Tolkien Said He Would Have Refused to Go

In 1968 the BBC filmed J.R.R. Tolkien's last ever recorded interview — then broadcast only a few extracts and left the rest in the archive for 51 years. In it, the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings says he would have refused Gandalf's invitation, calls the wizard "a dubious old gentleman," and names the moment in his own book that moves him most. It is not a battle and it is not a death. This is Tolkien in his own words, from the lost 1968 BBC interview that was unearthed for a radio programme in 2019. He explains the real hiking trip in Switzerland in 1911 that became Bilbo's journey through the mountains — "we met no goblin" — and how learning Finnish at Oxford wrecked his essays on Greek drama and became the foundation of the Elvish language. Then comes the heart of it: asked what moves him most in The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien names the scene where Gollum is turning back into Sméagol and Sam, trying to protect a sleeping Frodo, says "take your hands off" — destroying Gollum's repentance. In Tolkien's words, "the terrible irony that good often does evil." With commentary from Professor Stuart Lee of Oxford, and Tolkien's own rejection of the idea that his books are simply "goodies against baddies." #Tolkien #LordOfTheRings #TheHobbit #Unglossed