Posted: December 26, 1999 at 21:45:43: by Gunga Flynn
I realize in a work of fiction that the author concentrates on the primary characters and events, leaving everything else kind of shadowy. Still, I've allways wondered why Middle Earth seems so sparsly populated. All those wide streaches of wilderness. It shouldn't matter, but Tolkien spends so much time in building his world. Then there's the fact that folks don't seem to get around much. Rohan doesn't seem to be that far from Lorien, but you notice that Eomer knows nothing of that land. Is this all an offshoot of that fact that while Numenor was enjoying the limelight, things in Middle Earth weren't nearly so grand. I almost get the impression that even at the time of the War of the Ring, Middle Earth was a land in recovery.
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