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Fantasy Writing - Why Go Small? · Mythmakers

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Are you really buying a car online on Auto Trader right now?
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Really, I can get super specific with dealer listings and see cars based on my budget.
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You can really have a delivered.
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Or pick it up.
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Mommy, look!
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Kid is walking up the slide.
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Really?
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Auto Trader.
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Buy your car online.
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Really.
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Hello and welcome to Mythbakers.
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Mythmakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives
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brought to you by the Oxford Centre for fantasy.
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And today I'm joined by our friend Jacob Renica.
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And we decided today to talk about smaller than average folk.
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The fantasy trope about having the small people like hobbits but not just hobbits
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and what happens when fantasy takes that direction.
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So the first thing I suppose we're asking ourselves as fantasy creatives is what is happening
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what is the potential that you give yourself as a writer when you start playing around
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with scale.
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And I've come up with a few concepts for this.
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So Jacob, I'm going to throw at you my first one which is I think that small
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usually means vulnerable of childlike.
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Would you agree that that's a sort of common outcome if you choose to go small?
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Yeah, yeah, no I definitely do.
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That's used to be that in things like Gulliver's Travels where somebody's kind of forced.
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I guess especially when a character is forced into a situation where
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they're suddenly smaller than they're used to be.
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So there's certainly something about a challenging one's place in the world
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and kind of opening one up to seeing things from yeah a more vulnerable position, a station
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if you will.
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So yeah absolutely absolutely agree it.
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It kind of pulls seems to pull the rug out from under you and puts you in a position of vulnerability
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and hope I think the hope is humility but oftentimes it takes a while to get for the characters
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to get to get to that point.
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It could be the lesson they learn of course.
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I was thinking that you've got small characters within cultures where they are relatively
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smaller than everyone else.
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So classic situation the hobbits with men and elves and I was struck.
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I went the weekend to hear the two towers done as an orchestral performance at the Royal
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Albert Hall which is a fabulous thing if you ever get a chance to see the film play with a live
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orchestra and choir it's amazing but one of the lines that came up to me in that film version
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which is from I think from the books which is arrogance saying to Emma trying to describe the
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hobbits he says they're small they're like children in your eyes and I think that's really
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the dynamic with the hobbits is that they are in a way the thing that has to be protected
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traditionally that was your damsel in distress but because there is a lack of female characters
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as we all know I think in a way the hobbits fulfill that function as the fellowship gathers
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around them to protect them and there is something about them being small which is
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make them even more precious not in the sense of the ring but everyone feels more of a duty of
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care should we say to the hobbits and they would have otherwise so say if some warrior like
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arrogant is carrying the ring the dynamic changes instantly whereas with the hobbits you immediately
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get this desire to protect which I which I think is a really interesting way of getting across that
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role that very often is given to a child or back in the day to a woman and the hobbits are doing
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that job really yeah no I agree yeah yeah that's a great and like I love that land though they would
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only be you know a children to your eyes so like there's something that from their from their
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perspective they don't see themselves as children but from people from other situations if it's
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this through the lens of the the other and in that case right the protector so I think that yeah
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so eliciting something about someone who is smaller than elicits and someone who's who's
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larger and more able they kind of elicits a desire to protect yeah so I think that's yeah I think
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that's a great dynamic and let me just thinking about that thing you've just said about they're
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not swallowing their own eyes they're perfectly to scale in Hobbiton Hobbiton play for them yeah
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and it made me think of some of the animal characters in the Naniya series particularly Reaper
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Cheap who is a brave captain of Vance you know he's he takes no prisoners he wants to be out there
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fighting with everybody and yet there is the humour that he is a mouse but a formidable mouse
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and you get it in pushing boots as well in the in the version of those stories that dreamworks have
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done that the comedy of the small warrior so that's another line in this where we see them as
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being more vulnerable but they're also very proud of their own status and defensive of their
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status so there's a comedic potential when someone who's small thinks they're enormous I suppose
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is one way for a great than Napoleon syndrome yeah well not so much though because
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in their by their own lights they are of course Reaper Cheap is a perfectly ordinary sized mouse
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so amongst his comrades is you know he's got nothing to apologise for he's probably quite a
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tall mouse I don't know like a tail at one point so moving on for the potential we've got sort
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of the vulnerability and the sort of comedy and emotions around that I think you've already
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mentioned Gulliver's travel and that brings us to another big thing which is the possibility for
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satire how do you see the satire playing because Gulliver travel has set up the sort of satire
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potential of scale really for the rest of literature going forward from there yeah it's yeah it's
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it's it's it's a work of that tire right and like looking at looking at the world from
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different angles from forcing yeah different perspective upon upon you and where you're right so
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if you're if you think that your your assumption is I am the norm I am the standard size I am
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this is what the universe was constructed around was on me being this size in this position
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of station at life and then either you're really amplifying that right so when Gulliver's visit
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you know he's visiting the little contributions right so there's small and he's to scale he's
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much larger but there's certain things that he's forced to reckon with himself and is being
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even larger better or is there there's the whole you know number of problems that that come
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into play there but then when he's also you know the scale shifts there and he's smaller
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yeah so it's really again I think mentioned the this idea of like challenging your assumptions
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and usually perspective of being the center of the universe that there's something about a forcing
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a change size wise that requires people to shift the way that they view the world itself yeah
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and you see that I mean you see you see that in silver like silver chair right where they visit
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right the land of the giants and just in terms of like their size they're trying to figure out
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in these cracks in the in the ground that turn out to be a large message that when you're to scale
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that you can see actually what the entire message says but they just think these are you know
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chasms in the ground and the the giants you know they're they're obviously being kind of taken
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advantage of because of their smaller size but the narrator gives us a little bit more
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perspective able later and they themselves understand once they have a little bit of distance they're
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able to see what the message was that due to their size and proximity to that they weren't able
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to grasp fully before in the situation itself that they weren't able to understand it took kind
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of a little bit of distance to see that so yeah they also play up on their size don't they when
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they realize that this they're basically being fattened for the pot and Jill plays up being the
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little squeak cutie to enable them to get the opportunity to escape and all that and manipulating
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the giants um not so much a satire there but it's just making use of the scale
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another place where it is a satire in famous fantasy literature of course is the time machine
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in the future where humanity has become separated into two kinds of races as kind of
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hulky underground race and a sort of ethereal thin over overground race and it's it's as though
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the traits within humanity have been pushed apart and that is definitely a commentary on the development
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of society at the time hg wells was writing industrialization industrial worker and all sorts of
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things so clever way of looking at the sort of dystopian future this future casting that goes on
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there so yeah satire is definitely there and then one thing which I think is should not be forgotten
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is the whimsy that you have if you go small and I was thinking here of books like The Borougher's
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series I don't know if that's well known in the US it's about a miniature family who
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live to they cobble together their environment from like matchboxes and safety pins and they go
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to see in like a or on the river on in a little boat it was made into a T BBC TV series over here
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so it's quite well known as a sort of my era children's book and there was of course Mrs
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Pepperpot who was another delightful series where Mrs Pepperpot gets shrunk a bit like the Tom
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Thumb story so there's the whimsy to that to suddenly seeing the world and how the world would
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appear if you were but a couple of inches high and that led me to thinking about Bitrix Possa
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because in a way majority of her stories particularly things like the Tale of Too Bad Mice
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is definitely showing the whimsy of scale so the the mice hunka munker and the other one to
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Missina no that's the name one of the dolls and anyway I forgot the hunka munker I definitely
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remember as the name they move into the dolls house in the nursery and then get very annoyed that
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the fires aren't real and the plaster food is actually not edible and they start smashing it
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all up I love that story as a child because I could really relate to this thing of the disappointment
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of it not being real and the idea of the mice moving into a into what is your playhouse so there's
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this whimsy and that connected thought in much more of the current generation it led me to think
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about Ant-Man have you seen the first Ant-Man film yes that's seen all of them yeah yeah of course
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you got a kiddie so of course you're going to see all of this yeah but I absolutely adored
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the way the big finale happened on a train set I was much more interested in the hilarity
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of seeing like Thomas the Tank Engine being used as one of the big set piece things at that scale
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like the miniature world and I thought that was just wonderful and that's what Ant-Man should be
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doing in my view that uses that scale thing to whimsical advantage have you got any other favorite
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perhaps over in the US thing miniature miniature people stories which I and European listeners might
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not be aware of there's the the one that comes to mind is in part with the the scale but it's
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also in terms of the nature of the being and that is the Indian and the covered series
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right this is you're kind of a precursor so it's I mean in the vein of like velveteen rabbit
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for an animal or like a toy story where toys actually have feelings thoughts some sort of inner
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life and Indian covered series right follows the adventures and misadventures of these small figures
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as the local cowboys and Indians as they're referred to and you know what happens when the doors
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are closed when the children are away that sort of thing so it's yes that that's another one
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area to the and you see that like the toy story films you know it's really accessible that
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it's in in part it's their size you see the world like the camera is entirely from their angle
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right someone doesn't look like under under the bed is their norm right where the dust bunnies
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and everything are so that's their odds and ends that have rolled under the bed like that's
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that's their geography so it's interesting yes so so so seeing the world from that perspective and
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how silly something seem when you're when you're pointed when you're on the ground kind of pointing
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up seeing what things other people are concerned with that people that are kind of closer to the
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ground and smaller don't seem to be as concerned about that's something they have to definitely see
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satirically used in some of those films that of course soon you thank you for mentioning toy
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story because that would have been a big gap if we've forgotten that I love all how the the
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little plastic soldiers all move like they can't move there like separately because they're on
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those right there's no waddling the detail of that is so charming but because you're convinced by
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that world as being a complete world it doesn't mean it's low stakes the stakes there are high
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about survival friendship um being separate you know finding your way home they're all big stakes
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but within a small world yeah sometimes the stakes are higher because you're smaller right so the
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I'm reminded of the film honey I shrunk the kids um and not so much the sequels but right so it's
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it's changing perspective right so you're you're shrunk and so something that seems just
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every day or near like the the sprinkler uh going off like that could have disastrous effects
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on these children who are you know the size of the the head of a pin um these these drops of water
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become deadly projectiles exactly so that's yeah then that that film does it is yeah just great
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I'm saying like every day like what does it look like to be an ant like or something that usually
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you might want to step on or might be a nuisance how a small creature can actually you can connect
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with and can actually help uh if given an opportunity to so there's yeah that there's there's
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lots of things that that you can do again with that kind of shift in perspective and make you
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look at the world and re-evaluate your assumptions about something is it valuable is it
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is it trash is it worth the starting is it something that should be uh valorized um all
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those are questions that when you shift perspective they really raise those questions
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okay and so the last thing I thought of and and do come up with any more um in this line the
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last thing I think that's happening is about access so you get acts if you go small you get access
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to worlds which you would otherwise not be able to see so you mentioned like the ant colony so
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that reminds me of films like ants for example and then there's a traditional tale of the ant and
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the grasshopper so you get access to little worlds that you wouldn't other ways see ant and
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grasshopper of course is another setter um so they can do more than one thing at the same time
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but I was thinking particularly of Alice in Wonderland because that is one of the most famous scenes
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of shrinking and you know changing scale but there's the idea of going through the small door to
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this magical world uh and if you if only you get it right that idea of a secret access if you get
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to be small enough to slip through down the rabbit hole again it presumably means a you know rabbit
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holes aren't personalized so there's a sense of access there um and that leads me to think of the
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the films where um I can't remember the name of the film but I remember watching it where they
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shrink to go inside a human body so that's inner space uh well there's one there's an episode
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there's an episode of the magic school bus that does the same thing but it was done yeah there's a
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martin short uh film called inner space yeah where they shrunk down and it accidentally injected
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or purposefully camera virtual it was injected into somebody so you're seeing the human body from
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the inside of the perils of being microscopic yeah yeah so again it gives you access to this new
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world it's a kind of portal in a way by going small and I think all of this is joined together by
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the idea that in fantasy what you're doing by scale is reframing whatever is your ordinary world
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by changing the scale it becomes a commentary on the ordinary world okay so let's go back in time
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and work out when people first started doing this uh any thoughts on that what's the earliest
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small-scale story that you could think of I've got a couple of ones I came up with yeah um yeah
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that's a great question in terms of uh yeah aimed like like world methodologies um uh typically
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I mean it is in like the Mediterranean of your Greco-Roman um there isn't there doesn't
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it's it's it's which is interesting enough it's something that there isn't an emphasis on small
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creatures usually right so it's on it's on large scale or standard size and sometimes the humans
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are are dwarfed by the scale of some of these monsters creatures so for example right the
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and the Odyssey right so you have the the Cyclops um and it becomes it's the humans are the ones
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like they're they're kind of consistently put in their place or they're they're kind of
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diminished when set against the gods or some of these larger forces of nature um and it's something
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similar happening in Egyptian uh Egyptian mythology um uh Middle Eastern mythologies there
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doesn't seem to be much of an emphasis on small creatures uh it's more the like as a creature
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ethereal or not but the scale they they don't seem to be terribly concerned about scale from that
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perspective although you do have yeah emphasis on certain animals um yeah I think it comes in
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animal tales doesn't it so something like Epistophanies the frog frogs using it for comedic purposes um
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um are you really buying a car online on auto trader right now really at a playground yeah really
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look at these listings from dealers wow your search can really get that specific really and you
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just put in your info and boom cars in your budget mom needs a second honey you can really have
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a delivered really or I can pick it up with the dealership one sag sweetie mommy's buying a car
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I think kid is walking up the slack hi all again really auto trader buy your car online really
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but I think you're right I think where you go to find small people is probably over into
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again this is if people out there listening are coming up with oh there's obviously this do let
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us know because it's you know we can learn um but I was thinking that the sort of the classic
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little people of the hills that you get from the sort of Celtic northern stories and of course
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in the Viking world you've got dwarves okay here enter the dwarves um so little people doing
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the Celtic thing first obviously the little people the diminutive there that's the whole mixture
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so they the other folks the Sith you do get the sort of tall elven dangerous
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folk that are the precursors to Tolkien's elves but you do have a whole kind of realm of the
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household spirits and sprites that have a diminutive aspect to them the pixels the brown is the
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leprechauns of course you mustn't get leprechauns um which then lead into folk figures like
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puck and robin good fellow those things and they're very much more of a domestic level they
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interfering in the household they're making the milk go sour um or in that wonderful
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else in the shoemaker story which I think it's that in a hands christian andeson story i think
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feels like one but if probably picking up on an older tradition of the idea that your housework
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might be done if you leave out a reward wishful thinking there wish it worked um so there is this
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figures which then became used again and again in the sort of Victorian fairy tale tradition
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and the 18th century tradition uh we're definitely from that kind of fairy tale folkloric
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inheritance of the little people in the hills um that's where I see it strongly in our own culture
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and they're not spirits so it's different from the idea of a ghost or something else that might
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have like a frailty to it there another kind of creature yeah yeah that's interesting yeah that there's
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yeah that it is like has physical it has physicality to it it's not yeah it's it's not in corporeal
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but it's corporeal but it's so small or elusive that you can't see it so like functionally it's
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functioning like a ghost a spirit of some sort because you can't see it unless you're
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it was same thing with ghosts you can only see it if you're catch it almost unaware or at the
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right time or under very particular circumstances so yeah that is interesting that that there is really
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it seems to be in the you know kind of uh you know the traditions in the british isles
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the little people are largely kind of in some cases agents of chaos right so either they're
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they're fickle right and that's where you see in jambary um how jambary depicts fairies um is they
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only have enough room for one emotion at a time and it's either you know they're either angry or
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they're happy and so it's just it's going to flip a switch because they don't have room for more
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complex emotions so it seems that that kind of seems to be a trend in those
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stories about little people is they're either angry livid terribly offended or they're happy go
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lucky cheerful and you know singing songs all the time um until you say the wrong thing and then
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they you they hate you then and you're you know four generations beyond you
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yes because the um tinkerbell character in peter pan obviously jambary is inheriting the whole
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Victorian building on this um but in that she's very cruel at times yeah yeah so it's a bit like a
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it's sort of like animal or something very small child about that the tantrum um and as you say
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flipping the switch to be kind or helpful at different moments bit arbitrary in the way they
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react to things as well they're actually yeah and i'm thinking like returning to the to the hobbits
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for a moment there um looking at the inner life of hobbits right so talking depicts them or they
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were yep depicts them at least through the lens of the narrator um which is you know if the
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the lord of the rings is you're kind of written filtered through uh photos uh lens um looking at
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looking at the hobbits they have a very they're depicted with a very kind of simple life right so
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they don't they don't have this kind of they don't seem to be within their communities don't seem
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to have like a really complex inner life of emotions that they're they're simple you see uh in the
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depiction of hobbitin right there's they're happy go lucky or they're they're ang or the certain
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hobbits are angry there's no not much of a middle Frodo kind of appears to be in an anomaly there
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uh but then he you're kind of expands his inner life certainly expands as he leaves that area where
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these other people kind of have these simple either or kind of desires um uh and as he gets out
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into the world and encounters different cultures uh that have different perspectives uh and even just
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seeing that the hobbits are not the nor like that that size is not the standard or of which the
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rest of the on the scale and which rest of the world function so i think you can kind of see echoes
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of that in the depiction of the hobbits as being just rather rather simple creatures i don't know
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if that's tied to the size uh and that if it's assumed that the larger you are the more complex
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the more room you have for emotions but you don't have that in say the Odyssey or once you get
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to a even larger scale then those creatures are depicted as being sometimes buffoons right so
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kind of like typical giants um like in uh harry potter right so you have the the the giants are
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seen as kind of more foolish um and you see that kind of in in silver chair to a certain extent and
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in uh narnia larger but they're not you would imagine perhaps that if smaller creatures are more
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simple then the larger you grow the more complex you can become smarter you could become but really
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there's there's a scale there's this tends to be kind of this goldy lock zone where if you're
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if you're very small maybe you're too simple get to be a size of a uh a human being then that's kind
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of where you can figure things out you're intelligent but then once you get kind of larger and
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the farther away you get from that then kind of the more simplistic kind of like we return to
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that so on either ends either the giants and the very little people in some of these tales
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that's where you lack complexity um and you're getting kind of to the extremes there so that's
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again an interesting uh way of looking at scale and what is significant and who actually has
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the intelligence in a situation yeah emotional intelligence even i wonder if um what's actually going
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on is that uh it's more of an archadian thing um that actually the they're inheriting the
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simp that idea of almost like a bucolic paradise that they're in and a bit like in um
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um uh as you like it or the winter's tail the idea that somehow living in nature is
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more natural and therefore simpler uh because you because they don't there aren't many hobbits with
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a drive for power are there there's a lot who um
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um there's a couple of bad eggs but most people are not that corruptible there's a few cowards
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but they're they don't want to take over the world um they're happy to stay within their limits
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and even the hobbits are happy the ones who go abroad they come back relatively happy to stay
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within the limits that they've been given um so i wonder if it's that drug because i think
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the hobbits are like an ideal person as opposed to being they are they are us
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there are there aren't way we relate to middle earth because the other people beyond the borders of
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the shire um often feel more like mythic figures they've got these they speak in a more elevated
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language and they've got long lineages and you know they they're so in a way the hobbits are us
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a fun an idealized version of english people um less without any empire um at that that era i think
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is how i how i read it so um we've been thinking about the sort of fairy tale aspect
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and the the puck and the pixies and leprechauns i think there's also a connection here to
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the sort of world of toys this is why i think scale is very often associated with children's
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fiction and most of the examples we come up to up with so far is definitely aimed at children
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and of course children are obsessed about how tall they are we have very good reason because
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how you grow is is really important it's amongst and all the time and you personally are setting
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yourself you know you're looking up to the adult world and wanting to join it or not join it
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depending if you're a peter pan um so you can see why it gets associated with children's fiction
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but there i think there's also an element of toys going on here uh so it's like a kind of
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play so children very often will play with dolls and soldiers and things so i manipulate them to
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tell stories i think there's that connection too that a lot of the sort of fantasy involving this
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does come from that world like barbie you just had barbie film barbie is actually not
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i don't know how margo robbie is five something um five six five seven five eight maybe um she's a barbie
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that tool and of course they're playing that whole film revolved around it's all understanding
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that the barbie world is a small one um right with the play toys the the dog the house the boat
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everything being the kind of thing you'd play with as a kid and but it also had there's nothing much
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beyond beach and house you know the world is limited and so i think that another place where we look
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at scale and tell stories is is to do with toys yeah that's interesting yeah that reminds me of
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the like the lego movie oh yeah right so another one so complete like so it has a consistent set of
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rules uh you know scenario um culture but then kind of at the end of the film that's when things
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kind of step back larger that you see like this is you know the of the this is all play a play world
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that is being created here and uh how does that happen and it's you know that some of us use
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satirically um uh but it's yeah so there's very much that this this is a smaller this is a world
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the the the smaller world as a world in which sometimes anything is possible and can sometimes
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show you the unnecessary limits that adults normal you know standard sized people um place on the
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world that you don't have in some of these smaller worlds it's kind of a almost a microcosm for
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imagine your imagination and the expansive nature of imagination but you're doing it on the smaller
33:24
scale and so that's really you know the the the lesson and in a sense or lego says that there's you
33:31
can do anything that the possibilities are are practically endless or the number of combinations the
33:39
variety is endless and the the problems occur when you try to solidify right so using their
33:46
there it's the the the the crackle the super glue um that's their super weapon and so it's that
33:52
that rigidity um that the adults that the father brings in to this world is trying to establish
33:59
order and just like kind of stasis whereas the child wants to explore and play and so
34:05
this is a world where that those kind of ideas of stasis and kind of transformation change
34:11
exploration or those are kind of pitted against each other um exploring again those those concepts
34:17
in our own life but yeah the the this is a scale when we're talking about playing with toys
34:22
there's possibilities that are opened up that uh children have access to because they're not as
34:29
rigid in their way of this is this is what you use this this object can only be used as
34:36
from like a toilet toilet paper roll is meant for the trash it's only meant to spool around
34:42
toilet paper or could it be used as a telescope it could be used as you know the top of a you know
34:47
a smokestack it could be used as and just you know the possibilities are endless there uh but
34:52
it's on that kind of smaller scale that the children and the childlike um have access to
34:59
that is kind of heightened in those sort of kind of smaller toy toy world settings
35:05
i've forgotten there of course there is the live action parts in lego the first lego movies
35:10
isn't there i've forgotten that because i only remember um this so the what i thought it was a
35:16
brilliant film like clever film with the the inventiveness but of course within the lego world
35:21
everybody is the right the same size to each other it's like all right you know they're all that
35:25
is their world so therefore that's that's the norm um but having that out a uh real world um part
35:33
of the story where we see it's being built and imagined by the child adds that meta level which
35:39
i think allows for the satire and the social comment and all these other things um which happens
35:44
of course in the barbie movie and more or at greater length because she goes into the real world and
35:50
goes out expecting it to be a you know women in being able to realize their full potential and finds
35:57
it's a bit of a bro culture which can i don't know if you've seen the film but can take that back
36:04
into the barbie world having discovered because he's been emasculated literally in the barbie world
36:11
and that's where the comedy comes from uh anyway so yeah that that's so that there's a toy
36:17
aspect here and let's turn now to the hobbit which of course is why we're talking about this because
36:22
we were always you know we tend to go back to thinking about talking in a hole in the ground
36:27
the lip of hobbit was where he started though talking did say that he was aware that perhaps one of
36:34
the influences on thinking of these little creatures was from a book called The Land of the Snurgs
36:41
by a writer called Wix Smith EA Wix Smith something like that Wix Smith W Y K E Smith um
36:51
and that's not to say that he borrowed the idea from Wix Smith but I think it's more a sense of
36:58
this is one of the the streams that he was you know had gone into his imagination one of the sources
37:05
because there are also lots of diminutive creatures in the George Buck Donald books
37:12
which were one of the big fantasy writers of the Victorian period Christina Rosetti in her poems
37:19
very often it's a child interacting with these small creatures uh so she's the scale isn't
37:27
so huge between the child's and the and the creature and I was also reminded of the child's
37:33
Kingsley book um uh water babies I don't know if you ever read that I read a sort of slightly
37:42
bolderized version because I think it's very moralistic in an unacceptable Victorian way now
37:47
but it's um I read a version of this with wonderful I think it was Mabel Lucy Atwell
37:55
uh illustrations and that's a story of a chimney sweep who um basically I think he dies I didn't
38:04
realize this as a child he goes into the river and joins the world of the water babies where
38:08
everyone is washed clean and it's a kind of very heavy-handed religious metaphor but there's
38:13
something quite magical about the world he joins of the water babies quite I don't suppose they
38:19
read it anymore because actually when I think about it as an adult I'm thinking my goodness what's
38:23
really going on in that book but anyway the idea of um they're being this this world that you go
38:30
into to escape from a life of being a chimney sweep um so all of these must have been familiar to
38:38
Tolkien because it's very much as a cultural phenomenon as the sort of late Victorian period
38:45
so what do you what do you think about the successful use of scale within the Hobbit and Lord
38:52
of the Rings having thought of all the things we've been mentioning about vulnerability, satire,
38:57
whimsy, access um what's he actually what creative use is he making of scale?
39:05
Yeah so you see it's it's interesting yeah so it's a great question to see it's interesting to see
39:11
the how the different characters react to the Hobbits right so you start out in the world of the
39:17
Hobbits this is kind of your natural setting and then that world you know individuals from that
39:23
world are kind of thrust into this adventure but then seeing how others who are not really familiar
39:28
with them right because their culture has kind of been isolated kind of purposely so just kind of
39:34
mining their own business like you're saying like no real sense for drive or aspiration to colonize
39:41
or or really go beyond their own communities and so seeing how the others that the the lessons
39:47
that the other characters learn from them or the cases where larger characters underestimate
39:58
what they're capable of right so yeah so that's for me that's one of the things that I definitely
40:03
see Tolkien doing there is if if you have this kind of small idealized
40:10
root um with simple desires you know because I was a simple pure or pure desires that when
40:19
that's brought into conversation with cultures where there are different priorities right so when
40:28
you have the you know mechanization right where you have Saramon is is right kind of this this
40:35
kind of stereotypical industrialist and their you know his concerns and what he is doing is
40:44
on the you know a real contrast to what the Hobbits are doing and they're living in nature right and
40:49
just kind of sustaining themselves off of what they can not even what they can farm
40:55
because they're not like turning themselves into large scale farmers it's just you know small plots
41:00
of land exactly what they need and then seeing how the others you know stripping the land for more
41:05
than they can ever use themselves it's putting those cultures into into conflict uh into conversation
41:13
with each other you see them underestimating the the Hobbits right that there's there's no way that
41:18
these Hobbits would would be any sort of threat because they are so simple but that's you know
41:25
again challenging the um perspective challenging the assumptions of some of the people in positions
41:30
of power um from the villains and right so I thought their whole plan is that they having having
41:34
a Hobbit take the ring to Mordor is something that Saramon would never expect uh because of
41:43
Saramon's like assumptions about what is brave who is courageous uh and and the idea that
41:51
just have a couple frontal fight and the assumption that they would want to possess
41:56
the ring for themselves that just completely turned on its head by the Hobbit's culture of
42:01
in essentially you know it's a it's a quest to give something away it's a it's a quest
42:07
to empty oneself um and you see that in different uh different traditions as well but like that's
42:13
I think that's a big one of the one of the largest things from the antagonist to the protagonist
42:18
side but then you also see that within the protagonists themselves how the Hobbits challenge
42:23
you know the dwarves that the elves and the um humans sense of like what is good what's worth
42:30
fighting for um what's worth uh enjoying in life and what is life uh at its core so I I really like
42:40
seeing that I think Tolkien's doing some uh some interesting things there with with that sense of
42:44
of scale the other characters now they view it I think it's also important politically so thinking
42:50
about it as an examination of power um that they would not have been able to agree on anybody else
42:56
carrying the ring so don't they I mean Hobbit Hobbit the shower is kind of Switzerland um it's the
43:04
it's small enough so they don't actually stand to it to gain they cannot even if so let's
43:12
Frodo does actually finally succumb but even if he earlier on said right so I'm going to take
43:17
put the ring on his power would be in proportion to his size and he'd be swashed like a bug
43:22
um by Sauron pretty quickly because he doesn't have um you know magic like gladriel or or
43:30
Gandalf so he knows that he knows he knows that although of course the temptation is there um but
43:37
he what he does have is resilience and there's often it's mentioned a couple of times by Gandalf that
43:46
this small race of people with their feet on the ground people of the earth they're able to
43:53
resist that power and that must be partly to do with the fact that the temptation is not so huge
44:01
you know if arrogant could put it on and solve the problems uh he could march in and turn over
44:07
the dark tower and all the rest of it but then we'll set up as the next tyrant the the Hobbits are
44:14
outside that cycle and it's part of their smallness and modesty and their limited ambition that
44:21
actually makes them like that and I think that's really um that's that's canny as a good way of
44:28
showing up the politics and having a joint enterprise that they can all get behind
44:35
what I was thinking about this so because I think we all sort of know that about the Hobbits but it
44:40
did remind me that actually in the first book in the Hobbits they don't spend much time in
44:49
environments where Bilbo is anything then slightly shorter than everybody else because he's
44:55
traveling with um dwarves and they go to a world of goblins which doesn't seem but you know they
45:02
seem relatively similar scale and the only place where it really gets noticeable the scale is
45:08
different is it um beyond house that's like the moment up to put everything is bigger and I think
45:13
beyond is bigger anyway so he's like the equivalent of a giant and I think the scale aspect is
45:20
much less relevant in the Hobbit and then it is in Lord of the Rings it fulfills a different function
45:28
he's like a like the junior like the little brother who goes along with the dwarves as a kind of
45:36
you know significantly smaller than everybody else yeah that's a really that's a really good observation
45:42
I think the the intended audience is I think at least one of the explanations for for that right so
45:49
the Hobbit has its genesis in stories to his children they would be more interested in adventures
45:58
with other creatures smaller creatures and how robust this world of the smaller folks can be
46:06
as opposed to Lord of the Rings which certainly skews more adult and definitely brings in more
46:13
of this kind of adultish concerns of politics of uh uh right economy of culture of all those
46:21
different things so I think you know I think that's a great that's a great observation
46:24
so just to sort of wrap it up um because often people listen to this are maybe writing their own
46:30
stories or screenpays or whatever I'm just thinking about the artistic challenge of
46:36
smallness and scale um and I think one of the things that came to me is it is so much easier to do
46:43
it in a book than it is to do it in a film or on stage because I think that we have got so many
46:52
examples of this scale that our imagination immediately connects to that it is
47:01
definitely out there as a technique to use and obviously special effects are making it
47:06
easier to do an animation makes it easier to do in film but I think I wouldn't shy away from it as
47:14
a writer if you thought thought that it would be helpful to use this scale issue
47:21
and thinking of its possibilities I think it certainly in writing it's it's definitely out there
47:27
as a fantasy trope and we haven't explored the the world of sci-fi but for example there was a
47:39
recent trying to think of it's the the by the Chinese writer what's it called the
47:46
tried to remember its title I have to google its title three-body problem three-body problem that's
47:50
right yeah I don't want to spoil plot spoil it too much but it does prove does suggest that an alien
47:56
invasion might be on a different scale from what we're expecting and that was quite oh okay
48:02
you know it's quite a turnaround for thinking of it like that so yeah it's great fun to play around
48:08
you in fiction and you know though there is the issue about it being associated with something childish
48:19
and childlike which I'm not sure is totally it's not easy to get away from that I don't think
48:28
oh one area we haven't really covered is of course dwarves like Viking kind of dwarves versus
48:35
people of smaller stature the the with dwarfism as an issue and how they are used but perhaps we
48:43
should change have a whole different section on that that side of it we'll stick to the the hobbits
48:50
this time because I think that's a big issue to unpack about prejudice in the past and all sorts
48:56
of things okay so Jacob as you know I always ask you to decide where in all the fantasy worlds is
49:03
the best place for something and this time of course it has to be where in all the fantasy worlds is
49:08
the best place to be small where would you go oh yeah and I can't I it's it's not fair to say
49:17
hobbiton so let's let's disagree hobbiton is can we both want to go there so yeah every there's
49:24
a second we'll see what's what's the second best place yeah yeah I
49:32
it seems and this is I yeah I've a hard time like really wrapping my head around a single particular place
49:41
I like because I've got an answer which we have please please do yeah nice sparks and thoughts in
49:47
you which is the the nutcracker I'm talking about the Hoffman story as opposed to the ballet
49:57
and that does play with scale and in that story she I think it's her name's Maria she enters into
50:07
the miniature world of the Christmas tree and the Christmas tree then becomes a vast world that she
50:13
can climb up and go and visit the sugar palaces and the the world of the animals and which
50:19
it relates to all the ornaments on the Christmas tree and there's something very magical and very
50:24
German about that a bit of German folk culture going on there so I think the world of the nutcracker
50:33
would be a really fascinating place to be small in because you have to be small to enter it
50:37
I said it has to be it it has to be a single a single fantasy location then I would say wonderland
50:45
yes yeah right and then for the the world that opens up within that just for its pure
50:54
inventiveness and the scope of imagination it's so it's so many places it's the natural world
51:03
we live in but just seen from a smaller perspective and it shows you in sense it kind of renews your
51:08
one the sense of wonder of the natural world and where you where you live but if yeah so if if a
51:15
fantasy specifically fantasy location wonderland would have to be my answer I will accept that answer
51:24
thank you very much everyone for listening and if we've missed out your favorite
51:29
story about smaller people there's so many out there do let us know and anything want to draw
51:34
our attention to for future conversations also we're very eager to pick up your on your suggestions
51:41
but for today thank you very much for listening
51:49
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