Discussion of The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter One

Join Maggie and Cam for their first Frodo + Sam chapter in eleven weeks! Tolkien takes us back in time to find out what our hobbits have been up to – lots of wandering and backtracking, apparently. Discussions of moral ambiguity abound in a grey landscape filled with grey magical objects, pale grey light, fishy choices, and our favorite fish-loving friend, Gollum. We question the trustworthiness of Gollum/Sméagol, along with the agency of our hobbit heroes themselves. If Two Towers is a book about the villains, who is our villain for Book 4? Cam brings in some fun spider and vampire comparisons, and Maggie asks if Tolkien's infamous landscape is to blame. Game of Thrones makes an appearance here (you know, for a change), as we break down the structure of Two Towers and the splitting up of characters and plotlines. We also spend a weirdly large amount of time discussing rope. What is this, a game of Clue?

For our Second Breakfast, enjoy tucking into a conversation about binging – no, not on bacon and eggs, we mean with stories. Does binging a book, comic series, show, or movie emphasize or hide the flaws of a work of art? How does the speed with which you consume a story change the way you see it? Should we have perhaps binged LOTR instead of critically reading it at a glacial pace? Maybe that would have helped us deal with Tom F@%#ing Bombadil. We bring in Donny Cates's Venom series, as well as Iain Reid's I'm Thinking of Ending Things for comparison.

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