During my recent deep dive into the books of J.R.R. Tolkien, I was reminded of parallels between his works and the improvised fantasy podcast, “Hello from the Magic Tavern.”
In the Silmarillion, Tolkien explains wizards are known by many names.
“In the likeness of Men they appeared, old but vigorous, and they changed little with the years, and aged but slowly, though great cares lay on them; great wisdom they had, and many powers of mind and hand.
Long they journeyed far and wide among Elves and Men, and held converse also with beasts and with birds; and the peoples of Middle-earth gave to them many names, for their true names they did not reveal.
Chief among them were those whom the Elves called Mithrandir and Curunir, but Men in the North named Gandalf and Saruman.” (The Silmarillion, Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age)
Usidore, one of the co-hosts of Hello from the Magic Tavern, is a wizard who enthusiastically lists his various names at least once an episode.
“I am Usidore,
Wizard of the 12th Realm
of Ephysiyies,
Master of Light and
Shadow,
Manipulator of Magical
Delights,
Devourer of Chaos,
Champion of the Great
Halls of Terr'akkas.
The elves know me as
Fi’ang Yalok.
The dwarves know me as
Zoenen Hoogstandjes.
And I am also known in the
Northeast as GaismunÄ“nas Meistar.”
Matt Young, the actor who
plays Usidore, explained the backstory of Usidore’s various names during an
episode of Behind the Tavern, a series available to paid subscribers on
Stitcher Premium.
“I remember very clearly
sitting at my desk and writing out the Usidore name the night before we were
recording. I was putting words into Google Translate and bastardizing them to
come up with the weird elvish and dwarvish names, but I couldn’t come up with a
good name.
I didn’t have Usidore. I had all the other stuff mostly worked out. The next day at work I found a wizard name generator online, or it might have been a DND name generator. I just pushed the button a bunch of times and I was like, Usidore, I like that.” (Behind the Tavern, Season 1, Ep. 1)
Matt anticipated he would only announce his full list of names once.
He expected to reference his secondary names only when he met a character that would know him by one of those names.
But when Matt recorded the first episode of Magic Tavern, one of his cohosts, Arnie Niekamp, who plays a fictional version of himself, asked Usidore to repeat his full name.
At that point, Matt realized he would say Usidore’s full name over and over as a recurring joke.
Matt, Arnie, and Adal
Rifai discussed
Usidore’s many names during the 2018 Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. That
discussion begins 8 minutes and 25 seconds into the video of their panel
discussion.
Sam the Improviser
A passage from The Fellowship of the Ring also made me think of Hello from the Magic Tavern.
Sam improvised and sang a
song about a troll as he rested with his fellow travelers.
“'Where did
you come by that, Sam?' asked Pippin. 'I've never heard those words before.'
Sam muttered
something inaudible.
'It's out of
his own head, of course,' said Frodo. 'I am learning a lot about Sam Gamgee on
this journey. First he was a conspirator, now he's a jester. He'll end up by
becoming a wizard — or a warrior!'
'I hope
not,' said Sam. 'I don't want to be neither!'” (The Fellowship, Book One,
Chapter 12)
Hello
from the Magic Tavern is a weekly podcast where improvisers spontaneously create an entire
magical world.
The Lord
of the Rings is a
series of books that feature a meticulously planned fantasy world that was created
by J.R.R. Tolkien over many years.
That series
features a fictional character, Sam, who improvised a story on the spot, as the
creators of Magic Tavern do every week.
Shout-out
In September, I received a shout-out on Hello from the Magic Tavern.
I tagged several of the show’s creators on Twitter with links to my blog posts about the show and my posts about The Lord of the Rings.
In
September, the Mysterious Man, one of the characters who introduces Magic
Tavern episodes, mentioned me in his introduction to that
week’s show.
“People of
Earth… You know, hearing myself say that, I tend to address you as one big
easily-misled group.
But the
truth is I can see each one of you.
Why don’t we
take a moment for a few shout-outs?
Jason, those are some beautiful painted figurines behind you. But we both know that’s not a Saruman maquette. It’s Gandalf and you somehow filed down the hat, and the lie is killing you.”
(Magic Tavern, Season 3, Ep. 57 — Together).
A maquette
is a small, preliminary model used by a sculptor before creating a full-sized
work of art.
I am fairly
certain the reference was made in response to my tweets about Magic Tavern
and The Lord of the Rings.
For the
record, I don’t own any Lord of the Rings figurines, nor have I made any
Lord of the Rings art.
But I do
appreciate the shout-out from one of my favorite podcasts.
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