Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Ned’s choice of topic: Ghân-buri-Ghân. Briefly featuring in The Return of the King as a leader of ‘Wild Men’ who offers to help the Rohirrim on their ride to Minas Tirith, Ghân-buri-Ghân is on the surface seemingly little more than a caricature on several levels: a stoic ‘tribesman,’ perhaps even a noble savage with all that implies. But in both his sharp, sometimes very darkly sardonic responses to the Rohirrim and in the further backstory that Tolkien then created for Ghân-buri-Ghân’s culture as a whole, Tolkien explores some very deep waters indeed. What might be the connections between Tolkien’s depiction of small powers in the shadow of an empire and the realities of the British Empire he grew up in? What do Tolkien’s writings on the Drúedain show in terms of how he viewed them in the grand scheme of Middle-earth’s design? And on a final note, what does the little known story “Tal-Elmar” show in terms of imperialism, colonialism and conquest during the era of Númenorean dominance?