The Shadow of the Past

Uh, the story grew organically from the mind of its author.

Its main theme was settled from the outset by the choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit." Uh, he also lets us know that the Shadow of the Past was written well before the outbreak of war in nineteen thirty-nine, so this is not some notion of, like, you know, the war broke out and so he starts writing the Shadow of the Past, which is this key chapter.

Um, no, he started writing it before the war broke out.

So, you know, while much of the story may be applicable to events of World War II, uh, it's not about World War II.

Actually, for those of you who are curious, this is not the first mention of Aragorn.

He's also mentioned in Chapter 2, The Shadow of the Past.

In Chapter 11, A Knife in the Dark, the hobbits, now accompanied by Strider, finally leave Bree and they set off for Rivendell.

But the road to Rivendell is very long.

At the end of the song, he falls off the table, puts on the ring, and disappears.

This is not a conflict between people, obviously, but it is a conflict between Frodo and the ring.

As Gandalf stressed back in chapter two, The Shadow of the Past, the ring has a mind of its own.

So when we ask the question, question, how does the ring end up on Frodo's finger at this crucial moment, there are two possible explanations.

... or what Gandalf the Grey remembered or knew from his time as Olorin in Valinor.

In the Shadow of the Past, Gandalf tells Frodo, um, that not even the fire of Ancalagon the Black could have harmed the One Ring, much less the small fire in Frodo's fireplace.

Well, Ancalagon was killed by Earendil about 587 of the First Age during the-

Mm-hmm

This is episode one, where we will be discussing chapters one through four of book one of The Fellowship of the Ring, which in itself is only part one of the much larger work, The Lord of the Rings.

The first part of this episode will be recapping and breaking down chapters one through four, and the second part of this episode will be a deep dive into the major themes of these first four chapters through an in-depth analysis of chapter two, The Shadow of the Past.

So spoiler alert, spoiler warning for the first four chapters of The Fellowship of the Ring.

Also, if you're already familiar with this story and you're not interested in listening to me just recap the events of the first four chapters, then feel free to skip ahead to the analysis section of this episode, and you can do that by checking out the timestamps that I'll put in the episode description.

And finally, before Gandalf leaves, he needs to warn Frodo about the ring that Bilbo has left him.

As Gandalf tells Frodo, he must not under any circumstances use the ring and he must, quote, "Keep it safe and keep it secret." Chapter one, A Long Expected Party, is really important for establishing the world and the characters.

But chapter two, The Shadow of the Past, is crucial for establishing the stakes and themes of the rest of the book.

So we are going to spend a good chunk of time breaking it down here, but also I am going to spend the entirety of part two of this episode taking a closer look at chapter two as well.

I could still tell that they did it, but they're just trying to act those parts versus this is going to be like, I'm guessing... one for one they're gonna go like and get their faces and do facial recognition and input that into the computer system i guess i mean i

what and what's wild to me is like i i almost feel like that's what i'm most worried about is not if i can't tell Like, I know I'll be able to tell, right? Because in Shadow of the Past, we're going to flashback and it's going to be younger Sean Astin.

Like, we're going to know that in those scenes, that's not...

Yeah, sure.

I don't know.

Like again, I don't like spend tons of time thinking about it, but maybe the hunt for Gollum is the first movie.

And the shadow of the past is the, is the second movie.

And that was always the two movies.