Experiment in Method

Gurthalda

New Member
As I mentioned in my introductory post, I love speculation and interpretation as long as there’s supporting evidence. I wanted to share the results of a test run I did on Ep.1. I focused on transcribing passages where Corey either interprets or speculates, and then divided them by slides and topic. In the transcription, I removed vocal fillers, and in some cases, “like,” “or whatever,” “kind of,” “I mean,” “really,” “ya know,” etc., and the beginnings of sentences Corey abandoned and immediately replaced with new words. I bolded the main ideas and italicized emphasized words. I also noted when chat caused responses and included timestamps throughout. But in the end, I am not exactly satisfied with this method, but I thought this test run might be useful: At its worst, what not to do. At it’s best, something concrete to enhance until it’s publishable. So please, I would like feedback on this method.

INTRO:
AN OVERARCHING GOAL AND TONE:
The whole goal of this is I want to talk my way through the LotR, and I want to take my time. I want to take as long as it takes to talk about everything that I want to talk about. I’ve never ever been able to be perfectly indulgent–self [indulgent]. I’ve always had a semester schedule or something that I had to adhere to. But no way! This is completely open ended, so I’m really psyched for that.” 11:36-12:03…Try to stay within the frame of what we know in the chapters that we’re reading. I don’t mean what we know about the History [of Middle-earth]...it’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re going to be talking about the published Fellowship of the Ring. But one temptation that it’s easy to experience when talking about the LotR is jumping forward, to be thinking about other parts of the story. Now it’s relevant of course but I want to try to think not about what we’re going to learn later, but about what we’re being told here. 15:51-16:38

SLIDE: PARTIES AND PRESENTS
BILBO’S GATE
Why did Bilbo have a gate erected? It’s obviously not for security purposes. There isn’t like a burly dwarf bouncer standing behind him…it seems clear that the gate was erected exactly, expressly for this purpose: so that Bilbo could stand at it when all the guests come in and give them their presents…[chat reminds him of line] the phrase from one of the poems from the Hobbit came back to me…”For [Here] at the Gate the King awaits / His hands are rich with gems and gold.” That image of the King Under the Mountain standing at the gate of his hall with his hands rich with gems and gold or maybe even jools. But, anyway, that’s the image the dwarves have in their mind of what a king should be, right, standing at the gates and giving generously to his faithful supporters. And of course in the Hobbit it turns out to be heavily ironic ‘cause instead, what do we get? Thorin at the Gate instead erects a wall which walls up the gates so that nobody can come in and he refuses to give even a just portion of his treasure to anybody so he completely goes away from that traditional idea of the King. But here’s Bilbo being very kingly in a sense in Hobbit scale he’s not giving away gems and gold but he’s nevertheless acting in this beneficent fashion but again it's not really just kinglike. That is to say this not “I am distributing wealth to my supporters and peoples.” This is a hobbit tradition. “Hobbits give presents to other people on their own birthdays.” This is how it’s done, though we are told, “not very expensive ones, as a rule, and not so lavishly as on this occasion.” Bilbo’s generosity is much more extravagant than is at all customary. 22:48-25:45 C.f. First of all, note “a gold pen and ink bottle” is a lavish gift! I mean, that’s a gorgeous and expensive gift. And yet it’s teasing again. 45:29-45:41

TOLKIEN’S DEVELOPMENT OF SHIRE CULTURE:
He [Tolkien] didn’t really have it [the Shire] worked out. It's really easy to kind of project backward to the Hobbit what we know about LotR or what we come to know by the end of LotR, but of course there’s very, very little said about Hobbits or Hobbit culture other than in the very first chapter of the Hobbit and mostly it’s just background. We know that Bilbo has the whole Took and Baggins thing going on in his own make up from his parentage and the struggle, or tension at least, between those two sides of Bilbo is a major feature of the Hobbit, of course. The Hobbit society–what we’re told about the Hobbit society–is really just a kind of dramatic backdrop to that internal, psychological issue of Bilbo’s…but again, he [Tolkien] doesn’t really flesh out what the culture’s really like. We know very little about it. Again what we’re told is really just as a kind of frame, really. All we get about Hobbits in the Hobbit is like a portrait of Bilbo and you can kind of barely make out some things in the background behind him but it’s not really a picture of them, it’s a picture of Bilbo…In the Long expected party we are introduced to hobbits and to their culture more than we ever are anywhere else, really. 18:23-20:34

HOBBIT VICES:
I think that a lot of Tolkien fans have developed this kind of highly romanticized view of Hobbits in the Shire. Hobbits are not totally upstanding people. Again, there's this kind of image of the Shire as this perfect harmonious place and Hobbits as– like the Shire is Eden and the Hobbits are these pure sinless little creatures, but they’re not! They don’t kill people! I mean we’re told– Frodo makes that astonishing claim at the end of The Return of the King that no Hobbit has ever killed another Hobbit on purpose in the Shire before. So apparently, no one’s ever been convicted of murder. At least Frodo doesn’t think so. But then again, there's no reason to just kind of generally extend that out. That Lobelia stole Bilbo’s spoons and he’s not really forgiven her for it. I mean this is sort of the way it goes all the time…[chat says, ”They are cheeky and not above minor skullduggery for personal gain.”] Yes! Yes! Absolutely not above it in any way. 28:18-30:05
 
SLIDE: ENJOYING THEMSELVES
THE HOBBITS’ LACK OF DIGNITY:
Notice the tone of the whole thing…that is, the tone of the hobbit’s interactions with each other. Look at the two interactions that I quoted in this passage, “I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am.” “I shall not keep you long.” are the two lines Bilbo delivers. And both times he gets heckled essentially, not mean-spiritedly. But could you imagine if somebody like your host stands up at the party and says, “I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am” and someone’s shouting “NO!” There are a couple different ways in which you might shout “no.” One is if you want to complain, or joke about complaining, maybe you’re being sarcastic saying “no.”... Maybe they’re teasing Bilbo. Maybe Bilbo’s a little tipsy and has kind of been ostentatiously having a lot of fun himself and they’re teasing him. “I hope you are all enjoying yourselves as much as I am.” “No, not quite as much as you are Bilbo hahaha!” I could imagine that being the significance of their shouting “no.” But still again, it’s the tone of the thing which I find so interesting…of course the cheers when he says, ”I shall not keep you long” and they all burst into cheers. There’s a lot of teasing and joshing around. We see that all the time…another passage that I’ve always really liked is the comment Merry Brandybuck makes when Lobelia delivers that crushing parting remark–well, she hadn’t hadn’t thought of a truly crushing parting remark. She says, ”You’re not a Baggins, you’re a Brandybuck!” and he [Frodo] turns to Merry and says “that was an insult, if you like,” and Merry says, “It was a compliment and therefore, of course not true.” Again, that whole tone of teasing is very much part of hobbit spirit, so we get this general sense that they don’t seem to take themselves, and they certainly don’t seem to take each other very seriously. There are very few hobbits who seem to be kind of on their dignity and the only ones who really seem to be on their dignity are the Sackville-Bagginses. They’re very dignified. There are very few of the other hobbits who really seem to be highly dignified and to take themselves really seriously. Not taking themselves or anybody else overtly very seriously seems to be a pretty much a hobbit trait, I would say. [chat comments about a class distinction here]…we don’t see Gaffer Gamgee talking to or about Bilbo in these tones. The people who are heckling him from the crowd are his peers socially, not just his peers socially, but his family, his relations and connections even if distant ones. [chat notices Sam’s behavior toward Frodo] You’re right that Sam doesn’t participate in the same way as the rest of the hobbits. Merry and Pippin and Frodo engage with each other in that similar kind of way. Sam doesn’t to the same extent. There are times when you can see him sort of gently participating in this same kind of way but it’s never exactly the same…Of course, the other thing that really seems to me very noteworthy is the dancing: there’s this lack of restraint, which seems to me in keeping with the other, in keeping with this sort of general lack of dignity. 32:41-37-54

SAM’S IMPLICIT PRESENCE
[responding to chat] There’s not a reference to Sam being there. Sam is at the party. I mean, we know that the Party Tree holds special significance to Sam for his [?hold] but remember Sam is quite young. Frodo is significantly older than the others. So they’re quite young still at this time. Remember there’s a long gap. There’s a seventeen year gap between Bilbo’s party and when Frodo leaves, when they go off on their journey. And Frodo is only now just coming of age and again he’s the older, and the older by a good bit compared to the others. So Merry, Pippin, and Sam are doubtless at the party, but they’re quite young. Would he be invited? I mean he’s the gardener’s boy at that point. And again I know that seems hard but I don’t think he would have had a seat at the table. Bilbo is generous to the poor hobbits who live near to him, and in fact it’s an interesting point– one of the few times I’m going to indulge myself in dragging in a little piece from the The Return of the Shadow–In one of the passages in the early drafts of chapter one, one of the things that is listed as particularly peculiar about Bilbo was that he used to spend a lot of time hanging out with poor hobbits, so that basically he was not only more generous, but also much less of a snob than a lot of his peers was one of the things that marked him as being different and weird in Shire culture. But still even under those circumstances, [it’s] hard to see him including–no matter how much he admires and likes his gardener, probably, the gardener isn’t at the table. 40:37-42:36

SLIDE: TOUGH LOVE
BILBO’S NOTES:
I gotta believe the context of this is that these are people that Bilbo has a connection with. This is not like Bilbo getting back at his enemies, taking a parting shot at people with the exception of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins. But even she’s a relation at least. But most of these people I think are [quoting chat] “not some random people.” They’re friends and relations. And he’s [quoting chat] “teasing” them. Exactly! That’s exactly the word I would say. 44:02-44:41

ANACHRONISMS IN MIDDLE-EARTH AND WHY THEY WERE ALLOWED TO STAY:
[Chat says, “Isn’t it weird that there are umbrellas in Middle-earth?”] Yeah, it’s one of the arguably two actual anachronisms. I don’t remember any others: actual anachronisms within the text. The other is the clock that Bilbo has on his mantle in the Hobbit, the one that Thorin left the note under at the beginning of Chapter Two that he didn’t find because he never dusted his mantlepiece that morning. Yeah, it is odd that he has an umbrella. [chat mentions the express train] We’re going to get there. The express train that the dragon firework is compared to is not an anachronism in the same way. What I mean by actual anachronisms, I mean within the world. There are a couple of occasions in which the narrator in describing things uses a modern comparison, but that’s not an anachronism ‘cause it’s not inside the world of the text. The narrator of course–the narrator/editor/translator of the text–is a modern person, so when we’re reading the LotR we are hearing a modern person speaking to us. That’s part of the textual framework of the entire story. So if the narrator tells us that the firework went by and sounded like an express train, it’s not like there’s an actual express train in the Shire. That would be an anachronism. So the clock and the umbrella, those are real anachronisms in the text. Similarly in the first edition of the Hobbit, the trees that the dwarves and Bilbo climb up to escape the wargs are compared to Christmas trees, which is again another cultural thing…the umbrella’s in there from the beginning, and from the beginning I mean from when he first sat down and started to write a chapter as the sequel to the Hobbit and in the same kind of tone and concept as the Hobbit; when he was still writing a children’s book and writing a children’s book in the style that the Hobbit was originally written in, he was less concerned as he is in the Hobbit less concerned with making a really internally consistent world. He was focused a good deal less on the Hobbit on sub-creating an intensely detailed and fully worked out world…that’s not really the focus of the Hobbit, and that’s still where Tolkien’s mind was when he sat down to write Chapter One. That’s one of the reasons chapter one seems so different than so much of the rest that came after. So the umbrella was in there from the beginning just like the mantle clock in the Hobbit but he didn’t take it out. He had lots of chances to revise it. He did a bunch of revision to the different notes, which they were harsher by the way. The gloves were off in the first edition. His very first draft of this chapter, he was much meaner in his notes. They are much softer now in the published version. So he had lots of chances to take out the umbrella but he didn’t take it out. And I think that’s good. I think that’s okay. He seemed to be fine with it. He was willing to let it go: “Sure, hobbits have umbrellas. Not impossible.” 46:07-50:48
 
HOBBIT HUMILITY BY INFORMALITY:
There’s definitely a kind of humility it seems to Hobbit culture, that sort of not taking yourself so seriously. One of the other things that I think we can see about Hobbit culture, you can tell how non-violent in general it is. I remember Tom Shippey giving a lecture about Beowulf at one point, and he was talking about the very elaborate formula that they use when addressing each other and especially strangers. So you’re very, very polite. People were always extremely polite and of course Shippey says, “Well naturally, you’re going to be extremely polite to someone who might whip out his sword and chop your head off if you give him a reason.” Of course this gets dramatized in the Hobbit with Beorn. “You should be very, very polite to Beorn ‘cause you never know what that guy’s gonna do.” The whole atmosphere of the Shire–I mean if Beorn were standing up there giving a speech and said, “I hope you’re enjoying yourselves as much as I am,” nobody would be shouting “No! I’m not.” No, they wouldn’t be–“Yes sir. No, definitely.” [chat quotes Heinlein; “An armed society is a polite society.”] Exactly, exactly! Hobbits are not. There’s a laid back element to their culture that comes across very clearly. They don’t stand on formalities…[chat says, “they can afford to be laid back with the Rangers watching them.”] Yes, this supports what we’ll learn later: that the Hobbit society was a sheltered society. We don’t know that yet. We’re just here in the middle of it. 59:10-1:02:03

HOBBIT AGING:
[chat says, “Can we talk about hobbit children and how they’re much less boring and stay-at-home than the other hobbits? The way they chase after Gandalf and are excited about the fireworks and all that kind of thing.”] …We don’t have that many data points but they’re certainly fun-loving even mischievous, but that actually doesn’t seem to be very different from their elders, as we’re not told that it’s young hobbits that are sneaking out the back and coming back in the front again to get a second present. So it seems to me actually very much of a piece with the way that their elders act. It’s easy to imagine, for instance, a hobbit child who chases after Gandalf’s wagon crying, “G for grand!” will grow into a tween hobbit who will dance the Springle-ring on the table in front of 144 of his elders, and who will then later on grow into somebody who will sit back with both of his feet up on the table at a formal dinner. That kind of seems to me a fair continuum as far as aging is concerned. 1:02:14-1:03:58

SLIDE: IN-DEMAND REMINISCENCES
THE GAFFER’S WISDOM:
But it’s not fantasy, or the fact that it’s fantastic, or the fact that it’s adventurous, and in that sense counter cultural, as the Hobbit has primed us to understand adventures as being counter cultural in Hobbit society. That’s not actually where the Gaffer goes with it. “Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you, I says to him.” No, the moral of the story is that if he [Sam] thinks too much about “Elves and Dragons,” it could lead to him getting mixed up in the business of your betters. So adventures, I guess, “Elves and Dragons” fit into the category–not into the category unrealistic, frivolous things that you shouldn’t waste your time with, which again is what the “Elves and Dragons” versus “cabbages and potatoes” contrast would seem to imply at first. but that doesn’t seem to be his emphasis. No, it’s not that “Elves and Dragons” are no point for anybody or only for kids or something like that, it’s [that] they’re only for rich folks? the land of gentry or something? To get mixed up in “Elves and Dragons” is to get mixed up with the business of your betters. And that’s really interesting. Not just the class distinction–I mean yes of course there is a class distinction and he’s making a class distinction. The fact that the Gaffer talks about Bilbo and Frodo as his betters is something that really jumps out, often especially to an American audience, I think. But I don’t want to get distracted by that. To me I think that we see a different glimpse of something about Hobbit culture here, though it’s not unknown in the Hobbit. Remember the Tooks. The Tooks are the best of the betters. They’re the richest, most famous of all of the noble houses–“noble” isn’t a word that’s really used of them but–people the Gaffer would consider his betters the Tooks are the top of the heap. And those are Tookish things: Elves and Dragons, I mean, are Tookish things. So maybe the whole Took subculture of the Shire is what has influenced the Gaffer to think of it in these terms. It seems to me more likely that it’s Bilbo himself. Remember the Gaffer was only a lad when Bilbo came back. The time of the auction of Bilbo’s house. The Gaffer, he was just a lad. In other words, his own views on hobbit culture have been formed in part by living next door to Bilbo Baggins. So I think he knows Bilbo’s into Elves and Dragons. So when Sam is crazy about stories of the old days listening to all of Mr. Bilbo’s tales, again it’s not about the adventurousness, it’s not about the fantasticness, it’s just that might be fine for Bilbo, but that’s not the world Sam lives in. “Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you” and notice “you’ll land in trouble too big for you” it’s dangerous, that world. It’s not envy, they can keep it apparently, obviously as far as the Gaffer is concerned. He has no desire for Bilbo’s world even if Sam does seem to have a kind of desire there. [chat brings up Gaffer’s fear] there is definitely fear there. He’s afraid of them and most notably, he fears for Sam’s safety. [chat says, “Bilbo is the only hobbit in living memory to have likely worn a sword with the thought of using it.”] recalling of course that line: that wild frenzied imagination that Bilbo has at the end of chapter one of the hobbit. [chat says, “The dwarves may have thought him a burglar, but he would’ve been a knightly figure for the hobbits.”] Absolutely. [chat thinks the Gaffer’s line is prophetic] that sentence in the end is very prophetic. No one can argue that Sam does not, in fact, land in trouble top big for him. Way, way too big. 1:26:38-1:31:49
 
SLIDE: VARIETIES OF QUEERNESS
THE CONVERSATION AT THE IVY BUSH:
This is the moment where the conversation really turns in, what I think is, a really fascinating way. Again remember we got the Gaffer like, “Ooh ooh ooh! Can I tell the story of Drogo and Primula Brandybuck being drowned?” And Old Noakes piping in with his fat joke afterward! I mean they’ve probably told this story and made that same joke lots of times before. And then again, we have Sandyman kind of laying an egg there and everybody being like, “Dude, that’s not cool.” But look what happens here. First of all, he’s voicing common opinion, Sandyman is. Sandyman is the voice of the people here. He’s not out of step with everybody else and the negative things he expresses about Bilbo are not just in line with what people generally say, but with what the Gaffer himself said of others. “Look at the outlandish folk that visit him: dwarves coming at night, and that old wandering conjurer Gandalf.” You’ve gotta think, if the Gaffer lived further away from Bilbo, he’d talk exactly that same way about Bilbo. Conversely, if Bilbo lived in Buckland, that’s exactly what the Gaffer would say: “Look at the outlandish folk that visit him: dwarves coming at night, and that old wandering conjurer Gandalf.” That totally sounds like the Gaffer, but it’s the Gaffer who’s resistant to it. “You can say what you like, about what you know no more of than you do of boating, Mr. Sandyman.” The Gaffer is the one here who’s being more counter cultural: “If that’s [being] queer, then we could do with a bit more queerness in these parts.” Remember “queer” is the adjective he was using about the Bucklanders earlier in this conversation: “And no wonder they’re queer living on the wrong side of the river and right up agin the Old Forest.” Bilbo is a neighbor, lives right next door to the Gaffer so he can’t be queer in the same way that the Bucklanders are way over there in Buckland. But he acknowledges Bilbo’s queerness in a sense: But “if that’s being queer, then we could do with a bit more queerness in these parts.” Yes, Bilbo is unusual, but how is he unusual? He is unusual for being more kind and more generous than usual. [chat suggests, “The dig about offering beer seems to be directed at Sandyman.”] Now, presumably, Sandyman does not live in a hole with golden walls. But “there’s some not far away that wouldn’t offer a pint of beer to a friend.” Do you get the impression maybe Sandyman didn’t stand his round when he was supposed to at the Ivy Bush? I kind of get that impression ‘cause we know that Sandyman does live not far away. [responding to chat] Though you’re right, he is the miller. He probably is richer, he’s certainly richer, he’s got to be richer than the Gaffer. Millers are always richer than gardeners. So I agree it might be an exaggeration to say he lives in a hole with golden walls. By the way, I would love if that were some specific reference, like if this was an exaggeration of something, like if there were golden decorations or even like gold colored paint or something, and if this were actually really sort of a personal dig and him exaggerating it to say, “You’re so rich and yet you wouldn’t buy me a beer.” [chat suggests Sandyman has expensive wallpaper] Exactly. Exactly. This is clearly a dig at Sandyman. I definitely agree. 1:33:06-1:37:33

Again, I would really appreciate thoughts on the direction I need to take to further our progress. For instance, I included every sentence that was relevant to a topic because it all matters in the interpretation of the text. But could this be too much if our goal is to reduce the time and effort it takes to catch up? Or if we begin to summarize the eps, will the interpretation of Corey’s interpretation blur the original source text or lessen its impact? Perhaps planning how to deal with the choices we’ll face in the transcripts is equally important as producing the transcripts themselves.
 
Thank you, Gurthalda. This looks great! A few thoughts:

1. In the "Hobbit Vices" and "Hobbit Humility" sections, there seems to be some duplication of what I've done in the "Theological/Philosophical and Moral Themes" thread. I don't mean to claim any propriety over those subjects. But we should work together to avoid unnecessary duplication.

2. In the "Episode Transcripts" thread, Lashley66 posted a Google Doc sign-up list for transcribing episodes: Volunteer Sheet for Transcribing and Editing. You have already transcribed a lot of Episode 1. I suggest either signing up to transcribe the rest of episode 1 or, at least, noting what you have done so no one else duplicates your work.

3. I would suggest categorizing your topics so that what is said in in one episode can easily be compared with what is said on the same topic in other episodes. For example, your first section, "An Overarching Goal and Tone," is a topic that Corey will discuss in several other episodes. It would be interesting to "tag" his comments on "close reading" and the value of reading through this book at the super slow pace, so that they can be grouped together on our website.
 
Thank you, Gurthalda. This looks great! A few thoughts:

1. In the "Hobbit Vices" and "Hobbit Humility" sections, there seems to be some duplication of what I've done in the "Theological/Philosophical and Moral Themes" thread. I don't mean to claim any propriety over those subjects. But we should work together to avoid unnecessary duplication.

2-cents: We will be collecting and annotating these episodes in a lot of different categories. There will be a lot of duplication. None of it unnecessary.
The initial transcription stands on its own apart from category and theme and annotation anyhow. And the more content we generate, the more we will see what we want to include in the wiki in the end.
 
Thanks for your great thoughts, guys!
I’ve signed up to transcribe the rest of Ep1 and I’ll try making the topics easily comparable. Jonah, let’s work together on an episode soon. FirstFish, I see how duplicate transcripts are inevitable and sometimes even helpful. Thanks for the encouragement.
 
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