WEBVTT - Tim's Tolkien Obsession & Amazon Prime's The Rings of Power 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:21.890 Pushkin. Hello and welcome to Cautionary Tales. I am Tim Harford. 0:00:21.930 --> 0:00:25.530 This is one of our Cautionary Conversations episodes. We are 0:00:25.650 --> 0:00:29.890 sponsored this week by Amazon Prime, the creators of the 0:00:30.010 --> 0:00:33.010 Rings of Power. And I'm actually so excited i could pop. 0:00:33.290 --> 0:00:36.970 I'm in the studio with Alice Fin's Cautionary Tales series producer. 0:00:37.170 --> 0:00:38.770 And why am I so excited? Alis? 0:00:38.850 --> 0:00:41.730 You're so excited because we're about to do a massive 0:00:41.810 --> 0:00:45.290 rundown of all your favorite cautionary tales and the works 0:00:45.290 --> 0:00:46.810 of your favorite author, Tolkien. 0:00:46.970 --> 0:00:49.290 Yes, we're going to talk about Gerah Tolkien. We're going 0:00:49.290 --> 0:00:50.770 to talk about the Rings of Power, and we're going 0:00:50.810 --> 0:00:54.170 to talk about cautionary tales. It's like all my birthdays 0:00:54.210 --> 0:00:57.170 and Christmas have come at the same time. I'm in 0:00:57.170 --> 0:01:01.250 case you haven't guessed, I'm an absolutely massive fan of Tolkien. 0:01:01.450 --> 0:01:04.170 I've been a massive fan of Tolkien for approximately forty 0:01:04.210 --> 0:01:07.530 five years. And I think that Tolkien is full of 0:01:07.570 --> 0:01:10.610 cautionary tales. And this new series, Rings of Power is 0:01:10.610 --> 0:01:12.690 also full of cautioning tales. So that is what we're 0:01:12.690 --> 0:01:13.410 going to talk about. 0:01:13.450 --> 0:01:16.010 And I am this side of the glass today as 0:01:16.170 --> 0:01:19.370 a non expert enthusiast who has also watched Rings of 0:01:19.410 --> 0:01:22.050 Power and is also very excited to speak about it. Now, 0:01:22.090 --> 0:01:24.650 if you haven't seen Rings of Power yet, there's something 0:01:24.690 --> 0:01:26.770 for everyone in the mix. It's an action story, it's 0:01:26.770 --> 0:01:30.010 a psychological thriller. It's a fantasy story. So make sure 0:01:30.050 --> 0:01:30.690 you go and watch it. 0:01:30.770 --> 0:01:32.850 My whole life has built up to this moment I've 0:01:32.890 --> 0:01:35.570 been I sense that for you this is amazing. Obviously, 0:01:35.650 --> 0:01:38.730 it's a fantasy about elves and orcs and all things 0:01:38.890 --> 0:01:40.610 Tolkien esk, and we will get into that. But it 0:01:40.650 --> 0:01:43.130 is also full of cautionary tales. It is full of 0:01:43.250 --> 0:01:47.370 the kind of ideas that we explore in caution retales. 0:01:47.490 --> 0:01:50.090 And as I was watching it, all kinds of things 0:01:50.170 --> 0:01:52.690 sprung to mind, and I imagine they sprung to your 0:01:52.730 --> 0:01:53.330 mind as well. 0:01:53.450 --> 0:01:54.210 They certainly did. 0:01:54.690 --> 0:01:58.050 Okay, so we should probably begin with a little bit 0:01:58.090 --> 0:02:01.570 of background. The Rings of Power is a prequel to 0:02:02.170 --> 0:02:04.650 the events of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. 0:02:04.650 --> 0:02:08.650 It is set thousands of years before those events. Tolkien 0:02:08.850 --> 0:02:12.930 wrote enormous amounts of law, so this is a new 0:02:13.050 --> 0:02:15.770 story set thousands of years before the Lord of the Rings. 0:02:16.170 --> 0:02:18.010 We do meet some of the characters in the Lord 0:02:18.010 --> 0:02:20.290 of the Rings. For example, we meet el Rond, we 0:02:20.330 --> 0:02:24.570 meet Galadriel. They are elves, Elands, half Elven. They lived 0:02:24.570 --> 0:02:26.490 for thousands of years, so you know you can meet 0:02:26.530 --> 0:02:30.130 them as their younger selves before they became those later characters. 0:02:30.690 --> 0:02:33.250 Yes, so l Rond we know later as an elf 0:02:33.370 --> 0:02:37.530 ruler in Rivendell. Galadriel a very powerful royal Elf. They 0:02:37.530 --> 0:02:40.610 are played by Robert Rameo and Morphind Clark rather brilliantly. 0:02:40.850 --> 0:02:43.250 So Rings of Power gives us their origin stories. And 0:02:43.290 --> 0:02:45.930 it's also the origin story of the Rings of Power 0:02:46.090 --> 0:02:49.330 themselves and the One Ring, which there's quite a lot 0:02:49.370 --> 0:02:51.010 of fuss about. So tim, what is going on with 0:02:51.050 --> 0:02:51.530 those Well. 0:02:51.410 --> 0:02:53.650 A lot of fuss about. This is about the Ring 0:02:53.890 --> 0:02:56.930 and the quest to destroy the One Ring. The Rings 0:02:56.970 --> 0:03:01.090 of Power were made under the influence of the Big 0:03:01.130 --> 0:03:05.290 Baddie Saron. There were three made by and four the elves. 0:03:05.330 --> 0:03:08.090 There were seven for the dwarves. There were nine immortal 0:03:08.130 --> 0:03:11.890 men and wrought by himself the One Ring. And this 0:03:12.010 --> 0:03:16.210 is a source of ultimate evil and corruption in the 0:03:16.210 --> 0:03:18.050 Lord of the Rings. So in the Rings of Power 0:03:18.090 --> 0:03:21.010 we get to see, well, why were these things made? 0:03:21.290 --> 0:03:23.970 Who made them? And I imagine in season two, which 0:03:23.970 --> 0:03:26.250 we haven't watched yet, we're going to see a little 0:03:26.290 --> 0:03:28.330 bit more about the consequences of making them. 0:03:28.410 --> 0:03:31.130 We actually see quite a few sort of mini origin 0:03:31.210 --> 0:03:34.210 stories peppered throughout season one. So someone else we meet 0:03:34.930 --> 0:03:38.610 is an ancestor of Aragon Izildon, who actually. 0:03:38.410 --> 0:03:41.450 Sorry to correct you there, Alison Aragon is actually descended 0:03:41.490 --> 0:03:45.170 from an Arian who is Isolu's brother, Thank you so, 0:03:45.530 --> 0:03:47.850 But yes, Isldure, we know, from the Lord of the Rings, 0:03:47.930 --> 0:03:51.410 famous tool who fails to destroy the One Ring when 0:03:51.410 --> 0:03:53.290 he could have destroyed the One Ring. And he's you know, 0:03:53.930 --> 0:03:56.450 a little bit of a muppet in the Rings of 0:03:56.490 --> 0:03:57.290 Power as well, isn't he. 0:03:57.570 --> 0:03:59.370 I was about to say, if I'm honest, it's not 0:03:59.410 --> 0:04:00.290 looking good for him. 0:04:00.690 --> 0:04:03.170 No, no, but there you go. I mean, the character 0:04:03.250 --> 0:04:05.410 arc is consistent. You know, he makes mistakes. He's going 0:04:05.410 --> 0:04:08.410 to make mistakes in the future. So we're going to 0:04:08.410 --> 0:04:10.290 talk about some of the characters, and we are going 0:04:10.330 --> 0:04:13.690 to talk about the cautionary tales they bring to mind 0:04:13.770 --> 0:04:17.450 from the social science behind what happens in the Rings 0:04:17.490 --> 0:04:20.090 of Power and some of the things that occur in 0:04:20.250 --> 0:04:23.690 the Rings of Power that echo true stories that we 0:04:23.770 --> 0:04:26.730 have told in cautionary tales, I should say there are 0:04:26.730 --> 0:04:29.650 going to be some spoilers for season one. There are 0:04:29.650 --> 0:04:31.050 not going to be any sort of spoilers for season 0:04:31.090 --> 0:04:33.450 two because we haven't seen season two. It is out 0:04:33.530 --> 0:04:36.930 on the twenty ninth of August on Amazon Prime. I 0:04:37.490 --> 0:05:04.410 for one, am eagerly looking forward to it. So we 0:05:04.450 --> 0:05:09.010 should begin with one of the key protagonists, the heroine, 0:05:09.570 --> 0:05:12.970 one of the heroines of the Rings of Power, Galadriel. 0:05:14.210 --> 0:05:16.410 We see her in The Lord of the Rings. Here 0:05:16.490 --> 0:05:19.610 we see her as a child and then later as 0:05:19.650 --> 0:05:25.170 an incredibly determined pursuer of evil. I say determined, I 0:05:25.170 --> 0:05:29.250 mean maybe it's determined, Maybe it's obsessive, maybe it's irrational. 0:05:29.690 --> 0:05:32.970 Everyone else seems to think that she's completely unhinged. Saron 0:05:33.050 --> 0:05:36.170 has long since disappeared from the world, and yet Galadriel 0:05:36.250 --> 0:05:38.010 will not give up the hunt for him. 0:05:38.090 --> 0:05:42.050 So early on in the series covers a few centuries 0:05:42.130 --> 0:05:45.250 of Galadriel's life. We see Gladriel and her beloved brother 0:05:45.370 --> 0:05:49.570 Finrod battling Morgoth, who is a kind of evil entity 0:05:49.610 --> 0:05:53.290 demonic actually who. 0:05:52.050 --> 0:05:55.250 Moth Saron's boss, so he when he was defeated, Saron 0:05:55.290 --> 0:05:58.730 took up the Baton and continued the pursuit of evil 0:05:58.730 --> 0:05:59.370 in Middle Earth. 0:05:59.850 --> 0:06:02.930 So Galadriel vows to take up her brother's mission, and 0:06:02.970 --> 0:06:08.170 she spends centuries seeking out Sourn and this intangible evil 0:06:08.210 --> 0:06:12.090 that she believes is there, And eventually others stop rallying 0:06:12.090 --> 0:06:15.050 around the cause. She starts to seem like she might 0:06:15.210 --> 0:06:18.890 just be kind of a lone zealot. And it all 0:06:18.970 --> 0:06:21.650 comes to a head when she leads her company to 0:06:21.690 --> 0:06:23.050 this sort of snowy wasteland. 0:06:23.090 --> 0:06:25.690 It looks absolutely miserable, but because they're elves, I guess 0:06:25.730 --> 0:06:26.930 they don't die of cold. 0:06:26.930 --> 0:06:30.970 Absolutely. She thinks that she is seeing signs of Salon, 0:06:31.050 --> 0:06:34.490 but others don't really believe that that's what she's seeing. 0:06:34.530 --> 0:06:37.050 There are signs, right, but the signs are are centuries old. 0:06:37.090 --> 0:06:40.090 So the fact that somebody wrote a sign hundreds of 0:06:40.130 --> 0:06:41.490 years ago, what does that tell you now? 0:06:41.650 --> 0:06:44.450 Right exactly? The threat is not imminent. There's this brush 0:06:44.450 --> 0:06:47.210 with the snow troll. They lose faith in her, they 0:06:47.250 --> 0:06:50.170 stop following her, and when they go home, she's commended 0:06:50.170 --> 0:06:52.850 for her bravery. But it's all kind of a bit hollow. 0:06:52.970 --> 0:06:55.770 It's very hollow. So the King of the Els, Gilgallard, 0:06:56.090 --> 0:07:00.610 rewards her with a one way trip to Valenore, which. 0:07:00.450 --> 0:07:02.130 Is false retirement, isn't it. 0:07:02.210 --> 0:07:04.650 Yeah, it's kind of elf heaven, and I mean it's 0:07:04.650 --> 0:07:07.730 supposed to be a big reward, but it doesn't feel 0:07:07.810 --> 0:07:10.450 like a reward to her. Feels like she's basically being, 0:07:11.130 --> 0:07:15.610 as you say, forcibly, retired and stripped of her duties, 0:07:15.770 --> 0:07:19.050 and it feels like a punishment to her. It becomes 0:07:19.090 --> 0:07:22.290 apparent later that Gilgalad did this deliberately. It's not just 0:07:22.370 --> 0:07:24.890 that he meant to reward her, but she didn't really 0:07:24.970 --> 0:07:26.850 view it as a reward. He wanted to take her 0:07:26.890 --> 0:07:29.570 out of the picture. Because it becomes clear that Gilgallard, 0:07:29.650 --> 0:07:33.410 the elf king, he thinks that Gladrial is actually the problem, 0:07:33.570 --> 0:07:35.330 like the fact that there is still evil in the world. 0:07:35.330 --> 0:07:37.810 There's evil in the world because Gladriuel is so obsessed 0:07:37.810 --> 0:07:40.490 with evil. There's a line that a wind that can 0:07:40.530 --> 0:07:43.090 blow out a fire can also fan the flames. One 0:07:43.090 --> 0:07:45.770 of the things that really struck me here is Galadril 0:07:46.010 --> 0:07:50.050 is treated a little bit like our whistle blowing hero 0:07:50.610 --> 0:07:53.850 in Whistleblower on the twenty eighth Floor, which is our 0:07:53.930 --> 0:07:56.610 episode about the equity finance fraud the equity finance Forward 0:07:56.650 --> 0:08:00.130 was effectively the equivalent of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme only 0:08:00.290 --> 0:08:04.570 in the nineteen seventies. And the man who identified that 0:08:04.610 --> 0:08:07.170 this fraud was taking place and delivered the evidence of 0:08:07.170 --> 0:08:10.450 this fraud to the SEC cur it as an Exchange Commission, 0:08:10.490 --> 0:08:14.410 the US financial regulator. He was then prosecuted by the SEC, 0:08:14.850 --> 0:08:18.770 and obviously gladually is a rather more dynamic and compelling 0:08:18.770 --> 0:08:21.690 and charismatic figure than Ray Dirk's. But the way that 0:08:21.730 --> 0:08:25.330 we punish the people who are trying to alert us 0:08:25.370 --> 0:08:27.890 to danger, I think is a is a theme in 0:08:27.970 --> 0:08:30.770 certain caution detales, and very strongly a theme in the 0:08:30.770 --> 0:08:32.330 early episode ser Rings of Power. 0:08:32.450 --> 0:08:35.410 Yes, A key takeaway in that episode, the Whistleblower on 0:08:35.450 --> 0:08:38.130 the twenty eighth Floor, is that whistleblowing is often far 0:08:38.170 --> 0:08:40.850 more trouble than it's worth. You might be shunned, it 0:08:40.890 --> 0:08:43.370 may be hard to find employment after. People don't like 0:08:43.450 --> 0:08:47.850 bad news. Essentially, you lose your friends because your friends 0:08:47.850 --> 0:08:48.850 are people from work. 0:08:49.490 --> 0:08:54.210 It's difficult to survive financially and emotionally. They don't like 0:08:54.250 --> 0:08:56.490 bad news, and also they often blame the messenger, not 0:08:56.530 --> 0:08:59.010 because they don't just dislike the bad news, but because 0:08:59.090 --> 0:09:03.330 the people who are willing to defy that social pressure 0:09:03.530 --> 0:09:07.170 are often quite awkward. Whistleblower once contacted my colleagues at 0:09:07.170 --> 0:09:10.570 the Financial Times. When my journalistic colleague picked up the phone, 0:09:11.050 --> 0:09:14.690 the first line the whistleblower uttered was, my name is Tarantula. 0:09:15.450 --> 0:09:19.170 That is not my real name. You just sound mad. 0:09:19.250 --> 0:09:21.570 That's just who phone's a journalist and says my name 0:09:21.610 --> 0:09:22.410 is Tarantela. Yeah. 0:09:22.450 --> 0:09:24.370 You might not endear yourself to people by. 0:09:24.250 --> 0:09:26.450 Doing that, really not. But it turns out, actually it 0:09:26.450 --> 0:09:29.130 was a very important fraud that this person was blowing 0:09:29.170 --> 0:09:31.450 the whistle on, and Ray Dirk's was a kind of 0:09:31.490 --> 0:09:34.690 awkward character and glad Youel is in many ways extremely 0:09:34.730 --> 0:09:37.890 obnoxious in this series. She rubs people up the wrong way. 0:09:37.970 --> 0:09:41.850 She's absolutely convinced she's right. She doesn't hesitate to let 0:09:41.930 --> 0:09:44.290 other people know that she thinks they're idiots, and this 0:09:44.370 --> 0:09:46.850 turns out to be quite common behavior from whistleblowers. 0:09:46.930 --> 0:09:49.370 She is right, but there are moments where you think, oh, 0:09:49.570 --> 0:09:53.250 take a day off. We talk in that episode, particularly 0:09:53.370 --> 0:09:57.210 about anti money laundering officers in banks, and there are 0:09:57.210 --> 0:09:59.290 these examples of how when you blow the whistle on 0:09:59.290 --> 0:10:02.890 a bank. You're blowing the whistle on regulatory failure. Yeah, 0:10:02.930 --> 0:10:05.650 you're blowing the whistle on everyone not doing what they're 0:10:05.650 --> 0:10:06.370 supposed to do. 0:10:06.570 --> 0:10:09.690 You're telling people that they screwed up. This organization screwed up. 0:10:09.730 --> 0:10:11.930 You screwed up. And my job is to tell you 0:10:11.970 --> 0:10:13.770 that you screwed up. And it turns out that that's 0:10:13.810 --> 0:10:16.730 your job title, but your actual job is to tick 0:10:16.810 --> 0:10:18.370 some boxes, not make a fuss. 0:10:18.090 --> 0:10:21.570 Don't rock the boat. And Gladriel is absolutely rocking the boat, right. 0:10:21.690 --> 0:10:24.690 She's pointing to everyone's collective failure to vanquish evil and 0:10:24.730 --> 0:10:28.610 to stay regilant. And it's a lot easier to dismiss 0:10:28.650 --> 0:10:31.530 that lone voice that's screaming into the wind than to say, hey, 0:10:31.970 --> 0:10:33.730 maybe we do actually have a problem here. 0:10:33.930 --> 0:10:36.050 Yes, I mean there is another way of seeing this. 0:10:36.330 --> 0:10:39.250 As anybody who's read The Lord of the Rings knows 0:10:39.890 --> 0:10:43.130 Saron did not disappear. Saron comes back. We know Saron 0:10:43.210 --> 0:10:45.090 comes back, and even if we haven't read The Lord 0:10:45.130 --> 0:10:47.170 of the Rings, we kind of guess that Saron is 0:10:47.170 --> 0:10:50.450 still out there, so we kind of narratively we know 0:10:50.530 --> 0:10:53.770 Gladriel's right. And so there is such a thing as 0:10:53.930 --> 0:10:57.210 as hindsight bias, and I think it's hard to avoid 0:10:57.210 --> 0:10:59.810 that as a viewer of the series. So the classic 0:10:59.850 --> 0:11:03.450 example of outcome bias is an experiment run by a 0:11:03.450 --> 0:11:06.130 couple of psychologists in nineteen eighty eight Baron and Hershey. 0:11:06.170 --> 0:11:09.610 Whether they're asking people to evaluate decisions. These might be 0:11:09.650 --> 0:11:12.170 medical decisions, for example, or they might be financial decisions, 0:11:12.170 --> 0:11:15.090 but they also explain how things worked out. So here's 0:11:15.090 --> 0:11:16.930 a doctor, this is what the doctor did, and this 0:11:17.010 --> 0:11:19.210 is in the ed what happened to the patient. And 0:11:19.330 --> 0:11:23.850 people find it completely impossible to separate the decision making 0:11:23.890 --> 0:11:27.050 process from the outcome. If you're told the outcome, you 0:11:27.170 --> 0:11:30.650 can't neutually judge the process. And here we know the outcome. 0:11:30.690 --> 0:11:33.010 We know sound's out there, so we know Gladriel's right. 0:11:33.490 --> 0:11:35.970 So I think the storytellers have to work quite hard 0:11:35.970 --> 0:11:39.650 in this series to make Gladriels seem irrational and seem unhinged. 0:11:39.770 --> 0:11:42.170 When she's speaking about this intangible evil being out there, 0:11:42.210 --> 0:11:45.210 what she keeps referencing as this inner intuition, it's not 0:11:45.290 --> 0:11:49.330 really perceptible or measurable by her colleagues. They can only 0:11:49.410 --> 0:11:51.250 kind of work with what's in front of them and 0:11:51.330 --> 0:11:53.410 think about all the other things they need to balance. 0:11:53.570 --> 0:11:56.490 Yeah, she thinks she's right. She thinks they're wrong. They 0:11:56.490 --> 0:11:58.090 think the opposite. I mean, who's to judge? 0:11:58.170 --> 0:11:58.330 Right? 0:11:59.170 --> 0:12:01.730 I think there is another reading of Gladriel which is 0:12:01.770 --> 0:12:04.770 possible here, which is that she is a grieving person 0:12:04.930 --> 0:12:09.930 or a grieving elf. She takes on her brother's after 0:12:09.970 --> 0:12:12.010 he dies, She takes his dagger. She says, his vow 0:12:12.090 --> 0:12:16.210 became mine. She's grappling with her relationship with him even 0:12:16.250 --> 0:12:19.050 though he's gone, which is sort of what grieving is. 0:12:19.530 --> 0:12:22.770 There's a sense in which his death ignites this fire 0:12:22.850 --> 0:12:25.010 in her. In her words, it whips up a tempest 0:12:25.050 --> 0:12:28.170 that won't be quelled. Emotion and loss are kind of 0:12:28.210 --> 0:12:32.090 propelling her on for l ron. For people observing her, 0:12:32.770 --> 0:12:35.410 it seems like something's broken in her right. There's a 0:12:35.450 --> 0:12:38.490 sense that emotion and anger are clouding her judgment rather 0:12:38.530 --> 0:12:42.650 than helping her maybe see truths other people can't, which 0:12:42.930 --> 0:12:46.010 reminds me of this trope of the mad woman that 0:12:46.050 --> 0:12:48.370 we see kind of recur in history and in literature, 0:12:48.370 --> 0:12:53.210 a powerful woman in particular whose emotion renders them overly dramatic, 0:12:53.330 --> 0:12:58.410 overly passionate, It automatically undermines them in cautionary tails. It 0:12:58.490 --> 0:13:00.450 reminds me of Anna Marie Jarvis. 0:13:00.970 --> 0:13:04.090 Oh wow, Anamary Jarvis. That's that's a deep cut. I 0:13:04.210 --> 0:13:08.130 like that. So, yes, the inventor of Mother's Day? Or 0:13:08.290 --> 0:13:10.770 was she the inventor of Mother's Day? She certainly thought 0:13:10.930 --> 0:13:12.650 she was the inventor of Mother's Day and then was 0:13:12.890 --> 0:13:14.210 incredibly defensive of it. 0:13:14.610 --> 0:13:18.010 Indeed, so her life's work, I mean, Anne Marie Jarvis 0:13:18.130 --> 0:13:21.050 is also a grieving woman, right, Her life's work is 0:13:21.130 --> 0:13:24.970 honoring her dad, mother, and she believes that that. Then 0:13:25.050 --> 0:13:27.490 her day, Mother's Day gets co opted by these sort 0:13:27.530 --> 0:13:31.290 of cynical interests, and she tries to take back what 0:13:31.370 --> 0:13:33.810 she has created, and she's upset. I mean, of course 0:13:33.810 --> 0:13:34.410 she's upset. 0:13:34.530 --> 0:13:38.970 Yeah, But she starts writing very vitriolic letters and everything 0:13:39.090 --> 0:13:42.050 is sort of painted as good and evil and sort 0:13:42.050 --> 0:13:46.330 of the noble idea of Mother's Day. And these corrupt florists, 0:13:46.370 --> 0:13:50.250 the evil florists who have you initially of course supported her. 0:13:50.730 --> 0:13:54.930 Why don't you stop fraud against Mother's Day through misrepresentation 0:13:55.090 --> 0:13:58.690 about founder. You know, no person in your town ever 0:13:58.850 --> 0:14:01.810 gave a cent for Mother's Day, nor was its promoter. 0:14:02.610 --> 0:14:06.290 No honest person would make such a claim. Stop the 0:14:06.330 --> 0:14:07.810 deception and game. 0:14:09.810 --> 0:14:11.130 It's a miserable story at the end. 0:14:11.210 --> 0:14:13.410 I think it is so. She does write these letters, 0:14:13.410 --> 0:14:16.090 but it is striking to me that she starts something, 0:14:16.210 --> 0:14:19.090 or she is instrumental in starting something that is still 0:14:19.130 --> 0:14:21.690 recognized in the US today. But in the end, Time 0:14:21.690 --> 0:14:24.850 Magazine remembers her as just this old woman, a busy body, 0:14:24.890 --> 0:14:29.130 a recluse, a bit of a weirdo. And there are many, 0:14:29.210 --> 0:14:32.250 many ways. I think that Galadriel and Anna Marie Jarvis 0:14:32.290 --> 0:14:35.050 are very different, but I do think they are both 0:14:35.330 --> 0:14:37.450 judged very harshly by the societies they live in. 0:14:37.570 --> 0:14:40.170 Did Galadriel ever throw a Mother's Day salad on the floor. 0:14:40.850 --> 0:14:43.970 I wouldn't put it past her. But they're judged for 0:14:44.050 --> 0:14:46.530 their extremes of emotion and for the fire that lights 0:14:46.530 --> 0:14:48.130 in them and the missions that gives them. 0:14:48.730 --> 0:14:51.050 I think Gladril is going to come out very well 0:14:51.170 --> 0:14:53.330 in the end. Well, I think we know that she is. 0:14:53.370 --> 0:14:54.370 But I think you're right. 0:14:54.930 --> 0:14:57.690 I will say overall, in Rings of Power, women come 0:14:57.690 --> 0:15:01.170 across very well. They are very powerful, very wise, very brave. 0:15:01.610 --> 0:15:04.290 Yes, But Gladriel, she certainly has an edge to her, 0:15:04.370 --> 0:15:08.650 so Gladriola's Radix, the equity finance whistleblower, gladriel as Anna, 0:15:08.690 --> 0:15:12.810 Marie J. Harvest, the salad hurling creator of Mother's Day. 0:15:13.050 --> 0:15:15.370 These are depths that I had not previously seen in 0:15:15.410 --> 0:15:18.050 the Rings of Power. We will plumb more depths and 0:15:18.090 --> 0:15:20.970 we will explore more parallels after the break. 0:15:32.490 --> 0:15:36.210 Okay, Tim, picture the scene. You're at home in Oxford, 0:15:36.330 --> 0:15:40.570 in your living room, waging a very intriguing dungeons and 0:15:40.650 --> 0:15:41.450 Dragons campaign. 0:15:41.930 --> 0:15:45.770 Okay, it's all too easy to picture all of us 0:15:46.130 --> 0:15:47.490 the typical Tuesday. 0:15:48.130 --> 0:15:50.130 Well, it's all about to change. All of a sudden, 0:15:50.690 --> 0:15:54.290 there's an almighty crash and through the floorboards appears an 0:15:54.370 --> 0:15:57.330 ork who has been undermining your house. What are you 0:15:57.370 --> 0:15:57.690 gonna do? 0:15:58.090 --> 0:16:01.250 Okay, yeah, I'm hid in the cupboard. I think would 0:16:01.290 --> 0:16:02.250 be my reaction. 0:16:02.130 --> 0:16:03.970 That that's fair, because they're terrifying. 0:16:04.330 --> 0:16:07.850 They are absolutely terrifying. In the Wings of Power. We 0:16:07.890 --> 0:16:11.090 should just remind people. I'm Tim Harford, eur Alice find 0:16:11.410 --> 0:16:13.610 we are sponsored by Amazon Prime and the Rings of Power, 0:16:13.610 --> 0:16:16.770 and we're talking about parallels between the Rings of Power 0:16:17.170 --> 0:16:22.890 and cautionary tales. And yes, they are spine chilling. 0:16:23.090 --> 0:16:25.130 Spine chilling. They spend a lot of time digging that 0:16:25.250 --> 0:16:27.690 scene I just described in fact unfolds in the show. 0:16:28.370 --> 0:16:30.530 I have to say I would back you more than 0:16:30.570 --> 0:16:32.890 most to survive the Orc Apocalypse. 0:16:33.930 --> 0:16:34.930 Any particular reason. 0:16:35.610 --> 0:16:40.850 Your extensive knowledge the enemy, the enemy, you know that weaknesses. 0:16:40.810 --> 0:16:44.090 Yes, well sunlight one of the weekness. Yeah, which which 0:16:44.610 --> 0:16:46.930 indeed the Orcs are planning to do something about that 0:16:46.970 --> 0:16:51.850 particular problem in this series. But no, there they just 0:16:52.650 --> 0:16:56.570 are unsettling. They're like something kind of a horror movie 0:16:57.010 --> 0:17:00.970 rather than an action film. Here, they're thoroughly chilling, which 0:17:00.970 --> 0:17:05.210 I think is is very welcome development in the Rings 0:17:05.250 --> 0:17:07.730 of Power. But yes, so they've got this project though, 0:17:07.770 --> 0:17:10.410 the Orcs, they have a project not just interested in 0:17:11.170 --> 0:17:14.810 butchering livestock and kidnapping people and shooting people full of arrows, 0:17:14.810 --> 0:17:16.250 although they do do plenty of that. 0:17:16.250 --> 0:17:18.650 That's also a hobby. Yeah, I mean, we'll come to 0:17:18.690 --> 0:17:21.330 the project. But I do have a question for you. First. 0:17:22.290 --> 0:17:26.090 Rings of Power sort of elucidates where Orcs come from. 0:17:26.330 --> 0:17:30.650 They are these twisted, tortured elves according to Gladriel. Yes, 0:17:31.210 --> 0:17:34.050 I've not totally got my head around it. There seems 0:17:34.050 --> 0:17:36.410 to be a limitless supply of them. How does this work? 0:17:36.650 --> 0:17:40.090 Yes, well, I think orcs are quite feckened. I think 0:17:39.970 --> 0:17:42.610 orks like to get busy with other orcs, and yes, 0:17:42.810 --> 0:17:45.570 or I mean there are certain scenes where they appear 0:17:45.610 --> 0:17:48.410 to be almost manufactured. But yes, I think they are. 0:17:49.650 --> 0:17:53.450 They breed quickly as a race, and yes, Galadriel says 0:17:53.450 --> 0:17:59.170 they're twisted elves. Tolkien himself actually gave different accounts of 0:17:59.170 --> 0:18:01.610 where orcs came from. I mean, this is almost like 0:18:01.610 --> 0:18:06.090 a theological thing for him. Could the master of all evil, 0:18:06.210 --> 0:18:08.610 mor Goth? Could he create life? Or could he only 0:18:09.170 --> 0:18:13.170 twisted pervert life? And so he had different different views. 0:18:13.170 --> 0:18:15.650 But I think the view that is most popular, that's 0:18:15.690 --> 0:18:18.450 expressed in the Lord of the Rings is that Morgarth 0:18:18.530 --> 0:18:21.930 took elves and then he twisted elves in mockery and 0:18:22.010 --> 0:18:25.090 turned them into into orcs. And that was the worst 0:18:25.090 --> 0:18:27.210 thing he ever did, was to take elves and to 0:18:27.250 --> 0:18:29.130 turn them into too orcs. It was of all the 0:18:29.210 --> 0:18:31.810 evil acts he commits over thousands of years, and he 0:18:31.810 --> 0:18:34.850 gets up to all sorts of mischief, the creation of 0:18:34.890 --> 0:18:37.930 the orcs was that was the worst, the most spiteful 0:18:37.970 --> 0:18:42.170 thing he did. But anyway, wherever they came from, their 0:18:42.410 --> 0:18:49.370 their back and they are undermining, literally undermining human civilization. Serious. 0:18:49.530 --> 0:18:52.690 This sense of them as an inversion of something is 0:18:52.770 --> 0:18:55.730 very interesting. There's something kind of corpse like about them. 0:18:55.730 --> 0:18:59.530 They're sort of bloated, rotting sun, sunken flesh almost kind 0:18:59.530 --> 0:19:02.770 of it's like they shouldn't exist, really, I suppose, which 0:19:02.770 --> 0:19:04.890 is partly what makes them terrifying. 0:19:04.970 --> 0:19:07.690 Yes, and they killed, they kill things, so they kill livestock, 0:19:07.730 --> 0:19:11.370 and they chop down tree and for no obvious reason, 0:19:11.450 --> 0:19:15.450 they just destruction for destruction's sake. But in the end 0:19:15.490 --> 0:19:16.170 they do have a plan. 0:19:16.290 --> 0:19:20.250 They have a plan. We see them in prisoning elves 0:19:20.290 --> 0:19:23.410 in what seems to be a kind of prison camp. 0:19:23.930 --> 0:19:26.330 I would say, yeah, and we don't know what they're 0:19:26.330 --> 0:19:29.090 building at first. We find out later yes. 0:19:29.170 --> 0:19:32.570 Yes, but both humans and elves are being kidnapped and 0:19:32.730 --> 0:19:35.850 enslaved and put to work on this project. So the 0:19:35.890 --> 0:19:38.890 leader of the Orcs, who is this character called ad. 0:19:38.650 --> 0:19:41.090 Are played terrifyingly by Joseph Moore. 0:19:41.770 --> 0:19:43.810 He is very unsettling and we're trying to work out 0:19:43.850 --> 0:19:45.650 who he is and where he came from and what 0:19:45.770 --> 0:19:47.650 his connection is to Sarah. And that's one of the 0:19:47.690 --> 0:19:51.210 mysteries of the show, But I think you've identified him. 0:19:51.450 --> 0:19:57.210 He's a fair enoughon Brown. 0:19:55.450 --> 0:19:56.810 Isn't Did you want to unpack that a bit? 0:19:57.210 --> 0:19:57.530 Well? 0:19:57.690 --> 0:20:02.370 As listeners to our epic V two Rocket trilogy will know, 0:20:02.690 --> 0:20:05.170 Von Brown was this not so much brilliant engineer or 0:20:05.170 --> 0:20:09.250 brilliant scientists, but brilliant coordinator of scientists, brilliant project manager 0:20:09.450 --> 0:20:14.010 who had this vision of going to the Moon and 0:20:14.730 --> 0:20:21.170 didn't really care who was hurt in seeing that vision realized. 0:20:21.530 --> 0:20:24.130 And so while it all worked out very well for him, 0:20:24.130 --> 0:20:25.890 in the end, he ended up working for NASA and 0:20:25.890 --> 0:20:30.610 making films with Disney and living the American dream. He 0:20:30.850 --> 0:20:33.890 first of all, was probably the single most important person 0:20:34.130 --> 0:20:36.810 involved in the building of the V two rocket, which 0:20:36.850 --> 0:20:39.930 is a weapon of mass destruction and targeted I mean 0:20:39.970 --> 0:20:42.090 we're not really targeted at all, but to the extent 0:20:42.130 --> 0:20:44.330 that it was even vaguely aimed, it was aimed at civilians. 0:20:44.570 --> 0:20:47.490 So you're trying to kill civilians, and they successfully did 0:20:47.610 --> 0:20:50.570 kill civilians with this rocket, and he didn't seem to 0:20:50.570 --> 0:20:52.810 care because hate he's got funding to build rockets, and 0:20:52.890 --> 0:20:54.410 he wants to build rockets, and in the end he's 0:20:54.450 --> 0:20:57.130 going to go to the Moon. And then the second thing, 0:20:57.170 --> 0:20:59.490 and this is the even closer parallel with the rings 0:20:59.490 --> 0:21:03.810 of power, the use of concentration camp labor in just 0:21:03.850 --> 0:21:08.370 the most appalling conditions, thousands and thousands and thousands of 0:21:08.370 --> 0:21:13.010