C2"We have explicitly made the link between the fog and the spells of the barrow wights . . . And it's interesting that the barrow wights' influence, through the fog, seems to be, at least in part, to obscure even the memory of Tom Bombadil's house." (35:46-36:05)
SPIRITUAL THEME: SPIRITUAL POWER: NAMES
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 138, slide "The Fog Clears"
EPISODE:
C5"You'll notice, of course, the power of Tom Bombadil's name . . . It's the name itself, as Goldberrry implied, as Tom Bombadil implied, that has power . . . Frodo's repetition of the name here is enough to have an impact, not on the barrow wight, but on himself. (38:52-40:01
MORAL THEME: PITY
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 139, slide "A Cheerful Abjuration"
EPISODE:
F16"Yes, Kyle, I think that Tom could be showing him pity by not sending him to his ultimate doom until the time of the mending of Arda comes. There is still hope. Possibly." (1:39:48-1:40:02)
F18"Don't forget the pity. Don't forget the sadness and the pitiableness of the wights . . . They're sorrowful. They're sad as well as horrible. And I think that Tom is not immune to that pity." (1:41:05-1:41:25)
THEOLOGICAL THEME: ESCHATOLOGY (LAST THINGS)
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 139, slide "A Cheerful Abjuration"
EPISODE:
F18"Gravity asks, 'Is there a place for a wight in a mended world? Would he return?' Well, Gravity, yeah he would, but only if he is mended too . . . The only time when he's going to be permitted to return would be after the mending of the world, and the only condition under which he would return would be if he himself were also mended." (1:40:37-1:41:04)
F18"I do think the 'till the world is mended,' that he is implicitly invited to return after the world is mended is saying . . . that he, of course, will be mended as well" (1:42:05-1:42:47)
F20"I think he's going to have some company. By the end of the Lord of the Rings, I think we're going to see several others go the way of the barrow wight to barren lands far beyond the mountains, such as Saruman and Sauron. Neither of them is annihilated. But they're going to be wailing with the winds . . . Gandalf doesn't say the Sauron is going to be destroyed. He's going to be reduced to an impotent spirit who's going to go wailing like the winds into the barren lands far beyond the darkness." (1:43:22-1:44:06)
F21"The wight looks forward to moment when the Dark Lord lifts his hand over dead sea and withered land. Tom Bombadil, of course, at the end of his song looks forward to Arda remade. He looks forward to the mending of the world, whereas the wight is anticipating the ultimate marring of the world . . . What Tom is suggesting . . . coming back to that note of hope, that note of redemption or, at least, the potential for redemption that we were discussing before seems to be interestingly relevant." (1:44:56-1:46:25)
At the end of this episode (the end of F21) Professor Olsen begins to make a point that he didn't seem to have time to develop. I think his point may have been that Tom Bombadil's vision of the mended world includes pity and the possibility of redemption even for the evilest of creatures.
THEOLOGICAL THEME: EVIL: SADDNESS
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 139, slide "A Cheerful Abjuration"
EPISODE:
F18"Don't forget the pity. Don't forget the sadness and the pitiableness of the wights . . . They're sorrowful. They're sad as well as horrible. And I think that Tom is not immune to that pity."
THEOLOGICAL THEME: EVIL: DESPAIR
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 139, slide "A Cheerful Abjuration"
EPISODE:
F21"In a sense, we can already see how the wight is already darker than the darkness, the darkness of its own despair, the darkness of the Dark Lord's own despair . . . His victory will look like the destruction of everything . . . ruling over a dead world." (1:45:12-1:45:37)
TEXT: No specific text, slide "Notes and Queries 1"
EPISODE:
A1,A2"'This description (in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy) seems apt to describe the Barrow-wight. Yes, Tom may pity the Barrow-wight, but could the Barrow-wight have an incurable condition?' . . . I agree with Evan entirely on this. I agree that that Beothian passage does point to one of the concepts upon which Tolkienian pity is based. That's why we are encouraged to pity the wicked not despite their wickedness but because of their wickedness. . . Pity for evil because it's evil, I do agree, is something we can see in Tom's condemnation of the Barrow-wight." (4:09-6:33)
THEOLOGICAL THEME: ESCHATOLOGY (LAST THINGS)
TEXT: No specific text, slide "Notes and Queries 1"
EPISODE:
A1,A3"'Could "Hell" in short, be a state of spiritual desolation? . . . Then, "the barren lands far beyond the mountains" if so, would indeed be a metaphor for spiritual baroness "more frightful than any sickness"' . . . Evan, I think you get really well at what I what I was trying, sort of fumbling, to say, that I think the casting out of the barrow-wight is fundamentally metaphorical . . . it's about the fact that he is going away, out there, as Evan says, somewhere off into the indeterminate distance. That has, of course, the spiritual, moral significance. (4:19-7:27)
MORAL THEME: JUST PUNISHMENT
TEXT: No specific text, slide "Notes and Queries 1"
EPISODE
A1,A3"'It really wouldn't matter where the Barrow-wight will be released because the Barrow-wight, if this is correct, is "darker than the darkness" already . . . It would appear to be far more of a matter of getting the Wight away from where his incurable "disease" of wickedness can't arm others' . . . Again, I agree exactly with Evan's interpretation there, his casting out is not a punishment so much as a kind or quarantine . . . Tom's not doing anything to [the barrow-wight] that it hasn't already done to itself . . . he's not increasing its suffering. All he's doing is removing it."(4:48-8:13)
SPIRITUAL THEME: SPIRITUAL BEINGS
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 139, slide "Fresh Air"
EPISODE:
B1"Do we have any evidence here that the wight is incorporeal? I kind of think so. Or, at least, the spirit that's leaving seems to be incorporeal.
B3"The fact that the barrow-wight was using a body, a physical, tangible body, to interact with stuff is pretty clear. What is less clear to me is whether the barrow-wight is taking the body with him when he leaves. . . I don't think it's physically running away and retreating in that way. I think the 'fading away into an unguessable distance' is the much swifter and much more direct retreat of it's spirit."(14:36-16:00)
B4"What Frodo's hearing when he hears the shriek fading away is not even necessarily even a purely physical sensation. He's perceiving his departure in a more spiritual sense"(16:00-16:21)
SPIRITUAL THEME: SPIRITUAL POWER; SPELLS
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 139, slide "Fresh Air"
EPISODE:
B6"The Mad Violinist's suggestion that it's the final breaking of the spell of the barrow, that Tom will prevent him from returning by piling the treasure on the mound - right, exactly. That is part of that process. We will see Tom . . . explaining that what he's doing with the treasure is explicitly intended as a kind of spell. He's performing a kind or rite of his own, which is specifically designed to prevent the wight ever coming back."(17:15-17:33)
SPIRITUAL THEME: SPIRITUAL BEINGS
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 139, slide "Fresh Air"
EPISODE:
D4"If the barrow-wight has a physical form, there are one of two possibilities: either it is a spiritual being that has manifested itself in a physical form, like the Valar can do, or it could be animating another body, the body of something else. That's much more unusual, we don't see that kind of thing happening very often at all. But it's possible. For instance, werewolves. Werewolves are evil spirits that have been brought in and sort of shoved into the bodies of monstrous wolves, so that the physical body of the beast, the wolf, is animated by the malicious and intelligent spirit that has been bound to it"(37:15-38:20)
D5"It would not shock me to find that it was just a manifestation. But if it's just a manifestation, why would its hand still be there after it has run away? I don't think that would happen. I can't imagine that that would happen. . . The fact that it's hand was still there suggests to me that this was a physical corpse animated by an evil spirit."(39:06-40:02)
SPIRITUAL THEME: SPIRITUAL POWER
TEXT: Chapter 8, pp.139-40, slide "More Fun with Verb Moods"
EPISODE:
F2"Both the east and the west sides are pointing to outside influences. On the east side of the barrow you are facing the shadow . . . the barrow-wight's influence in exerted more on the eastern side . . . There is another power. Some other power had a hand in the west side of the barrow, the side that if facing toward elven-home and Valinor, to the light in the west. Apparently that has some influence. Tom suggested it in his advice before the left. He suggests it again in laying the three comatose hobbits on the west side of the mound."(53:01-53:57)
SPIRITUAL THEME: SPIRITUAL BATTLE
TEXT: Chapter 8, pp.139-40, slide "More Fun with Verb Moods"
EPISODE:
F12"Let us not forget the strength Frodo shows here in the barrow. It was kind of a big deal what he was able to do, the victory that he won over the barrow-wight. Calling out to Tom Bombadil was already a victory. . . That was winning. We know that the barrow-wight's spell, the fog and the barrow-wight's spell, was actively preventing him from remembering Tom Bombadil. But he remembers. So he overcomes. He wins. . . It will be intriguing to compare this sequence a long time from now when we get to the Witch-King on Pelanor Field, Auruaron. We should definitely remember this scene. We should also remember this scene when we get to the balrog. There are a number of place where battles of the kind of which Frodo was fighting a battle . . . we'll see that on numerous occasions."(103:00-104:43)
THEOLOGICAL THEME*: RESURRECTION
TEXT: Chapter 8, pp.139-40, slide "More Fun with Verb Moods"
EPISODE:
F20"It's not exactly a resurrection, but it's kind or resurrection-ish. Here I come back to the point that Tony made, which I think is really relevant. This looks like Easter Sunday morning, with the rolling away of the stone, the word "rolling" is actually used, and the morning sun streams into the tomb and the bodies come out and are animated again. Yes, there's resurrection stuff in the air."(1:15:33-116:13)
*This "theological theme" is, of course, theological in a different way than most of the other "theological themes" I am identifying. It has to do with a way the story relates to the Christian theology espoused by its author, rather than the Middle-Earth theology of the world that he subcreates.
C1"Sam is a peasant lad and that golden crown and the bejeweled rings and the jeweled belt he's just flung down on the grass is probably worth more money than his family has made in four generations, and yet it's not even on the radar screen. He doesn't even contemplate that. . . It strikes me how deeply un-tempted he is by all this stuff."(40:39-41:47)
C4"Matt, you're absolutely right that Sam's lack of temptation with the riches here is a pretty close parallel with the temptation of the ring. As Matt says, 'Sam isn't going for the rings of gold even when it's free, only turning Mordor into a garden is a temptation."43:25-43:47)
C5"Galendar, you're right. It's interesting that it's not just that Sam is un-tempted by the riches but that he misses his garments. Presumably, his weskit wasn't all that much of a garment, probably not worth all that much, but he is more interested to find his cloak, jacket, and britches."(43:57-44:30)
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 142, slide "Tom and the Treasure"
EPISODE:
B4"This is, if it's not a spell, it's at least a counter-spell. It is part of the breaking of the power of the wight. "(33:58-34:13)
B7"Tony, exactly . . . what we see going on here is the breaking of a spell like that . . . the treasure is obviously part of the spell of the mound. . . whether the treasure was instrumental in the curse, it is clearly part of the breaking of the spell of the mound. If the treasure is dispersed, no wight can come and live there again. (35:46-36:23; 39:49-40:03)
SPIRITUAL THEME: SPIRITUAL POWER: MERRIMENT
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 144, slide "the Last Bombadil Poem"
EPISODE:
J3"'Keep up your merry hearts.' That's more Tom Bombadilian advice. We have seen - and this is an inappropriate way to describe it - but the kind of weapon that merriment is against the darkness, certainly against the barrow-wights, as we saw."(1:41:10-1:41:31)
THEOLOGICAL THEME: PROVIDENCE
TEXT: Chapter 8, p. 144, slide "the Last Bombadil Poem"
EPISODE:
J4"'Ride to meet your fortune' is a really interesting thing for him to say too. . . this is about 'chance if chance you call it.' They are riding out to meet what is supposed to happen, the things that are going to be occurring. It might be good fortune, it might be bad fortune that they are going out to meet but whatever be the fortune they are going to encounter they should ride out to meet it. . . Galendar, yes, I would think that this is 'fortune' in the sense of fate, of what really lies behind fortune, which is providence and fate"(141:32-142:46)
TEXT: Chapter 8, pp. 144-145, slide "Sam's Commentary"
EPISODE:
B7"He acknowledges that, not only is Tom Bombadil good, he is extraordinary good. We might go a long way before we see anything better than Tom Bombadil. And I don't think he means better in the sense of 'more noteworthy,' better in like a tourist sense, 'a more remarkable thing to see.' I think he means better like 'he's good.'"(39:19-39:45)
MORAL THEME: BREE VIRTUE: HUMILITY
TEXT: Chapter 9, p. 146, slide "A New Frontier"
EPISODE:
G7"I agree, Amathorne, the Breelanders do seem to be content. As to why they never grew into an empire or fell into darkness, that seems to have as much to with their humility as anything else. They're a humble village; have always been. They've been a humble village for 7,000 years or something like that."(120:05-120:33)
G8"I do think that, Tony as you say, 'their humility protects them from the temptation of evil like the hobbits.' There does seem to be a kind of likeness between the Breelanders and their outlook on life and the hobbits and their outlook on life. [Hobbit humility is commented upon in Episode 1 and Episode 8] "(121:48-1:22.14)
