Hi there, I'm Stephanie.

And I'm Lydia. Come along with us as we explore and learn about the world of Tolkien through deep dives on lore, characters, read-alongs, and laugh-alongs.

We are excited to have you as a new friend on this journey with us. Welcome to Speak Friend and Enter, a Lord of the Rings podcast.

Alright, welcome to Speak Friend and Enter, a Lord of the Rings podcast. Hello, hello. Yeah, we're ready to rock and roll here. We're gonna go straight into a deep dive. And basically, we're thinking of this this as the starter course.

You are, like me, newbish. And you need to get better acquainted with Lord of the Rings. Where does one start? And I feel like the way to go is through the world building, right? I mean, this is what Tolkien's about.

Yes. So when you're thinking where does one even start? In his, how many years did he spend doing his world building? His whole life. His whole life, right?

And then guy lived until he was old. So he spends his whole life doing all this world building. So even from there, we have to ask ourselves where the heck do we start? So we kind of thought of this through, our starter set is gonna kick off with the creation story, right? Yes, the creation story. I don't know anything about it, but I'm way into mythology, way into like, like, I guess religious, like religious, religious myths, etc, etc. And I think they're fun. So I'm really excited about this. So Steph, you're just gonna tell me what's happening. I'm gonna ask you questions. Uh-huh. See how it goes.

I think that's a vibe. I'm gonna tell the story kind of with the creation and you can ask questions as we go along and we will figure stuff out.

Cool. And the background here is, so this is the deep dive on the creation story. Yes. And it's part of like, we're probably gonna do five or six episodes that count as a starter set. And this is all just themes that would be really helpful to know before you read this somewhere.

Or like getting into the middle earth. Or just so you don't have to go in blind. Yeah. Yeah. The Lord of the Rings and general. Yeah, exactly. So go ahead.

Okay.

Tell me about it. Okay. Here we go. The start of everything. So something that I thought was really intriguing as I was looking at the creation story and we'll talk about this more in episode two, which is going into like the Valhallaar and the gods of middle earth is how Tolkien set up like his theology. Yeah. Um, so he has kind of hierarchical structure where we have this being called Iru Eluvatar.

That's the full name. But even that name sounds so good. Right? Doesn't it sound so good? Elohim.

Yeah. Like it feels God like. I know. So Iru and then Eluvatar, it sounds like you can do them either one separately, but together is kind of like the full name. And he's also known as the one, which has a very kind of biblical, I feel like, vibe to it there. Very much. Sorry.

How do you say Iru? Iru Eluvatar. Eluvatar. Yeah. I feel like I've seen that name around maybe. Yeah.

See it referenced maybe a little bit. Um, so this is the head honcho. This is the creator of the world. And so he has a really interesting role where he's the only one who has kind of the spark of life. And so with this spark of life, he creates what is known as the, um, Iner, which is basically his equivalent to like a fleet of angels. Uh-huh.

So they're not demigods. They're angels.

I would say they're more kind of angels because there, there's no earth created at this point. He takes the spark of life and he creates these beings.

Are there like a lot of them? Or are we talking like 12 archangels? There's a lot of them. Okay. So we've got a whole host. We have a host. He decided, look, we're going to start making life. And when we go, we're not stopping. Yeah.

So he has a host of life that's kind of with him. I get the sense because there is no earth created almost like in this void, right? Like he has a spark of life. He creates this host in this void. And then so I actually don't know how long he and his host are just like hanging out, but they probably don't either.

Eternities. At some point, he decides to create this world. And the way that they start creating this world is he starts to sing and all of his angels or this host, the Einer, they start to sing as well. And it's their voices. It's their music that creates the world starts creating this world.

This is I have heard of this. These are basically the two things I've heard of. I had vaguely heard of the name of a Louverture and I had vaguely heard that Tolkien uses singing and his creation myth. Singing. And I just hats off to him. Like that is 10 out of 10, the best creation myth.

Doesn't that sound so beautiful? It's perfect.

Like song is what it just if it feels right. It feels like that is the way, you know, earth

or middle earth should have been created. Music. Yeah. I just that really resonated with me when I heard that I was like, ah, Tolkien, he knows what he's doing.

Sounds so beautiful. And so I think with the background, he starts the song. His angels start coming in and then there is a little bit of a hierarchy of angels, which we can talk about a little more, especially in the next episode with the baller. But he has kind of his, his oldest angels and they're kind of leading the charge of the song and they are singing this really beautiful notes that correspond to Eru's music. They're kind of taking it in harmony.

They're doing all this stuff. And then do they have one guy who can't sing? Oh, come on.

So Melkor, as we will come get to know and become acquainted with, he actually, you know, he's singing along and he starts creating a little bit of dissonance with the music.

He was a bit of a modern commotion. Yeah. He's a little bit like, I'm over this tier.

I'm trying to go in. He's a melody and beauty in good things. He tries to go his own way with the tune, right?

And so it's... So is he successful in that? Like, I guess the question is, is the spark of life only within Eru, a Louvitar, or do his angels now have their own sparks and are able to divert that energy, right?

So he has the spark of life, but that's a great way of putting it. Like Melkor is like trying to divert it, right?

Like he's trying to say, with this, I want to create my own thing. He's trying to channel it. He's not able to do his own thing, but he's able to like bend the source. He's trying to bend the source. He's trying to create his own thing, right? And so Eru, I get the impression, I think that there's like three sections of this. So he kind of gets up, kind of pauses the music of this.

He starts again. Wait, they paused? Was it like the Sabbath? And on the seventh day, they arrested him while they're singing? I don't think it was that long, but it was like when Melkor, like some dissonance was happening and they sing along. And so Eru gets up and they kind of pause. Okay. Oh, so there's like a pause where he's like, hmm, he's the conductor. He's like, the piccolo is off.

Yeah, exactly. Like something's not going on over here in this section.

Okay. Does he know at that point that it's Melkor? I think so. I vaguely have heard his name as well, but like, maybe we should have started off with like all the things I know, like to fit on like a postcard. Or maybe like a really small like stitching out. I have heard that name very briefly though.

Okay, so go on. It will be a key name.

So he pauses the music and all the other angels are like, yo, what's happening? What's up with you?

Yeah, like kind of side eyeing him. And then he starts again. He starts the tune.

Everyone joins in. Yeah, kind of. The world is halfway to being made. Yes. There's more and more happening. Wait, can I pause you just one second? I just remembered my favorite creation myth. There's a sick one. There's all kinds of creation myths, right? And there's Genesis.

Genesis is great. Everyone knows it. But there's a Babylonian one. And it's Marduk versus the dragon Tiamat. And basically he kills.

There's this big battle and he kills Tiamat. And then he builds the world out of her body. I just think that is the most metal interpretation of the earth.

Like we're on the earth and the earth is really just the body of a huge dragon. Oh my gosh. It's wild. It's so fun. Anyways, you just remember that. I love that. I love the singing, but also killing dragons.

That's a comment too. That's a cool way to start. Yes.

You can't go wrong here. You can't go wrong. So we're on the second round. I will double check this, but I think there's three sections of this. But yeah, so then we're on the second round. He starts singing again. The eye nor the angel starts singing as well. And then again, Melkor kind of comes in with his own dissonance. But this time the dissonance is like getting really loud and kind of overcoming the tune. Like the tune is starting to go like with Melkor's voice rather than the voice of everybody else.

So he's so wildly out of tune.

He's so wildly loud and out of tune that the whole thing is going his direction. So he is able to, I guess the take on here is he's turning the song as a whole.

It's not simply that people are joining him to sing with him. Yeah. Okay.

He's turning the song the way that it's going. It's interesting. And so then I think there's another pause. Yeah.

And Eru... He's giving him chances to repent. We're going into this last section. And they start the music again. Eru and the eye nor and then Melkor both singing very loudly against each other. But this time Eru takes Melkor's music and he somehow like seamlessly blends it in into his own incredible chorus.

Because before it was like cringy and like off and it wasn't working. It wasn't blending. And rather, I think it's fascinating rather than just being like Melkor, dude, like you're out of the choir.

Like Cassie out of heaven. You're out of the choir. He takes his voice, this off voice.

And forces him to do good with it almost. And it blends it into his story and his pattern. And I actually think... So is this... Oh, go ahead. That is such an incredible metaphor for the arc of Tolkien's Middle Earth Ages. Yeah. It's also really interesting to think about it as like, you know, all those religious questions, right? Where is the source of good and evil, etc. Because like it feels like they're saying already even from the very beginning, like there's evil in this world. But it's not going to overwhelm the good and it is it's subservient to the good.

I guess I should say. And that is like there is... We'll talk about this later probably, but like there is so much sad stuff happening in Lord of the Rings. It's a heavy fantasy.

Yeah, it's got very heavy themes in certain places. Maybe actually on all the places. But the overall, the fact that it doesn't end with like evil triumphing, the fact that they didn't go full grim dark. I think it really serves that theme of like, this is good, like good wins.

And I think it's so fascinating too that it's not just good wins in the sense of like, this song is now gone. Right? Like I got rid of yourself.

I got rid of the evil. It's like we can endure the evil. We can get past it. Utilized the evil to create something even more maybe beautiful. Yeah. Right? He was like, okay, we're going to take this really, you know, dissonant sound and we're going to create something even more, even more complex. How did Melt where we at? I don't know if he was happy about it.

I kind of get the, well, this is my own impression, but it's kind of like a mopey child. Like at the end was like, okay, fine.

I see. Right? So he didn't go full Lucifer, right? He didn't.

He didn't immediately. Not at that moment. Summon his demons to him and try to like take power or whatever.

Yeah. No, that was just like kind of at the end. I feel that it's coming for him. You would. You know, there's more to his story. There's more to his story. But also it's interesting because I feel for Melchor and we'll go through this as we go into more in depth about him, but I feel for him.

Sympathizing with Satan. Well, because so Lovitar has this power of life, right? And with that, he has the capability to mold things, right? And I think we all like the idea of being able to mold and create stuff. Of our own.

But I guess as we go into this further, as we go into him further, he takes the desire to create something of his own and he puts it into like a very prideful source where it's about him and his power and desires rather than creating something maybe of worth to others. So I don't know. Interesting. Interesting thoughts. But that is kind of like the very basics of how Middle Earth and it was called Arda. Okay.

So I didn't know that with the head. Yeah. So this Middle Earth Arda comes into being after that. So he then takes, I believe it's 15 of his host, right? The Einer, right? Yes, Einer. Might have been one last because one came a little bit later. So it might have been 14 at the beginning.

And he says, go down to the earth and kind of like be stewards of this and manage this earth.

So are we at like the Garden of Eden phase of the earth right now? Is there even mankind? No, there is not. So we're just sending down the angels to make things happen, etc.

Exactly. So they are responsible for setting up sources of light. You know, the sky comes. Yeah.

So finish the rest of the creation. Yeah. And these 14 we have what is called the Valar. So these are... So this is just a subset of the Einer. This is a subset. The ones that were sent down to earth specifically for this particular mission.

Yes, that were sent down to earth for this particular mission to manage Arda. Okay.

So I think I have heard of Valar. I thought they were different from Einer. Yeah, they're a subset. Well, I like that. So is it a mission in perpetuity? So were they told you are in charge of Arda. You are to do certain things with Arda. You're stewards like you said. That's a great way of phrasing it. Also, later we should talk about the theme of stewards

in Lord of Angels. Oh my gosh, it's a dentathor. So good. Frickin' dentathor. But it's just, I feel like it's a concept that we've really lost in modern times. That's interesting. Because, I don't know, you read the Bible, right? And I can say this because I have all these little farm animal creatures, right? And so every time I think to myself, wow, goats are looking head to toe. I totally want a goat. Then I go online and I type in, goats are head to toe. Can I get one, right?

And every post says, no, don't get one. Goats are the devil's creatures, etc., etc. Because they're just really wily.

They're trying to kill themselves at all times. Oh my gosh. If you fence, let's in water. It will let out your goat. Like, they're just like devil creatures. And so once I've had more hands on experience with animals and maybe more hands on experience with goats, right? I actually had an interesting thought. I was like, look, at all these scenes that you read in the Bible where every parable is like the sheep who are on the right hand of God and the goat who is with the devil. And I just feel like it's interesting to think about how much harder that parable would have hit for somebody who was daily interacting with sheep and goats. I was like, take care of both and was like, I see what you mean.

Exactly. That would be like such a no bringer kind of parable. And I feel like we've lost that connection as modern, like, you know, in modernity. We don't interact with goats on the daily. You don't know that they're hateful, spiteful creatures. But like, and I feel similar about other, other, like just, it's like we know them conceptually, but we haven't experienced it. So like stewardship, who knows a steward? Like, is that like, is your landlord like the closest scene? Who knows?

That's a tough analogy. It's just, it's just really interesting. So I love those old words that I just feel like they would have such meaning. And even in Tolkien's life, I feel like they had meanings. They had stewards still, like I guess the lords, you know, various levels of middle to higher class nobility.

They were stewards of various lands, et cetera. Anyways, complete tangent. Go back to what you were saying.

No, I think that's so interesting. And so it, yeah, so they came down and that kind of is what finished the creation of that.

So they rounded everything out. They rounded everything out. And that's in terms of the world. Was Melkor one of the Valar?

He was originally. Shut up. Yeah, he was one of the original. He was like, send me. I definitely want to go down there. We're creating this new world.

Yeah, I'm not suspicious at all right now.

Send me. I had a really terrible song earlier, but don't mind that. Yeah, what the heck?

That's so interesting. So he comes down as one of the Valar. Okay. I think I was reading somewhere. They said that he was actually one of the mightiest. Okay.

So this is great Lucifer parallels. A lot of love.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that happened. And then I was going to mention that you were saying like, was this stewardship like was it forever?

Was it for a certain period of time or just like until Earth is like until Arda is created. Yes, you are to do these scenes or is it after the creation, you also have these other duties.

Yeah. So they were going to create kind of finish the creation and then they were going to be responsible for the life there.

What was the purpose of creating Arda? Was it like, is it stated as like we are creating this Earth in order to scripture, like Bible, etc.

They have a lot of things talking about the purpose of the Earth. Yeah. And it's like, so that men might have joy or whatever.

You know, I found a really cool quote that I don't know if I remember where I put it, but it was really interesting. I'll see if I can find it. Yeah. But it was talking about like the relationship of Eru with the Earth because he's technically like the highest level of deity in this universe.

But like the Earth wasn't for him. It's not like he was going there to live, right? He didn't interact. Supposedly we are not seeing a lot of his interaction with it. But it was interesting because it was a quote that was along the lines of like Eru is the one, you know, who created and nurtured and fostered and developed all of these things and loved and loves it from like afar.

I love that. I get the impression that he had and I can definitely dig into this more, but he has this spark of life and he loves creating with it. Creating with it. So it was like, this is the ultimate creation that I can do.

And giving other people. Okay. I like that.

I don't know. Kind of like this opportunity. Yeah. And so with that, he has he sends these these Valar as they will be known down to the Earth and what I think is so interesting is you would think, Oh, the Valar and Eru, they're tight. They're talking all the time, right?

Like they know exactly what his plan is with this planet. Turns out that Eru Luvatar cut the phone line when they, when you kid just children out of the house.

As I was reading about it, I actually realized, so it sounds like they also kind of are in like a prayer relationship when it comes to Eru. It's not like they're in like a direct, direct like, let's just go

over and like visit him. We can just talk like we can literally fly over with our angel wings and chat. We can just chat with him. Oh, funny. And so we'll talk more about the different Valar, but Manway, who becomes kind of the head of the Valar. So this is making me very curious about whether the Valar are treated as gods in and of themselves. They are human people. And so like man is like three degrees removed from actual God. That's very interesting. Yeah. Very Catholic.

Well, and Dolcos was a Roman Catholic. Oh, I forgot that. That makes sense actually. Yeah. Which is interesting. Yeah, we could talk about that too. But so it's interesting because they're in a situation where I believe Manway, it sounds like was the one that was known to potentially have the most talking relationship with God where he would be able to kind of call upon him and discuss the other Valar. It sounds like they were almost more like prayers and some kind of medium of communication. And one of them was known for having the ability to prophesy. But what's fascinating is even though.

I love this so much. Yeah, even like with this ability to prophesy and Manway who like kind of had a direct line to be able to talk with Eru, they both said or the readings that I found would say like they had an idea of where they thought the future of Middle Earth was going to go. What was meant to go?

Where it was meant to go. Okay. But they even they were not 100% sure what was going to end up happening. Okay. Which I think is fascinating. Let me clarify that. So they had a reason like they didn't have 100% knowledge of what even Eru Aluvatar wanted. Wanted. Yeah. And they didn't know because they didn't have perfect prophecy. They didn't know what would happen. Exactly.

So they are left in a little bit of flux as well. A little bit of flux. Which is fascinating. So these feel like demigods to me. Right. These feel like.

Trying to. Actually, they don't have to be demigods. If we're thinking like Greek Pantheon where like the gods are very relatable. They're basically bitter than life.

But not like the sins. That's interesting. Because I guess I would have expected. I mean, yeah, I would have expected more omniscience out of them.

So this is what I kind of think about in terms of the hierarchy. And it's actually one of my favorite things about the world. I just think it's so cool.

So you have like this. This kind of one ultimate creator, which I think does kind of fit in very well with Tolkien's baby more Christian or my Catholic background. But then he had a love of myth. He had a love of like Norse and Greek. He probably loved Pantheons. And yes, this whole thing.

And so he. I wonder if he slamed over that. I wonder if he sat at his desk for eight hours and said to himself, how can I, you know, respect God, but at the same time.

I gotta have you some Pantheon.

I had an incredible myth. Yes. Yeah. And so he adds in this layer of what is going to be like considered basically gods on fascinating Middle Earth that have very similar powers and responsibilities. So we'll dig into this in the next episode, but you have gods that are responsible for like the earth, God's responsible for the sky.

So you really do split it out like a pantheon. Yes, where you split it out. Which makes sense. Here you have a group project. Yes.

The ultimate group project. The ultimate group project. You're well familiar with these right now. Oh my goodness. So who was the slacker?

Well, who was the slacker? Yeah, on the group project. I think you know.

I think it was Melchor.

I think you know who was the slacker. But was he a slacker or was he working assiduously for buffer evil? He wasn't actually a slacker. He was very ambitious.

Not in the same lines of the group. And so these guys, these Valar who do not have omniscience. Yes. How much insight did they have into what each other was up to? Like are we talking totally different spheres? Like did they talk to each other? Like when they talked to each other, it's just like they weren't, it wasn't, it wasn't via prayer or anything like that.

No. They were able to talk. They were able to talk. They had councils. But they were able to lie. They voted. They were able to lie. They were able, they had different opinions where they would disagree with each other.

Yeah. It's very interesting to like read some of the stories because there's so many over it. Like we're in the third age when it comes to the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. There's the first age and the second age, which have so much drama.

Out of curiosity, how many total ages are there?

Oh my goodness. So we're in the third age. I definitely know that there's a fourth age and then there was like a prophecy for like a fifth age. Almost like an end of times war.

This is very interesting on several aspects to me. So I'm curious, I actually am not 100% sure how long the earth goes in Tolkien's recording. Interesting. So you have to look. I love that. I love cyclical history. I love things turning out like when I read Wheel of Time after having put it off for many years, I was put within the first paragraph because it basically says, you know, when legend turns the myth and it's showing the

legend and like, it's just so dead. It's so good. And it's all about time turning the cycle different ages and the ending of one age was like super destructive and it creates like an apocalypse start to the next age.

So good. Anyways, point is though, there's also another related myth that kind of relates and I'm sure Tolkien knew every myth under the sun. But the Mayans have a sweet myth about the five, it's basically the five ages of the world. And I think I don't remember which age they thought we were and I think they thought we were in the third age actually. And then the fifth age is like destruction and it's all ending and they call it five, the five suns. So you have one sun, two sun, three sun for a different sun for each age. And I think their sun was like a different God or something. Are you ready for this?

Okay. Every single age is defined. Well, at least the first and second and third because they had a different light source. Okay.

So that totally tracks that while the sun and the moon were the light source for the third age. What the heck was before? Okay. I think there was trees for the second glowing trees. Glowing trees. Sick. We should invent those.

And then before that, I think there was some kind of a, that's actually really cool. Candle or lantern. I'll have to double check. Yeah. That's really interesting. Yeah. A beacon I think of some sort for the first age. Huh. And so interesting that the light sources change.

But yeah, that's way into my end.

That's like exactly the same. That's super cool.

Oh, I forgot what I was going to say.

But that's okay. Hold on. I want to say one more thing about the third age. I've always loved that he coaches it or touches it as the third age because it feels like it smacks you dab in the middle of the story. Whatever that phrase is. It puts you right in the middle of the story and you feel like there's so much history and there's so much future.

There is. And you, it's just perfect framing for where the story is happening. The depth of how much he prepared to. Yeah.

And I like, I know he prepared all those other ages, but even though I personally have only seen the third age, I just love that I'm like, this is the third age. Yeah. And sometimes I think about our world that way too. Yeah.

A little further along. Which age are we in? Yeah.

Okay. So Melcore was slacken. So Melcore was going off on his own little. And he was lying about it. Yeah. And nobody was checking in on him. Who was his TA?

Who was his TA?

Well, supposedly I think him and Manway were the oldest. So why was Manway put in charge then? Cause I feel like if Melcore said to Eru Eluvatar, hey, you know, I was sitting real bad up there. However, I feel like, I feel like the Lucifer move is to say put me in charge of going down with the Valar. So why was he not in charge?

Because I think we're going a little bit of like Michael, the archangel here. Manway was actually like one of the top voices in the song that was court that was harmonizing with Eru Eluvatar.

So it's 100% on guitar hero versus Eru Eluvatar.

So he like Eru Eluvatar starts the song. Manway is like kind of one of the strongest voices in his choir being like, yeah, let's do this. Let's go for this.

And he knows what the song is for. He's fully on board with the purpose of it. He's one of the older of the, the ironer. And then Melcore is off doing his like, disharmonious. I really enjoy, and I know this is probably like just part of like pulling in pantheon type elements, but I really enjoy that they are different ages, they're different power levels. Like just his variety.

It feels, it feels right. It's so interesting to me. Yeah, that they're not all the same. Yeah. And they have background like that because it could just be like this host

is, they were all created at the same time within microseconds. Yeah. They're all basically the same. But no, we need personality to make stories. And I am excited for this one. Yeah. What is Monwe like? Is he like, I don't know, is he boring?

He kind of seems like the archetypal good guy. You know what I mean? Like kind of, I mean Zeus had a lot of

problems, but he's like the king of the, king of the gods in a way.

So he's king of the gods. He's Zeus, if he, if Zeus were a better person, better person.

And I don't want to go too much into deep guys on him and Melcore, but I will say it is fascinating because while I was doing some research, so Melcore goes off on his, his own little journeys and he's banished from the Valar, right? Wait, during, during their stewardship? Yes. During their stewardship, he starts doing some not so great stuff. The Valar is like, Hey, what's up with you? They banish him. Where do they send him? Well, we can go into that later.

We can go into that later. This is for later. This is for later, but I thought this one piece was interesting. Okay. But then he comes, you know, they go through this whole rigmarole with him. They fight him.

They do all this stuff over the ages. It's a whole story, but they eventually capture him and he's in a really tight spot and he comes to the Valar and he says, I've, I've, you know, not done so great things. I want a second chance. Oh no. And it's so fascinating because you can see like how a lot of the different Valar respond and man weight. And I love like the way that this research is what I was reading described it where he's like, he was so good and couldn't comprehend like people even being that tempted by not wanting to do good, right? By like wanting to do bad, like just didn't see the attraction.

Get completely out of his comprehension. Yeah. Just didn't even see the attraction of it at all.

That he was like, yeah, of course he wants to come back.

Like of course, you know, he's said with that. So, Golubal is not the right word. He's like so good. He's so good. He's like, why would you even want to come back? You know, like he's like, at last, Melkor has seen the attraction. I got to the senses.

But then I think it's so funny because some of the Valar are married to each other, which is interesting.

That's interesting.

It is. I know. It is interesting.

And his wife, she actually, she distressed Melkor.

And so I think it's so funny.

She's a smart cookie. And she was like, uh, like honey, you're just, he's not like, I could just see like this very relationship where it's like, you know, he's not going to do it again. He said he was really sorry about it. And she's like, you're just not seeing. Like he is not, he is not interested in going on a good path.

Like does that conversation over the next table? How many times does that conversation played out exactly?

Um, so I just think that's so interesting about them, but that was a little bit of a detour.

So to pull back into the creation story. So they're sent down. They are now stewards. Yeah. They're doing stewardly things.

We're doing stewardly things, mainly building the world because this is, this is.

So the glowing trees, this is the glowing tree age. They start actually, I think with a beacon at first. And I can't remember if it's a candle or a lantern or, but they have some kind of a lighted beacon, which is their first light source. And they have, you know, the skies, they have the oceans. They have a valor.

So classic creation story. Creation of different responsibilities. Does the order of creation differ like drastically from Genesis?

You know, I haven't read and seen if they have a play by play of like what was created when it's really interesting.

Um, I think it's really interesting how Genesis describes the creation story with like these various very distinct. Yeah. Exactly. And like not every creation story does that has that. Yeah. Cause like most of them, like, I feel like all of them have some element of like, you know, there's, um, the primordial waters and then there's like the division. And usually the division is between like darkness and lightness or land and sea. So that that's in there. And then there's usually sometimes not always, but usually there's some kind of sacrifice that is happening. Um, and then I think we kind of mentioned this, there's usually some kind of cyclical element to the world. And like these are all just like very strong continuity across everyone's myth.

Which I'm, I'm way into obviously. Um, so I've always thought that Genesis in particular has like a really strong like just like a really strong order of order instruction. And I don't really know the purpose of why that is.

Cause all these other ones are a little bit more amorphous usually. It's like, you know, this guy did this thing and he did this scene and he did this scene and he did this scene. And it's not really clear that

they're all happening in order or not. And comparison to other things. So it's interesting. As we start reading this one really, and I'm curious, I'm curious. Um, but one more thing I wanted to talk about. So that's like the building of the world, right? But who created man? Well, that's what I was going to get into.

Tell me, you can have this part of life. So they can't create, wait, can they create like plants or animals?

They create plants. They can create like, um, oh, animals is a good question. I'm actually not sure. But they can like create almost with the elements that they sung into existence.

Is the vibe that I'm getting. So there's some life happening and they just mold it and do stuff. Yeah, they can create this earthly material. But they cannot create man.

They can't create like beings, I guess. And so what's fascinating is Eru comes down at a certain point. Things have been getting built. He's checking on things. He's checking on things. Things have been getting built. He's checking on the construction workers.

And he says, I know, he's like, how's it going? Are we behind schedule?

Exactly. And he's like, I'm going to have, I'm going to create my first children.

And does he call them children? He does call them children. Okay, that's, that's kind of interesting because not every religion is Yes, has a very paternal.

Yeah, not every religion. Like there are religions where God creates you, but you're more like, um, I'm going to use the wrong word, but you're not a child.

Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, just a work of, I'm not art, but it's like a work of your, yeah.

And then, but guess who they are? They're the elves. Of course.

Man is not his first. It's true man. His first set of children.

So that makes way more sense. I did not know that. Yeah.

Okay. So they predate men. Yes, they have to, of course. What's fascinating is I don't know if the valor had like a heads up on this, but he creates, he comes down or he's looking at it. Right. He's looking at the world. He's like, I think we're ready.

We're ready. We're ready for some life, some beings. And he doesn't tell the valor at all. I don't know. Hey guys, I've just started to do something real fast over here.

But this is what's crazy is there's a story. They have reactions then. There's a story of, I think it's Auron? I'm going to have to figure out how to pronounce that. But one of the valor, who's the hunter and he's known for riding his horse through the forests and all across the world. He's enjoying life. He's enjoying life. He's riding throughout the world and he comes to, I think like the spring of life. He discovers the elves.

Oh, he for sure did not tell the valor. Oh my gosh. I have discovered that there's life. That would be way cool.

And so he rides back to the valor and he's like, dudes, we have life. It's finally happened.

And then they go to the Kanban board and they check it off.

They're like, there's something here. That's really exciting.

So elves were the first creation of beings on the earth by arrows.

Wait, can I pause you for just one second and you can tell me that we're going to discuss this later. Who among the valor are married and are all of them married?

That's kind of curious to me. So we will go into that more in, yeah.

You can just tell me some are some aren't. So there are some married and some unmarried.

I believe so there's a set of lords and ladies. I think they're about off setting once one more valor comes to join the group. So there's 15 in total, but then Melkor gets banished. So there's 14 so seven and seven and all of them are married except for one lord and one lady. Is it Melkor?

No, Melkor's not married. No Melkor's not married either, but he got banished. Okay, okay, okay.

I was about to say there's no chance Melkor has a wife. Dang.

Yeah, so of the 14 left, the seven lords and seven ladies. So six of them are married. Six of them are married in each group. On each

side rather. Yes. I'm very intrigued by that because it is interesting to me that they partner them. Yeah, that's just really interesting to me. Yeah, I wonder why. I like that. So okay, back to what you're saying. We have elves.

We have elves and the Valor know about the elves. And the Valor are like, oh dang, we have life. And yeah, I don't know how much they were prepped for that or not.

Obviously not at all. But they were discovered, which I think is an interesting term. I think that's a really interesting thing. They were discovered. And so then after a certain amount of time, I actually think it was, they had an impetus. might have been an age or so. I'm not sure the time difference between elves and when men were created, but there's a time gap there. And then Eru comes down and he does this secret creation, the second set of children. And what I'm wondering is why we didn't get the same lifespan and some of the cool benefits. So this is of course not man again. Is this the doors?

No, no, okay, okay, we're digging into this. So he comes down and he creates men. So he now officially has elves.

Oh, we're stripping doors. He officially has elves and he has men, right? We see where dwarves fall into his Santa list. No, but listen to this.

Okay, so I actually think this is so fun. So one of the Valar is named Ule, Ule I think is the correct pronunciation. And he reminds me so much of the Greek Hephaestus.

Oh, fun. He's kind of like Lord of the Inner, yeah, Earth, he creates things. And he sees elves and he's like, oh my gosh, I wanna create something, right? And it's actually fascinating when I was reading about it, someone was saying they think that the closest comparable to Melkor in terms of a personality could be

Ule because he also has this strong desire to create.

Strong desire to do something of his own. Yes, but what's- To make his mark. To make his mark, to create something. But what's fascinating is they said he doesn't have the desire to do it out of like pride and possession.

They use the word possession, which I think is really interesting where he was like, I almost get the impression like, I own this, I control it, right? And so he goes and he's creating with the Earth, he's creating with metals and he creates dwarves. He creates the shapes of dwarves, the idea of dwarves. Does he mold them out of clay? He molds them out of the Earth.

He molds them out of the Earth. It was such a creation story. Like every single creation story is, and man was created out of clay or this and that. I have no idea how the elves and men were made.

I should look into that, but the dwarves, he creates out of the Earth. Which is why- Does he only create like the shell of them? He creates the shell of them because he realizes he doesn't have the spark of life and he can't bring them. Sad. He can't bring them to life. And also, like, he's kind of like, this is a little bit iffy, right? Like trying to create my own being

is a little bit like- Are we dipping into Frankenstein territory?

Yeah, it's like, it's kind of

like, I don't know, I don't know if you should be doing this. That Euror finds out. Of course he does. Of course. Of course he does. And I actually think it's so interesting how he addresses this. He goes down to him and he says, listen, I know what your side project has been.

Kid, I know. I see. That's such a parental relationship like between him and the Valar. Yeah. That is exactly the reaction of a parent finding out that your kid is doing the scene, that they were pretending that they were not doing it. I'm totally not doing it. But they were totally doing the whole time. That's very funny.

It's very funny. And so he goes to him and he says, hey, I see what you've created. And he almost like gives some appreciation where he's like, you created something. It's a good thing.

Yeah. Like, wow, you created something. And he says, I will give your beings life. Like I have the spark.

I will give that to them. But he says, but he does not a price. He just has an order. He says, but they are going to be my adopted children. Fascinating.

And he says, I am going to create my beings. The red-headed stuck children. Yeah. No way. He says, I'm going to create my beings that I planned on. Right? Like I have my elves.

He's got his list. I'm going to create my men. Yeah. Right? Or as we know, elves and men. He's like, I'm going to create the beings that I've planned on. And once I've created them, I'm going to come around. Then I'll give the spark. And I'm going to give the spark to your creations.

I love that. Because that is shocking to me. I would, if you had asked me to lay out the order of the creation of like the various races, it would be elves. If I had thought about it for two seconds. And then it would be dwarves. Yeah. And I guess there are other creatures that I could. And then I guess maybe I would imagine that Sauron or somebody had gone up to something and they'd create some nasty orc theme. And so then I would say men. One of their creations.

So I feel like men in my mind would have been last. That is a really interesting twist to be. It's really fascinating. After I'm done with my creation, I'm going to give this spark life to yours.

I'm going to circle back. Was there jealousy that Ulle had gone out with his secret no good bad project and then basically received very well? Did everyone else dwarf to start their own side projects?

You know what's so fascinating is I don't think other people other than. Maybe they didn't know. Other than Morgoth. Yeah, we're going to see how his life and how he responds to things. But I don't know if they had that desire to create that he did. Interesting.

So they were content with doing their jobs.

I think they were very content with their lives.

Their jobs were probably really fun things. Like they'll just tree do that thing. Yeah, I don't think they were like, I want to create a being.

You know, that does seem that's love. Like father or something or something. So interesting. I don't really I haven't read about anyone else.

Those other Valor did not necessarily have. Would you call it like a paternal urge?

Yeah, I guess. Yeah, to kind of like or or to because I guess in Morgoth's kind

of wait, I don't know what got this. Is that milk? Oh, I'm sorry.

You're cheating. I know I need to talk about the two names. So he technically has two names.

He has more people. And then when he gets banished and kind of tossed out, he becomes milk or I see. So originally kind of going in between righteous ish. They call him Morgoth. Yes, I believe that's the case. OK, very good. So what do you want me to say?

Anyway, so we'll kind of see how he I think wanted to create because he wanted to be like, I want to be the creator. Yeah, I want things to look at me and be like, oh, my goodness.

And a domineering kind of relationship. I am the master. I am the creator. Right. And so he wanted, I think, that power over his his creations. Whereas you get the sense that Eru and Yule, they don't have that desire to kind of own and control, which is interesting.

So so then does Eru go off and give the spark a life to man? He gives the spark a life to man.

Like I said, I don't know why I don't know why we're so different. I wish I had some of the benefits.

Well, I mean, if you think about it, this is very funny. So it's like my beta children are elves and I make them gorgeous with long lives. And then version 2.0. They're a little shorter lived. Like what is happening here? I don't know. Obviously they're for different purposes.

They're for different purposes. But it's hilarious. And maybe I need to dig into more. Is he like, maybe this is a Merle and won't answer all questions. Maybe it will. But so that they're created and then dwarves are given life. OK. OK. And the last tidbit that I had for life and creation in general, a kind of creation in general, because we're summing up the beings.

I just thought this was so funny and we can go into it a little bit more next episode as well. But so you lay is married to someone I think called Yvonne. And she is so he's kind of like the Lord of all things in the earth to create stuff with the earth. She's kind of like, I would say like Mother Earth or Demeter, where she's like the harvest and the the greenery.

I love these things. I've been well trained in that. Yes, I love it. I love it. And so she's kind of like the Mother Earth vibe. And so this is what I think is so sweet. So the elves are born. The men are born.

They start cutting down trees and using trees to build stuff. OK. Right. And they start, you know, replanting the earth. You can use the elves or just the men. I think probably elves to some degree, but I think it's mainly the men. Yeah. OK. And then.

And then Eru comes along and he gives birth to the dwarves, which shall we say are her husband's side project?

Like this is her husband's side project and they start cutting stuff down. And we all know how they love axes.

Yes. And so they're going out and they're hacking through her gardens and they aren't very into like greenery.

And she's you know, she's learning. She's like, and this is what my husband really thinks.

These are his progeny. You know what I think is so funny is what I was reading to. And I don't know if this is in the

actual text of the story, but she sees that, you know, her greenery and her trees are being used. OK. Right. They're not just being enjoyed for their beauty. They're actually being like cut down and used and like becoming things, right, to the creatures. And so she's she's kind of complaining and frustrated about that and sad. And she tells her husband about it. And he's like, he points out that the dwarves are

probably going to be needing some stuff to use. Even more.

No. And so he's like, he's missing the point.

But like, you know, with the dwarves, like, when they get their lives, like, they're probably going to need some stuff too. And so she's like, oh, my gosh, like, there's no end.

Like, my cup overflows with sadness.

I think this is so sweet. I don't know if she goes to Manware or one of the other Valorant, but she starts praying to Erie. Oh, OK. She's like trying to get some intercession. She's trying to something happen here. She is like, I am so worried.

Well, he's not going to do it. Like, she was like, these are my creations.

Yes. Right. Like, obviously, this was like her domain. Like, these other creations are coming. But like, these are my creations. And so she she finds a way to like intercede with Erie. He hears her prayers and he with her comes up with the ends.

Oh, the guardians of the trees. That's really sweet. And so he answers her prayers by saying, I hear how concerned you are about the nature. Yeah. And what people are doing with it. What can we do to help guard your creations? And he brings to life the ends for her.

So this is the fourth level being here. We call it the Ellesman. Yeah.

Ellesman, doors and doors and again, not the order I would have put them in. Yes. And so and once we go into like Melkor, there's so many other beasts, which to your point, like the animals and everything else, I'm going to have to dig into that. But these are kind of like when I was reading like the core creation races almost of the world here. Obviously, we're going to go into orcs when we talk about.

I know a tiny little bit about orcs.

But they're not kind of with the spark of life.

Yeah. So my understanding is that they are just twisted.

They're like a mutation. Yeah. A mutation. So we can go into that. But these are the things that are like kind of I'm getting the pressure like brought to life with Erie with a spark of life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So I feel like so we've got everything covered. We've created the world. We've put on rivers. Like the Valar may have done like the rivers and the greenery and all that. We've got man. We've got elves. We're going to have to go into beasts. I have to figure that out. Do they interact with each other or do they kind of live in separate parts of the world?

OK, so they do, but it evolves as the ages evolve. OK. So at first it's just the elves. And I believe they're pretty close to like where the Valar are. But then there's drama. There's drama among the elves, right? And Melkor is in there kind of stir in the power of it.

And so then some of them are like, oh, we love Melkor. And then I was like, oh, no, you don't. Well, because he comes across as like this very smooth guy. So I'm not I'm not painting all of the stories perfectly, but there's drama. There's drama in paradise.

And that's interesting. So would you say that like the elves and whatever drama happens in the first age? Is that like the Garden of Eden?

Oh, maybe like because they have to leave that area. There's certain elves that leave. There's certain elves that stay a little bit closer. And so they start spreading throughout the world. And then I would say, man, I can't remember when men come in, but men don't come in for there's a decent amount of history where it's

just just just cells and eventually the men are in and they're probably not interacting too much.

They're not interacting too much. And I think there was a situation, one of the kingdoms where the elves are kind of like, we don't want men here. Yeah. Right. Like we're kind of blocking our kingdom off. No man is going to enter this place. Right.

I think there's a period of time. Yeah, there's a period of time which there's a little bit of some. Yeah. So they're eerie, you know, kind of not sure of each other. And there's some dynamic because they're the dwarves. I mean, we know that they don't love the elves.

I'm not sure. That's kind of what I'm curious about. It comes from. I wonder if it comes from the beginning.

There might be more. There might be more to type into there. But yeah, dynamics start to play out.

I had one more question now. I'm forgetting what it was. Hold on. Hain tight. Oh, I remember it. OK, so I don't only speak to the stuff I remember from the book Sandor the Movies, but like the the elves talk of Valor. Yes. So is that like heaven? Is that a place on Arda? Arda.

Arda. Yeah. Is it and it's in the West like they can sail in the West and they can sail in a way that no one else can. Right. Like a man who sells West is not going to reach Valor. Yeah.

It's not just a West direction, I believe. I believe it's like this extra extra terrestrial plane.

Yeah, I almost get the impression I could be wrong. Man, maybe I'm not thinking about this, right? But you know how in like the Viking mythology, there's like that rainbow that kind of gets you I'm kind of picturing something along those lines like where you sail off into the ocean and there's some kind of like thing that transports you know, like transportation, but I could be wrong.

So is Valor part of what is it?

Is it is it like a garden of Eden? Is it a heaven? Like what is it? Is it part of the creation? It's a pretty timeless place.

And is it where the elves first lived in the first stage?

Yes. OK, that makes sense. Then a lot of elves are like we're leaving, we're heading out. Some of them think we're kicked out maybe. They

basically went out into the world.

Went out into the world. That feels very much like a fall. A decent few ages. And they interacted with men never lived in Valor. Sex for men. Sex for men.

Sex for men. And so they had had all this interaction. I don't think the doors ever lived there. And so when people are talking about sailing back into the West, they're talking about like kind of reclaiming. Going back to Valor.

Yeah, that homeland. But you also get the impression that like living with like being out in the world is almost like not a chance to pursue their own destiny, but kind of to be like out. You know what I mean?

And like there's a level of stagnation going on. Whereas I don't know. I feel like in Valor, you know, with the Valor, they they're distanced. You have this impression when I'm reading about the Valor and we can talk about this in the next episode as well. But you have the impression that they're trying to keep an eye on things. But they're always because they're like some kind of distance removed.

There's some distance there. And so I wonder if it's kind of like a different world. OK, interesting.

That is a sweet creation story. Yeah, kind of cool. Away into that. That's like really fun.

And then next episode, we're going to go into Valor. And then after that, we're going to talk about Valor drama. Valor drama, the different personalities. I wanted to get all like 14 kind of talked about. So we know.

And then some of the main stories because there's a lot of stuff that goes on between all these people over like the ages. Is anyone other than Melcore causing trauma? Not really. I mean, he's like the main dude. Everyone else seems pretty harmonious. OK. They all have really different personalities, which I think is interesting.

It's probably Unmentioned Strife.

Maybe Unmentioned Strife. But it's all like disagreement. It's just minor, right?

In comparison to the actual evil.

I actually think like he caused a lot of disagreements because like I was saying like Manway was like, sure, like, why would you even want to be bad anyway? It's like that makes sense. She wants to know.

That was probably the prevailing attitude. So you have the wife that's like, I'm not so sure about this. Do like, I think, yeah, I think you got it wrong. And I read somewhere and I'm curious if this is true. But it was saying because of that, Manway's wife. And I'm going to have to remember her name. But she was like the Valor that he most disliked because she was always distrusted him, right? And he was a little bit like a little bit scared of her because it seemed like she could always see through. Yeah. His like. Cool.

I'm excited to learn about her. Yeah. That's awesome. She seems bomb. So yeah. So next time you were saying that's time it's all about Valor and like the gods in general.

The gods in general, the personalities, maybe some key things they've done. And then we'll go into Morgoth or Milchor. And episode after Sauron's boss. Yeah.

That was the other snippet that I knew. I knew that Sauron had a boss. And when I learned that I was like, what?

I thought he was the ultimate backer.

Which honestly, it's in perspective how terrible this dude is because Solan is like haunting dreams. Kind of kind of terror. Like even in other fantasy, it's hard for me to find a villain that I'm like so. I don't know.

It's harder to write a villain. When you are looking at fantasy and they have the big bad guy, they usually put him on if he's like, you know, the big bad guy for the entire world. He's on the level of Sauron. So to imagine that Sauron had a boss.

Wild. Yeah, it's actually really interesting. And I guess it made sense to me that Tolton would have written about Sauron and not Mellchor or Morgoth. Because that level of power above Sauron is almost inconceivable.

Almost inconceivable, the amount of power and...

Yeah, and it's just harder to have a story about it. The world. Yeah. Anyways, I'm very excited to talk about that. I'm very excited too.

Okay, next time. Well, till we meet again. Speak, friend and enter.

The podcast. Thanks for listening guys.

Hi there, this is Steph. Welcome to our addendum. We realized that there were a couple of things that we had questions on in this first episode. And we also wanted to go back and maybe correct a couple of things.

Yeah, exactly. That's how we said it. We're not afraid to be wrong. So hopefully this will add some clarification on a couple of topics. Okay, so I have a few things outlined that I just wanted to quickly go through.

Lydia is going to chat through them with me, but hopefully we're not going to come up with too many more questions.

I'm not tangent, so I'm ready to blow them. Yes. Okay. So as I was researching things a little bit after, just to make sure that I had gotten things right, there were a couple of details that stood out to me. I wanted to talk about a couple of details on the creation song that I thought were interesting. I wanted to go over the question about where the beasts come from.

Right. That was the one. And just to like preface why I asked that question, the only historical, I don't know if a few historical facts about Tolton, but one of them is that he was buddies with C.S. Lewis, C.S. Lewis of Narnia of Talking Beasts fame. Talking Beasts, yes. And so I thought, I wonder if when they were hanging out and doing their writing sessions or whatever, I wonder if Tolton also thought, oh yeah, talking beasts are awesome.

I should have them. And I feel like that seems like a mythological element. All the time you're reading a myth and he's like, yes. And then he told his horse to do something and the horse answered and you don't even blink because it's mythology. So it seems like it could fit and I'm kind of curious, like what was the state? You know, what was the state of the beasts? OK. So and also when were they created? Just all the things that you know. So perfect, perfect.

OK. And then another thing that I wanted to go over was the timing of Dorf's creation. I realized some details about that. And then the last piece I wanted to kind of mention, but I think we will have a whole another deep dive on this is some timing questions about like the ages of Middle Earth and when things are happening. So we're going to go into that a deep dive, but I wanted to correct a couple of things I said earlier. OK. First one. OK. So the first one, a couple creation song details that I realized.

So I told you that there are three parts in this song and that Morgoth kind of had his own piece of the song, which was causing a little bit of discord with Eru's, right? And so that is correct.

But score one. One. Score one. Yes.

There's a couple of details that I missed that I thought were super interesting that I wanted to add in. So previously, I had said the iron ore, which was kind of like the host of angels is, you know, this set of creations that Eru made and that among those were the Valar, right?

We have like the 1415 Valar that come down. And you kind of said, well, was it Melchor just singing his song? Like what was going on? Yeah.

And it turns out that because he had such a powerful song, there were other voices. Yeah. And the iron ore that were kind of listening to a song and being like,

yeah, like they're kind of vibing with it. Yeah. And so they started going along with his voice as well. So it did become a little more of like part of the host was following Eru's song.

Because that gives obviously with like Lucifer, right?

Pulling away a part of heaven with him. So there was a little bit of a host following his song. So I thought that was interesting. That is very interesting. While I was looking to that, I also realized and I think we're going to have a whole another discussion on this. So there is the Valar, which is kind of like this top tier of deity and Middle Earth, I would say, once they descend down. And then there's the Maiar, which we are going to get into in another episode, which

is kind of the, I would say the level below. Okay. Yeah. And there's more, more levels of hierarchy. There's more levels of hierarchy. And what's interesting is I just thought the Valar were from this host called the iron ore, these angels, but it turns out that the spirits of the Maiar were also there and this host. And so we are going to get into some of our favorite Maiar, some of the really crucial Maiar.

Okay. But we see characters down the road in this Maiar section that were there and that were potentially, potentially during the creation song that were potentially either following, you know, Eru song or going along with Melkor song. So we're going to see spoiler alert Saruman. So we're going to see some characters there too. So I thought I would add that detail. Cool. I love that.

I love that as well. And then the last little bit of this is, so we kind of said that Eru kind of was directing the song. He wasn't really saying anything to Melkor, right? As he's bringing in all of this.

It was like a chastising moment between, right? He was a chastising in between, but I did realize he said something at the end. Okay. So he gets up, we, we talked about how he brings Melkor's discord in with his song to kind of create this overall beautiful theme. And then he ends the music. And at the end of the music, from what I was reading, it says that he rebuked Melkor. He said, but he praised his strength, but reminded him that at, as an aspect of his creators thought anything that he ultimately would create was from Eru himself. And so it would naturally fall into Eru's plans and music and his whole attempt at rebellion.

Basically like, what is it? Resistance is futile.

Yeah. Where he was saying like, okay, I praise your strength, but I hope you realize like, no matter what you do, this is ultimately going to fold into my work and glory kind of. That's very interesting. So I thought that was interesting. So he did say something at the end of the song to him. And I don't think, I don't think, uh, Morgoth slash Melkor, I don't think he took a very well, obviously.

He was just pleased. If you were a pet, no. So those are some extra details I found out the creations on.

I thought I would add them. So the second area that I wanted to cover it was beasts. Okay. So what we, what I was able to discover is that we do not have a play by play of who created these beasts. So we are not seeing Eru come down and use his spark of life to create the beast. But we do know that when the Einer were there, one of them was a hunter, right?

So obviously there were creatures. And there are creatures associated with the Valar. We, we go on to see, and we'll talk about the Valar in the next episode. We go on to see that there are certain Valar who are kind of known for creating or bringing into being different beasts and as well as Morgoth slash Melkor, which is interesting. And so the consensus I think at this point is that they were using the materials that was created in the song to create these different beasts and different animals. Like there's enough life going around

that they can just pull it together. That they were like using this matter. But for something like the Dwarf, something that was like totally novel, there wasn't enough spark of life. That kind of an interesting thought. Interesting.

I had to do down into that later. So there is like Yvana, who is the mother earth figure. People think that because she was making plants and trees and other things.

They think that there's, yeah, they think that there was, you know, maybe kind of a reference to Fauna that maybe she was helping create some of these animals. There's Manway, who is known for creating a very specific animal, which we're going to talk about in this next episode, the Great Eagles. And because he's Lord of the Skies. So, but what's fascinating is Melkor slash Morgoth, he, he had created a lot by kind of changing already existing stuff. Well, he was all about mutation. He was all about mutation.

You know, this is not surprising, but there's also something to respect about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the fact that he was so prolific. And accomplished, obviously accomplished. He supposedly created dragons. What? Which is wild. Why are you trying to make me like Melkor?

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay, so anyways. That's so cool. But it explains the character of dragons. Yeah. Because I really enjoyed the way Tolkien describes dragons. Like he does such a good job of making them flawed. Like obviously they're so powerful, but they're so greedy and their greed is always like their their downfall.

We could go into deep dives of beasts in general or all of these different beasts, but I just thought I would give

like, But it makes sense that Melkor created those.

Like I love that. I love that a lot. It seems like the Val are really crucial on the creation of beasts is what I was gathering. Another thing. All right. So the timing of when the dwarves were created. I was a little off on this. I thought because we know that Eru considered elves his first children.

Right. He considered the creation of then his second children. And then he told Yulei. He said, your dwarves are going to be my adopted children. Is it Yulei or Yulei?

Yulei, Yulei, I'm not sure. That's fine. I've never pronounced a thing right in my life.

So I'm not going to start now. I'm going to have to fix this for the next episode, but we will look it up. We will improve. Anyways, that.

So it was first out.

His amazing work of the dwarves. Yes. So that's what I thought. Okay. But on closer inspection. So Yulei, I think that's. I'm going to go. I'm down for it. He before. So the Val are new actually that era was going to create a being. They knew it was going to create a being and they were prepping the world for it. But they didn't know what kind of being he was going to create.

Okay. They didn't know when he was going to create it. So like when to expect this being. Which really seems like an important detail to tell your people. And they didn't know where these beings were going to show up.

Prep the entire world. Yeah. We don't know where they're going to come when or like what they're going to be. Violent information, terrible project management.

So they were prepping the world, but and they knew that beings were coming, but they didn't know these details. So Yulei creates the dwarves in advance of all this. He creates the structure, the form of the doors, but he doesn't have that spark of life. Right. He can't give them life. So that's when Iroh has the conversation with him and says, Hey, I see what you've been doing.

So like elves are not even on the earth yet. Elves aren't even on the earth yet. He's like, you got some bomb creatures here.

They're not quite as cool as my elves. Hang on.

He's like, listen, I gotta finish my being. And then we can circle back around and discuss yours. So he starts with the elves and I'm going to go into timing, but he starts with the elves during the era of the trees. So we're going to talk about these different timings and eras, but he starts them in the era of the trees. He creates these elves and then he actually circles back and gives life to the dwarves. So the dwarves are the second there. And then he circles, right? He then he circles back around and does man. He gives life to men.

He really threw a bone to Yulei. Yeah. Look, I'm just going to make my first one like, All right, I'll do your door.

The way I was anticipating. Yes. And men aren't until like the era, the time period of the sun and mount. So they're a decent amount behind all of this.

I mean, you know what? He probably looked at and thought, well, we'd rather give time for the elves and the dwarves to devolve their ending. They need a little bit of time to fester.

Yes. And then we can introduce man into the meat. So the elves, even more exciting.

Yeah. Okay. So that's a correction there. And then timing. So I realized I didn't have a full understanding of the timing. I thought that the ages were kind of referring to the storyline of earth where there were three different light sources.

So we know the Valar came down. They created the first light source, which were these lanterns. There were two of them. Do they have a name? Is there a light to name for them? I think they're just called the two great lanterns. They might actually have names. Okay. Okay.

We'll go into that. It was some decanting name. The timing of the world. The time span of the world. But they have these two lanterns. They get destroyed. We'll go into that in more detail another time. And then they set up these trees, a golden and a silver tree. Those do have names. I actually did see the names of those. I'll have to find that later. And so then they set up the trees. The trees get destroyed. We'll also go into that.

Who out there hates having light sources?

Yeah. Yeah. I think we know.

And then there's the sun and the moon. Okay. And so I was considering these different light sources kind of cutting off the ages, like age one, age two, age three. But it turns out, so I don't know exactly what we'd want to call those. You maybe can call them eras, like the time of the lanterns.

The different suns, maybe. Yeah, the time of the lanterns. 20 eras. The time of the trees. The time of the sun and moon. But inside of that, we actually have the ages that are being referred to in the books. So when we say it's Middle Earth, the third age, it's the third age of the sun and moon period. See, this is what's confusing.

Maybe. So I looked into the ages because we know that we're in the third age when it comes to Lord of the Rings. So there's a first age, second age, third age. So technically, the first age starts in the years of the trees.

So that's where we are not counting lanterns. You know what I was thinking? The second light source. And I first learned about BC and the year of time. Yeah. So not into that. Yeah.

Still sometimes hard for me. Not your vibe. So we've got the age of the lanterns, which is BC, we've got some negative years attached to it. And then zero is age of the trees.

So age of the trees is when the first age starts, and it looks like the first age starts with the birth of the elves. Perfect. Is what is considered the first age. So in the years of the trees, the elves are born, and that marks the first age.

I also, I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but I love, I mean, elves are so intertwined with trees. Yeah. The nature vibe of them. Obviously there are many reasons for Tolkien doing that, but I love that. I didn't know about their son. Like I didn't know about their light source being trees. And I love that that's how he kind of sets them up to be so entwined with trees. Yes. It's perfect.

And then also I will comment. So that we have the first age starting in the years of the trees. It looks like before that, maybe it's just referred to as like the days before days. So they start the ages when the elves are born. And then before that is just days before days. Yeah.

What was the world without elves anyways?

There's stuff going on. There's a lot of stuff going on actually in the days before days, but apparently the first age

starts when the elves get there during the years of the trees. Okay. And so then the first age ends and we're going to discuss this when. So there's some event that ends the first age. It ends the first age. Is it the destruction of the tree lights? It's the destruction of the trees by you know who. And so that ends the first age.

And then we have a whole second age where they have literally no light because the sun and moon have not been invented yet.

So the sun and moon, the valor are quick and then we're on it. They're on it. Okay.

They get another light source up and running. Like a match.

Like get something else going. Just get a seat. Yeah. So they start the second age. And well, I think we should go into more of the history of everything that happens in all these ages too in another deep dive.

But this is going to try to be light in the area as much as we can. So then the second age starts to the years of the sun and the moon. Okay. And then there's some time, some respite before man is put on.

Man is put on after the beginning of the third age. Man enters at the beginning of the second age. So the years of the sun and the moon is when man awakens. Okay.

So it's been a long time. The third age is long time since man. Yes.

Okay. And so. That helps set the scale. Oh, actually. Oh, I'm reverting. I'm reverting. So we have first age. Awakening of the elves and the creation, the two trees, but then technically, oh, oh, here we go.

Okay. The awakening of man technically happens. First age continued. It looks like the awakening of man technically happens in the first age. Excuse me. So the first age is in the years of the trees and then it spans the creation of the sun and the moon. So it spans. Okay.

Correcting myself right now. It spans. So men are in the first age as well. Men are created and there. Okay. It ends. First age ends with a big defeat of Morgoth.

Okay. So that's the end of the first age. Then we're going to start the second age. So Morgoth is kind of defeated. And in the second age, we kind of see Sauron coming into his own. That's interesting.

And so Sauron. Because this is still prequel for me. This is still prequel. This is where Numenor is kind of getting built up. I've heard of Numenor. I don't really know about it. We'll talk more about it. And then the end of the second age is kind of the

first defeat of Sauron when his ring gets cut off his finger. Of course. And that's kind of the start of our knowledge in the trilogy. Right.

Because that was already so long ago, even before the Duh.

Of course. So that's the end of the second age. Third age starts with that defeat of Sauron. And it ends when the elves depart the Middle Earth after the destruction of the one ring. Really? So that's the third age.

Okay. Because I've never gotten that vibe that we were so close to the end of the third age. Yeah.

Exactly. That's really interesting. And then the fourth age is like Eragorn living his life. And then there's ages potentially after that as well. Fascinating. We don't know how many. We don't know how many. So anyways, that turned out to be a long conversation, but I did want to correct a couple of things. The ages are different than the years of the different light sources.

And yes. And then the order of the beings. So it's like Elves Dwarves Man.

Elves Dwarves Man. Elves and Dwarves were in the years of the trees. Men were in the years of the sun, but technically both of those events, all those events are in the first age. Okay. That made sense to me. So go and be blessed. We'll try to, we'll try to dig into that more.

You'll be cursed with this damage. Yeah. You're welcome. Okay. Okay, see you today. Bye.

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