Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lore cast, the show that explores the background of

Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning.

So in today's episode, we are back to dealing with the elves, as they've now managed to beat back the spiders,

and Bilbo has effectively saved all of the, well, maybe not all of the dwarfs, but it seems like all

of the dwarves at this point in the story. And so we're back to dealing with the elves again.

And this section of the chapter is interesting in the way that it portrays the elves.

We're about to get a significant portion of backstory in a way. Well,

not deep levels of backstory. It's not like we're delving into the Silmarillion again. But we are

touching on some of the things that do come up in the Silmarillion, because you have to remember

that when Tolkien was writing the Hobbit,

he had, in his mind, initially, not including this in his greater legendarium, but eventually

that became the setting. And so when entering into a situation like we are now, where they're

dealing with elves, but elves that seem not particularly now, where they're dealing with elves, but elves

that seem not particularly helpful, he has to explain why.

And you'll notice, as we go through this section, there are multiple times where he tries

to reinforce the idea to the reader that elves are not evil creatures, that they are good people.

But like any good people, they have reasons for being suspicious and careful and defensive,

especially when it comes to dwarves.

And that's the part that ties back to the events of the Silmarillion.

We'll get into it as we go through, but keep that in mind that this is something that

Tolkien absolutely wants the readers to understand is that these elves, although they seem

like a problem, they seem like a thing getting in the way of the party of our heroes

...