Monkey House Music: Recent Episodes
Talkin Tolkien
Was it any wonder that Gandalf didn't want to walk through the Mines of Moria? Kind of makes you wonder why Gimli was so anxious to see it. We discuss this, plus Bormoir's man-tantrums and Sam's genre awareness.
We finally have a Fellowship of the Ring! The Nine walkers journey South, and the most perplexing question they have to deal with is: why does Boromir feel the need to blow his horn before a secret mission?
We finally finish up The Council of Elrond and SPOILERS they're going to have to take the Ring to Mordor. We also finally get to hear about where the heck Gandalf was...and it involves a certain coat of many colors.
In Part II, we managed to read an additional nine pages of Council of Elrond. That's TWO more pages than we read in Part I!!!
It only took us four months, but we've made it to book two! Frodo wakes up and runs not only into his reliable wizard friend, but an old hobbit friend. That, plus we discuss how entertaining "Errantry" would have been as a rap.
Book I ends on a cliffhanger as Frodo hops on an Elvish horse and flies past a host of Black Riders. Does he make it? We talk about that and some other things, including the quick pacing in this chapter, the effect of the Black Rider's knife, and Sam's fun/dark troll song.
In part two of our discussion on Beren and Luthien, we wrap up the story and conclude with our thoughts on why Beren didn't just take Morgoth's crown, on Huan's convenient ability to speak when the plot required it, and about the depth that this tale adds to Tolkien's legendarium.
We take a one-week break from "The Lord of the Rings" to discuss the Tale of Beren and Luthien, a legend from "The Silmarillion." Our talk ranges from how Sauron replaced the Prince of Cats to the difficulty of remembering all the names of the different elven kings (their names all start with 'F').
So in Part I, we talked about about "A Knife in the Dark"...without actually getting to the knife in the dark. We cover the attack on Weathertop, Tolkien interjecting his mythology into the story, the Ring's power over Frodo, and YOUR QUESTIONS!
There is so much to talk about in this chapter, we couldn't squeeze it into one episode! In Part I, we make it right up to the slopes of Rivendell, discussing the two Black Rider attacks in Bree and Crickhollow, the reaction from the Bree folk, and Strider's difficult task getting Frodo to Rivendell.
We switch to Arabic numerals as we discuss Strider's former life as Trotter, his odd way of earning the hobbits' trust, and what we think has happened to Gandalf.
After a three-chapter side quest, we finally return to the main campaign. The hobbits are in a strange town, they give out a strange cover story, and there is a strange dude manspreading in the corner of the bar. What are poor Shire folk to do? Probably not dance on a table sing about a Cow Jumping Over the Moon.
Are barrow-wights just Black Riders without horses? What is a barrow? Why does Tom Bombadil order the hobbits to run around naked on the Barrow-downs? We answer these questions and more on this week's episode.
Who is Tom Bombadil? And what is Tom Bombadil? He is, as we have seen, an intentional enigma. We speculate on what Tom Bombadil is as we recount the hobbits' two nights chilling with him in the Old Forest.
David's brother Chris Wells joins us for a rousing discussion on maps, story pacing, and Tom Bombadil's creepy appearance. Also, we set Tom's music to...music.
In this two-for-one episode, we chastise Tolkien for fat-shaming Fredregar, ponder what we believe to be a trio of frightening corgis, and discuss why these two chapters could have been one.
The hobbits finally leave the Shire! We'll cover all the exciting adventures and tantalizing questions: why won't Frodo just get up and leave already? Why does Gandalf never show up when you need him? And isn't Sam's love of Elves just adorable?
We continue our discussion of "The Shadow of the Past" by diving deep into the exposition, focusing on the origins of magic rings, Cain and Abel tales, and what we were shocked that Tolkien name dropped in the first chapter.
Nearly 70 pages in, and we still haven't left Hobbiton. Why's that? We talk about the practicality of a large, expository chapter in the middle of your narrative, and why Tolkien turned this prologue into Chapter 2.