Posted: April 03, 1999 at 23:26:03: by Michael Martinez
: Thanks, duellists, for a great read. But it leaves me with some
: questions. First: I always thought that the swords and spears
: of the Army of the Dead could and did inflict wounds in the
: enemy soldiers, whether Men or Orcs. Their ghostly presence
: was enough to send many soldiers running for the hills but I
: wouldn't think moving dead men would scare Orcs? What's the
: consensus on this?I don't believe they actually use those weapons in the story. Gimli says the Dead no longer needed any weapon but fear once they reached Pelargir. So, I don't have an opinion on the matter. I will point out that the King of the Dead did break his spear and throw it down, but neither Gimli nor Legolas seems to have wondered whether it remained behind after the Dead withdrew. : Second: I'm not sure what was meant by the reference to Prof.
: Tolkien's use of "time distortion" in Lothlorien. One of the
: fellowship (Sam?) comments on the phase of the moon being
: different from what he'd expected. But I figured that the
: "power of the Lady" was such that they forgot so fully about
: the outside world and the pain they had been carrying that it
: seemed as though time had stood still. I'm almost sure someone
: says "we've been here a month" which solves the mystery of the
: moon's similiar phase. If there is time distortion in a
: "science fiction" sense I guess I missed it. Comments, please? Well, they don't seem to have experienced a month in Lothlorien. They could not account for 30 days of their experience. So they observed less time in Lothlorien than Middle-earth did outside of Lothlorien. : And finally, I wanted to comment on the mention of the Nazgul's
: fear of water and the comment that it was "odd". I had always
: thought it a little lame, a way to give the Nazgul some handy
: weaknesses until I read the Silmarillion. Could it be that the
: spirit of the great Ulmo still ran in the waters of Middle
: Earth, albeit less powerfully and with less direct intervention
: than before? I admit I have a great love of rivers so the idea
: really appeals to me. In my 700 page screenplay version of LOTR
: (yeah, me too) I had the voice of the "summons dream" come from
: the river. Boromir carries with him to Rivendell a flask
: containing water from the Anduin. At the Council, Elrond pours
: this water into a bowl, breathes on it, emerses his hands in it
: and we "hear" the voice repeat the summons-prophecy "Seek for
: the Sword-that-was-broken...etc.
:
: Anyway, does anyone else think that Ulmo may have been behind
: the Ringwraith's seemingly odd fear of water? I'd love to
: know. A lot of people have suggested that perhaps Ulmo might have something to do with the Nazgul's fear of water, but Tolkien himself never fully developed the idea (as he found it to be rather weak himself). This is probably one of those areas where the reader is welcome to draw whatever conclusions they wish.
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Parma Endorion: Essays on Middle-earth, Revised Edition
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