The History Channel Doesn't "Get" Tolkien 

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.

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

"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.

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).

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.

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.

💯👍

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

😂

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.

@@Primalintent 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.

@@PrimalintentYeah. 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.

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... 🤔

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

​@@user-er6vo4he4mThey 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

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.

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!)

"That's what I'm saying!" - Doofenshmirtz.

"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...

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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).

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.

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

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.😂

little did you know that the documentary was from 2009

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!

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.

But WHICH Civil War..?

Hot take: was Snoopy a descendant of Huan?

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.

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.

That sounds on brand

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.

Because paying people for rights to use and because it would make it VERY clear that they picked the wrong actor 😂

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.

"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

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.

Of course, it isn't. With sites like RU-vid 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.

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

Sure, but what a way to phrase it, as literally the first thing in a list of things Tolkien experienced.

"Better to try and fail than to have never tried at all" - Someone smarter than I

Would’ve loved to hear your presentation! Great title.

@@RelateGREAT I have a copy of it hidden on RU-vid. 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

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.

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😂

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...

Orc is just a word for those who live in Mordor, which is r$#%sia. Of course they weren't capitalists when Tolkien wrote this, but I think he seriously downplayed real life orski savagery and inhumaneness. Azog the Defiler might look brutal in his head chopping ways in his idealistic world, but he's closer to one of the puppies that alexey milchakov killed than an average ru$$1an.

Intriguing.

What an excellent point!

When LoTR becomes public domain I have no doubt that we’ll see SF reimaginings

@@sebastianevangelista4921 Well, there was that Amazon thing. The reimaginings are already a thing. To be fair i would like to see some wierd futuristic cyberpunk world with the last remnants of the exiles coping with living in a blade runner dystopia.

"Alien overlord" like the gods counting as aliens? Or referring to some people's idea that Sauron is Nyarlathotep?

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

There's a story about Asimov turning up at a dinner party, to find two people arguing about the meaning of something in a book. He chimed in and corrected their mistaken assumptions, and they asked him who he was to dare disagreeing with their academic brilliance. "The author." was his response. Academics are always reading more into the blue curtains than the author meant. They've little else to do with their time. I remember an episode of Time Team where the archaeologists were theorising over how a guy ended up in a pit full of all these fascinating artefacts of bronze age Britain like pottery fragments and other genuine rubbish. They talked about sacrifice and burial traditions and stuff. My thought was someone stabbed him, stole his gold, and threw him in the midden to hide the body since carrying it out of the hill for to hide it would be physically challenging to say the least. Literature wonks love to do the same thing. And yeah, Christianity has nothing to do with a) the morality people claim is somehow Christian and nor does Judaism for that matter and b) nothing to do with LOTR. Any morality in it was worked out well before those religions, and they lifted their ideas from earlier philosophy and religion. Then people refined it all over and over again for about a hundred thousand years before Tolkien.

@@jonevansauthor "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision." Direct quote from the big man himself. In this case, yeah, the author outright states catholicism plays a heavy hand in the symbolism of this book, but a lot of people try to ignore that. Personally, I think christian symbols and themes are fascinating and should be used more in media. Like really, NOTHING?? I can at least understand the argument that the christian elements aren't that huge, but really nothing? Theres a single creator god, his angelic child who rebelled against him and seeks to corrupt the earth, and quite literally the corrupting nature of the ring is HEAVILY christian. That even angels, such as gandalf, are not immune to its corruption (Aka, falling for sin, such as Lucifer, an angel who sinned against god.) Even if some of these may be argued to be just general fantasy story ideas, since almost all fantasy comes from LOTRs, thats a moot point. Because Tolkein certainly couldn't have taken it, because he fundamentally changed the entire trajectory of fantasy with his book based off his beliefs. It really shouldn't be that surprising, considering Tolkein's faith after all.

@@jonevansauthor Tolkien was pretty open about being devoted Catholic and trying to claim that instead of his literal religion, he based morality on some unnamed random mysterious ancient alien earlier philosophy nobody heard about is a HUGE stretch. Judaism and Christianity are also clearly distinct. Gollum tried to kill Frodo and Sam. In Jewish faith, the eye for an eye principle would have been rightful. But in Christianity, you are taught to love your enemy and show mercy. Which Frodo does. Then in-universe God's hand guides Gollum to steal the ring and drop it. Literal divine intervention followed by main hero showing a clearly Christian virtue that is in a conflict with all other Abrahamic religions (Islam doesn't teach people to forgive without someone paying for their sins either.) This is just one of MANY examples of morality system, it's just less in your face in Middle Earth than it is in Narnia, another famous Christian book series... so yeah, you're the academic who tries to argue against the author here.