400 – Starmen

Summary

The Prancing Pony Podcast

Episode 400 – Starmen (February 15, 2026)

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Episode Overview

Episode 400 marks the tenth anniversary of The Prancing Pony Podcast, a renowned Tolkien legendarium show hosted by Alan Sisto (Man of the West) and co-host James Tauber (Sage of the South) for this installment. The episode is a celebration of the show's history—with Alan interviewed by James about the podcast’s origin, evolution, and community—before returning to their deep-dive exploration of Tal-Elmar, a legendarium story from Unfinished Tales. Along the way, discussion is infused with the PPP’s characteristic warmth, pop culture references, personal musings, and Tolkienian linguistic nerdery.

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Highlights & Notable Quotes

“Just like it says on the tin, this is episode number 400...this episode drops on the third Sunday of February in 2026, precisely 10 years after episode one...The PPP is 10 years old!”
— Alan, [03:16]

“I know none of us knew each other...we discovered we were there [Return of the King Oscar party] at least 15 years after the fact.”
— James, reflecting on Tolkien fandom connections, [08:35]

“It became something really special not because of Sean and me but because of the community...from the very beginning, I've recognized that for the show to succeed...it has to build community.”
— Alan, [07:57] & [15:13]

“There's something you learn every single time you read a text.”
— James, [10:32]

“I love getting into the nitty gritty details. The most challenging individual text would have been Túrin...there is absolutely no eucatastrophe in that moment.”
— Alan, [11:01]

“This is fan service. Twice a week I stream a game: these days it’s LOTRO, but...if it’s Middle-earth and you can play it, I’m going to do it on that stream.”
— Alan on PPP Plays, [21:09]

“If there's one thing that happened when Sean stepped down that saved this show...it’s the Fellowship of the co-hosts.”
— Alan, [22:29]

“Our people believe little that has not happened in their own days. They have become so short-sighted, they have no history, they don’t write anything down...”
— Alan, paraphrasing Tal-Elmar, [41:00]

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1. A Decade on the Air: Podcast Reflections & Community Building

(00:00–27:41)

Retrospective on 10 Years

• Origins: Began as Alan’s effort to improve his voiceover “conversational tone” and desire to podcast about Tolkien—as something “not too scholarly” but friendly and accessible ([05:10]).
• Finding Sean: Found Sean after seeing his Tolkien posts in a Facebook group; partnered up to start something “special” by collaborating ([07:25]).
• Community as Foundation: The show’s success is credited to its inclusive, active community; PPP intentionally built a space for dialogue, questions, and a ‘common room’ vibe ([15:13]).
• Highlight Moments:
  • Tackling The Silmarillion first: “Diving into the deep end”
  • Turin Turambar: Most emotionally difficult, “absolutely no eucatastrophe" ([11:01])
  • Eowyn vs. Witch-king and the Ride of the Rohirrim: Standout narrative highlights ([11:43], [12:21])

Projects and Expansions

• Rings of Power Wrap-Up: A spin-off to avoid “making a book podcast about a TV show.”
• Today’s Tolkien Times: Daily 10-minute show; deepens, not just broadens, the community ([21:09]).
• PPP Plays: Gaming, Lego building, and other Middle-earth playstreams.

Notable Community Moment:
PPP’s presence at conventions (e.g., Oxonmoot), book signings for Why We Love Middle-earth, and Discord community lauded as “the best fandom” among many geekdoms ([16:43–17:44]).

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2. Future Vision for the PPP

(25:05–27:23)

• Upcoming Content Roadmap:
  • Conclude Unfinished Tales this season
  • The Great Tales—planned as a two-year season
  • A full revisit of The Silmarillion over two years
  • Non-legendarium works (e.g., Smith of Wootton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf by Niggle): “That’s got to be a four or five-episode run.”
  • Later: Topical and interview-style irregular releases as semi-retirement.
  • 6+ years of content mapped out.

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3. Chapter Discussion: “Tal-Elmar” (Part IV)

(27:41–end)

A. Recap and Narrative Progress

The Set-Up

• Last seen, Tal-Elmar is on a small hill overlooking the arriving Numenoreans—the “men of the sea and the wings.”

Hopeless Mission:

• He’s meant to “spy out the land,” but recognizes he can’t count their numbers or glean their plans due to both limited vantage and language barrier. The old trope of Tolkien’s lingua franca (Westron) isn’t in play yet: mutual incomprehension is real ([29:53–31:22]).

• Flashback: Remembers being sent to reconnoiter Udul, a nearby but linguistically distinct town, without realizing it was a move by village-master Mogru to get rid of him ([33:32]).

• Even neighboring towns, though originally of the same people, had become mutually unintelligible. This sparks discussion of “forgotten kinship” and the consequences of oral-only or insular cultures ([41:00–45:47]).

Notable Linguistics Moment:

James compares the insular languages of Middle-earth villages to Papua New Guinea's real-life dense, mutually unintelligible languages ([43:14]).

The Supernatural Pull

• The sunset, “a great round fire,” is presented in mythic terms that move Tal-Elmar to openly approach the Numenoreans:

  “As if led or driven, walked openly down the hill...” ([55:24])

• His appearance—“fair hair...glowed golden in the sunset light...step was light and free”—leads the Numenorean guards to briefly suspect he’s an Elf ([57:24–63:54]).

• Universal non-verbal gestures (“opening his palms outwards...all men could understand”) allow for a silent truce ([57:43]).

The Encounter

• Tal-Elmar attempts speech, referencing “the men of the sea and the wings.”
• The Numenoreans are startled: his language is “half-savage”—not Elvish.
• He’s quickly surrounded, but handled gently (“not with harsh handling”) since he’s unarmed and submissive ([74:52]).
• The captain speculates he is of Numenorean descent or close kin, and must be treated with kindness.

Numenorean Motives

Their errand is to “occupy this land,” seeking alliance with “the cruels of the north” (likely Elves)—to “threaten the king” (Sauron). The Numenoreans want local intelligence—numbers, friendliness, and racial similarity ([86:38]).

Language Mysticism

Tal-Elmar instinctively understands Eldarin—“the language of my long dreams”—implying inherited/ancestral or supernatural knowledge, paralleling “Bard and the Thrush” in The Hobbit ([100:17–102:12]).

“For you speak the language of my long dreams...now I stand in my own land and do not sleep.” ([97:44])

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B. Analysis, Worldbuilding and Theme Discussion

1. Kinship, Isolation, & Language

• Discussion of how oral tradition, insularity, and fear of “the king’s time” (night, ruled by Sauron) have led to cultural and linguistic amnesia ([41:00], [61:07]).
• Tolkien’s own notes cited: “Dark is the time of the king”—here, Sauron ([61:07]).

2. Terms of Otherness

• Both Numenoreans and local men refer to each other as “Men of the Dark,” each projecting legends of evil upon the other. Miscommunications fuel mutual suspicion and fear.

  “Hazad speaks of the Numenoreans as of the Dark...so both peoples see the other as of the Dark. It's such a mess.” ([81:00])

• The theme of “half-savage” is problematized; the hosts discuss its historical linguistic baggage and Tolkien’s evolving terminology ([50:23–52:24]).

3. Reluctant Contact and the Fate of the Weak

• Even the “faithful” Numenoreans ultimately pronounce:

  “Your time of dwelling in these hills is come to an end...the folk of the Dark must depart or be slain.” ([110:11])

• Tal-Elmar, loyal to his father, volunteers himself as hostage. The narrative ends unfinished and ambiguous, with a brief speculation that he would accompany the Numenoreans across Middle-earth, possibly playing some crucial role.

Where Might the Story Go?

“I think the intention was that the bulk of the story would be these adventures that Tal Elmar goes on with the men of Numenor...more of which gets revealed about why he's getting these messages from the Eldar. Who? The Fel Folk of the East? Maybe there's a twist about who Elmar was.”
— James, [115:43]

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C. Deep Cuts & Pop-Culture

• Deep-cut linguistics: Phonaesthetics, constructed language aesthetics (Quenya vs. Klingon), language shift rates, and “primitive” in historical philology ([75:18–77:35]).
• Pop Culture:
  • “The claw!” (Toy Story, [33:36])
  • Twilight Zone: “To Serve Man” ([106:43])
  • Political quips: “You’re no elf” echoes the '88 VP debate ([82:26])
  • Video games: Ultima VI as analogy for misunderstood “demonic” invaders ([32:06])

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4. Listener Q&A

“What is your favorite trivia or fun fact from the books that aren’t in the films?”
— Leonard from Texas ([118:07])

• Alan: The entire “Scouring of the Shire” is missing from the films.
• James: Pippin was only 11 years old at Bilbo’s birthday party, because of the book’s 17-year time gap between Bilbo's party and the long-expected journey.

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5. Notable Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:16] — Alan celebrates 10 years and episode 400.
• [05:10] — Podcast’s origin story and theme philosophy.
• [11:01] — Working through the “hardest texts” and emotional challenges.
• [15:13] — Community-building as core focus for the show.
• [21:09] — PPP Plays, Today’s Tolkien Times, and content branching.
• [41:00] — Oral tradition, memory, and cultural amnesia insight.
• [57:26] — Tal-Elmar's mythic approach to the Numenorean camp.
• [74:52] — Language contact, mutual incomprehension, and being “half-savage.”
• [97:44] — Eldarin as “the language of my long dreams.”
• [110:11] — The devastating verdict: “leave or be slain.”
• [115:43] — Speculation on the unfinished tale’s possible continuation.

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6. Memorable Moments and Quotes

• “If there's one thing that happened when Sean stepped down that saved this show...it’s the fellowship of the co-hosts.” ([22:29])
• “I really love this character [Tal-Elmar] and I wish Tolkien had had time to finish this story.” ([39:05])
• “Black sails are to us a sign of honour, for they are the fair knight before the coming of the enemy. And upon the black are set the silver stars of Elbereth.” ([108:34])

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7. Tone & Style

The conversation balances deep textual and linguistic analysis with PPP’s trademark warmth, humor, tangential pop-culture nods, and accessible explanations for veteran and new Tolkien fans alike. Alan and James repeatedly intertwine scholarship with playful banter (“the claw!”) and encourage community participation and friendship.

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Summary: Key Takeaways

• The Prancing Pony Podcast celebrates 10 years, 400 episodes, and the “fellowship of the co-hosts”—with a continued focus on lore, laughter, and inclusive Tolkien fandom.
• “Tal-Elmar” is revealed as a multi-layered, unfinished tale about lost kinship, the trauma of colonial contact, and the ambiguity of heroism.
• Language and cultural isolation are central themes; much is made of Tolkien’s philology and invented mythic linguistics.
• The fate of the “half-savage” is left unresolved, highlighting the tragedy of the overlooked and dispossessed in Tolkien’s sub-creation.
• The episode is a love letter to Tolkien scholarship, community, and the enduring relevance of exploring his less-known works.
• The show looks ahead to at least six more years of deep dives, discussions, and—above all—a sense of belonging in the “common room” for all kinds of starmen.

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For further details, references, and community resources, visit prancingponypodcast.com.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

Wait, you did?

[A]

Yep. On Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.

[B]

You don't say.

[A]

Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast. Wow.

[B]

Way to go.

[A]

So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

[B]

Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

[A]

Good evening, little masters, and welcome to episode 400 of the Prancing Pony podcast, where I have not been chosen to go and spy out the land of Udul.

[B]

Must be that lack of youth and boldness, Alan.

[A]

Watch yourself now, James. Just the boldness. It's just the lack of boldness.

[B]

Sure. And you. And.

[A]

And youth and surprise.

[B]

We're off to a good start. We're off to a great start, folks. Pull up a bench in the common room and join us. I'm James Tauber, the sage of the south, and I'm here with a man of the west who has more than once been benighted far from his town.

[A]

Alan Sisto, also known as traveling for work. Folks, join us as Tal Elmar finally meets the Numenoreans. Just in time to receive his eviction notice as we conclude our four part look at the story of Tal Elmar. Oh, and something else kind of special.

[B]

Folks, no matter whether you came to Middle Earth through the books, the films, the TV show, or something else, each of you is welcome here in our common room. The Prancing Pony Podcast continues in our 10th season of Reading and talking our way through Middle Earth with conversations, digressions, and even speculations.

[A]

Not to mention a few puns and bad jokes here and there. But our purpose is to dive deep into the lore, to discuss the story, our favorite characters and themes, Tolkien's inspirations, and a whole lot more.

[B]

And while we take the work seriously, the same can't be said about ourselves. We're just a couple of friends chatting at the pub, and we're glad you've joined us as.

[A]

And I'm sure you'll be glad you joined as well. But before we start with today's chapter discussion, it's time for a celebration of sorts. I mean, just like it says on the tin, this is episode number 400. 400 episodes, most around two hours long since Sean and I first began the Prancing Pony podcast back in 2016. Now, while 400 would ordinarily get just a passing mention, I mean, maybe I'll celebrate a thousand, right? I mean, 400 is just a number. But the timing is pretty fortuitous because this episode drops on the third Sunday of February in 2026, precisely 10 years after episode one was first published on February 21, 2016. The PPP is 10 years old. Woohoo.

[B]

Congratulations. And to celebrate, we're going to spend the first few minutes of today's episode looking back over those years as I turn the tables a bit and interview Alan about the last decade of podcasting.

[A]

Not sure why I gave you the mic on this one, James, but go ahead.

[B]

Okay. Of course, I have to start with a question. When were you first introduced to Tolkien's works, and what is it about them that keeps you coming back?

[A]

I love it. My first encounter with Tolkien was when I was 9 years old and I watched the Rankin Bass animated special, the Hobbit. And that was in. I think it was right after Thanksgiving and I was able to get the book for Christmas. And so that was the first time I read a Tolkien book. I didn't know about the Lord of the Rings until I was a freshman in high school, like four years later. And then after that it was all over. But yeah, the Hobbit Rankin and Bass was my first exposure. So, like so many who love Tolkien's works today. I technically came to it through adaptation.

[B]

So tell us about how the Prancing Pony podcast started. How did you meet Sean and what made you two start on this adventure together?

[A]

Well, the show itself began as almost an exercise in professional development. So I've done voiceover work for a little bit longer than I've been doing the podcast. In all honesty, I haven't been doing a lot of it lately because I've been too, too busy doing the podcast. But I'd been doing voiceover for about a year, year and a half, and I was working with a coach. And one of the things they, they said that I could work on to get my voice to do a little bit better for some of these reads was to develop a more conversational tone. And they said, one way that'll really work is just talk to a microphone a lot, start a podcast. Nobody will listen. So I thought, okay, I'll, I'll do that. Right? That'll help. So I thought about the three or four topics that I could do a podcast on because I just fortuitously watched a TED Talk where they said, if there's anything that you can talk about for 45 minutes without a, without notes, that's something you should consider doing a podcast on. I said, well, okay, that would be politics, because I was a history poly sci major, but I didn't want to touch that with a ten foot pole. I was like, I'm already depressed enough. I don't need to do it. I don't need make myself more depressed every week. Oakland Raiders, same thing. Also really didn't want to do something. It was going to be like out of, out of sync, you know, like weeks later, like days later, frankly. Which is why I didn't want to do a news or even political podcast. So, you know, really, there weren't a lot of other things that I thought people would be interested in other than Tolkien. But I also knew of this giant podcaster in the Tolkien world by the name of Corey Olson. And I'd listened to his work. I'd been listening to the episodes that he did with the Silmarillion seminar where he did those as a podcast form. And I thought, I need to stop listening to this right now because I don't want to. Don't want to. I don't want to subconsciously try to replicate the efforts because here's a guy who's forgotten more than I'll ever know. I mean, he's just an actual scholar and I'm Just a guy. So I thought, I know one way that I'll completely differentiate myself is I won't be scholarly about it, because I can't. And I'll find co host. I'll do this as a two person thing. And Sean came to my attention because he was in a Facebook group where we notoriously had been building up bigger and bigger posts in these bookweek posts.

[B]

So when was this? Roughly. Roughly when would this have been?

[A]

This would have been late 2015. And so I think around the. Around December 2015 was when I knew I needed to start the podcast. So I reached out to him. He got back to me in January and I said, hey, I'm thinking about doing a podcast. You want to, I think, about doing a Tolkien podcast. Would you think about joining me? He goes, yeah, I think we could maybe do that. And at the time, we're like, yeah, we'll just do like an hour episode every couple weeks. No work. We'll just. We'll just throw it up there. And of course, immediately we're both trying to put our all into it and make it something really special.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it became that. And it became that not because of Sean and me, but because of the community. And so it just built around that show. Even when it was a small community of just 100 or 200 people, we always got really helpful feedback and questions, and it just immediately made itself part of what the show is. But, yeah, that would have been 2016.

[B]

I'll come back to that. There's one thing I want to bring up, though, which is I think you and Sean and me were actually in the same place at the same time. I think we were over a decade before.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

We ever met.

[A]

And that would have been the American Legion hall in Hollywood, California, at the Oscar party for the Return of the King.

[B]

Yep, yep.

[A]

I know. None of us knew each other.

[B]

Yeah, but we found out. I mean, in our case, probably 15 years after. At least 15 years after the fact. We discovered we were there. And Sean. You and Sean were there.

[A]

Same thing. We discovered like a year after we started doing the podcast. And yeah, we both remembered talking with different people that were there from the cast. Enough in the cast, but from the crew, because the cast was impossible to talk to.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

But, yeah, that was a fantastic event.

[B]

It was. It's funny that we were there. I would still love to find out, so I should ask now. It's a great opportunity. If anyone else listening was there.

[A]

I would love to know that.

[B]

Yeah, it would be fun to know.

[A]

I was Actually, at all of them. I was at all six of their parties, which is funny because the first one was really small.

[B]

Yeah. I wasn't at the first one. I was at the second one and the first Hobbit one too. Yeah.

[A]

And the hobbit ones kind of went downhill because the first hobbit one was at a. Was. It was a good bar. It was at the. The Villainy Hive of Scum and Villainy Thing bar, which is great. But then it got bigger again for the third one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it went back to the American Legion Hall. Yep. Good stuff.

[B]

What were some of the more difficult texts to get through and what was. Yeah, were there things that you're kind of like, wow, that was really difficult to do episodes.

[A]

I'm glad that we started with the Silmarillion, but holy smokes, that was diving into the deep end. I mean, we did not know what we were doing as podcasters, so it made the job of trying to go through that text much more difficult, I think, from the perspective of how do we teach this to people? How do we help people get their arms around it? Because by that point in our Tolkien lives, both of us had come to grips with that text pretty well. But as we've talked about, you and I, both in production of the show and on air, there's something that you learn every single time you read a text.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that happened with the Silmarillion, too. But as for the hardest text, it's honestly was probably last season going through the appendices and trying to find a way to tell a story. A consistent narrative story throughout.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

But super rewarding.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, I love getting into the nitty gritty details. It got us a chance to visit so many other little bits and pieces.

[B]

Yeah, for sure.

[A]

But I think if I'm looking at, like, the most challenging individual text would have been Turin.

[B]

Huh.

[A]

The combination of fate and free will and that. That really difficult philosophical conversation that has to be had combined with just the deeply tragic ending.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, it's not a happy story. Like, here we go telling people in episode one about. On fairy stories and what. What's included in good fantasy. And it's always a you catastrophe, and there ain't no you catastrophe.

[B]

Exactly. Yeah.

[A]

It's rough. It is rough. There's a lot of spibimi, which is still proven by an instrument. There's a lot of this idea of even out of the bad things, good things will come, but holy cow, there is absolutely no eucatastrophe in that moment. So that was a lot of. That was a really emotionally heavy text to get through.

[B]

Yep. What about highlights? Did anything stand out?

[A]

Oh, yeah. By this point, Sean had stepped down from his full time role, but having him come back on and do Eowyn facing off against the Witch King was definitely a highlight, and it's one we'd been looking forward to for years. For me, very similar. Almost the same moment, just a little bit before was the ride of the Rohirrim. That's been my highlight. As much as I love my Aure and Tulava moment, and that will still always be one of my favorite moments in the text. Theoden's charge of the Rohirrim and that incredible. Just the prose that sounds like poetry at the end of that chapter.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So in 2023, you and Sean published the wonderful book, why We Love Middle Earth. Tell us about that whole process and would you write a book again?

[A]

Oh, goodness, would I write a book again? That's a tricky question. I would write a sequel to that. Sean and I have talked about what we want to do in a second book, but that has got to be years off because I discovered how incredibly draining writing a book is time consuming. And emotionally, it's just you pour so much of yourself into it to do that while also doing the show. And at that point, I think we were also still building up to the season one of Rings of Power. So there were a lot of things going on in the Tolkien fandom at the same time that just made for just a constant kind of marinating in this. It was really hard to step aside and not lose myself in the process. But aside from that, aside from nearly losing myself, so writing the book was rewarding. Don't get me wrong, I love doing it and I love getting the unexpected privilege of being able to narrate it. But the process of how it came to be was fascinating. Sean and I had talked for probably a couple years, hey, when the show is over, we should write a book. Wouldn't that be fun? When the show is over, we could.

[B]

Say, not at the same time, not.

[A]

Currently, not concurrent with. Right. But we had a publisher come out of the blue. We had an editor in chief reach out to us and say, hey, do you, you know, do you have a book deal in place already? Because you should be writing a book?

[B]

And we said, what?

[A]

So it was one of those things where we decided, okay, you know, as long as you're not going to pressure us into trying to get this done right away, we can chip away at this and yeah, we'd love to. And it ended up being a fantastic process. The people that we worked with, many of whom were no longer with that publisher, but they were all really supportive and helpful. We got a chance to work with Emily Austin, who did the COVID art as well as the section art, and it's just breathtaking. Some of the works that she did for us were off the charts. And, you know, we got to write a book. I mean, how cool was that? And, you know, we were able to take a box or two to Oxenmut in 23 and do a book signing for folks. That blew me away probably more than anything else that we'd done.

[B]

That's where I got my signed coffee.

[A]

From, is how many people were just standing in line to get. I was. You could have knocked.

[B]

No way.

[A]

If you told me five years before.

[B]

Oxenmood, of all places.

[A]

Yep, I know. You're out of your mind. That's never going to happen, let alone at oxenmoon. So it was fantastic.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, fantastic. So the PPP has obviously grown tremendously over the years. Tell us a little bit about growing the audience, growing the community, and also the creation of other projects like the Rings of Power, Wrap up, tt, PPP plays, all that stuff.

[A]

Well, yeah, that's the thing. Because growing the brand, and I'm going to almost put that in air quotes, is different from growing the community. And I've always, almost from the very beginning, recognized that for the show to succeed in any meaningful way and succeed does not mean, or at least when it began, did not mean financial success. It just meant if this is going to achieve the goal that we want, which is to help people get through the Silmarillion and to build a place where people can come and talk about Tolkien. That's really all we started with. Then. How does that. How does that happen? That happens if we build community. That happens if we reach out to people, if we are active. And you know, I confess that I'm no longer as able to be active as I would like in terms of social media. But in those first two or three years, we were constantly in and out of other Facebook groups and subreddits and things and contributing. You know, it wasn't about. Here's my post to my latest episode. Bye. It was taking part in conversations and engaging with people and building those one on one and small group relationships and recognizing that this is what it's about. At the end of the day, we all. I don't know about you, James, but one of my favorite memories of oxenmutes or PPP moots or myth moots. As great as the talks are, even the amazing keynotes, sometimes, my favorite memories are often just me sitting down with one or two or six friends around a fire pit or a drinks table or something and just talking.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that's, that's so central to the experience of Tolkien. I feel like, I mean, it's almost like we're reenacting the inkling sitting at that table in the bird and baby, you know, it's just that we're. None of us are anywhere near as smart, so we're. That was what I wanted to replicate that sense of, of real tight knit community. And as we did that, what we started to see was people getting more and more into the show, more and more into the corner of the fandom that the PPP was inhabiting. And so a couple years in, when we started our Patreon, it was like, okay, let's find a way to build community through this. Yes, we're using this to generate some revenue and help pay us back for the couple years that we'd poured into it already. I think it took us three months to actually kind of compensate ourselves for our expenses. And after that it was just, hey, this is helping us to convince our families that yes, we can keep doing this. Like, for Sean, it was, hey, if this means that I can take my kids to Disney World over Christmas break, they're going to be okay with dad spending extra time in the, you know, on the show. And sometimes that's what it takes. You got to bribe your family. That's okay. And so, but we knew that the way that was going to work was community. So it wasn't about growing the audience in the way that, let's say a television network might talk about growing the audience and getting market share. It was about growing a community and building a place where people felt like there were friends, because there were. And that's the thing I love about our Discord. I mean, for folks who don't subscribe to the Patreon, totally get it. I understand. But the ones that do get to be part of this Discord community that's just filled with amazing people. So it's like we take the best fandom in the world to begin with, which is the Tolkien fandom. And I say that also being a fan of Star Wars, Star Trek, Bab 5, Warhammer 40K, all of which are highly toxic fandoms, you know, to one degree or another. And as you know, the Tolkien Community's had its moments for sure, especially around the debut of the Rings of Power, but it is still the best fandom and the safest fandom. And so we've got the best fandom. And then all of a sudden you also get this corner of the fandom and the PPP where the people are just amazing and then you get the self selected ones that join the discord and become, you know, it's just a great place to be. So that has helped grow the show in terms of community as well as audience indirectly. And then also of course, the finances, which have enabled me to then pour more time into. That's how those other projects came to be. So Rings of Power wrap up. Sean and I were always going to start that because we didn't want it to compete with the ppp. We knew that the production timeline of talking about a television show wasn't going to jive with our four week lead time on a podcast. And we also, hey, it's a book podcast. Can we not make a book podcast that's about a TV show? So we decided we didn't want to have it be under the same banner. We wanted a separate show. And so there's the history for that. But when Sean stepped down from his full time role in 23, I knew. No, I'm sorry, 22, 22, 22. I knew that this was the moment for me to either make this a thing that could sustain me professionally because now I'm going to be pouring. There's no, hey, Sean, can you get this done before next week's podcast? Now, it is 100% me, but that also means 100%. Well, not 100% because he still gets paid for ad revenue from the old episodes that he did. But you know, it still means that like 70% of the revenue is going to come to me now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's getting me closer to full time work. Like, I don't necessarily have to do as much photography or as much in terms of VO. I can focus 40, 50 hours a week on the show. But for me to do that, I needed to somehow earn a little bit more and that meant starting another project. So I started the Today's Tolkien Times. It's a Daily show, six days a week, 10 minutes a day on all sorts of fun topics. It's been going now for, you know, over 100 weeks. I do have to do it in kind of batches. Like I go seven weeks on and then I take three weeks off because it's just too much. But it's so much fun to do. It's grown the community. Not as much numerically as I might have expected, but it has given people more things to talk about and more things to enjoy. And so it's maybe instead of being wider, it's now a little deeper. And I'm fine with that. I mean, it is still at least a thing I can do that's profitable in the sense that I am still able to feed my family and maybe save a few pennies for my son's college. But it's more about fan service. And that's definitely what PPP plays is. That is all about fan service. I mean, twice a week I stream a game. These days it's almost exclusively lotro, but I do other stuff, build Legos or play Magic the Gathering, or eventually I'm going to play with the One Ring tabletop rpg. It's just if it's Middle Earth and you can play it, I'm going to do it on that stream. And it's a smaller core of people, maybe 40, 50 people that show up most times, maybe a little bit more than that, but they enjoy it. It's a fun chance for them to, you know, get to hang out with the man of the west. And it's a chance for me to relax and actually do something that's not writing. Because otherwise I'm writing all the time, you know, especially when all three shows are going at once. Like, I'm a little dreading this next season of Rings of Power.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Especially if it doesn't come out in. In August and September like it has the last couple of times. If they delay it because of post production to like, November, December. That's going to make it really challenging.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

But it'll be all good.

[B]

So you have to answer this question slightly carefully, I guess, but how's it going with. With the other co hosts that you've had since.

[A]

Well, present company excluded? No, it has been fantastic. I mean, if there's one thing that happened when Sean stepped down that saved this show, and I mean that in every sense of the word, it's the fellowship of the co hosts. It's all the people that came on board, particularly in season seven, when I had no clue what I was going to do, I reached out to all these people that are fellow content creators, fellow streamers, fellow authors, whatever it might be, and said, hey, you know, would you like to co host a chapter with. I honestly didn't think I'd get very many people to say yes. And I was prepared to, you Know, like maybe have to do a few solo episodes or things like that. And the response was the opposite. It was so many people said, yes, they would love to. And I had such an amazing time working with everybody. And it's been great because now the show gets different perspectives. And that's not to say, I mean, like, look, even now, how many years later, if Sean said I could come back full time, I'd say, okay, let's do that. But at the same time, there's been such an advantage in having different voices on the show, from younger voices like Dawn Marshall to women's voices like Sarah Brown to you. I mean, you and I have a different vibe than Sean and me, but it's similar. But it's different from what I have with Matt, who's also. I mean, like, every voice has a different perspective, whether it was Sean Gunner or New Betta or Corey Olson. And this is an example of something I absolutely love about the Tolkien fandom. It is collaborative and not competitive. I don't think about market share. I don't think about things like that because it isn't that way. A person can listen to my podcast, but also listen to every other Tolkien podcast under the sun. Good for you. Enjoy it. You know, please do that. Listen to the things that these other people do. Watch the videos from Nerd of the Rings, because none of that. It's not like you're taking anything away from me when you do that.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Like I want you to enjoy their content. So that's been something I've really loved about the fandom all along. So when people all agreed to join me, it felt like they got that too. Like they understood that's how this works. Learned a few things like chemistry doesn't build overnight. And so those little four episode runs that we did in that season were not necessarily ideal. And so since then, we've cut the number of co hosts down so that we increase the length of the runs. And that's helped a lot in terms of building chemistry.

[B]

Where do you see the PPP going in the next few years?

[A]

Well, after we finish the Unfinished Tales this season, I want to do. I was originally going to do one season on the Great Tales, but I did some math and realized that would mean something. Like when you take away the Qan episodes and an interview or two and the Tolkien Reading Day episode, it would mean 12 or 13 episodes each. That's not going to be enough. So I think I'm going to cover the Great Tales over a two year period and then I want to do the Silmarillion again as a full circle. Now that we've done the legendarium, let's go back and revisit it and do it slower. Do two years on the silmarillion. So two years great tales. Two years Silmarillion. And at that point I'll.

[B]

How old will you be by that?

[A]

How did I know that was going to come? At some point I'll still be alive hopefully when we finish the Silmarillion second time around, I'll be 62 and so I'll still need to work for at least a good five years. And I would imagine that I'll spend the next two years after that doing non legendarium books. So Smith of Wooten Major and Farmer Giles of Ham and the Adventures of Tom Bobadil and. But you know, it's one of those things where, my goodness, I could spend six or eight hours easily talking through something like Leaf by Niggle. That's got to be at least a four or five episode run. So I think that's a two season deal. So that would be six more years after this one. But I think at that point hopefully I'll be able to drop down to something more irregular like semi retirement and do a show that comes out Christmas special. Yeah, well, you know, like one thing I've kind of not been able to do is topical things. Right. We've done very clearly just a. Let's go through the books. So I'm thinking it would be a lot of fun to do a season where I did a couple of episodes on Pride in the Legendarium or on Fate and Free Will or on the main themes and to pull moments from all of the legendarium works to highlight a particular theme. Or maybe it would be a good time to do more interview episodes. But it would be the kind of thing where it'd be less pressure, less time commitment as I sort of, you know, wind down. But eventually, you know, 10 years from now, it'd be nice to retire. We'll see what happens. But I've got at least the next six years set to go. Yeah. So.

[B]

Wonderful, wonderful. Well, congratulations again.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Ten years.

[A]

Ten years.

[B]

That's amazing.

[A]

That's wild to think that I've been doing this for 10 years.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Never would have.

[B]

Never would have thought it crazy. Okay, well, shall we get back to tell Elmar I've made you talk this whole time, but I'm going to make you talk again because I'd love you to.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

To start us with the reading.

[A]

Fair enough. So Just as a reminder, folks, when we last left Tel Elmar, he'd gotten up to the small hill and was kind of looking out over the Numenoreans. And that's where we're at this week. Tel Elmar looked long and slowly it came to him how hopeless was his mission. He might look until daylight failed, but he could not count accurately enough for any use the number of men there were. Nor could he discover their purpose or their plans. Even if he had either the courage or the fortune to come past their guards, he could do nothing useful, for he would not understand a word of their language. He remembered suddenly another of Mogru's schemes to be rid of him, as he now saw, though at the time he had thought it an honor how only a year ago, when the waning town of Agar was threatened by marauders from the village of Udul far inland, all men feared that an assault would come. For Aghar was a drier, healthier and more defensible site, or so its townsmen believed. Then Tel Elmar had been chosen to go and spy out the land of Adul, as being young, bold, and better versed in the country round. So said Mogru truly enough, for the townsfolk of Agar were timid and seldom went far afield, never daring to be caught by dark outside their homes. Whereas Tal Elmar often, if he had chance and no labor called, or if it did, sometimes would walk far afield. And though being so taught from babyhood he feared the dark, he had more than once been benighted far from the town and was even known to go out to the Watch Hill alone under the stars.

[B]

So when we last left Tal Omar, he braved the dangers of the Fire Swamp to get to this small hill where he could look below and seeing these tall men.

[A]

These are men of unusual size.

[B]

Yes, exactly. Mouses.

[A]

I love it. The mouse.

[B]

And they're big boats.

[A]

That's right.

[B]

But as he continued to scout out the scene, he begins to see just how hopeless this mission is.

[A]

Absolutely. I mean, he can't get a good count of them. And by the way, this is not like he doesn't know math. Like I can't count past 10 without taking my shoes off. As we read later, he could count and understand high numbers. It's just a matter of not being able to see all of them right and avoiding a miscount because he might be counting the same guy six times, but not counting 10 guys that are, you know, down below decks. Kind of reminds me a bit, though. Of that moment in the Ride of the Rohirrim where Amer expressed doubt in the report of Khan Barihan. And he comes back wild. Men are wild, free, but not children. I count many things.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I mean, don't tell me I can't count. And that's not what Tolkien's saying here about Sal Elmar.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Beyond that, there's no way for him to tell what their plans are. There's no obvious indication that they're building a fort or assembling an army to go plundering. And even if he could get closer to get a count, see if he could listen to hear their plans, he can't understand the language. So that's pointless, too.

[A]

And that's the thing. I mean, it's an interesting thing to think through as a reader because thanks to the invention of Westeron, there is not a lot of this inability to communicate that we encounter in Lord of the Rings or even in the rest of the legendarium. I think of just a handful of examples. Like Finrod comes to mind when he first sees the men and he can't understand them, but his natural Elven abilities and a little bit of Osanwe, even though it's not explained as such in the text, helps him figure them out. But because Westeron is so widely spoken, even by Khan, Bri Khan.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They're able to communicate.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we don't get these moments. This is like Star Trek and the universal translator or Hitchhiker's Guide and the Babel fish, and you're all of a sudden, you're thrown into a situation where, no, he wouldn't understand their language.

[B]

Yeah. And it's interesting that the way that this gets explored here. Right. He thinks I wouldn't understand their language. And it brings to mind for him a memory from the previous year. Yeah. Which I think is. This is really interesting. Tolkien's going to explore a little bit more this what it's like when somebody. Group of people are unintelligible. Now, in that memory that he has, you know, another people from an inland village of Udul were threatening Agar. Sadly, we don't know where Udal is, so that's not going to help us with the location.

[A]

Too bad. Yeah.

[B]

We just know it's inland.

[A]

Yes. But is it inland like north of the north, or is it inland of the ice? And we still don't know. Agar saw their own town site as a. As a better spot. I mean, it's easier to defend, better conditions, better weather. So they figured they would be Attacked soon. But what they didn't know was what we, as the reader, are told in a footnote to our next reading, actually, that the people of Vdul weren't looking to attack Agar. The people there were dying of a pestilence, and the folks that Agar thought were preparing to attack were in fact seeking food in desperation.

[B]

Really? Deep cut, pop culture reference. I don't know if any of our listeners ever played the Ultima series of games. Did you ever play the Ultima games?

[A]

I did, but I remember so little. But, yeah, I played many of them.

[B]

So Ultima 6 involved a similar kind of plot twist. It's about these demons that are coming into the world and you think they're there to attack, and it turns out, no, they're fleeing.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

This. This. This situation where they. It's a struggle for survival and they don't know where else to go. So, sorry. Deep cut there. Love it. Ultimate 6 made me think about it. But it's another example of how an inability to communicate could easily cost lives. Right. We're not told whether there was fighting or how this situation was resolved, even if it was resolved. So with the threat on the horizon, our protagonist was chosen to. Chosen.

[A]

Chosen, Exactly. You have been chosen.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

The claw.

[B]

The claw.

[A]

And now I'm picturing Mogru because he's lizard like and has the. Yes, he's super fat, so he's got the chubby arm like the claw.

[B]

You have been chosen.

[A]

Anyway.

[B]

Yeah, he's. He's chosen by Margru to spy out the enemy's land. So, yeah, supposedly based on his youth, his bold nature, and the fact that he knew the land.

[A]

Well, now we're told this is accurate, Right? His assessment of Tal Omar is true because the rest of the people of Akhar were timid and they're basically homebodies. Especially at night. We're told they don't even leave their house at night.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's pretty heavy. Like you think, okay, I get being afraid of the dark in a primitive society where you don't have lights and maybe there's predators about or whatever. But there's a different reason for this than predators. Because in a note next to this text, Tolkien writes in the margin, dark is the time of the king. And as we'll see later in a future reading tonight, the king in this particular context is none other than Sauron himself. No wonder.

[B]

Yeah, it makes a lot more sense.

[A]

If I know Sauron's out and about or his minions are out and about. I'm staying in my house too.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Imagine what that would have been like. Sauron out and about, as you. Yeah, as you put it. Right. I mean, we tend to think of the.

[A]

The eye.

[B]

The lidless eye. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, this was Sauron wandering around.

[A]

Wandering around. Exactly.

[B]

Yeah. So on the other hand, this. This bold young man would regularly explore the countryside. And even though he was afraid of the dark, he'd even spent the night away from agar and would stargaze from the nearby hill.

[A]

So much controversy. Do you hear? Tal Elmar was on top of the hill last night at night. I wonder if he's worshiping that. That king, you know, he's such a bad guy, though, I have to tell you, this fear of the dark, the sort of almost irrational fear of the dark you talk about. Deep cuts. This makes me think of Nightfall from Isaac Asimov, the short story that he eventually turned into a novel. Fantastic. Cannot highly recommend that enough for those of you who like a good story. It's. It's as not sci fi as sci fi gets because it's just people like, the story could happen on Earth. Except that. Well, I can't tell you because then it would spoil the whole story.

[B]

But anyway, okay, go read it. Go check it out.

[A]

Go read it. Yeah, but let's talk about this a little bit, right? Last week, when he's looking at the swamp and trying to make his way through, we read that Seldom Hindy wandered far from the hills of his home and never alone nor deep into the wood. Now, okay, the wood is different, so we get that part. But seldom had he wandered far and never alone. Does that jibe with what we just read here about how he would often go, thank you. I just want to make sure. I mean, there's a lot of this because it is draft. It's manuscript at this point. Oh, no, it's not yet manuscript.

[B]

No, it is. We're in manuscript portion.

[A]

We're in the manuscript portion. Not the typescript. But yeah, we're really reading a story that Tolkien has not finished. Like we talked about the timing thing, oh, it was noon when they got to the village, but then it was like 11:30 when he got to the top of the hill. No, it wasn't.

[B]

Yeah, he's playing around with different alternative ideas.

[A]

Exactly. Thinking through different ideas.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. But then this memory of the visit to Udal, put in context here, made Tal Elmar realize that this was just one of Mogrude's early chess games. He was trying to get rid of and you realize the similarities.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, tell. Omar might be able to play that game now, but he didn't realize that Mogra was already playing that game a year ago.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[A]

That's why he's the master of the town. I mean, like we observed last time, he clearly didn't become master of the town through his good martial prowess or good looks. Yeah, I mean, he's top of the hut, man.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

All right, well, speaking. I was going to say speaking of top of the hut, but he does not make an appearance in the next reading and I didn't want people to assume I met you.

[B]

Well, that's. That's what I took you to mean.

[A]

James, would you read the next?

[B]

Speaking of Deborah Hutt, James, would you take us away?

[A]

Oh, man. All right.

[B]

But to creep into the unfriendly fields of UDL by night was another and far worse thing. Yet he had dared to do it. And he had come so close to one of the huts of watchmen that he could hear the men inside speaking in vain. He could not understand the purport of their speech. The tone seemed mournful and full of fear, as men's voices were at night in the world as he knew it. And a few words he seemed to recognize, but not enough for understanding. And yet the Ural folk were their near neighbours indeed, though Taal Almar and his people had forgotten it, as they had forgotten so much their near kin, part of the same people in the past and better years. What hope then was there that he would recognize any single word or even interpret rightly the tones of the tongues of men, Alien from his own since the beginning of the world. Alien from his own. My own. But they're not my people. Only my father. And again, he had that strange feeling coming from where he knew not to. This young lad, born and bred in a decaying half savage people. The feeling that he was not going to meet aliens, but kinsmen from afar and friends. And yet he was also a boy of his village. He was afraid, and it was long before he moved.

[A]

I really love this character and I wish that Tolkien had had time to finish this story. Yeah, I want to know so much more about him and I love that we get glimpses of his inner dialogue. But let's go back to the beginning of that passage, right? We get the continuation or conclusion of Tal Elmar's ext experience as, you know, a rookie spy out to reconnoiter the village of Udul. And though he had been brave enough to spend the night outside. Right. He'd been benighted outside several times. And even though he'd watched the stars from the hill, it's a totally different thing to go spy out an enemy town. That's. He's got his heart up in his throat. He's terrified, but he managed to do it. He is brave, certainly, in comparison to the townsfolk.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, he'd gotten close enough to listen to the town's watchmen.

[A]

That's close, man.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But he couldn't understand their language. And the whole reason why, this moment on the hill, watching the Numenoreans, you know, that's what made him think of that, was. Was that point that he couldn't understand their language. He was able to recognize tone. He could tell whether people were sad and afraid. Some words were similar, but not enough that he could understand.

[A]

You wonder, though, if he had been able to understand, to overhear them, let's say, talking about their crops dying and they're all starving, would Agar have done anything about it? Would they have been able to do anything about it? They're not a rich town.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know. What do you think ended up happening here? Did they fight with Agar? Did.

[B]

I don't. That's a good point. It's never resolved. It seems odd, and it's not that long ago.

[A]

This was a year ago.

[B]

It seems like the sort of thing Tolkien would have had to have resolved in a rewrite or a cleaning up, because it does seem like a little bit of a plot hole.

[A]

There's definitely a thread that's loose here, like what happened. Maybe. Maybe he could go back to. Well, no, he couldn't go back to Hazad's father capturing Elmar in battle with the fourth king, because that's all that, you know, that's 50, 60, 70 years ago.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I don't know what he. Yeah, you'd have to tie up something and talk about either the pestilence, you know, went away and Udul recovered, or Udul died out, or they attacked and all died. I don't know. Yeah, but here's the interesting thing here. Tal Elmar, even though these people of Udul are relatively near neighbors, I mean, they can't, geographically speaking, be more than 10 miles away. It's not like he's going to journey a hundred miles to go to this nearby town. Right. So they're relatively close. And linguistically, they're very close. These are people that are actually near kin, and he still can't understand Them. So of course, the idea of strangers. But we get, I think another insight into the people of Agar here in the text you read this, that they were kin but his people had forgotten it, as they had forgotten so much. That absolutely calls back what we read, I think a couple of weeks ago when Hazad's history lesson came along and Hazad tells Tel Omar that our people believe little that has not happened in their own days. They become so short sighted, they have no history, they don't write anything down. And it doesn't even seem like there are people of song. Like to keep the memories alive.

[B]

Yeah. Although it does also make me think a little bit about Hobbits as well. That's made about them not very parochial. Yeah. Not paying attention to their place in history and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, even more extreme example of that.

[A]

Well, yes, yeah. It's just very interesting. Like this is what happens when you don't maintain some sort of a history. You lose connections with your kin. These are their people. But that leads me to another question. If these were their people, how much time do you think, as a sort of a linguist, James is my language expert here today, how much time is likely to have passed since the split of Agar and Udul because they were part of the same people in the past in order for both the people of Agar to have forgotten and for their tongues to deviate enough that Tal Omar couldn't understand them? Maybe just a word or two.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, it's difficult to say because languages change at different rates. One of the things I was going to bring up is this idea of quite close villagers not being able to understand one another does happen in the primary world, notably in Papua New Guinea.

[A]

So Papua New guinea isolation. Yeah.

[B]

Has hundreds of languages, completely distinct, mutually unintelligible languages. Villages that again may only be 10 miles away that can't understand one another.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the reason for that, geographical isolation, because of the hilly terrain and stuff.

[A]

Like that, dense forests and.

[B]

Yeah, it absolutely can happen. It's not even a. So. So it's not even a matter so much of temporal distance as the sort of geographical distance is required to travel. And if you, if you live as a village, you live a very isolated life and you don't have any cause to, to travel 10 miles then, then it can, you know, it may, I mean, I still, I still would have to think it. We would be talking about, you know.

[A]

100 talking centuries rather than, I would say so. Like it wouldn't take millennia. But it wouldn't do.

[B]

Definitely not.

[A]

But it wouldn't do in decades.

[B]

I can't imagine it would be possible in decades because as I mentioned, languages change at different rates in an isolated situation. They tend to change more slowly.

[A]

That makes sense, because what influences do you have to change the language? That's the thing. I mean, you look at the evolution of English, and when it changed was when we had outside influences. I mean, that's why we're speaking English the way we speak it today instead of 1066, thanks to the French. Exactly.

[B]

And obviously, as things get written down and stuff, then things become slower, they change more slowly and stuff like that. Although that said, think about. Yeah, we were. We were discussing before we recorded the. The episode. But you know, the sort of the way kids speak these days and the various memes and terms that young kids use.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So it doesn't take long for at least individual words and phrases.

[A]

That's certainly true. I mean, if I started walking around talking about radical and tubular and gag me with a spoon and all the other 80s stuff that. That was popular in Southern California, people would look at me really weird, like I'm stepping out of time. I mean. Or even worse, if I started pulling out stuff from the 50s from before my time.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it doesn't take long. That's. You're talking about, in my case, 30, 40 years. The things that I would have said in high school. Can't say now.

[B]

Yeah. There's also another factor in all this, which is because language is so much a part of identity that if people are wanting to appear as part of a group, they will try to talk like that group. And if they don't want to talk like. If they don't want to appear like another group, they'll try not to talk like that.

[A]

Yeah, they'll make. So that can accelerate a lot of that Makes sense.

[B]

Changes for that reason as well.

[A]

Interesting. That's just an interesting question. Like, how does. How does that work in this world? Especially because Tolkien is a linguistic. As a philologist would have thought about that.

[B]

Oh, absolutely.

[A]

You know, and we might even have gotten more story on that at some point, because that's the kind of thing that Tolkien does. Yeah.

[B]

He's partly exploring this in much the same way as Mary with the Rohirrim. Oh, yeah. And all that sort of discussion and.

[A]

Capturing a word or two.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Very similar sort of idea there. But, yeah, given his inability to understand even his neighbors, and we don't really know whether he knew how close they were, we're told. The narrator tells us that they are. But I don't know how much he knows.

[A]

He couldn't know.

[B]

It raises the question in his mind, how could he even hope to glean any information from these completely strange tall men?

[A]

Yeah. Totally different.

[B]

As far as he knows, they're completely strange and unlike anything unrelated to him.

[A]

In fact, he's so concerned, he's not even sure he'd be able to correctly interpret their tones like anger or confidence or fear or anything like that. And he makes a point. I mean, I think those things are a little more universally recognizable. Certainly some of the more primal reactions, like fear. I don't think you'd be able to read sarcasm. No. But I think you would know if they were angry or if they were afraid. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. But he's still worried. And then we get this inner dialogue, or what linguists call free indirect discourse. This is when the. There's a transition to narrating the inner thoughts of a person in first person. Yes. He says, my thoughts. This is very rare in Tolkien.

[A]

I know. It's one of the first times I've seen this.

[B]

Yeah. Even when Tolkien gives inner thoughts, it's normally in the third person. It's the narrator just saying, you know, Frodo thought about this, or Sam thought about this. Right.

[A]

Or sometimes it's italics. Almost like it's actual dialogue.

[B]

Right? Well, yeah, in that case, it would actually be dialogue.

[A]

This. But that's what it's dialogue. Yeah.

[B]

This is. This free indirect discourse is really, really unusual in Tolkien. And it really shocked me. It almost took me out of the story, actually, because it's so rare for.

[A]

Tolkien to go from alien, from his own to my own. They're not my people, only my father. But then we transition immediately back out of that to. He had that feeling.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is. Again, this gets done a lot in modernist novels. Its origins are fairly new. I think Jane Austen might have dabbled in it a little bit, but it became a lot more common. Tolkien pretty much never does it. And I wonder if it's something he would have changed if, when he went back and rewrote it, I wonder if he was just scribbling ideas out.

[A]

But, yeah, he's very much. At this point, he's scribbling because we'll see fairly soon, even though it's already manuscript. He goes from manuscript narrative to manuscript outline and then back to narrative again. And then back to outline again.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, he does that sort of thing a lot because he Tends to. He likes outlining in dialogue. He likes thinking of these little scenes and writing out a bit of dialogue and then outlining. He does that in Lord of the Rings as well. In History, Middle Earth, you really see him do that a lot. But it's interesting because he goes through this whole thought about them being alien from his people, and then he realizes, hang on a sec. His people are not actually his people, only his father is his people.

[A]

That's right, yeah. He knows he doesn't belong there. He is already the other.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And that's an important element to this story too. I mean, because as we'll see, both the Numenoreans and the people of Agar sort of. They very much other. The other. And Elmar already. Tal Elmar already gets that. And now he gets that strange sensation again. Right. I'm not going to meet strangers, but kinsmen and friends. And we get something that I want to linger on for a little bit. Not too much, because otherwise this episode is going to be four hours long. The narrator includes this phrase, born and bred in a decaying half savage people. And it's important because this isn't the last time we'll see half savage. That's a heavy thing to lay on a people to describe them as half savage. I mean, what's Tolkien trying to imply here? Or is this perhaps even Tal Elmar's own recognition of the primitiveness of the people he's been raised up by?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, there's certainly a lot, and I certainly don't know enough to really comment on this, but it seems that this is very much the context of the day to think of certain groups as savages as opposed to others. I mean, even the whole notion of primitive, it's funny, it's making me think of the fact that the way that historical linguists and philologists used to refer to older versions of languages was as primitive.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So if you read like Joseph Wright, who was Tolkien's philology professor, Gothic primer when Tolkien was a. Was a student in the Gothic primer. Yeah. It's not what we would now call Proto Germanic.

[A]

Proto.

[B]

It was called primitive Germanic in that day. So that whole notion of there being a linguistic as well as obviously cultural and. And so on kind of gradation from the primitive to the advanced was, I think, very much a part of. Of the thinking of the day.

[A]

That's a good point. Yeah.

[B]

Which is not to make an excuse.

[A]

No, no. But I mean, it's. But I've even seen changes like that in my own lifetime. Like when I was younger in school, we would talk about an early society as being illiterate. Now they would be referred to as pre literate. And there is a significant difference.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You want to be careful that a culture that did use language but just didn't write it down doesn't mean that they weren't any. That they were like less intelligent or less capable, mentally capable of stories and, you know, all this stuff. So it's very important. But it's just, it's interesting here, this idea of half savage and yet we're going to see a very kind of physical manifestation of how would somebody in the 50s describe somebody in a savage culture in terms of like what they're wearing? We're going to see that in Tal Omar in a little bit in his appearance and how to the numenoreans he's going to very much appear like a savage.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah, Yep. Interesting stuff. All right.

[B]

So that that whole question of familiarity and so on is counted by the fact that of course, he's a product of his upbringing and he's thus afraid.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

And in the part we skipped, we find that he's been here the rest of the afternoon as the sun. A great round fire is setting.

[A]

Another example of how he doesn't have words for everything the way that you might think you would have words. The great round fire.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

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[B]

Yeah, the PPP really does have a warm and welcoming listener community. If you've got questions or just want to talk about how much you love Middle Earth, be sure to check out our common room on Facebook and across all social media. On Facebook, just look for the Prancing Pony podcast. Yeah, there's a page, but you're going to want to join the group for that great fan community.

[A]

Indeed. And on every social media platform other than Facebook. We're just at Prancing Pony Pod. You can find our subreddit at r Prancing Pony pod. Be sure to check out my Daily show, today's Tolkien Times on YouTube and all your favorite podcast apps. Get your daily Middle Earth fix with everything from Middle Earth map Mondays to first stage Fridays. Be sure to watch or [e-mail] principally pod.

[B]

Okay, let's get back to Taloma.

[A]

He had seen the sun sink into the sea before, yet never before had he seen it. So he knew in a flash, as if it came from that fire itself, that he had seen it. So he was called, that it meant something more than the approach of the king's time. The dark he rose, and as if led or driven, walked openly down the hill and across the long sward to the shingles and the tents. Could he have seen himself, he would have been struck with wonder, no less than those who saw him now from the shore. His naked skin, for he wore only a loin cloth and little cloak of fur, cast back and caught by a thong to his shoulder, glowed golden in the sunset light. His fair hair, too, was kindled, and his step was light and free. Look. Cried one of the watchmen to his companion. Do you see what I see? Is it not one of the Eldar of the woods that comes to speak with us? I see indeed, said the other. But if not some phantom from the edge of the coming dark in this land, accursed, it cannot be one of the fair. We are far to the south, and none dwell here. Would indeed we were north away, near to the Havens, who knows all the ways of the Eldar, said the watchman. Silence. Now he approaches. Let him speak first. So they stood still and made no sign as Tal Elmar drew near. When he was some 20 paces away, his fear returned and he halted, letting his arms fall before him and opening his palms outwards to the strangers in a gesture which all men could understand. Then, as they did not move nor put hand to any weapon so far as he could see, he took courage again and spoke, saying, hail, men of the sea and the wings. Why do you come here? Is it in peace? I am Tal Elmar, U Hazad of the Folk of Aghar. Who are you?

[B]

Love this thing.

[A]

I do, too. This is so. This is why I want Tolkie to finish this story so badly.

[B]

Well, yeah, we can still hope for some uncovered manuscript at some point.

[A]

Someday, probably not. But anyway, we might have to write our own, James. They don't allow that.

[B]

So while we ended last reading with the sun setting, we discover at the start of this one that it's unlike any sunset he'd ever seen. And here we see another of those moments where a Tolkien protagonist seems led by something other than himself to take action.

[A]

Happens so much, doesn't it? Yeah, all the time. I'm only thinking of Tuor Bilbo off the top of my head. I know there are a bunch of other examples, but those are the first ones that jump to my head. James, you can think of several others.

[B]

Yeah, I'm trying to think of people that take action without thought.

[A]

Baron. Baron opens his mouth and out comes words that he's like, whoa, where did that come from? I mean, it is amazing. Sam, definitely. Oh, yeah. He didn't even know Sindarin to speak some of that. Sindarin. He didn't know what words he was saying. It's amazing how many times Tolkien uses this, like, as if led by somebody else. And it's always vague, like we don't know who it is that's driving him. You know, Sometimes we don't know, you know, what Vala is sending somebody a vision or guiding them to some place, or if Iluvatar himself, the little finger of Iluvatar, is playing, you know, flick football with Gollum and the Cracks of Doom. Whatever the case may be, whoever it was that was sending him this message, tell Elmar sensed it immediately, as though the setting sun itself had sent him the message, to be clear. And there's a lot of this actually in this segment where there's a lot of stuff in Brackets.

[B]

Because it's handwritten.

[A]

It's handwritten, and it's awfully handwritten. As we'll read in a minute. The line he was called is not entirely clear. In the footnote, Christopher explains, as only he can, the conclusion of the text is, in places, in excruciatingly difficult handwriting. And the words I have given, as he was called, are doubtful, but I can see no other interpretation of them. And when Christopher says his father's handwriting is excruciatingly difficult, it's got to be nigh indecipherable, because I've seen some of that.

[B]

Well, because, remember, this is the. This is the last chapter of the last volume of the History of Middle Earth. So this is at the end, he's seen everything. He's gone through every magazine, he's seen it all, and he still decides this is excruciating. Really bad.

[A]

And what's funny is I've seen some of the texts, some of the manuscripts that have been included in History of Middle Earth, where Christopher doesn't even say, this was hard, where he doesn't even notate, and you're like, I can't pick out two words from that paragraph. It is such a scribble. I mean, maybe now that you tell me this is what he wrote, I can sort of see four or five words. But how do you do this? And of course, we've seen some of the manuscripts at the Art of the Manuscript exhibit a few years ago. Yeah. When it's difficult, it is insanely difficult.

[B]

Oh, yeah. And to be excruciatingly difficult, that's like the next level.

[A]

That is seriously, next level. Christopher is not pleased.

[B]

Yeah, indeed. But this sunset was more than just a transition from daytime to nighttime, or as the text says, it means more than the approach of the king's time, the dark.

[A]

And even though we've talked about this before, we should take a quick aside to discuss what that means for Tel Omar in this moment, the footnote for this mention of the king's time.

[B]

Yeah. So there Christopher points us to the line earlier about how the villages of Agar, or were, quote, never daring to be caught by dark outside their homes, and how, like we mentioned at the time, his father wrote in a note in the margin, dark is the time of the king. Christopher then points to something we'll read in the next passage that makes it perfectly clear that the king in this context is Sauron himself, which is different.

[A]

From the Dark King's plural at the beginning of the story, and also different from the Fourth king who was a regional king of some kind, a petty king that Hazad's father would have gone off with, Buldar would have gone off with to fight the Fel folk of the east, where he captured Elmar.

[B]

Yeah. I have to wonder if Tolkien is developing this idea as he goes. As he goes, he's realizing, oh, the king could be Sauron. That could be why they're scared of the dark.

[A]

Which is why we get him literally writing to himself later. But I don't want to spoil that, because it's a really very interesting moment.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

So back to Tal Elmar, who is led to move by this sunset. He gets up, the text says, as if led or driven, and he walks openly. This is some bravery. He's walking openly down the hill towards these tall men because, remember, he's already seen they are armed. And we get a description of what he's wearing, and it ain't armor. We're given a description of Tal Omar that's from the viewpoint of the men. But told that that same view would have actually struck Tal Elmar himself with wonder as well. Interesting.

[B]

Yeah. He says that if he'd. Yeah. If he'd been watching from outside, he would have been just as struck in awe. Right.

[A]

Like, this is him at his. At his peak.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, like, here he comes striding out with a loincloth, looking like some sort of, you know, Greek God, maybe. I don't know.

[B]

Well, it's. It's. It's funny, though, because there's this. Wearing just a loincloth with a small fur cloak which is pulled back and held to his shoulder, that evokes a type of culture that I wouldn't describe as living in towns.

[A]

No.

[B]

With a mass. It's sort of. I don't quite know how to judge what Tolkien was intending in terms of.

[A]

Their dweller in the woods. The guy here mentions Eldar, but I almost think of Vari, like, yeah, that primitive, you know.

[B]

Right, right, right, yeah. Right. Yeah. We're reminded about his fair hair. We're told that both his hair and his skin glowed. And the story transitions to the men now for the first time, as one of them thinks he's seeing. And I love this, he thinks he's seeing an Eldar of the woods.

[A]

Yeah. Why wouldn't he think that? I mean, you got this tall blonde.

[B]

Kid coming out so different, so different from the other.

[A]

Right. They've encountered some of the other people. Right. They talk about, you know, you're. You come from people that are our Enemy. We know that he's physiologically very different in appearance. Taller, leaner, not stocky, not. What do we say? Not built for rugby. You know, he's. He's definitely, you know, a skinnier, thinner, more fit, trim build. And he's going to look more like an Elf because he's certainly in contrast to the people of Hazad.

[B]

Yeah. Although it strikes me we'll get a bit more into this later, I think. But remember, he's related to another group of Elmar.

[A]

He's related to the Fel Folk. Right, the Fel Folk of the East.

[B]

Yeah. So that means, presumably the Fel Folk of the east would potentially be confused for Elves to the Numenoreans. Which is.

[A]

Which is really interesting because, as we'll read later, the Numenoreans appear to some of the men who stayed behind in Eriador as being almost Elf. Like. Like, you know, they looked up to them and like, whoa, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So, but it's. Maybe it's a contrast thing. Like, everybody we've seen down here is looks like X and you look like Y, therefore. But if he was comparing him to an actual elf, maybe he would not have said that. I don't know.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's the thing. I keep thinking that these men would know what an elf looks like. Right. These are faithful. We know that. And we'll see several things that point to that. So that means they would have visited the region of Lindon. One of them even talks about a wood that we were back up in this place. So implying certainly that they'd been there. We've mentioned letter 131 before, drawing on a quote from it a couple of weeks ago. But I want to bring it in again because I think it's important to help us understand where we might be, might be, because we still don't know in the Numenorean timeline. Because in that letter, Tolkien explains to Waldman that there were three stages in the Numenorean Fall. The first stage was their free and willing obedience. It was pre fall free and willing obedience, even though they didn't understand everything. But then that second stage was unwilling obedience with murmuring. And then the third stage was open rebellion.

[B]

Yeah. And in that initial stage, their interaction with the men of Middle Earth is good. Right. They would come amongst the wild men almost as divine. Well, at least good in their mind, as almost divine benefactors. Right. Bringing gifts of arts and knowledge and passing away again. So I think at worst, they were patronizing, you know, not openly evil. Right, Right.

[A]

A Little condescending, but yeah.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Leaving many legends behind of kings and gods out of the sunset.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Interesting mention of sunset.

[A]

Kings and gods out of the sunset.

[B]

Right. Obviously they're coming from the west. Yeah. So it's interesting that Tolkien makes a point about the sun setting in this case.

[A]

It's. It is interesting. That's a good point.

[B]

It's a nice sort of symbolic thing of them coming from the West.

[A]

But this idea of divine benefactors and leaving legends behind doesn't fit with what Hazad told us in his history lesson. Right. In terms of the dark and the evil. So maybe the second stage. Because the second stage is when they sought wealth rather than bliss. They started spending their money on tombs and memorials. Their settlements, quote, became rather strongholds and factories of lords seeking wealth. And the Numenoreans became tax gatherers, carrying off over the sea ever more and more goods in their great ships. I love that. That's the phrase Tolkien uses here, because there aren't too many letters that mention tax. But when it is mentioned, Tolkien is very clearly he has an opinion about became tax gatherers. Yeah. He does not like the tax gatherers. No.

[B]

Although this still obviously doesn't match up with Hazard's description of them taking.

[A]

No, it doesn't. Taking away people instead of people.

[B]

There's a bit of a difference. Some people may disagree, but that's true. I think there is a difference.

[A]

I think so, too. Yeah.

[B]

You know, it's not entirely fitting since the rumors of taking people away, not merely goods, even if they're not in the burning, human sacrifices end stage under Sarah, they could still be in the third stage, because that's when they are said to have become cruel and wicked lords of necromancy, slaying and tormenting men. And the old legends are overlaid with dark tales of horror. But am I right in remembering that only happens once Sauron's been captured?

[A]

That's the third stage. That's after Sauron's been captured. And we don't think that's. But Tolkien does say maybe this is happening. Then later on we'll get to that.

[B]

Yeah, we'll get to that.

[A]

But back to the text. The fact is that when these Numenorean men think they're seeing an elf, there are good reasons for the this. You know, not all are convinced. One believes they're way too far to the south. He wishes they were north, near the havens. But where we are, there are no Elves living here.

[B]

Yeah. So it's interesting. That looks wise. He Appears to be an elf, but he's doing sort of a geographical check and saying. No, that doesn't make geographical sense.

[A]

Right.

[B]

What do you make of this line if not some phantom from the edge of the coming dark in this land accursed.

[A]

Well, we know that Sauron is the lord of phantoms, right? I mean, we know that, and that would be part of the legend. So maybe this guy is thinking Sauron's creating a phantom to make us think that these are elves. Right? Yeah, because that's the kind of thing that he would do, right? I mean, just ask Gorlum.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Yeah. That's the only thing I can think of.

[B]

Or kill a Brimbo.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

And as he approaches, the man who thought Tal Omar was an elf advises silence and patience. As the young man draws near, we get back to Tal Omar's perspective as he keeps walking. They're not saying anything or even signing anything, so he keeps walking. Now, about 20 yards away, when he starts feeling afraid.

[A]

A little close to turn back now, but yeah, you know, he does the universal, I mean you no harm gesture, right? He puts his arms down, palms forward to show that he's not carrying any weapons. They still don't move or do anything. So that's when he finally feels safe enough to approach and speak. And again, recall that he doesn't have a word for sailing vessels. You know, he doesn't have ships. So he calls the men of the sea and the wings. That's where the. And the wings comes from. And then he asks why they've come.

[B]

Yeah. And he also identifies himself and where he's from, although there's no suggestion they would understand what.

[A]

That's the point. Like, he's thinking to himself, there's no point in me going down there and trying to gather information because I won't understand them. But if that's true, they won't understand you either. You know, if you can't understand their speech, how are they going to understand yours? So going down and speaking to them, you're not going to make any sense to them? Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by FX's Love Story. John F. Kennedy Jr. And Carolyn Bassette join host Evan Ross Katz on the official podcast for FX's new series Love Story, John F. Kennedy Jr. And Carolyn Bessette. And go behind the scenes with cast.

[B]

And special guests featuring Sarah Pigeon, Paul.

[A]

Anthony Kelly, Grace Gummer and Naomi Watts. FX's love story. John F. Kennedy, Jr. And Carolyn Bessette. Wherever you listen to podcasts, my dad.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

Don't forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and please recommend us to your friends. You can do that directly on Spotify. Now just share the show with your friends. James Take us back in to the first words that the Numenoreans speak to our friend Tal Omar.

[B]

His voice was clear and fair, but the language that he used was but a form of the half savage language of the Men of the Dark, as the shipment called them. The watchman stirred. Eldar, he said. The Eldar do not use such a tongue, he called aloud, and at once men tumbled out of the tents. He himself drew forth a sword, while his companions put arrow to bowstring. Before Tal Elmar had time even to feel terror, still less to turn and run happily, for he knew nothing of bows, and would have fallen long before he was out of bowshot, he was surrounded by armed men. They seized him, but not with harsh handling. When they found he was weaponless and submissive and led him to a tent where sat one in authority, Tel Elmar feels the language to be known and only veiled from him. The captain says Tal Elmar must Be of Numenorean race or of people akin to them, he must be kindly treated. He guesses that he had been made captive as a babe or born of captives. He's trying to escape to us, he says. A pity he remembers nothing of the language he will learn. Maybe. But after a long time, if he spoke it now, he could tell us much that would speed our errand and lessen our peril. They make tell Elmar at last understand their desire to know how many men dwell near. Are they friendly? Are they like he is? The object of the Numenoreans is to occupy this land and an alliance with the cruelds of the north to drive out the dark people and make a settlement, to threaten the king. Or is this while Sauron is absent in Numenor, the place is on Estri of Isen or Morthond. Tel Ulmar could count and understand high numbers, though his language was defective. Or does he understand Numenorean added subsequently? Eldarin. These were elf friends.

[A]

Okay, lots here. And we transition a lot in terms of how Tolkien writes this. But let's get back to the beginning of the passage. As we ended the last reading, we saw that Tel Elmar named himself in his village, even though there was no suggestion that they could understand him. And here we see what.

[B]

Yeah, sure enough, they don't understand him. Sure he has a pleasant voice, but he's using one what they see as a half savage language.

[A]

There we go with half savage again. Huh? It's interesting.

[B]

Yeah. And again it comes back to this, this idea that you would consider that. I mean, it's a, it's, it's an interesting thing. Why, why would you consider a language savage? What makes a language sound savage? It's one thing when we're talking before about Joseph Wright and so on, and talking about primitive languages, that was with historical knowledge. You're talking about a language that you know, whether you're right or wrong, you're assuming a more primitive language in an earlier phase. But if you're just hearing somebody speak a language, what's the sound?

[A]

Right. How are you going to know it's primitive? From the sounds.

[B]

Right, exactly. And there's been a lot of interesting work done on this. Particularly interesting that when this sort of work has been done on fictional languages time and time again, Quenya comes up as a language that psychologically people think is the, is the most beautiful language. So there's been studies done where they, they take a bunch of constructed languages and, and they have people listen to speakers of those constructed languages and then vote which ones they thought were beautiful, scary, ugly, all those sorts of things. This really gets to Tolkien's whole interest in phonaesthetics and how some languages sound more beautiful than others. And this seems to be a fairly universal thing, that there are certain properties that language sound systems can have that. That make it more likely that people would view them as. As beautiful sounding. And as I said, Quinya often comes up at one end of the spectrum. Things like Klingon come up at the other end of the spectrum quite deliberately so. Right. Klingon was designed to sound aggressive and so on.

[A]

And that's what I wonder about this. Like, does it sound. I mean, sure, nobody's going to say, I want to learn how to say sweet nothings in the language that sounds like ashnaz gimbatul. Ashnaz krakatuluk agburzumi si krimpatul.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

But wouldn't you want to know how to say something in Ay, Laurie. Lantar lassi suran yeni yonotome. I mean.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

It's beautiful. So is that what we're talking about here? Are we talking about a language that just simply sounds ugly? That has. Well, that sounds ugly to the Numenoreans.

[B]

To the Numenoreans.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, their language, they would have. Even though they don't as we'll talk, they're not going to probably use much Adonaic because they're faithful. They're going to be using Sindarin. So what languages do they find unappealing? Maybe Khzdul, maybe Easterlings languages.

[B]

Maybe. And it could just be an association. It might not be an inherent property of the language. It could just be this sounds like those people that we don't like.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true. Interesting stuff.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we see a reference to the people of Agar and other inhabitants of Middle Earth as the Men of the Dark. And that's worth a pretty big sidebar because the distinction between the different kinds of men is a bit complex. And I want to start with the Lord of the Rings. In the chapter of the Window on the West, Faramir tells the story of the downfall of the line of kings in Gondor. And he mentions the Kyderior Neoral story and talks about how they become allies with the Rohirrim.

[B]

Yep. And he adds, they are come from those same three houses of men as were the Numenoreans in their beginning, not from Hador the golden haired, the elf friend, maybe, yet from such of his people as went not oversea into the West. Refusing the call. Then he provides the three part distinction they use regarding Men, explaining for so we reckon men in our law, calling them the High or Men of the west, which are the Numenoreans and the Middle Peoples, Men of the Twilight, such as are the Rohirrim and their kin that dwell still far in the north and the Wild, the Men of Darkness.

[A]

So we get that tripart sort of breakdown that Faramir gives us if we move to another essay here. In the Peoples of Middle Earth called of Dwarves and Men, we read the Men of Darkness was a general term applied to all those who were hostile to the kingdoms and who were or appeared in Gondor to be moved by something more than human greed for conquest and plunder. A fanatical hatred of the High Men and their allies as enemies of their gods. The term took no account of differences of race or culture or language. Now, one problem with this paragraph, I mean, I like the way it breaks it down, but it doesn't tell us if this is the same distinction and categorization that the Men of Numenor made. This is very much the Gondorian view. So it's a successor view.

[B]

Yeah, and if it were the same as the view of Numenor, that doesn't necessarily fit the people of Agar, quote, moved by more than human greed, fanatical hatred of the High Men as enemies of their gods.

[A]

That doesn't make any sense.

[B]

Yeah, but then when explaining about the Middlemen like the Rohirrim, Tolkien explains that the term was of ancient origin and went back to the Numenoreans, specifically when they were establishing havens and settlements on the western shores. Okay, all of this is from Tal Elmar speaking, quote, a form of the half savage language of the Men of the Dark. But it raises the very legitimate question, were they truly Men of the Dark? Nothing Hazard said suggests they view the Numenoreans as the enemies of their gods. They're afraid of them, sure, but we don't see fanatical hatred of the Hymen here.

[A]

No, to me, this doesn't fit the description of the Men of the Dark that we get in any of those passages that we talked here or that we're going to talk about in the postscript.

[B]

I wonder if there's as much of a misunderstanding going on from the Numenoreans in terms of the legends that they'd heard.

[A]

Right, so that's what I'm thinking.

[B]

Hazard tells all these stories about, you know, they take people Away.

[A]

They eat them. Yeah.

[B]

Similarly, the Numenoreans have probably heard of stories of these people on the coastlines. They worship Sauron. Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Yeah. It's wild. They obviously can't communicate with each other, which is part of the problem. All right, before I go on, by the way, I think when I was talking about Belas, I said belas, and it is actually Belas. I was mixing it up with the phallas, which I talk about all the time, which would be pronounced with the stress on that first syllable, because that's how it works. If you get a two syllable word, it's always on the. The pedal. But on. On Belfalas, it would be on the antipenal. So, anyway, coming back in the irony here, you know, you talked about how, you know, Hazad talks about the. These people of the Dark and how they eat people, and the Numenoreans are probably having similar stories about how they eat people in worship of Sauron. Hazad speaks of the Numenoreans as of the Dark. There's very specific examples. They worship and slay men cruelly in honor of the Dark. The accursed ship with the black wings is the ship of the Dark, and it carries people off to be slain with torment in the worship of the Dark. So both peoples see the other as of the Dark. It's such a mess.

[B]

These beliefs that he was an elf has departed the minds of these Watchmen. They worked it out pretty quickly.

[A]

Yeah, he's no elf.

[B]

And now the newborn orientation.

[A]

You're no elf.

[B]

Yeah. I thought we weren't going to talk politics.

[A]

But anyway, good catch, though.

[B]

I'm impressed. I knew what the reference was.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. What is that? 1988 vice presidential debate reference. Right.

[B]

Yeah, And I got it. I got it. I'm not even. I'm not even.

[A]

I'm impressed.

[B]

It's gonna say, does Sam know how to spell potatoes or potato?

[A]

Well played.

[B]

Anyway, so now the Numenoreans are preparing to take action, guys getting out of their tents, preparing weapons. And it all happens quickly because Tal Elmar is said to not even have time to feel terror.

[A]

That's pretty amazing because I can feel terror really quickly in another reference to their primitive nature. And I want to put that in air quotes again. We're told that he knew nothing of bows. That seems so, frankly, unbelievable. I actually can't help wondering if Tolkien would have revised that. Bows and arrows have been around since the Stone Age. I mean, we're talking 50, 60,000 years.

[B]

But I wonder if they were necessarily widespread. They existed then, but you'd think they could develop in any.

[A]

They did independently of each other.

[B]

If there are trees, why not? Yeah. I don't know. That's might be somewhat.

[A]

I think they were pretty widespread, too. So I would imagine. I feel like Tolkien would have to. I mean, sure, he might not recognize these bows if these are the Numenorean steel bows that we read about in the Disaster of the Gladden Fields and, you know, the. The Black Rain that they, you know, create. Because there's so many of them.

[B]

This.

[A]

But this isn't that. This is going to be a handful of guys anyway. This is an aside.

[B]

Yeah. So Tal Al Mar is surrounded, but not handled roughly, since he's unarmed and compliant.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And after this moment, where he's led to someone in authority, Tolkien's manuscript shifts from a purely narrative mode to an outline mode with some narrative bits, as we've.

[A]

So we've gone from typescript to manuscript to now just jotting down an outline. And now we get the mention from outline mode that Tal Elmar feels like the language of these men is something he knows, but that somehow it's hidden. And I don't want to talk about this much because we'll talk about more of this later, but this definitely connects with what he talks about later with the language of his dreams that we'll read about in the next passage. So let's kind of mark this and come back.

[B]

Yeah. It's interesting again, because this is in outline mode. It's not clear how Tolkien would have conveyed that tell. Elmar knew this. He's sort of. This is a note to himself. Tolkien's note to himself.

[A]

But the leader sees Tal Elmar's appearance, Right. The tall blonde hair, fair skin, and he figures rightly that he was either taken captive as a child or Ta da. Born of captives. Yeah.

[B]

And that makes him of our people or kin to our people, and he must be treated well.

[A]

That's. I think, the part that made me initially think that Elmar and the Fel folk were directly connected with the Numenoreans. Right. Oh, he's our kin. So maybe the Numenoreans from Pelargir were making their way over and, you know, so that's. Remember when we were talking about who were the Fel folk? And I was like, for a while I thought they were Numenoreans themselves, but the Rohirrim are akin to the men of Numenor. So I think that was the idea you talked about is. Especially if they're at the mouth of the Is and rather than the mouth of the Morthon. It would make sense if we're talking about the Northmen coming from Rhovanion across through Calenardhon and encountering them that way. But I still don't know. None of us will. No.

[B]

And in fact, the captain thinks that Tal Elmar was trying to escape his captivity. That's his interpretation. He's trying to return to Numenor. Yeah, he's escaping to us.

[A]

That's wild. And then we get some quick, unassigned dialogue. We don't know if it's the captain or if it's one of his men. Dialogue about Tel Omar's language skills. It's too bad he doesn't remember our language. But, you know, he'll learn, but it'll take him some time. But it's in that context that we get the first mention of why these guys are here. He could tell us much that would speed our errand. What errand is that? Well, we'll find out in a bit.

[B]

Yeah. And that line, I think, is going to be. When we've talked before, speculating about where Tolkien would have taken this in the future, we get some. Some interesting. That line is important. So remember that he could tell us much that would speed. Errand, whatever that errand is. So in some brief amount of time, we're not told if this was minutes, hours, or even days, they're finally able to communicate with him well enough to get him to understand what they wanted to know, specifically how many men are close by and are they friendly.

[A]

The follow up to that, though, Are they like you? Right? Are they like he is seems to me to be specifically referencing Tal Omar's physical appearance. Are the men who live near here racially similar?

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting. I was just going to point out that they want to know the numbers because of course, that's why he.

[A]

Of course they want. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

But that's why he's. He's there to find out their numbers and then. I know we want to know your numbers.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. Well, why don't we just. Why don't your leader come and talk to my leader and we'll figure this thing out? But this bit about Are they like you does give me a little bit of a. I don't like this. These are the good guys of Numenor. These are the faithful, not the king's men. Right, but that's how they view high, middle and men of the dark.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, I mean, yes, it's also hostility to the kingdom later in Gondor. But that's the thing. It is a confused phrase. Middlemen. And sure, in many ways the people of Agar should be classified as middlemen, especially if they are akin to the folk of Haleth. But that's the problem. The folk of Haleth spoke a different language than the folk of Beor and the folk of Hador. And so they always sort of got pushed to the side. I'm curious though, how did they get him to understand this? Right. How do they. He understands some of their language, but how is he able to communicate back? These are complex concepts. Right. This isn't. Hello, my name is. Where's the bathroom? Where's the airport? Right. This isn't the stuff.

[B]

Food or sky or water or tree or something.

[A]

Exactly. Things you can point to. I know a tiny bit of German from three years in high school, two years in high school, but I don't think I'd understand if a German speaking person was asking me about how many people lived in near me. Whether they were friendly and whether they were racially similar.

[B]

Yeah. Assuming that's what the like me means.

[A]

Well, yeah. Or even if they were like me. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

All of those questions. It would be very difficult to convey.

[A]

If you don't know the language.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It is a bit of a challenge for sure. Finally we get the clear picture of what these men want. To occupy this land and create some.

[A]

Sort of settlement in alliance with what the text says are the Cruels of the North. We've talked about this before, but who do we think the cruels of the north are here? And do you think they might be different than what we've talked about?

[B]

Well, we talked about them being the elves. Right.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I mean that's. I think that's who it is. Because from the viewpoint of the people of Agar. Yeah. The cruels have got to be the elves that live in the North. The Lindon region, perhaps, but.

[B]

Yeah. Or could it be other groups of men? But who do we know the Numenoreans.

[A]

Who do they ally with?

[B]

We don't know the Numenoreans allied with anyone other than. Other than.

[A]

Other than Gil Galad and the elves of Lindon.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I tend to think that's who it is.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Especially because of why.

[B]

Right, right. Yeah, exactly. And we're told they have this alliance, so it's not clear at all that there's any other alliance. And also it's mentioned the purpose of threatening the king.

[A]

Yeah. And that's why I think it's almost certainly the elves. But it's the next line that makes it 100% obvious that the King is Sauron. As Tolkien talking to himself a bit here. And I love this part of the story because we get a lot of his, Tolkien's own inner dialogue. He's no longer just giving us Tal Elmar's inner dialogue, he's giving us his own that he wonders if maybe this story is taking place in that 57 year window between Sauron's capture by Ar Pharazon and the downfall of Numenor. But I gotta ask you, James, that's an awfully small window for this story to be taking place in. In fact, it means that if we're in that period now, we were not in that period when Buldar captured Elmar.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's a small window.

[B]

I, again, I, I would have to think that if Tolkien was changing his mind about this, it would have been a change of mind and he would have had to go back and changed other things. I, I can't help but think that this is him considering. Oh, should I make this at this period?

[A]

Yeah, because if he does that, he knows he's got to go back and fix things.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Because I don't, I don't think we can make it work if it was from the outset intended to be.

[A]

No, no, he's in that period. What would change in the story though, if it was taking place in, let's say 3300 rather than 2600. Right. I mean 2600 is still 250 years after the building of Pilar Gear. So, you know, it's. The faithful are established, they've got the dominions, but it's not, you know, the, we're not in the middle of the, the Sauron worship. How does this change? Because I mean, that feels more like a right period to me for the way these men are when they are.

[B]

Would they be talking about Sauron being among them?

[A]

No, no, you're right, they wouldn't.

[B]

And also it seems if we were in the thick of that last, that third stage, wouldn't the people of Middle Earth be more aware of the Numenore? It wouldn't just be this strange legend of boats coming.

[A]

No, we know exactly who they were. Right. We know these are the people that came and took Sauron away. They were so powerful.

[B]

Right, right.

[A]

They'd be really afraid.

[B]

Clearly they're aware of Sauron. If Sauron's the Dark King.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, interesting stuff.

[B]

But we end with Three little snippets that give us more questions than answers, as always. First of all, Tolkien asks himself if this is on the estuary of the Isen, question mark or Morthond, period. Yep. And as we've discussed multiple times, that sounds like he's doing what he sometimes does, which is considers a possibility, and then decides the answer.

[A]

And yet it feels like the Isen is a better fit geographically for some of the details. But the Morthon could still be made to work well.

[B]

Especially because that mentioned of the Strand.

[A]

Yes, you got the Strand. Makes you think more thon. But a lot of the stuff makes you think Fel Folk coming through Calenardhon.

[B]

Yep, yep.

[A]

Why would they come all the way down and around?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Folks, we still don't know. Four episodes in and we don't know.

[B]

We haven't worked it out. Maybe we need another four. No, I think maybe we do.

[A]

No, definitely kidding there. The other little snippet we get is that he could count and understand high numbers. We talked earlier about the direct comparison with Khan, Bari Khan and the Druedyne, as Amer doubted their knowledge. And he comes back with, you have a score of scores counted 10 times in five. Now, maybe that's not how I count 6,000, but that is 6,000. That's a score of scores. That's 2000s. That's 400. Counted 10 times in five or counted 15 times. So 400 times 15 is 6,000. It's precisely how many they rode with. He was spot on. You just might understand big numbers in a different way than we do.

[B]

Right, Exactly. So, you know, half savage doesn't mean unintelligent.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

There's also this bit about how his language was defective.

[A]

I've been told that, but yeah, you.

[B]

Know, what does that mean? Is he is talking, saying his ability to communicate was defective, or is that the language of his people was defective? I'm leaning towards him simply meaning it was the language. Well, no, that it was defective in the sense of it was inappropriate. It was ineffective in this context.

[A]

That's fair.

[B]

I wonder. This would be an interesting word to look at if there's been a shift in meaning in the last hundred years.

[A]

And also how Tolkien changes it, because this is just a note to himself. So how does this bear itself out in the actual written story? I don't know. Interesting, though. But then you finally get the question that Tolkien asks himself, does Tal Elmar understand Numenorean? But then he changes that to, does he understand Eldaren? These were Elf friends. So not only does this, once again, remind us these are the faithful Numenoreans, and we already know that for a few reasons, but it also reminds us that they would have been speaking Sindarin, not Adonaic.

[B]

Although when. Okay, I'm testing myself here. Maybe you know the answer. When did Tolkien conceive of Sindarin as opposed to Gnomish? It was during the writing of Lord of the Rings.

[A]

Yeah, but this is after the Lord of the Rings. Because this is. Well, this is after the Two Towers. It's between Two Towers and Return of the King.

[B]

Yeah, but it hadn't been published yet, so he couldn't.

[A]

No, but Fellowship in Two Towers had been. He was just working on the Appendices at this point.

[B]

Well, I guess this is the later part. Yeah, you're right.

[A]

This is the later part.

[B]

Not the earlier part.

[A]

Well, even the earlier part was. No, you're right. The earlier part was earlier. Yeah. No, the manuscript is the part that he returned to. Christopher says he returned to in early 55. So he's working on the Appendices at this point. Yeah.

[B]

Well, I'm still wondering, because the term Sindarin doesn't appear in the text.

[A]

No, it doesn't. That's true.

[B]

So my point is the fact that he uses Eldaran here. Yeah.

[A]

Which just means Elvish languages. It could mean Sindarin or it could mean Cornea.

[B]

But I think. But I think he's thinking still in those terms. I don't know that he. I don't know at this exact point in time how he conceived the Numenorean language.

[A]

Yeah. It's true. Yeah. This is another one of those cases where I'm applying future knowledge to pass.

[B]

Right, right, right, right.

[A]

It's fair. Yeah.

[B]

But the key. The key thing is this, the fact that they're all friends. Right?

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. They're definitely not speaking whatever the native language the Numenoreans is. He's not calling it Adonaic either. Remember, he calls it Numenorean.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They're speaking an Elvish language, so.

[B]

Yeah. So in a way, though, this confuses things even more than if they were speaking Adonaic, as we'll see in the next reading. He does understand some Eldaran somehow.

[A]

Yeah. Whether it's Sindarin or, you know, whatever it might be at this point. Right.

[B]

Yeah. And while that's much harder to explain, his potential understanding of Adonai would actually make a bit more sense.

[A]

Well, of course. Because, you know, the whole idea is that this, the Vulgar tongue of Adonaic origin. Now we know that didn't become the lingua franca until the end of the second age. We talked about this last season, but it was successful in doing that because it originated with the languages spoken by many of the houses of men all the way back in the first age. Right.

[B]

But yeah, as. As we've seen though he had trouble understanding what the next village spoke. So the sort of genetic relationship going back further was. Was probably impossible. So I don't know that it being Adonaic would help any anymore. Because if he had trouble with udl, he's going to have trouble with the parent language from.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

Potentially thousands of years earlier for sure.

[A]

Anyway, that's a fair point. Yeah.

[B]

Would you like to finish it up? This is the last.

[A]

Yeah, finish, but not finish. Finish the thing that isn't finished.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Finish the unfinished. How can I unfinish something that is unfinished?

[A]

He said when he heard the men speak to one another. This is strange. For you speak the language of my long dreams. Yet surely now I stand in my own land and do not sleep. Then they were astonished and said, why did you not speak so to us before? You spoke like the people of the dark who are our enemies, being servants of our enemy. And Tal Omar answered, because this tongue has only returned to my mind hearing you speak it, and because how should I have known that you would understand the language of my dreams? You are not like those who spoke in my dreams. Nay, a little like. But they were brighter and more beautiful. Then the men were still more astonished and said, it seems that you have spoken with the Eldar, whether awake or in vision. Who are the Eldar? Said Tal Omar. That name I did not hear in my dream. If you come with us, you may perhaps see them. Then suddenly fear and the memory of old tales came upon Tal Elmar and he quailed. What would you do to me? He cried. Would you lure me to the black winged boat and give me to the dark? You or your kin at least belong already to the dark, they answered. But why do you speak so of the black sails? The black sails are to us a sign of honour, for they are the fair knight before the coming of the enemy. And upon the black are set the silver stars of Elbereth. The black sails of our captain have passed further up the water. Still Tel Elmar was afraid because he was not yet able to imagine black as anything but the symbol of the night of fear. But he looked as boldly as he could and answered not all My kind, we fear the dark, but we do not love it, nor serve it. At least, so do some of us. So does my father and him I love. I would not be torn from him. Not even to see the Eldar. Alas, they said, your time of dwelling in these hills is come to an end. Here the men of the west have resolved to make their homes, and the folk of the Dark must depart or be slain. Tal Elmar offers himself as a hostage. Wow. Finish the unfinished indeed.

[B]

Yeah. So Tal Elmar understands Eldaran, right? The language Elderan. The language of my long dreams, he says. And this is a really. I mean, this is a fascinating twist. It really is, this discovery that he's.

[A]

Been dreaming in an Elvish language, in.

[B]

An Elvish and the Numenoreans, like the elves have been talking to you in your dreams, and he doesn't even know who the elves. Yeah, and so it's interesting. Is this another example of Tolkien using an almost sort of genetic understanding of language like Bard and the Thrush from the Hobbit?

[A]

Yeah, I really struggled with that one at the time. I mean, maybe, you know, with that one, I still like. How in the world did Bard understand what the thrush was speaking? And how did he communicate with the thrush? Going back to that text, it says that the thrush brought him news, marveling he found he could understand its tongue, for he was of the race of Dale, he not being the Thrush, but Bard. Right, but that means that Bard's ability to understand the thrush is connected to the fact that he's of the race of Dale. And it just seems wild to me that you could understand a language because you have a genetic. But this is where we remind ourselves this isn't the primary world. He doesn't tell us how that works. So it is hard to suspend disbelief. This is one of those moments that maybe it lacks a little bit of that inner consistency of reality for me. Like, how can that function, that you can understand a language because you have particular codes in your DNA. Well, genetic understanding of language, fascinating topic. Not much to actually look at on that. Just a question of how in the world did he get there? Next up, though, we basically get the response of, well, why didn't you say so before? Right? I mean, the Numenoreans are like, you've been talking like our enemies, the servants of Sauron. That always makes me wonder, though, like, were they maybe unwitting servants of Sauron? You know, was he the fourth king?

[B]

It's interesting ago that. I mean, this. This Makes it really clear what's going on. Whether that's Tolkien's changed his mind and now has settled on this idea that they're there because these. These people in this region are servants of Sauron.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But Tal Omar gives them two reasons why he didn't say anything earlier. One, he's only just realized that he recognizes the language as I hear you speak, which is bizarre. Like, he didn't understand him at first.

[A]

And now as he's speaking it, it starts to like, oh, that sounds familiar.

[B]

And two, how would I even have guessed you'd know my dream language? After all, you're seriously, and this is interesting, you're not like the ones in my dreams. And so he doesn't say they're Elvish.

[A]

No.

[B]

That's something the Numenoreans work out. Right.

[A]

They imply that, but that's because, of course, they're speaking an Elvish language and he understands it. Therefore he must have been communicating with the elves. Who else is going to communicate with him in Elvish anyway? That throws the Numenoreans for quite a loop, frankly. It threw us for a loop as well. I mean, this is the first time that we've heard mention of anybody speaking to him in his dreams, let alone the possibility of elves. But then that brings up the question, why? Why would the elves be coming to Tal Elmar? Envisions or dreams.

[B]

Yeah. And I think this is a whole thing that he. That Tolkien had not presumably intended to explore, but hadn't got to yet. Although it's interesting that there. It doesn't really indicate in any notes or anything like that outlines what he might have been. None thinking with that. Do we have any other examples of Elves talking to men?

[A]

Men, humans and dreams. We have the Valar speaking to both Elves and men. We have elves speaking to elves using Osanwe. Not so much dreams.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I don't think we have any examples of an elf speaking to a human in a dream. But I also wonder if. Because, again, using future knowledge to figure this stuff out. Osanwe, we're all open to it and sort of the default is to be on. You can choose to be off and not have that communication. And no amount of will, not even Sauron himself, could force that door open if you chose to close it. But the idea that your default is on suggests to me maybe the possibility of Osanwe rather than a sleeping dream.

[B]

Yeah. If he doesn't know how to.

[A]

He doesn't have the words to communicate it. Yeah.

[B]

Right. So he may just use the term Dreams. Because it's the best way he can describe what's going on.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Interesting, though. So he may have been visited by the Eldar in his visions, but he doesn't know the word Eldar. Right. Oh. Oh, you must have been visited by the elves. The who?

[B]

And they suggest to him that if he were to travel with them, he might meet them.

[A]

Oh, yeah. I think he means the Grey Havens. But it could mean Numenor if you come with me back to Numenor. Depends on when the story's taking place. Right.

[B]

I mean, I assumed not even necessarily the Greyhavens. I mean, it could have been anywhere where there are Elves settled.

[A]

Exactly. Into Lune. Of any, you know, anywhere up near Lindon. I mean, it could have been Harlendon rather than for Lindon. Right. You know, the south rather than north.

[B]

But I mean, even Mimladris.

[A]

Right, Yeah. I guess they're thinking coastal, though, right? I mean, these are mariners. So how often are they going to go deep into the.

[B]

I don't know. My assumption was they were going to head inland.

[A]

That's true. Given what he mentions at the end, as we'll get to.

[B]

That's a fair point.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I was thinking Grey Havens, but you're right, it could be.

[B]

Anyway, yeah, the ending's going to be crucial. We'll get to that.

[A]

But we know it's not likely to be Numenor. Yeah. The end. The non ending. I mean, if. Look, we do know that if the story takes place during Sauron's time in Numenor, as Tolkien said it might in that earlier question mark. Oh. Or is this during when Sauron's prisoner? And if that's the case, it would have to be here in Middle Earth. It wouldn't be a Numenor.

[B]

I think it absolutely has to be in Middle Earth anyway, because we're talking about their errand. They're here for an errand. And he's like, if you come with us, they mean on the errand.

[A]

They don't mean come back with us. They mean.

[B]

They mean if you come with us on the errand. Because they're already thinking, if we take him with us on the errand. But the idea of traveling with them brings to mind his father's stories, making him quite reasonably afraid. It's like, you want us to. Do you want me to go with you? Or, you know, Black Wing boats. And, like, he's worried he'll be given over to the Dark.

[A]

He gets onto the boat and he sees a book and it says, to serve man. And he's like, oh, yeah, I'm all good with this. They're here to serve us. Oh, no. It's a cookbook. All right. This Twilight Zone reference for the wind. This is where we're reminded how they both view the other as of the dark. It's just so sad. I mean, both of them see each other in this way. The Numenoreans tell Elmar, your kin at least already belong to the dark. How do they know this? Do they know this because they don't like the way they look or they don't like the way they copy that?

[B]

Because we're told that it's nothing to do with looks or language. It's told about allegiance.

[A]

Then why do they ask, tell Omar. Are they like you?

[B]

Well, that doesn't necessarily mean physically like. It could mean. Yeah, I don't know.

[A]

I know.

[B]

And we also get this explanation of the black sails.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Finally. These. This isn't the ship that the people get taken to be eaten. No, it's the sign of the captain's vessel.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Bearing the silver stars of Elbereth.

[A]

I love this because it's like a predecessor to the banner unfurled by Aragorn as he approaches. And I want to visit the Battle of the Pelenor Fields briefly for that upon the foremost ship a great standard broke and the wind displayed it as she turned towards the Harland. There flowered a white tree and that was for Gondor. But seven stars were about it and a high crown above it. The signs of Elendil that no lord had borne for years beyond count. And the stars flamed in the sunlight for they were wrought of gems by Arwen, daughter of Elrond. And the crown was bright in the morning for it was wrought of mithril and gold.

[B]

So there's obviously not going to be a white tree for Gondor here, no high crown for Elendor.

[A]

No, neither exists yet.

[B]

But these faithful had sails that were the visual and symbolic predecessor to Aragorn's banner more than three and a half thousand years later.

[A]

That's amazing. I love this, by the way, because I know you asked this. I think when we were preparing for the episode this is the first time that I could find the only time where those stars are specifically linked to Elbereth. None of the descriptions of that livery in Lord of the Rings mention Varda. They all mention Elendil, of course, but not Varda.

[B]

And I think we're explicitly told in maybe the Palantir Chapter in Unfinished Tales, that the reason there are seven is because of the seven Palantir.

[A]

The seven palantiri, I think, thought.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. But obviously there are shades of that. Or shades is probably the wrong word given. We're talking about stars. There. There's that symbolic link with these. These stars of Elbereth on this sail. Yeah. And though he's still afraid, he still can't imagine the black sail as anything but bad.

[A]

No.

[B]

Tal Oma taps into his bravery and speaks for his people. We might be afraid of the dark, but we don't serve it. We don't follow it.

[A]

We don't love it. That's right. I mean, maybe some do. Mogru. You could take Mogru, but. But not me. Not my father. And in fact, speaking of my father, I would not be willing to be separated from him, even to see the people who have spoken to me in my dreams. Or just reminder, folks, he loves his father and is absolutely loyal and is seeking his. His best outcome. Right. He's doing everything he can. He's got his dad's best interest at heart. Yeah.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And then we get the gut punch of the Numenoreans just completely ignoring his pleas. Like, we don't worship the dark. We don't love the dark. Too bad. So sad. Get lost.

[B]

Too bad. Yeah. You don't get to live here anymore.

[A]

Awful.

[B]

Yeah, it's awful. We're gonna leave here. We can either leave or be killed. And remember, this is the faithful.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. The king's men wouldn't have talked to him for this long. They would have just killed him.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

This is really sad. There's no, you know. Well, we're gonna. We're gonna be here too. Right. We're gonna live in this area as well. And we'll have to figure out how to communicate. This is leave or die. Those are your choices.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And you think about how that makes enemies. I mean, I come back to the Men of Dunland, you know, those are basically the choices given to them when they were in Enedwai.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Leave or die. Because we're getting rid of your forests, which are going to get rid of your ecosystems where you hunt your game and hunt for food and all of that. And then also they. Then they make. Fine, we leave and they go down to Calinarthan. And then, hey, we're going to.

[B]

This.

[A]

This land is empty. We're going to give it to Rohan or to. Well, Rohan didn't exist. We're going to give it to. To. To a oral and a Excuse me. It's not empty. We're here. So this is rough. This is really rough.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the final bit of the story, before we get, like, Tolkien's own sort of commentary here, is that Tal Omar offers himself as a hostage. I have to assume this is to save his father. Like, you're going to kill us all. But what if I go? What if you take me hostage? Can you let my dad live? Like, don't wipe out the town yet. Let my dad live? Because he certainly wouldn't care about Mogru or even his brothers, frankly. But what would that look like if he's going to be. Is it like, okay, I'll be your hostage until my dad dies of natural causes, then you can burn the town down?

[B]

Well, I wonder if this ties in, and this will become relevant to the last bit that we look at, but I wonder if it ties back to the. What they say about. If he. If he goes with us on our errand.

[A]

Yeah. You know, this might be how he gets willingly taken on that errand.

[B]

Yeah. Like, it's almost like, I'll go with. If you bypass the town. Yeah, I'll go on the errand with you kind of thing.

[A]

Yeah, maybe.

[B]

Let's see. Because I think this next part's relevant here. Christopher adds, beneath the last of the story that his father had scribbled some things at the bottom of the page. And this is fascinating. He wrote Tal Elmar's name twice. His own name twice.

[A]

That's so weird. JRR Tolkien. And again, JRR Tolkien.

[B]

Was he just. Check. Testing.

[A]

Practicing his signature?

[B]

Checking. Practicing his signature, maybe.

[A]

It's so weird. Yeah.

[B]

But I mean, that's just bizarre. But I think more tantalizing is he writes a few other lines. Tal Elmar in Hrovanion, along with other places. Wilderland, Anduin, the great river, Sea of Hrun, and Ettenmoors.

[A]

Interesting. Certainly Ettenmoors suggests what you said, that they would end up making their way to Rivendell. Yeah, but the other locations, I mean, Wilderland's huge, so Wilderland is.

[B]

Well, also, it's funny that he says both Ruffanian and Wilder, because Rhovanion literally means Wilderland. Literally means Wilderland.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

But it's interesting, you mentions the Anduin and the Sea of Hrun, both on.

[A]

The other side of the Misty Mountains and the Sea of Rhun in particular.

[B]

It's a long way away.

[A]

Very far. Way away. Yeah, very far.

[B]

So this seems to suggest that Tolkien's plan was that Tarlemar would end up Accompanying the men? Because he's not. It just says Tar Elmar in these various places. The only reason he would go there is presumably.

[A]

Yeah, he's not going to go there on his own. He does venture far from town, but not that far.

[B]

Not that far, exactly. Moguru sends him to the Sea of.

[A]

Ruin, benighted for the next 10 years.

[B]

It's almost certain that he's accompanying the men of Numenor to various places in Middle Earth. But.

[A]

Yeah. Why? Why the human wanting to do that? Right. Why would they want. I mean, from his perspective, he's like, hey, if it'll keep my dad alive, I'll go. Right. I don't want to be parted, but if that's what it takes to save his life, I'll go. But what advantage does he give the Numenoreans?

[B]

Well, I think it comes back to them thinking that he's got a linguistic.

[A]

Some sort of role to play, which.

[B]

Is ironic, given that he couldn't even understand. Exactly.

[A]

But at this point, it might also be he's been visited by the Eldar in his visions. He's an important guy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Like that alone would mean there's something significant, some role that he must play. But then I guess the answer I was about to ask for a guy who said he wouldn't be torn away from his dad even to see the Eldar. He's pretty quick to offer himself to go wherever you want to go, but I think that's just in response to the threat. It's to save his life. Yeah.

[B]

Because he's made it clear before that he would do anything to keep his father alive.

[A]

Anything. Absolutely. All right, I'm going to give you 60 seconds, maybe a little longer. Tell me where you think the story would have gone. We'll speculate a lot longer in the P5, but since this episode's already running really long, let's keep the speculation here short, give you the 62nd version of where the story goes.

[B]

So I think the intention was that the bulk of the story would be these adventures that Tal Elmar goes on with the men of Numenor and various things that they encounter.

[A]

The adventures of Tal Elmar.

[B]

The adventures of Tal Elma. Yes. He's going on an adventure, but I think there will be this mystery, more of which gets revealed about why he's getting these messages from the Eldar. Who? The Fel Folk of the East.

[A]

Yeah. Do we end up learning who the Fell folk?

[B]

Maybe there's a twist about who Elmar was.

[A]

Maybe.

[B]

Yeah. I'll Leave it at that.

[A]

That's interesting. Yeah, I do think. I guess I'm just trying to figure out, like, where would Tolkien have fit this into his mythology? Where in the legendarium does he slot this? What is the purpose to this story? He's telling us something about the men of Middle Earth at the time of the Numenoreans. But why? What's important about Tel Omar's story that he writes it? And how would he complete it? It could just be that the reason he didn't complete it is because he realized it's not important.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Right. What did you do, Christopher? You published that, son. Why did you do that? I didn't mean for that. That was awful. No, it's not awful. It's a really good story. Just, we don't. We don't know what he meant to do with it. You almost wonder whether by the end of their adventures, you know, he's become essentially a Numenorean and, like, descended from him. Like, somehow he ends up in a bloodline. That's important down the line, you know, that's what I would see as something that could work.

[B]

Yeah. Coming back to who Elmar turns out to be. There's also potentially some interesting conflict in terms of when he comes. Maybe he comes back to Agar and has to make a decision.

[A]

Yeah. Fortunately, hopefully by then his father's dad. But, you know.

[B]

Well, maybe not. Maybe he comes back and something's happened.

[A]

To his dad and he has to kill Mogr with his bare hands. Like he said he'd be happy about that.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

Oh, man. All right.

[B]

That'd be flint in his eye, then.

[A]

Oh, there sure would be. But why do you speak so of the mailbag? The mailbag is to us a sign of honor, for it is the fair bag before the coming of the letters. James, what does Barlowin have on his back for us today?

[B]

So Leonard from Texas asks, what is your favorite trivia or fun fact from the books that aren't in the films? So I presume he's wanting to know, like, Lord of the Rings, some fun thing that if you've only seen the movies, you wouldn't know. But when you read the book, you're like, oh, wow, I didn't realize.

[A]

Ooh, did Faramir and Eowyn get married? No. Yeah, a lot of it has to do with the changes like that. That isn't how Saruman really died. I think the whole scouring of the Shire. That's it. There's my answer.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

The existence, the entire existence of the Scouring of the Shire.

[B]

Because, you know, in the movie you would lead to the impression that the people in the Shire had no idea that anything had happened.

[A]

Pretty much. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. That scene where they're looking at them riding in and they're just kind of looking unimpressed. Yeah, yeah. And the truth completely changed that.

[A]

I want a whole fourth movie of the Scouring.

[B]

But yeah, yeah, I, I would too. I think it's terrible that that got dropped. But anyway, let's not go there. Mine's literally much more trivial, so it would be good for a trivia question. This is something that only occurred to me recently. Well, not occurred to me, was pointed out to me by Tyler, a guy that's working with me on timelines at the Digital Tolkien project. Pippin was 11 at Bilbo's birthday party. At the time of Bilbo's birthday party.

[A]

Right. Because it was 17 years before they.

[B]

All left because of the time compression.

[A]

I love it. Pippen was 11.

[B]

Yeah, Pippen would have been 11.

[A]

He wouldn't have even been in the big tent where the 144 were probably.

[B]

Yeah, he would have been one of the kids listening to the stories of.

[A]

How pulling crackers and. Yeah, I love it. That's great. He was 11. Fantastic, folks. Thank you. This is a long one. Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Prancing Pony Podcast. Please join us again next week when we go back to Unfinished Tales and begin our six episode look the history of Galadriel and Celeborn.

[B]

I'm really looking forward to that one.

[A]

Oh, I know that's why you're here for this.

[B]

It is. Although I love Telomatic Alan and I want to thank the members of Team PPP Editor Jordan Reynnels Barleyman, Becca Davis, Social media manager Casey Hilsey event and Patreon community coordinator Katie McKenna, graphic artist Megan Collins, video editor Yonatan Lazens, and website guru Phil Dean.

[A]

Please take a minute to check out the prancingponypodcast.com that's where you'll find show notes, outtakes, Prancing Pony ponderings, and our fully revamped PPP merch store. That storefront's where you can get all sorts of cool, cool PPP merch, including the amazing chapter art that Megan's been doing for us for more than three seasons.

[B]

We're all about the books here at the Prancing Pony Podcast, so be sure to also visit our library page. We try to make sure that any book we've mentioned on the show is linked there for you to purchase. We do get a small amount of compensation when you make your purchase, so thank you for that indeed.

[A]

And we also want to thank our patrons at the KIR Dance contribution tier. I'll start with Demay in Alaska, Chad and Texas. Texas Lance in New Jersey, Joseph in Michigan, Kathy from North Carolina, Brian in the uk, Jerry from Washington, Irwin from the Netherlands, Ben in Minnesota, Anthony in Texas, Zaksu in Illinois, Joshua in Massachusetts, Lucy in Texas, Erica in Texas, Vivian in California, James in Massachusetts and Ann in Kentucky.

[B]

There's also Sean in New Jersey, Mason in California, Maureen in Massachusetts, Olivia in London, Robin in Arizona, Nick in Wisconsin, Lewis in South Carolina, Thomas in Germany, Craig in California, Kevin in Massachusetts, Joe in Maryland, D Scott in California, Jeffrey in Michigan, Paul in Colorado, David from Connecticut, and Teresa from Texas. Thank you all so very much for your support indeed.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Now make sure you don't miss any episodes of the Prancing Pony Podcast. Subscribe now through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.

[A]

And one last thing. As always, don't forget to send your thoughts, comments and, well, most of all, your moving boxes and packing tape for the folk of Agar to barliman@the prancingponypodcast.com.

[B]

Now, Barleyman does have a lot of mail to sort through, so we'll try to get to you as soon as we're able.

[A]

As always, though, this has been far too short a time to spend among such excellent and admirable listeners.

[B]

But until next time, may you rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.

[A]

Ever since I started serving cut water canned cocktails to my guests.

[B]

Hey. Hi. How are you?

[A]

Yeah, going through. I've gone from host to hero. Thanks to Cutwater, I can make real, perfectly mixed cocktails in seconds. It's as simple as garnishing a glass, cracking my can of cut water open and pouring it over ice. Cut water Real cocktails perfectly mixed. Copyright 2025 Cutwater Spirits, San Diego, CA Enjoy responsibly.