Fun Fact: Christopher Lee (plays Saruman) was the only actor in the Lord of the Rings movies to have met Tolkien at a pub in the 50s. Lee was a WW2 vet, I remember a behind the scenes thing about Saruman being stabbed in the back, Peter Jackson said that he wanted Lee to scream during the stab and Lee just said "Have you any idea what kind of noise happens when somebody’s stabbed in the back? Because I do.” Lee was a very interesting person.

With all these takes, Stim's just missing "wearing skulls on your armor" to completely fail the "try not to look like the bad guy" challenge.

"Elves don't seem evil in Tolkien"

Meanwhile, 3 elven kin slayings in the Silmarillion...!!!

Man I love Frito and Samdwich

In the original pre Tolkien myth, elves are usually mischievous, alien unhuman values, or downright hostile. But at the same time, Nordic myths also had elves as inhabiting the light realm and were companions of the Norse gods. But dark elves lived underground and overlapped with dwarves and tied to nightmares and death. But it’s all very hazy, many myths were not consistent with naming and used different terms. Dwarfs, elfs, goblins, trolls, faeries, etc were interchangeable

In Norse mythology, dwarves are skilled craftsmen. not evil, but unpredictable and morally ambiguous.

The eagles are literal divine intervention, or in other words... Deus ex aquila 😂

The ring enhances your abilities, lets you be in the wraith world (invisibility), and allows you to control all the other 19 rings, it also corrupts you unless you are Sauron. And Sauron gets a horcrux from it as well.

So someone who is a chad or a wizard becomes a super chad or super wizard if they have it.

The way you described why gods at 10:40 is basically the same reason why writers make their own world with their writings, because it's entertaining!

I have never been so disappointed in stim and my day is ruined. The slander towards Gandalf is beyond saving.

Trolls turning to stone is directly from Nordic mythology. One theory is certain rock formations around Scandinavia inspired the idea because they looked like giant rock creatures.

"I'm a good dragon!"
press X to doubt

Many of the dwarf names Tolkien uses came from one Norse poem. Even Gandalf is one of the dwarf names meaning “staff Alf( elf)”. In Norse myths dwarves are often crafting things for Odin or Thor, and they are often greedy and wicked, but at the same time the Norse gods are pretty sketchy and scheming themselves. Also if you go back far enough dwarfs or dark elfs are tied to nightmares and deaths and underground scary places.

TLDR notes time from a big NEEEEERD incoming! 🤓

In Gandalf's defense, his promotion to "White" was essentially Eru telling him to pick up the pace because he's going to have to work overtime doing not just his own duties, but also pulling double duty talking care of Saruman's abandoned responsibilities as well. And that's going easy on him, imagine if he had to cover for all FIVE wizards because Radagast got sidetracked with nature (he's a Maiar of Yavanna, the Vala of nature, what did you expect him to do?) and the two blue wizards went MIA after going to the east. So he didn't exactly have the time or luxury to chill out and smoke with the Hobbits, he had to give both Rohan's and Gondor's leadership a swift kick in the rear to speed up their war defenses while taking an active role in it himself.

Eru Illuvatar as Supreme Creator (Middle-earth's God the Father) is the only one who can create true life and the only one who can truly resurrect people. As a Maiar, Gandalf would normally just go back to his spirit self (which could appear humanoid or as any other shape at will) but the corporeal, mortal body he was given as a wizard could still die, so when it died - probably from injury and exhaustion since fighting the Balrog took three days - Eru revived it, healthier and fresher with a lot of the "power limiters" lessened (the wizards were locked in slow-aging yet mortal bodies as a safeguard against them using their power too much, because as the War of Wrath proved, when Ainur fight each other unhindered, it'll cause half of Middle-earth to break up and sink into the sea. It also served as a failsafe in case they went rogue... Sure didn't stop Saruman from trying).

This is also why elves are immortal and men are immortal, they were designed that way by Eru to balance each other as the first-born and second-born of his "children". Elves get to respawn in Valinor where the Valar lives whenever the die and have have more powerful balance between body and spirit, as well as never growing frail with age, at the cost that their fates and immortality are bound to the world, so they essentially can't go to "heaven" early and have to wait for Tolkien's equivalent of Ragnarök/Armageddon - Dagor Dagorath, the "Battle of Battles" - while humanity's mortality was meant as a gift of agency and freedom from the fate of the world, being able to take their own fates in their own hands and being able to leave the mortal world upon death and return to Eru somewhere even the Valar do not know until Eru will heal all of creation after Dagor Dagorath. Which is also what the dwarves are for, to help in rebuilding and mending Arda.
Aule, the Vala of earth and craftsmanship (and ironically Yavanna's husband, given the awkward relationship between dwarves and wood elves) was so excited about the idea of elves and men meaning they could have "children" to teach that he made the dwarves, but they were non-sentient automatons since only Eru can create true life, so he blessed them with life and adopted them among his children on the condition that they would be put to sleep beneath the mountains until after the elves awoke as his first-born.

No dissing on Viggo Mortensen at all, he's amazing, but Tolkien's OG book Aragorn is such peak masculinity (Think army veteran Larry Cullen's advice about being a real hero means you can "be strong enough to be gentle" to his little brother, Peter Cullen, resulting in the younger Cullen becoming Optimus Prime) that it makes movie Aragorn look like a chud by comparison.

Like the Valar being angelic managers under God, the eagles are another big example of Tolkien seamlessly blending his Christian faith with his love for mythology (on the Valar he would never have made any other actual "gods" beside Eru, but he believed that good mythological storytelling requires some form of pantheon-like group to serve a specific function, so he replaced the Olympians/Titans and the Aesir/Vanir with what is essentially fantasy angels under another name) as they are not simply references to the imagery of eagle sin Norse and Greek mythology, but also align with how the Bible on more than one occasion describes God's intervention as coming on "the wings of eagles", a phrase you might have heard before. Tolkien believed that mythology wasn't blasphemy or paganism, but an echo of "God's image in man": according to him, God tells His great story with creating reality, making real history with real people who in turn, echo the love of art and creativity with telling fictional stories. The theme of "supreme creation" and subsequent lower tiers of "sub-creation" is a re-occuring element integral to Tolkien's worldbuilding and is required to understand how Middle-earth "works" with fantasy concepts such as "magic" etc. Morgoth is the obvious devil figure of Tolkien's mythology, making Sauron and the balrogs different kinds of arch-fiends I guess (did I get that right? I don't know a lot of how DnD mythology tiers works, but it is one of the major early examples of Tolkien laying the groundwork for an entirely new fantasy genre, to the point DND had to change a lot of names , hence why it has "balors" instead of balrogs, "treants" instead of ents, "halflings" instead of hobbits, etc. Just like DND would be directly inspired by Tolkien, DND would go on to directly inspire Warhammer, which would go on to directly inspire Warcraft. The high fantasy DNA all goes back to Tolkien. The Elder Scrolls manages to do their own thing very well while feeling VERY Tolkien-like with how it approaches lore, mythology and worldbuilding).

Orcs are probably the one fantasy race that has changed the most since Tolkien, thanks to DND, Warhammer and Warcraft. If you want the closest creatures to Tolkien's orcs in gaming, look at the Darkspawn in Dragonage origins (before they made weird changes to them in Dragon Age II). Orcs today usually follow either Warhammer's "chaotic neutral, but violent" or Warcraft's "noble savage tricked and enslaved by evil forces" types. Even Tolkien seems to have struggled with the orcs simply being "evil incarnate" and how to reconcile it with his Christian beliefs concerning free will and the possibility for redemption/salvation etc. I don't think he ever came up with an answer he felt entirely satisfying, so I'd like to think he'd approve of how orcs have changed in that regard, even if he would most likely raise an eyebrow at the space orks... I would love to see his take on the Orsimer (orcs) in Elder Scrolls. Or Elder Scrolls in general.
And yeah, Tolkien refused to ever elaborate on orcish "breeding" as it would be too NSFL... (another common L for you, Amazon)

I could NEVER call Stim's EXTRA THICC tail "evil"! D: "Dragons are cool". So too did Tolkien believe, apparently. From what  understand "proper dragons" (whatever he meant by that) was also something he considered integral to good mythology and storytelling. Not much else to say about Hobbits, they are basically Tolkien's ideal countryside retirement utopia. Hist-trees: can't move or talk, so they evolve lizards to become intelligent humanoids they can communicate with telepathically when they need protection. Huorns and Ents: Laughs in ambulatory orc-smashing Remember how I mentioned that Yavanna, Vala of nature and Aule, Vala of earth are "spouses"? After Eru adopted the dwarves, Yavanna was worried about their industrious nature, so she asked Eru to create something in nature that could balance out the mortal needs for natural resources. Eru responded with "hippity hoppity, these new ents will serve properly".
Ungoliant and her giant spiders, as well as the "nameless things" are the closest we ever get to "Lovecraftian horrors" in Middle-earth.

"Power" in Tolkien's mythology isn't as simple or straightforward as modern fantasy's "I cast fireball" stuff. It's more nuanced and subtle, deep and primordial, a lot more vague than what we are used to today (mostly out of gaming need).
The Barrow-Wights are a different kind of undead, yes. More specifically, they are not the ghosts of actual people, since Eru has ultimate authority over life and death, necromancy can't actually raise the dead. It has to either do like Sauron did with the Ringwraiths and "stretch them out" in this limbo state where they are kept juuuuust short of dying, (this is also why they all die for real when the One Ring is finally destroyed) or do it like the Barrow-Wights, which are evil spirits, but unlike the vampires and werewolves who are evil spirits taking the shape of monstrous bats and wolves, they posess dead bodies/skeletons like puppets. It's the combination of these two very specific limitations on necromancy that they play with in the Shadow of Mordor/War games, but YMMV, because while the gameplay is very fun, the story plays almost as fast and loose with Tolkien's established canon rules and timelines as Amazon's horrendous fanfic does.

Not gonna lie, preferring Sauron and especially Saruman to Gandalf is maybe the biggest possible red flag lol. Literally have never heard that opinion before.

Man, is this what the crazy cancel people on Twitter feel like all the time?

2:57 King Arthur is a mixing of Welsh and Britonian (from the modern French region of Brittany fairy tales by a French writer/priest, the Norman's took this tale with them North when they invaded the Anglo Saxon kingdom of Angeland and formed the kingdom of England. There the English took the story to be about a British king and used it as one of their fairy tails, but it didn't originate there.

Feels like every time the video stops, Stim says something controversial.
Never knew the lore about the wizards. Really interesting video.

"Vikings weren't tall"
Vikings were significantly taller than other peoples, at that time.  AVERAGE male height of 5'8"-5'9" (vs. mainland Europe at 5'3"-5'5" average), with much taller above average Vikings mixed in. Some mentioned to be 6'5". The Muslim traveler Ahmad ibn Fadlan met the Rus, (basically Swedish Vikings / traders along the Volga river) and described them as "tall as date palms".  Further quote: "I have seen the Rus as they came on their merchant journeys and encamped by the Itil. I have never seen more perfect physical specimens, tall as date palms, blond and ruddy; they wear neither tunics nor kaftans, but the men wear a garment which covers one side of the body and leaves a hand free. Each man has an axe, a sword, and a knife, and keeps each by him at all times. Each woman wears on either breast a box of iron, silver, copper, or gold; the value of the box indicates the wealth of the husband. Each box has a ring from which depends a knife. The women wear neck-rings of gold and silver. Their most prized ornaments are green glass beads. They string them as necklaces for their women."

— Ibn Fadlan, on the Rus merchants at Itil, 922.

Stim: The OLD men are creepy.

Me: Lord Elrond is old....

Stim: Um.... 😅

Me: He's 6530 years old when he left middle earth with FRODO and Gandalf....

Stim: 😵‍💫

Tom Bombadil was instantly my favorite the moment I read his name as a kid, because Bombadil translates to "Bombtongue" in Turkish. It automatically made kid-me imagine a guy who could speak explosions into existance, which was the coolest thing I'd ever heard of.