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Mythmakers Season 3 Finale: The Tolkien Top 5 · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
• 0:15
  My name is Julia Golding. I'm a director at the Centre, but I'm also an author.
• 0:21
  As we come to the end of our third season of MythMakers, I thought that one way to celebrate that is to celebrate where we've been so far with all of our podcasts over the last few years.
• 0:35
  Looking back through our catalogue, we've seen some clear trends as to what are the most popular ones for people to download.
• 0:44
  So we're going to give you today little excerpts from those so that if you haven't heard them, you can go back and have a listen, but I'm hope you enjoy the variety of things we're doing.
• 0:56
  So first of all, and this was one of my very early recordings, was I did an explanation of the places in and around Oxford, which were much less well known that connect to Tolkien's imaginative world.
• 1:12
  And these are exactly the kind of places which we take people to see on our in-person courses in Oxford.
• 1:19
  And you hear me go quite deeply into the number of little fairies that are around the city, or were around the city when Tolkien was with us.
• 1:30
  And also I have a little chat there about how he was a good sportsman, which is not something we tend to think about when we think about the pipe smoking, professorial Tolkien.
• 1:42
  So have a listen.
• 1:45
  The next place I want to go on my lesser known facts about the Inklings, particularly Tolkien in this case, is about fairies.
• 1:54
  Now all of us who have seen the film of Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, will remember the scene at the Bucklebury ferry where Mary is punting over and Frodo takes a running jump to join the ferry.
• 2:09
  That is a bit less dramatically done in the actual book, but what about fairies?
• 2:14
  Now these days in Oxford, there is no ferry across the river because we have road bridges and foot bridges.
• 2:22
  But looking at an old OS map, which we picked up in a local charity shop, which was before the big road building boom of the sort of 60s and 70s in this area.
• 2:34
  It still shows the presence of several little ferries that you could have got on.
• 2:41
  It's funny to think of that now because it is an unusual thing these days in the UK to get on a ferry.
• 2:48
  But in Tolkien's day, you could, for example, walk through university parks and in order to get over to the other side in the halfway along the park, there was a little ferry that you could get on.
• 2:59
  We're talking about a stretch of water, which is no more than 10 metres across or something.
• 3:05
  It's a very short stretch, but enough and deep enough for a ferry to be necessary.
• 3:10
  But the one that I think is probably more like the Bucklebury ferry is the one near the pub I mentioned, the Victoria Arms.
• 3:17
  If you go went out to the fields just beyond Tolkien's house and wanted to cross the Charles to get to the pub, the way to do it was to get on the ferry.
• 3:28
  Near where I live on the canal in Oxford, there was one near town, a ferry across the river in Jericho.
• 3:34
  So the whole place was full of these little tiny boats that would take locals across because building a bridge is expensive.
• 3:42
  A ferry comes with a, you know, a shilling fare or a couple of pence or whatever it was depending on the route.
• 3:50
  So there we go, I wanted to sort of route the fact that the Bucklebury ferry might well have had a very Oxford inspiration at the heart of it.
• 3:58
  Now, two more things for this podcast, and I'll keep on trying to dig up lesser known facts, but these are two more things for this particular episode.
• 4:08
  One is Tolkien, the forgotten sportsman.
• 4:13
  Now, when you think of Tolkien, I bet most of you have in mind a picture of him as an elderly man, perhaps sitting under a tree, smoking a pipe or in a library, that kind of already study.
• 4:25
  That's the archetypal image we have of Tolkien, but of course he wrote his novels when he was a much younger man.
• 4:33
  He certainly wrote the Hobbit in the 30s when he had a young family, so we have to sort of shift our frame and start thinking about him in his, you know, in his prime, really.
• 4:43
  And he was a very active person.
• 4:46
  Now, this thought to come up with this was prompted by, I keep saying this, so forgive me if you've heard me say this already.
• 4:54
  It is prompted by the story of the squash playing in my own family. My husband's grandfather, when he was an academic in Leeds, was Tolkien's squash partner.
• 5:07
  I had never thought that Tolkien played squash, but there you go, proof positive in my own family.
• 5:13
  That was something he certainly tried in the 1920s up in Leeds.
• 5:18
  But when you actually look through the biographies you come across Tolkien as a keen rugby player.
• 5:23
  Now rugby is a game less known in the States, but certainly played in many countries around the world.
• 5:29
  It's a very rough game with lots of scrubs and a ball, the shape, the similar way to the American football.
• 5:35
  So it is a high impact game.
• 5:38
  He was very keen on rugby at his oratory score in Birmingham, and he was actually captain of rugby at the next school King Edwards.
• 5:46
  Considering that he wasn't the biggest heftiest guy ever to live, he was a slim, statured man.
• 5:53
  He probably suggested he was in one of the running roles in that where you have to dodge past the big defending guys.
• 6:00
  Anyway, very impressive that he was a rugby player.
• 6:04
  Also, there are references to the family going, punting and playing tennis.
• 6:09
  When he took over 20 Northmore Road, there was actually a decrepit tennis court there.
• 6:13
  I think he got rid of it because he preferred gardening.
• 6:16
  But he certainly did play tennis.
• 6:19
  And there's also references to him rowing, again another water bounce sport.
• 6:25
  So he was definitely more of a merry brandy back than a Sam Gamji when it came to being on the water.
• 6:31
  He's also known from his biography that he was a terrible driver but a very successful walker.
• 6:40
  And in our second excerpt, you can hear me in conversation with Matt Fox.
• 6:46
  Matt was the curator of an exhibition called The Magic of Middle-earth, which was doing a tour around the UK.
• 6:53
  So what do you think it's taught you about Tolkien as you've assembled the collection?
• 7:00
  That's a good question.
• 7:04
  I would say that fancy and science fiction often sort of lumped together in the bookshops, you know, on that same sort of shelf.
• 7:11
  But the evocation of nature in fancy has no parallel across the sci-fi.
• 7:17
  And few writers really evoke the natural world as well as Tolkien does.
• 7:21
  So please do say that because that's completely my take as well.
• 7:24
  Brilliant. Carry on. Carry on.
• 7:26
  Well, I'd actually go so far, some critics use that as a bad to hit him and say that he cares more about describing landscapes and about describing the characters and sublaces.
• 7:35
  But he was far-sighted in terms of his environmentalism.
• 7:39
  And he was particularly passionate about trees and from his imagination sprung tree-beard protector of the forest.
• 7:47
  I think people was fairly coming around to his way of thinking that actually trees may be a really decisive element in averting an environmental catastrophe.
• 7:59
  And that's something that I said I wanted to bring across an exhibition and the exhibition supports the Woodland Trust as well, I should say.
• 8:08
  That's something that I think I've kind of got from Tolkien and perhaps I wouldn't care quite so much about that if I hadn't read Tolkien and I think that's something that he's giving us across the years from a time when it wasn't seen as particularly important perhaps.
• 8:25
  But now it's becoming very pressingly important.
• 8:28
  So I'm really interested that you're also a collector of other memorabilia. You mentioned 1980s stuff to start with.
• 8:36
  I expect stranger things must be up your alley in that case.
• 8:40
  Evacuation of the 1980s.
• 8:42
  What do you notice in the difference between the sort of quality of the things that were produced in the 80s and the Tolkien artifacts that you can buy like the miniatures and other things?
• 8:53
  Do you feel there's a difference in approach?
• 8:56
  I love the 80s for it's kind of you know the colors and you know there was this big explosion of being able to put electronics within toys.
• 9:03
  And of course video games you know they kind of made sort of fledgling steps in the 60s and 70s but they really came into their own in the 80s.
• 9:11
  As a sort of a Tolkien collector or within the 80s there's not a huge amount actually it was a fairly quiet period.
• 9:21
  At the tail end of the 70s we had the Ralph Bakshi movie and there was a small toy line that came out to accompany that.
• 9:29
  They were sort of scaled the same way Star Wars figures are scaled but they really didn't do very well.
• 9:35
  They didn't have great play value there weren't many accessories and it was a very small toy line.
• 9:39
  So they didn't sell well and that conversely not selling well means actually they're really quite valuable today.
• 9:46
  You know they're not quite as high as Star Wars figures on the card price but those figures are still pretty desirable.
• 9:54
  In particular there's a ring rate on honesty and if you want to find one of those sort of mint then you're going to have to spend into the thousands to acquire that one.
• 10:03
  Yeah that's amazing.
• 10:06
  I do remember this is showing my age now that in the very early day of home home computers there was a hobby game that took absolutely forever to load.
• 10:18
  And it was very much a very simple click to go left go right going through the you know the following billbo's footsteps but that was the very first computer game I ever played you know the adventure style computer game.
• 10:31
  It was all off because it really was a lesson in patience that game.
• 10:36
  Yes they're previously to that there have been a few sort of generic role playing games like I'm colossal cave and adventure that was sort of you know within the middle earth sphere but the hobbit by Melbourne house.
• 10:49
  That was the first middle earth themed game.
• 10:54
  It was actually made by a couple of australians with the Mac sorry Veronica Megler put the game together and it was the first game really to be a text adventure but also have graphical tabloes.
• 11:07
  You'd actually you'd have the you'd have the text at the bottom that you're in you're in the whole billbo's house.
• 11:12
  But then above it you'd have this great picture and the picture would sort of draw before your eyes because the spectrum wasn't powerful enough to render it in my image.
• 11:19
  So you'd get the little green door would be drawn in there and you see a bit of the landscape and as a child seeing this for the first time and actually seeing my TV now is interactive.
• 11:29
  You can actually do things on the TV rather than just passively watch BBC one and two.
• 11:34
  It was amazing so I have very fond memories of Hobbit.
• 11:38
  Yeah I'm sure there should be a secret club of all of us who spent that summer holiday in our in the eighties doing that game that I was certainly be a card carrying member of that club.
• 11:49
  So do you have any plans to take your exhibition elsewhere as you've now got this collection if people are interested in seeing it.
• 11:57
  It is it's a touring exhibition and it's going to be visiting museums all around the country.
• 12:04
  So I can't really sort of make the announcements of where and when it's going to be at this time.
• 12:10
  But you know watch this base and it'll be on our on our Facebook page the magic of middle earth.
• 12:15
  But it will indeed be hopefully coming to a part of the country near you if if basing stoke is is too far away for you.
• 12:23
  And what about if we've got people over in America would you be temptable to because a lot of our listeners are over there would you be temptable to take it abroad.
• 12:30
  Well absolutely it's not so you know middle earth isn't something that's specifically British and middle earth collecting is it's got a fantastic global audience.
• 12:39
  So it could indeed go go to America or to or to any other country across Europe so it'd be fantastic to do so.
• 12:46
  Okay so we'll put a link in the show notes so if anyone's listening who wants to tempt Matt bring his exhibition their way you'll be able to contact them through their Facebook page.
• 12:57
  So I have a few kind of more general questions now for you and the first one I wanted to ask you is do you have any favorite talking trivia that you would like to share.
• 13:09
  I mean you've actually already shared a few bits but perhaps from the filmmaking process for example I'm not sure you can beat the smell with four legs and two legs that's pretty.
• 13:18
  You knocked it out the part with that one.
• 13:21
  I'll keep much of it in the 80s as you know that I particularly enjoyed that decade.
• 13:27
  And it's the rock group merillium they had hits in the aces with a couple of big hits called Kayley and Lavenda and that group they were named after Tolkien's book The Silmarillion.
• 13:37
  In fact they originally began life as Silmarillion but they decided to shorten it to merillium to avoid legal issues so yes that's my that's my nugget of trivia for you.
• 13:49
  Yeah that's right I'm sure there's actually quite a surprising number of firms named after Tolkien theme to things like Palantir and others I wonder how they negotiated that anyway good luck to them if they are dealing with the Tolkien estate they're very fierce about guarding the you know the copy right which is as it should be.
• 14:12
  Almost every episode we do that mentions the Peter Jackson cast or the rings of power get a lot of listens because I think we're all fascinated by what filmmakers and program makers do with Tolkien's world.
• 14:25
  But it was also very pleasing to see that the readership or listenership I should say followed us into the audio world because when I was reviewing Andy circus's version of the Lord of the Rings I also took the opportunity to review all the existing audio versions of Lord of the Rings including the dramatized one.
• 14:46
  So have a little listen if you want to find out what it's like to listen to Lord of the Rings rather than watch.
• 14:53
  Now let's go back to 1981 I actually remember this being made it was a huge part of my childhood that the fact the BBC had done this fantastic version.
• 15:05
  It was dramatized in 26 episodes and in those days of course it wasn't on demand you had to wait with your cassette tape recorder to record them if you wanted to listen again and I have to admit to doing that.
• 15:20
  The cast was stellar and some of the names many of you will recognize so in home played Frodo in the BBC version and he returned as Bilbo in the Peter Jackson films.
• 15:37
  But Gandalf was played by a man who was like a very well known actor at the time Michael Horden.
• 15:44
  I actually knew him as a child because he was the voice of the Paddington cartoons but he also was a very notable film actor.
• 15:52
  Robert Stevens he is perhaps also known for being once married to Maggie Smith.
• 15:59
  He played Aragon and Bill Nye played Sam and there are lots of other very notable people John La Miserie played Bilbo and those of you who have watched the British comedy program Dad's Army he was in that cast.
• 16:19
  So you can see they really were able to attract into the recording studio a really superior team of voice actors.
• 16:28
  Now and a really nice thing about the BBC version is that it was directed by two women Jane Morgan and Penny Leicester and they did a really excellent job in choosing their material dividing it up.
• 16:43
  They brought along Stephen Oliver who's music I think is definitely amongst the best versions of the songs.
• 16:52
  Extremely singable and they also had a lot extras at the end of the some of the episodes where you could have even more songs if you wanted.
• 17:02
  Like I remembered there was an extra set from tree beard at one point in the the two towers.
• 17:09
  So they did a really really excellent job in bringing the poetry of Tolkien into the dramatization.
• 17:19
  I think that one thing to point out is they took some cuts like Peter Jackson did they didn't include Tom Bombadill.
• 17:28
  And there was sort of you know there is a argument that Lord the rings of fellowship the ring takes a long time to get going and the Tom Bombadill material isn't really important later on in the plot.
• 17:41
  So it's an obvious cut if you want to slim down you're offering.
• 17:47
  They also had really good simple special effects so when you listen to it you do feel very if you lay in bed or in the car or wherever you are.
• 18:00
  You really feel in the world with sort of wind sounds and the idea of particularly the black riders they have a very ghostly tone.
• 18:13
  There's a very good smiggle as well I mean we've all got so used to Andy circus but actually the person who takes on smiggle in this version.
• 18:30
  That's Peter Woodthorpe he for me until I saw the piece Jackson films he was the smiggle the voice of and he had previously voiced the same character in the Ralph Bakshi animated version.
• 18:48
  And I believe that the gentleman who played Boramir Michael Graham Cox also had appeared in that version too as a voice actor.
• 18:57
  So there's some lovely crossings over between the various versions so I would say that it was just such an excellent production really very high class.
• 19:13
  For me the the voice that I didn't quite warm to and this perhaps is just a personal taste is I found Robert Steven Stevens as arrogant as a he felt older and I happened to sort of already know what Robert Stevens looked like because he appeared in some children's dramas at the time.
• 19:34
  And he played a bad guy in a version of I think it was a box of delights and the John Maysfield story and I remember feeling he wasn't quite right.
• 19:46
  So for me that was one of the weaker sides of that production but definitely highly recommended particularly as I mentioned earlier for the quality of the songs.
• 20:00
  Which they do really really well so moving on we're heading a bit more into the digital age but not quite yet in 1990 actor called Robert English English sat down and recorded an unabridged version of the Lord of the Rings.
• 20:23
  It was directed by Claudia Howard and the music is a variety of either music sort of noted by Tolkien something that Robert Ingles had done shop his name is English or Ingles I think I'll go of Ingles and he made up himself and also Claudia Howard also added some music to.
• 20:49
  In the production I think they re-released it around the site at the same time as the films it has some very nice musical.
• 20:59
  It includes the signal the end of a book and the beginning of another they use this this same production note in the Martin Shaw version of Silmarillion and then really well chosen a sense of almost like the leaving the tide is leaving.
• 21:22
  And I think it really adds to that version what do you get when you listen to Robert Ingles well you get a very.
• 21:31
  Professorial tone almost I kind of tell myself it's a bit like sitting listening to Tolkien read it to you and that is a big plus point he's very good he he doesn't push too far away from a reading voice it's not to dramatized reading.
• 21:53
  But he does find a lot of different notes and that you're never confused by who's speaking he doesn't extremely good job and I think it's very listenable it's definitely has a quality about it which is very relaxing and the perfect audio book in a sense that you can just let it wash through you and wash over you and you you go with the story.
• 22:21
  I think that perhaps is less good on how to put this because it feels a bit like a period piece I'm almost surprised to find it was recorded in 1990 because he feels like he could have recorded it in 1950.
• 22:40
  There is an element of it feeling slightly old fashioned I think it might might be the tone and the and the feeling of a certain gentleman of a certain age so what you're getting as I'm saying is does feel quite appropriate to imagine it being a bit like Tolkien reading to you.
• 22:58
  So let us move on now to the big new player in the field and that is Andy circus's version.
• 23:07
  Now I think it's really interesting finding Andy circus having dedicated what must have been a very large part of his life recently maybe it was a lockdown project to recording this and I think that what you get of course is it feels much more familiar to people who have come at Tolkien from the film.
• 23:32
  So the very first thing to say is when he chooses a character voice he very often is channeling what you see from the screen thanks to Peter Jackson.
• 23:43
  So for example the choice to make Pippin Scottish the shower is a very small place and it's quite funny to think that within such a small area there are such wildly different accents.
• 24:01
  Which is perfectly fine and I can see that it distinguishes the hobbits from each other but I'm also thinking of of course Billy Boyd as he does the voice is fine but just warn you that there is that element of hearing film actors underneath what Andy circus is doing.
• 24:18
  The other thing that the other actor who is very clearly an inspiration for a voice is a Boramir totally Sean Bean very good very good interpretation of Sean Bean again the choice of an Northern accent there.
• 24:35
  So that I think will please lots of people because they will sort of be clued in they can imagine almost seeing a version of the film in their imagination happening.
• 24:49
  The other thing about Andy circus is approach is unlike Robert Ingalls who as I said had more of a reading voice and doesn't push too far into the drama there is more energy and more performance behind Andy circus is version.
• 25:05
  So in terms of listening experience there is peaks and troughs it's actually more what is more dramatic and it is it is a performance as opposed to a reading if I can draw that distinction.
• 25:22
  And of course the big event in the last couple of years to do with talking has been the Amazon rings of power series we did a number of podcasts about that anticipating it also at the end where we sort of gave a verdict.
• 25:39
  This extract though is from our discussion that we held with some of our followers about the reactions to it in the early days after the first two episodes.
• 25:49
  Have a listen and see if you agree I think my own views got less favorable as I went on but at this point I was feeling quite hopeful.
• 25:59
  So that's a little sense of where it's following a track I think the broad brush strokes are sort of on within the talking world but there is a lot of particular gladial like we imagine her to do a different job.
• 26:16
  And which probably sending some people you know crazy but that that's basically what they're doing so I'm not going to give a view on whether it's good or bad to do that.
• 26:28
  I'd like to hear how you felt and this is where it goes over to you to discuss.
• 26:33
  What was your feeling about the story that you did you find it fun or did you find it too slow who would like to chip in with an early reaction.
• 26:47
  Nancy off you go.
• 26:51
  So I do like it. I watched both episodes twice. I feel like we're in middle earth which was a really important thing.
• 27:09
  I really like the relationship between Elrond and Durin and that we're going to get to see.
• 27:19
  I was a doom at its height. I like that development. I really had a problem with gladriel the others being offered to go to Valinor not only because the way they made it look.
• 27:38
  So I find those those female elves with the veils on really creepy.
• 27:45
  And I'm like I don't understand what that is about and so I was thinking about this last night after watching the second episode of the second time that really gladriel is the only female elf we get to see her face basically.
• 28:06
  And I know she's the star but it's very weird to me and I was like I mean part of the reason why you know when we see gladriel at the mirror with Frodo and she gets all big and bad and then she comes back to herself and she's like I passed the test I can go into the west.
• 28:27
  I mean part the thing the reason that's so impactful is because she had been banned from Valinor and had had to protect her little slice of Elvindam and was fighting Sauron that entire time with the help of the with Narna.
• 28:53
  And and and so she does pass the test and become forgiven you know so by allowing her the opportunity to go back to Valinor like right at the very beginning I think it takes away from that.
• 29:15
  I don't have a problem with her being this warrior.
• 29:20
  Tolkien did say she was you know really strong and he called her name was like man made in and so I don't really have a problem with that I'm not I was thinking about the whole caliber thing too last night that he could still be there he could be you know because he's they're not always together like you said you know and he could be off in his own doing the whole you know founding Lauren.
• 29:50
  And then or whatever so I just I don't have a problem with them making her like this but I did kind of have a problem with Gilgalad and him saying that evil was gone you know like he seemed an Elron they both seem like politicians sort of you know and I guess they would be and I guess even in the Lord of the rings Elron was a bit of a politician.
• 30:19
  I mean and but to dismiss it so offhand you know just because you know she said she found clues but I don't know that whole thing just seem weird to me I love the hobbits the harfits I love the harfits I love this mystery man who.
• 30:42
  It does seem it is who I think it is and I projected a while back that it would be but I'm wondering if they're going I don't know if I want to spoil that but I I'm wondering if if they're leading us on with that but I like the way the harfits are being portrayed and they seem very natural I mean the elves are the ones that felt most stupid to me where the humans and the.
• 31:07
  The harfits seemed very real i'm not sure about the love the elf human relationship right off the bat and i'm also worried that you know this thing between gladriel and.
• 31:30
  How brand they're hinting at something and I don't think they should go there but um you know so far I really i'm happy with the way it looks i'm happy with.
• 31:45
  The most of the characters the way they are and I mean there's I think I heard there's only eight episodes and that's a lot.
• 31:57
  To develop in the first season and what what had worried me was in seeing the previous there was a whole lot going on very early you know like they really jumped the timeline like I know they said they come in my frozen.
• 32:17
  No it's a they can press it but I think they may be pressing it too much.
• 32:24
  So i don't know about the naked man but I had my I've got a kind of either or so I was thinking well it would be fun to use.
• 32:37
  That guy as the hobbits introducing sarron you know it could be sarron who's kind of fallen angel falling from the sky looser for figure but because he's and also it looks like an eye you know there's all in the middle of that.
• 32:51
  Thing but then when actually saw him I thought oh he's definitely channeling a kind of.
• 32:56
  Gandalf the grey grunge so maybe he's a wizard and he starts.
• 33:01
  Being a bit scary and actually that's the classic thing to do isn't it if it's if you actually turned out to be good you start him a bit scary whereas if he was going to be sarron you start him.
• 33:12
  Being really nice I do think you can do it the other way so my money's shifted being if i'm in Vegas i'm going to put him on the wizard Gandalf chip.
• 33:24
  I think I don't know what do other people think because we don't know I don't know.
• 33:28
  Yeah especially.
• 33:30
  So catch your hand up what's your view.
• 33:37
  Yeah so I enjoyed it more than I thought I would I was very apprehensive they wouldn't be respectful to talk in but they were in my opinion more respectful than not i'm totally in love with the couple of the woman healer and the guard elf.
• 33:53
  And that's surprising because I think the we totally imagined for the Amazon show but I like the chemistry that they had I liked the individual characters i think out of all of the elves the guard for me had the most average behavior that I would expect because I was very disappointed by almost all other elves.
• 34:16
  I was not convinced by the actor he didn't seem enough elvish to me.
• 34:24
  But I did like the dwarves the hard foods and yeah generally found it's very visually appealing kind of divided from gladrary didn't like her in the first episode liked her very much on in the second way more the second episode.
• 34:42
  But I also try it's yeah it's kind of difficult for me to judge it with a lot of precision because i'm not that familiar with all of the pre history of the middle earth.
• 34:58
  So yeah more happy way more happy than they thought it would be and love the elf and human couple generally i'm always a sucker for a difficult love story.
• 35:13
  So for now i'm mostly here to follow this couple it's like my main interest for now.
• 35:21
  Now that's really fascinating because they're a couple up when they come on the screen I think oh come on i'm less interested in them though I do like his breastplate i spend a lot of time looking at thinking oh it's a green man.
• 35:35
  Oh yeah yeah yeah because I think finally the costumes were very nice but it wasn't disappointed by the armor of the elves I would expect more of intricate metal work on their armor and it's very plain to me but yeah it's the kind of neat picking.
• 35:53
  Yeah i spent a nitpick there that's what we're here to see why not.
• 36:01
  And the final exit is from a podcast I recorded at the beginning of the year with one of my regular co-presenters Jacob Renica and we were discussing how Tolkien is seen 50 years on from his passing which of course is the anniversary force this year.
• 36:20
  In this extract we're discussing how it's now perfectly possible to study Tolkien academically when earlier on during the first few decades after his passing it was certainly sniffed at by universities.
• 36:34
  So looking at I think that I'm very pleased to say 50 years on from the moment when Tolkien died where his work was kind of slightly embarrassing for academia now if you say as a student I'd like to do a dissertation on Tolkien they'll say oh yes which aspect do you want to do it on they won't say oh you know go away.
• 36:59
  They'll be interested and there are some fantastic academic books written about Tolkien papers and so on including your own.
• 37:08
  Jacob that people can read to sort of.
• 37:12
  Open that up in an academic sense what is for you and what what's what academic aspects of talking have you followed what's been the.
• 37:20
  The will of the whisper you followed across this particular March.
• 37:26
  For me part like mythology myth building myth making right that that Tolkien is engaged with for me that's what's what is fasting the development the development of a cosmology right so part of my academic training is in world mythologies and in different versions.
• 37:50
  Of different myths from each of these different different cultures different eras in different languages and so there's real affinities that I see with how Tolkien is developing his cosmology with his cosmogony right as birth of the world putting that into conversation with some of these world.
• 38:15
  So world myths is for me very very enlightening helps to highlight different things that make both.
• 38:26
  Tolkien stand out and some of these other world myths appreciate different aspects of them so it's he put he puts so much thought effort revisions approaching from different angles that it's it's it's a worthy conversation partner to.
• 38:41
  Mist that have been around for you know thousands and thousands of years so for me that's that's part of his is putting into conversation having Tolkien is a conversation partner with world myths and what he's doing so that's that's one of the things that kind of.
• 38:55
  Captured me and got me into kind of academic engagement with with Tolkien in particular.
• 39:02
  Yeah so and I think that's one of the wonderful things about the richest of the material is that you can take it into you can look at it in a linguistic aspect you can look at its theology you can look at its well building you can look at its themes you can look at its.
• 39:17
  Relationship to eco criticism I mean it's it's so rich and so the fact that people didn't see that and thought it was just a fantasy story back in the 80s is that's a real improvement so 50 years on we can celebrate that we've we've matured as judges of Tolkien's work which is which is good so.
• 39:40
  Thank you about now talking is hot property no one's going to make a fortune out of writing an academic paper on Tolkien i'm sorry Jacob that's not what the money lies yeah so.
• 39:53
  Tolkien now has become a property that has value for the world of film and television so we have previously discussed things like the rings of power the Peter Jackson films i'm so on but.
• 40:09
  Should we move a little bit wider than that and see what else owes its existence to they're having been talking because I think a lot of the big stonking sort of big fantasy series do actually owe their existence to they're having been talking to start with and so i'm looking at you will of time the Witcher.
• 40:34
  Um what else is there.
• 40:38
  Game of Thrones yeah House of the Dragon so I think all of these exist because the Peter Jackson films were success if we rerun history and the furniture for the ring was panned that they did animation that was just no good you know that special effects were rubbish.
• 41:01
  Any of the cast was unwatchable you know all the things that could have gone wrong Peter Jackson turn out to be a terrible director and I think we would not.
• 41:14
  We would not have had this because I think it's different from the Harry Potter things that come along I think there's a whole strain of fancy films of Harry Potter's aspect which follow on all the ones set in schools like the musicians that one which is a high school version and even something like Wednesday the new.
• 41:38
  Is that Netflix series these all seem much more like sons and daughters of Harry Potter whereas the big epic fantasy one seem to owe their existence to talking I think that's probably why we have why they why they're there but.
• 41:57
  Do you think they're right thinking that talking's made away because I haven't seen these things being as successful game of thrones was.
• 42:07
  I'd say that was like a kind of bleaker lord of the rings.
• 42:11
  It's like yeah lord of the rings with.
• 42:14
  It's and time politics.
• 42:18
  What's the rings run by the board shows you know something like yes yeah yeah plus seasonal depression yeah yeah it's yeah it's it's really interesting because I remember having a conversation with somebody was pretty soon after game of thrones came out talking about lord of the rings and game of thrones kind of putting those in conversation with each other.
• 42:41
  With the student who was just noticing I'll tell toneally that game of thrones was watching it that that seemed like it was kind of a one time watching for for him he's like yeah like yeah I like to enjoy it i'm not going to watch it again or is with the lord of the rings film it was one that.
• 43:03
  For him it was palatable that the tone everything it was something that.
• 43:08
  It's a little bit more multiple rewatches and so I think yeah there's is something.
• 43:16
  About the type of show yeah the while the game of thrones tells a particular type of story is pretty good type of approach to life I don't know that people.
• 43:26
  Want to be having that on repeat all of the time and just kind of watching that and those particular lessons like what you learn about humanity.
• 43:34
  And in particular the negative part of humanity or that if that's what you want reinforce I think part of what talking does as well there is.
• 43:44
  Certainly you see people who are corrupted and you see traders and.
• 43:52
  So especially in the summer really and right you see some people that some some some true tragedies happen that there is still this kind of like.
• 44:02
  Undergirding idea of folks there's some strand of hope that comes through the even in even though you're you're you're facing this long decline right you know that the world is actually ending.
• 44:14
  But yeah there's something here that is hopeful that is pulling through this this kind of sweetness intermingled with the sorrow which goes back to talking's cosmology and the creation of the world itself so.
• 44:26
  I think that is is important and sets it apart from a lot of these other works. I think it's like the star glass you know the lady gladiator gift to Frodo that the book feels like that it's shining bright in the darkness and you can bring it out and make shine.
• 44:41
  Funnily enough of today I was doing a school visit about my books to do like an assembly style event and part of what I do is I create stories with the children and they have like a card they can select they can't see what they're selecting so it's a random selection thing.
• 45:00
  And then ask them which which story they like best and one of them had had a bittersweet ending that was one of the endings was selected and one boy chose that is his favorite story and I said why why did you like that story and he said I like endings that don't feel too happy.
• 45:20
  It's something in us that it's fine to watch you know the redding bells sort of ending I think there is a recognition that you know we're all going to die there is an element where it feels closer to a lived experience even though it's a fantasy world where there is this sadness within the happiness and
• 45:45
  but also a sense of redemption about that you know the idea that sacrifice isn't wasted Frodo's sacrifice is worth it even though it's personally costly and that's all that is really the most profound is parts of life and that's why people rewatch I'm sure because it reaffirms some of those hopes that we have for the meaning of our existence.
• 46:12
  It sounds very serious but that is really the value I get from Lord the Rings and many other people do.
• 46:21
  Thank you so much for listening we love responding to ideas that you come up with in fact several of the episodes have been as a result of suggestions from listeners so if you've got any ideas for what could be in the fourth season do let us know and also if you are.
• 46:38
  Can on any fantasy writers that you would like us to reach out to also do send us a line because it's nothing like saying your fans want to hear from you that gets people to agree to come and do a podcast I hope you all have a wonderful fantastic summer we'll be back very soon.
• 47:01
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