But he knows approximately what it does and has like 50 years of experience of hunting the enemy and a whole ass education in the history of the world etc.

Barb: 2 come first, gooder!!

Can’t say I’m surprised, but grim to have it confirmed. As someone living in the nordics, guess i’ll have to think about moving.

If that was Gandalf the White he’d know exactly how to escape and tell everyone exactly what to do every step of the way until the final puzzle, at which point he just stands to the side and stares at them solving it. When they finally succeed, in the nick of time, he yells “the door is opening!”

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The Hobbit does grow more serious as it goes on, the first third is… an experience to read, i agree. LOTR is much more serious, the elves are much more the wise old beings (still jovial at times, but in a less childish way).

Ooh a double reference, fancy!

Absolutely, but calling it a reference implies that it was intentional by the writer, which seems unlikely considering what he’s said about such things.

Not everything needs to have deep/real-world meaning. As i recall, Tolkien really didn’t like people ascribing such things to his writing. They’re just stories and should be treated as such.

This is how it showed up on my feed, perfect post for that to happen to

Someone had a stroke in the middle of that second sentence, either me or the author.

The whole point of doing it this way is that it doesn’t need to be maintained. Once it’s full you just fill the tunnels up (probably with dirt and/or rock) and close them off and you’re good, it’ll sit there for those 100,000 years.

That’s a fair point, i can absolutely see Gandalf the Grey justifying with something like “there is more evil in this world than just Sauron”.

Damn, that camera must have a fast shutter speed then

Just not in any other ways, like it going against essentially his entire character and the ring not allowing it, among others.

Gandalf wouldn’t even still be there, since he was only there to aid in the fight against Sauron. He’d have gone off to Valinor shortly after Sauron’s defeat, together with the rest of the elves. And there’d be no Aragorn to be a good pal and extend the good lifespans of the realms of Men, so Gondor would never get a new king and the realms of Men would likely fall to evil a bit into the third age.

Idk about you but i stopped assuming a long time ago

Very much agreed. It’s long but was interesting throughout and lays plain some very concerning facts about BBC top brass.

Also to be fair, that was 300 years ago.