Who were the Five Armies in The Hobbit? - Tolkien Lore

Подписаться 47 тыс.

Просмотров 1,3 тыс.

50% 1

Today we look into the simple question: who were the Five Armies in The Hobbit book, that fought in the Battle of Five Armies at the end? Four are easy to guess, but what could be the fifth army?
We look into what is written in the book and how things were different in early versions of The Hobbit, that Tolkien wrote.
► Disclaimer:
I have permission of the artists to use their art works.
► Artwork and special thanks to:
Kimberly80 - deviantart.com/kimberly80
Ted Nasmith - tednasmith.com
Jenny Dolfen Art - / jennydolfen or goldseven.wordpress.com - etsy.com/de/shop/JennyDolfen
Sara Morello Art - deviantart.com/samo-art
Pete Amachree - artstation.com/summerpudding
Laura Tolton - deviantart.com/lauratolton
► Sources:
The Lord of The Rings (1954-1955) by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Silmarillion (1977)
The Hobbit (1937; 1951)
Unfinished Tales (1980)
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)
The Book of Lost Tales Part Two (1984)
The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)
The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986)
History of the Hobbit (2007)
The Nature of Middle-earth (2021)
TolkienGateway.net
Maps:
Amazon (John Howe)
Edited by: Murdo
Aman map by ThePhilosophersGames
► Mistakes:
-
► Playlists:
If you are interested in Tolkien's legendary fantasy Epic The Lord of the Rings and his related works, here some recommendations:
Recommended Lore Videos - • Who are Tolkien's Wiza...
Book/Film Differences Series - • LotR Prologue Explaine...
► Time Codes:
Intro - 0:00
► Social Media:
The Philosopher's Games / TPhGames / TPhLore aka Chris
RU-vid (Main): / thephilosophersgames
Gaming Channel - / tphgames
Twitch Channel - / thephilosophersgames
Twitter (@PhilosophGames): / philosophgames
Discord Server - / discord
► Of Games and Rings Podcast:
Spotify - open.spotify.com/episode/4xQx...
Others see: linktr.ee/TPhGames
#Tolkien #Lore #TheHobbit

Развлечения

Опубликовано:

4 апр 2024

Ссылка:

Скачать:

Готовим ссылку...

Добавить в:

Мой плейлист

Посмотреть позже

Комментарии : 55

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

I hope you found the video interesting. What was your guess what the fifth army in the battle of Five Armies was? Also thank you to the artists, for allowing me to use their art works in my video (links to their galleries are in the description): Kimberly80 Ted Nasmith Pete Amachree Laura Tolton

@specialnewb9821 3 месяца назад

I was very confused that this was a question because as you read, he told us flat out.

@istari0 3 месяца назад

I always thought it was the Wargs.

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

The question is in itself very easy to answer, but I found it fascinating, that some people I spoke with also had not the Wargs in mind and that Tolkien also iterated on this quite a bit during the writing process. Even John D. Rateliff expressed that he was surprised, that Tolkien wrote it like this for the published version of The Hobbit. Ofc you you read The Hobbit frequently, you know it, but the last time I red this chapter was some quite time ago (when I got asked this question) and e.g. the Eagles as fifth faction made a lot of sense in my mind. So this detail is easy to forget. If you go through the text about this battle, Wargs and wolves are only mentioned like 3-4 times. And Goblins/Orcs ride on wolves and even Wargs here and there. As a result it's easy to not perceive them as own army.

@PriscilaTV1 3 месяца назад

I absolutely LOVE that you always credit and tahnk the artists, it is very important and a thing not every Ytber does.

@specialnewb9821 3 месяца назад

@ThePhilosophersGames I feel like Tolkien tried to make warg/wolves a thing both here in the hobbit and in lotr with the fight (maybe to give shadow more troop variety than orcs or give them mounts) but it never quite worked out. Even the first age ones aside from draugluin and carcharoth are mostly unused background. The appendix even talks about wolves "invading" the shire rather than entering or ranging during the fell winter suggesting maybe something more directed.

@raremusic2 3 месяца назад

Nice to see you again :) i'm always here for more Tolkien stuff

@florinbelgun6731 3 месяца назад

Good to have you back!

@muddlewait8844 3 месяца назад

Good to see another video from you! Very interesting. I had heard for a long time that Smaug was the Fifth Army, but I can’t remember where.

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

Interesting idea, though ofc he was already dead when the Battle broke out.

@istari0 3 месяца назад

The History of the Hobbit is next up on my reading list; I expect it will be fascinating!

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

It really is fascinating and I think it's a bit underrated among fans.

@otwk 3 месяца назад

Interesting video, I like that you (seemingly) made this just to clear up a small error :) I think I had heard of the fact before that the battle was supposed to happen in the Anduin vale, but it was nice to hear about it in more depth. Also, my main takeaway from this is that the dancing bears were right under our noses all along xD

@TheUncleRuckus 3 месяца назад

Been hoping for an upload! 👍👍

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

Yes there was no upload for some time here, only several streams. Sorry to keep you people waiting for so long.

@tsuchan 3 месяца назад

It could have been divided into 'The Battle of Nine Armies', if we considered the Orcs of Moria and Orcs of Gundabad as separate armies; and also Thorin's rag-tag army distinct from the Army of dwarves of the Iron Hills.

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

Yes for sure one could have made more factions. the question when does a group count as army.

@DaBIONICLEFan 3 месяца назад

Nice to see another video 👍 I knew one of them was wolves, for some reason I thoughts bats might have been one? What degree of agency or sentience do wargs/wolves have that would seperate them from just being grouped as part of the Goblin army?

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

Wargs could be possessed by evil spirits, so have a degree of agency and sentience as a result. In the First Age we have the werewolves and hounds that even could talk, etc. Bats I don't know. Tolkien also mentioned vampires, like Thuringwethil, who could change her form and was ofc also sentient. I would assume though tat bats are lesser creatures in comparison. It's like a topic on its own and I think Tolkien might not have it too well defined in his texts.

@teeheeteeheeish 3 месяца назад

I always assumed there were two armies of orks/goblins. I stand corrected!

@JoeQuake 3 месяца назад

"Bolg of the North is coming, O Dain! ... the bats are above his army like a sea of locusts. They ride upon wolves and Wargs are in their train!" So, we have wargs differentiated from wolves and then lots of bats. Better add two more potential armies to the list. I think that makes it The Battle of Nine Armies. 🙂 p.s. I enjoyed the video. Thanks!

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

Yes I stumbled upon this line as well and it seems Tolkien differentiates, but it seems the wolves are used as mounts and Wargs not. And host of Wargs sounds not like "only" being mounts. Further "Wild Wolves" is written in capital letters (at least in the later editions), so maybe it can be interpreted as other term for Wargs. Normal wolves appear to rarely in the descriptions of the Battle of Five Armies, so it would be strange if they would be the named group and not the Wargs, who at least they appear in the section (though not that often). PS: Also thank you, glad you liked it ^^

@otwk 3 месяца назад

@@ThePhilosophersGames Wolves, Wargs, Werewolves and the differences between them could really be its own susbtantial video, I feel like xD And I think it is mentioned that orcs sometimes ride Wargs in Out of the Frying Pan, but I could be mistaken. Though I know that for example, there are only ever Wolf-Riders mentioned in The Lord of the Rings (in the forces of Isengard), and no Warg-Riders.

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

Yes for sure, that's a topic for its own video, though it would be a difficult video to make I think.From my perspective it seems that the terminology is very inconsistent and that makes things difficult to structure.

@reflectiverambling1148 3 месяца назад

This is one of the reasons I love all of you. I never would have given second thought to things like these. I'm too much of a surface level brain it seems. but I love it when people make me go: oh yeaaaaaaah.

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

haha I get often lost in details like that 😄 Can make for cool content, but also makes it sometimes difficult to create content, because working every detail can be quite a bit of work and research.

@reflectiverambling1148 3 месяца назад

@@ThePhilosophersGames I really don't know how all of you do it. I start to go down a rabbit hole and just keep falling.

@Adarkane325xi 3 месяца назад

I gladly supplied your 100th Like. Hello again, my friend. Glad to see you’re still plugging away. I guess i’m the only person asking these days, but whatever happened with your comparison series of Book vs Movie? Did you abandon it? It just trails off with #25 of Fellowship with the party arriving in Rivendell. I’m a nerd, and a Virgo, so i love detail-oriented minutiae. 🤣

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

Thank you ^^ haha no you are not the only one asking and I'm happy to see that people liek it so much and have interest in new episodes. No it's not abandoned, I just had not found the time/priority to continue yet. It was always intended as a "filler" project. So I can work on it, when I don't other big projects and I can also decide how long episodes will be. Currently we are at the Council of Elrond, which is very lore heavy. The next episodes will be really tough to make and structure, so they need more focus by my side and could also get longer, so it seems to me I can't just work on it when there is nothing else to do. Besides I work on this 12 hour Elrond video for years. Which is almost completed, but still needs 1 or 2 more parts. I'm working on part 11 currently. Further there was my RoP coverage 2022, etc. So I always had stuff to do instead. In addition I worked quite heavily on my games channel last year. Long story short I was just too busy the last couple of years to produce another episode. But I plan making new episodes. I think mid August/September 2024 things might get more normal again for lore videos here, because then I will have completed my Elden Ring DLC coverage 😂 Hope new RoP season does not come this year 🤞

@Adarkane325xi 3 месяца назад

@@ThePhilosophersGames Alexa just told me Season 2’s premiere hasn’t been announced yet, and she’d be the first to know. So probably not before the end of the year, i’m guessing, at the earliest. I appreciate the response. As soon as you mentioned your Elrond video, i remembered it because you had mentioned it back then! Better to be too busy than losing interest or scrapping it!

@Adarkane325xi 2 месяца назад

@@ThePhilosophersGames Hello yet again, my friend. Something came across my desk that i wanted to pass on to you. This is, like, the ink is still wet-type of thing. Our mutual good friend Andy Serkis is returning to LotR to act and direct a movie about Gollum, called The Hunt For Gollum, i guess about Gandalf and Aragorn searching for him? Could be something else though. I said the Gollum game would’ve been successful if Mr. Serkis was involved, now he’s returning to the role anyway. Not sure how much Amazon will be meddling, if at all.

@Dinoguy555 2 месяца назад

The Battle of Multiple Armies just doesn't have the same ring to it

@ThePhilosophersGames 2 месяца назад

haha true

@lionlord8784 3 месяца назад

This was extremely confusing for me. So what was now the 5 armies again? I myself never understanded how could the "MEN" be considered as one of the armies.

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

The five armies in the published version of The Hobbit were: Dwarves Men ("Human" has its root in Latin and Tolkien preferred the Germanic root, so he went with Men for humans in his books). Elves Goblins/Orcs Wild Wolves/Wargs (which i suprising if you consider how big the role of the Eagles was in the battle) When Tolkien was tinkering and writing the book in the 1930s he played with different ideas, who these 5 armies were. Eagles, Beorn & a troop of bears and different Men (not from Lake-town under Bard, but from the woods around Mirkwood, who later become the Beornings led by Beorn) PS: sorry that is was confusing for you. Looking into Tolkien's early notes and different versions of texts he wrote, can sometimes be a bit confusing 😅

@lionlord8784 3 месяца назад

@@ThePhilosophersGames Many thanks for the answer, i REALY APPRECIATE it, but its stil hard to understand. So in the original version from 1930 it was Dwarves 1, Men 2, Goblin 3, Orcs 4, Wild Wolves 5 Wargs 6 ??? The confusing is TOTALLY not your fault man, you made it in a AWESOME way. Its confusing due Tolkiens fault.

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

No problem ^^ So Hobbit released 1937. And in the process of writing the book (maybe around 1933?) he had initially a different idea for the final big battle. The Goblins (and Wargs) would waylay Bilbo on his way home at the end, while the Dwarves stayed in Erebor. I guess Bilbo was accompanied by friends and a battle broke out between the Woodmen living in that area, Beorn (and other bears), the Elves under he Elvenking (later in LotR called Thranduil). Maybe the Eagles as well. Tolkien later decided that it would be better to have the fight at Erebor with the Dwarves participating + having Dáin Ironfoot appear with 500 Dwarves as well and further he had the idea calling it The Battle of Five Armies. In Tolkien's notes a list with possible participants was found and published in History of the Hobbit. Here he wrote down the 7 factions, as quoted in the video. He still had the "Beorn + other bears" idea in mind it seems, because he lists "bears", which includes Beorn I guess. At the end for the final published version all changed to Dwarves, Men, Elves, Goblins/Orcs, Wild Wolves/Wargs (+ Beorn alone + Eagles).

@rogerbrownreacts8528 3 месяца назад

What if he counted the Dwarves and men as one Army.

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

In theory possible, but he never wrote that he considered doing this. I guess a good argument against this idea would be, that the Dwarves did their own thing and so made more sense as their own faction.

@otwk 3 месяца назад

Arguably, Elves and Men were more of a unit than Dwarves and Men, as that was the dividing line between the two opposing forces in the beginning (Men and Elves vs Dwarves), before Bolg arrived.

@tsuchan 3 месяца назад

To which army did Gandalf belong? 🔥

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

the question is, if one person, even though powerful, but he had to "forgo might", counts as own army. 😄 In the early version he also convinced the participants of settling the dispute and negotiate peace without battle. And then the battle happens on Bilbo's way home.

@Enerdhil 3 месяца назад

It should be Four Armies. The Orc-Wolf army was one large army that split in two or three places to create a two-front war. Dáin had an army of Dwarves. Bard gad an army of Men. Thranduil had an army of Elves. The Beornings didn't have enough warriors to qualify as an army. The Eagles and Bats were a kind of air force. If you call the Eagles an army, you must also consider the bats an army. Just sayin' ....

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

The eagles feel very sentient and they have the capacity to act on their will. The bats have this far less, at least it's not described. So they seem more like tools used by the army of Goblins than their own faction in this battle.

@Enerdhil 3 месяца назад

@@ThePhilosophersGames True, but you can't call flying objects an army, not in English, unless the meaning was changed.😅

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

Yes that is what I mean. Bats are "objects" = no army; Eagles are not objects = maybe an army

@Enerdhil 3 месяца назад

@@ThePhilosophersGames Okay. I see your point. I just think they mostly dropped boulders and fallen trees in the middle of them, to maximize the number of Orcs and Wolves they killed. This way they could avoid "direct contact" with evil beings (maybe an Eru directive for them). For them to be an "army," I think they must fly down to the ground and peck Orcs to death or step on and kill them. Armies are "ground forces."

@johnguercio869 3 месяца назад

WHERE YA BEEN

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

here 😅 Did some lore live streams on this channel to compensate my lack of videos production. And - as said - had some other projects I was working on for some time.

@johnguercio869 3 месяца назад

@@ThePhilosophersGames well it was nice to see the notification. happy you are welll. i would like to inquire about the book differences series???

@ThePhilosophersGames 3 месяца назад

I feel like I first need to complete the Elrond project before I continue with the film/book differences series. I plan to mix in some smaller topic videos like this one here and there as well. But yes maybe I can also make a small episode of the series, but the current chapter is tough. It was originally intended to be a side project, where I can just produce a short episode here and there too, but I started working too hard on the details, so the episodes got longer and tougher to make over time. And now I'm sitting in the Council of Elrond chapter, most likely the lore heaviest chapter in the whole book. Structuring this Council, working out the differences and elaborating on all the lore details, will be really tough and potentially will make for one or several longer videos. Nothing I can just quickly produce as a side project, at last if I want to keep the quality. I would need to fully focus on that for some time.

@johnguercio869 3 месяца назад

i think that’s why i’m so excited and it’s so anticipated because I know how lore heavy it is and there are huge differences. I go back and read that chapter alone from time to time to just get the lore. appreciate you greatly and any and all content. thanks chris

@Enerdhil 3 месяца назад

The Great Eagles were an Airforce.🤪