Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Oriana’s choice of topic: despair and hope. It is a remarkably stupid and cruel time in the world lately, for reasons we need not spell out. (And indeed in the week since we recorded this episode, it has somehow gotten worse.) So granted our mood hangs heavy, but then again, as Tolkien himself said in one of his letters, he was conditioned by the idea of ‘the long defeat’ in his own Catholic perspective from the start. Despair is certainly something Tolkien had a sense of how to portray, whether via Gandalf’s famed description of it as a tool of the enemy or the utter self-destruction of figures like Denethor and Turin. At the same time, there’s the remarkable aspects of how hope works in his legendarium, whether it can be in the naming of a person as a promise to the future or when Sam looks up on a dark night in Mordor to see a star shine in the heavens, a beacon in the midst of everything awful. What are the ways in which despair functions in the history of Middle-earth, and how is it weaponized by the forces of Morgoth and Sauron in multiple ways? Are there distinctions in terms of how despair plays out between Men and Elves, and how does the latter’s lack of knowledge of their own ultimate fate potentially factor into their own experiences? Is hope the key counterbalance to despair, or is it more the realm of action, whether Gandalf’s visits to the soldiers of Minas Tirith or the decisions by Merry and Pippin to scour the Shire? And what drives us all these days when it comes to finding hope or the focus to continue even when things aren’t the best?
Show Notes.
Jared’s doodle. Beyond it all, somehow, the sky.
A little about the screening of the Japanese version of The War of the Rohirrim in the UK.
Storm Éowyn!
Greta Gerwig’s Narnia movie is getting an IMAX run at least.
Tár was a heck of a film.
Holding space – it’s not new!
Chernobyl is well worth the watch.
The Spouter-Inn on The Return of the King – and Ned’s bonus episode with them.
Letter 195. (Plus our episode on the letters.)
“There is always hope.”
Gorlim – poor guy.
Our episode on the Noldor.
Our episode on Aldarion and Erendis.
There’s a number of pieces and papers out there on suicide in Tolkien’s work – here’s a recent Mythlore one from 2023.
Estel (as person and as concept)
Our episode on Sam Gamgee.
In terms of The Lord of the Rings and The Big Lebowski, there’s kinda this…
Our episode on The Nature of Middle-earth
Míriel, one of Tolkien’s saddest and quietly intriguing characters.
More on ‘the purse’ in our episode on Galadriel.
Our episode on allegory and applicability.
The NY Times ‘Overlooked No More’ obituary for Karen Wynn Fonstad.
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By-The-Bywater: A Podcast about All Things J.R.R. Tolkien 
