationship between Heerah and Wolf
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  whether or not this is something they actually want or if Heerah is being heard into a marriage
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  he doesn't want and so on there's there's lots of choices here so that's the first act the second
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  act is Wolf invades four years later to get his revenge and Helm is driven into Helm's deep
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  and it's a terrible terrible winter a huge suffering across the whole of the region
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  he loses both of his sons the daughter isn't mentioned in the Tolkien account um you could make it
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  so that she is now the wife of Wolf which would give us the point of view like see it from the other
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  side and the divided loyalties or you could mean that she you could also write a story where she
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  offers herself as like a sort of peace you know I will go and stop him killing all our people you
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  could make her like a sacrifice all sorts of things you could do there so that's an unknown
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  um but anyway Helm dies standing up in the snow driven sort of mad by grief
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  he's he's goes out at night for revenge and as quite a dramatic image of him sort of dying
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  just standing up he won't ever lie down that's the image there and Wolf is in occupation of
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  Medusael which is the Golden Hall and Heerah not quite sure where she is but that's the kind of low
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  point at the end of the the second act and then the third act where is where we get this new
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  chap Frela the nephew who is the heirma of this story he's been holding out up in Dunne Harrow now
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  Dunne Harrow for those of you who follow Brohan uh territories is the one near the entrance to the
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  piles of the dead it's the one up on the cliff where in the film Erron comes to bring the sword to
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  Aragon or in the book in the film anyway he makes a surprise attack on Wolf and kills him in
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  Medusael and reestablishes his line and brings the body of Helm Hammerhand to Medusael for a funeral
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  so that's the end of the last act cheerful story i'm sure you're all agree um and there's plenty
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  of scope to work out where Heerah fits within it because we know she's tomboyish a bit like
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  Erwin is and as the main protagonist she's presumably making some of the story happen she isn't
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  just a passenger in it so i don't yet know quite what story leave as she is pulling it's also quite
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  tragic but so i could see Heerah ending up you know miserable or dead
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  but one rather hopes if she could be allowed a future as Erwin herself is that there could be
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  a way out of this and a some happiness for her be nice if they could find a way of giving it a bit
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  a bit of sweet ending should we say um so that's what i see them doing the material and i am prepared
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  to be surprised but if they stick to their source material that's roughly what they're playing with
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  they obviously don't have to do it in that order but that would be a obvious order to do it in
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  so looking at that outline and story Jacob what do you what do you think are the challenges
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  for making us care about it as as watches of this yeah that's good and i think that by by framing
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  it with A.O. and telling the story that kind of is a cheat for making us care about it because this
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  is a character that we care about deeply with the film and so if this character is telling a story
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  if she's framing it in a way that the story is meaningful to her and say perhaps she finds
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  a resonance with this character of Cara if if she identifies with this character and says that
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  or or at least implies that clearly then us as an audience we're going to automatically
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  be rooting for that character so i think that's that that's i think that's a way a sneaky
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  but and convenient but effective way of getting us to care for at least one of the characters right
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  from when i was reading the source material itself is like home just seems like like a kind of a jerk
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  and just like a grouty boisterous anybody has some real zingers against uh franca right who says like
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  like oh you seem to have grown since last time but just just in the waistline just in your belly
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  am i right uh and so like you there's a few of these different things for and then so then it says
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  like everybody in the court laughs so he's this kind of just like big a gregarious uh strong guy
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  who doesn't seem to be terribly compassionate he's just kind of like life of the party uh kind of
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  i don't know if i this is a good comparison but something like Thor how at least in the marble
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  cinematic universe how a Thor is just you know kind of this big uh not terribly like sophisticated
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  thinker but just kind of like can can can make people laugh and can punch really hard when you need
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  him to um and so that's good then so getting us to identify with helm is i think a little bit
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  difficult but i think this is the reason why they chose uh brine cocks to play this character so
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  in succession and in x-men uh x-men 2 when he played this military uh leader who has like a family
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  who is like who is manipulating his own child uh to wipe out mutants his child who
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  turns out to be a mutant to wipe out onions so brine cocks of play care so that's it but then in
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  his succession it's a father who's working through his children and kind of pulling strings so
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  he has a history it like on screen of being a kind of like a a patriarchal strong figure who
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  manipulates uh his children and so for people who like that sort of that sort of family dynamic
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  like you're saying you know like house of the dragon you know so it where um for game of thrones
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  the family like intra family dynamics um are are a draw this is something that people who like that
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  sort of dynamic will connect to that might not be the largest popular audience that might connect
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  with hell but like for those people who like that sort of character it seems like they're really
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  leaning into that with casting brine cocks and that yeah so i've called it um house the dragon
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  with horses but it could also be succession with um old english like bell right yes you could see
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  a version of this which is like the cynical take on a king manipulating his family he could perhaps
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  be close to his i mean this is speculation so i won't go too far down this time but you could
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  imagine um it's like rejecting the partnership bid of an upcoming business in the case of
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  frecker and his his part his side um so you could see it almost like in business terms
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  i can't the problem for me about this is though there is this tragic almost like Greek tragedy
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  level of drama in Tolkien's summarillian material and in this material even his choice of telling the
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  ending of arrogant and airwin has this bitter quality to it it's definitely there in Tolkien
• 29:39
  yeah my feeling is it's not what Tolkien lovers like about him that actually we are drawn to his
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  characters like arrogant who is a sense of a good leader we are drawn to the brave and courageous
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  characters like airwin who will but the things in society that are keeping her back and the hobbit
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  who are these little little men with great hearts that's what makes us love Tolkien not
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  too into rumba and more stories but you could sit you could say that they're taking a pun and
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  they're saying well people are used to that kind of Tolkien but maybe the new generation raised on
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  Game of Thrones would like to see this version sort of succession version of it let's give it
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  go because the resources are at this level i don't know i i won't like it if that's what they've done
• 30:46
  i know i won't and i don't think yeah that that's that's really interesting because like if then
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  compared to other franchises that have done something similar so like Star Wars has rogue one
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  and andor so this seems to be more in those like the lines of like rogue one is a classic tragedy
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  right so like like i won't spoil the ending i won't for anyone but like it's it's a classic dramatic
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  tragedy um and same with it with andor it's not finished yet but definitely you see this is
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  something that's exploring um themes of war about the complexities the ambiguities of uh of war
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  of politics and this story and that's a lot of what Tolkien does in the you know material in
• 31:30
  Silmarillion is just this right so the things that some of the like the bright spots that people
• 31:34
  remember and love and cling to are the barren and luthian right this this dramatic love story where
• 31:40
  it actually ends up well right so it's kind of a a comedy of sorts and the classic definition of
• 31:48
  the sense but like but most of the Silmarillion right it's following this it's it's what Tolkien
• 31:54
  describes as this and in the mouth of Galadians that the long defeat right so this is that history
• 32:00
  is not meant to be at this like ever increasing progress of getting happier and brighter that
• 32:06
  humanity and the peoples of middle earth also kind of in Tolkien's worldview they're kind of they're
• 32:13
  the same uh that it's kind of this this long defeat this decline with kind of uh moments of
• 32:20
  you catastrophe right with these like kind of like unexpected joyful moments and there's
• 32:24
  unexpected joyful moments and the triumph of um the human elven you know elvish dwarves spirit
• 32:33
  over the kind of relentless uh press of of evil of sorrow of sadness those those kind of upsprings
• 32:43
  as well springings of moments of joy and happiness and victory that that helps to punctuate and
• 32:48
  those are only possible because the rest of it is so relentless and it's kind of decline and so
• 32:55
  this I think hopefully and I would I would hope that Phillipa Boyens who seems from what she's
• 33:01
  done with the original film trilogy um seems to like really understand that and understand the world
• 33:08
  and so I don't think this is just going to be the complete bleakness I would be surprised I would
• 33:13
  be surprised if this is just a complete bleak you know the wreckage of war um and the damage and trauma
• 33:22
  that that and that's all that it focuses on without having moments of hope of of of happiness of joy
• 33:29
  of unexpected joy um but it definitely on the the whole of the scale of sale at the Lord of the Rings
• 33:36
  films that definitely had a more heroic uh bent this one I know that you know that she's said that
• 33:42
  it she wants this to at least explore the idea of like wreckage of war and honor revenge family but
• 33:52
  as well as one of the things that she has mentioned there is that she wants to focus on resilience
• 33:56
  so that's where I think instead of like a overwhelming victory showing how people
• 34:00
  can be resilient in these complicated because the situations where clearly Rohan is not
• 34:09
  just the complete unalloyed good guy who has done no wrong with what Helm does he clearly does
• 34:17
  kind of over steps everybody is at fault and so how do you navigate this landscape where there
• 34:24
  isn't a clear good a clear bad for the you know monolithic good and bad how do you navigate that when
• 34:31
  you're kind of caught in between how can you be a good human in in this sort of really complex
• 34:39
  and violent setting not against nuance and I think it's very good to show um the world wide
• 34:46
  world who won't be reading the appendices that there is all this detail and real understanding of
• 34:52
  the cost of war and the damage of war in talking and the sense of damage relationships I mean
• 34:59
  majority of his stories are that but the frame around it is a belief in love
• 35:08
  friendship and courage whereas if you think of the frame around succession which is a great piece
• 35:15
  of TV in its own right but it it set out with the premise that actually let's these things are either
• 35:22
  punished or don't survive or I'm not rewarded in this world or don't you know they are a plant
• 35:30
  in the wrong soil in the world succession so that's why I would be very sad if it became too far
• 35:40
  on that way that frame is shifted with a belief that this is what the Game of Thrones generation
• 35:47
  want to see a sense right everybody is equally bad yeah everyone's bad
• 35:52
  bleak the reality your life is pretty tuned like and then you die yeah yeah so anyway we don't know
• 36:00
  but wait to see but that's that's the kind of landscape they're working in I I think that the
• 36:07
  most interesting part of it is to lean into the story of a woman in talking as well because that's
• 36:13
  the untold story you get glimpses of it but by making the woman the central character you've got
• 36:20
  a lot unwritten because talking didn't if he didn't work this up it wasn't there you know you
• 36:25
  could have had his own thoughts but he didn't write them down so they are able to do with this
• 36:30
  character here are all sorts of things that will help even out the storytelling burden in talking's
• 36:38
  worlds of how living in how how living through a wall feels to primarily from the point of view
• 36:43
  of a woman fascinating yeah yeah and and where and and where there are bright spots within that
• 36:51
  record because in if you just read what Tolkien has in this little few page section in up in an
• 36:57
  appendix is it's not there isn't anything really cheerful about this particular story that he
• 37:05
  has made explicit right all you have is hammer hand who is who who kills people with his hands
• 37:15
  right you don't even have the you know luxury like the distance of a blade or even of a dagger
• 37:20
  he's using his actual fists to kill people and it's said in there that the the belief is if he
• 37:26
  didn't if he bore no weapon no weapon would bite him is the language is used so like if he's not
• 37:32
  going to use a sword then he can't be cut by a sword that's kind of a popular belief that kind of
• 37:37
  grows out there but this is a guy who likes to get down and dirty with his hands a cruel like a cruel
• 37:43
  just brutal I mean not cruel but brutal a brutal fighter right so someone who's clearly like
• 37:50
  very aggressive and so how do you and and that's he he goes out you know I'm sure whether they will
• 37:56
  include there and you're kind of second act that you kind of laid out is him he goes out by himself
• 38:02
  so after his his children died so he has two or not all this children his two sons right so one
• 38:07
  of his sons dies holding like trying to hold the fort for the kingdom and dies kind of like holding
• 38:14
  the door and then he dies but then a younger son kind of as they're kind of stuck out in this area
• 38:18
  that becomes known as held deep kind of during this long winter that that you mentioned earlier
• 38:25
  that she that that that he kind of salaries out with a small group of people to try to attack
• 38:29
  the Dunlundings who would kind of siege him there at at Helm's deep but then he doesn't come back
• 38:34
  so he's he's he dies and so he's kind of so Helm is a father who is clearly it says they're he's
• 38:41
  kind of growing gaunt and mad by his the loss of his two sons they could play with like how does that
• 38:49
  affect the daughter right the daughter is still there presumably right but he's like mourning and
• 38:54
  just like so obsessed kind of like you have with um uh with uh pharomir and Boromir right the
• 39:02
  two brothers but a father who clearly love this one to the neglect of the other that's a space
• 39:08
  that they could play with here how does a daughter in this world like you're mentioning Julia a
• 39:13
  woman in this landscape how does she feel right we see it that kind of from Borom from Boromir's
• 39:19
  from from pharomir's perspective with the Boromir um feeling loved so as a child how how is that
• 39:26
  dynamic there if she's not as aggressive does the father not love her or pay much attention to her
• 39:32
  because it shows them that that same mold that he himself is it but so so you have this father
• 39:39
  figure who then kind of just driven mad by his mourning his sons and then goes out just by
• 39:45
  himself rampaging just on solo and as he's all dressed in white so the stark image of him going out
• 39:51
  into the snow dressed in white where he says he looks like you know like a snow troll uh and then
• 39:56
  he sounds as horn right he lets them know he lets the the done landings know that he's coming
• 40:00
  blows out horn so there's many like cinematic moments here he's blowing this horn and then he
• 40:04
  just like goes out by himself brutally you know attacks and then comes back and then it says like if
• 40:11
  then they presume that he's looking for food while he's out there and says that the the belief
• 40:15
  arises that if he didn't find actual food when he was out because a part of the siege everybody
• 40:20
  and Helmsdeep is hungry if he couldn't find food he's gonna eat a person um and that's not
• 40:25
  substantiated but that's like the but this that's the tone of like we're getting this kind of filtered
• 40:30
  through I think in sense like the done landings perspective and like their tradition that is
• 40:36
  held up or that what the people of Rohan hear from the done landings and then are kind of reporting
• 40:42
  that because it said isn't belief so anyways there's so there's there's there's there's there's
• 40:46
  it's just like there's a lot of brutality there but then like you were you mentioned Julia about
• 40:49
  this unnamed character uh who is also a woman being uh a point of view where we can kind of see
• 40:58
  through some of these like by all intents and purposes from the outside could seem just like
• 41:04
  completely and utterly hopeless perhaps this is our kind of hobbit type character that kind of
• 41:10
  infuse it that that shows this world from a different perspective and can show us where like the
• 41:15
  samwise right who kind of can see the flowers growing right the flowers growing on the statue of the
• 41:21
  king um that he hit the king has a crown again right um that's not something that aragorn notices
• 41:27
  he doesn't say like oh look there's patch of light and this is so beautiful but they take some of
• 41:32
  these other characters who aren't in positions of power to them kind of like reframe and change
• 41:38
  where where our perspective is coming from i mean if i was doing this the journey for me would be
• 41:44
  that that character here learns to seat her own power and because of the horses i would make it
• 41:52
  around a love of horses and nature and perhaps you know you could have a sense of freedom and
• 41:57
  released if the the shadow effects of the day the mirrors of the day allows her to ride them
• 42:04
  because they're only the inns of rohanna allowed to ride them and it would be a great moment if
• 42:09
  she gets to ride them i mean i would also give her a love story that has um some substance and i would
• 42:18
  also make her a leader a strong leader of her people um so that she has dignity within it so that
• 42:26
  she's as the brothers for by the wayside and her father goes on this mad sort of lonely journey
• 42:35
  i mean i would have her stepping into that breach um like well let's see what they do let's see
• 42:41
  what they do well relief them we will come back once we've watched it and report um and see what
• 42:48
  what choices they've made just to sort of give you a little few tiny little facts about rohanna
• 42:56
  just to finish off and you will have sort of seen in the film that their iconography and the
• 43:04
  languages old English and for Tolkien everything in his book was a translation and he said he
• 43:12
  chose to give them a form of old English because that was their relationship to the common
• 43:17
  tongue which is current English um and it also explains why all the characters share the same
• 43:26
  letter, helm, um, harma, hira because the tradition of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms was to name
• 43:36
  their families after the same letter so Alfred Elfled um there was uh i think uh in mercy
• 43:43
  there was the bead dynasty which you can read about in the textbook so it's a way of there is a link
• 43:49
  here with those old English um civilizations but the actual sort of seed of the horse lords
• 44:01
  is probably coming in from ideas of the the horse lords he used to ride in from the steps into
• 44:07
  Europe you know there's that connection too so there's a mingling of things going on to
• 44:12
  create the culture of the roherim and it'd be fascinating to see how this then becomes a
• 44:17
  visualized form um in terms of what do they look like what are they wearing and i'll do they look
• 44:25
  like um Anglo-Saxon bear wolf type uh characters is that how it's going to look um but we wait
• 44:34
  and see so we haven't yet decided um what our subject for wearing all the fantasy world is the
• 44:41
  best place to be something um jose jake of but i think that in honor of the roherim we should decide
• 44:49
  wearing all the fantasy worlds is the best place to be a horse lord i mean other than roherim
• 44:56
  that's obviously a great yeah so where would you like to ride a horse in which fantasy world
• 45:05
  would you think that would be most fun um well to expand because it is fantasy and explicitly fantasy
• 45:13
  i would take uh uh winged horses oh okay you're breaking your leg carrying on yeah so is that
• 45:22
  is that if that permissible you're allowed to question question um yeah i'm one one one of the the
• 45:29
  the the funnest horse characters uh that i appreciate is actually from uh disnews hercules the
• 45:35
  pegasus uh character um uh just the the personality of the character and so how that that interacts
• 45:43
  and then you have hideous drives this like dark pegasus character in a chariot so that's fun so
• 45:51
  you get to be hideous uh so the world of hercules at least disnews film hercules uh you have horses
• 45:58
  that can fly uh and you have the option of a really dark underworld uh being a horse lord of
• 46:05
  dark horses uh or uh a really cheerful almost doglike in personality uh horse as your constant
• 46:15
  companion so that's where i happen to be working with that uh property at work right now so that's
• 46:23
  kind of where my head where my where my head space is so i'll top my head that's where my head is
• 46:28
  and yes well we'll we'll go with i will go with right now the world of disnews hercules uh to be a
• 46:35
  horse lord of a pegasus so i was thinking that um one of my favorites sort of YA uh fantasy writers
• 46:44
  is a writer called tomorrow pierce so tomorrow pierce in her series about dain who's a woman who
• 46:52
  has an affinity for animals particularly with horses and it's very detailed about the way she looks
• 46:58
  after horses it's her series which is called the immortals so that big rape base to have that
• 47:04
  ability it's not like telepathy with horses but there's a instant like an animal instinct to
• 47:12
  know what other animals feel and communicators it's very well done uh so that's where i'd like to
• 47:18
  be a horse lord in that way not a lord over them but sort of with them with the animals so that's
• 47:24
  my pick thank you very much and we wait with baited breath for the war or the rhaherim to arrive in
• 47:31
  cinemas thank you very much thanks for listening to myth makers podcast brought to you by the oxford
• 47:44
  center for fantasy visit oxfordcenterforfattery.org to join in the fun find out about our online courses
• 47:53
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• 48:00
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