The Scouring of the Shire: Explained

what is the scouring of the shire why is it so important to the plot of the Lord of the Rings and why might it also be important to the conclusion of A Song of Ice and Fire hi everyone this is Robert welcome to in deep geek this video was brought to you by my wonderful patreon community I am now creating regular JRR tolkien and Lord of the Rings content on this channel that's as well as the usual the Song of Ice and Fire videos if you are interested in seeing more please click on the subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen and the bell icon as regular viewers of this channel know I am a massive fan of both the Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire occasionally I get to talk about both at the same time this is one of those occasions the scouring of the shire the penultimate chapter of the Lord of the Rings is both integral to understanding what the Lord of the Rings is about and george RR martin promises us integral to our understanding of how a Song of Ice and Fire will end so in this video I will start out by explaining why the scouring the Shire is so important to a proper understanding of the Lord of the Rings then later on I will turn to what this means for the ending of A Song of Ice and Fire the scouring of the shire is the penultimate chapter of The Lord of the Rings it doesn't appear in the film versions other than a brief image when Sam looks into the mirror of Galadriel and is often removed from adaptations more generally this is understandable from a dramatic perspective modern audiences are used to stories ending when the big baddie is defeated but classically stories didn't end until the safe home environment is secured as I've argued before the whole story revolves somatically around saving the rural adil of the shire as an expression of all that is good and right about the world yes that requires the ring to be destroyed but it also requires our heroes to return and make sure all is well they're so natural life can resume Tolkien planned this from the start when the hobbits return all is not well they must use what skills and strengths they have learned in their quest to restore the shire to what it ought to be perhaps more than any other chapter in the story this is a moral chapter the characters we have followed have grown literally as well as figuratively and now they use the skills and courage they learned in the outside world to restore the beauty of their own world character growth is on display here we can see how our heroes have changed and now they get to use all that growth without the help of gand out for Aragorn or gifts from Galadriel the hobbits return to the Shire on their own and they are greeted by the sheriff's a new police force for the Shire it's immediately clear that there are new powers in control here new rules and a new way of living in particular the old rural life has been destroyed and replaced by a new industrial heartland the beloved water mill has been replaced by a loud polluting monstrosity and the people are living in fear the hobbits decide to raise the Shire calling all right minded hobbits to their cause Pippin gathers the large took clan and they take on the ruffians in the Battle of buy water finally they head up to Bag End where this whole adventure started and find Sarah man and Grima Wormtongue Sarah man had come here seeking revenge and taking on the name Sharky doing his best to destroy the Shire and their way of life Frodo has mercy and lets him go but greener kills him and Hobbit archers killed Rima and the last action of the War of the Ring comes to an end yes this last battle is small the hobbits have never been powerful and Sarah man has lost all of his power by this point but it's emotional power is huge finally finally all can be set right fatty Bolger whose heroism we often forget is greeted like the hero he is lobelia sackville-baggins the small-time villain of the first chapter or two of this story gains her redemption and Sam to replant the shire making it even more beautiful than it was before tokine wants us to know how important this chapter is how the Shire needs to be set right for the whole story to work in the middle of the devastation Sam the morale heartbeat of the whole story says this is worse than Mordor much worse in a way it comes home to you as they say because it is home and you remember it before it was all ruined this chapter is important because of where it is and who the protagonists are here what would be the point of destroying the ring if the Shire wasn't saved how can our hero's journey be complete if they cannot return home how can we truly see the changes in them until they can show them in their own backyard it echoes countless epic narratives that are not complete until everything is set right from the Odyssey to Aladdin the scouring of the shire is probably also the most personal part of the story for Tolkien himself the Shire Tolkien admits is a romanticized version of the world he grew up in late 19th century Warwickshire in England as he was writing the Lord of the Rings seesaw a newspaper article about the mill and woodland where he had grown up he said this about the scouring of the shire it has indeed some basis in experience though slender the country in which I lived in childhood was being shabbily destroyed before I was 10 recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn mill ser hull mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important Tolkien saw the industrialization and decrepitude of the rural world he grew up in and didn't like it the Lord of the Rings is not an analogy or a critique of the modern world but this is the closest Tolkien comes to transposing his sadness about the loss of innocence used in the natural world into his own created world as a person right here I know sir wholemeal well and I'm delighted to let you know that it is now back fully restored as a working mill and museum the river beside it is still running and children play in its forecourt I would highly recommend a visit if you were ever nearby I suspect talking himself would have smiled at this news I hope so anyway this chapter the scouring of the shire is about making things whole again after everything that has happened before it is about reclaiming home not just gaining the plaudits of faraway people's it's about setting things right not just back to how they were before perhaps but as good as they can be given all that has happened and that is why it is so important to an understanding of the Lord of the Rings it is not just a story of great people doing great deeds but a story of ordinary folk doing extraordinary things so that ordinary life can continue in all its magnificence I said at the start of this video that an understanding of this chapter of the Lord of the Rings is also important for gaining an understanding of the ending of A Song of Ice and Fire we often repeat back the mantra that the ending of A Song of Ice and Fire will be bittersweet george RR martin did say that but this is the full quote i've said before that the tone of the ending that I'm going for is bittersweet I mean it's no secret that Tolkien has been a huge influence on me and I love the way he ended Lord of the Rings it ends with victory but it's a bittersweet victory Frodo is never whole again and he goes away to the undying lands and the other people live their lives and the scouring of the shire brilliant piece of work which I didn't understand when I was 13 years old why is this here the story's over but every time I read it I understand the brilliance of that segment more and more all I can say is that that's the kind of tone I will be aiming for whether I achieve it or not that will be up to people like you and my readers to judge so when george RR martin talks about a bittersweet ending he means like the ending of The Lord of the Rings particularly the scouring of the shire this full quote has confused some people partly because the scouring of the shire wasn't in the films so many people don't get its importance and partly because people tend to think of The Lord of the Rings as having a happy end not a bittersweet one and on the face of it it is very happy most of the good guys survive and most of the bad guys are defeated the great quest is completed and everyone returns home to great acclaim how can this be like a Song of Ice and Fire where experience tells us not all of the good guys will survive and so many terrible things have already happened that an ending anything like the Lord of the Rings seems unlikely well george RR martin has given us two specific examples in that quote we just heard of how the endings will be the same the first is the example he gives of Frodo who he says is never whole again he's right of course Frodo is never the same after the completion of the quest Frodo is the one who as ring bearer literally carried the burden of saving the world around his neck for the entire story it's figuratively as well as literally hung heavy on him he was physically broken Gollum bit off his finger at the end and he was mentally and emotionally broken - he was never again the same hobbit he was before he used to be joyful and happy and optimistic but everything that had happened meant that he couldn't enjoy the fruits of the victory he had won he was never whole again george RR martin is definitely using this concept in A Song of Ice and Fire many of those who win the victory saving the world from the twin threats of Ice and Fire will be broken by it the fandom has picked up on a phrase that Tyrion uses to rob and bran saying that he has a tender spot in my heart for cripples and bastards and broken things bran is a John a bastard Tyrion him claims bastard Ian saying that all dwarves are bastards in their father's eyes Theon is described as a broken thing as is Jorah plenty of other characters are clearly damaged and changed by what has happened Sansa aiya the hound these characters may survive and may claim victory of sorts in the story but they will never be whole again like Frodo was never whole again I've said it many times before but Jon Snow is the Frodo character in this story he is being written off as if he were the Eragon character but he is the Frodo character his is the burden of leading the quest to save the world but he will be broken by this I'm sure the ending of the books won't be exactly the same as on the show but Jon leaving the Seven Kingdoms at the end of it all having been scarred and broken by it all is very reminiscent of Frodo leaving middle-earth at the end of that story to bring it back to Tolkien Sam Gamgee summarizes this idea of a bittersweet victory in his speech at the end of the two towers he says it's like in the great stories mr. Frodo the ones that really mattered full of darkness and danger they were and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy how could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened for tolking purists yes that's the version of Sam speech from the film rather than the book but I think it summarizes it brilliantly in A Song of Ice and Fire the world won't go back to the way it was there will be a victory of sorts but it will be bittersweet the second example george RR martin gives from the Lord of the Rings to explain what he means by a bittersweet ending is the scouring of the shire he calls it brilliant Tolkien's scholars and literary students tend to agree with this opinion as do I whereas casual readers tend to disagree with this view finding it hard to understand what role it has in the story we talked about that in the first part of this video about how this shows the hobbits broken changed but stronger and more capable for it returning home to set things right again or as right as they can be an old villain Saruman is there and must be defeated by the broken heroes before the symbolically important work be planting the Shire and so one can begin we don't get a twenty years later style flash-forward but we see the shape of how the world will start to repair itself so what does this mean for a Song of Ice and Fire first I think it means that the story will not end in the Hollywood moment when the others are defeated or the twin threats of Ice and Fire are turned back there will be another few chapters after that where things are set right in the aftermath this will be done by the cripples bastards and broken things the survivors who are never going to be whole again they will need to face down a villain or two who are now established in home and have to be rooted out I think it's a fair bet that these villains will be Euron and Cersei establishing themselves in King's Landing the Game of Thrones TV show was obviously in my view rushed and a lot of the iteration of events around King's Landing will have had to be changed by the omission of Fagin young Griff or king egg on the sixth of you prefer there looks to be a good chance that he will take King's Landing first in the winds of winter then Daenerys will take him on before she has to face the threat of the others and then finally you're on Cersei may well take advantage of the chaos to reclaim the throne leading to the scouring of King's Landing so to speak what we saw at the end of season 8 of the show is in my view a contraction of all of this action two books worth into two or three episodes but the sequencing of the confrontation with the others happening first and then sorting out King's Landing afterwards will probably still happen and it won't just be King's Landing that needs to be scoured or made new Winterfell will also need to be made there's a chance that much of the Starks ancestral home will be destroyed and even the purpose that seems to have led to its founding the fight against the others will now be obsolete everything will have to be rebuilt Sansa seems the obvious choice to do this but it's probably best not to get into too much speculative detail what george RR martin wants is for the ending of his story to reflect the feel of the ending of The Lord of the Rings one where victory is achieved but many of those responsible are not able to enjoy it to its full they are changed they are never whole again they are the cripples bastards and broken things if you'd like to see more videos on the world of jr. our Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings please click on the link to the playlist on the left of your screen or if you'd like to support this channel or get access to some content I produced just for my patrons please click on the link to my patreon page on the right of the screen thanks for watching that's all for this time and I'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

Views: 334,558

Keywords: in deep geek, deep geek, got, game of thrones, asoiaf, a song of ice and fire, lord of the rings, the lord of the rings, lotr, tolkien vs martin, tolkien, scouring of the shire, what happened during the scouring of the shire, the scouring of the shire, lord of the rings the scouring of the shire, how will a song of ice and fire, how will a song of ice and fire end, how will game of thrones books end, how will game of thrones end, how will asoiaf end, theory, theories, predictions

Id: QB4s___8r6Y

Length: 16min 36sec (996 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 25 2020