Latest / Galaxies and Goddesses: A Sci-Fi & Fantasy Bookcast / The Two Towers: Hidden Heroism and Tolkien’s Deeper Themes
Transcript
- Andrea: I’m Andrea. Elizabeth: And I'm Elizabeth. Andrea: Join us as we chat about sci-fi and fantasy books and beyond. Elizabeth: Looking for a little escape from reality? So are we. Andrea: Welcome to Galaxies and Goddesses. Elizabeth: On this week's episode we're continuing our journey through the Lord of the Rings with a second book in the trilogy The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien Andrea: Specifically, we'll be chatting about where the story picks up after The Fellowship of the Ring with the breaking of the Fellowship and how Middle-earth feels very different once the group is scattered. Elizabeth: Along with the moments that surprised us what stood out compared to the films, as well as which characters truly stole the spotlight this time around. Andrea: Saddle up, gather your fellowship, and let's get started. Andrea: The Fellowship of the Ring ends with Frodo and Sam. Taking a boat and going off on their own away from the fellowship. And then The Two Towers Frodo and Sam don't even show up until the second half of the book, and you get to focus so much on the other characters. Elizabeth: Yeah, I really do like that Tolkien did that. Of course you don't forget about Sam and Frodo, but it's not Sam and Frodo's story at all, and you basically get to follow that whole plot line to the end, with the Uruk-hai picking up Pip and Merry, and thinking that their Frodo and Sam, and stealing them off to bring them to Saruman. And Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli chasing after them. Elizabeth: You get to follow that whole plot arc all the way to the end. Andrea: That was one of the things I really appreciated about the book was getting so much more context behind Merry and Pippin. In the movies, I didn't really understand why they were there. I thought they were just comedic relief But they're essential! Like every single character in the fellowship has a role to play. Andrea: When I saw the movies, I just thought Frodo was the main character and everyone was there to support him. But that's not the case. Like everybody has their own individual role. And Merry and Pippin kind of served as body doubles or decoys. If they hadn't been there, the orcs would've kept looking for halflings. Andrea: They would've kept searching, but they take Merry and Pippin back with them thinking that they've accomplished their mission. And that didn't really come through. I felt like in the movies, at least I didn't understand that's what was happening. Elizabeth: I guess I forgot about that, that is a fundamental part of that whole story arc is that the orcs think that they're sent by Saruman to go find the halfling cause the halfling has the ring. And so they do stop looking for Frodo and Sam. That's true. Andrea: And then in a roundabout way, Merry and Pippin go off on their own into the forest of the Ents. And they meet Treebeard. I felt like Treebeard was the two towers equivalent to Tom Bombadil because he's also an ancient character. Andrea: He's the oldest of the Ents and he's a delightful character as well. Andrea: It starts with them talking about their names he's like, I'm Peregrine took, I'm generally called Pippin or even Pip. And later he says, I'll call you Merry and Pippin, if you please nice names for, I'm not going to tell you my name. Andrea: Not yet. At any rate, a queer half knowing, half humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. For one thing, it would take a long while. My name is growing all the time and I've lived a very long, long time, so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language. Andrea: In the old Entish, you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking, a very long time to say and to listen to. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: I like that. Elizabeth: God, I love, I love the Ents. Andrea: This probably goes back a little bit to Tolkien's love of languages. Andrea: Every single culture seems to have their own language and mythology within the realm of Middle-earth. Which is pretty cool. Elizabeth: Yeah, there are so many races and creatures and beasts that have own backstories incredible richness to each of these races so well fleshed out in everything that he wrote. Andrea: Yeah. Andrea: So this all kind of goes back to Merry and Pippin, talking to Treebeard. And in the book you get so much more context behind that meeting and them going to the, the meeting of the Ents. Andrea: And if Merry and Pippin hadn't been just being themselves, trying to escape. They would've never run into the forest. They would've never met the Ents, and the Ents wouldn't have gone to Isengard. Right? Basically Merry and Pippin lead directly to taking down Isengard. Andrea: That to me was mind blowing! Elizabeth: I mean, maybe it eventually would've happened. The Ents knew about all that like Treebeard knows about all of these things that Saruman is doing, but there's such an ancient race of creature that nothing happens quickly. And so they maybe would've eventually, but actually no you're right just with the overall context of everything, in terms of the Dark Lord Sauron gathering all of the masses the armies of Mordor and their attack on Gondor which this is obviously more to come, as you get into The Return of the King. Elizabeth: So much of The Two Towers and The Return of the King happens very quickly, which is very different from The Fellowship of the Ring cause things don't necessarily happen as quickly in the fellowship of the ring but as soon as you get into the two towers the return of the king things happen fast With enough time I think eventually the S may be on their own without Merry and Pip would've finally gotten themselves together to take down Saruman. I actually think within the context of everything that they would've run out of time that it actually would not have happened. You're right because everything else happened so quickly that by the time they had got their stuff together… Andrea: Right. Andrea: Merry and Pippin just got to enjoy the Ent water, you know, and then they take the spoils of the war, and… Elizabeth: They're sort of like the catalyst that makes all this stuff happen, but then they just are like along for the ride. Andrea: Right. Elizabeth: Even though they're the ones that actually are making it happen unintentionally. Oh my God. One of my favorite scenes of the entire story as like Aragorn and the Riders of Rohan and King Théodon, as they roll up to Isengard and it's just completely demolished and the two of them sitting outside of the destroyed Isengard smoking a pipe. Elizabeth: In a lot of books a prologue will have to do with some sort of action that started before the main action of the book. This prologue there's a lot of action, it's like a teaching lesson from Professor Tolkien before you start chapter one. And so as I'm reading it the second time around I'm just like, why is this in here? And then the only thing I can think is that it's this really elaborate setup to help the reader appreciate moment Merry and Pip found barrels of the highest quality stuff just stored away in Isengard. That's all I can think. Andrea: Because that's the only time it really comes up in the book, so far. Yeah. Elizabeth: To like give you I guess, some context for the fact that like, oh, hobbits take their smoking very seriously, just like they take their food very seriously, and it's such a part of their identity and their day-to-day routine And the pipe weed from the shire is the highest quality. And so then they've gone on this big elaborate journey and then the Ents destroy Isengard and they finally get a chance to relax for a minute and they start sifting through the stores of stuff in Isengard and they find barrels of pipe weed. That's all I can think. it it's that you have to read This like history of smoking pipes in the Shire amongst the Hobbit folk. It is very meaningful. Yeah. Their inner spirit. Yeah. Elizabeth: They do still provide comedic relief though you have to admit they also… Andrea: Yes. Elizabeth: They’re just bumbling idiots in like the most endearing way like they're trying to figure out their own role like they don't even know what their role is in all of this. Andrea: By being true to themselves, they are fulfilling their role. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: I feel like that is where Tolkien's implying some grander schemes of like, not everybody has to be the hero. Just being yourself is enough. Right? Elizabeth: Yeah Andrea: In being yourself, you do good things unintentionally. Elizabeth: Yeah Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: There's a lot of unintentional good. Andrea: I am shocked by how much I like Merry and Pippin reading the book. I was not expecting to like them as characters, but they're great. Elizabeth: Yeah. You do get a much better appreciation for in the story overall. For sure. Andrea: I thought you were gonna say when they decided to have a snack after they escaped and all the orcs turn on each other. Elizabeth: Oh yeah. Andrea: It's like they're having popcorn on the hillside while this, chaos is going on. Elizabeth: When they escape from the orcs Legolas and Gimli, and Aragorn, are on their trail and they find where they were able to escape from the orcs and then they see some of the like wrappings of their lembas bread, like strewed about in the grass and they're like this has to be hobbits cause the first thing they did after they escaped from the orcs is they had to make sure to sit down and eat something. Andrea: Yeah. Andrea: I can picture it so vividly, because I've seen the movies and I feel like it's like writing new scenes in my mind. It's so fun. Elizabeth: Totally. Andrea: To understand more of the context… Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: And the different infighting among the orcs. Andrea: You get get a little bit of that in the movie. There seems to be different factions, but it's not totally understood You're able to see such a more complete picture in the books. Everything is more flushed out and explained and you're able to connect the dots. Andrea: Each chapter feels like it could be an episode in a TV series or a mini series, like it's a complete story within a single chapter. I really appreciated that. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: So, you do go from Treebeard to the White Rider, to the King of the Golden Hall. So the White Rider is when Gandalf comes back. Elizabeth: Gandalf returns. Yeah. Andrea: Gandalf returns, and then they meeting with Théodon. Elizabeth: The Golden Hall is then like list Gimley and Aragorn. Yeah. They still haven't met up with Sam and Pippin. Andrea: And then Helm’s Deep is after that, after Helm’s Deep, they go to Isengard thinking they have to keep fighting Saruman, and they get there and Marion Pippin have taken care of it for them. Elizabeth: But the way they win Helm’s Deep is through the help of the the trees. Elizabeth: Because the trees line the canyon and the orcs retreating run into the trees and then they don't come out of the trees Andrea: I don't think it was the same Ents that were at Isengard. I thought it was a different part of the forest. Elizabeth: Well, okay, I thought the Ents were like tree herders as in they could move the trees or make the trees move but It seems like this time around those trees aren't actually trees they're Ents that are really old. Elizabeth: It seems like many Ents when they go still with more and more time they resemble an actual tree and they just don't move and they essentially turn into a tree then they can be woken back up again and then can move was my impression. Andrea: I thought they were like related to the ends that take down Isengard, but it wasn't necessarily the same trees. It was like word had spread through the forest that, hey, now's the time to take action. So, the trees that were closest were like, “Hey, we're gonna come attack and help you out, or something.” Elizabeth: But they might have been really old Ents? Andrea: They could be. Maybe. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: Part of why they were successful in Helm’s Deep was Gandalf coming on the final day, He showed up with men from another city. He came in to save the day. That's a big deal in the movies too. And he rises with the sunrise over the hill. Elizabeth: Totally! On the top of the hill! Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: No, I remember that. As we said before there's just so much more depth and complexity to all of this. Then there are other men, that you don't even necessarily know about in the movie. That there are like lots of different kinds of men, more than just like the Riders of Rohan and you know the men of Gondor. Elizabeth: Different types of men. Andrea: When we're done reading the books, I really wanna go back and watch all the movies again. Andrea: there's the orb, they call it a stone in the book. But it's like a, scrying stone or orb that… Elizabeth: A palantir? Andrea: Yes, the palantir, exactly. That Wormtongue throws at them because he is angry when they're at Isengard and Saruman is talking to Gandalf and the men there and Merry or Pippin goes and grabs it. And it's similar to The Ring in that it has its own power and it can draw people to it. And they talk about how they're very fortunate that, it happened to be one of the halflings that looked into the stone, because then Sauron thought it was a hobbit or halfling prisoner in Isengard. So he continues to believe that he's winning and that the halflings are Frodo and Sam, being that body double or the decoy. So he continues to serve a purpose. Elizabeth: Totally. Andrea: I thought that was really cool. In the movie, I'm like, okay, cool. A magical item. All right. But the magical item is a plot device in the book that has a lot more depth and weight to it. Elizabeth: Yeah and that's one of these like magical objects within The Lord of the Rings that I find myself paying a little bit more attention to the second time around, because at some point it says that there are seven of them and that's one of them. Andrea: Yeah, they talk about how there were several brought over by men in a long lost age. Elizabeth: Yeah, and not to spoil anything, and I won’t. I'm pretty sure it's in the Return of the King that there is a second one. Andrea: There has to be a second one that Sauron has to see into the orb. Elizabeth: Oh, totall!. Andrea: There's at least two. Elizabeth: Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. That would be two. Andrea: There's at least two so they can communicate. Elizabeth: Saruman and Sauron. Andrea: Right. Elizabeth: Then without, yeah, without spoiling anything. There's a third and a fourth, but there's supposed to be seven of them, so where are the others? Andrea: Well, and I was wondering if, the mirror or the pool that… Elizabeth: Galadriel? Andrea: If that was one of those objects or related? Elizabeth: I don't think so. I thought that too, but I don't think so. That's like a fluid in a bowl. Andrea: Like a pool of water. Elizabeth: Whereas these are described as more a thing that can be carried and then hidden and then, and that doesn't strike me as a pool of water. Andrea: similar to a large stone? Yes. Elizabeth: Yeah or a crystal ball or something Yeah Andrea: Mm-hmm. Elizabeth: Tolkien uses the word Palantir and I was like wait a second Is that a thing Do you know about the company called Palantir. Have you ever heard of the company called Palantir? Andrea: Yes. Elizabeth: Just now I was like what does Palantir mean? Palantir meaning is a fictional scene stone from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings as an indestructible crystal ball used for long distance communication and viewing past or present events meaning far seer which inspired the name of the data analytics company Palantir Technologies. Andrea: Oh wow. Andrea: Sort of like that information could be used for good or for evil, right? Andrea: Going back a little bit to the encounter between Saruman and Gandalf. I liked how the book, spends more time with that interaction and how Gandalf gives Saruman a chance to redeem himself. Andrea: He says, you know, we can let you go free. Saruman just has no idea what that means. He thinks it's some sort of trick. Because that's so outside of his realm of how he operates. But I think it's really important to the kind of morality of Tolkien, this idea of redemption. There's an opportunity for redemption. Andrea: And then again with Frodo and Sméagol, he keeps trying to think what would Gandalf do in this situation? And he is like, I think Gandalf would say, don't shoot him. Gandalf is the pinnacle of setting a good example, and Frodo continues to try to follow: what would Gandalf do: be kind, be generous. Elizabeth: Well, and Sam does too. Sam very quickly gets fed up with Gollum and doesn't like him and doesn't want him around. There are multiple opportunities where Sam could have done something to Gollum. He could have killed him or something, but he doesn't. Elizabeth: He continues to show Gollum grace and mercy and… Andrea: Yeah. I just don't feel like that was as obvious to me in the movies. I don't remember there being an exchange like that, or if it was, it's just like Gandalf asking, are you sure you wanna do this bad thing? And Saruman’s like, “Yes!” Andrea: That's how I remember it. Maybe that's more nuance than that in the movie, but. They do have to speed things up for time in a movie. Andrea: With the Riders of Rohan, I loved all the horses. I know that they're doing another spinoff on The Hunt for Gollum. But I would almost rather see like Riders Of Rohan, give me a bunch of these horse lords and horses. That's what I want to see. Elizabeth: Oh, I love Shadowfax, like every little girl's fantasy horse, right? You probably played make believe as a kid pretend you were horses. Andrea: I don't think I pretended I was a horse, but I definitely had my little pony toys, like horse toys. Yeah. Elizabeth: And that's exactly like that horse is exactly it. Andrea: That he was only ridden bareback. It's not easy. Elizabeth: Yeah. Elizabeth: A lot of a saddle is to help the rider stay on the horse and also to help the rider control the horse, but there's no controlling Shadowfax. You do not ride Shadowfax. Shadowfax agrees to bear you. So, yeah I guess that means you don't need a saddle. Shadowfax knows where to go and Shadowfax will make sure that you stay on. Andrea: I did like all the horses in Rohan. Andrea: One of the words that stood out to me where I had to double check it, like, what exactly is Tolkien talking about here? When he was talking about sister-daughters and brother-sons, I was like is this some kind of sister-wife situation? Andrea: It's like, no, no, it's like a niece and nephew. It's literally your sister's daughter or your sister's son. Elizabeth: This isn’t like Mormon polygamists with their sister wives? Andrea: Yeah, I'm like, what, what's going on here? It's meant to just harken back more Anglo-Saxon traditions of giving your niece or nephew a place of honor in his. Hall or Kingdom. That this idea of the nephew inheriting the kingdom was something that goes all the way back to Beowulf. Andrea: Tolkien actually did a lot of study of Beowulf and was a supporter of bringing Beowulf into a more literary context that most people had disregarded Beowulf as just the story of monsters, a fable for children or, not serious literature. And one of his big things as a professor, while he was at Oxford, was teaching about Beowulf and how it's a work of art and poetry and literature to be taken seriously. So I thought that was kind of interesting. I didn't really realize that until I dove into the origin of this. Andrea: It made me wonder, should I go back and read Beowulf and maybe think about it differently after reading Lord of the Rings. Maybe I'll consider it, but we'll see. There's a lot of books I'd like to read. Elizabeth: I'm making no promises on that front. There are a lot of books out there that I'd rather read than try to read Beowulf. Elizabeth: Now if I were taking a class of some sort, I think it'd be interesting to study from a more critical standpoint. Andrea: I feel like if you were doing a whole year of reading Tolkien books and things that inspired him, maybe Beowulf would be part of that curriculum, or at least maybe reading his essay on it. Tolkien's view, the poem is essentially about a man at war with the hostile world and his inevitable overthrow in time. Andrea: I like dragons. And there's a dragon in Beowulf, maybe I should put it on my list. Elizabeth: Maybe that's like the OG dragon. Elizabeth: How do you think this second book, Two Towers, are different from The Fellowship of the Ring. What do you think is different? What do you think is similar? Andrea: It does feel like a lot more action and I enjoyed that more. There is still a lot of walking through the wilderness. Still a lot of long hikes, but it doesn't feel like as much. Andrea: Yeah. How do you think it's different? Elizabeth: The time scale is very different. with The Fellowship of the Ring, right? It starts with that Bilbo and Frodo's birthday, Bilbo leaves, but then Frodo still hangs out in the Shire for like 20 years. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: And then when the adventure does start and they leave. There's so much more ground to cover and there are parts that are slog 'cause it is a slog. There's slogging through miles and miles, kilometers upon kilometers, of fields and forests. Elizabeth: So, Even though there are lots of times in The Fellowship of the Ring that are like parts that are page turner, I feel like Two Towers it just starts with action and it just keeps going. It's nonstop action. It is absolutely a page turner. And I remember thinking that the first time around too, that which is why I enjoyed The Fellowship of the Ring more this time because I knew what it was building to. Whereas if it's the first time around, you don't necessarily know that it's building. It's only just gonna keep getting better and better. And, as soon as, you know, Boromir dies on the second page, then it's just like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, stuff happens. But it also happens a lot faster too. the timescales what, like two weeks maybe? Andrea: It's like all these things happening simultaneously. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: You're following a lot of different threads, but a lot of story arcs that are happening at the same time as opposed to a single story stretched out over a longer period of time. Andrea: And it kind of reminds me that when you finally do get back to Frodo's narrative towards the second half of the two towers, I like that there's sort of a meta element to it where Frodo is talking to Sam, and he says, “delay plays into the enemy's hands. Here I am delayed.” And it's almost like his part in the book is also delayed, so it it's kind of a cool literary moment. Andrea: Something similar happens later on when Frodo and Sam are talking about how they like epic adventure stories, that they would listen to the tales like, what would you do if you were the hero? Towards the end of the Two Towers, and it's like they never know that they're in the story, Don't the great tales never end? No. They never end as tales said Frodo, but the people in them come and go where their parts ended. Andrea: Our part will end later or sooner. So it's almost twofold, right? Like our part will end later because this is only the second book, or sooner you're approaching the end of this book. I liked that it had sort of a double meaning to it. Yeah, that must be intentional somewhat. Elizabeth: Sort of self-aware. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: But they never break the fourth wall, right? There's no one in the story that's ever talking to you as a reader. Elizabeth: True. No. Elizabeth: You don't have to have read The Hobbit in order to read The Lord of the Rings, if you haven't, then you don't necessarily know much about this Gollum character and kind of where he comes from. And once again, it's kind of hard to go back in time to like when the movies came out. Did I read the book first and then watch the movies or watch the movie and then read the book? Or you know, is it kind of like all tied in together around the same time? I do kind of remember. First time around realizing that, oh yes, he is similar. Or like, way back in the day before he found the ring, he was similar to a Hobbit or you know, Bilbo or Frodo, but there was one moment where Frodo is asleep and, and I think Gollum doesn't realize that Sam's looking at him, or Sam is like maybe pretending to be asleep, And he watches this moment. This poignant, intimate moment between Gollum and Frodo where asleep and Gollum is sort of like stroking him or touching him or looking at him as he's asleep. And it basically says that it's almost as if in that moment Sam can see Gollum as an old hobbit. That the changes that have happened to Gollum over the hundreds, thousands of years, who knows what amount of time he had the ring he wasn't, you know, it changed him eventually over time. Elizabeth: Going back to like with Bilbo, when Bilbo gives up the ring that now that he doesn't have the ring anymore, it's not keeping him young anymore, but it still exerts its power over him for a while, and that is like proportional to the amount of time that the ring bearer, whoever has the ring. Elizabeth: How much of time they've had the ring. Compared to Gollum and Bilbo didn't have the ring for a really long time. He had it for what, like 56 years? 70 years, something like that. The Ring still was exerting power over him, even though he had given it up, but that power was, weakening as more and more time went on since he gave up the ring. But because Gollum had the ring for so long, then the ring will continue to exert its power over him for a longer amount of time. It'll take longer for that power to weaken eventually. Elizabeth: So then that sort of explains why, throughout the action of the story, Gollum doesn't really change. However, it's, now been what, like 60 or 70 years since Gollum lost the Ring. So it is weakening. So then to see this moment where like Gollum, you'd say Sméagol at that point is like looking at Frodo and Sam can see. An old Hobbit and I, yeah, that was just like, that was sort of one moment that I, that was rather poignant, and just sort of to kind of humanize him I think. Andrea: Right. Andrea: What I thought was interesting, they describe him as alternating between these two different characters. this Stinker and this Slinker. That's the name that Sam has for the two personalities. Elizabeth: Oh yeah, those are Sam’s names. Yeah. Andrea: When the stinker personality, the kind of evil personality comes out, it mentions quite often that there's a green hint and Gollum's eyes. It comes up several times that there's like a green flicker or a green glow in Gollum's eyes when he has these sort of evil thoughts or intentions. Andrea: That made me think about the Ents earlier on in the book. They were mentioning that the eyes of the Ents showed a sort of depth of how long that they've lived and that you could see the surface level thoughts at the front of their eyes, but tell that they had a really deep soul. Andrea: I think there's something to be said about all of the characters within Middle-earth, that the eyes are window to the soul or the inner workings of the mind in, a lot of these cases. Which I think is interesting. And it's hard to explain that in a movie besides just showing, oh, a little glimmer, but it's mentioned so often in the book that it feels like it's suggesting that there's something more. I feel like it's hinting at a soul. It never explicitly says that there's a soul in somebody's eyes, but that's how I'm reading it. Did that come across to you Elizabeth? Elizabeth: Not necessarily as I was reading it, but as you're saying it, I am agreeing with you. And I bet Tolkien would too. Andrea: It also talks about, Saruman's eyes being very dark. So yeah, it's like both, it doesn't matter if you're good or evil, but the eyes having some sort of special quality to them. Andrea: Going back to you asking what's different between The Fellowship and The Two Towers. It just feels like you're finally seeing. Andrea: Some of these major characters like Gandalf and Saruman face off and have a conversation, right? So you're getting to see the fight and the powers, the action. Elizabeth: It’s not the buildup anymore. The buildup has already happened. It's now the action sequences. Andrea: And it's good action sequences and humor and fun things and It's just more fun. There's more going on. So… Elizabeth: Oh God. Smoking a pipe outside the gate. Andrea: Of Isengard. Elizabeth: Isengard. Andrea: Yeah. Elizabeth: burns behind them and they're hanging out on the Andrea: I wanna go back and watch the movies. Were they smoking pipes outside of. Isengard in the movies. I don't know. I know a lot of smoking has been taken out of movies. Elizabeth: Yeah. Andrea: I don't know if that would be there or not, Elizabeth: obviously you're gonna rewatch the movies When's the right time to rewatch the movies? Andrea: I kind of wanna watch them now. Elizabeth: No, Just finish the book! Andrea: Okay. Elizabeth: I think it's such a fun world to dive into from an imaginative standpoint so. don't spoil that yet. Like just kind of finish it as it’s own thing. Andrea: Just enjoy that. Elizabeth: Yeah. Like enjoy it for what it is, and enjoy it on its own. Andrea: I think I'm gonna go straight into the next book because I wanna see what happens and I don't wanna wait. It really left off on a cliffhanger and I'm like, I have to find out what happens. Elizabeth: Yeah. Elizabeth: I saw something on Instagram. The other day you know how the whole business of the Eagles? The Eagles just like swoop in and they just like save the day. And it's like, well, why couldn't the Eagles have just flown Frodo into Mordor? Fly over Mount Doom and just drop it from the Eagle. Like he wouldn't even have to land at all. He could just like drop it from above. Anyway someone point it out with Frodo and Sam, isn't Frodo wearing his coat of mithril when Shelob attacks him? Andrea: Yes. Andrea: I think she got stabbed in the neck. He got stabbed high enough he wasn't protected there. Elizabeth: Oh… Andrea: Yeah. Andrea: I feel like I know the answer to this, but I have to ask Elizabeth, what would you rate this book? Elizabeth: Five stars. Definitely. But I remembered from the first time around it was as good as it is. Elizabeth: What would you give it? Out of five stars? Andrea: I would also give this five stars, because I liked it more than the first one. There's more action. It feels like, okay, finally we're getting to something I enjoy a little bit more. I think it's a good balance of fighting, action, with some lighter, funny moments and following the different characters on their different paths was more interesting to me than setting out from the Shire. So I'm excited to see where it goes. Elizabeth: Unfortunately, that concludes this week's episode. We've reached the end of another cosmic journey on Galaxies and Goddesses. Andrea: Don't worry, the adventure never really ends. There are always more stories to explore and, let' more bookish tangents for us to go on. Elizabeth: But hey, that's part of the fun. If you love today's episode subscribe, leave a review, and share the magic. Andrea: Stay tuned for our next episode where we'll be celebrating one year with our anniversary episode! Elizabeth: In the meantime, keep your mind fueled by the magic of stories. Andrea: And never stop chasing the world waiting for you between the pages. Thanks everyone!