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, beat-a-lons and laugh-a-lons. 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. Hello, hello.

Alright, we're back at it. It feels like it's bit-a-long hiatus, which it hasn't. It's just that we didn't schedule our nets recording last time, so I'm like, out of sight, out of mind, never got to do that again. But I'm really excited, actually, because we're back in the summer, really. And do you remember last time, Lydia? We were saying, like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe they just cut us from Baron and Luthien like that.

Like, no after of what their life was like or anything. And then, well, and now we did it. We didn't cheat and look ahead, which we should have done.

Now we did Chapter 20, which is the Baron Luthien epilogue, I guess. Yeah, a little bit. It's not, it's not happy. It's interesting. Yeah, yeah. I wasn't cheated by this. Basically, I mean, we start off here and it's Baron and Luthien return, they're alive again.

You're thinking there will be much rejoicing, but no. Because Melia looks at them and goes to herself, ah, I see what's happening here. And it's, it's, I get her because it's too sad to say goodbye over and over and over again. So, yeah, I mean, the phrase that's interesting here says, Melia looked in her eyes and read the doom that was written there and turned away. For she knew that a parting beyond the end of the world had come between them. And no grief of loss has been heavier than the grief of Melia and the Maya in that hour, which is just, this is her daughter. Burdol. It's very sad.

So I don't know. I will talk more about this in Chapter 21, but I think Tolkan has this secret love of tragedy that was secret to me. And now he's like playing his hand. He's like, I've sucked you into my book.

And now that you're this far, we're going to start playing these cards. It's wild because I think out of all of the fantasy, well, maybe not out of all the fantasy authors, but he's known for having that thread of hope. He's known for good, conquerors evil. He's known for it's the little people on the little deeds that matter. Yeah. Now I'm thinking this is all a lie.

But I just, yeah, to your point, and I guess it's a little bit of a recap. So like there and died, right? Luthien took his eyes off of him for two seconds and he died. And so then she goes to Mando's and she's like, please, please. And he gives him a deal.

Yeah. He gives them a deal, which basically is like, I'll give you back your life. But when you go back, you guys are both going to be mortal. So when you die, that's it. Like no after, after spirit thing, nothing. Yeah. And I think the fact that Luthien had a different fate in her afterlife and now doesn't, that's really what's coming between her and Mellie and her hand. And her mom.

Yeah. It's very sad. Basically though, it just talks about how Barron and Luthien, they go off and they go alone and they live out their lives together. There's no news of them. There's no tidings.

Like they go off and nobody ever hears of them again. So clued. And so actually.

It's kind of interesting. Like they don't go back and live lives of like family and friendship again. They live lives with each other. Yeah.

And I don't know. I feel about that. I think it's interesting as an epilogue for them because it's like, here's finally the rest that you guys were looking for. Here's the time together that you wanted. But it's really, it's very much enforced like time alone.

You don't have others with you and it's not clear as I can't tell. Did they have a child? Is that your Aranel? Yes. Yes. I was just looking into this detail because I was like, similarly, it just felt like they had a very kind of esoteric life, but they had one child and it was a son.

And it was this Dior. Okay. Yeah.

That wasn't like wildly clear to me. I was like, okay, so does the son come to live with Fingal? Does he just go off on his own? Well, I guess we haven't heard about him yet.

And maybe he'll come up in the future. Yeah. And the ending. Oh, go ahead. I was just going to say because I was like, because I knew, I knew that Baron's ring gets carried on and descended to Aragorn. And so I was just looking at that. So yeah.

So Dior, he was like, what do they call it? Once you're not a descendant, you're a, you're further up the line. Ancestor. Ancestor. We'll go with that. But basically his line. Is he an ancestor of Aragorn? Yeah.

His line was the line of like Elendil and Elrond and then also Aragorn. So he's got a lot going on there. All right. That is interesting. So we see that he's mentioned, but we don't see anything else.

And the ending for Baron Luthien says, and none saw Baron or Luthien leave the world or mark where it lasts their body's way. So it's just like an interesting note. You know?

Yeah. Well, and you know what I think is so interesting? I sent you this text because I saw it online, but so Baron and Luthien, this beautiful love story, Luthien kind of saves Baron over and over and over. And the inspiration supposedly for Tolkien was his own, his own love story with his wife. And I thought it was interesting because there was a little bit of like, there was a religious difference between the two of them. I think one of them was Catholic and one of them was Protestant.

And I think Tolkien originally met her when he was a teenager and the Catholic priest was like, you shouldn't be going out with someone who's not a religion. So I don't know. I wonder if there was this sense of like, maybe there's a divide between us, but we still want to be together. Yeah. Yeah.

There has to be that sense of the divide between Baron and Luthien. An overstated, accentuated way of putting it because it's made for story, but there must have been something, but yeah, I told him that. That's very cool.

And then it was on their tombstones too. Yeah, you sent me that picture. It's really cute, really cute. And I liked how Tolkien tasks himself as Baron who, you know, we made fun of him, but Baron's like a really good guy. At the same time, he makes a lot of mistakes. And so there's like this humble, there is almost a level of humility in being like, yep, and I'm Baron. Yeah. My wife is Luthien, but I'm Baron.

It's not the same level. Like we were talking about Luthien and we were like, girl, where'd you get these powers from? Like it was insane. Yeah. And Luthien's very brave. It's a cool characterization for his wife. I like that.

Very sweet. Yeah. So we move on from Baron and Luthien and we immediately dive back into the drama. The oath of Fëanor and the evil deeds. So Majros is trying to get the band back together. Essentially he's like, look, look at what Luthien did, essentially. Look at what Baron and Luthien did.

Morgoth is not invincible. We can do something here. Let's go. So he is, he's energized. He's inspired. He's inspired. He's ready to rock and roll it in. And it doesn't go particularly well.

And that's where that quote I came in with. He says he's trying to get the union of Majros. He's trying to get everyone back together.

Get the elves to unite. And it says the oath of Fëanor and the evil deeds that it wrought did injury to the design of Majros. And it's just so, man, this whole chapter and especially the ones later are all about the curse strikes again.

The invincibility of a curse, the fact that you can never get away from it. It's a really interesting theme and not one that I would have thought of. I just not one I knew about Tolten really loving. Because you don't get that sense from Lord of the Rings.

In my opinion. You don't get the sense of there's a curse on somebody and it just keeps on coming and coming and coming. And you can't stop it and you can never run from it. I guess the closest you get is that the ring is a curse on Frodo. And it just keeps on draining him and he can't get away from it. And he must do the thing.

But that's as close as we did. And it's not, it feels a little bit more pointed in the Silmarillion. I also think it's so interesting because you're right. It keeps talking about this curse. And I kept thinking like, man, what's like the equivalent of this in real life?

And I realized it's not that far off. Because I think what Tolten is talking about is the impact of past generations on the future. Are how hard it is to break our own family and cultural cycles of history. And the relationships, the drama we see now, like it goes into like certain elves didn't want to partner with them because of the actions of those, what do we call them? The slimy, the slimy brothers, Selegorm and Corithon. Yes, they're so slimy.

They're so slimy. And so like you get the effect of like generational almost like trauma and pain and bad relations. And which is very human.

It was very human. And very, yeah, it's just something obviously we still have. Yeah. So Matros is trying to do this.

It's not going great. But they end up getting certain things going on. Even though it's so they like call out to Thingol that I joined us, but again, Selegorm and Corithon. The slimy brothers.

Yeah, the slimy brothers. This is causing issues there. And this, man, these Silmarils are so cursed. And every day that Thingol looked upon the Silmaril, the more he decided to keep it forever, for such was its power. So of course, as soon as people learned that Thingol had one, as soon as the sons of Fëanor learned this, they're like, yo, give it, give it back, give it to us. It's ours.

And he refuses. So there's yet another division between them there. Yeah. Like even more, that one is escalating.

Because he's never liked them. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that one is still a little bit unresolved, but it's escalating. And he's never liked them. And now it's going to be worse now that he has a Silmaril. So what they do is like, Tellodorm and Corithon vow openly to slay Thingol. So they're like, we're going to go off to war. We're going to defeat Morgoth.

And if you haven't given us back to that Silmaril, by the time we get back, we're going to kill you. And it's crazy because. So it's escalating.

Yeah. Because it's kind of like what we said, where they had that oath of like, we will pursue this no matter what. But these are new generations, right? Like they can choose. They can choose to not go down that path. No, they can't. They're bound by the oath of their fathers.

That's that line that Tolkan is pulling. Like you said, the generations, like what people did before you are affecting you now. I know. It's wild.

It's wild. But also it made me wonder, because I'm not 100% sure. But I think like the Noldor versus like the Thingol lines. Is that the kind of the predecessors to what we would see as like the Wood elves, like Legolas and his father versus Galadriel and her get up in Lafayette? I think so. We'd have to confirm it.

But I think so. Because I always thought it was interesting how like they, it's almost like Legolas, like they respected each other, but they were very distinct. Oh, that was a divide. And I wonder like, does it go all the way back to this, especially now that there was a semeral involved, right? Like it's not just Thingol anymore. Yeah, I'm very intrigued to find out what happens with that somer. Yeah, me too.

I have no concept of it. So now they have a plan. Majors is getting everyone together. We have different groups and they're going to do a pincer movement on Mordoth. They're going to hide some people. They're going to bring out their armies. I love your military tactic language. It's great.

The pincer is classic for a reason. And I thought this was cute. They said it says, they thought to take the might of Mordoth as between an anvil and a hammer and break it to pieces.

Great. And the signal for this was to be the firing of a great beacon in Dorthonian. I just love the beacons. So I love to see this like predecessor.

Obviously, though, things are not going to go great. Because Mordoth has been watching. Mordoth has been watching and he's been putting his spies in place. And so we had some foreshadowing from this a couple chapters ago where he talked about these these evil men that are his spies and how one of the groups that were evil men actually stayed steadfast surprisingly. And we didn't know like when this betrayal was supposed to happen.

But here it is. So now this is the moment of betrayal. So everyone's got their armies arrayed. They're about to make things happen. And then we did a surprise entrance.

I was very surprised by this. I says for unsummoned and unlooked for, Turjan had opened the leader of Gondolin and was come with an army 10,000 strong. This is not the moment. I don't know when I thought Turjan would come out of Gondolin. I guess this there's no better moment. Like this is a chance for open war for against Mordoth. This is right after Baron and Luthien have shown that he is he can be hurt and weakened and fought.

So I don't know when I thought this happened, but this still caught me by surprise. Yes. And I think I would. So going along with that, something that really stood out to me is so when we're saying like he was inspired and he thought this is our moment to kind of hit and hit hard. We're talking hard because he said at length having gathered all the strength he could. And this is in Beleriand of the elves of men and this one astonished me and of dwarves. You never see dwarves coming out, but dwarves were living in Beleriand.

Dwarves were kind of suffering as Mordoth was doing his thing. And so he has said, okay, we're going to take this active force. We're going to come strong. So he gets out of Beleriand and this is our chance.

And so he's really calling upon the people who have not been as involved in the past. Yeah. And is this the first time we've seen elves and men and dwarves fight together? Together. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I mean, this is spoiler, but it doesn't go well. So it's really interesting. Like I guess it's really interesting to see that this is the precedent that other future alliances are built on. Yes. And to see that it goes so poorly. I also think it's really interesting. I'm now thinking back to, you know, when the movie opens and they're talking about once there was an alliance of men and elves, they don't say dwarves in that one, right?

There were no dwarves at that battle. This is the thing. I looked at some goodies. Okay. So this might, I love it when I have questions and I'm too lazy to look them up.

So I think Stephanie probably looked at this. I will ask. Oh my gosh. Okay. Tell me about that.

Okay. So this is spoiling it a little bit, but generally, you know, this chapter is a little bit sad, right? It doesn't end with them defeating Morgoth.

So, but additionally, towards the end of the chapter, they're fighting things are not going well. The most valiant group of fighters in the whole army are the dwarves. They are the last. They're crushing it. I was really impressed by them.

They are the last to retreat. And, and I actually thought this was kind of poetic. Their main kind of them, because Morgoth brings out everybody. He brings out the, the wolves. He brings out the dragons.

He brings out the bell rocks. Their main foe is the OG dragon, the father of dragons. Which is so cool and such a fun pre- like predecessor and precedent for the dwarf versus smowed.

Yes. Uh, I did not realize that the, the, I guess what's the enmity between dwarf and dragon went so far back. Went so far back. And so this is them against the father of dragons, Glaurung. And you can, like we were saying, it's just epic to see how dragon and dwarf, actually their desires align very closely when they start getting greedy.

They like have such similar circles and emotions. And so the king of the dwarves is actually able to stab Glaurung and like really injure him. But he, but he dies, right? The leader of the dwarf army dies and everyone's broken up the elves and men around them. And so the dwarves after that, this is actually, I Google this, look this up. This is the last alliance of men, elves and dwarves. And the first alliance. It's the first and it is the last of men, elves and dwarves all fighting for the same cause.

It sounds like after this, dwarves very much dealt with these things happening on the outside world by going into their own caves and going into their own mountains and covering their own bases. So. And it's a really interesting, very cinematic scene the way it's described. It's all, it's mid battle, pitched battle, the team dies and the doors taped him up and buried him away with a dirge and nobody, like nobody has either the will or the gumption to like call them back. Did they see this dirge? Yeah.

They act as if they're in a funeral procession and it sounds like it's happening mid battle. And it's just that would be so interesting. And so you get the impression like this was a first and a powerful precedent where you and okay, we'll talk about this more, but multiple like you said, right?

We'll impact generations later. Yes, exactly. Multiple races have from this experience decided how they want to deal with each other. Moving forward. Yes.

Okay. Now we've cheated ourselves out of like one or two comments before that. So we have everybody's in place. Mordorff has some of his, his, his armies out, but not all. Everyone else has their armies in place and they're, they're trying to hold back. They're waiting for the signal, but here's what happens. They have captured one of the elves. No, one of the men. I think they captured one of the men.

Am I wrong? Is it a man or an elf they've captured? I'm not sure.

Where is he? Oh, oh. No, it's an elf.

It's an elf. Oh, yeah, this is fun. So, Delmore is captured by the orcs and they basically torture him and then cripple him, cut off his hands and feet and then his head in front of everyone.

It's just like horrible. And this is interesting. It says, by ill chance at that place in the outworks stood Gwinder of Nardrothon, the brother of Delmore. So you can see that that didn't go over well. Yeah. Also, when I first read this chapter, I was like, Gwinder, who's this? There's yet another name I don't need to remember, but he comes up later and now that I looked at it, I'm like, ooh, it's Gwinder. So it's cool to see him. So Gwinder says his wrath was kindled to madness.

So he goes out and he kills the people who killed his brother and then that's the spark that lights it off. So they don't wait for the beacon. They go early. And this is both good and bad. The orcs are not ready for the onslaught and kind of like the ferocity of it. So they drive them out instantly. They push forward to Aynbad and it says, Gwinder and the elves in Nardrothon burst through the gate and slew the guards upon the very stairs of Aynbad and Morgoth trembled upon his deep throne, hearing them beat upon his doors. Wild.

Wild. Do you think, oh my gosh, we're going to make progress. They got so close and then they were trapped there and all were slain, saved Gwinder only, whom they took alive, which is never what you want to hear. It was a trap. It was a trap. Morgoth was purposely trying to bait them. See, I don't think he was, but like it didn't work out.

Terrible. Because, oh man, I thought it said somewhere and maybe I'm thinking of a later battle. Well, it says they were trapped there and I wonder if it meant like they just got themselves too deep because this is what happens when you dive in too deep behind enemy lines, you know. I did get the impression that Morgoth was not prepared for how quickly in. Ferociously, they came at him.

Yeah, yeah, probably not. But Fiendon, who had been with that host, he's beaten back from the walls and so now we just have like a series of battles taking place and it's a back and forth. Things are going well. Things are going poorly.

Things are going well again. And then Morgoth is releasing all of his armies. He's got wolves. He's got ballerots.

He's got dragons. Yeah, yeah. It says this. Neither by wolf nor by ballerot nor by dragon.

And when Morgoth had achieved his end, but for the treachery of men. Yeah. And I was like, dang, that's harsh. That's harsh.

Yes. For two reasons. One was the spies, which we mentioned earlier. But then also it wasn't just orcs that were fighting for him. This is the first reference I think we have to him making deals with groups of men, primarily the Easterlings. Yeah, I think the Easterlings had been briefly mentioned before, but I think in the context of this, they were foreshadowed.

Like, oh, yeah, Morgoth will use these Easterlings later. Yes. Yeah. So that's what's happening here. And I honestly read that.

I was like, oh snap. This is where the the Elven disdain for men came. And it's not entirely true because Thiemdl disdained them before this.

But it is definitely worth it. The children of Thainor. Yeah. There is a divide now after this. And yeah, it goes terribly. So we have the surprise of the sons of Bohr who stood with them.

That's kind of fun. But essentially it says that the sons of Olthain went over suddenly to Morgoth and drove into the rear of the sons of Thainor and and they wreaked havoc. They drive them left and right. They divide them.

They statter them, essentially. And then we get to what we had talked about previously about the dwarves against Klaoron because this is happening in a different quarter of the battle. And this description was so cool. Also, it's cool because we got some hints of how the dwarves differ in the way they go to battle. Yeah. Their armor. It says it was their custom to wear great masks in battle.

Hideous to look upon. Yeah. And those stood them in good stead against the dragons. Because of the fire their face was covered. Almost like a blacksmith mask.

Yeah. So it says that Klaoron and his brood would have withered all that was left at the noldor. But the Naurim made a circle about him when he has seldom. And even his mighty armor was not foolproof against the blows of their axis. So they're just incredibly brave. They're going down on this guy.

Honestly, I feel like if the team had not died, they could have killed Klaoron. Wow. Yeah.

It's really cool. But this is this is where we get the part where the team does die. And then that's that's enough for them.

And they leave the field. It's very sad. Yeah. But I mean, nothing good is happening here at this point.

Then it goes to a second part of the field where you see the bow rocks against the elves. Yes. And that's just sad. So we have the bow rod.

We have Fingron standing against the bow rod because then he is killed. Yes. And it's like brutal the way it's described. And so everything is going poorly.

And now the field is lost. And it says Hurin and Hur is who are part of the men. They stood firm and they wanted to help the retreat. They said, go now. This is what they're talking to Turgan of Gondolin. They say, go now, flee. And Turgan says, not long now can Gondolin be hidden, etc. And Hur says this, yet if it stands but a little while, then out of your house shall come the hope of elves and men.

And so he encourages him to leave. And this I don't I don't really understand. I don't know what's being foreshadowed here. It says Madeleine, who is that scary, stretchy elf. Yeah, yeah. Stood by Hur these words and did not forget them, but he said nothing, which is his classic move.

Yeah. I don't know what's being foreshadowed here because I don't know the genealogy. I don't know who comes out of the house of Turgan that we should be knowing. I think.

Do you know what's going on? I think in the earlier sentence and that same kind of prophecy piece, it says, from you and from me, a new star shall arise farewell. I think what they're referring to is Alindiel, the elf who when Morgoth was kind of this is centuries.

I think it was a man. Am I making that up? He is. He is a man. Okay. So he's a man.

Okay. He's a man and he's an elf and he he's the father for a man. Oh, I'm losing. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were talking gender and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no.

Okay. Alindiel, I believe was a. Oh, you're right. Because I thought he was a man. He was like the king of new and or right? No.

Okay. Here because we haven't gotten to Alindiel yet, but yeah, basically whatever he was, I'm looking it up. Man or elf. He went to get help from the Valar when Morgoth was kind of at his peak and because he sailed across the ocean. He's the sailor. And he's the one that they put in the sky as a star.

Oh, okay. Man or elf. And remember that's the that's the star that the elves love. They're like, here's the light of Alindiel.

Yeah. Alindiel was a man. He was a new Menorian. He was the first High King of the Doudain.

I had not connected the light of Alindiel to. I'm excited for that. That was my thought. Am I wrong? Is he a dissentant? I don't know. I've not heard that story. I mean, if you told it to me before, I don't call it. Alindiel, okay. That's exciting.

So, so we don't know what is being foreshadowed here, but I don't like the, it's very ominous that Madeleine was listening and thought about it and said nothing. I don't like that guy. He's he's rough. Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we both don't like that guy. He's weird. Yeah. So we'll find out more about that.

I thought it was cool. So what's going on here is that Huron and Hur basically say, you guys go, we're going to hold the retreat and they do. They hold the rear guard and it says, thus was the treachery of Uldur redressed and all and of all the deeds of war that the fathers of men, right on behalf of the Eldar, the last stand of the men of Dourlaum is most renowned. So they do have this last stand and Turgan slips behind them and gets back to Dondolin. So far, it doesn't sound like anyone knows where Dondolin is yet. I don't expect that to last very long.

All right. And this part is so sad too. So everyone is dying. And then finally it says, last of all, Huron stood alone. And when I read that, I was like, oh, no, this is bad because I've heard his name. Right. I've seen his name on a book title.

I think it's called Children of Huron. Yeah. And I seen that and I thought, uh-oh, he's standing alone. He's about to capture it alive. This is not going to be good.

And it sure wasn't because he is captured alive. And I just, I'm always distressed when I hear that. Yes. Yeah. So in the end, Mordoth triumphs. And it says, from that day, the hearts of the elves were estranged from men, save only from those of the three houses of the Edain. So, yeah. Which makes sense. This is closer to the state of things as we know them in Lord of the Rings. Yeah. So this is like the Numenorean predecessors. Predecessors.

That's what I was like. Predecessors. But this is different from like the men of Rohan, right? Like the more common man, they're like, eh. Yeah.

They have nothing to do with them. Um, and this is sad too. This is interesting. I was surprised to be sad about this.

Uh, the realm of Fienden was no more and the sons of Fëanor wandered as Lys before the wind. Yeah. So that was interesting. I was not expecting that.

I think I was a little shocked. Have we seen the end of them? I don't think so.

I don't think so. It's, it's, we have a long way to go in my, my head with their story, but I just think what was surprising to me is at the beginning of this chapter, it was like, okay, we're inspired. We're inspired by Luthien and we're inspired by Baron. Morgoth's kind of been doing this thing in our land for too long. Like let's get it together.

And we thought maybe something good would come of it. Let's wipe this out. Right. And they're in a worse position than they started. Beleriand is overrun. Morgoth has taken over their land and their few and far between.

And so it's like thinking that they could take advantage of this moment of time. And they had everyone. They had elves, not everyone, right? There are some people like, I think, oh, who wasn't there, but they had like elves, they had men, they had doors.

They had a lot going for them. And it didn't quite come together. If you can't get it done with this. Yeah.

If you can't get it done with this, when are you going to get it done? Exactly. Yeah. And the aftermath is very dark as well. So we have, you know, the men of Hador, they've lost all of their men. And it says that Morgoth sends the Easterlings to their land to harass their wives and their children and their old people. And they basically take it over. It's very sad.

And then it says the Orchards and the Wolves went freely throughout all the north and even further south. So it's just the end result is things have not improved. Things are drastically worse.

It's worse. Yeah. Yeah. Drastically.

And this is cool. So Turgan, in this moment, he goes to Surdon, the shipwright, and he tries to get some ships built and to send them out to sail to the west. So this is, I guess, a precedent for what Elendil is going to accomplish. But in this case, they all fail. So yeah, none of them survive. They're all killed, except for one. So I guess that's how we know that the other ones all died.

Yeah. And it says like there was only one save from, by Ulmo, from the wrath of Osir. We're only saved by Ulmo. Is that his Maya? Did we talk about Osir? Yeah, we have Osir. Osir is the one who's in the ocean. He's constantly drowning people.

Yeah. He's a little mean. He was kind of seduced by the dark side for a bit. Briefly. And then came back to Ulmo. But basically, you get the impression, this is the part of the prophecy where it's like, you'll realize what you've done and you'll want to come back and you won't be able to.

And you can't. Yeah. And this is that moment of like, oh, we're sending ships to the west. We want to go back. We want help. We want to get out of here. Things aren't going good. Yeah. Yeah, we've reached that low point where this is happening and it's even lower because everyone dies. Yeah.

There's no hope in that. And then it says, now the thought of Mordor dwelt ever upon Turgeon for Turgeon had a steeped him. And I was like, oh no. Oh boy.

That's going to be bad. Um, so we haven't yet. We haven't. That hasn't come to fruition yet. Um, so he can't find Turgeon yet.

Yeah. He's trying to get the news out of Hurin because I think Hurin knows where Turgeon is. He knows where Dondolin is. Yeah, because well, I'm trying to remember why he knows.

I do know. So the reason why he's excited about Turgeon, right is Turgeon is now the head of the Noldor House, right? All the other kind of descendants of Feynore and brothers and cousins. And everybody, he is the king of the Noldor at this point.

They've been wiped out. So now we know that Turgeon's going to go out in a bad way. Yeah.

So that's why Morgoth is like, okay, he's my next target. Yeah, I've only got one left. Yeah, exactly. Um, so this is kind of interesting. Hurin is captured by Mordoth and it sounds like he's being tortured constantly. Because it is friendship with the king of Gondolin. So he's a friend. I also got the impression that he knows where Gondolin is.

I could be wrong. Or maybe Mordoth just thinks that he knows. Um, and Mordoth punishes him. He curses him and back again to this whole thing of like, these curses are ridiculously powerful. Um, so Mordoth curses him.

I was very intrigued by this curse. Um, he basically sits him on a chair where he could see everything that's going on. And he says, therefore, with my eyes thou shalt see and with my ears thou shalt hear.

And never shall that move from this place until all is fulfilled unto its bitter end. And even so, it came to pass, but it is not said that Hurin asked ever of Mordoth either mercy or death for himself or for any of his tin. So Mordoth puts a curse on him and his tin. And then he forces her into like, basically live and, and see what happens.

And I was thinking to myself initially, I was like, eh, this is not that bit of a deal. And then the curse of Hurin becomes apparent and I was like, whoa, this is brutal. Yeah. And it becomes really apparent in, especially like in chapter 21. We start to see.

That's where you start finding out what is going on. But yeah. Yeah, I see.

I agree with you. I feel like this is such a interesting cause Morgoth was unusual. I felt.

Yeah. Morgoth doesn't seem like one of those people that's, I don't know, he might be deep, but he seems like he doesn't come across super poetic and a lot of the stuff he does. He's kind of angry. He gets, he gets frustrated and violent and all these things. But this is not the sort of guy where you think, oh, yes, life is truly worse than death. Yeah.

That's not a philosophy. I definitely would have subscribed him to. So it was interesting to see that play out. Also, it reminds me of like those really great Greek tragedies, the ones that kind of stick with you. Like was it Prometheus who was strapped to a stone and then his flesh would regenerate because every morning an eagle would come and eat him alive. Yeah.

That was his punishment. The thought process of like being alive and in pain or like how Atlas is required to carry the weight of the world for the rest of his life. Like physically he has this weight.

Like this is what it kind of reminds me of is like, you are going to be under this weight, this ability to see all in this pain. But I think he never really gave him any information about Turgan or Gondolin. It sounds like. That's, that was my impression.

It sounds like that was kept. So I think Turgan and Gondolin will be betrayed by Madeleine. African die. That's my theory.

Megalyn. I agree. 100% right. He's shifty. He's so shifty. Shifty.

Shifty. The, I think we're close to the end of this chapter. We are. We are. There are a couple other interesting things in here.

Oh no, this is the end. This was interesting. By the command of Mordoth, the orcs with great labor gathered up all the bodies and they formed a great mound.

Yeah. It says it was a hill that could be seen from afar. It was named various things, the hill of the slain, the hill of tears. And this was interesting, but grass came there and grew it in lawn and green upon that hill alone in all the desert that Mordoth made. That's such an interesting like imagery. Like here's this like wasteland created by Mordoth and here's this green hill. I think, oh, pretty. But then you realize like underneath it, what's going on.

Yeah. And it says no creature of Mordoth trod thereafter upon the earth beneath, which the swords of the elder and the ordain crumbled into us. It's just a very poetic phrase.

Yeah, it's true. It's a picture of it. That's just like, I know I see a picture.

It's like, yeah, wild. But yeah, so after 20, it feels like an epilogue to bear in the end. Yeah, it's relatively short and it kind of feels like an epilogue to the sons of fate and or as well. Yeah. So I'll be interested to see what comes of them.

If anything else, obviously we still have Turdyn floating around. But it's a relatively short short chapter and compared to 21, which is 21. Wild. Yeah.

21 is insane. So we'll talk more about that very soon. Yes. Because I can't hold back on that one. Join us for the next episode. But yeah. Yeah, we got to talk. We wanted to have this one be kind of a shorter one because both Baron and Luthien was super long and Turdyn was super long. So this is kind of like just a nice little breather.

Yeah, exactly. But anyways, it's yeah, Baron and Luthien, I loved that story. I think it's so interesting though, because Tolkien doesn't say, oh, and then a high they went out on a triumph. He said, well, the reaction of Baron Luthien is like their tale is really told.

But in the immediate timeframe, it's not like they changed the course of history for the better. Oh, no. Yeah. And it is interesting to be like they had a localized victory, but overall what their victory inspired was just one piece of a big, a really big story. Yep. So we'll talk more about the fallout of Chapter 21.

Exiled stuff. All right. Okay, well, join us for that. We'll talk soon. Bye. Bye.