# The Beacons of Minas Tirith **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 13, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950 "2009-09-13T20:51:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Musky\_Moon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90db22/32.png) [@Musky\_Moon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musky_Moon)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/21 "2009-09-14T02:08:10Z")
> [@Erdosain](#): > > Umm, how is Tolkien responsible for Peter Jackson’s interpretation of his work? Hence the question, “Is this addressed in the books?” I assumed it’s simply PJ neglecting that little detail, but since I never made it through the entire Return of the King, I wondered if Tolkein explained how this was accomplished. The movies show these beacons being lit by people, but show no sign of how they got there or whether they are stationed there (since there is no sign of any buildings). It’s a small infraction, but one that kind of bugged me. As for the Maori, I figured there would have been some in makeup, but I was kind of hoping they would have been used as Haradim, they might have, but most of the oliphant riders had masks. Seems a waste not to use prominantly a race of people so different from the Caucasian leads that are so readily available. Glad there was plenty of work for them to be extras though. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/22 "2009-09-14T02:17:36Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > In the movie, I thought the music and the aerial photography for the beacon-lighting scene were completely awesome…TRM No kidding. I don’t care if it was in the books or not; that whole scene always makes me all blubbery and I love it. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/23 "2009-09-14T03:44:45Z")
The lighting of hilltop bonfires is beyond the memory of most peoples nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/24 "2009-09-14T04:17:19Z")
> [@eleanorigby](#): > > I do agree that the New Zealand mountainscape is a whole lot younger, geologically speaking, than the old Welsh hills that Tolkien may have had in mind. ME is very, very old and the mountains should have been more like the Appalachians or Welsh mountains, but the scene is still damned impressive. Do you mean just the Beacon Hills or the mountains of ME in general? Because ME wasn’t really very, very old at the time of the War of the Ring, IIRC. There was an unmeasured span of time before the Rising of the Sun, but I can’t imagine that it covered billions of years. And the timespan between the Rising of the Sun and the War of the Ring is actually well within the 10s of thousands of years, practically nothing on a geological timescale. [First Age](http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/f/firstage.html): Probably not more than 20,000 years (counting the period before the Sun rose, since we’re more interested in actual time passed in this case than in arbitrary dating systems). [Second Age](http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/s/secondage.html): Approximately 4500 years. [Third Age](http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/t/thirdage.html): Approximately 3000 years. So a complete count of years for ME at the time of the War of the Ring would be approximately 30,000 years, which is a long time by human standards but not really much more than an eyeblink to geological processes. The thing that differs from a realistic portrayal isn’t that the mountains of ME appear to be too _new_, but that they appear to be too _old_. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/25 "2009-09-14T04:26:53Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > No kidding. I don’t care if it was in the books or not; that whole scene always makes me all blubbery and I love it. Agreed; it was one of the many breathtaking moments of the trilogy, and really gave the impression of a whole population, splintered but united, rising up to join their allies’ defenses in battle together. (Whether that was the point, I dunno. But that’s how it read to me.) ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/26 "2009-09-14T12:58:32Z")
I agree that it’s a beautiful, and emotionally moving, scene. The problem is when suspension of disbelief fails, one notes that it’s unlikely that there would be outposts in those locations (mountain tops above the clouds?) and it’s unlikely that the people manning those locations would be paying attention and be able to immediately ignite their own pyre so quickly. But the scene is breathtaking and enjoyable on its own terms, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/27 "2009-09-14T13:12:31Z")
Signal beacons don’t make any sense unless they’re permanently manned. Of _course_ they had full-time crews. Historically there have been such beacons – Tolkien didn’t invent the idea. I had them listed as an early example of long-distance communication in my book “Wonders of Science Simplified”. Other examples in the book were early mechanical telegraphs, such as the one described in C.S. Forester’s “Hornblower and the Hotspur”, in which the signal sent by the semaphore-like arms of the station can be read at a distance and transmitted to the next station in the line. Pretty clearly these were all perpetually-manned stations, or the system wouldn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/28 "2009-09-14T13:50:08Z")
> [@squeegee](#): > > Using that map, I make it 350 miles as the Eagle flies from Edoras to Minas Tirith. Room for plenty of Beacons. I can’t seem to find my copy of _The Atlas of Middle Earth_ but that sounds about right. The problem, then, is that the ride between the two was made to appear rather short by comparison - just a couple of days. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/29 "2009-09-14T14:05:10Z")
**CalMeacham** pretty much covers the logistics. There’s not really any _reason_ for Tolkien to have “gone into” how these things work any more than he should have “gone into” how the Fellowship started their fires every night. There’s really only one way to do it, and “there’s never any mention of anyone having a tinderbox!” doesn’t mean much. If you have signal beacons, you have people there - and not just one or two, but enough to staff shifts. The whole point is that the beacons need to transmit the message faster than a man on a horse could (Though curiously, in the books, the beacons aren’t lit until after the message rider delivers the Red Arrow, which seems a little strange. Maybe it was for dramatic effect.) so you need people not just to _be_ there, but to be WATCHING, so that it’s not more than a few minutes between one beacon getting going and folks getting on the move to light the next. That said, PJ did take some artistic liberties with this scene (which, incidentally, doesn’t really appear in the books in the same way. In the books, Gandalf and Pippin are riding to Minas Tirith in the middle of the night, and they see one of the beacon fires ignite, and Pippin basically says “Gah! Fire! Are there dragons here, Gandalf?” to which the wizard replies, “No, you idiot halfling, that’s a signal beacon.” and goes on to name all the beacon hills from Rohan to Gondor (I think there are only 13 of them or something, but I forget.)). Anyway, they’re _not_ set on the tops of huge mountains - that’s neither practical from a staffing standpoint nor particularly useful from a “beacons that need to be seen by the next beacon in the line” standpoint. They’re a series of “hills” - foothills of the White Mountains, really - selected, one presumes for the obvious reasons, namely, good line of sight to each other, reasonably accessable, not completely unlivable, and probably reasonably difficult to assail/find your way up onto if you don’t know what you’re doing. I always took that scene to obviously contain a certain measure of “time compression” for dramatic effect; I don’t care how seasoned your pile of wood is, it doesn’t go up like a piece of newspaper drenched in lighter fluid. Indeed, if you’re paying attention, the various beacons are even shown at different times of day. So it’s not quite so farfetched as it might seem on the surface when you consider that that 15 second or whatever sequence actually takes, apparently, overnight to actually happen. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/30 "2009-09-14T14:19:09Z")
The beacons were probably a great place to send the most misbehaving troops. And it doesn’t really suspend disbelief that much, not to me anyway, that was the way people communicated in days of yore anyway - with fire. Cause, you know, you can see it for miles. As others have said, I don’t care how false it was - it was beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/31 "2009-09-14T15:03:53Z")
> [@](#): > > I always took that scene to obviously contain a certain measure of “time compression” for dramatic effect; I don’t care how seasoned your pile of wood is, it doesn’t go up like a piece of newspaper drenched in lighter fluid. I don’t know about that. They were using flamable oil on the fires. I don’t know how effective of oil they had, but I do know from experience throwing a couple gallons of gasoline on a fire will get you 10 foot flames instantly. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/32 "2009-09-14T15:53:46Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > I don’t know about that. They were using flamable oil on the fires. I don’t know how effective of oil they had, but I do know from experience throwing a couple gallons of gasoline on a fire will get you 10 foot flames instantly. At risk of getting into a really STUPID argument; Gasoline is pretty different from any sort of ‘oil’ that was available at the sort of tech level we’re looking at here, and in fact, has been refined to be…more flammable. Also, on what are you basing the assertion that “they were using flammable oil on the fires”? The scene of Pippin emptying a lamp-like thing onto the beacon? You could use jet fuel if you wanted to, dropping something that size onto a pile of wood that size isn’t going to get you an instant bonfire. Unless you are suggesting that the beacons are somehow kept permanently soaked in some sort of Naphtha substance, my point stands. ---
**Author:** ![mack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mack)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/33 "2009-09-14T15:59:24Z")
Sorry for the hijack, but since a LOTR thread is open… I watched ROTK last night, too (watched the whole trilogy on TNT, being sick and all, kind of made for the perfect down day…) and was wondering - Was Elrond just going to let the race of men get wiped out if Arwen hadn’t showed up? It seems like it wasn’t until his daughter came running up to him after quitting the exile that it occurred to him that maybe he ought to do something. Isildur’s (?) sword was repaired, Elrond made the journey and gave it to Aragorn the night before the battle and said oh by the way, ten yards away is a road leading to an invincible army that’s at your disposal if you show them this sword and can talk them into it. It didn’t seem like Elrond would have offered up these rather crucial assets unless Arwen’s well-being was at risk. He had the key to the battle all along. Would he have just let the race of men get slaughtered? With friends like that… But then again I could have missed something. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/34 "2009-09-14T16:06:32Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > At risk of getting into a really STUPID argument; Gasoline is pretty different from any sort of ‘oil’ that was available at the sort of tech level we’re looking at here, and in fact, has been refined to be…more flammable. > > Also, on what are you basing the assertion that “they were using flammable oil on the fires”? The scene of Pippin emptying a lamp-like thing onto the beacon? You could use jet fuel if you wanted to, dropping something that size onto a pile of wood that size isn’t going to get you an instant bonfire. > > Unless you are suggesting that the beacons are somehow kept permanently soaked in some sort of Naphtha substance, my point stands. I disagree. Several gallons of flammable fuel, a pile of well stacked very dry wood for airflow, and a core of good kindling like dry hay, and the thing is going to be very big instantly, and start the wood buring shortly after. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/35 "2009-09-14T16:10:18Z")
> [@mack](#): > > Sorry for the hijack, but since a LOTR thread is open… > > I watched ROTK last night, too (watched the whole trilogy on TNT, being sick and all, kind of made for the perfect down day…) and was wondering - Was Elrond just going to let the race of men get wiped out if Arwen hadn’t showed up? > > It seems like it wasn’t until his daughter came running up to him after quitting the exile that it occurred to him that maybe he ought to do something. Isildur’s (?) sword was repaired, Elrond made the journey and gave it to Aragorn the night before the battle and said oh by the way, ten yards away is a road leading to an invincible army that’s at your disposal if you show them this sword and can talk them into it. > > It didn’t seem like Elrond would have offered up these rather crucial assets unless Arwen’s well-being was at risk. He had the key to the battle all along. Would he have just let the race of men get slaughtered? With friends like that… But then again I could have missed something. Movie Elrond is an ass…or a deeply noble creature that has lost all hope. I’m still going with ass though. ---
**Author:** ![Airk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Airk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airk)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/36 "2009-09-14T16:19:12Z")
> [@Grey](#): > > Movie Elrond is an ass…or a deeply noble creature that has lost all hope. I’m still going with ass though. A very crabby ass, in fact. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/37 "2009-09-14T16:45:56Z")
> [@Airk](#): > > A very crabby ass, in fact. 😛 Well, they wouldn’t let him wear the flip-flop dress. That’ll make a girl pretty crabby… ---
**Author:** ![MJinks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/da6949/32.png) [@MJinks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MJinks)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/38 "2009-09-14T17:08:35Z")
My main problem with the scene are the clouds. How are the beacon attendants supposed to maintain a line of sight when they keep dipping above and below the cloud line? ---
**Author:** ![Musky\_Moon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90db22/32.png) [@Musky\_Moon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musky_Moon)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/39 "2009-09-14T17:30:13Z")
Don’t worry about hijacking, the question has been answered to my satisfaction. Airk, I have to disagree that the lighting of the beacons is equivilant a daily task like making nightly camp fire. It’s a rather pivitol moment in the story and a massive undertaking. I would expect an author who took the time to create individual languages and generations of backstory would have done a thorough job at describing one of the coolest parts of the story. Since I hadn’t finished that book, it’s just curiosity about how that particular scene differs between film and novel. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2009, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950/40 "2009-09-14T17:41:01Z")
It’s not the coolest part in the story though. It only gets a line of description in 1300 odd pages of text. It is a very cool visual though. Regardless Denethor had already sent riders to Rohan to ask for aid before he fired the chain of beacons. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-beacons-of-minas-tirith/509950.md?page=3)