This is why Tolkien SHOULD have rewritten The Hobbit : The Hobbit #7

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We weren't huge fans of Tolkien's changes to chapter 1 of The Hobbit in his abandoned 1960 rewrite--but chapter 2 surprised us with it's pitch-perfect changes! Some of the things we discuss include:
* Want the first edition of The Hobbit? Get ready to pay!
* Middle-earth gains space--and is now the "character" we know
* Gandalf's got a horse--and he's AWESOME!
* Bilbo is more helpless and forgotten--and it's better
* JRR Tolkien's prose is more expertly crafted
* Listen to Tolkien Reading Roast Mutton... • JRR Tolkien Reads "Roa...
In our extended episode (available for our members -- theonering.com...) we talk about:
* Why does Tolkien refer to the Dwarves gold as "enchanted"
* And why is the gold "pale"? Does is have a greater meaning than just a * color choice?
* The Hobbit film fan-edit -- let's watch it together!
🎉 To get the extended episode, become a member at theonering.com... ($4/mo and free for the 1st month) or at Patreon (theonering.com....
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🗣 Special Thanks to Austin Robertson for the use of his voice!
🗣 AustinRobertso...
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🎬 Chapters 🎬
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00:00: Intro
04:40 First Edition Price is CRAZY
09:41 Tolkien Reads "Roast Mutton"
11:20 No Mutton--Now a Broken Bridge
19:34 The Danger is Real
24:52 Gandalf's Horse Rohald
29:19 Bilbo is Forgotten
33:25 More Dangerous Trolls
38:29 Tolkien Regrets the Childish Story
41:30 Sting, Glamdring, and Orcrist
55:11 Is the rewrite BETTER?

[@haleyschreiter9746]

"You have not read what I have read." 🤣🤣

[@paulemge9156]

One thing I think about often is , what would Tolkien created if he had modern tools. Because keeping track of everything and making then just changing a name everywhere would be a huge task without modern tools

[@andrewfontana3136]

Whether he thought it a good idea or not it was definitely not. Not unless he kept the children's version as close as possible to the original and just added a completely new 'adult' version that worked with the rest of his writings. Discarding the original Hobbit as trash would be like tossing out the original Hamlet because Shakespeare 30 years later decided it had gotten a bit outdated.

[@rikhuravidansker]

I have thought if we ever see a full-length "The Quest for Erebor," we will see Tolkien's lost notes for the revised Hobbit as well as the information in the Appendices: come to think of it, they could combine everything we know about dwarves to create a Great Tale called "Durin's Folk": in his Letters, Tolkien said he wished he had "discovered a Sindar or dwarf epic to learn their perspective. I suppose such an epic would have Gimli as the in-universe writer, and would have the child-friendly bits from the Hobbit added in for obvious reasons.

[@andrewfontana3136]

@@rikhuravidansker Sadly I wouldn't want to see it until the world has forgotten about Jackson and Rings of Power etc. I can't see anyone not doing anything other than acting in their own personal interests now. Nobody seems able to put their egos aside and actually follow Tolkien's writings anywhere near closely enough.

[@rikhuravidansker]

@@andrewfontana3136 I am not talking about an adaptation, I am talking about more writing.

[@andrewfontana3136]

@@rikhuravidansker It's the same thing though. This generation at least has been corrupted by the 'adaptations'. Why would anyone trust a random person to pay the respect Christopher Tolkien did when he took up that task? Everyone who tried would choose a different path and we'd only get further and further away from what Tolkien intended.

[@Luke-kj1rj]

Great stuff again lads. Also, thanks in advance for watching/reviewing rings of trash s2 for us so we dont have to

[@TheOneRingcom]

I'd say "Our pleasure"... but that would be a lie...

[@benjaminerlangen8429]

@@TheOneRingcom Wack mind.

[@jacobreed5655]

Hey, thanks guys. I'd like to read these chapters.

[@Atanalcar]

I still want to know how Glamdring and Orcrist made it out of Beleriand. I would have thought Turgon would have it with him during the Fall of Gondolin. Once it gets into Eriador, going from hoard to hoard is reasonable, but I can't really see it travelling from there, across Beleriand, out of Lindon, and into Eriador as spoils alone. Just not seeing a sane migration by this method before the War of Wrath. This solution suffers technical issues. A more sensible mode of travel would be if survivors of Gondolin brought them to the Havens of Sirion, then to Lindon following the War of Wrath. Possibly they finally were lost in the War of the Elves and Sauron as Sauron's forces took most of Eriador. However there are severe narrative problems with this approach. The first hurdle is Turgon. But let's say he gave Glamdring to Tuor or Idril-unlikely, but we'll go with it. They and the wielder of Orcrist make their escape. Glamdring is passed to Eärendil and then…? Elrond becomes the second issue, as if his parents had it and it was left behind at the Haven during the kin-slaying, even if someone else took it thinking the twins were slain, Glamdring should make its way to Elrond eventually. Perhaps he lost it in a sortie? But unless Tolkien was planning him to say in the revision it used to be his sword, it's more likely his connection to it was already broken. Or perhaps Glamdring would have ceased to be the sword of the King of Gondolin, but a lord or hero's sword instead. It's a fun little mystery. I wonder if Tolkien would have left it as one when he reached that part of the story, or if he felt he would have to come up with answers, at least to the question of how the swords survived the War of Wrath.

[@frankiesomeone]

Rohald being the equine Gandalf leading the ponies is very Disney 😄

[@sabineb.5616]

I think it's good that Tolkien decided against rewriting "The Hobbit" . The incomplete manuscript contained obviously a lot of good stuff - but it would just have been more of the LOTR novels. "The Hobbit" would have lost it's uniqueness and it's whimsical charme. And most readers would've been deprived of Tolkien's different side: a narrator of great books for children and a great sense of humor. There's still a little bit left of this in the first LOTR chapters, but as soon as the hobbits left Tom Bombadil for the second time, there isn't a lot of humor in Tolkien's writing. We could actually say that Peter Jackson tried to do what Tolkien had abandoned: Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy is in many ways the rewrite which Tolkien never completed. And most people didn’t like what they saw! It's good, though, that Tolkien made these crucial changes in the extremely important chapter "Riddles In The Dark": Gollum's behavior becomes more logical. It wasn't at all plausible that the first edition of Gollum from 1937 was perfectly willing to hand over his magic ring to Bilbo just because he lost a riddle contest! Gollum's ring was necessary for his very existence. It helped him to hunt orcs and feed himself. And if Gollum had really been willing to give Bilbo the ring, the whole idea that the ring is highly addictive, wouldn't have been plausible at all. Tolkien needed to make these changes in order to have "The Hobbit" and LOTR in the the same universe. When Tolkien wrote "The Hobbit" he hadn't planned that the characters of this little novel were in the same universe as the characters of his unpublished Silmarilion writings. But his publisher had asked for more tales with hobbits and wizards, and Tolkien obliged but he managed to sneak in some Silmarilion stuff 😊 As it turned out the was a great alloy!

[@ozlemdenli7763]

thank you

[@pwmiles56]

Interesting clip of Tolkien's troll voices. I was wrong before, they aren't particularly Cockney, or from any other region, just generic working-class. But still pretty "stagey".

[@rikhuravidansker]

I was surprised when hearing the audio of Tolkien narrate "Roast Mutton" that the trolls spoke in a Herefordshire accent (as evidenced by the combination of Home Counties and West Country speech), and Bilbo spoke in a Staffordshire accent (as evidenced by the combination of a Home Counties and West Midlands accent): also, since people in Herefordshire drop the H and add it to the start of words with no Hs, the fact the trolls do not do this implies they have had education beyond basic education, which fits in with folklore saying trolls switch their children with humans because they view humans as sophisticated and want their children to get education (as strange as this sounds) - also, the fallen angels did teach humans, implying Morgoth and Sauron taught their minions.

[@otaku-sempai2197]

I remember wondering whether Rohald might have been a meara. I think it might be just as (or more) likely that Gandalf's mount is an elven-bred horse, acquired, if not from Elrond, perhaps in Lindon. Not that I have any evidence to support my speculation other than the name Rohald appearing to be Sindarin.

[@rikhuravidansker]

Well, the Mearas ("mares" in Anglo-Saxon I believe), were descendants of Nahar the Steed of Orome, and elf-horses were no doubt descendants of these: elf-horses would also be magical white horses as in folklore, and be covered in elf-knots. As Shadowfax and his ancestor are the only Mearas named (and elf-horses and the Mearas were no doubt long-lived, the former due to elves being long-lived in folklore and the latter due to being descended from the Steed of the Valar), I would think Rohald is Shadowfax's father, and is still alive in LOTR: Gandalf has been implied to have known Shadowfax for millennia (as evidenced by him being his friend "for many ages," and Olorin is implied to have influenced the visions of Elves in the First Age, even though he was no longer a Guardian), and I would think Rohald and the other Mearas would be fighting against Sauron for obvious reasons, so presumably fighting in Rhovannion with Rohald as the steed of Radagast.

[@otaku-sempai2197]

@@rikhuravidansker I don't think your quote about Shadowfax is from the book. I'd take that with a pinch of salt.

[@rikhuravidansker]

@@otaku-sempai2197 Gandalf said something similar in the book, just not those exact words.

[@otaku-sempai2197]

@@rikhuravidansker From what we learn at the Council of Elrond it seems that Gandalf met and tamed Shadowfax for the first time after his escape from Isengard when Gwaihir set the wizard down in Rohan. That is far from "many ages" or "millennia".

[@rikhuravidansker]

@@otaku-sempai2197 I got the impression they knew each other, but Gandalf did not ride him - indeed Gandalf did not tame him after Isengard, but Shadowfax offered him his aid.

[@alanpennie8013]

Tolkien was a notoriously bad speaker, as those who had to listen to his lectures on Anglo - Saxon poetry have testified.

[@gandalf4751]

😍😍😍✅✅✅

[@benjaminerlangen8429]

Wack