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#1 |
Newly Deceased
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 1
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What is the whole story behind Minas Morgul, Gondor, and Mordor?
Okay so obviously Minas Morgul is the old capital of Gondor. How did Sauron capture it? What does it look like inside of the fortress? What did it look like before it was Sauron's, or the Witch Kings? How did they change it? I've been wondering about this for years and I have no clue what the heck happened.
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#2 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: The Shire (Staffordshire), United Kingdom
Posts: 273
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Minas Morgul wasn't the old capital of Gondor; that was Osgiliath.
When Gondor was founded and Osgiliath established, the Gondorians built two fortresses at the feet of the mountains on either side of the Vale of Anduin. In the East stood Minas Ithil, the Tower of the Moon. It later became Minas Morgul. In the West was Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun, later called Minas Tirith, the Tower of Guard. There is a lot of information in the appendices to Lord of the Rings, in The Tale of The Years. Alternatively, you could check out a Tolkien encyclopedia such as The Encyclopedia of Arda at http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/ . |
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#3 | |
shadow of a doubt
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Back on the streets
Posts: 1,125
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"You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way" ~ Bob Dylan |
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#4 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,359
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Well, we don't really know much what exactly was inside Minas Ithil, but whatever it was, Sauron probably destroyed it and changed everything into orc barracs and storages of weapons.
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera Last edited by Galadriel55; 03-02-2011 at 08:08 PM. |
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#5 |
Byronic Brand
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: The 1590s
Posts: 2,778
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it would be sad if every query were reduced to a curt "go to Google", accurate and plentiful as information there may be
Gastonason, you are quite right to intuit a very good story lying half submerged there; but the best bit is the last King of Gondor riding off to his doom to pursue a duel, I take it you know that bit?
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Among the friendly dead, being bad at games did not seem to matter -Il Lupo Fenriso |
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#6 | |
Wisest of the Noldor
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"Even Nerwen wasn't evil in the beginning." –Elmo. |
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#7 |
Pilgrim Soul
Join Date: May 2004
Location: watching the wonga-wonga birds circle...
Posts: 9,451
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Well said Anguirel. I must admit one reason I stopped going to another site was the sneering attitude to anyone whose Tolkien knowledge was regarded as deficient - not tha Skip was sneering himself.
Sometimes such questions lead me to look up and think about stuff I hadn't thought of for years. And we get a new member who may stick around so win win... Frankly it is nice to see a post by a newcomer that has a bona fide Tolkien question and isn't trying to sell me an increasingly surreal range of serices (often in the same post)!
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“But Finrod walks with Finarfin his father beneath the trees in Eldamar.”
Christopher Tolkien, Requiescat in pace |
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#8 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
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Minas Ithil was taken by the Nazgul very soon after the Witch-King's utter defeat in Arnor by a Gondorian expeditionary force. That's right, a fraction of Gondor's forces can annihilate a great evil power which resides hundreds of miles away, but allow that same power to capture one of their most crucial fortresses, just a short ride from their capital city, with horrendous consequences for years to come. Go figure.
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#9 | |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: In the Tower of Elostirion with my new Palantir
Posts: 33
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By contrast, in the South the forts at the Morannon and Cirith Ungol had been abandoned, the civilians of Minas Ithil had left and there was likely just a small garrison there when ALL Nine Nazgul came against it. Gondor was still very strong then, but the fear and dread of the Ringwraiths must have been an effective deterrent to breaking their siege, or recapturing the citadel. Now if I had been in charge, I would have thrown everything I had at 'em anyway and enlisted Gandalf and/or Saruman to help. One of the two should have been around somewhere at that time! Slackers! |
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#10 |
Wight
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Settling down in Bree for the winter.
Posts: 208
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The Eye
Well, I'm thinking he didn't destroy the palantír of Minas Ithil. I've always wondered if the Ithil palantír might be the 'Eye' of Sauron. Does anyone know of a reference to 'The Eye' that comes from before Minas Ithil fell?
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#11 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,359
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I remember reading somewhere in LOTR (might have been the end of FOTR or the beginning of the second half of TTT) that "eye" is the name that Frodo gave to the force that he felt searching for him. However, this term is used by other characters as well. When does it first appear?
PS: the term "palantir" is curious as well. It's never mentioned until Gandalf discovers what the stone is. After that point, many characters mention the palantiri in an off-hand way, but it sound somewhat unnatural. They all start talking palantirs after the discovery. (Even people like Denethor who have no idea about the story of Saruman's stone talk palantirs! It's creepy!)
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#12 | |
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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But generally, of course, it is assumed that Sauron got his hands on the Ithil-stone and that's what was at Barad-Dur and that's how he had trapped Saruman and Denethor. "The Eye" is more like a metaphor for Sauron's current form by the time of LotR, where he is not really corporeal in the strict sense, and he is more like a "presence" which has certain attributes: and one of the most important thing about him seems to be that he "sees". This is where the Eye comes from, and I am curious as to whether this has something to do with Sauron himself or if it is a direct consequence of the Palantír (since that would mean that the Eye is a rather new symbol, only a hundred or so years old - would make sense in one way, on the other hand, I am rather interested as to what Sauron would have as his symbol earlier on, since we are all so much used to this... now I must confess that I am rather uncertain, I don't know whether there is any mention of the "Eye" prior to these late-third-Age events, resp. after Sauron's return to Mordor...).
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#13 | ||||
Wight of the Old Forest
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: Unattended on the railway station, in the litter at the dancehall
Posts: 3,329
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Und aus dem Erebos kamen viele seelen herauf der abgeschiedenen toten.- Homer, Odyssey, Canto XI |
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