All language subtitles for Clash.of.the.Gods.S01E09.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-deadorbit_track3_[eng]

[music playing]

NARRATOR: It is the greatest
myth of modern times,

an evil ring of power and an
unlikely hero on a mission

to destroy it.

"The Lord of the Rings" is a
world filled with warriors,

wizards, and monsters, all
created in the mind of one man.

But there is more to
it than imagination.

The story has a series
of intriguing connections

to reality, from the trenches
of World War I to the Bible.

Now, discover the facts
behind the fiction.

This is the real story of
"The Lord of the Rings."

[music playing]

[heartbeat]

NARRATOR: A Lone figure teeters
on the edge of an abyss,

gazing into the fiery
pool of lava below.

Here, the long, arduous
journey of Frodo Baggins

has come to an end, a mission to
destroy an evil ring by casting

it into the same fires
from which it was forged.

This is the quest at the heart
of "The Lord of the Rings."

[music playing]

NARRATOR: It is a classic
story of good versus evil,

unfolding in a world
called Middle Earth.

COREY OLSEN: There's something
about "The Lord of the Rings"

that is able to speak to people.

And I think that that has a
lot to do with its connection

to mythology.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Behind "The
Lord of the Rings,"

there are a number of
ancient and modern influences

that combine to create the most
ambitious mythological journey

since "The Odyssey."

All of them are channeled
through one man--

author JRR Tolkien.

Tolkien famously
wrote a letter

saying that he wanted to create
a mythology for my country.

He was trying to produce
a mythology that was truly

English, that was centered
around the North and West,

rather than around
the Mediterranean

Sea like the Greek
and Roman had been.

And since it didn't
exist, he figured

he would have to write it.

NARRATOR: To create
his mythology,

Tolkien drew from
his own experiences

in the modern world as well
as his favorite stories

from the ancient world.

TROY STORFJELL: He broke down
many different mythologies

and medieval traditions,
then refashioned

them to create his own mythos.

SCOTT MELLOR: Tolkien
was really using

a lot of the mythological
elements from old English

and from the old Norse material.

NARRATOR: Beowulf, King
Arthur, the Viking sagas,

all our sources behind
"The Lord of the Rings."

The ancient connections begin
with the setting of the story.

In Norse mythology, the world
is made up of three levels.

The highest is Asgard,
dwelling place of the gods.

The lowest is hell,
underworld of the dead.

Between the two lies the world
inhabited by elves, dwarves,

and men.

It is called Midgard, which
translates as Middle Earth.

MICHAEL DROUT: Middle
Earth is the Midgard

that we've encountered in
old Norse or Middangeard

in Anglo-Saxon.

And it's simply in those
contexts means the Earth

in the middle between the
sky and hell surrounded

by the ocean.

NARRATOR: In "The
Lord of the Rings,"

it is through Middle Earth
that Frodo must travel

to destroy the evil ring.

This ring is the central
focus of the story.

And it too is inspired
by earlier legends.

"The Lord of the Rings"
centers on 20 magical rings

found in Middle Earth.

Some of them offer healing.

Others can extend life.

But one is more powerful
than all the others.

It is called the One Ring.

SCOTT LEONARD: It
has the ability

to make the new wearer invisible
when they put the ring on.

NARRATOR: A ring that can
make someone invisible,

it is a concept that
plays a key role

in "The Lord of the Rings."

But it didn't begin there.

It can also be found in a most
legendary tale of the Middle

Ages, another story of
courage in a time of peril--

King Arthur and the
Knights of the Round Table.

DIMITRA FIMI: In
the Arthurian legend

there are magical objects.

And there is actually a case
of a ring of invisibility

that the Maiden Luned
give to the Knight Owain.

NARRATOR: It's an
intriguing parallel

between two myths created
more than 1,000 years apart.

But Frodo's ring does more than
make its wearers invisible.

It also corrupts them.

The One Ring is a creation of
an evil lord, who imbued it

with his own destructive
power, Sauron.

DIMITRA FIMI: When
Sauron forged the ring,

he put part of himself in it.

It's intrinsically evil.

If you wear it and claim it,
you cannot use it for any good

cause.

It is going to twist
everything you do for evil.

[music playing]

MICHAEL DROUT: The
One Ring actually

has a malevolent spirit,
part of Sauron's spirit,

living inside of it.

And so this malevolent spirit
works on people to change them,

to manipulate them,
to do evil things.

And the ring acts
as an addiction.

The longer you have it,
the more you desire.

It's like a bottomless pit.

NARRATOR: This idea of
an evil ring also has

a mythical precedent in an old
Norse epic called the Volsunga

saga.

DIMITRA FIMI: Many
of the Norse sagas

are based on family histories.

And we find this very
engaging combination

of historical material and
mythological traditions.

TROY STORFJELL: The
saga of the Volsungs

is an Icelandic saga, written
sometime probably in the 1300s,

based on old Germanic tradition.

It treats a set of Germanic
cultural heroes, based loosely

on historical figures that
existed in pre-medieval times,

the end of the
West Roman Empire.

These heroes and the epic poems
about them were very important

in the Germanic warrior courts.

When the Scandinavians
settled Iceland,

they took this
tradition with them.

NARRATOR: There are some
intriguing parallels

between the Volsunga saga
and "The Lord of the Rings."

In one scene of the saga, a
king possesses a golden ring

that gives him unimaginable
wealth and riches.

But the king's son
wants it for himself.

And the temptation
drives him over the edge.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: He kills his
father to claim the ring,

then takes it and
hides in a cavern.

There, the evil ring
transforms the prince

into a hideous serpent.

It's a harsh lesson
in the danger

of greed, one that echoes
in "The Lord of the Rings."

JOHN DAVENPORT:
This is in some ways

quite similar to Gollum in
"The Lord of the Rings."

MICHAEL DROUT: Gollum
was a hobbit originally.

One day, he and his friend
Deagol went fishing.

And Deagol sees
something glinting

in the bottom of the river.

He pulls it out.

It's the ring.

And it's so beautiful, but
Gollum, whose name was Smaegol

at that time, wants the ring.

He's so greedy about the
gold, that he murders his best

friend.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: Gollum takes the
ring and hides in a cavern,

just like the prince
in the Volsunga saga.

TROY STORFJELL: He transforms
into this hideous, long-lived,

but very pathetic creature.

JOHN DAVENPORT:
Gollum's entire life

is spent dwelling on the fact
that he possesses this ring

and obsessing with it.

It's completely
taken over his mind.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: After possessing
the ring for nearly 500 years,

Gollum loses it.

Some time later, it ends up in
the hands of an innocent hobbit

named Frodo Baggins.

MICHAEL DROUT: Frodo, who has
an interesting name, because it

means wise in old
Norse and Anglo-Saxon,

and Frodo is the one who
gets stuck with the ring.

NARRATOR: Frodo's journey begins
in the land of rolling hills

and green fields
called the Shire.

This is the home of
his race, the hobbits.

MICHAEL DROUT: Hobbits are a
little people, probably 4 feet

or shorter.

They don't wear shoes because
they have very thick souls

on the bottom of their
feet and lots of fur

on the top of their feet.

They're sort of home bodies.

They don't ever really
go in for adventures.

NARRATOR: The slow pace of life
in the Shire mirrors author JRR

Tolkien's own childhood in the
countryside of western England.

TROY STORFJELL: In some ways,
Tolkien must have put himself

into the Hobbit.

Many of his ideals are
embodied in the Hobbits

as sort of embracing
the rural ideal,

embracing the simple,
pastoral life,

common, good old-fashioned
virtues in the face of grandeur

and pretension.

NARRATOR: A hobbit is the
last creature one might expect

to save the world from evil.

But Frodo Baggins is different.

Frodo is not a typical
hobbit, because he's learned.

He's interested in elves
and dwarves and outsiders.

And he knows a little
bit about the world.

And he cares about the outside
world enough to sacrifice

everything he actually loves.

SCOTT MELLOR: If you go back
to these original myths,

you're looking at the heroes
themselves, the warriors,

if you will.

Tolkien then takes this
story, and he tells it

from the point of view
of a not likely hero,

the reluctant warrior.

And that, I think,
is rather unique.

NARRATOR: Frodo inherits the
One Ring from his uncle, Bilbo,

who found it in Gollum's cave.

When he discovers the
ring's destructive power,

he sets out to destroy it.

But he soon finds himself
being drawn in by its evil.

DIMITRA FIMI: The
beginning of the book,

he already starts feeling the
temptation of maybe putting

the ring on and escaping,
leaving his friends behind.

He passes the test
at that stage.

But later on, the addiction
becomes worse and worse.

NARRATOR: Frodo's
quest to destroy evil

is the heart of "The
Lord of the Rings."

But the myth of Middle
Earth doesn't begin there.

This is only its final chapter.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: In 1977, more than
20 years after "The Lord

of the Rings" was
first published,

its forgotten
blueprint emerged, ,

revealing for the first time
how the most ambitious myth

of the modern era really begins.

It's a creation story
with intriguing ties

to the Christian Bible.

[music playing]

[music playing]

NARRATOR: "The
Lord of the Rings"

is a modern myth with direct
connections to history's most

legendary tales.

JRR Tolkien's mythological
world is so detailed,

he even created a
word to describe it--

mythopoeia.

By this, he meant a
whole mythic place, that

was a whole world,
very populated,

with a whole geography, and
a whole ability to map it.

If you wanted an example
in the modern period,

you would look at
the world created

with "Star Wars," for example.

NARRATOR: Tolkien's mythopoeia
even had a creation story

to explain how Middle Earth came
into existence before "The Lord

of the Rings."

But it wasn't published until
after his death in a book

called "The Silmarillion."

This was the blueprint
for Middle Earth.

All the ancient backstory
to "The Lord of the Rings,"

all the things that had
happened thousands of years

before, more than 2 feet
thick, huge pile of papers,

poems written in elvish
and English and histories.

And the publishers
were like, we have

no idea what to do with this.

NARRATOR: Tolkien
drew from many sources

as he set out to create
his own mythical world.

But there was one
that influenced it

above all others--

the Bible.

MICHAEL DROUT: Tolkien was an
extremely devout Roman Catholic

for reasons of personal faith
and also for family history.

His mother converted
to Catholicism.

And when she did, her
family sort of disowned her.

She raised her two
children Catholic,

and then she died of diabetes
when Tolkien was very young.

He was adopted by a Roman
Catholic priest, who took care

of him and his brother.

So the whole work is
informed by Catholic thought.

JOHN DAVENPORT: And that
shows through in his stories

in some interesting
ways, especially

in creation stories and the role
that the creator plays there.

NARRATOR: In Tolkien's story
there is one supreme god,

called Iluvatar.

He creates angelic beings
called the Ainur, who

sing songs so beautiful that the
world springs forth from them.

JOHN DAVENPORT: The
world is created

in a kind of giant symphony,
or music, of the Ainur

as it's called.

And in singing their song
before the throne of God,

they map out the whole history
of the world that's to come,

which God then makes real.

NARRATOR: This is the
beginning of Middle Earth,

the future setting of
"The Lord of the Rings."

By 1928, Tolkien had quietly
sketched out the framework

of his mythology.

He didn't expect it to be
seen beyond his close circle

of friends.

But then a spark of inspiration
hit that would transform him

from a 36-year-old
college professor

into the modern master of myth.

The famous story is
he was grading exams.

A student had left a page blank.

And Tolkien wrote on it,
"In a hole in the ground,

there lived a hobbit."

NARRATOR: From
this one sentence,

a whole new world would open up.

JOHN DAVENPORT: He had no
idea what it meant and started

to develop this story from that.

There may not be any very
clear linguistic precedents

for the word hobbit.

Nevertheless, if
you think about it,

it sounds quite
like the word habit

or in the earlier Latin
habitus, a creature

of habit, a creature
that's set in its ways,

living a very
ordinary existence.

NARRATOR: Wordplay was
nothing new for Tolkien.

He began inventing his
own phrases as a child.

They became the foundation
for the many languages spoken

in "The Lord of the
Rings," especially

the language of the elves.

The elves are not to be
confused with hobbits.

They are a race of near perfect
immortal beings, who represent

a vision of what humans would be
like had they not been tainted

by the original sin
of Adam and Eve.

The elves speak in
several distinct dialects

and have the most
fully developed

of Middle Earth's languages.

Some parts of the
elvish language

are based on a real one--

Finnish.

Tolkien learned it while
studying the national myth

of Finland, called the Kalevala.

SCOTT LEONARD: The Kalevala is
the epic of the Finnish people.

It includes dwarves and elves.

And so in that way,
it has characters

that resonate and
perhaps inspired some

of Tolkien's later writings.

JOHN DAVENPORT: Languages of
other creatures also, they'll

play an important
role in the story.

Even the language of that
Black Speech spoken by Sauron

gives you a sense of his ethos,
of the nature of his being.

So the languages of each
of these different races

tells you something
about their nature.

NARRATOR: In "The
Lord of the Rings,"

another language
belongs to the dwarves,

a short, stout
group of characters

who live underground.

Their alphabet is inspired
by Norse inscriptions that

can still be found
in Scandinavia

on ancient memorials
called rune stone.

JOHN DAVENPORT:
Runes were often used

to mark objects of
great significance,

for example, swords that would
be passed down as heirlooms,

sometimes burial sites.

Sometimes we have
in runic writing

short riddles that
provide an extra problem

for their interpreters.

First, you have to read
the runic alphabet.

Then, you have to figure
out what the riddle means.

NARRATOR: Tolkien
added a runic riddle

to his first published
novel, the epic precursor

to "The Lord of the Rings"--

'The Hobbit."

It centers on Bilbo
Baggins, Frodo's uncle,

a hobbit in search
of stolen treasure.

The clue to finding it
is on an ancient map.

It is a hidden runic text that
can only be seen in moonlight.

MICHAEL DROUT: Tolkien
actually wanted

to make the runes
be representative

of a real language.

It was an idea of secret
writing, of magic writing,

but also, it was connected
with his invented languages.

NARRATOR: The magic
writing on the map

leads Bilbo to the liar of
Smaug, the most dreaded dragon

in Middle Earth.

This is the monster
who holds the treasure.

Smaug is the last of
the great golden dragons.

And he gathered
up all the wealth

from the dwarfish kingdom and
piled it up into a huge mound.

DIMITRA FIMI: Dragons
represent human greed,

but really amplified, because
this monstrous creature, whose

only interest is in gathering
gold and keeping it.

NARRATOR: Bilbo bravely
enters the dragon's lair

and steals a golden
cup from its horde.

In retaliation, Smaug angrily
attacks a nearby village.

[wings flapping]

[roar]

[screaming]

[music playing]

NARRATOR: This is the myth.

But what inspired it?

If the story of a dragon
who guards a hoard of gold

sounds familiar, there
is a good reason.

The plot of this
incident is almost

identical with the
incident in "Beowulf."

NARRATOR: "Beowulf," one
of the most famous myths

in human history and one that
was a favorite of JRR Tolkien.

It is the story of a
Scandinavian hero who

becomes king of his homeland
and faces the ultimate test--

a fire breathing dragon.

SCOTT LEONARD: The dragon
is guarding a treasure

from kings of a previous age.

A slave discovers a
secret passageway down

into the dragon's lair,
finds this fabulous treasure,

sees the sleeping dragon,
and creeps in and steals

a gold cup.

NARRATOR: It's a tale
with obvious similarities

to the story in "The Hobbit."

Both are allegories about
the danger of greed.

In each case, a
desire for treasure

sets off a chain reaction
of horrific consequences.

Tolkien has taken
that from "Beowulf"

and made it into one of
the crucial centerpieces

of his entire story.

NARRATOR: "Beowulf" is one
of many written sources

that had a major impact on
"The Lord of the Rings."

But there was a
real life experience

that shaped the story
more than anything pulled

from the pages of a book--

a terrifying trauma laden with
ghosts, blood, and death--

the battle scarred
trenches of World War I.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: France, 1916,
a barrage of enemy

fire rattles an Allied trench.

A group of British soldiers
scramble for safety, crawling

like worms, inch by inch.

Among them is 24-year-old
Second Lieutenant JRR Tolkien,

future author of "The
Lord of the Rings."

His experiences in war will
have a profound influence

on the mythical battle
for Middle Earth.

THOMAS FINAN: When read
"The Lord of the Rings"

and we read about the
battles and we read

about the bloodiness and we
read about the destruction

of nature, it is a
statement about war.

NARRATOR: World War I was a
scene of death on a scale that

defies belief.

The history books
call it The Great War,

a time when men slaughtered each
other over mere yards of mud.

THOMAS FINAN: Tolkien and
the people of his generation

that experienced World War
I experienced a brutality

and warfare that was unique,
not to say that warfare itself

isn't bloody or violent.

Just the trench warfare
in northern France

was particularly gruesome.

TRACEY-ANNE COOPER:
It was waiting around

to see if you were going to
be hit by an artillery shell.

It was having your feet
in so much trench water

that you developed a condition
called trench foot, in which

the flesh just slid
off your bones.

It was being attacked
by mustard gas.

And all this Tolkien
would have seen.

NARRATOR: Lieutenant
Tolkien sees action

in the Battle of the
Somme, a brutal stalemate

that results in
carnage on a scale

never seen in human history.

TRACEY-ANNE COOPER:
The Battle of the Somme

raged for four months, each side
losing 1 and 1/2 million men.

Nobody gained or lost an inch
at the end of that battle.

It was just a tragic
waste of lives.

SCOTT LEONARD: After serving
for approximately a year or so,

Tolkien developed trench
fever in the form of dysentery

or typhus and was
hospitalized and taken home,

and it took him a very
long time to recover.

And he actually never
returned to the war.

TROY STORFJELL: He was damaged,
wounded internally by the war

and traumatized.

The trauma that he
had suffered had

to have influenced the way
he wrote about the trauma

that Frodo experiences in his
quest to destroy the ring.

Much of Tolkien made
its way into the hobbits

without them being a
thinly disguised Tolkien.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: In "The Lord
of the Rings," the hobbit

Frodo travels through a bog
called the Dead Marshes, where

a great battle had taken place
thousands of years earlier.

There, ghosts are still
lurking beneath the waterline.

MAN (VOICEOVER): They
lie in all the pools.

Pale faces, deep, deep
under the dark water,

I saw them, grim faces, and
evil and noble faces and sad,

but all foul, all
rotting, all dead.

DIMITRA FIMI: In the dead
marshes, where you have

this kind of rotting landscape
with bodies of an older war,

you definitely get these
memories of the Somme,

of the trenches, of these
rotting bodies of soldiers.

This is not anymore the
idea of a heroic war.

This is the death
and devastation.

What is left really
is just dead men.

NARRATOR: The horrors
of war were first

exposed in the precursor to
"The Lord of the Rings"--

"The Hobbit."

The story culminates in a battle
of five different armies, all

vying for the dragon's treasure.

The main character,
Bilbo Baggins,

sees many of his companions
killed on the battlefield

and comes to understand
the futility of war.

Like Bilbo, Tolkien
himself watched

his companions die in battle.

In France, he fought alongside
three of his oldest and closest

friends.

But by November of 1916,
two of them were dead.

SCOTT LEONARD: It seems obvious
when one reads the story where

you have comrades in arms facing
a seemingly insurmountable foe

and the fear that they feel
and the sounds of the battle

approaching, they know they're
going to be tested and probably

die that night and so on.

And yet, the way they find
a way to express both humor

and courage and to keep
each other's spirits up

in a time like that seems to be
drawn directly from his battle

experience.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: The misery
and terror of World War

I reflected not only in the
suffering of Middle Earth's

heroes, but in the
ruthlessness of its villains.

Perhaps nowhere is Tolkien's
war experience more powerfully

revealed than in the
horrific evil of the Orcs.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: "The
Lord of the Rings"

is the work of a vivid
imagination, rooted

in ancient myth and modern life.

The first-hand war experience
of its author, JRR Tolkien,

framed its central conflict
between good and evil forces.

The final battlefield in that
conflict is an infernal hell--

Mordor.

At the heart of Mordor lies
Mount Doom, the volcano

where the One Ring was forged.

This is where the
hobbit Frodo must

come to destroy the ring before
its evil power overcomes him.

It is a setting drawn from one
of the world's most well-known

ancient sources--

the Bible.

HELGA LUTHERS: If we
look at the Bible,

hell has been described as this
place of fire and brimstone

and eternal torment.

And when we see Mordor,
we see this place

of this black wasteland.

MICHAEL DROUT: It's got
very close connections

with Dante's description
of hell, in that there's

the burning plain in hell,
the dry desert with the flakes

of fire falling from the sky.

NARRATOR: Even Mordor's name
has a sinister ring to it.

This is no accident.

HELGA LUTHERS: Mordor actually
sounds similar to morthur

in Anglo-Saxon.

It means morth, or
it means a murder.

We also have the connection to
the old Norse morth, literally

same thing, meaning murder.

[music playing]

NARRATOR: In the story,
those who enter Mordor

are as good as dead.

It is patrolled by a race of
ruthless foot soldiers, known

as orcs.

HELGA LUTHERS: Orcs
are very horrible.

They are bent.
They are crooked.

They are ugly.

We are told they are
actually elves gone wrong.

The dark forces have
taken and twisted

into this horrible race.

TROY STORFJELL: They are
described as creatures

fascinated with machines,
fascinated with making

clever things,
fascinated with profit,

who try to get other
people to work for them.

This has been read as sort of
a thinly disguised capitalist

or capitalism, the
orcs as capitalists.

COREY OLSEN: Orcs are
completely corrupted.

They are ruined.

They were good
creatures originally,

but their wills are
set entirely on evil.

NARRATOR: Mordor's even
race, like so many components

of "The Lord of the Rings," may
derive from an ancient myth.

MICHAEL DROUT: In
line 512 of "Beowulf,"

there is a description of
all the evil creatures that

have been descended from Cain
after Cain killed his brother

Abel.

And those are
[non-english speech] And that

is ettins and elves and orcneas.

THOMAS FINAN: The orcneas are
demon-like beings in "Beowulf."

They have a spirit-like quality.

But they're considered
like an evil spirit being.

NARRATOR: Historical
sources inspired

not only Middle Earth's
most despised fiends,

but also one of its
principal heroes--

the wizard Gandalf.

In "The Lord of
the Rings," Gandalf

guides Frodo in his quest
to destroy the One Ring.

SCOTT MELLOR: Gandalf has
become an archetype for wizards

after the writing of
"The Lord of the Rings."

Prior to that, magic was
considered bad, anti-Christian.

It was a little bit evil.

Gandalf, I think, is
a solid, good figure.

He really tries to do what's
best for all the creatures

of Middle Earth.

NARRATOR: Clues about
Gandalf's origins

can be found in Norse mythology.

In the old Norse,
Gandalf means magical elf,

or magic using elf.

Of course, Gandalf
is not an elf.

But he is certainly a magical
figure of great power.

NARRATOR: But Gandalf draws more
than his name from Norse myth.

His appearance is modeled
after its most powerful deity--

Odin.

To the ancient Scandinavians,
Odin represented many things.

He was a god of wisdom,
war, battle, and death.

But it is his role
as the wanderer that

echoes most clearly in Gandalf.

TROY STORFJELL: It's clear
that Odin inspired Gandalf.

One of his aspects is the god
of masks and many identities.

And so he has many
names, hundreds

of names and disguises.

And when he travels
on Earth, he often

travels as the Gray Wanderer.

He wears a gray robe.

He has a wide brimmed hat.

He has a long beard.

And all of these things
fit very well with Gandalf.

NARRATOR: Like Odin, Gandalf
roams Middle Earth for years,

quietly working to
destroy its evil forces.

But the wizard may also be
influenced by another more

prominent ancient figure.

Gandalf has also been compared
by some people to Jesus.

He sacrifices himself, is
dead, and comes back clothed

in white.

As Gandalf battles
to save Frodo,

he metaphorically dies
and is resurrected

as Gandalf the White.

And this is one of the instances
where we can see Tolkien's

Catholic roots.

NARRATOR: A pagan
god of many disguises

and a Christian savior
who was resurrected,

two powerful figures from
the ancient world, both

seen in one main character.

HELGA LUTHERS: This is what
is so unique for Tolkien.

He is very good at bringing
together Christian and pagan

motif.

NARRATOR: The religious
influences behind "The Lord

of the Rings" are fully revealed
in the climax of the epic.

As the story concludes,
it is not Gandalf,

but Frodo who is in a
position to save the world.

The myth's defining moment will
draw from a pivotal chapter

in the life of Christ, as
Frodo faces the last temptation

of the ring.

[music playing]

[roaring flames]

NARRATOR: Mordor, a fiery
hell, home to the orcs

and the evil Lord Sauron.

This is where the hobbit
Frodo finds himself

at the end of a painful
journey across Middle Earth.

His quest to reach
Mount Doom is over.

But his real test
is about to begin.

To destroy the One Ring,
Frodo must scale the mountain

and drop it into the
volcanic fires, from which it

was forged.

But the ring won't go quietly.

It's no accident that
the symbol is a circle.

It sucks in everything
good about you

and about your personality,
just like any other kind

of addiction, until all you
can think about is the ring.

NARRATOR: As Frodo
climbs Mount Doom,

the ring draws him
in, challenging

him to abandon his mission
and give in to its power.

It is the ultimate
battle with temptation,

an internal struggle
between darkness and light,

inspired by author JRR
Tolkien's Christian worldview.

MICHAEL DROUT: The whole work is
informed by Catholic thoughts.

The very end Tolkien said
was illustrating the last two

petitions of the Lord's Prayer.

It says, lead us
not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

NARRATOR: Frodo's final moments
with the ring parallel one

of the most famous passages
in the New Testament.

THOMAS FINAN: Satan
comes to Earth

to tempt Christ in the
desert while Christ

is fasting for 40 days.

He tempts him with power.

He tempts him with food.

He tempts him with
dominion over Earth.

NARRATOR: In the Bible,
Jesus resists Satan's offer.

But Frodo's will proves weaker.

MICHAEL DROUT: Frodo has made
it to the very crack of Doom,

the edge of the chasm in the
volcano where the ring was

forged.

And he has the
ring on its chain.

But he can't destroy it.

It's become too much
of his personality.

And he says, "I do not choose
to do what I came here to do.

The ring is mine."

And he puts it on.

NARRATOR: The ring instantly
makes Frodo invisible.

But he is not alone.

Gollum, the evil creature who
once held the ring for hundreds

of years, has followed Frodo
all the way to Mount Doom.

He desperately
wants the ring back.

And now, he sees his chance.

[music playing]

MICHAEL DROUT: Gollum
bites his finger off.

THOMAS FINAN: Gollum
grabs the ring.

He, in turn, falls into the
fiery flames of the volcano.

This destroys the ring.

It obviously destroys Gollum.

But then in a sense
it liberates Frodo.

As evil as Gollum is, it's
Gollum who saves Middle Earth

by doing something evil.

If Gollum hadn't done that, the
world wouldn't have been saved.

So it's a nice little
twist about how this all

works together.

NARRATOR: A flawed hero who
doesn't save the day, it's

an ending that strays from
Tolkien's Christian roots

and mythological tradition.

Usually, a tragic
hero, no matter

what happens to him, at least
he can feel good because he

has done the right thing.

Frodo could not.

NARRATOR: Despite
Frodo's failure,

the final outcome echoes the
Christian belief that good will

triumph over evil.

But that triumph
comes at a cost.

After the ring is destroyed,
Frodo and the hobbits

return to the Shire.

They are horrified by
what awaits them there.

They find the Shire in ruins.

It's become an
industrial nightmare.

There are big steel
machines everywhere.

The people are oppressed.

And it's a very
dirty, polluted place.

NARRATOR: It is a vision
of technology run amok.

This was one of
Tolkien's worst fears.

In England, he saw the
same transformation

happening to the
countryside he called home.

COREY OLSEN: Tolkien
was deeply concerned

from his early childhood
about the process

of industrialization, in
large part because he saw it

as a reflection of
human corruption.

That is the urge
to industrialize

is in his mind
inextricably connected

with this impulse to dominate.

And to Tolkien, it's the
same will to dominate,

whether you're dominating people
or whether you're dominating

trees and plants.

NARRATOR: When Frodo returns
home from his quest to destroy

the ring, he is restless.

He has terrible dreams.

And he can't readjust
to life in the Shire.

Frodo, like the author
who created him,

is a soul forever changed
by traumatic memories.

TROY STORFJELL:
Frodo is wounded.

He is devastated
by his experience.

And he can never live
a normal life again.

He bears the physical
wound, but he also

bears the spiritual
wound in his soul.

And this has to be a metaphor
for what Tolkien is going

through himself with his
suffering from the First World

War.

THOMAS FINAN: I
think what's really

curious about the
character Frodo

and the author Tolkien is that
after the end of the drama,

so to speak, after
the end of World War

I, after the end of
the war of the ring,

the kind of joy that we
might imagine was missing.

So we see this lingering
malaise in Frodo, you might say,

as a result of being
the ring bearer.

And we might say that
with Tolkien, he also

had this lingering,
post-traumatic stress

from seeing countless people
butchered in the muddy fields

of northern France.

NARRATOR: At the end of
"The Lord of the Rings,"

Frodo remains deeply wounded
by his battle with evil.

He leaves the Shire
once and for all

to seek a new beginning in
Middle Earth's holy lands.

And so ends the most ambitious
mythology of the modern age.

This is really
what started you

might say the whole genre
of fantasy literature

as we now know it.

The idea of creating a
world that really stands

as a world of its own,
that has its own history,

is really fairly new
and quite original.

COREY OLSEN: It's remarkable how
popular "The Lord of the Rings"

is.

It's so dense in so many
ways and so complicated.

But it has always had
this really vibrant life

among the common readers.

And that's the thing that
is so remarkable about it.

[music playing]