I recorded this episode with author Ludwig Gartz about a year ago, but a technical issue made it unusable.
We’ve finally redone it—and honestly, it was worth the wait!
This is one of the most interesting and original conversations I’ve had in a long time. Because it's about The Lord of the Rings.
With a twist.
In a nutshell
Ludwig's YouTube channel is, unfortunately, mostly in German.
But he has a few books in English.
- The Lord of the Rings - The One Ring and the Power of Money
- Flowing Money: The Birth of the Golden Age
- The Symbolism of Tolkien
- The Ring Annihilation
- The Ringwraith Annihilation (which is a summary of The Ring Annihilation)
Basically, he argues that The Lord of the Rings is a symbolic reflection of real-world issues like money, power and human values.
It's the history of the world, in other words.
The One Ring stands for money and the corrupting influence it has, while Sauron represents the powerful elite who control it. Frodo and Sam stand for everyday virtues; Frodo shows how hard it is to resist temptation, and Sam represents hope and loyalty.
Ludwig also suggests that Gandalf, Aragorn and Éowyn symbolise inner strengths such as wisdom, integrity and selfless service.
His takeaway is that Tolkien's books hold hidden messages about, well, everything.
📺 Our conversation
This episode was recorded for my UK Column show and is freely available on UK Column's website and wherever else it's been officially uploaded.
Here's the video version from UK Column's YouTube channel.
Of course, you can listen to the audio version on most podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and others.
Jerm
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Tolkien spent most of his life writing about Middle-earth, so it's clearly impossible for Ludwig to cover even a fraction of it in just an hour.
Nevertheless, I think he did a superb job of covering so much ground—and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
