DON'T YOU DARE BE DISSING MY ANCIENT ALIENS!!!!!!!!! WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH!!!!!!! THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT BY LIZARD PEOPLE FROM THE ZORGON GALAXY IN THE BETA UNIVERSE 20 TRILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE AND THEN TELEPORTED TO THE PAST, JUST TO MOCK HUMANS AND TRICK THEM INTO THINKING HUMANS COULD ACTUALLY ACHIEVE SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL NOT BE FOOLED!!!!!!! WHO IS WITH ME????????????? FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE ALIEN MIND CONTROL PROGRAMS!!!!!!! THE CIA, FBI, NSA, FFA, FDA, TSA, BTA, FDP, FDC, AND ALL THE OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE IN ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DO NOT WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY FLAT, AND IS INSIDE A GLASS SNOWBALL DOME!!!!!!!!!!!! BE AWARE!!!!!!!!!! BE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRUTH SHALL PREVAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
NerdSync has a video called 'The Eternals comics are also bad.' that nicely gets to the roots of why Ancient Aliens is so, so bad if you're at all interested.
it's a joke to most history buffs, but it does suck in many people with it's name granting it assumed authority and yet i think i remember a time when the history channel actually made history docushows, they were allready all about entertainment and focussed solely on the most popular topics, rome's biggest wars, big west european medieval history (also wars) oh and ww2, ww2 was like half of it eventually that must have not cut it anymore and they decided that there was simply a bigger market for allien conspiracy and reallity tv than historically accurate docu's P.S. I am also a history student, not that it even matters
I have 2 history degrees and you don't have to have done history at uni to know that the history channel doesn't understand history... its just a common fact
I have to agree with the growing consensus... it's an odd take to suggest the History channel would or could get anything right. It went from being a channel mostly devoted to stock footage fueled WWII documentaries twenty years ago to being a wall to wall clickbait fest of things that are almost antithetical to the whole spirit of its namesake. If anything, it feels like the channel has gone beyond being a joke to being an active attempt to ruin the very concept of history at a fundamental level.
You are absolutely correct, Jess. The History Channel does not get Tolkien. But then, the History Channel does not get history either; and hasn’t for some time.
I would contend that the History Channel never really did get history. Even before Ancient Aliens they had a lot of shows that were pretty uncritical of conspiracy theories.
that`s technically a lie dr.corey olsen had done lots of papers because i know for a fact that he also did podcasts like say the mythgard academy podcast, the second breakfast podcast and also the tolkien professor podcast
@@jorgeluis4389 actually dr.corey olsen actually did read the lord of the rings because he also a nerd don`t be talking about somebody you don`t know rather if i was you i would my mouth right now got it
@@hazardwave1768 i would not call dr.corey olsen dyslexic because he one is one of the smartest and the brightest of his field of work as the tolkien professor
Huge Star Wars fan here. Your assessment of "sandbox to have fun in that later became a world" is correct and it really grinds my gears that many people pretend it isn't.
What grinds me about this is that even Lucas-blessed authors writing in-universe stories get stupid things wrong, e.g. 16-year-old Leia fighting the Empire that wasn't created until after she had been a senator for some time. It was fine for Lucas to treat the original trilogy this way, but if you are going to bother with prequels and sequels, you should spend enough time on world building to create a consistent timeline and plausible motivation and politics. Tolkien uses language and core mythology as the foundation of his world building. Star wars uses space dog fights, weird anatomy, robots, hand-wavy magic, and shallow villains. Star Wars eventually got better world building than most movie franchises, but claiming it is like Tolkien is just very sad.
I was a kid at the beginning, and I remember that, besides the book that mirrored the movie, the first product beyond the movie was Splinter of the Mind's Eye. It was a novel written by Alan Dean Foster. It was the first and last novel I read beyond the original book. To this day, I have no idea how Lucas feels about this novel, or any of the other novels that fall outside the movies Lucas made. The original Star Wars book was published before the success of the movie and did include the scenes with Biggs on Tatooine that were left on the cutting room floor in the film because it was based on the screenplay by Lucas, and was actually written by Alan Dean Foster. This suggests that ADF had Lucas' blessing with the second novel. It still fell flat for me. Even at the age of 11, I felt the book was a stretch and didn't feel authentic. I think the extended universe is so accepted from the beginning because it took so long for the next movie and fans were rabid for anything they could get.
It is but also it literally has the same ending as LoTR: Hero is tempted to slay the Bad Guy, but he resists, shows mercy, and then the guy he spared yeeteth the actual Big Evil into the burning reactor core, saving everyone. Literally the same ending in RoTJ and RoTK. AH YES AND THE NAMES TOO. Also similar amounts of female characters with words (like two).
To be honest, if they did actually try and say JRR Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings as an allegory for alien influence on the history of mankind, I would applaud the History Channel for their absolute lunacy and commitment to the bit. Instead, we got a whole lot of meh.
I also find that situation amusing. I am no Tolkien expert and even a imbecile like myself knows he disliked allogory and all its manifestation, from the time when he was old and wise enough to detect its presence.
That was an idea I was going to put on a novel I ended up abandoning unfinished. The main concept was that coming to Earth to start a cult used to be a get-rich-quick scheme for the people of more advanced civilizations but after the 19th century it became more profitable to turn the history of the wider galaxy into fiction (first literary sagas, now movie franchises) rather than in the lore of a religion. Tolkien was supposed to be one of those aliens and at some point the main character would see a photo of the "real" Fellowship of the Ring, who looked nothing like in the books because other important plotpoint in my novel was that pop culture is never an accurate depiction of the alien societies, technologies, historical events, etc. because of thing like editorial meddling or budget contraints
@@AqsticgodWhat people don't get is the difference between allegory and inspiration. When Tolkien talked about hating allegory he was talking about C.S. Lewis did where he went "oh Aslan is literally God"
Yes there was much larger and stronger dragons in the first age, that some super strong and talented elves killed. Im not sure was it Elronds grandfather who killed the strongest dragon ever made. Smaug on other hand was the last great dragon, that was able to make impact on the world with his strenght and power, when I think smaller and weaker dragons survived after Smaug to the fourth age hiding somewhere, but they just were not strong enough to do major impact in anywhere or conquer something for themselves as Smaug was able to conquer Erebor for himself.
@@jout738 actually from what i remembered is that Smaug was technically the last dragon in middle earth in the hobbit because as what Bilbo said there hasn`t been any dragons for since a thousands of years
@@willmassey-x9zThey haven't been seen yes, but that's because they dwell in Ered Mithrin aka the Grey Mountains having stolen them from the Dwarves and the ancient Rohirrim. They do most certainly still exist but their home is simply far too desolate now that no man has ever gone there and returned to tell the tale.
I'm honestly surprised that the History Channel (AKA the Ancient Aliens channel) didn't try to claim that Tolkien was actually an ancient bard from the lost city of Atlantis whose work is secretly foretelling the return of an ancient alien race.
I'd never heard that quote about Frodo not failing his quest before, and, honestly, it made me cry and appreciate Tolkien's story so much more. I've been places like that, where I feel like I've failed because my strength gave out. Heck, I've been suicidal (not recently, fortunately). And... wow. Part of me understood that Frodo's "failing" was due to being ground down beyond his capacity to bear, but hearing it spelled out like that really brought it home. I remember being pissed as a kid reading a comparison between LOTR and Harry Potter that said Harry was a better hero because he didn't give in like Frodo did, and it made me really mad, but I couldn't really put into words why. That's why.
More or less he's protrayed a bit in a gooder side with not alot of struggles. While Frodo bore the ring with sam, he travelled across the world and stepped into mordor itself While harry sounds like he just spedran through prestige with a funny scar on his head (I know this feels bias but this is just someone who's watched both, yet more liked lotr more. So come at thee harry potter fans and say your death spells!)
The whole point of Frodo is that no matter how good you are, no matter how hard you try, you're going to fail. You aren't strong enough on your own. And his ultimate victory in spite of this is because God will get you through what you can't do by yourself. Reckoning with your own frailty and limits is especially challenging and requires a profound level of humility.
Smaug wasn't the last dragon, just the last of the Great Dragons with fire hot enough to destroy a Great Ring. There were plenty of lesser wyrms to the north of the inhabited lands, their area is on the maps included in the books, as well as other references made by Gandalf.
The actor playing Tolkien himself looks an awful lot like Edgar Allan Poe, which makes me wonder if the History Channel has those two writers confused? 😅
"Lord of the Rings is modern" is one statement bringing something to my mind my grandma born in 1945 said to me after I asked her if she read the Lord of the Rings. "I'm not into that modern stuff." I was like, what?.
Common mistake revealing under-researched work. "This is very intriguing," says the undergrad who put the paper together the night before based on AI-produced internet content.
First thing I saw when they showed the Ring at Mt Doom... was it is covered in carvings, but in the book its described in the fellowship as follows Gandalf held it up. It looked to be made of pure and solid gold. "Can you see any markings on it?" he asked. "No," said Frodo. "There are none. It is quite plain, and it never shows a scratch or sign of wear."
The markings can come up during certain events. For example, throwing the Ring in a fireplace will make the markings show. Also when Sauron puts it on in the movie the engravings show, as it is close to its source of its power. So when it goes into Mount Doom, both the heat and nearness to the source of its creation could cause the markings to show
9:24 you’re so right! George RR Martin said it best at his Google talk with Stephen King: “Tolkien’s Middle Earth is a true iceberg. Mine (Westeros) is a block of ice on a barge.” Tolkien created an entire theology, geography, and history. Tolkien is still the world building expert all fantasy and science fiction writers use for inspiration.
Which isn’t really a feat since it’s fantasy and you can just make stuff up. I really don’t get why people praise Tolkien for something every toddler does during playtime.
And as a huge Starwars and Tolkien fan, I completely agree with you, the 'world' of Starwars is colossal, but it's piecemeal and built over time by a massive number of contributors, although there is lots of depth to George's original world when you really pick it apart, it is such a daft comparison! George's attention was split between so many projects, while Tolkien invested a lifetime in one place!
as someone who is a big star wars fan and a moderate LOTR fan, the world building in star wars isn't much compared to many other settings. especially when they have ruled out any of the expanded universe stuff. Star Wars was only fleshed out by all the 3rd party books and games. Now its just the movies and a couple TV shows. We hardly know anything about most of the aliens in star wars.
The word depth should really not be used to describe star wars. I don't care much for it, where as I find respite in Arda at least once every few months. But starwars is either like warhammer where a bunch of writers created lore over years which should not be compared to a single individual creating lore. Or you look at just what Lukas did which barely has any world building. In the star wars movies one is just told things without elaborating on most things.
I was born on the exact day Tolkien died, I have always told my family that for a great man to be born a great man must pass away. They don't quite agree with me.
This was PAINFUL TO WATCH... It serves as a reminder that traditional cable channels have sold out from their initial purposes. 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮 Professor Tolkien DESERVED a professional evaluation of his material. Thanks for your continued exceptional HOBBITY service.
I remember when the History Channel first started. They actually did History back then. History doesn't sell, so they changed the management, and Ice Road Truckers was born. They needed to change the name at that time but alas they did not. I see things have not improved since then.
For a while it was all about World War II, to the extent it was called the Hitler channel. Because WW II brought viewers. But then I guess, aliens were even better
I think it's wrong to say it didn't sell. It was moderately successful I think. Then they made Pawn Stars and those types of shows that had some ties to history and they did so much better that the search for ever growing profits destroyed any hope the channel had to remain about history. Admittedly, it was 99% WWII documentaries on repeat (which is why it had the nickname "The Hitler Channel"), so the budget was kept small to remain profitable but it wasn't failing. The same thing happened with TLC (formerly named The Learning Channel). Anything educational is killed because it doesn't create as much profit as entertainment.
I was in graduate school (history) when the History Channel first appeared. Tended a lot toward WWII, but at least it was historical. One thing that did in those days that I really liked was to show a historically based film, then at intermission they'd have some actual academic historians dissecting it, sometimes vehemently. But that's not nearly as appealing as pawn shops or swamp denizens.
I believe that the bond between Sam and Frodo was based on his experience of the bond between men in war. This is something that I experienced myself in the Gulf War.
Unlikely. I don't think you've read enough Jeeves and Wooster or perhaps you're not quite sure how an Englishman feels about his gardeners. At the time, having a gardener would have been a lot more common and Tolkien would have witnessed it first hand, or had familiarity with it. The great British gardeners were so well known that Pratchett even referenced them throughout his work. Even Goscinny and Uderzo touched on gardening. The most appropriate wartime comparison would be a gentleman and his valet, or soldier servant (and later batman) in the armed forces. The thing is, their relationship is 100% in place before the Fellowship.
@@jonevansauthor I don't know that it should be unlikely to have a bond with people with a different designation and class than you in the military, regardless of the time period.
@@jonevansauthor Tolkien directly stated that Sam was a reflection of the common soldier. From a brief search, Tolkien states in a letter that "My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself." Also, in John Garth’s ‘Tolkien and the Great War’ he mentions that Tolkien very much wanted to be amongst the footsoldiers, but because of duty and rank he was sequestered with the other upperclass military personnel (I wish I had a specific page and quote but I read this a few years ago as a library ebook). With these two together, I think that Tolkien was using the gardener relationship to explore the relationship he would have wanted with other soldiers across class differences. This last point is possibly argued by Tolkien scholars too, but again it’s been a while.
Also, in WWI officers had "Batmen" who were basically like their servants. They would bring orders to the troops for them, they would get them food, drink, and Sam behaves exactly as if he were Frodo's Batman. Tolkien was a lieutenant in WWI, and so would've had one of his own.
I’m sure Tolkien would have hated it. Like he hated pretty much everything. But I am sure he would also acknowledge that every retelling of a myth is its own thing. Virgil didn’t have to agree with the Homeric worldview in order to write The Aenied. And yes. I am aware it is a bit silly to compare an Amazon Prime TV show totwo of the important works of narrative in history.
@@DerMeister821 When did I say that I thought the gap was commensurate? For a start I haven’t sufficient knowledge to make a judgement of Homer vs Virgil. I suspect that no one commenting on this page does. I have read a translation of the Odyssey. It was ok I guess. A bit like a homework read. It felt like a very worthy thing to do. My reverence for those texts is due to their place within the canon of western literature. However I think you might be completely missing the point. It is not the gap in quality I am measuring. I haven’t even watched the Amazon show. I am stating a general principle. The retelling of a mythic story can have completely different morals and values to the original work it is based on. Otherwise what are we doing here? I don’t care if they don’t ‘get’ Tolkien. No more than I care if Bram Stoker ‘got’ the original Balkan vampire myths or Tarkovsky ‘got’ the Strugatsky Brothers or Walt Disney ‘got’ Thomas Mallory. If you want unadulterated Tolkien just re-read Tolkien.
I think they were drawing upon the part in the Hobbit that mentions that Smaug wore his treasure pressed between his scales like armor. Diamonds and gold that embedded itself in the dragon's hide over long years of slumber amongst the hoard. Ironically this is actually a really cool interpretation of that idea. The dragon is red, but it appears gold because so much of its treasure is stuck to it.
Do not give them ideas! They'd say "The kings of Numenor built graves greater than the halls of the living, most certainly those were shaped like wavy pyramides. They MUST have had that idea from somewhere, obviously only extramiddleearthlings could have achieved such a thing!", "Ents, Orcs? Very obviously a reference to the Avatars used by humanoid explorers , mocking the local god like creatures from an ancient myth... Coincidence that those were alien humanoids in that world? James Cameron obviously spoke out what was to risky for Tolkien, who ... don't you see this connection?" "The ring being a reference to the A-bomb is a proof for Flerfs! Since the ring has been destroyed in the rounded up middle earth,which shows that it plays in a very far away future, since we still have A-Bombs... this obviously prooves that the earth is still flat" ... ... ... Dang, History Channel... It will keeel! Though only our brain cells and not with a sharp knife ... oh wait! "Those elven blades and Numenorean daggers are being reproduced live in todays episodde of Forged in Fire!"
"The statues on the Anduin River could not have been built by human technology, so obviously it was by levitation and power tools" As Ancient Alien theorists suggest...
Also in the early war in 1914 during the British Armies first engagement they had reports of ghosts of English Longbow men arriving and assisting the British against the Germans. So maybe ghosts.
The British have a long history of tales like this, from King Arthur sleeping until Britain will need her help, to Battle of Bannockburn having the Knights Templar appearing out of nowhere to turn the tide, so Tolkien, well versed (to say the least) in mythology, obviously wrote a story about Deus Ex ghost army in that style, why they made it sound like "ghosts meant WW1 had many dead" huge stretch is beyond me.
The 'ghosts' is referred to ptsd and trauma induced hallucinations. My Uncle was a diver in Vietnam. He was tasked to retrieve dead soldiers and deactivate traps and mines. Never-never wake him from his sleep.. He would wake as the soldier he was several decades ago; a very scary scene to witness.
Yeah that whole bit annoyed me. 'Ghosts' is a pretty common term for PTSD hallucinations and lost loved ones. Probably the most ancient one too, iirc ancient Assyrian warriors were documented of talking about seeing 'ghosts' of fallen friends.
@@amelialonelyfart8848 That would have come across if they had used it AFTER describiong the trenches i.e. blood, death, and the ghost that they left behind. The ghosts come after the trauma (a good while after, for some). Though admittedly, that was probably just bad, lazy writing. The kind of bad and lazy that would have had my language teacher dock me a whole grade if I presented that in an essay.
Tolkien participated in the Battle of Mons. A number of British soldiers reported seeing a ghost army of British bowmen during that fight protecting them from the superior German forces. I have no idea if there were actually ghosts or not, but my suspicion is that's where the 'Ghosts' reference came from. That would then mean the documentary can't even make the reference to the account and then correctly follow up on it. They failed at presenting the actual historical accounts correctly let alone completely. Congrats History channel.
The "Aniur" pronunciation reminds me of a bit from the extended TTT extra features where the narrator says Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are arriving in the kingdom/land of "The Rohans" ;)
Hi, Star Wars fan here, as much as I love the series and the universe it’s built. I also agree that the level of detail in Tolkien’s worldbuilding far surpasses that of Star Wars even today with all the resources that came out after. I’m also currently reading the LotR books for the first time, so I really do appreciate the level of depth to Tolkien’s world
I disagree with her saying it's not a good thing to compare to: sure, Star Wars is more of a crowd effort with George Lucas being the retconnator, but outside of that thing... it's basically high fantasy IN SPACE. Not to mention the Christian narrative, am I the only one who clearly sees the final battle of both LoTR and RotJ being almost completely about hero being merciful to the villain opponent? If Frodo didn't spare Gollum he'd have one finger more, but ring would never have been destroyed - or Sauron defeated. Had Luke killed Vader, he would never had yeeted the Emperor down the shaft, fulfilling the prophecy and destroying the Sith. Both stories have a VERY similar ending. Also good guys with blue shining swords. Tolkien is a bit closer to reality, of course, with orcs being a real problem here in Europe.
18:30 To be fair, the ghost army that King George V summoned in 1918 doesn't get nearly as much play in popular culture as beagle that the Allied Powers employed as a pilot on the Western Front.
"Hobbit" only sounds like "habit" in Americanese, which Tolkien, for his linguistic arts, did not speak. He had no idea what a 'hobbit' was when the word occurred to him.
A "hobaid" (ie hobbit) is an old Welsh unit of grain measurement--equal to about two and a half imperial bushels. Tolkien greatly admired the Welsh as the last "true" Britons. The hobbit race is based on how he viewed the Welsh people in the place where he would go "holidaying". He felt them to be simple, generous, kind, close to the land but not ignorant--simply more interested in their own people and places then the wider drama of the outside world. That was his ideal for how the best people should be. He may have not remembered in the moment that he chose hobbit because of hobaid but it is well documented in letters between him and CS Lewis that that is where he got the word from and felt that naming his people a Welsh term to describe their general size and weight was a fitting tribute to the people group that he loved.
Yes. It came from a thoughtless sentence that Tolkien wrote down on piece of paper. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit". It had no purpose or meaning. Later he started thinking about what a hobbit actually could be and ended up creating the "Hobbits"(race).
The year was 1991 and i was working on my English literature degree at NEIU in Illinois. My 400 level English literature teacher assigned us a paper on "my favorite book by an English author". I had read Tolkien at least 4 times over and had fallen in love with his writing. So instead of just writing upon 1 novel I focussed upon the Trilogy. I worked hard on the paper and had spent weeks perfecting it. When I received it back there was a large note written in red sharpie "Tolkien is NOT English lit!" and received an F! The Professor, Dr. White had not even read my paper! I was pissed! I told the Prof. that Tolkien was the Headmaster at Oxford and who was he (Dr. White) to tell me this man did not write literature! I took my paper, immediately to the chairman of the English dept. and plead my case. He agreed to read the paper and grade it himself. The next day I stopped in and he gave me my paper back with a new grade of an A! He told me I did a excellent job breaking down Tolkien's work and defining the underlying allegory of the novels. I was ecstatic, I had retained my A in the class. Funny thing is that 9 years later was the millennium. I can't recall what magazine it was but it listed the top 100 novels of the previous MILLENIUM. Listed at number one were Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I so wished I knew where to find Prof. White to rub it in his face that his "professional" opinion was so VERY wrong.
It really does read like someone skimmed through the wikipedia article and then trimmed it down to 4000 words. And yes, this is the exact level of academic rigor I expected from the History Channel.
I was going to say pretty much the same thing. The script for this thing came across exactly like someone rambled on about their thoughts after skimming the Wikipedia pages about Tolkien, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion, had used a speech-to-text program on his tablet or phone to record those ramblings, and, with virtually no editing, turn in the script two days after getting the assignment to write it.
DON'T YOU DARE BE DISSING MY ANCIENT ALIENS!!!!!!!!! WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH!!!!!!! THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT BY LIZARD PEOPLE FROM THE ZORGON GALAXY IN THE BETA UNIVERSE 20 TRILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE AND THEN TELEPORTED TO THE PAST, JUST TO MOCK HUMANS AND TRICK THEM INTO THINKING HUMANS COULD ACTUALLY ACHIEVE SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL NOT BE FOOLED!!!!!!! WHO IS WITH ME????????????? FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE ALIEN MIND CONTROL PROGRAMS!!!!!!! THE CIA, FBI, NSA, FFA, FDA, TSA, BTA, FDP, FDC, AND ALL THE OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE IN ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DO NOT WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY FLAT, AND IS INSIDE A GLASS SNOWBALL DOME!!!!!!!!!!!! BE AWARE!!!!!!!!!! BE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRUTH SHALL PREVAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
Yup. Why hire some supposed Tolkien experts and not just have them write the script? It's only 45 minutes of light fluff. Just stick them in a room together, and have them talk about him to an outline. Job done.
Jess, just like there used to be music on MTV, there used to be history on the History Channel. In fact, right now there’s a program on THC, with an actual physicist, claiming that element 115 was the fuel source for an alien spacecraft! An excellent dissection of their “documentary”. I’m glad you were not evaluating my Masters thesis!
Jess, I just found your channel, and as a fellow Tolkien aficionado, you handled History's monumental gaff wonderfully! Dealing with Frodo's "failure" is so insightful, I'm going to share that clip with the 7th graders at my school who just finished reading the series.
Well, you see, long ago the river had a daughter. Tom Bombadil fell in love with her. Then he walked around and sang songs. But, _what is the REAL story?_
Whenever I think about the History Channel anymore, I'm reminded of a WKUK sketch where a boardroom of suits are pitching their new documentary Dinosaurs in the Civil War with the weak defense, "There *were* dinosaurs, and there *was* a Civil War!"
The History Channel…. Where the first casualty of their line up IS History. THC used to be kind of good in the mid/late 1990s but went right into the toilet around 2001. Your analysis was very thorough and it was a a VERY enjoyable documentary within a documentary about a documentary. :)
They still do. It's just work in mordor, any orc PoW we interview on why they keep enlisting in the army always says the same thing. Money. War is just a job for orcs.
Another point in the movie's Smaug design: the idea that dragons have four legs and two wings, and wyverns have two legs and a set of wings, was primarily a thing in British heraldry; medieval art had all sorts of designs for dragons. D&D would go on to make that a standard interpretation, but no setting is beholden to that rule.
Yeah I hate "wyvern" discourse. It's like how D&D nerds sometimes get all frumpy about the term "hobgoblin" as an example of big/strong goblins, but hobgoblins in folklore are typically nice goblins, not stronger ones. (Edit: I forgot that Tolkien started that trope too, which is very funny and relevant.) Fantasy tropes are often not representative of the lore that inspired them.
@@MasoTrumoi Tolkien inadvertently started that hobgoblin thing. They are mentioned once in the Hobbit as a kind of maybe stronger goblin, and everything spiraled from there.
@@MasoTrumoiYeah. I don't mind anyone who wants to use that in their setting, of course. D&D is a valid source for fantasy tropes, and no one is wrong for taking inspiration there. But D&D nerds have a tendency to treat the monster manual as the one true source of knowledge.
@@elonstruths1475I love these kinds of conversations, because I like to point out that Tolkien also started this idea of elves being these angelic, willowy beautiful figures, and not the often evil tricksters or helpful midgets making shoes for cobblers as they were before Tolkiens work. A great example is Elric, where Morcock around the same time (almost the same year) as Tolkien went down the ‘elves are dark, eldrich beings’ route.
@@KeytarArgonian Well elves and their perception depends on how far back you go. In the Eddas they are the willowy angelic beings but they're also barely in it compared to the Aesir. It's in Christian folklore that they become wee folk. Funnily enough, nearly every humanoid mythological critter in europe got wee-folk'd at some point. Trolls being one of the funniest, we think of them as only big but there are a lot of fairy tales that assume they're small too.
Excluding Sam is excluding the most pure and honest character. I’ve always seen Sam as the actual hero. Even after the scouring of the shire. He continued to look after Frodo but also became mayor of Hobbiton, began and raised a family with his long-time crush, and eventually, left the West to reunite with Frodo in the Undying Lands. And that doesn’t even mention EVERYTHING Sam did along the long journey to Mt. Doom. Sam is an absolute legend.
I think all of them are the true hero- The mission would not have succeeded without any of them, they all played their part and deserve flowers for it; I honestly find it tragic that folx dismiss Frodo, given the sacrifice he made carrying the Ring, not unlike soldiers who return and are ignored and vilified for being charged by their experiences.
Sam is the ultimate henchman/squire. He isn't the "hero" of the story because he doesn't set himself up to be one. Frodo begrudgingly accepts this role only because nobody else agrees, and Samwise just happens to be his most loyal friend.
The world building of Star Wars has been, and continues to be, a cooperative effort of dozens if not hundreds of creators adding richness to the universe with every new piece of creation (films, books, comics, videogames, TV shows). As far as I know, Tolkien was alone - and my Goddess, did he build something!
Another point lost is the fact that the true hero story is Sam. It’s his hero journey from eaves dropping at Bags End to leading the cleansing of the Shire.
28:19 this is something my therapist has been trying to get through to me. Its not about results. I saw a quote on my meditation app that said "its not about success, its about learning from my mistakes" and i would go further. Its not even about learning from your mistakes. Its about starting. Making the attempt.
Tolkien very publically proclaimed LOTR while it might have started as a mythos for Anglo-Saxons he quickly decided that was a bad idea and that it should be a mythos all on its own. He also hated people trying to make allegorical comparisons to his work. "While it is impossible not to be influenced by what one knows, this work is in no way meant to be allegorical." - Tolkien paraphrased from a BBC interview he did.
He does have allegorical subtext in LOTR specifically pertaining his critic over the industrialization of Britain and his devout beliefs as a Roman Catholic. When he meant allegorical it is in the context of 2 Factors, 1) He believes that LOTR will be interpreted differently by person to person, Though with the added context that he want it LOTR to be part of Britain's Mythology alongside King Arthur and Robin Hood. 2) CS. Lewis being very unsubtle about Aslan.
I think, while it's true that his work isn't an "allegory" per se, a few people have taken this to mean that it wasn't written to have any bearing on anything happening in the real world. The good old "X story isn't political!" argument, and this isn't true. Tolkien may not have written any of the people, cultures, or events in his story as specific allegories to real ones, however, his story absolutely espouses a strong set of values, philosophies, and principals that had and still have a lot of bearing on real world events. For example, there are a number of parts of his story emphasizing the value of nature as well as industry's tendency to destroy it. Tolkien's work takes a very negative view towards militarism, industrialism, and authoritarianism, and portrays the tranquil, pastoral life in the shire as an idyllic one. A lack of specific allegories to real world events doesn't mean the story wasn't a commentary on them.
I think anyone taking the very public statements of Tolkien on allegory in his stories, and trying to argue that he's wrong and there's a lot of allegory, should first pick up an OED*, look up 'arrogant' and 'conceited' and 'not as qualified as the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford'. I'm comfortable with him saying, 'This is not what the story is about' or 'this hot take is stupid and wrong' and accepting his word for it. *Not the whole thing all at once, you'd give yourself a hernia.
Tolkien was a student of history. He stitched a lot of our history together into his story through a re-imagining of the details. For instance, the fall of Osgiliath is a very close retelling of the siege of Malta. Specifically, how Denethor rebukes Faramir and sends him back to certain death in Osgiliath parallels how the knights were told to defend Fort Saint Elmo to the very last. Another parallel was when the Ottomans catapulted the decapitated heads of the knights at the main fortress, just as the orcs did after the fall of Osgiliath. Another instance is Boromir and his horn of Gondor. Boromir pays for his arrogance with his life, but not before he calls for help by blowing his horn so hard that it splits in two. This is a re-imagination of the death of Roland - a story already deeply romanticized by Tolkien's time. He, too, died for his arrogance by refusing to call for help until too late. But once he called for help, he supposedly blew his horn so hard that it split in two. He did, at least, in the romanticized version of his story. There is no easy way to put all this together because Tolkien borrowed from thousands of years of history, cherry picking bits and pieces from disparate times, disparate people, disparate events. There is no cohesive arch, or theme to it.
Yeah you'd think decorating fences with human heads is some fantasy villain shit, but then you see real pictures of what orcs did in Donbas with Ukrainians, or their videos of Syrians or stories about all captured Georgian girls - any age - being SA'ed on principle. And you know any historical text about russia will simply tell you that ultimate fantasy evil is just a real "country" wannabe.
Only 15 mins into the video so I don't know if this gets addressed later, but for context, this doc was an episode of 'Clash of the Gods'; a series about key (mostly greek) mythological figures. There's an episode for Zeus, Hades, Heracles (though they use his more popular roman name), and Thor. That is why this doc puts so much focus on comparing the events of the story with myth. With the smaug section, they're actually hardening back to a previous Beowulf focused episode they did, which is why there's so little explanation. Thank you for the great video though, Jess!
My sweet grandma who saw the Hobbit after surgery noticed that Smaug was different from the first movie and the second. Again she was still coming out of her anesthesia and was on pain killers, and she noticed that Smaug was different from one movie and another.
Of course, it isn't. With sites like UA-cam around as competition, the History Channel was losing viewers. That's when a new CEO came in and changed the programming towards reality shows and conspiracy stuff which was popular. When historical integrity and financial solvency butt heads, usually finance wins.
Great video as always, but I got kinda distracted by the spot on the shirt. (Then again that could've been me wearing a shirt like that, so it is kind of relatable)
Please keep up the amazing work Jess! You continue to be one of my favorite Tolkien UA-camrs, thanks to the wonderfully unique flavor and topics of your channel. Happy New Year and lots of love!
What's weird about them having this actor writing on a blank page when talking about how The Hobbit idea was conceived is that we have interview footage of Tolkien describing this moment. Why couldn't they just include that?
Around 6:30, isn't that quote from Gandalf not Frodo? Frodo at that stage of the book says that the only thought that makes leaving bearable is that he may get to see Bilbo again
I love the explanation how Frodo did not fail at the crack of doom, but his kind deeds throughout the adventure is what set up a chain of events to succeed evil. It shows that even if he was under the influence of evil around his neck, he could still make the right choice spreading goodness and this resistance is why evil cannot win or survive in this world
"Hey, Over there! Is that a hobbit?" "Nah... thats just a hobo and a rabbit. But they're making a hobbit!" - Bender Bending Rodriguez Futurama > History Channel
Your analysis reminds me of my curatorial writing class: when you talk about an artwork, you have to somehow characterize it. And the adjective you choose to characterize it with, has to do two things: be provable and argumentable. Adjectives like intriguing and interesting definitely don't fit into that, and they don't say much at all except for, as you said, that Tolkien did a thing. Really great job on this honestly!! I loved your insights :)
Much television programming seems to be written for the average middle schooler. This is why seventy-eight thousand of us look forward to watching you each Friday. Thank you, Jess. 💙💙
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I am in no way connected, but I would invite you to check the videos (especially the reviews of The Hobbit and The Rings Of Power). The Hobbit reviews are 4 videos: 2h23m25s + 2h52m29s + 3h55m48s + 3h51m51s = 13h03m33s. Rings Of Power are 9 videos: 48m57s + 50m50s + 1h01m20s + 1h07m55s + 1h33m47s + 1h17m37 + 1h45m32s + 1h54m11s+3h30m01s = 13h50m10s...
My nitpick was this wasn’t even a Tolkien specific documentary. It was an episode of a series that was supposed to talk about Gods from around the world. The first three episodes before this was Zeus, Hades and Thor. Why would there be an episode about Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings?
100% agree with you on virtually everything. It's honestly a bummer that History channel fails to make compelling documentaries on essentially everything. I tend to stick to the bonus feature videos from the dvd's and bluray as they have intriguing arguments and again have many experts. It's also unfortunate to have experts and yet not be expertly composed as a documentary.
Ghost in WWI? Are they thinking of Arthur Machen's "The Angles of Mons", where ghostly longbow-men saved the BEF. When it was published, it was not marked as fiction, and Machen was also doing journalism. Thus it was widely believed to be a factual report at the time. The sensors at the time decided not to make people aware of this at the time.
There was a similar story of Templars appearing out of nowhere to save Scots in the Battle of Bannockburn, AND the various stories of King Arthur returning in dire need, so British lore has TONS of stories that look close to ghost army led by long dead king saving the day.
THANKS! I am sooooo glad I didn't take the time to view the "History" channels take on Tolkien. I aggreed with all points you made except the ones on Tom Bombodil. My take on Tom was a) tension relief and b) not every discovery of the wider world was bad and there can be peace at some places where there was someone other than elves beautifully singing laments or Hobbits singing mostly drinking songs. :-)
DON'T YOU DARE BE DISSING MY ANCIENT ALIENS!!!!!!!!! WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH!!!!!!! THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT BY LIZARD PEOPLE FROM THE ZORGON GALAXY IN THE BETA UNIVERSE 20 TRILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE AND THEN TELEPORTED TO THE PAST, JUST TO MOCK HUMANS AND TRICK THEM INTO THINKING HUMANS COULD ACTUALLY ACHIEVE SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL NOT BE FOOLED!!!!!!! WHO IS WITH ME????????????? FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE ALIEN MIND CONTROL PROGRAMS!!!!!!! THE CIA, FBI, NSA, FFA, FDA, TSA, BTA, FDP, FDC, AND ALL THE OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE IN ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DO NOT WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY FLAT, AND IS INSIDE A GLASS SNOWBALL DOME!!!!!!!!!!!! BE AWARE!!!!!!!!!! BE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRUTH SHALL PREVAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
I've been reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings every year a very long time before you were born. However, I still don't have the level of insight that you do. After watching a few of your videos I am quite impressed with your knowledge. I hope you continue to produce these!
Very well done dissection of a poorly produced documentary. The History Channel should be sued for false advertising in the name of their channel. So little history, so much cotton candy (all fluff and no substance). Thank you for your insight and protection of the inspiration to my own creation. Tolkien was not one to lay out all of his thoughts, so it allows speculation as to what someone wants him to be for them. While I appreciate Tolkien's privacy, he is an highly interesting creator and people are going to go where they wish to go. You keep a firm foundation, and I am thankful for that. Thank you, Jess!
History channel is right there with MTV not doing much music, UA-cam not really focusing on tube TVs, and Coca-Cola not having cocaine in it no more smh...
I was invited to give a one-hour presentation on Tolkien during an office social function. I entitled it “Love, Loss, Literature, and Liturgy: Influences on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.” I am very proud of that briefing. I like to think I didn’t make the same mistakes as the History Channel and other poor documentaries. I do remember feeling bad that I didn’t understand the significance of Tolkien’s publication of Pearl.
@@RelateGREAT I have a copy of it hidden on UA-cam. It is an MS Teams recording. The only reason I don’t share it with strangers is because you can see other employees names and thumbnails around the screen. If I knew anything about video editing, I would blur them out. There is one other person who speaks in the video, the hostess, whom I would ask for permission. I know her, and she would likely say yes. If @Jess_of_the_Shire was willing to watch it, I would email her the private link
I will defend the point that Frodo is in fact set up as a special hobbit, it is reiterated many times in the first few chapters of the book that he's viewed as a rather strange hobbit, possibly hanging out with elves, having an odd background, knowing things most hobbits don't know, etc.
He's somewhat stranged from hobbit society, that doesn't make him special. The Tooks are also estranged from normal hobbit things, but none of them were dragonquesting ring-bearers.
If you mean special in that he was a sort of a nerd than yeah, sure. If you mean that he had some special characteristics over other hobbits than no, just no. He was curious, yes, he was more open minded than most, sure, but he wasn't stronger, faster, smarter, etc, than other hobbits. He was just an ordinary joe with a healthy curiosity and a knack for adventure.
I remember being really fascinated by this documentary as a kid. In fact, it’s what got me into LotR and will myself to watch the old LotR CDs my family had that I was originally too scared to because the image of gollum on the side of the box
Great video as always! The only thing I find contentious is Smaug being the last dragon. Tolkien implies in letter 144 that there is evidence that they survived until relatively modern times; "Dragons. They had not stopped; since they were active in far later times, close to our own; Have I said anything to suggest the final ending of dragons? If so it should be altered. The only passage I can think of is Vol. I p. 70 : ‘there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough’. But that implies, I think, that there are still dragons, if not of full primeval stature".
"But the worst part of the trenches were the Dementors!" -J.K. Tolkien
Lmao
"fly fishing you fool"- J R R Hartley (Brits of a certain age will get that lol)
Prison Mike had trouble with the Dementors too.
DON'T YOU DARE BE DISSING MY ANCIENT ALIENS!!!!!!!!! WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH!!!!!!! THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT BY LIZARD PEOPLE FROM THE ZORGON GALAXY IN THE BETA UNIVERSE 20 TRILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE AND THEN TELEPORTED TO THE PAST, JUST TO MOCK HUMANS AND TRICK THEM INTO THINKING HUMANS COULD ACTUALLY ACHIEVE SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL NOT BE FOOLED!!!!!!! WHO IS WITH ME????????????? FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE ALIEN MIND CONTROL PROGRAMS!!!!!!! THE CIA, FBI, NSA, FFA, FDA, TSA, BTA, FDP, FDC, AND ALL THE OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE IN ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DO NOT WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY FLAT, AND IS INSIDE A GLASS SNOWBALL DOME!!!!!!!!!!!! BE AWARE!!!!!!!!!! BE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRUTH SHALL PREVAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
The Dementors fought for the Ewoks at the 1944 Siege of Gettysburggrad
History grad student here. The History Channel doesn't "get" history, either, Jess. Don't worry about it. It's a joke in academic history circles.
NerdSync has a video called 'The Eternals comics are also bad.' that nicely gets to the roots of why Ancient Aliens is so, so bad if you're at all interested.
it's a joke to most history buffs, but it does suck in many people with it's name granting it assumed authority
and yet i think i remember a time when the history channel actually made history docushows, they were allready all about entertainment and focussed solely on the most popular topics, rome's biggest wars, big west european medieval history (also wars) oh and ww2, ww2 was like half of it
eventually that must have not cut it anymore and they decided that there was simply a bigger market for allien conspiracy and reallity tv than historically accurate docu's
P.S. I am also a history student, not that it even matters
I have 2 history degrees and you don't have to have done history at uni to know that the history channel doesn't understand history... its just a common fact
Instead of watching the history channel, listen to this guy: @Metatron
I have to agree with the growing consensus... it's an odd take to suggest the History channel would or could get anything right. It went from being a channel mostly devoted to stock footage fueled WWII documentaries twenty years ago to being a wall to wall clickbait fest of things that are almost antithetical to the whole spirit of its namesake. If anything, it feels like the channel has gone beyond being a joke to being an active attempt to ruin the very concept of history at a fundamental level.
You are absolutely correct, Jess. The History Channel does not get Tolkien. But then, the History Channel does not get history either; and hasn’t for some time.
Oh come on. That report they did on sasquatch was fair and balanced.
I'm willing to bet they don't get channels either.
@@sammygoodnight
Sasquatch and bigfoot are indeed very history releated thing, so its weird how its the only thing the history channel gets right.
she doesnt get it either.. the hollywood smaug design is better than tolkiens? yeah right..
I would contend that the History Channel never really did get history. Even before Ancient Aliens they had a lot of shows that were pretty uncritical of conspiracy theories.
Nobody at _The History Channel_ has ever written a history paper. Not even an undergrad paper. They have no idea what they're doing.
I suspect they did not read The Lord of the Rings either.
I suspect some of them might be dyslexic too, with peace and love - no hate to dyslexic people, just sayin.
that`s technically a lie dr.corey olsen had done lots of papers because i know for a fact that he also did podcasts like say the mythgard academy podcast, the second breakfast podcast and also the tolkien professor podcast
@@jorgeluis4389 actually dr.corey olsen actually did read the lord of the rings because he also a nerd don`t be talking about somebody you don`t know rather if i was you i would my mouth right now got it
@@hazardwave1768 i would not call dr.corey olsen dyslexic because he one is one of the smartest and the brightest of his field of work as the tolkien professor
Huge Star Wars fan here. Your assessment of "sandbox to have fun in that later became a world" is correct and it really grinds my gears that many people pretend it isn't.
Same here lol
I love Star Wars (minus the new films). But comparing the world building of it to LotR is just not an apt comparison.
I really liked the word building they did later on for SW: KotoR
What grinds me about this is that even Lucas-blessed authors writing in-universe stories get stupid things wrong, e.g. 16-year-old Leia fighting the Empire that wasn't created until after she had been a senator for some time.
It was fine for Lucas to treat the original trilogy this way, but if you are going to bother with prequels and sequels, you should spend enough time on world building to create a consistent timeline and plausible motivation and politics. Tolkien uses language and core mythology as the foundation of his world building. Star wars uses space dog fights, weird anatomy, robots, hand-wavy magic, and shallow villains.
Star Wars eventually got better world building than most movie franchises, but claiming it is like Tolkien is just very sad.
I was a kid at the beginning, and I remember that, besides the book that mirrored the movie, the first product beyond the movie was Splinter of the Mind's Eye. It was a novel written by Alan Dean Foster. It was the first and last novel I read beyond the original book. To this day, I have no idea how Lucas feels about this novel, or any of the other novels that fall outside the movies Lucas made. The original Star Wars book was published before the success of the movie and did include the scenes with Biggs on Tatooine that were left on the cutting room floor in the film because it was based on the screenplay by Lucas, and was actually written by Alan Dean Foster. This suggests that ADF had Lucas' blessing with the second novel. It still fell flat for me.
Even at the age of 11, I felt the book was a stretch and didn't feel authentic. I think the extended universe is so accepted from the beginning because it took so long for the next movie and fans were rabid for anything they could get.
It is but also it literally has the same ending as LoTR: Hero is tempted to slay the Bad Guy, but he resists, shows mercy, and then the guy he spared yeeteth the actual Big Evil into the burning reactor core, saving everyone.
Literally the same ending in RoTJ and RoTK. AH YES AND THE NAMES TOO. Also similar amounts of female characters with words (like two).
To be honest, if they did actually try and say JRR Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings as an allegory for alien influence on the history of mankind, I would applaud the History Channel for their absolute lunacy and commitment to the bit. Instead, we got a whole lot of meh.
if anything claiming any kind of allegory would be wrong either way because tolkien hated allegory
I also find that situation amusing. I am no Tolkien expert and even a imbecile like myself knows he disliked allogory and all its manifestation, from the time when he was old and wise enough to detect its presence.
That was an idea I was going to put on a novel I ended up abandoning unfinished. The main concept was that coming to Earth to start a cult used to be a get-rich-quick scheme for the people of more advanced civilizations but after the 19th century it became more profitable to turn the history of the wider galaxy into fiction (first literary sagas, now movie franchises) rather than in the lore of a religion. Tolkien was supposed to be one of those aliens and at some point the main character would see a photo of the "real" Fellowship of the Ring, who looked nothing like in the books because other important plotpoint in my novel was that pop culture is never an accurate depiction of the alien societies, technologies, historical events, etc. because of thing like editorial meddling or budget contraints
@@AqsticgodWhat people don't get is the difference between allegory and inspiration. When Tolkien talked about hating allegory he was talking about C.S. Lewis did where he went "oh Aslan is literally God"
@@AqsticgodHe may have hated it, but he did indulge in it.
It is not true that Smaug is the last Dragon in Middleearth. He is the last Great Dragon, but Gandalf says some still dwell north of the Iron Hills
Yes there was much larger and stronger dragons in the first age, that some super strong and talented elves killed. Im not sure was it Elronds grandfather who killed the strongest dragon ever made. Smaug on other hand was the last great dragon, that was able to make impact on the world with his strenght and power, when I think smaller and weaker dragons survived after Smaug to the fourth age hiding somewhere, but they just were not strong enough to do major impact in anywhere or conquer something for themselves as Smaug was able to conquer Erebor for himself.
This
@@jout738 actually from what i remembered is that Smaug was technically the last dragon in middle earth in the hobbit because as what Bilbo said there hasn`t been any dragons for since a thousands of years
@@willmassey-x9zThey haven't been seen yes, but that's because they dwell in Ered Mithrin aka the Grey Mountains having stolen them from the Dwarves and the ancient Rohirrim. They do most certainly still exist but their home is simply far too desolate now that no man has ever gone there and returned to tell the tale.
@@matthewdykeman8149 yes what about hobbits Bilbo had seen Smaug in the Hobbit that`s the last great dragon and he was a red dragon
I'm honestly surprised that the History Channel (AKA the Ancient Aliens channel) didn't try to claim that Tolkien was actually an ancient bard from the lost city of Atlantis whose work is secretly foretelling the return of an ancient alien race.
That seems quite a plausible claim by their standards.
Just wait a few years and it will happen
Andrew "Thanfiction" Blake really did this!
Is he not?
They're saving that for the sequel.
I'd never heard that quote about Frodo not failing his quest before, and, honestly, it made me cry and appreciate Tolkien's story so much more. I've been places like that, where I feel like I've failed because my strength gave out. Heck, I've been suicidal (not recently, fortunately). And... wow. Part of me understood that Frodo's "failing" was due to being ground down beyond his capacity to bear, but hearing it spelled out like that really brought it home. I remember being pissed as a kid reading a comparison between LOTR and Harry Potter that said Harry was a better hero because he didn't give in like Frodo did, and it made me really mad, but I couldn't really put into words why. That's why.
More or less he's protrayed a bit in a gooder side with not alot of struggles.
While Frodo bore the ring with sam, he travelled across the world and stepped into mordor itself
While harry sounds like he just spedran through prestige with a funny scar on his head (I know this feels bias but this is just someone who's watched both, yet more liked lotr more. So come at thee harry potter fans and say your death spells!)
The whole point of Frodo is that no matter how good you are, no matter how hard you try, you're going to fail. You aren't strong enough on your own. And his ultimate victory in spite of this is because God will get you through what you can't do by yourself. Reckoning with your own frailty and limits is especially challenging and requires a profound level of humility.
Smaug wasn't the last dragon, just the last of the Great Dragons with fire hot enough to destroy a Great Ring.
There were plenty of lesser wyrms to the north of the inhabited lands, their area is on the maps included in the books, as well as other references made by Gandalf.
The actor playing Tolkien himself looks an awful lot like Edgar Allan Poe, which makes me wonder if the History Channel has those two writers confused? 😅
You know what, he kind of does...Maybe they had him onset for a Poe documentary and thought he looked close enough.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire Yes, likely reused footage. Hey, a budget is always made better by not spending it.
"I'm Zombie Edgar Allen Poe here to talk to you about Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings. Nevermore!"
🤣
Might also explain the strange ghosts of World War One, since Edgar Allan Poe has written several ghost stories... 🤔
"Lord of the Rings is modern" is one statement bringing something to my mind my grandma born in 1945 said to me after I asked her if she read the Lord of the Rings.
"I'm not into that modern stuff."
I was like, what?.
"I was there FluffyVicky, i was there when Lord of the Rings was a new bestseller in the bookstores." (Sorry i cant resist)
@@kohlicoide2258 Is your name Orald or Forn?
@@FluffyVicky Just Tom Bombadil, nice to meet you my dear new friend :)
@@kohlicoide2258 Hallo to you and Greetings to Goldberry too.
Modern has didferent meanings depending on the subject such as art or architecture, but in most fields the modern age ended a while ago.
10:38 Denethor paused dramatically. "I . . . am your father!"
"Erm, I know," said Faramir. "Everyone knows you're my father."
"Search your feelings, you KNOW it to be true."
"Really. Who would have guessed."
‘Yeah I know, i watched the prequels!’
Really, that scene would probably go the other way around (at least in the movies)
I'm pretty sure denethor could've used that reminder...
Amazing how they found those things "intriguing" but were somehow not "intrigued" (as in "roused to curiosity") to explore them further.
Common mistake revealing under-researched work. "This is very intriguing," says the undergrad who put the paper together the night before based on AI-produced internet content.
First thing I saw when they showed the Ring at Mt Doom... was it is covered in carvings, but in the book its described in the fellowship as follows
Gandalf held it up. It looked to be made of pure and solid gold. "Can you see any markings on it?" he asked.
"No," said Frodo. "There are none. It is quite plain, and it never shows a scratch or sign of wear."
To be fair, that could simply be due to proximity to the source of its creation.
The markings can come up during certain events. For example, throwing the Ring in a fireplace will make the markings show. Also when Sauron puts it on in the movie the engravings show, as it is close to its source of its power. So when it goes into Mount Doom, both the heat and nearness to the source of its creation could cause the markings to show
@@jhsalem5480 yes, but the marks are only evish script writing out the words, not decorative ordamentation or the like.
9:24 you’re so right! George RR Martin said it best at his Google talk with Stephen King: “Tolkien’s Middle Earth is a true iceberg. Mine (Westeros) is a block of ice on a barge.” Tolkien created an entire theology, geography, and history. Tolkien is still the world building expert all fantasy and science fiction writers use for inspiration.
💯👍
Which isn’t really a feat since it’s fantasy and you can just make stuff up. I really don’t get why people praise Tolkien for something every toddler does during playtime.
@@TesticularDancer write your story with some coherent world building homie. If you send a template I’ll help you crowdfund it.
@@ricopena2053 So like every other fantasy writer lol
@@TesticularDancer yep, send a template since it’s so easy and we’ll rate it boss
And as a huge Starwars and Tolkien fan, I completely agree with you, the 'world' of Starwars is colossal, but it's piecemeal and built over time by a massive number of contributors, although there is lots of depth to George's original world when you really pick it apart, it is such a daft comparison! George's attention was split between so many projects, while Tolkien invested a lifetime in one place!
as someone who is a big star wars fan and a moderate LOTR fan, the world building in star wars isn't much compared to many other settings. especially when they have ruled out any of the expanded universe stuff. Star Wars was only fleshed out by all the 3rd party books and games. Now its just the movies and a couple TV shows. We hardly know anything about most of the aliens in star wars.
The word depth should really not be used to describe star wars. I don't care much for it, where as I find respite in Arda at least once every few months. But starwars is either like warhammer where a bunch of writers created lore over years which should not be compared to a single individual creating lore. Or you look at just what Lukas did which barely has any world building. In the star wars movies one is just told things without elaborating on most things.
Do you know "Darth Plagueis", "Cloak of Deception", "Shatterpoint" and "Labyrinth of Evil"?
@@samlerf all not canon
@@JaceDeanLove Says who?
I was born on the exact day Tolkien died, I have always told my family that for a great man to be born a great man must pass away. They don't quite agree with me.
Look forward to reading your magnum opus which will entrance generations of readers. No pressure 😏
Ha ha ha!! I love that. That’s the sort of stuff my family would get a kick out of.
Lol
That's what families are for
Lemme guess: you're actually a woman?
The director broke out his 7th grade paper on LotR. And then post production an editor who had never heard of the books or Tolkien took over.
This was PAINFUL TO WATCH...
It serves as a reminder that traditional cable channels have sold out from their initial purposes. 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Professor Tolkien DESERVED a professional evaluation of his material.
Thanks for your continued exceptional HOBBITY service.
They didn’t even get the ring itself right. It should be featureless until subjected to heat as we all know.
"That's what I'm saying!" - Doofenshmirtz.
I remember when the History Channel first started. They actually did History back then. History doesn't sell, so they changed the management, and Ice Road Truckers was born. They needed to change the name at that time but alas they did not. I see things have not improved since then.
For a while it was all about World War II, to the extent it was called the Hitler channel. Because WW II brought viewers.
But then I guess, aliens were even better
And this applies to many many cable channels. Even the CBC in Canada is mainly a dumpster fire compared to 20 years ago.
I think it's wrong to say it didn't sell. It was moderately successful I think. Then they made Pawn Stars and those types of shows that had some ties to history and they did so much better that the search for ever growing profits destroyed any hope the channel had to remain about history. Admittedly, it was 99% WWII documentaries on repeat (which is why it had the nickname "The Hitler Channel"), so the budget was kept small to remain profitable but it wasn't failing. The same thing happened with TLC (formerly named The Learning Channel). Anything educational is killed because it doesn't create as much profit as entertainment.
Animal Planet was at least honest by adding a tag line about their channel. S4rprisingly H4man....
I was in graduate school (history) when the History Channel first appeared. Tended a lot toward WWII, but at least it was historical. One thing that did in those days that I really liked was to show a historically based film, then at intermission they'd have some actual academic historians dissecting it, sometimes vehemently.
But that's not nearly as appealing as pawn shops or swamp denizens.
I believe that the bond between Sam and Frodo was based on his experience of the bond between men in war. This is something that I experienced myself in the Gulf War.
Unlikely. I don't think you've read enough Jeeves and Wooster or perhaps you're not quite sure how an Englishman feels about his gardeners. At the time, having a gardener would have been a lot more common and Tolkien would have witnessed it first hand, or had familiarity with it. The great British gardeners were so well known that Pratchett even referenced them throughout his work. Even Goscinny and Uderzo touched on gardening.
The most appropriate wartime comparison would be a gentleman and his valet, or soldier servant (and later batman) in the armed forces. The thing is, their relationship is 100% in place before the Fellowship.
@@jonevansauthor I don't know that it should be unlikely to have a bond with people with a different designation and class than you in the military, regardless of the time period.
@@katherinewilson1853 It would, though? But also the comparison doesn't track if they're the same class.
@@jonevansauthor Tolkien directly stated that Sam was a reflection of the common soldier. From a brief search, Tolkien states in a letter that "My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflexion of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself." Also, in John Garth’s ‘Tolkien and the Great War’ he mentions that Tolkien very much wanted to be amongst the footsoldiers, but because of duty and rank he was sequestered with the other upperclass military personnel (I wish I had a specific page and quote but I read this a few years ago as a library ebook). With these two together, I think that Tolkien was using the gardener relationship to explore the relationship he would have wanted with other soldiers across class differences. This last point is possibly argued by Tolkien scholars too, but again it’s been a while.
Also, in WWI officers had "Batmen" who were basically like their servants. They would bring orders to the troops for them, they would get them food, drink, and Sam behaves exactly as if he were Frodo's Batman. Tolkien was a lieutenant in WWI, and so would've had one of his own.
In fairness, Amazon Prime didn't understand Tolkien either.
Facts
I’m sure Tolkien would have hated it. Like he hated pretty much everything. But I am sure he would also acknowledge that every retelling of a myth is its own thing.
Virgil didn’t have to agree with the Homeric worldview in order to write The Aenied.
And yes. I am aware it is a bit silly to compare an Amazon Prime TV show totwo of the important works of narrative in history.
@@hastekulvaati9681 thinking the gap between Amazon and Tolkien is commensurate with Virgil and Homer is stunning and brave.
@@DerMeister821
When did I say that I thought the gap was commensurate?
For a start I haven’t sufficient knowledge to make a judgement of Homer vs Virgil. I suspect that no one commenting on this page does. I have read a translation of the Odyssey. It was ok I guess. A bit like a homework read. It felt like a very worthy thing to do. My reverence for those texts is due to their place within the canon of western literature.
However I think you might be completely missing the point. It is not the gap in quality I am measuring. I haven’t even watched the Amazon show. I am stating a general principle. The retelling of a mythic story can have completely different morals and values to the original work it is based on. Otherwise what are we doing here?
I don’t care if they don’t ‘get’ Tolkien. No more than I care if Bram Stoker ‘got’ the original Balkan vampire myths or Tarkovsky ‘got’ the Strugatsky Brothers or Walt Disney ‘got’ Thomas Mallory.
If you want unadulterated Tolkien just re-read Tolkien.
😂
I think they were drawing upon the part in the Hobbit that mentions that Smaug wore his treasure pressed between his scales like armor. Diamonds and gold that embedded itself in the dragon's hide over long years of slumber amongst the hoard. Ironically this is actually a really cool interpretation of that idea. The dragon is red, but it appears gold because so much of its treasure is stuck to it.
Surprised they didn't try to connect elves with aliens or something. It's probably on the way. Love your videos!
Do not give them ideas! They'd say "The kings of Numenor built graves greater than the halls of the living, most certainly those were shaped like wavy pyramides. They MUST have had that idea from somewhere, obviously only extramiddleearthlings could have achieved such a thing!", "Ents, Orcs? Very obviously a reference to the Avatars used by humanoid explorers
, mocking the local god like creatures from an ancient myth... Coincidence that those were alien humanoids in that world? James Cameron obviously spoke out what was to risky for Tolkien, who ... don't you see this connection?" "The ring being a reference to the A-bomb is a proof for Flerfs! Since the ring has been destroyed in the rounded up middle earth,which shows that it plays in a very far away future, since we still have A-Bombs... this obviously prooves that the earth is still flat" ... ... ... Dang, History Channel... It will keeel! Though only our brain cells and not with a sharp knife ... oh wait! "Those elven blades and Numenorean daggers are being reproduced live in todays episodde of Forged in Fire!"
"The statues on the Anduin River could not have been built by human technology, so obviously it was by levitation and power tools"
As Ancient Alien theorists suggest...
This episode did say that the Elves represented Man before the fall from Grace, which really made me howl.
The elves are really the Annunaki! Elrond is Enki and Morgoth was Enlil and something something Atlantis Nazca portals Sirius.
Yes and sasquatch are native to middle earth in fangorn and interdimensionally travel to our world
My wife and I are building a life-sized Hobbit Hole and just recently found your channel. Thanks so much for making this content!
Take my subscription, you glorious hobbit people.
If you build it; They will come.
Also, if you build a sidexside Mother/Daughter - so will I.
Your move.
How lovely! Good Luck!
@@yeahnaaa292 😆
you seriously need to make some videos of that. Sounds amazing!
frodo and bilbo did not go to valinor to live forever , but to heal before passing on to what comes next in the afterlife ! even tolkien stated this !
I think those WW1 "ghosts" were meant to symbolise the PTSD haunting the surviving soldiers.
Also in the early war in 1914 during the British Armies first engagement they had reports of ghosts of English Longbow men arriving and assisting the British against the Germans.
So maybe ghosts.
The British have a long history of tales like this, from King Arthur sleeping until Britain will need her help, to Battle of Bannockburn having the Knights Templar appearing out of nowhere to turn the tide, so Tolkien, well versed (to say the least) in mythology, obviously wrote a story about Deus Ex ghost army in that style, why they made it sound like "ghosts meant WW1 had many dead" huge stretch is beyond me.
Frodo just wandering off into the woods like a lost old man with dementia, never to return is now my new headcannon!
The 'ghosts' is referred to ptsd and trauma induced hallucinations. My Uncle was a diver in Vietnam. He was tasked to retrieve dead soldiers and deactivate traps and mines. Never-never wake him from his sleep.. He would wake as the soldier he was several decades ago; a very scary scene to witness.
Yeah that whole bit annoyed me. 'Ghosts' is a pretty common term for PTSD hallucinations and lost loved ones. Probably the most ancient one too, iirc ancient Assyrian warriors were documented of talking about seeing 'ghosts' of fallen friends.
@@amelialonelyfart8848 That would have come across if they had used it AFTER describiong the trenches i.e. blood, death, and the ghost that they left behind.
The ghosts come after the trauma (a good while after, for some).
Though admittedly, that was probably just bad, lazy writing.
The kind of bad and lazy that would have had my language teacher dock me a whole grade if I presented that in an essay.
@@AkiyukiKittenThe guy who reads it, did not help. Sounds like AI reading an AI script. "Those words are often used together."
Tolkien participated in the Battle of Mons. A number of British soldiers reported seeing a ghost army of British bowmen during that fight protecting them from the superior German forces. I have no idea if there were actually ghosts or not, but my suspicion is that's where the 'Ghosts' reference came from. That would then mean the documentary can't even make the reference to the account and then correctly follow up on it. They failed at presenting the actual historical accounts correctly let alone completely. Congrats History channel.
@@kenhall3878except they didn't. What was reported in the media was a fictional story from a Welsh writer
The "Aniur" pronunciation reminds me of a bit from the extended TTT extra features where the narrator says Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are arriving in the kingdom/land of "The Rohans" ;)
That gunfire at 19:45, bro is in british kit, firing a Mosin Nagant, and takes two shots without cycling the bolt, amazing
Hi, Star Wars fan here, as much as I love the series and the universe it’s built. I also agree that the level of detail in Tolkien’s worldbuilding far surpasses that of Star Wars even today with all the resources that came out after. I’m also currently reading the LotR books for the first time, so I really do appreciate the level of depth to Tolkien’s world
I disagree with her saying it's not a good thing to compare to: sure, Star Wars is more of a crowd effort with George Lucas being the retconnator, but outside of that thing... it's basically high fantasy IN SPACE. Not to mention the Christian narrative, am I the only one who clearly sees the final battle of both LoTR and RotJ being almost completely about hero being merciful to the villain opponent? If Frodo didn't spare Gollum he'd have one finger more, but ring would never have been destroyed - or Sauron defeated. Had Luke killed Vader, he would never had yeeted the Emperor down the shaft, fulfilling the prophecy and destroying the Sith. Both stories have a VERY similar ending. Also good guys with blue shining swords. Tolkien is a bit closer to reality, of course, with orcs being a real problem here in Europe.
No one's going to mention the perfection that is the brontosaurus mug?
I saw it.
Right up there with my Beatrix Potter mug as the mug GOAT.
I came to mention the mug. It’s wonderful and I need one!
Apatosaurus!!
Can't... get... over... the.... stain.... on.... the... shirt :/
@@jroysdonnow I can’t unsee it.😂
"Hey, Bob. Read this script."
"Nucular."
"An yoor."
"Calvary."
18:30 To be fair, the ghost army that King George V summoned in 1918 doesn't get nearly as much play in popular culture as beagle that the Allied Powers employed as a pilot on the Western Front.
Hot take: was Snoopy a descendant of Huan?
"Hobbit" only sounds like "habit" in Americanese, which Tolkien, for his linguistic arts, did not speak. He had no idea what a 'hobbit' was when the word occurred to him.
Hobbit was probably influenced by hobbes which were like demon goblins in anglo/norse mythology
A "hobaid" (ie hobbit) is an old Welsh unit of grain measurement--equal to about two and a half imperial bushels. Tolkien greatly admired the Welsh as the last "true" Britons. The hobbit race is based on how he viewed the Welsh people in the place where he would go "holidaying". He felt them to be simple, generous, kind, close to the land but not ignorant--simply more interested in their own people and places then the wider drama of the outside world. That was his ideal for how the best people should be. He may have not remembered in the moment that he chose hobbit because of hobaid but it is well documented in letters between him and CS Lewis that that is where he got the word from and felt that naming his people a Welsh term to describe their general size and weight was a fitting tribute to the people group that he loved.
@@kethrytamra3707 That's just false. Don't spout your strange opinions as facts.
How are those words pronounced in England? I didn't know either sounded different.
Yes. It came from a thoughtless sentence that Tolkien wrote down on piece of paper. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit". It had no purpose or meaning. Later he started thinking about what a hobbit actually could be and ended up creating the "Hobbits"(race).
The year was 1991 and i was working on my English literature degree at NEIU in Illinois. My 400 level English literature teacher assigned us a paper on "my favorite book by an English author". I had read Tolkien at least 4 times over and had fallen in love with his writing. So instead of just writing upon 1 novel I focussed upon the Trilogy. I worked hard on the paper and had spent weeks perfecting it. When I received it back there was a large note written in red sharpie "Tolkien is NOT English lit!" and received an F! The Professor, Dr. White had not even read my paper! I was pissed! I told the Prof. that Tolkien was the Headmaster at Oxford and who was he (Dr. White) to tell me this man did not write literature!
I took my paper, immediately to the chairman of the English dept. and plead my case. He agreed to read the paper and grade it himself. The next day I stopped in and he gave me my paper back with a new grade of an A! He told me I did a excellent job breaking down Tolkien's work and defining the underlying allegory of the novels. I was ecstatic, I had retained my A in the class. Funny thing is that 9 years later was the millennium. I can't recall what magazine it was but it listed the top 100 novels of the previous MILLENIUM. Listed at number one were Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. I so wished I knew where to find Prof. White to rub it in his face that his "professional" opinion was so VERY wrong.
It really does read like someone skimmed through the wikipedia article and then trimmed it down to 4000 words.
And yes, this is the exact level of academic rigor I expected from the History Channel.
I was going to say pretty much the same thing. The script for this thing came across exactly like someone rambled on about their thoughts after skimming the Wikipedia pages about Tolkien, Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion, had used a speech-to-text program on his tablet or phone to record those ramblings, and, with virtually no editing, turn in the script two days after getting the assignment to write it.
DON'T YOU DARE BE DISSING MY ANCIENT ALIENS!!!!!!!!! WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH!!!!!!! THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT BY LIZARD PEOPLE FROM THE ZORGON GALAXY IN THE BETA UNIVERSE 20 TRILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE AND THEN TELEPORTED TO THE PAST, JUST TO MOCK HUMANS AND TRICK THEM INTO THINKING HUMANS COULD ACTUALLY ACHIEVE SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL NOT BE FOOLED!!!!!!! WHO IS WITH ME????????????? FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE ALIEN MIND CONTROL PROGRAMS!!!!!!! THE CIA, FBI, NSA, FFA, FDA, TSA, BTA, FDP, FDC, AND ALL THE OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE IN ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DO NOT WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY FLAT, AND IS INSIDE A GLASS SNOWBALL DOME!!!!!!!!!!!! BE AWARE!!!!!!!!!! BE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRUTH SHALL PREVAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
Yup. Why hire some supposed Tolkien experts and not just have them write the script? It's only 45 minutes of light fluff. Just stick them in a room together, and have them talk about him to an outline. Job done.
If you've watched anything else on the History channel this is the least surprising thing in the world.
Jess, just like there used to be music on MTV, there used to be history on the History Channel. In fact, right now there’s a program on THC, with an actual physicist, claiming that element 115 was the fuel source for an alien spacecraft!
An excellent dissection of their “documentary”. I’m glad you were not evaluating my Masters thesis!
Something-115 ... have they been playing classic XCOM?😅
THC is likely also what influenced that hypothesis.
@@Roadwarior2I'd suggest something stronger.
DMT or LSD perhaps.
Jess, I just found your channel, and as a fellow Tolkien aficionado, you handled History's monumental gaff wonderfully! Dealing with Frodo's "failure" is so insightful, I'm going to share that clip with the 7th graders at my school who just finished reading the series.
I'd Love to see History Channel try to explain Tom Bombadil.
Well, you see, long ago the river had a daughter. Tom Bombadil fell in love with her. Then he walked around and sang songs.
But, _what is the REAL story?_
Tom is the only man in middle earth
@@CliffSedge-nu5fv Well they both are likely ..... ALIENS
Tom Bombadil is an alien, it is true, it was revealed to me in a dream
@@CliffSedge-nu5fv Real story? He was an alien, of course.
Whenever I think about the History Channel anymore, I'm reminded of a WKUK sketch where a boardroom of suits are pitching their new documentary Dinosaurs in the Civil War with the weak defense, "There *were* dinosaurs, and there *was* a Civil War!"
But WHICH Civil War..?
The History channel does'nt get HISTORY... much less Tolkien! !! I'm honestly surprised they didn't say Anicent Aliens inspired him!"
I have literally NEVER heard of a field expert being even “okay” with history channels take.
The History Channel…. Where the first casualty of their line up IS History. THC used to be kind of good in the mid/late 1990s but went right into the toilet around 2001. Your analysis was very thorough and it was a a VERY enjoyable documentary within a documentary about a documentary. :)
little did you know that the documentary was from 2009
Lol the mention that the Orcs worked for profit made me imagine Sauron's army populated by Ferengi from Star Trek.
I would love to see some sort of sketch of Quark and Rom at one of the major LOTR battles. That would be hilarious
They still do. It's just work in mordor, any orc PoW we interview on why they keep enlisting in the army always says the same thing. Money. War is just a job for orcs.
Another point in the movie's Smaug design: the idea that dragons have four legs and two wings, and wyverns have two legs and a set of wings, was primarily a thing in British heraldry; medieval art had all sorts of designs for dragons. D&D would go on to make that a standard interpretation, but no setting is beholden to that rule.
Yeah I hate "wyvern" discourse. It's like how D&D nerds sometimes get all frumpy about the term "hobgoblin" as an example of big/strong goblins, but hobgoblins in folklore are typically nice goblins, not stronger ones. (Edit: I forgot that Tolkien started that trope too, which is very funny and relevant.)
Fantasy tropes are often not representative of the lore that inspired them.
@@MasoTrumoi Tolkien inadvertently started that hobgoblin thing. They are mentioned once in the Hobbit as a kind of maybe stronger goblin, and everything spiraled from there.
@@MasoTrumoiYeah. I don't mind anyone who wants to use that in their setting, of course. D&D is a valid source for fantasy tropes, and no one is wrong for taking inspiration there. But D&D nerds have a tendency to treat the monster manual as the one true source of knowledge.
@@elonstruths1475I love these kinds of conversations, because I like to point out that Tolkien also started this idea of elves being these angelic, willowy beautiful figures, and not the often evil tricksters or helpful midgets making shoes for cobblers as they were before Tolkiens work. A great example is Elric, where Morcock around the same time (almost the same year) as Tolkien went down the ‘elves are dark, eldrich beings’ route.
@@KeytarArgonian Well elves and their perception depends on how far back you go. In the Eddas they are the willowy angelic beings but they're also barely in it compared to the Aesir. It's in Christian folklore that they become wee folk.
Funnily enough, nearly every humanoid mythological critter in europe got wee-folk'd at some point. Trolls being one of the funniest, we think of them as only big but there are a lot of fairy tales that assume they're small too.
Excluding Sam is excluding the most pure and honest character. I’ve always seen Sam as the actual hero. Even after the scouring of the shire. He continued to look after Frodo but also became mayor of Hobbiton, began and raised a family with his long-time crush, and eventually, left the West to reunite with Frodo in the Undying Lands. And that doesn’t even mention EVERYTHING Sam did along the long journey to Mt. Doom. Sam is an absolute legend.
Sam also gets the last words in the trilogy. Frodo is more of the protagonist, pushing the story forward, whereas Sam is the hero of the tale
Samwise the Brave!
Samwise the based
I think all of them are the true hero- The mission would not have succeeded without any of them, they all played their part and deserve flowers for it; I honestly find it tragic that folx dismiss Frodo, given the sacrifice he made carrying the Ring, not unlike soldiers who return and are ignored and vilified for being charged by their experiences.
Sam is the ultimate henchman/squire. He isn't the "hero" of the story because he doesn't set himself up to be one. Frodo begrudgingly accepts this role only because nobody else agrees, and Samwise just happens to be his most loyal friend.
The world building of Star Wars has been, and continues to be, a cooperative effort of dozens if not hundreds of creators adding richness to the universe with every new piece of creation (films, books, comics, videogames, TV shows). As far as I know, Tolkien was alone - and my Goddess, did he build something!
Another point lost is the fact that the true hero story is Sam. It’s his hero journey from eaves dropping at Bags End to leading the cleansing of the Shire.
28:19 this is something my therapist has been trying to get through to me. Its not about results. I saw a quote on my meditation app that said "its not about success, its about learning from my mistakes" and i would go further. Its not even about learning from your mistakes. Its about starting. Making the attempt.
"Better to try and fail than to have never tried at all" - Someone smarter than I
Tolkien very publically proclaimed LOTR while it might have started as a mythos for Anglo-Saxons he quickly decided that was a bad idea and that it should be a mythos all on its own. He also hated people trying to make allegorical comparisons to his work. "While it is impossible not to be influenced by what one knows, this work is in no way meant to be allegorical." - Tolkien paraphrased from a BBC interview he did.
Not to Mention, Linguistic
He does have allegorical subtext in LOTR specifically pertaining his critic over the industrialization of Britain and his devout beliefs as a Roman Catholic. When he meant allegorical it is in the context of 2 Factors, 1) He believes that LOTR will be interpreted differently by person to person, Though with the added context that he want it LOTR to be part of Britain's Mythology alongside King Arthur and Robin Hood.
2) CS. Lewis being very unsubtle about Aslan.
I think, while it's true that his work isn't an "allegory" per se, a few people have taken this to mean that it wasn't written to have any bearing on anything happening in the real world. The good old "X story isn't political!" argument, and this isn't true.
Tolkien may not have written any of the people, cultures, or events in his story as specific allegories to real ones, however, his story absolutely espouses a strong set of values, philosophies, and principals that had and still have a lot of bearing on real world events. For example, there are a number of parts of his story emphasizing the value of nature as well as industry's tendency to destroy it. Tolkien's work takes a very negative view towards militarism, industrialism, and authoritarianism, and portrays the tranquil, pastoral life in the shire as an idyllic one.
A lack of specific allegories to real world events doesn't mean the story wasn't a commentary on them.
This is not even close to what he said
I think anyone taking the very public statements of Tolkien on allegory in his stories, and trying to argue that he's wrong and there's a lot of allegory, should first pick up an OED*, look up 'arrogant' and 'conceited' and 'not as qualified as the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford'. I'm comfortable with him saying, 'This is not what the story is about' or 'this hot take is stupid and wrong' and accepting his word for it.
*Not the whole thing all at once, you'd give yourself a hernia.
Tolkien was a student of history. He stitched a lot of our history together into his story through a re-imagining of the details. For instance, the fall of Osgiliath is a very close retelling of the siege of Malta. Specifically, how Denethor rebukes Faramir and sends him back to certain death in Osgiliath parallels how the knights were told to defend Fort Saint Elmo to the very last. Another parallel was when the Ottomans catapulted the decapitated heads of the knights at the main fortress, just as the orcs did after the fall of Osgiliath.
Another instance is Boromir and his horn of Gondor. Boromir pays for his arrogance with his life, but not before he calls for help by blowing his horn so hard that it splits in two. This is a re-imagination of the death of Roland - a story already deeply romanticized by Tolkien's time. He, too, died for his arrogance by refusing to call for help until too late. But once he called for help, he supposedly blew his horn so hard that it split in two. He did, at least, in the romanticized version of his story.
There is no easy way to put all this together because Tolkien borrowed from thousands of years of history, cherry picking bits and pieces from disparate times, disparate people, disparate events. There is no cohesive arch, or theme to it.
Yeah you'd think decorating fences with human heads is some fantasy villain shit, but then you see real pictures of what orcs did in Donbas with Ukrainians, or their videos of Syrians or stories about all captured Georgian girls - any age - being SA'ed on principle. And you know any historical text about russia will simply tell you that ultimate fantasy evil is just a real "country" wannabe.
Only 15 mins into the video so I don't know if this gets addressed later, but for context, this doc was an episode of 'Clash of the Gods'; a series about key (mostly greek) mythological figures. There's an episode for Zeus, Hades, Heracles (though they use his more popular roman name), and Thor. That is why this doc puts so much focus on comparing the events of the story with myth. With the smaug section, they're actually hardening back to a previous Beowulf focused episode they did, which is why there's so little explanation. Thank you for the great video though, Jess!
My sweet grandma who saw the Hobbit after surgery noticed that Smaug was different from the first movie and the second. Again she was still coming out of her anesthesia and was on pain killers, and she noticed that Smaug was different from one movie and another.
I don’t even know what the history channel is anymore. Like it’s not even history anymore
Of course, it isn't.
With sites like UA-cam around as competition, the History Channel was losing viewers. That's when a new CEO came in and changed the programming towards reality shows and conspiracy stuff which was popular.
When historical integrity and financial solvency butt heads, usually finance wins.
Those hobbits in the documentary looked like they’re about to stab you 😂
Right? They made them look so aggressive!
@@Jess_of_the_Shire CSI The Shire coming this Fall. Find out who got gutted this time!
Their blades glow blue when normal sized chavs are nearby
"Put the Lembas bread in the bag, and nooooo one has to get hurt."
Considering what they did to worm tongue, you're not wrong😂
The Halloween mask for Gollum is just amazing 😂
-Hey, what's this word?
-Ainur.
-Uhnyer, got it. 👍
Great video as always, but I got kinda distracted by the spot on the shirt.
(Then again that could've been me wearing a shirt like that, so it is kind of relatable)
Please keep up the amazing work Jess! You continue to be one of my favorite Tolkien UA-camrs, thanks to the wonderfully unique flavor and topics of your channel. Happy New Year and lots of love!
Thanks so much! I'm so excited to kick this year off!
What's weird about them having this actor writing on a blank page when talking about how The Hobbit idea was conceived is that we have interview footage of Tolkien describing this moment. Why couldn't they just include that?
Because paying people for rights to use and because it would make it VERY clear that they picked the wrong actor 😂
1) Excellent mug. Truly.
2) Thank you for watching that Drek so I don't have to. Eeep.
Around 6:30, isn't that quote from Gandalf not Frodo? Frodo at that stage of the book says that the only thought that makes leaving bearable is that he may get to see Bilbo again
Did you ever do your look at Balrogs? I'm curious to see if anyone else has my interpretation.
I love the explanation how Frodo did not fail at the crack of doom, but his kind deeds throughout the adventure is what set up a chain of events to succeed evil. It shows that even if he was under the influence of evil around his neck, he could still make the right choice spreading goodness and this resistance is why evil cannot win or survive in this world
"There are few who can" -Gandalf, I think.
"Hey, Over there! Is that a hobbit?"
"Nah... thats just a hobo and a rabbit. But they're making a hobbit!" - Bender Bending Rodriguez
Futurama > History Channel
That knobbly ring is really upsetting to me.
Wow. TIL the difference between a dragon and a Wyvern! Educational.
Your analysis reminds me of my curatorial writing class: when you talk about an artwork, you have to somehow characterize it. And the adjective you choose to characterize it with, has to do two things: be provable and argumentable. Adjectives like intriguing and interesting definitely don't fit into that, and they don't say much at all except for, as you said, that Tolkien did a thing.
Really great job on this honestly!! I loved your insights :)
Much television programming seems to be written for the average middle schooler. This is why seventy-eight thousand of us look forward to watching you each Friday. Thank you, Jess. 💙💙
love this so far
ps, so close -- you almost made a documentary about a documentary longer than the documentary itself
As I edited, I started to get a bit worried I would go over 45 minutes lol...Honestly, there's some stuff I left out that I could have always included
Probably a bit cheaper in production though.
@@Jess_of_the_Shire
Shall we get an extended edition release a few months from now?
@@Jess_of_the_Shire I am in no way connected, but I would invite you to check the videos (especially the reviews of The Hobbit and The Rings Of Power).
The Hobbit reviews are 4 videos: 2h23m25s + 2h52m29s + 3h55m48s + 3h51m51s = 13h03m33s.
Rings Of Power are 9 videos: 48m57s + 50m50s + 1h01m20s + 1h07m55s + 1h33m47s + 1h17m37 + 1h45m32s + 1h54m11s+3h30m01s = 13h50m10s...
UA-cam recommended this for finding your channel. I love it!, gonna binge your stuff this weekend for sure 👍
My nitpick was this wasn’t even a Tolkien specific documentary. It was an episode of a series that was supposed to talk about Gods from around the world. The first three episodes before this was Zeus, Hades and Thor. Why would there be an episode about Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings?
100% agree with you on virtually everything. It's honestly a bummer that History channel fails to make compelling documentaries on essentially everything. I tend to stick to the bonus feature videos from the dvd's and bluray as they have intriguing arguments and again have many experts. It's also unfortunate to have experts and yet not be expertly composed as a documentary.
Amazing! You've managed to provide more nuance in less time than the original documentary.
"So bad that it's not even wrong"
Excellent video. Your segment on Frodo's "failure" and his merited grace was worth the price of admission (subscription) alone.
Learned more from your response to the documentary than the documentary itself. Subscribed!
Ghost in WWI? Are they thinking of Arthur Machen's "The Angles of Mons", where ghostly longbow-men saved the BEF. When it was published, it was not marked as fiction, and Machen was also doing journalism. Thus it was widely believed to be a factual report at the time. The sensors at the time decided not to make people aware of this at the time.
There was a similar story of Templars appearing out of nowhere to save Scots in the Battle of Bannockburn, AND the various stories of King Arthur returning in dire need, so British lore has TONS of stories that look close to ghost army led by long dead king saving the day.
THANKS! I am sooooo glad I didn't take the time to view the "History" channels take on Tolkien. I aggreed with all points you made except the ones on Tom Bombodil. My take on Tom was a) tension relief and b) not every discovery of the wider world was bad and there can be peace at some places where there was someone other than elves beautifully singing laments or Hobbits singing mostly drinking songs. :-)
That dinosaur mug might be the best thing I've ever seen.
This I need one
Did it look like Barney?
I mean, it was on the history channel.
Wouldn't surprise me if they fucked that up, too! 😂
DON'T YOU DARE BE DISSING MY ANCIENT ALIENS!!!!!!!!! WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH!!!!!!! THE PYRAMIDS WERE BUILT BY LIZARD PEOPLE FROM THE ZORGON GALAXY IN THE BETA UNIVERSE 20 TRILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE AND THEN TELEPORTED TO THE PAST, JUST TO MOCK HUMANS AND TRICK THEM INTO THINKING HUMANS COULD ACTUALLY ACHIEVE SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL NOT BE FOOLED!!!!!!! WHO IS WITH ME????????????? FIGHT BACK AGAINST THE ALIEN MIND CONTROL PROGRAMS!!!!!!! THE CIA, FBI, NSA, FFA, FDA, TSA, BTA, FDP, FDC, AND ALL THE OTHER GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE IN ON IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY DO NOT WANT TO LET YOU KNOW THAT THE EARTH IS ACTUALLY FLAT, AND IS INSIDE A GLASS SNOWBALL DOME!!!!!!!!!!!! BE AWARE!!!!!!!!!! BE FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TRUTH SHALL PREVAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D
I've been reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings every year a very long time before you were born. However, I still don't have the level of insight that you do. After watching a few of your videos I am quite impressed with your knowledge. I hope you continue to produce these!
Both rings were round, and there the similarities ended.
J.R.R Tolkien.
Very well done dissection of a poorly produced documentary. The History Channel should be sued for false advertising in the name of their channel. So little history, so much cotton candy (all fluff and no substance). Thank you for your insight and protection of the inspiration to my own creation. Tolkien was not one to lay out all of his thoughts, so it allows speculation as to what someone wants him to be for them. While I appreciate Tolkien's privacy, he is an highly interesting creator and people are going to go where they wish to go. You keep a firm foundation, and I am thankful for that. Thank you, Jess!
History channel is right there with MTV not doing much music, UA-cam not really focusing on tube TVs, and Coca-Cola not having cocaine in it no more smh...
Thanks Jess-I haven’t seen that documentary, but this shows why I haven’t watched the history channel in years!
I was invited to give a one-hour presentation on Tolkien during an office social function. I entitled it “Love, Loss, Literature, and Liturgy: Influences on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.” I am very proud of that briefing. I like to think I didn’t make the same mistakes as the History Channel and other poor documentaries. I do remember feeling bad that I didn’t understand the significance of Tolkien’s publication of Pearl.
Would’ve loved to hear your presentation! Great title.
@@RelateGREAT I have a copy of it hidden on UA-cam. It is an MS Teams recording. The only reason I don’t share it with strangers is because you can see other employees names and thumbnails around the screen. If I knew anything about video editing, I would blur them out. There is one other person who speaks in the video, the hostess, whom I would ask for permission. I know her, and she would likely say yes.
If @Jess_of_the_Shire was willing to watch it, I would email her the private link
Gotcha! Thanks for letting me know. @@pawned79
I will defend the point that Frodo is in fact set up as a special hobbit, it is reiterated many times in the first few chapters of the book that he's viewed as a rather strange hobbit, possibly hanging out with elves, having an odd background, knowing things most hobbits don't know, etc.
He's somewhat stranged from hobbit society, that doesn't make him special. The Tooks are also estranged from normal hobbit things, but none of them were dragonquesting ring-bearers.
They were adventurers @@RickJaeger
If you mean special in that he was a sort of a nerd than yeah, sure. If you mean that he had some special characteristics over other hobbits than no, just no. He was curious, yes, he was more open minded than most, sure, but he wasn't stronger, faster, smarter, etc, than other hobbits. He was just an ordinary joe with a healthy curiosity and a knack for adventure.
God bless you and your work young lady 💜💜💜
You are excellent Jess happy new year
No history in the history channel, just more "product" . Happy New Year Jess!
“But that’s because they’re making things up.” Lol
History Channel treaded rhe same path as MTV.
They started off good, and then degenerated into an amorphous, tasteless blob over the years.
This video improved my understanding of Frodo at the climax, and improves my appreciation for the whole story. Thanka!!
I remember being really fascinated by this documentary as a kid. In fact, it’s what got me into LotR and will myself to watch the old LotR CDs my family had that I was originally too scared to because the image of gollum on the side of the box
Great video as always! The only thing I find contentious is Smaug being the last dragon. Tolkien implies in letter 144 that there is evidence that they survived until relatively modern times;
"Dragons. They had not stopped; since they were active in far later times, close to our own; Have I said anything to suggest the final ending of dragons? If so it should be altered. The only passage I can think of is Vol. I p. 70 : ‘there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough’. But that implies, I think, that there are still dragons, if not of full primeval stature".