Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

It's our 100th episode! To celebrate, we're finally taking a dedicated look at the Harry Potter series of books / audiobooks / movies and exploring their titanic, continued influence on our lives. We grew up with this series, and it forever shaped our generation's perception of art and culture. Perspective is the theme through this conversation as we look back on what we see differently now, the moments we never noticed before, and just how influential and prophetic this story continues to be.

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At one point, we compare this chapter to The Revenant. The quest has never been more grim, grimy, or urgent. Cam and Maggie argue that this gauntlet is the first time that Sam and Frodo have ever truly, fully shared the burden of their mission – Frodo carries the Ring and Sam keeps hope alive for them both. We discuss the many loaded structural echoes that contribute to the dread and drama of this chapter, and Cam makes a comparison [shockingly] to Doctor Faustus and the nobility of perseverance in the face of not just failure, but absolutely certain, overwhelming odds. Maggie revisits her theory about the light / fire / ash cycle in Tolkien's work. Then we take a moment to admire just how terrifying the Black Riders still are after all this time, and ask Santa to bring us a final, bloody confrontation with the Nazgul before this journey is over.

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Well hot damn, is there anything cooler than a sandworm? Cam and Maggie finally saw Denis Villeneuve's Dune, and they are just head over heels for the world of Arrakis. There's so much to talk about – that rare feeling of falling in love with a brand new franchise, the similarities / influences / comparisons to Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings – and a whole section where we unpack the moments and characters in Dune that George Lucas spun out to create Star Wars. You know there's nothing we love more than adaptation, and this movie stands on the shoulders of many giants (Cam gets to talk about Shakespeare again). We work through the many titanic themes explored in this allegorical odyssey (can you tell I'm excited?) and the equal importance of Herbert's original mythology in this grand storytelling smoothie. We also discuss Tolkien's strong opinion about Dune and try to understand what might have annoyed him about sweet little Paul. Wow – what a movie! See it on the biggest screen you can find.

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Book Six of LOTR starts off with a bang as Sam takes over as Ringbearer / protagonist and Tolkien immediately forces him to re-enact Die Hard. Cam continues to develop his "Grey Company" theory as Sam tries to play all the role of every member of the original fellowship and survive his awful journey through the tower. We discuss the Ring planting visions of temptation in both Frodo and Sam's minds, and Maggie decides Sam is the best possible Ringbearer in Middle-earth, even more so than Tommy "Dabomba" Bombadil. Then Tolkien makes his timeline all fuzzy and gives Sam a Prisoner of Azkaban moment, which triggers his superpower and breaks the fourth wall! This Tolkien guy, I'll tell ya – quite the writer when he wants to be!

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Join Cam and Maggie for a rootin' tootin' good time as they talk about Chuck Palahniuk's fantastic Substack newsletter, how good Succession is, and how they definitely didn't just get back from their honeymoon after getting married live on the podcast in front of a studio audience at the top of the Empire State Building. Oh and I guess Maggie read The Hound of the Baskervilles too, so we talk about how great Sherlock Holmes is and the impossibility of modern murder mysteries being fun or – uh – mysterious. Then we talk about the classics and how they're not stuffy, difficult, or elite. Cam manages to mention Faustus.

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Nazgûl and orcs and hill trolls oh my! The finale of Book Five of LOTR sees our heroes ride into a trap and parlay with the flaming skull known as the Mouth of Sauron. It's some fantastic heavy metal stuff, and a piping good chapter of Tolkien. We break down the importance of time jumps in this chapter, and their effect on the reader. Tolkien rallies the reader into a confident sprint before dropping a shocking revelation that fills us with doubt and dread because the chronology has become so scattered. Maggie further develops her theory about the light/fire/ash cycle in the conflicts of Middle-earth, and Cam suggests that the Mouth of Sauron is a mirror for Gandalf's current position, which has some fun implications for where Aragorn now stands. Hint: it's somewhere up in the clouds. We end with another scandalous 'what if?' about the eagles and the Nazgûl fighting to the death in the sky over the final battle – and Cam fantasizes about the eagles dying pretty horribly. Why can't fantasy ever end in a graveyard blowout?

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Christopher Tolkien is back again the third book in his History of Lord of the Rings series, The War of the Ring. Cam read the first half of the book and collected all the most fascinating, illuminating tidbits (like a truffle pig). He and Maggie discuss them in their usual academic, whimsical fashion. Revelations include: Saruman as a failed wizard, the Palantir's secret origins, Daddy Tolkien's time schemes, "corpse lights," dreadful name changes, the torture of the creative process, and Sam Gamgee's superpower.

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Of all the chapters we've covered so far, this one probably benefits most from our close reading analysis. Aragorn gathers the captains for a Council of Elrond redux, but the differences from that first meeting are extremely revealing. We finally, and quietly, learn the limits of Gandalf the White and "doubt" is introduced as the most powerful weapon against enlightenment / knowledge. Tolkien also sets the stage for the sort of graveyard blowout I wanted from GOT's finale while also kinda re-enacting a classic scene from Macbeth. On the other side of things, we have a glorious reunion between Gimli, Legolas, Merry, and Pippin that is an avalanche of callbacks, payoffs, and bookends. Three types of hype, another appearance / interpretation of the "Grey Company," and almost every strange little idea or theory we've brought up in the past few months. It's kinda creepy and feels a little like Tolkien has been reading our minds from beyond the grave – or maybe he's just that good a writer!

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Cam and Maggie recount their experience seeing throwback rock-metal supergroup Fuzz at Mohawk in Austin and discuss their new perspective on the 1978 classic Halloween after seeing it at a drive-in. We also work through some great listener recommendations inspired by the Halloween Special last week, and then read / react to a wonderful email about Tolkien's callback-laden use of fire imagery, the role of Catholicism in his magic system, and Denethor's difficult, nuanced position in Gondor. We're also a great new evil or shithead binary that will show up in future analysis. To close things out, Maggie desperately tries to figure out how lightning works and why all the fish in the ocean aren't dead.

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Hold on to your helmets, this chapter is all about Aragorn's rise to power as he leapfrogs past Gandalf the Grey, Faramir, and even Gandalf the White to become the guy everyone trusts to lead them in the fight against Sauron. We're introduced to the "black shadow," a mysterious illness that physicalizes all of the imagery that's been smothering Gondor, and who emerges with the miracle cure for all of our sick and wounded characters? That's right – it's Aragorn, who evolves to become not just a great future king but also a wise healer / conjurer on the level of any of the wizards or dark sorcerers we've met so far. He ascends so quickly that he even starts to inherit some of Tolkien's qualities and there's a hint that he might have "special powers" ala known god-vessel Gandalf the White. We also develop a theory about the importance of names and the strange pattern of people and magical objects that are given numerous, evolving titles.

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