Hello and welcome to the Navakast, podcast, the podcast that usually goes through a song of ice and fire, but not here.

I'm one of your hosts, Emmett, also known as Poor Quentin, and welcome back to Middle Earth.

I've been releasing monthly episodes going back through J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

for all our $5 and above patrons. Last month, I covered Book 6, Chapter 2, The Land of Shadow,

and this month, oh boy, this month we have Book 6, Chapter 3, Mount Doom. I just want to say

up front, there will be no new Lord of the Rings episode next month. I'm just heading into a busy couple months. So no new Lord of the Rings episode next month, but a month after that, in late May,

I will be back with book six, chapter four, the field of Cormallon, and then go on to wrap up

the last handful of chapters in Lord of the Rings. But anyway, Mount Doom, been waiting a long

time for this one. Here we are at last, the end of the road. The goal of

the journey, the climax of the story, the turning point and the eternal struggle between light

and darkness. Tolkien has been building up to this moment since the second chapter of the story.

We have arrived at Mount Doom, the birthplace of the One Ring and the only place

it can be destroyed. And so it is. Just not how we might have expected. Tolkien shapes this climactic

chapter as a crucible, in both physical and philosophical terms. This is where both the story

and its central characters are broken down and

remade. Like all of Lord of the Rings, this is Tolkien's tribute to and update of the epics and

poetry that inspired him, although this is less Beowulf and more T.S. Eliot's the Wasteland.

The shadows and flames of Mordor become a spiritual gauntlet, not only for Frodo and Sam, but for

Gallum, and also for the unseen army of the West at the Black Gate, Eragorn and Gandalf, and

everyone else prepared to sacrifice themselves in order to make this moment possible.

There is no turning back.

It's the literal precipice of doom. And it begins with Sam thinking about

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