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

Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning. Have you ever had to do something that you didn't want to do?

I mean, really didn't want to do, something that had been looming on the horizon for

what felt like forever, so long in the future that you

hoped it would never come, but you kind of hoped that it would because you needed to

accomplish it and get it done anyway. And then the day comes, and you're there, standing on the

threshold of something that you know has to happen, but are not

excited about it all. And by sheer will, you will yourself forward into that thing, that moment,

to take on the thing that you had been dreading.

That's exactly where we are in The Hobbit as we start chapter 12, inside information.

Bilbo is literally on the doorstep, literally on the precipice of a descent into darkness and fire and toxic fumes.

And he's about to find out that it's more than just those elemental, dangerous things.

It's also the manipulation of a dragon, a being more terrifying than anything he will ever encounter after this.

He's attempted to steal from trolls. He survived a goblin cave, a riddle battle with

Gullum. He saved the dwarves from not only spiders, but also elves.

He's been clever and lucky beyond, well, what most people normally would be.

And here he finally is on this precipice and about to deal with a dragon, a creature from a time well before the third

age, a time when the world was dangerous, a time so far in the past that the only memories of

these creatures come from fairy tales and stories you tell children.

The people at Lake Town, well, the younger ones, debated if the dragon was even real at all.

And a hobbit from the Shire, who has never seen a beast like this before, and most

of the people they know and their ancestors had never had to deal with a dragon, well, it feels

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