Well, the orcs probably nibbled on them a bit, but that’s true, they do look pretty withered. Gandalf had probably heard that SOMETHING had happened in Moria and Gimli and the dwarves were just holding out hope and being stubborn.
re not knowing what was going on in Moria - umm, travel was difficult and mail service/phones there nonexistent. Believable to me that people feared the worst, but didn’t know for sure.
What were the elves still doing in Middle Earth? I thought they all wanted to leave for Valinor a long time ago but for the unfinished issue with Sauron. With Sauron dead, what was keeping them there?
On the same note, why leave in the first place? They were immortal. Couldn’t some have wanted to settle in Middle Earth? Could some of the elves who had left come back, sorta like a second home maybe?
Another question, and this was never really addressed to any satisfaction in the books or movies, I don’t think. There were other Men not related to Rohan and Gondor, men from the east and south, I think they were called Easterlings and the Haradrim. I’m assuming their blood were too distant from the Numenorians to have any real connection to them other than being Men, right?
I think there was a line in the movies about Sauron promising them land that was now in the hands of Gondor and Rohan, their old territories, I believe. What, if anything else, did Sauron promise them? I get that the Orcs and goblins, especially the Orcs owing to their Morgothian heritage, were loyal to Sauron, but why the men of the east and south? Would Sauron simply turn against them if they had beaten Gondor? Or was Sauron content to let them live somewhat on their own like he has in the times before the books (I didn’t see or remember any Orc and Mordor influence among those men who chose to fight for Sauron. It looked like they had their own lands, their own kingdom, own culture and customs).
Anyways, it just struck me as odd in these movies set in old-timey settings that the good guys were fighting for “freedom” even though they were a monarchy. At best, Gondor’s rule is a little more fair, not full of slaves and torture, but its still ruled by a king with unlimited power. Maybe Sauron could have just presented himself as another side of the coin, he’d also be their king but they could do what they wanted as long as they were loyal to him.
Not all of the elves had or ever wanted to go to Valinor. There were whole populations of elves who never went on the Great March, or fell behind and stayed on the way. The only elf who REALLY had to wait for the situation with Sauron to be cleaned up was Galadriel, because it was only her refusal of the Ring that allowed her to be forgiven her sin of disobeying the Valar and swearing the Oath to follow Morgoth and the Silmarils, and then subsequently refusing to ask forgiveness after the Battle of the Powers. All the other elves were pretty much content to stick around until the longing for the sea overcame them and they did sail West.
As to why leave…to put it simply, Middle-Earth was mortal. Things faded and died and time moved on, which is something that would wear on immortal beings…everyone and everything you loved that wasn’t another elf (or possibly an ent) was someone or something you would eventually have to watch fade and shrivel and die.
Tolkien was a bit of a monarchist…not to mention a medievalist by trade. And the kings involved were of the old great blood of Numenor and therefore to be completely trusted to be wise and fair, as far as the Perfesser was concerned.
Tolkien frames evil as the domination of others wills. Well that and the intentional distrotion of the true nature of Eru and his children’s place in creation.
So Sauron’s evil is that he wants complete domination of mortals and the imposition of either himself, or his previous master Melkor, as the true god. Sauron, for the Easterlings and Haradrim is a god-king. He would likely let them set up petty chiefdom but he would ultimately rule and order things.
Elves become weary of Middle Earth both creatively and psychologically. By the 3rd Age the Elves have done nothing creative since the crafting of the ring of power. They’ve retreated into memory and feel the fading of the world. So they’re allowed to leave it and find joy in the West while the world lasts. Mortals pass beyond the world once they weary of it and die; elves can’t die until the world does.
So they leave, but it’s a one way ticket unless there’s special dispensation. Or at least it is now that the straight road to Aman exits outside of the physical world.
Well, YogSosoth - re the governing of Middle Earth, you are imposing a very modern view. In that world (except for the Shire, I suppose) benevolent monarchies were the norm. Sauron offered men anything to get their support, but would/did make them his slaves once under his power. A dictator, and not a benevolent one. You have to accept the political layout of the LOTR in order to enjoy the story, I think.
As for the elves and their leaving, they are very tired of Middle Earth. That’s all I got.
Also, I love the Professor’s writing about Merry’s sword. (That entire passage of Merry & Eowyn vs. the witch-king holds some of Tolkien’s most powerful lines.) But the movie can’t reference it because book-Merry got it from a haunted barrow via Tom Bombadil. and we can’t get into that can of worms in the films.
Either the Witch-King *could *have been killed by a man, but was fated/prophesied that it would happen at the hands of a woman & a hobbit; or, *no *man could kill him, even if he tried. I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. (from memory) when the gates of Minas Tirith are being hammered by Grond, the Witch-King is right there at the forefront, and is described as being “impervious” to all the arrows being sent his way.
ETA: I see that you’re specifically referring to the movie. Since in the movie we don’t see the Witch-King in battle until he meets Eowyn, it’s left ambiguous.
Re: the descriptions of Valinor as being either “heaven” or “purgatory” – to me, the most apt analogy is Mt. Olympus. It’s a physical, tangible realm, where time passes, but where the immortals dwell and which they have made much cooler by being there.
Well, old Tom Bombadil is a merry fellow.
For all we know about him, Bombadil could actually BE Arda/Middle-Earth.
<Cough> Ar-Pharazôn <cough> the Kin-strife <cough> the splitting or Arnor into seperate kingdoms <cough> Eärnur.
The Shire was a democracy, and so was LakeTown. It’s also implied that the King of Gondor is not an absolute monarch.
In any case, if you have a benevolent Monarch, you have a lot of personal Freedom.
Yes, but the Kings of Gondor were descended from the uncorrupted blood. All I’m saying is that in Tolkien, the primacy of monarchy is never questioned. Only the actual personalities/families/moralities of the particular monarchs were variable.
ETA: As DrDeth notes, Tolkien was fine with democracies for smaller political units. Towns in the Shire and Bree-land, Lake Town, etc. But even on the relatively small level of the Shire, the overall region was ruled by families, hereditarily…the Tooks, the Brandybucks, etc. It’s only in the most basic units that anything other than hereditary rule is considered.
I can’t recall if there was anything specific about defending “freedom” in the movies, but that wasn’t a theme of the books. In the books, people are defending the right and the good, not their personal freedom.
That kind of rationale is typically added for contemporary audiences even when it is totally anachronistic. For example, the Spartans in 300 are depicted as defending freedom, when in reality Sparta was an authoritarian culture dependent on slave labor.
Yeah, that wasn’t clear in the film (and it’s been a long time since I read the books). Mostly it just seemed like the Witch King was slow-pitching Eowyn an awesome one-liner. Plus I sort of wondered why a supernatural wraith-creature would be vulnurable to getting stabbed in the face.
My impression was that they were basically just evil, greedy or corrupt men. That was a common theme IIRC that men were “weak” and could be manipulated or corrupted.
I assume Sauron wanted to rule Middle Earth, not exterminate every single living creature. Rohan and Gondor would obviously never submit so they must be destroyed. But I’m sure other tribes or kingdoms would have been content to fight for Sauron as long as they had a place in his new world order.
Yeah, they didn’t do a good job in the film of reconciling that. I could see if Moria fell within a few years. Dwarves are secretive folk. Gimli probably hasn’t been around his own kind in awhile. News travels slowly. I guess bodies in a cave could turn into skeletons by then.
Not so anachronistic, if you think about it.
It seems to me a lot of populations will fight foreign occupiers, even if it means that they are defending their own essentially authoritarian government/leaders.
“He might be a sumbitch, but he’s our sumbitch!”
re “defending freedom” - I loved Theoden’s response to Saruman in the book’s chapter ‘The Voice of Saruman’. including “…Even if your war on me was just - as it was not, for were you ten times as wise you would have no right to rule me and mine for your own profit as you desired…”
and the people from the South were not naturally greed or weak; we just don’t know much about them at all, like Sam, who wondered after seeing one killed in battle " …what the man’ws name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil of heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace…"
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy it, very much so. This monarchy thing is, yes, sadly modern. I just can’t help feel it a little bit in every movie I watch, especially ones made in America or for American audiences. To give you an example, the other movie I was thinking about as I typed up my response was 300. The Spartans were portrayed as fighting for freedom when they were themselves a kingdom, had slaves, sent children to die, and had no respect for the Americans with Disability Act. It was just kind of ironically funny that they were crying freedom whenever they were against Xerxes
I guess I’m hoping that someday, somewhere, some movie producer would be able to come up with something other than monarchy’s fighting for freedom as the main reason for why they fight. I would have enjoyed LOTR more if they simply made it as a fight for absolute survival, which it pretty much was, and left out the whole freedom thing
ninja’d by Colibri
Yes, that’s true. Tolkien had a very conservative outlook.
In the movies, I remember hearing nothing about the motives of the Easterlings or the Haradrim. Book details are less clear–but still nothing. How did Saruman get humans to fight for him? (Although he probably just had to convince their rulers–they may not have been volunteers.)
We did see Saruman promising theDunlendings (who may not have been named in the film) their old lands, now ruled by Rohan; they attacked a settlement & set it afire. A rabble dressed in dark clothing, they lacked the stylish armor or Mumakil of Sauron’s allies.
I don’t think Sauron was into offering a hands-off sort of overlordship. He wanted everything to be ugly! (I’m joking–but only a bit.)
Let’s just say that none of Gimli’s quotes from the film remotely indicate his “fearing the worst”; He seemed pretty much convinced that he was going to be served a platter of lightly seared wild boar as soon as he walked in. So either A) Gimli is an idiot in the movie or B) The filmmakers dropped the ball here.
All the other good questions in this thread have mostly been covered, but I want to add my two cents on the Southrons and Easterlings.
Firstly, yeah, as has been stated, Gondor & Rohan are not fighting for “freedom” except in the sense of “not being enslaved to Sauron”. There’s no hint of a struggle for “individual freedom” or “liberty” or any such modern stuff in the books.
There are LOTS of other Men in Middle Earth who are not related to the men of Numenor (in fact, everyone except the Dunedain of the North and some of the men of Gondor fall into the category of “not related to the men of Numenor”. Rohan definitely is “no relation”.). This includes the woodmen of wilderland (sortof the ‘next of kin’ of the Rohirrim, actually), the Bardings of Dale, the Men of Long Lake, the Southrons, the Easterlings, and various other “off the map” kingdoms/tribes. Some are “good”, some are “evil” and some are “unaligned”. The “evil” ones are tribes/countries that follow Sauron - though the “why” of this can vary widely. One of the reasons is that Sauron long ago subverted their leaders - remember those “nine rings for mortal men”? We have every reason to believe that some of those went to leaders of the Easterlings or Southrons (or Haradrim, or whatever.) and effectively enslaved the kings of those nations to Sauron even BEFORE they were made into wraiths, and so the current leadership is, as they say “tributary to Mordor.” Then, of course, Sauron is a master of deceit, and without the positive influence of elvendom, and, moreso, of Gandalf and his efforts, it’s easy to see how he could have tricked, misled, coerced, and threatened said nations into service. He’s had a LONG time to work.
It’s unlikely that Sauron would have then “turned against them” had he attained victory, but then, he wasn’t going to go and slaughter every last farmer in Gondor and Rohan either (Contrary to all the nonsense the movies puts in about “destroying Rohan’s people” and “The age of Man is over” - that’s crap PJ put in that once again makes the whole mess make less sense on close inspection.). Sauron wants to rule to rule the world, and have it filled with helpless slaves and subject nations. It’s safe to say that it would’ve been a pretty rotten place to live, as you’d probably be ruled by whatever ambitious and cruel folk managed to curry enough of Sauron’s favor to be named governors or whatever.
So I guess the difference is that in Gondor and Rohan, the Kings stayed mostly out of folks’ business. In a Sauron conquered state, the average folks would pretty much be serfs, who could be robbed, tormented, or killed at the whim of their rulers.