But Are There Dragons Podcast
Two fantasy lovers quite ready for another adventure…and by adventure, we mean podcast! Join us as we–a LOTR vet and LOTR first-timer–take on the works of Tolkien! Welcome to But Are There Dragons, a podcast where two friends pick a book at least one of them has not read and work their way through it a few chapters at a time.
But Are There Dragons Podcast
Bonus Episode: The Return of the King Wrap Party!
Join Kritter and Jessica one more time to have The Wrap Party of Wrap Parties! We talk Return of the King of course and the whole she-bang. There are feels, MVPs, and some pretty epic Hobbit love!
Don’t forget to follow us at But Are There Dragons on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, and But Dragons Pod, just one t, on X, formerly known as Twitter.
You can find Kritter at Kritter XD on YouTube, TikTok, and X, and at Kritter _XD on Instagram.
You can find Jessica by searching Shelf Indulgence on TikTok, Instagram, and X.
Music credit to: Frog's Theme by Nobuo Uematsu, Noriko Matsueda, Yasunori Mitsuda
ReMix: Chrono Trigger "Theme of Frog's" - OC ReMix
cast where two friends pick a book at least one of them has not read and work their way through it a few chapters at a time. I'm your host, critter, and I'm your host, jess, and we finished the trilogy. We did it. Yeah, we finished the trilogy and the hobbit. We started with the hobbit. We finished the trilogy. Um, hi, everybody in the chat, what's up? Good to see you. It happened, we're really done, it's a real thing.
Speaker 1:It's a real thing, it's a real thing. So most recently, obviously, we finished the Return of the King. Jessica, my esteemed co-host, had never read Tolkien, so I think we start with how does it feel to no longer be a Tolkien first timer?
Speaker 2:I feel like it was totally worth it. I'm very excited to have kind of checked that off the bucket list I had made it into like a big, scary monster, Because at a certain point you're just like, why are you a fantasy fraud, right? Like why would you have not read it before now? So I feel like I earned my stripes. I'm very excited about it and it was an incredible story. I was just telling Mr Jessica that this is a story that for a story, I thought I knew so well, I learned so much.
Speaker 1:That's a great way to put it Honestly same, because it had been so long since I had read them. I was so entrenched in the movies, which are still my favorite movies of all time I will fight verbally anyone who disagrees that they are incredible. But having read the books again for the first time and what I've calculated is probably about 20 years I had forgotten how rich and deep and so much, yeah, just like more in depth they are than the movies. It's, it's just, it was.
Speaker 1:it was really satisfying to read them all again, finally, after all this time it was so good and it was nice to have you along, because there were some things that you just didn't know happened, most recently the scourging of the shire, right, so let's jump to the very, very end. That was, would you say that was the biggest deviation, or obviously I'm putting you on the spot here, but what would you say were some of the biggest deviations for you that you just weren't expecting, having only watched the movies?
Speaker 2:no, I feel like that's the biggest one you know. So I knew that tom bombadil existed, um, I don't feel like he was hugely pivotal to the story. Um, I didn't know about the mouth of sauron, which apparently I should have from the extended editions and the forest folk right. So the, the Mumakil, or the, the men who said they had been hunted, and I'm sorry to chat for not remembering the name of the men who you know, aragorn, honored the promise to leave them in peace following the war.
Speaker 2:So those are the big things that were different, I feel like. So I do feel like the Scourge of the Shire is the biggest thing, that is different, and you didn't know that at all. I had no idea, no idea and no idea leading up to it because, as I've tattled on myself many times that I don't look ahead at even chapter titles- so, when I opened that chapter and saw that title, I went wait, what's this? What?
Speaker 1:what are we talking about here?
Speaker 2:So, um, yeah, and I love that. I love that there were surprises. I obviously talked up a lot all of the little things that were surprises to me but were value adds along the way, and the big things were cool too, yeah, okay, how about you? I'd love to know if you had to name one or two or a couple of your favorite moments. Going back to this as an adult, you know for this read Things you found that maybe you missed when you were a kid, or just maybe you didn't notice them or they hit different. Okay.
Speaker 1:It's my turn to put critter in the house. I know, I think I think as a kid, when I was reading them, I was in it for I don't say the plot, but I was in it for what happens next, what's gonna happen? Because I hadn't seen the movies and so I was just engrossed in. How is this ring gonna make it to mortar? How are Mordor? How are they going to do this? How are they going to overcome these armies that are giant and have been waiting in Mordor to come out and kill them all? I was just inhaling it because I wanted to see what happened next. Right, and so probably my favorite thing about reading them again as an adult, other than really fully appreciating the prose, um, I think, was understanding and feeling what the characters were feeling. More so, if I thought I loved samwise gamgee the first time around, I had no idea how, just how amazing if I I I think I said I didn't even fully remember like what I thought about faramir the first time around, and this time immediate faramir stan like, oh my god, one of the best characters in the books, like there were so many examples of that where it was just this. My heart exploded for some of these characters, whereas a kid I I don't know that I would have noticed how beautiful the friendship between frodo and sam really was right, because I was so focused on oh my gosh, is frodo gonna get out of the tower? Is what? Is frodo gonna die, whatever? Um, this time I could really soak it in because I kind of knew it was gonna happen already and I could just appreciate it. So awesome, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we got, uh, aldora in the chat. I also had no idea about the scourge. I've been highly suspicious of what saruman was up to, since he didn't die when I was expecting him to. I did guess shire at one point. Okay, okay, I was gonna say, jess, I remember whenever they decided not to kill sarah mond or whatever, and they just kind of left him in the tower, um, you were like a little sus on it. But you know, I think I asked you like what do you think he could do, or something, and it was very much like I don't know.
Speaker 2:So who knows what he could get up to now we didn't like tip you off that he had more to come no, no, but as we talked about like, there were very clear clues in the chapter leading up to it, that just went whoosh like a 747 right over the old head. So no, I don't think you ruined anything okay, that's good.
Speaker 1:I felt I was like, whatever it's, it's always one of those like, if I have. So I have several friends who are currently reading the Wheel of Time Right, because I am a proselytizer, if anyone is when it comes to fantasy books, wheel of Time especially and every time they come up to me and ask me something, I'm always like, you know, I can't really tell them and I just try and school my face to be like, wouldn't that be weird? I don't know, you know, like if they come with the theory, um, so I really am nervous always that I'm gonna give something away, but I'm glad that I didn't exactly. No, you were great, that's good. Yeah, and I think, honestly, doing the podcast in this format helped. Kind of aldora kind of suggested that like it helped slow me down and not inhale it as much, because, yeah, that's just my tendency is to to just you know, so that and also talking it through right.
Speaker 2:So I I am also somebody who inhales content. Yeah, it's nothing for me to sit there and try to, or back in the day. I don't think today I really have that kind of time, but I remember reading like an 800 page book in a day, like I just did it. I don't think I would do that anymore, but I still. I do like to read voraciously and once I get into a book I'll just keep going until it's all gone. And so having to wait, having to talk it through, think about what I think, to answer your questions but also bounce off of you. You know we are similar in a lot of ways, but it was always fun when we weren't you know the things that we weren't on the same page, or you read it one way and I read it another.
Speaker 2:It was kind of fun when those moments happened. And none of that would have occurred if we didn't take the break. Yeah, moments happen and none of that would have occurred if we didn't take the break. Yeah, so doing a buddy read. I tried to do it once before. It failed after the first week. Um, so this was, this was a great way to um savor it yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:Um, it's been lovely. And it's been extra lovely because we've had, like, people in the discord talking to us, people coming into youtube, leaving comments and stuff. So that has been great to have not just you, but you would have been enough, definitely you would have been enough, or whatever the lord of the rings version of that is. But at the same time, having other people to talk to about it has been great. And so, basically, I have planned this.
Speaker 1:I've ordered a few Butter, their Dragon stickers, so I'm going to try to do an actual chat giveaway, but because I have two YouTubes connected to my Streamlabs, it might not be automatic. Either way, it'll be fine because I'm going to do that. I have two YouTubes connected to my stream labs. It might not be automatic, either way, it'll be fine Cause I'm going to do that. So I this is my like just to warn you all that that's going to happen and I'm probably going to initiate the first one I'll probably give away two stickers and I'll initiate the first one in like five minutes, just because I know that some people are up very late to watch this just in case they want to go to sleep.
Speaker 2:And we feel the love you guys, we do Thank you.
Speaker 2:You know, even if you couldn't be with us, live during different things, those who are coming in and dropping comments in YouTube or on social or in the Discord, like I don't know if you know, but it really jazzed us every week. I know that Critter and I have talked about it a couple times how it's insane to do it like this and that you guys really kept the energy alive for us. So waiting to see what you guys thought when a new episode dropped. Just, you know, hearts. You guys Like it really meant a lot.
Speaker 1:The kids do it.
Speaker 2:I don't know how the kids do it. I'm legitimately too old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some of them do this, others do. I think it's this, which I think is a little better. Whatever, I'm a millennial. So, yeah, thank you all for sticking with us. Um, okay, so yeah, return of the king. This is like. This is a return of the king recap, but it's also because we're done, done the series recap.
Speaker 2:Yeah, recap.
Speaker 1:So I know, and this, it gets harder and harder because we're further and further removed from the other books, right? But and I didn't tell you, I was gonna ask you this in advance, I hope you thought about it a little bit do you have an order of fate, like, how would you rank them, books wise, including the hobbit, from favorite to least favorite? And and why don't we do like we'll both say our least favorite and then kind of go down? And let me just say that in my goodreads I have been trying to use my goodreads more often in my goodreads they are all five stars, so it's not like I'm giving five stars, then four stars, then three stars. No, I love them all, but I'm gonna do my level best to rate them so I think, for the purposes of least favorite, it's so.
Speaker 2:I feel like it's so common, like it's such a basic answer, but it probably is Two Towers. But to your point, it was still an excellent read. I think my ranking would be Two Towers at the bottom. Two Towers is my bottom.
Speaker 1:I think I agree with you. I think Two Towers is also my bottom, which is interesting because it's also my least favorite of the movies, even though, again it's incredible and I love them all.
Speaker 2:It's got some really great stuff that happens in there. It's got some great quotes that are in there. There is a lot of really good stuff in Two Towers. I think I might have mentioned this at one point, maybe when we did the Two Towers wrap that I was worried that Two Towers would suffer from the middle child syndrome that I think a lot of middle books have, and so it kind of hurts a little to read it at the bottom.
Speaker 2:I know, I know Because I think that it does so much better than I thought it would after having read it, especially knowing going into it that you know Tolkien intended this to just be one giant volume. Yeah, so that was bottom the next honestly. Yeah, so that was uh, bottom the the next honestly. Next would next would be return I'm right there with you.
Speaker 1:Look at us. Why are we the same okay?
Speaker 2:I don't know, that's wild I think, we've been spending too much time, I think you're.
Speaker 1:You're right, we're fully synced up. I'll jump in here. Return of the King. To me, that one is actually my favorite movie, even though I will say that Fellowship is the perfect movie. But the Return of the King movie makes me cry a lot and I love how it makes me feel, basically, and so that's what brings it over the top. Um, but as far as books go, while it did make me cry, I just it just, and it's so good still, but I just think Fellowship and Hobbit are more entertaining. That makes sense. Um, I don't know what about you? What do? What do you think?
Speaker 2:I mean same right. So fellowship, fellowship and Hobbit are kind of neck and neck and I think the only thing that edges out you know, fellowship over fellowship and Hobbit, both over return of the King, is the the beginning of the journey kind of vibe. Yeah, it's a good vibe, it is. And so there's so much in Fellowship. That was just such excitement, because at the beginning and I'm a completionist so there's a lot about Return of the King that I love because, as we talked about, I think that Tolkien does a good job closing the story and tying up those loose ends. So it's a really hard choice, but I think that that's ultimately why Fellowship and Hobbit edge above it. Okay, yeah, I'm with you. So now I'm curious. I think we may differ here just based on past ratings, but what's your number two?
Speaker 1:No, why don't you say your?
Speaker 1:number two, just like now, I feel like I'm gonna be talking about the hobbit because, like, why does it beat it? But like, fellowship surpasses the other two because, as you said, it's just the, the promise of a journey to come right. There's so much world building that happens at the beginning which is just kind of perfectly executed, so it doesn't feel like it's too heavy. Um, it's light-hearted in some ways because it's the Hobbit heavy at the beginning and I love the Hobbits, I just love the Hobbits. It's got the like, I don't know, it's just got so much fun stuff. After Bilbo leaves and Frodo's dealing with all of his like bequeathments and stuff.
Speaker 1:Tom Bombadil's hilarious the Council of Elrond is just a huge lore drop. That was, you know, great. And then they get sent off in the fellowship and then you have boromir and all of his issues and I don't. It's just it's a great story in itself and then it sets off this amazing journey and it's just so satisfying. So I'm holding off on talking about the Hobbit, cause that one's my favorite, but you go ahead. What's your number two?
Speaker 2:So my number two is the Hobbit. Okay, I knew, I think.
Speaker 1:I remember that we were different in that way.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, okay and so it did hold up and I, honestly, I wasn't a hundred percent sure until I just heard you talk again Okay, because it's a self-contained story, and so I I don't know how to I this is hard talking about it without talking about why the other one is number one.
Speaker 2:I didn't know I was setting myself up for disaster here. While they're both excellent reads, while they're both excellent reads, um, I feel like tolkien's craft had advanced okay, and so the hobbit was, you know, a sound like a drawing board that he came back to and he improved. And I also can't compare, knowing now that there are different versions right, there's different versions of the story out there um, I think that fellowship beats out the hobbit, because the hobbit is where he learned so much okay, that's fair, all right.
Speaker 1:So I think the hobbit beats out the fellowship and again, slim margins all around. The hobbit beats out the fellowship for me because it is a contained story and I think it is a banger from start to finish. It is such an easy read. It's something I could recommend to my friend's 10 year old daughter, which I literally did. I loaned her my copy and my you know bestie lawyer friend from work right, I get anybody like I.
Speaker 1:I would recommend it to anybody because not only is it beautifully written, it's super fun, it's funny, there are some serious themes in there as well and it's just really. It's just so much fun to read. I don't know I it's. It's kind of in the way that I feel about the fellowship of the ring movie, where I just feel like it's perfectly like, balanced, as all things should be. I think the hobbit is that way for me because it's just there. There are no missed chapters, every like it, just it, just it had. The pacing is perfect, the characters are fun I don't know that's and I turns out bilbo and I are like this. I loved Bilbo in that book, so yeah, that's where I landed like I feel as though we're splitting hairs here a little bit.
Speaker 2:I think that Fellowship sold me amazingly on the world building. So again, the world building with a really big dose of strong character origins. So I don't think that I could, I don't think that this whole experience would have been the same without a very strong reaction to the fellowship read. So it really kind of it set the anchor, it set the post for this is, you know, be all in, and I absolutely am. So that's why fellowship gets my top spot.
Speaker 1:It hooked you.
Speaker 2:It did.
Speaker 1:From the beginning. I can see it. I can totally see it. Okay. So I'm going to try to initiate this giveaway and if it doesn't work automatically, I'm just going to ask you all to type something in the chat and then I'll write it down and do a drawing, because we're gonna make this work. And if you want to know what it looks like, the stickers that I have look like our little logo. So if you want a but are there dragons sticker that looks like that, I'm gonna everybody cross your fingers that this works. I clicked okay, come on. It says giveaway started. You can do this. Oh man, I thought it was going to work.
Speaker 1:See, I was worried that it would be hooked up to my other YouTube channel because, you know me, I can only have many YouTube channels. What's up? Random Noman think it's going to show up on there. So what I'm going to do is ask anybody who wants to be entered to win a sticker, and we're going to do two, and this is just going to be the first one. The next one will be later on in the stream. Um, type your favorite book. Which one was your favorite book of the four that we did hobbit, fellowship, fellowship, two Towers Return and if you've already done it, I'll count it, because I know Aldora already did it. I will write your username down and then you have to be willing to be available on Discord or reach out to me in DM somewhere else and give me your address and I will send you a sticker if you win. So I'll do a random number generator to pick. So we've got Aldora already, we've got Dana, lou and holler, if I miss anybody.
Speaker 2:But I will.
Speaker 1:Okay. So Narita says my eternal cop out, it's one book, all four of them. Okay, fellowship, there we go. Narita decided the sticker was worth it. Uh, not all who wander, says fellowship yeah, it's hard to pick. It is hard to I mean fellowship is so, so strong um but you know my feelings aren't hurt at all that you're all siding with Jessica. I'm not allowed. Oh, since you're missing, you're not allowed, okay.
Speaker 2:I never said that.
Speaker 1:It's a random number generator and there's multiple stickers to give away, so whoever wins the first one, don't enter to win the next one, obviously.
Speaker 2:Okay, and normally I would be in chat hyping you all up, but do give us, you know, a like and a follow if you're interested. I know we are going to be on a little bit of a hiatus while Critter, you know, changes her entire life, but we will be back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just if Jessica decides and it's going to be wholly up to her to do other books that aren't Tolkien related while I'm away, I want you all to know that there will be no hard feelings on my end. We already talked about it that I'm totally cool with that.
Speaker 2:If folks have suggestions on things they might be interested to see us do, whether it's me while Critter's on hiatus, or both of us when she returns, we're always open to feedback too. It can be a little difficult for us to find property that one of us hasn't read and the other one has.
Speaker 1:It would be but I don't know, we'll see, and not all who wonder. I know, lord of the Rings is one book, but the Hobbit is a part of our mix, right? So that's what. That's why we have to split it all up, um, so, all right, okay, well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna wait like two more minutes at my time. 8, 26, we'll call it. We currently have aldora, dana, lou, nerita not all who wander and random gnome and entered in the in the giveaway.
Speaker 2:That's everybody I saw in the chat perfect, okay.
Speaker 1:So I don't know what else do you want to talk about? I know we have our mvps, we have our um, we have our uh sign offs, but I feel like the sign offs we do last, obviously, yeah, um I don't know if anybody who's in the chat wants to take a guess at who they think our top mvp is for return of the king.
Speaker 2:If anybody wants to drop their guess in chat, they're welcome to okay okay, we do have, uh, we do actually, you know what I have.
Speaker 1:This is perfect. Jessica put something together and I think now is a perfect time to play it, because because then we can have the end of that be the end of the giveaway entries. So Jessica went and pulled some of the clips that we've been posting on, like TikTok and whatnot, from streams past, and they're all in this cute little compilation video that we have now.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to the production value is really low, you guys. So manage your expectations, but I did my best with my limited skills.
Speaker 1:I think it's great and it's a podcast, so you know what? What matters is the audio more than anything else, and I think it's lovely, okay, so I'm going to, uh, let's see, let's see, let's see. All right, that should work. Wait, can I full full screen it? I thought I did that before, but no, okay, that's fine. That's fine, that's fine. Sorry, guys, all right, I just want to make sure it's good for you.
Speaker 2:Um show on stream there it is yes, there it is, and then I'm gonna play it the black writer in the book has a much more advanced vocabulary than how they are portrayed in the movie sniffing, screaming, screaming, sniffing, screaming. Shire and Baggins over and over again. Oh right, yeah, I love that you've cut those in, because that's exactly what I was thinking of. They knocked on the door and said open in the name of.
Speaker 1:Mordor and I was like, ah, who's going to open that? Only dark friends.
Speaker 2:Mordor PD open up.
Speaker 1:I don't know Mary, who we haven't met yet in the book but we keep hearing little snippets of in the prologue, is both the expert on pipe weed and also quite sure and proud that hobbits were the first folk to decide to smoke it. Other people were familiar, but they were the ones that were like we're gonna light this on fire and inhale it. Right, the movies are just pure. Farmer maggot slander right, because he, like in this chapter, kind of saved the day. So, don, is there anything Gandalf can't do? Fly.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, fair, I was gonna say answer a direct question.
Speaker 1:Oh, legolas nerding out about the trees rolling right into gimli, talking about how incredible the caverns of helms deep are, and them making a pact to vacation together to visit their favorite places when peacetime and then they did it and it made me so happy and jetson so the first time I ever heard those words uh, this is not in my outline, but I just thought of it was I believe that was ursula's um to be fair, it taught me a lot of new words too little burbade. Yeah, totally Burbade. Yep, totally. I thought they were just names. I didn't know they meant anything.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, and so then I, oh, and that the tower is 50 fathoms tall.
Speaker 1:Math, fantasy, math.
Speaker 2:Sorry, 300 feet there we go, that makes more sense 300 feet, so that's like 30 stories. That's really really effing. Tall, tall, that's a football field, right? Yes, that's 100 yards, okay, okay it's like yeah, yeah, yeah pretty tall. Believe it or not, I had to wait for my brain to go from vertical to horizontal, to be like yes, that tracks yes, I believe that's true I am somebody who has to jump in the map like joey and friends.
Speaker 1:I am that person but I'm uh, I'm a lawful good.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think my alignment is like no, that still bothers me and also the fact that I love it I love it in your pocket.
Speaker 1:After the fact, very low. Like I, I was really annoyed by that.
Speaker 2:Did that bother you at all? I think that this is a great question, because as soon as you mentioned it, I was like well, here's where our lawful good versus lawful neutral really, really shows.
Speaker 1:Just cut in because I also had that written down. But the particular line that that was in, I thought was a perfect little piece of literary umami, as we call it yeah. So the raven recommends peace with the men of dale. You know, old bird wise. Uh, though he notes it would likely cost thorin in gold. Thorin responds angrily that no one will get his gold. Yeah, yeah, so he had me going there. When he, like he gave bilbo the me thrill, reassured him about his share, I was like okay thorin's.
Speaker 2:Really, again we're getting, we're getting wisps and references to that very magnanimous thorin that I think I made up. I think I made him up.
Speaker 1:Fake news, Not real Thorin. This is Thorin. This is Thorin. Who's like nobody gets my gold. This is my gold.
Speaker 2:The way that he doubles down on the whole ain't nobody touching my stuff really does not pass the vibe check at all.
Speaker 1:Major ick. That is like like nothing else. Even the guy who plays thorin in the movies at this point is an ick.
Speaker 2:Um eagles are the fifth army correct uh, no it I still think this is the wild wolves, the goblins that I had to put it in, so they were calling the goblins and the wargs as two separate armies, even though they were literally okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna push back on that. I know I believe you, but like the goblins are riding the wargs and we get a whole separate fleet of eagles, so why would the eagles not be the fifth army?
Speaker 2:it's the kind of day I was having when I read this why indeed, but for you to have had a letter for three months. Three months, oh it hurts.
Speaker 1:It hurts, it stings, it burns yeah, like definitely leave by the end of july is what this letter says.
Speaker 2:This is september, by the way, in case anybody forgot. Like late, late, almost september last week in september.
Speaker 1:And you know what's so funny to me is that the reason that mary knows about the ring it goes back to the sackville baggins. They ruin everything we came too far not an extreme planner. So, absolutely, we have questions for you, so I hope that's okay, ring it Okay.
Speaker 2:Nice, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to hide that again and we're back, hilarious, I still. That doesn't make sense to me, that the Eagles aren't the fifth army. I think they are.
Speaker 2:I will die on that hill, or that Irie, as some might say. I think when you get to the afterlife, I'm just gonna want to be a fly on the wall when you confront tolkien about it fair enough, I will.
Speaker 1:I will be like okay, let's talk about it. I know if anybody would, it's you okay? So, um, I said at the end of the thing we were going to do the drawing. We've got five people entered. So far as you can see, they are all in a list and we're going to consider them all in order. Okay, I've got a random number generator right here. It's one through five. Eight is the current selection, because it started at ten, so I'm going to press it Doop Five. So we've got random Noman E1, congratulations. There will be another giveaway.
Speaker 2:We'll say in ten minutes, Okay so random Noman one one. There will be another giveaway. We'll say in 10 minutes, um, okay, so random moment one one. Very excited dora thinks we should have timed the read to correspond with their trek from the shire. Brilliant idea, had it even occurred to us, I don't know if that would have been like too fast.
Speaker 1:No, because it was. It was like a year it was a year, so and that was it was.
Speaker 2:We wound up in under a year even with the hobbit right.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I guess if we wanted to be like you know, we could have done. We could have maybe done it. Baby critter would have interfered, he would, he would have. Yeah, probably okay. So, um, do we want to do the mvp? Sure about the mvp?
Speaker 2:I saw some good guesses in chat. Um, I will say that we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight people who made it into the MVP and there is essentially three ties.
Speaker 1:True, true, yep. So we've got some guesses, we've got Sam wise.
Speaker 2:We've got.
Speaker 1:I know I saw another one. I know I saw another one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't. I'm not logged in as a host. I can't help with this. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Oh, here we go. We've got another aragorn or sam perhaps. Um, I don't. Uh, that's all I got. Okay, so that's what we got. Yeah, hey, brian lehman, what's up? Um, I'm aboard okay, so we're about to do our mvp for the return of the king, and then what's going to be fun is I've got all of our past Lord of the Rings numbers so we can tally who's the ultimate MVP, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 2:Dana Liu just weighed in.
Speaker 1:Samwise and Gandalf are possibilities. Okay, all right, should I show it, or should we?
Speaker 2:I don't mind doing tie for third. You want to do tie for second, and then do it that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's a good goal.
Speaker 2:Okay, so our third tie is a four-way tie and it is between Theoden, eowyn, merry and Frodo, which makes me so sad, but we're going to talk about it. We're going to talk about some MVP fallout. So that was our four-way tie For third yeah, and they each had one vote.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is wild to me the fact that Eowyn only had one vote. The fact that Frodo only got one vote in the entire season. True, true.
Speaker 2:I checked that math a few times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he didn't throw the ring into the fire. Sorry, sorry, narita, sorry, okay, okay. So how do we feel about these? I mean, they had a pretty epic moment. That makes sense. Mary did really well once they got back to the Shire. Frodo was the ring bearer and then Eowyn no, I'm kidding, I know it feels so dismissive now and then Eowyn had the epic moment too. So, like, yeah, they deserved some recognition for sure.
Speaker 2:And these are just the straight counts. This doesn't include any honorable mentions, which we were much more liberal with this season. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, frodo did make it on the list. He was he. He did get one vote. I gave voted for him on the last episode.
Speaker 2:I did at least somebody did he had a really strong last episode and I'm glad that I gave to him I don't know that I realized we didn't vote for him at all this book no, it's crazy to me, as we were critter and I were back and forth today setting up documents and stuff and just seeing frodo has a marked lack of votes in general for for being the bearer uh, yeah, yep, he did his best did anyways, what about, what about?
Speaker 2:tied for second. Tied for second. We have each having two votes uh, gandalf and arwen. So gandalf, both times Gandalf got nominated was from you, critter.
Speaker 1:Oh, really no.
Speaker 2:Gandalf votes from you? No, none. This read which is wild. And Arwen was episode seven, where we both felt that Arwen deserved a nomination.
Speaker 1:It was one of those, like it's that gandalf and arwen are tied right because of the scale of their participation in the books very different just based on how we split the reads up. Right, yeah, you can be. You have a major advantage if you've got kind of a low-key set of chapters. And that's exactly what happened with arwen, like the competition was not steep and uh and hurt she.
Speaker 1:She had a great contribution, but the fact that she's tied with gandalf feels mildly wrong disproportionate, if nothing else a little bit, yeah uh, so that's an interesting outcome, but it is what it is, yeah and so that leaves us with two names who are tied for first, each with four votes. It is indeed aragorn and samwise gamgee yeah, yeah, yeah, let me pull it up so you can all now see share there. It is okay. There they are. Um. This checks out for me, right um? This was definitely aragorn's book titular character, right um?
Speaker 2:yep, they each had one honorable mention too. I was gonna say we could use honorable mention to tie break. No, we can't. No, we can't, apparently not. Yeah, yeah, you're right, aldora, a hundred percent right, like of course it was gonna be. Them had to be.
Speaker 1:Aragorn and sam had to be titular character and my personal favorite, so why would it not be?
Speaker 2:I'm curious.
Speaker 1:I know you have a spreadsheet, but were our Sam votes pretty well spread out, like was it two and two, or was I way too Sam heavy?
Speaker 2:You and I each did Sam for episode five and episode six. So episode five, I think, is the close of no. Just kidding it was, it was back to back. So it was them going into mordor, him rescuing, and then frodo, yeah, and then him saving gollum, who essentially saved everyone the fires of mount doom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that tracks yeah, so it was.
Speaker 2:It was really intense in that one section of the book. And then, just for fun, you know, critter had done some work going back and looking at some past mvp stats and I went through because of our conversation. I feel like the last of our conversation, I feel like the last rap stream and wanted to see, now that I've read the whole series, who would my mvp picks be per book? So I don't know if you want to share what you so pulled. Thank you, my brain just stopped working it's okay.
Speaker 1:Um, I'm trying to find how to hide here. We go hide that, okay, um, so the thing that I was looking at was, uh, my project was to find the total big mvp, like the mvp, mvp for the whole thing, based on our votes. So I feel like we should do yours first, your particular MVPs.
Speaker 2:So what I did, just to share with everybody in chat. I went through and I looked and I started by looking at per book, meaning books one through six, six, and then based on who I picked in the two books per book, then going from there and all of you obviously understand what I mean. So, going all the way back to fellowship um, which has book one and book two in it, um, I had picked for the book one the first half of Fellowship. I put Gandalf slash Aragorn.
Speaker 2:I was kind of on the fence, but I feel like it's at the beginning, it's really early for both of them, but they're both kind of instrumental in the staging of the story. So I was a little on the fence at that point. And then I looked at book two and I was like I think Frodo has to be my MVP for all of the action that happens in the second half of fellowship because that's him volunteering to take on the quest and go on this journey. So then, looking at those together and the action of everything that happened in fellowship I I picked gandalf as my mvp for all of fellowship because he was so instrumental in staging and setting the course yeah and it took somebody as overpowered as Gandalf to beat the Balrog.
Speaker 2:The quest would have died in infancy without him to take on the Balrog. So my choice for fellowship for overall MVP based on the book as opposed to our read increments, is Gandalf.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think that's totally fair.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What about book two?
Speaker 2:Book two for the first half. Of the two towers, I definitely picked Mary and Pippin.
Speaker 2:I know we're not keeping score, we don't have to worry about splitting votes. So I'm saying Mary and Pippin because that that obviously the first book of the two towers is almost entirely about their journey with tree beard and everything that they're doing, how they influence that, how they influence the Entmoot and the individual effects that they had on the story. I feel like it's Mary and Pippin for the whole of book three, the first portion of Two Towers. Okay, for the whole of book three, the first portion of two towers. Okay, um, for book four of the two towers, I pick Smeagol.
Speaker 1:You would Okay, why I?
Speaker 2:pick Smeagol because he's so pivotal to the action in the second half of two towers. So his pursuit, his choices and the way that he led them into Shelob's lair were crucial to the story and ultimately found them a different path that otherwise they might not have made it into the realm of Mordor. Now, granted, his motors were nefarious, but a lot like I've never.
Speaker 2:I've never claimed that Smeagol was a good creature. Um, so that that was how I felt. Um, so that that was how I felt. And then, looking at the two towers as a whole, um, I'm back to sam wise. Uh, again I go back to the importance of the quest for the ring. Um, and sam's choices at the end of that book affected the affected, whether or not the story continued. You know, if Sam had not I think that's the name of the last chapter is the choices of Samwise, gamgee and I perfectly named.
Speaker 2:I can't, I can't, escape that. So Samwise was my pick for overall for the two towers, because of how crucial he was.
Speaker 1:Perfect. You know, I'll always back you up on that one, I figured you'd be okay with it.
Speaker 2:I had to throw a little Smeagol at you to set you up?
Speaker 1:Yeah, just knock me off guard a little bit.
Speaker 2:And then for book three. If I look at the first half of Return again, I wind up picking Gandalf. He is just so instrumental in keeping everybody else afloat long enough for the quest to reach its conclusion. He's so instrumental to reach its conclusion. He's so instrumental, you know, beacon of shining light on the battlefield, saving Faramir, doing all of these different things that that make, then make it a world worth coming back to.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then for book six I have Samwise, slash, frodo.
Speaker 2:And this is where you're trying to make up for the fact that you didn't vote for Frodo at all, because I feel bad, because Frodo really did make an incredible sacrifice and he did make that journey just as much as samwise made that journey. He faltered at the end. But does that undo every sacrifice, every step along the way? I don't think that it does. I don't want to live in a world where it does. Um, but it was through the choices of samwise gamgee that the quest was ultimately successful. Um, but if it weren't for Frodo, samwise wouldn't have been there. So they're a very tangled knot. I think somebody in chat made a comment about how it's very muddled because they're always together.
Speaker 2:They are a package deal, um, and so for, ultimately, for book three, I still go samwise, okay, because he does the whole journey and he's the herald that's going to continue the story, so that, um, the, the memory isn't lost and so that it was all worthwhile, uh, going into the new age. So those are my overall picks.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that is interesting, especially given what I just calculated, which is the overall score winner, right, because in our spreadsheets, as you've seen, it's like who I voted for, who Jess voted for, if we had a like who I voted for, who just voted for, if we had a guess who they voted for, right. So we have all those numbers from past seasons. So if you have a guess, anybody who won overall, you can put it into the chat. But I will do a little bit of a countdown. Um, so you might be wondering who won.
Speaker 1:It was the least successful hobbit and I will tell you that. In fact and we're not doing the hobbit, because this is just the lord of the rings trilogy, right? Um, interestingly enough, mary and bilbo tied for least voted hobbit. Mary got three and bilbo got three as well, and I, yeah, and I think, was it? So I think bilbo got his um, at least one of his, during the council of elrond, because he was like, well, I guess I can take the ring and we just really liked that and because he had been through it like he knew what a perilous thing that was.
Speaker 2:Um you know, whereas in the in the moment, sam frodo, mary and pippin do not know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, bilbo does yeah, and he's still volunteered. If you'll recall, the season mvp, based on votes from two towers, which is so funny to me, was pippin. But he did not. He, he is, uh, he oh okay. Well, actually he did beat frodo, so frodo's next for the hobbits. Frodo got four votes throughout the entire trilogy, four votes for the entire trilogy, which is just really funny. Um, I mean not funny, it's, it's interesting, it's interesting stuff. Um, but yeah, so frodo got four, pippin got five, and I think you all know that sam's gonna be up at the near the top, at the very least.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna leave him till the end. Um, another very honorable mention goes to well, treebeard and galadriel and faramir all got two votes total. So good for them. Um, you love to see it, especially because I you know me I freaking love faramir now. Um, again I was reminded how amazing he is. Of course we have some like r have some randos who got one vote. That include Théoden and Éowyn, which they didn't spend as much time in the series, so of course that's Arwen got two as well. Arwen did get two, which still is kind of like she got no hate, but she did get a really lucky poll.
Speaker 2:She did not have a lot of active participation in the story. You know, I was left wondering until the last, like two episodes, whether she was consenting. So you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:So what's interesting is because, primarily because he didn't get any votes in the two towers, aragorn took third, like even though he took first and returned to the king, tied for first and return of the king, aragorn took third overall with six points four in the return of the king and two in fellowshiphip Gotcha. So I think, as many of us probably expected, the top two were Sam and Gandalf and it ended up being not that close, and I think it's because Gandalf only took two in Return of the King, gandalf only took two in return of the king. So gandalf got second place with nine points, which is a solid number. But nothing to my boy, sam, who took 11, 11 points. Yeah, he always his worst season. He got 2 points, he got 4, 5, and 2. And I guess it was all. Yeah, that was Two towers also, which is so funny.
Speaker 1:Actually, no wonder it's my least favorite. One or no Returns my least favorite? No, two towers is my least favorite. So, yeah, no wonder, because Sam didn't do as much. So anyways, overall. But tower is my least favorite. So, yeah, no wonder because sam didn't do as much. Um, so anyways overall. But are there dragons? Mvp seems to align with jessica's conclusion that sam is number one because he won two of your two of your books, correct? Yes, yeah, he won two of your books overall. So, yeah, it makes sense. Whether we look at it points wise. Whether we look at it points wise, whether we look at it, jessica, book by book wise, that's how it goes, yeah.
Speaker 2:I will say that that is probably the biggest revelation about this read, now that I've come to the end of it, is that it turns out that, for me, frodo is not the hero of the story, is not the hero of this story. Frodo is a hero because of what he did, but he is not the hero of lord of the rings, and that is not a thing I was uh expecting to learn on this read yeah, it's so funny too looking at like.
Speaker 1:And no hate to elijah wood, he did an incredible job when you look at the movie posters right like frodo, front and center, sam kind of behind him, whatever, which is kind of, you know, that's how sam would have wanted it. But at the same time, when you think about it, like sam has always been my favorite character and he, you know, I feel really justified in that opinion because he's so good he is so many ways and just lovely, okay.
Speaker 1:So I think it's time for my second and final sticker giveaway. Um, so what should we have them type in the chat this time? Should we do their mvp, their personal mvps, or?
Speaker 2:for the whole, for the whole trilogy.
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, if you would like to be entered in a drawing to win a, but are there dragons sticker? That looks just like that and I will.
Speaker 2:I will mail it to europe, so whoever like, feel free to enter I mean, I happen to be going to europe so I could drop a local post.
Speaker 1:Well, actually, because it's just paper, it should only be like $1.50 to ship, so it's totally worth it. Let me know your fave and I'll write your. We've got Danilu, we've got Not All who Wander, I'll write you down and we will do another random number generator.
Speaker 2:I do want to give acknowledgement to Aldora. My biggest minor character shout out was for Baragond, absolutely. Baragond got honorable mention in episode 3 and that was another character moment that I didn't know I was missing until I got it and I loved Baragond. Aldor also picked Samwise, as did Brother Zachariah. Lots of Sam love in the chat tonight. I'm good with it.
Speaker 1:Totally good with it, All right. So I've got Dana Lou Not All who Wonder Brother Zachariah and Aldora, so far, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's true, Not All who Wonder is going to be in prague.
Speaker 1:so oh, that's fun, yeah uh, perfect, um, narita, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna share that on the screen. I like that a lot.
Speaker 2:Okay, popping it up, narita in this essay I will says I definitely agree.
Speaker 1:Frodo isn't the hero, but in my opinion he is the character most tied to the theme of unglorious heroism and in this essay I will okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna count you as having entered, uh, just based on that little essay Narita, 10 of 10 would read. Because I agree.
Speaker 2:There's a whole extra weight to the idea Of him being the face of that quest and the weight that he had to carry, represented as a physical weight Of carrying the ring itself Right, absolutely. And that's why I was saying I don't think the fact that he faltered at the end Negates the bravery or the sacrifice of everything else he did leading up to that.
Speaker 1:No, he did an incredible thing, without a doubt. Could he have done it without Sam? No, we proved that, but nor could Sam probably have done it without him, and so they are so, intertwined, enmesed whatever you want to call it, they're linked.
Speaker 1:That you have to give Frodo his props, and he was the one that probably made me cry, along with Sam, the most in the end, right, and you saw how the journey affected him more deeply than any of the others, as it was obviously appropriate to do because he was the one carrying the ring most of the time. So, anyways, yeah, love, love me some frodo.
Speaker 2:Don't get me wrong, but I just, and I would say that, having read it now, seeing how far his progression was. So, again, a nuance that wasn't included in my or at least least I didn't get from my watching of the movies was there was a scene in in fellowship before when Bilbo left him the ring, where he was saying he had wished that Gollum had just been killed, like somebody had just killed him. And so for him to be coming from that place of no mercy no, no empathy whatsoever to where he got to at the end is an incredible arc yeah, agreed, agreed, oof.
Speaker 1:That's a literary degree dissertation topic right there, I agree completely actually I did a.
Speaker 1:I took a media criticism class in college and, um, one of the things I I decided to do or no one of our we the first movie that the teacher showed us was the fellowship of the ring, which was so interesting and we like wrote a whole essay like critiquing the movie and of course I was like no, no, it's flawless not really, but still it's interesting. Like um, we also talked about in that class, like the hero's journey and how the fellowship and generally lord of the rings is such a perfect execution of it.
Speaker 1:I guess um so, yeah, anyways, much love to these stories like insane, insane love for sure. Um, okay, so I am. I think I have everybody that has entered. Yeah, dana loo, not all who wonder. Brother zechariah, aldora and arena. That's another five. List of five. Let me pull the rng here. Okay, okay, so this is the list. So you all see, boop Proof Don't copy my handwriting, so we're going to generate the number. Boop Two Not all who wander. Okay, there we go. Congratulations. Not all who wander.
Speaker 2:Congratulations.
Speaker 1:But are there dragon sticker? So I don't know that I'll be able to get it to jessica in time for her to bring it to you to prague, so we may still have to.
Speaker 1:I may still have to ship it to you, but we can work that out in the dms. Okay, I'm happy that you're here in the chat. Um, oh yes, this is like, just, you know, plugging watcon, a wheel of time convention made for fans by fans. You should go next year. It's in July, okay. So is there anything else, jess, that you want to cover before we? We talk about the finale? You know the the sign offs, because that would be the end of the stream. I don't want to end it prematurely.
Speaker 2:I don't want to end it prematurely, no, I mean just it was so much better than I thought it could be. It was a much richer experience. It was just incredible, and it was so much more than I even thought it would be. So that's all.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's all. Well, I'll just say that I'm so happy on that fateful night at Jordan Con or Wat Con, wherever we were, jordan Con, where we went to tapas and started talking about the fact that you had never read them and I said, hey, if you read them, we'll do a podcast. And you said, bet, and that was the beginning of a beautiful journey. I'm so happy it happened that way. I think it's so funny. That was the conception of butter their dragons and it's been a fun ride and it feels like it's like the end, but it is a end and it's been great and I'm so happy. I've reread them now and they're right, right up there with my favorite books. They're just so close. How would you say, like, where are they for you? Are they near the top? Are they just great books that you wouldn't rank super? You know, like, how do you feel about?
Speaker 2:them. I would say, I would say they. I say, when you get into the top five it gets really murky for me and I'm certainly subject to recency bias, like at all times I feel yeah.
Speaker 2:I definitely think they're one of the top five series of my life. I can easily say that, yeah, I definitely think they're one of the top five series of my life. I can easily say that, yeah, and I think it was. I think it was completely worth it. I'm so glad that I did. I don't know, I don't know if it would Oust my number one of all time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it didn't. Although I is asking wheel of time or lord of the rings. You can only read one ever again. And that to me, honestly, is easier than it should be, because you're saying I can watch lord of the rings, I'll take, I'll read wheel of time, um, but no, uh, wheel of time's got a super, super special place in my heart, so that one's my number one, but I will say that lord of the rings, for I can confidently and safely say that it is my number two and it is not far behind Wheel of Time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really close. For me it's really close.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's something to be said for me about having relatable female characters that are really, really important. You know, great, I'm not diminishing galadriel or aowen or arwen or any of them, but like they weren't as inextricably intertwined with the plot or they weren't people that you could necessarily relate to, like the women in the wheel of time are, um, and I also just think that the wheel of time has I'm trying to remember the quote on the back that's like Jordan has mastered the world that Tolkien began to reveal, or something like that. Basically, jordan's world building is just massive in scale and it's just such a pleasure to read it every single. I could re-ad those books literally every year, and I'm sure I probably could also reread lord of the rings, but there's just more that I relate to, I guess, in the little time books that's. That's the big difference yeah, I mean the.
Speaker 2:The stories themselves are a product of their time, and so I think those are the only real limitations to the story. I think the idea of a mind like Tolkien existing with our sensibilities today is a very exciting one, because the story, these stories are incredible, even given those limitations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, he's who, he's a master, that's not an exaggeration, yeah, anyway, so I'm I'm really glad that you did this with me, by the way, it's been a pleasure and and, yeah, it's been amazing. So the last thing that we do in every episode, other than pick an MVP, which we've already gone over Sam, sam for the win, sam for the whim um, just, you know, statistically the best, uh, is our sign off, and so I think what we do is we'll pick the number one sign off for return of the king and then I actually don't know that.
Speaker 1:I have the past winners with me right now. So we can just pick the one for return of the King. That'll be fine, and then maybe do a Twitter poll after the fact.
Speaker 2:Sure, About when we can like check the best best one.
Speaker 1:Yeah and so okay. So let me see if I can show this. I want to like zoom in on it actually, so it's just focused.
Speaker 2:I kind of have it ready to go Share it, zoom in on it actually, so it's just focused.
Speaker 1:I kind of have it ready to go share it. Can you share it, don't you I?
Speaker 2:understand everybody. Bear with me window.
Speaker 1:I want to share this okay, I'm gonna show it boop. There it is. I'm going to show it Boop.
Speaker 2:There it is Okay. Is that large enough for people to read? I'm hoping so.
Speaker 1:If it's not, I can hide us completely, which should make it a little larger. I think I can hide us completely.
Speaker 2:Way to go, aldora, you're already on book 10. Excellent Spread, the good word, and I hope you're enjoying it, excellent Spread the good word and I hope you're enjoying it. Obviously, we joke about it so hard, but obviously the real hope is that you enjoy it. Oh good, you can read it Great.
Speaker 1:Perfect, okay, so we have eight. Obviously, we had eight episodes this season, which has been pretty. It's pretty average for us. I think we've had like eight to ten, depending on the book, and I can't even remember which one of us picked which one. So this is good, it's going to be fun. It doesn't really matter, so want to trade off reading them.
Speaker 2:Sure, I think I picked number one, so I'll read number one.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, sure, I think I picked number one, so I'll read number one okay, okay, so, and you can just put in chat the corresponding episode number, don't feel like you have to type it out. So for episode one, our sign off was farewell listeners. Ride unto great renown for two.
Speaker 1:Once again, we thank you, listeners of the pod. Good fortune go with you for your support and friendship.
Speaker 2:Episode three. You are weary, Rest a while and take food and be ready when we return.
Speaker 1:Episode four. This is our tale and it has ended for now. This is our tale and it has ended for now episode five.
Speaker 2:Well, here goes listeners. We'll have to leave you for a bit and trust to luck. See you next week episode six.
Speaker 1:We're glad that you're here with us, dear listeners, here at the end of all things episode seven.
Speaker 2:Goodbye, dear friends.
Speaker 1:Not for the last time, not yet and episode eight and the immortal words of gandalf go in peace. I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil yeah, same here.
Speaker 2:Aldora, like why? Why do I want to cry?
Speaker 1:quit it I know the one for seven is so like thematically appropriate because it was her second last episode. Good, not for the last time, not yet yeah that was your pick.
Speaker 2:You picked seven.
Speaker 1:I stole it from the book. I can't I can't pretend like I we stole them all from the book true, true. Thankfully, there were farewells in almost every read, which was perfect.
Speaker 2:Four sounds at the end of a.
Speaker 1:Shakespeare play. What is it? The Surtain has ended for now. True, it kind of does.
Speaker 2:Narita voted for three Okay.
Speaker 1:Let me pull out the old notebook, the Watcon notebook Number. I'm going to just three, four, five, six, seven, eight. All right, so we have three.
Speaker 2:Has one vote Dana Lou for eight Eight, brother Zachariah for eight Eight. Not all who wander is voting for seven. It's a good one.
Speaker 1:It's a good one it is, hmm, which one's my favorite? Let me think. Let me think. I'm trying to think, like, because eventually we could pick one of them as the actual sign off that we use on the podcast, right, like permanently. I don't know that that'll ever happen. I kind of like picking a different one every time but.
Speaker 2:But I don't want it to be sad, so like I know I will not say do not weep.
Speaker 1:And imagine if we're reading like like I've never read a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. So imagine we're reading that and really really yeah, yeah, um. So imagine we're reading that, which I understand is a relatively goofy book, and like at the end of a goofy chapter we're like in the immortal words of gantalf. I will not say do not weep. Why would they weep? Because it's you know, um, anyways, uh, we are still sharing.
Speaker 2:I hope you know this oh, I forgot okay um, all right, all right, all right, um yeah I wanted to go over and look at the other quotes, for because I only have one other season of quotes in this spreadsheet, because I did not get myself sorted- Aldora pick number six.
Speaker 1:I need to pick.
Speaker 2:Here at the end of all things gets me, and that's hard. Yeah, it's the same proto yeah because it resonates, but it also it's sad.
Speaker 1:Here at the end of goodbye to friends, not for the last time, not yet that one's so good, because it's like it leaves something you know, basically like saying, you know until next week, tune in next week for the next episode of. But are there dragons? I don't know. Do you have a vote?
Speaker 2:I do like that one because it is a little bit more upbeat.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I also kind of like number five for that. It also happens to be Wait. Who is that quote from? Is that hold on? Oh, I can't, I'm sharing my screen. Leave you for a bit and trust to luck. I think that that was something that Sam said to Frodo as he walked away.
Speaker 1:That's fair, yeah, huh.
Speaker 2:Okay, I think my vote is seven. Okay, what's your vote? I think I. I think seven is a better sign off, like it's a stronger sign off.
Speaker 1:I just like five and for me, I love eight, but yeah, I think, as far asoffs go it's got to be seven. But what's yours?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, seven, it's got to be seven. That's really good, and then I do want to go back and compare to the ones that we've used for past seasons and see if anything else is a contender, because I'd be fine with that becoming our permanent sign off.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. Do you want me to stop sharing, or you want to just flip over to it while on the on the screen?
Speaker 2:I don't mind. I think everybody in the chats had a chance to read it. So, yeah, yeah, what did we have? So, and this is two towers, I don't have anything on this document from fellowship, unfortunately. Okay.
Speaker 1:So I can make it a little bigger.
Speaker 2:Try to remember which one of these won. Oh, I made you choose a Smeagolgel impersonation. It was fantastic. Yeah, that was one thing I wanted to get into the video. That I didn't quite get enough in was impressions oh yeah, that would be well.
Speaker 1:We'll have our tiktok account. We can.
Speaker 2:We can get a compilation at some point um, I think, go with the goodwill of all good men and women. I think that that was you and you had modified it um from the read. So whatever we were reading, so it was, you know, next to the last episode in Two Towers. Okay, I do like this one, I like three.
Speaker 1:I was just about to say if you can foresee whether their road will lead them until they come to its end. And this is our end until next week. I really like that one. That one's a good one.
Speaker 2:Yep, that's a really good one too, does it beat?
Speaker 1:season four. Does it beat Return of the King? I don't know.
Speaker 2:That's a longer one. Let's do a little.
Speaker 1:Not for the last time, not yet. It's just. It's short and sweet.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that is actually a good thing, with sign-offs.
Speaker 1:Right, Right, right right. What do you guys think? Do you like the Two Towers one or the Return one better?
Speaker 2:Yeah, dana Lou likes number seven.
Speaker 1:I remember last stream she liked shorter ones, so that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yep, this is. This is very flowery and and fun, but it's a little, it's a mouthful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I feel like the return to the King ones are all like. There's so many bangers on this list it would be hard to beat many of them. There's so many bangers on this list, it would be hard to beat many of them.
Speaker 2:I'd have to go back and see if I made a document. I don't know if I actually put the quotes on a document I must have, but anyways yeah, yeah, where that ended up.
Speaker 1:It's been a while, yes.
Speaker 2:It has been a while. Yeah, zachariah votes for number seven as well.
Speaker 1:it's a really strong sign off, it is feeling, feeling real good about that this time around. Wow, okay, okay, is that it I think that's it okay, well, I don't have our normal sign off in front of me, do you?
Speaker 2:or we can just say use, use the, uh, the one that won up to you um, I think, before we go into our sign off, I would just like we usually do you know, thank you guys so much for your participation whether it's at the same time, not at the same time, in discord, through comments, live streams, whether you're a first timer, a million timer, it doesn't matter. The engagement is awesome. We it literally made all the difference to have all of you along, and I will get just a little mushy and say, you know, thank you, critter, it was so much fun to do this project with you and I know it's just a break, but thank you for being an awesome pod partner back at you.
Speaker 1:It's been. It's as I said earlier, it has. It has been a pleasure and I appreciate your dedication to it and, uh, and I love that we're kind of on the same page when it comes to like scheduling and I like to think we're both very reliable, which is such a relief. So it's it's been, it's been really fun and and, honestly, as far as like content creation goes, you know cause I do like so much stuff, this is, this is one of the things that I think of as like one of my cozy activities, cause it's just so much, yeah, so much. Oh, I love that. Yeah, it's like tolkien's got such good vibes. We have such good vibes.
Speaker 2:It's just like low key, low stress, been really great and especially because we've got these people following along with us that have become our lord of the rings friends and I will tell you that we have talked about it and if silmarillion happens, it will only happen with the two of us. So, yeah, no, reliability is hot dana lou a hundred. Yeah, we've talked about it. We both really want to do the silmarillion, so the hope is that we are going to do that, um, but we're not. We don't know what that looks like yet, but we will keep you all posted.
Speaker 1:So when we know, you will know yeah, yeah, be keeping an eye on discord or socials or whatever. Just know that I I won't be back for several months, so silver alien will not be happening for quite some time several months yeah, so don't buy it or anything if you don't own it yet, in the anticipation that it's going to happen soon, because I will be learning how to be a parent for the next while, um, but we will take suggestions. You know, crit, a parent for the next while, but we will take suggestions.
Speaker 2:You know Critter's Discord is the easiest place to drop it I think most of you that are here do that but you can also DM us, reach out to us on social media if you have an idea. If you have an idea for an IP that you'd like to see me do with somebody else while Critter is on hiatus, as long as it's not the Silmarillion, I'll at least consider it. Okay. Okay, all right, I made you start, so I'll stop. So just big thank you, big love you guys, and don't be strangers on social media, on discord, you know. Reach out, stay in touch, and I will just say goodbye, dear friends, not for the last time, not yet.
