191: The Hobbit 60: Surviving The Battle of Five Armies
Lord of the Rings Lorecast - J.R.R. Tolkien's World & Writings Explained
Robots Radio
4.9 • 696 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2025
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
Bilbo wakes to find the battle is over and almost nobody is unscathed - a situation very similar to what Tolkien went through in the Battle of the Somme and the conflicts afterwards.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Lord of the Rings lore cast, the show that explores the background of |
| 0:11.2 | Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning. Today we begin Chapter 18, The Return Journey. |
| 0:28.6 | At the beginning of this chapter, we change perspectives again, back to Bilbo, waking up after he's been knocked out. |
| 0:35.6 | An injured survivor of the battle. |
| 0:38.5 | Technically, that is a casualty. |
| 0:40.5 | We misuse the word casualty today to generally mean deaths, |
| 0:44.8 | but casualties aren't just deaths. |
| 0:47.5 | They're injuries. |
| 0:48.6 | They're people who were damaged or incapacitated, |
| 0:51.2 | who could no longer fight. |
| 0:54.0 | And this battle, the Battle of Five Armies, has |
| 0:57.1 | similarities to something Tolkien went through himself, the Battle of the Somme. And in order |
| 1:05.1 | to understand what Bilbo is going through here, it might help us out to take a look at what |
| 1:10.1 | was happening in |
| 1:11.4 | Telkin's own life in World War I at the Battle of the Somme. |
| 1:17.4 | Now what is the Battle of the Somme? |
| 1:19.4 | Well, it was one of the deadliest battles of World War I. |
| 1:24.7 | In this battle alone, there were over one million total casualties. |
| 1:30.7 | Now again, that's not deaths. |
| 1:33.1 | That's people who died and or were injured. |
| 1:37.0 | Now compare that to other battles during this conflict, and that number ranks at the very |
| 1:42.7 | top. |
... |
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