The Nicks take a close look at the goings on of Middle-earth, the Council is called at a time when all the free folks happen to be represented, the tale of The Ring is told and the larger picture is starting to become clear to those present that now is the time of action, there is a chance NOW to strike against the enemy.
THIS JUST IN!
A WOUNDED HOBBIT HEALED.
WRAITH WORLD AVOIDED.
THE TIME FOR FEASTS IS OVER. THE TIME FOR TALK IS NIGH!
ELROND THE ELF LORD HOSTS A GREAT COUNCIL.
SECRETS ARE TOLD -- DECISIONS… MADE.
WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE? WHAT DECISIONS WILL THEY COME TO?
AND WHAT OF THE RULING RING?
Maps
LoTRproject.com interactive map - Caution: spoilers for new readers!
Notes for this episode
- Frodo feels great! He wants to explore.
- No time for that _BELL RINGS!_
- The gathering (Many Meetings part 2)
- Boromir - A stranger unlooked for
- Gloin’s report from Erebor and Dale
- The messenger from “The Lord Sauron the Great”.
- We are gathered here uncalled and unlooked for to decide what to do.
- Elrond’s Tale (which skips millennia in the telling - see the Silmarillion)
- The long memory of Elrond
- Tells long tale of the forging of the Great Rings
- Celebrimbor
- The story of the Rise and Fall of Numenor
- Elendil the Tall, his sons Isildur and Anarion
- The rise of Gondor and Arnor
- Gil-Galad
- The Last Alliance against Sauron
- Defeat of Sauron
- Diminished, but not Destroyed
- Isildur claims the Ring as a wergild (compensation) and an heirloom of his house.
- The Rise of Gondor and Arnor
- The Fall of Arnor and the diminishment of Gondor
- The long memory of Elrond
- Confusion about the actual history of the Ring
- What is all this about trees? (white trees?)
- Boromir’s Report
- Begs leave from Lord Elrond to talk more of Minas Tirith and Gondor.
- Numenorian blood not spent - Boromir takes offense
- Smoke rises from Mount Doom
- Mordor is allied with Harad
- Ithilien overrun
- East shore of Osgiliath has been abandoned to the Enemy
- Gondor holds the line
- Only Rohan will send aide these days
- Dreams, he and his brother.
- Travels 110 days to find Rivendell and seek Elrond’s council.
- The lineage of Aragorn
- Broken Sword? Dreams? Same Sword?
- “Bring out the Ring Frodo”
- Love, loathing, fear, shame
- How do we know it is Isildur’s Bane - Boromir
- All that is gold does not glitter
- Aragorn and the Rangers and the North
- Dunadain vs. Gondor as unsung heroes
- Bilbo’s tale
- The true version
- Frodo’s tale - lots of interruptions
- Bilbo wants to talk more about it later -- great story sans interruptions
- Frodo thinks the story is still incomplete -- wants to know more about Gandalf
- Galdor the elf from Grey Havens also wants to know more
- Wants to know about Saruman
- Galdor the elf from Grey Havens also wants to know more
Links
"Five Armies" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
The Nicks wake from their slumber to find themselves in Rivendell where they must try and remember their family, meet new friends, and see old friends in a new light.
THIS JUST IN!
THE ENEMY HAS GONE TO WAR!
OPENLY DECLARING HIMSELF,
THE DECEIVER SENDS HIS 9 WRAITHS AFTER OUR HEROES.
FRODO IS WOUNDED AND ON THE BRINK.
A MYSTERIOUS ELF LORD COMES TO HIS AID.
AFTER LENGTHY PURSUIT ACROSS MILES OF COUNTRY THE SERVANTS OF THE ENEMY DRAW CLOSER THAN COMFORT ALLOWS.
NEARING RIVENDELL GLORFINDEL, THE ELF LORD, CALLS ON ANCIENT POWERS COMBAT THE ENEMY IN PURSUIT.
WILL HIS PLAN PLAY OUT?
WILL FRODO, OUR HERO, SURVIVE THE DAY?
Maps
LoTRproject.com interactive map - Caution: spoilers for new readers!
Notes for this episode
Many Meetings
- Gandalf - what happened at the Ford - the true nature of Frodo’s injury/ringwraiths - “Delayed?” - comments about Weathertop - lost time
- Sam and the Hobbits - Sam has stayed with him each of the 4 days… barely left his side.
- Pippin - “The Lord of the Ring” - Gandalf jumps on that. “Only one Lord of the Ring.”
- The banquet - A banquet fit for the high lords of old.
- Elrond - ageless. Neither young nor old. At his one side sat Gandalf, at the other Glorfindel.
- Glorfindel - a hero!
- Gandalf again - he looks like a lord of old.
- Arwen - lady Arwen. Undomiel. Evenstar. Her birth and rise mark the close of the "Elven Chapter" in Middle-earth.
- Sam wanted to wait on Frodo during the banquet. - Frodo is seated upon many fine cushions to give him the same “height”.
- Gloin - THE Gloin. Companion of Thorin Oakenshield. - He talks a lot. Very excited to find a courteous “listener” in Frodo. - They swap stories about their homelands.
- The Hall of Fire - a place of quiet and reflection… unless it's feast or banquet time. Then it’s a place of songs and stories!
- Stranger in the corner -- Bilbo! - The Ring
- Strider-Aragorn-Dunadan
- The Twins /Elladan and Elrohir, Elrond’s twin sons. Absent from the banquet
- Earendil - in the song -
- Good old hobbit-talk
- BEDTIME!
Thoughts
- “I wish you could have held out at Weathertop.”
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- (NJ - if he had not revealed himself by way of the Ring, would they have been able to fight them off with fire without them making an attack on Frodo?)
- “There are many powers in the world, for good or for evil.”
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- “Some are greater than I am. Against some, I have not yet been measured. But my time is coming. The Morgul-lord and his Black Riders have come forth. War is preparing!”
- (NJ - The powers of the world, their interaction with the people of the world has been greatly reduced in recent millennia. Yet we see these little hints that there is something larger happening in the story.)
- “I thought, well, that they (the Big People) were just big and rather stupid: kind and stupid like Butterbur; or stupid and wicked like Bill Ferny”
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- “You don’t know much even about them if you think old Barliman is stupid,”
- “I have known strong warriors of the Big People who would quickly have been overcome by that splinter, which you bore for seventeen days.”
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- (NJ - often we are reminded that there is more to the Hobbits than meets the eye)
- Ringwraiths
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- Real horses
- Real cloaks - to give shape to their nothingness
- (NJ - nothing in the Seen, something in the Unseen)
- Fragment of the blade
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- Frodo turning Wraith
- With the ring on - like standing halfway between the worlds
- “Those who have dwelt in the Blessed Realm live at once in both worlds, and against both the Seen and the Unseen they have great power.”
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- Blessed Realm
- Seen and Unseen
Links
The Nicks take a break from the chapters as an interlude between Books 1 and 2. Some reflection on the story so far, and questions from our listeners!
Maps
LoTRproject.com interactive map - Caution: spoilers for new readers!
Links
The Nicks, joined by Jake, Jenni, and Eowyn get together at the Green Dragon Brew Pub in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. If your name is the Green Dragon, we're interested in testing your fare, the food, and the drink. This short episode is cut from our whole meal together and barely passes as a review.
The food was good, heavy and rich with cheese in the case of the flatbreads, but very enjoyable nonetheless. The potato wedges were delicious, with a crispy perfection. The Dragon Eggs were very good - Hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and deep fried - even the Nicks (who don't usually like hard boiled eggs found them delectable).The drinks were tasty, but nothing that would make the hair on your toes curl up with excitement.
The venue is standard bar restaurant, adequate but not any resemblance of a place that takes its name from Lord of The Rings. In fact, we don't know if the name is any reference to Tolkien's works. We would, however, like to go back and try some of the other pub food, the burgers for example.
Links
The Nicks, joined by Jake, Jenni, and Eowyn get together at the Green Dragon Brew Pub in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. If your name is the Green Dragon, we're interested in testing your fare, the food, and the drink. This short episode is cut from our whole meal together and barely passes as a review.
The food was good, heavy and rich with cheese in the case of the flatbreads, but very enjoyable nonetheless. The potato wedges were delicious, with a crispy perfection. The Dragon Eggs were very good - Hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage and deep fried - even the Nicks (who don't usually like hard boiled eggs found them delectable).The drinks were tasty, but nothing that would make the hair on your toes curl up with excitement.
The venue is standard bar restaurant, adequate but not any resemblance of a place that takes its name from Lord of The Rings. In fact, we don't know if the name is any reference to Tolkien's works. We would, however, like to go back and try some of the other pub food, the burgers for example.
Links
The Nicks discuss embarrassing stories of when we were fools and couldn't remember what we did, Frodo's predicament, Glorfindel's shiny nature, slipping into the wraith world, a cavalry of waves, the geography, and history of this leg of the journey, and ending the first book on a cliffhanger.
Maps
LoTRproject.com interactive map - Caution: spoilers for new readers!
What Happened Last Time?:
The company came together in the nick of time as Strider’s usefulness came through on the first night of their acquaintance. During the night at the Prancing Pony, Black Riders stole into the rooms set aside for the Hobbits, and brutally murdered their pillows, and in the words of Tommy Boy, “Woah, that was close.” After some trouble leaving town, Strider is able to get the company lost and out of sight of the Riders while making their way to Weathertop. Seven days, one funky lightning show, and a million bug bites later and they make it to Weathertop just in time for the Black Riders to ambush them and stab Frodo with a blade from Mordor. This is bad news.
Where Are We in the Narrative?:
Our Heroes have left home and hearth behind - beyond the Shire, beyond Bree - besides Bilbo, no other Hobbit in living memory has gone so far afield as these brave, foolhardy, unnatural hobbits. Joining in with a Ranger from the North - Strider, they inch closer to Rivendell while being chased by Black Riders of Mordor. Dark times have found the company, and they will likely need help to arrive safely at Rivendell, but help in the wild is very unlikely to be found.
Notes for this episode:
FRODO:
- What happened at Weathertop?
- The Ring and his realization.
- The wound.
-
- What does it feel like
- Eventually, it all but heals up to just a white mark…???
- How does it affect him?
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- Strider comments that the Riders wounded him in such a fashion to make him unable to resist them.
- shade/shadow over his eyes
- The world looks pale
- His friends look like shadows eventually
- Shadows in his dreams
- Another dream
GEOGRAPHY:
- Wilderness of what once was Arnor/The Kingdoms of the North
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- Towers in the distance
- No one lives here, not anymore
- Hoarwell (river number 1)
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- The bridge.
- The jewel.
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- Did it fall idly, or placed intentionally? Either way, Strider is comforted.
- Trollshaws
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- Bilbo’s story!
- Sam’s song.
-
- Talk about song…
-
- How do you read it?
- Do you read it sing-song, or actually give it a made-up melody?
- The Bruinen (Loudwater) - The Ford (river number 2)
STRIDER:
- Leadership in question… Sam doesn't trust him after he disappears post-Weathertop battle.
-
- How does he respond to this?
- What does he do to and with Frodo knowing that he was wounded by the Witch-king of Angmar?
-
- How do the hobbits respond?
- Athelas and its effects.
THE CHASE:
- Some Black Riders from behind
- Frodo hesitates - Glorfindel commands his horse to RUN!
-
- Noro lim Asfaloth, noro lim!
- Some Black Riders ahead
- Frodo gets ahead and across the ford by the skin of his teeth
- The standoff
- The “cavalry of waves”
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- What does it mean?
- Valar?
- Intervention?
THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK:
- Our first cliffhanger…
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- How does this compare and contrast with the literature you’re used to reading?
- How does it to the rest of the book we’ve read so far?
- Another Tolkienism...
Notable Difference(s) from Films:
- Arwen instead of Glorfindel
- Hard to determine how much time is passed even though they say it’s two weeks in the movie
Locations/Distance Traveled/Distance apart:
- Wilderness of what once was Arnor
- The Hoarwell
- Trollshaws
- The Bruinen (Loudwater) - the Ford
New Characters:
- Glorfindel
What to Watch for in the Next Chapter:
- We end on a cliffhanger! Does Frodo survive?
Links