183: The Hobbit 54: The Wisdom of Birds
Lord of the Rings Lorecast - J.R.R. Tolkien's World & Writings Explained
Robots Radio
4.9 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 13 October 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
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Summary
How would you bring the Dwarves up-to-speed about what just happened in Laketown? Tolkien finds a way that's deeply rooted in myth and legend.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lorecast, the show that explores the background of Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning. Smog the dragon is dead. |
| 0:28.6 | But that doesn't mean everything's going to go smoothly from this point on. |
| 0:33.6 | And you might be thinking I'm talking about the dwarves and Bilbo, but I'm actually talking about Tolkien himself. |
| 0:40.2 | But wait, he's not a character in the story. |
| 0:42.0 | How does that make any sense? |
| 0:43.1 | Well, here, let me explain to you. |
| 0:45.1 | One of the things I like to do often when reading books, and I've mentioned this before, is to try to get in the mind of the author. |
| 0:51.6 | How would I handle this situation? Why did the author make this choice or this |
| 0:58.0 | choice or something else that I wouldn't have thought of at all? And in situations like this |
| 1:04.0 | climactic conclusion that isn't actually the climax of the story, what do you do? Specifically, we have a situation where some of the characters know what's going on, and other characters don't. |
| 1:19.6 | We have large distances of isolation and knowledge. |
| 1:24.6 | We just finished up the previous chapter, chapter 14, and we know what the lake |
| 1:29.2 | men know. In fact, at the end of that chapter, we found out that the elves are also informed. |
| 1:35.8 | They have been watching and waiting to see what happens. And now that the dragon is dead, |
| 1:41.4 | both of those groups are working together with plans for what |
| 1:46.8 | they're going to do when it comes to the mountain and the treasure and the dwarves. |
| 1:52.7 | And as we transition back to the perspective of the dwarves, we end up with a very different |
| 1:59.6 | situation. Just one chapter before this, |
| 2:02.8 | we were following them. It had been days. The dragon was already dead, and they didn't know it yet. |
| 2:08.6 | In fact, they don't know much of anything at the beginning of this chapter. And not only are they |
| 2:13.4 | lacking in knowledge, but they're lacking in resources. Sure, they have the entire mountain. |
| 2:18.3 | It's safe. |
... |
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