Posted: March 06, 2000 at 11:22:30: by Michael Martinez
: I recently read Isildur and one point in it has made me think
: anew.
: I used to think that after the War of the Alliance Minas Ithil
: was repopulated and remained as it had been. But the Idea that
: it was only maintained as a garrisoned fortress, due to
: unhealable corruption, makes sense. It had bothered me that
: the Ringwraiths were able to conquer Minas Ithil in 2000-2002,
: without Sauron and with only a short mention of the incident in
: Appendix A. If MI had been a city of like status to Minas
: Anor, then during those two years of siege Gondor would have
: done its utmost to save the city, and with the power they had
: at that time, with a king still in business, they would have
: succeeded. But if MI was just an outpost, then it's more
: understandable that Gondor wasn't willing to face the terror of
: the Nazgūl.Brian Crawford's story has a lot of logical errors in it and this is one of them. The city of Minas Ithil was isolated, being set way back in a deep valley with only one easy way in or out. All the Nazgul had to do to conquer the city was lay siege to it and patrol the mountains to make sure no one carried supplies over the peaks (and given the description of the terrain Tolkien put into THE RETURN OF THE KING, that simply may not have been possible at all). If the city was simply garrisoned then why wasn't the garrison withdrawn after the Great Plague forced Gondor to withdraw its border garrisons in Mordor and Enedwaith? That makes no sense. But, in fact, Anarion was able to retake Minas Ithil during the war, and Isildur stationed two of his sons there to prevent Sauron's escape that way. So the city wasn't in Sauron's hands for very long. There would have been little if any "corruption".
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