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Lord of the Rings Lorecast - J.R.R. Tolkien's World & Writings Explained

210: FotR 15: Should Bilbo have Killed Gollum?

Lord of the Rings Lorecast - J.R.R. Tolkien's World & Writings Explained

Robots Radio

Tv & Film, Arts, Fiction, Books

4.9696 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Frodo panics as he learns the dire news about Sauron discovering the Shire and Baggins, and laments that Bilbo did not kill Gollum. But Gandalf has a justification for why that was the right thing to do.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

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

0:11.1

Tolkien's amazing world from the very beginning.

0:25.4

It really is interesting to me.

0:41.4

The more I study J.R. Tolkien and the common perceptions people have of his writings and his world and how everything works, how distinctly different and sometimes incorrect the common perceptions are. Or maybe a better way to say that is how often the takeaways, the things

0:48.4

people take away from a first read or general perception of, say, the Lord of the Rings books is incorrect.

0:58.2

The assumptions they walk around with, I guess you could say.

1:02.0

And this isn't me being, you know, putting on my glasses and being well actually.

1:05.9

This is me being one of those people who had those same misconceptions.

1:09.8

And somehow they, I don't know if it's a social construct that we all just walk around with

1:15.5

and we hear somebody else say and we go, yeah, that sounds right.

1:18.0

And then we start carrying it too.

1:20.0

Or if we all just walk away from the writings for the first time with misunderstandings because

1:25.6

of assumptions that we make in our own minds.

1:28.2

Here's an example.

1:29.7

And we talk about magic all the time.

1:32.1

So much of what we perceive of magic in fantasy comes from these works and the works that

1:41.8

were directly inspired by these works, things like Dungeons and Dragons.

1:46.4

The use of Magic and Dungeons and Dragons is actually more influential in our modern-day

1:52.4

understanding of the way magic works in fantasy, which now is in all sorts of things, like other

1:59.4

types of literature and video games and movies and that kind of stuff.

2:04.3

But when we go back, like we've discussed so many times, and actually look at the way magic is used in these books,

2:11.0

it's not like that at all. Gandalf doesn't just summon fireballs from nothing and toss them at his enemies.

...

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