Tolkien's void

[2WayParadox]

This thread is about something I've always remembered since reading LOTR, the trilogy.

Tolkien's Middle Earth feels so empty.

There's a handful of Elves here, some human towns there. We hardly see any dwarves. The only place that feels alive is the Shire, which we leave almost as soon as we get there.

Sure, Rohan is a steppe kingdom, it's not a problem if Rohan feels empty. But take Gondor, there's hardly anything but grass and rocks outside its cities. Where's the food coming from?

If you think about the army that's sent out as 'the last force of mankind to protect against evil', it's described as being something between 7000 and 20000 strong. Now a regular army is usually limited to a size of 7% of total population, due to the sheer cost and strain of maintaining it. In cases when there is a religious cause (in LOTR 'if we don't do this we're all dead'), then it's possible to gather a much larger army for one season. But still, 7000 to 20000? What a pitiful amount, even if it's because it's mainly made up of Rohan warriors. It would still mean that the population of Rohan is pitiful.

Why did Sauron feel the need to do so much preparing? He could have steamrolled the human lands any time he wanted to, he had no need for his ring.

Is this feeling of an empty world the curse of any writer trying to make a wide open world? Or is it the result of Tolkien patching together scraps of story, written down across a period of 30 years?

 

[ThinkerX]

I'd wondered a bit about middle earth myself. The Anduin river is huge, starting in the far northern mountains and flowing probably a good couple thousand miles, navigable almost the whole way, with the only significant obstacle being the waterfall to Gondor's north. On earth, a river like that would be a major artery of commerce, a transportation backbone for nations on both sides of the waterfall - which would probably have a canal or serious portage located there. Instead, while there is some traffic on the river in Gondor proper, north of the falls its almost all wilderness, apart from a solitary elf nation and a dozen odd rustic hamlets. The long 'cold war' against the fell things inhabiting Mordor and Murkwood could account for some of this, but not all.

There was also the 'coast' issue: thousands of miles of coastline between the Haven's in the north and the ports of Gondor - all apparently uninhabited or nearly so. Yet on earth, coastal country is where you find ports and trade.


The impression I got was that apart from the Shire and a couple other places, the nations of middle earth were in a long state of decline at the time of LOTR - including both Gondor and Mordor.. Ruins and battlefields everywhere, but little or no new construction. An aristocracy lost in past glories.

 

[skip.knox]

I guess it doesn't trouble me. It's a fantasy world. He wanted it to be mostly empty and I'd never thought about it much. I'm persuaded by ThinkerX on the point.

But as to the size of the army, that's not really pitiful. In medieval terms, that's a big army. Highly advanced civilizations, such as the Romans or the Persians could field larger ones, but even an army of ten thousand, to choose a number, is a logistical nightmare. Where does such a force stop for lunch? (at which point I always think of that scene from Bananas)

It's not merely a matter of getting ten thousand people to show up at the same time and place, it's a matter of arming them, training them, and supplying them. Gondor had that sort of discipline. Rohan not so much, and other regions of Middle Earth still less.

I do agree that, realistically, the Fellowship ought to have been coming across hamlets and villages and towns and isolated farmsteads far more often to justify even Edoras or Minas Tirith. Central place theory and all that. But pfaugh, realism isn't why I stopped by that particular bar. I wanted a nice tall glass of verisimilitude, which Tolkien supplied quite nicely and which is why I stop by that bar from time to time, even after fifty years since my first read.

 

[CupofJoe]

Someone, maybe on this forum, described Middle Earth as a post apocalyptic world, more reminiscent of England after the Black Death. The population has crashed and civilisation is barely holding on... only the Shire seems to be doing okay.
Slip.knox is right about armies and their size, organisation etc.
Gathering an army is reasonably easy, keeping it going for a month or more... that's the tricky point.
As for Sauron. I think he/it was terrified of the Elves and the forces of Gondor. They had beaten and maimed he before [and I guess loosing the finger still smarted]. Regardless of how effective those forces really might have been in combat, it was his fear of them that meant he/it needed it to a done deal when he started...
No one goes in to a fair fight if they can avoid it.
If you want to think of wining you need to have at least a 2 to 1 advantage.
If you want to be confident of winning, 4 to 1.
If you want to crush he opposition and sit there being Overlord of whatever, you are looking at 10 [or more] to one.
And of course, there is that old adage along the lines of The more troops you have the less casualties you take...

 

[2WayParadox]

@ThinkerX: true, decline is he card that Tolkien played. It's certainly possible for consecutive disasters or disastrous events to topple a civilization. What's usually seen then is a diaspora, in search if better land. In LOTR, the people just kind of sit around.

@skip.knox: I agree as well, it's a fantasy world. My standpoint with fantasy is to accept the basic rules and then see how well the author can work within them. I know it's a big army in medieval terms, however, world population after the black death was 350-375 million people. Take one group of 500 000 people and take 7% as the maximum size of a 'comfortable' army, that's 35000 people that group could theoretically field. France alone was estimated to have between 13 and 20 million people.

Pit those 10000 against the numbers described for the uruk armies, if I remember correctly the army attacking helm's deep is 100k strong? What are they being fed on? Mordor is poison and ash sprinkled on top of rocks.

@cupofjoe: The point about Sauron being afraid is probably correct, why else would he wiat so long to deploy his witch kings? There's nobody out there that can destroy them.

I disagree about him caring that much about the odds. He grows hos uruks like potatoes, I don't think he cares how many die.

 

[Incanus]

A couple of corrections:

The army of Uruk-hai attacking Helm's Deep numbered about 10,000 (+ some Dunlendings), attacking around 2000 defenders. They did not come from Mordor, but from Isengard. Sauron had no Uruks, only Saruman bred them.

In general, I'm with Skip--its more about internal consistency then reflecting the real, known world.

 

[CupofJoe]

@cupofjoe: The point about Sauron being afraid is probably correct, why else would he wiat so long to deploy his witch kings? There's nobody out there that can destroy them.

Er... Arwen kills the biggest bad Witch King in a fairly simple fight... so at least half the population of Middle Earth should make them very worried...
and a single Elf, [Glorfindel, if I remember correctly] unseats 5 [or is it all 9] of the at the Fords of Somewhere or Other... rescuing Frodo. And it takes them weeks/months to get new mounts...
A hobbit screams out loud at Weathertop and makes their assault falter. and doesn't one run away screaming when its cloak is set on fire? but that might just be in the movie...
Yep... The Wraiths are impressive but they aren't invulnerable and they can't be everywhere.
And they are his only super weapon...

I disagree about him caring that much about the odds. He grows hos uruks like potatoes, I don't think he cares how many die.

I don't think its about the dead. Greater odds in your favour give any commander a better chance/certainty of success. I do not doubt that Sauron doesn't care about Orks and Uruks, Troll and Wargs as living feeling sapient beings and mourns their passing but he/it will want as many of them alive as can be for the next battle... They still has to be grown, raised, trained and equipped. No commander will squander resources needlessly... not if they really want to win.
I think it's more likely that Sauron needs the massive ratio in his favour to avoid a fight. If he can make Gondor [or wherever] capitulate just by turning up and camping outside... so much the better. Sauron feeds on the fear and terror I feel...

 

[2WayParadox]

I liked the story, but maybe my issue is more with the whole decline/incompetent motif. Sure, people with less capabilities have greater odds to overcome, making for greater tension. But still, I want a story were people can do something. I remember being annoyed when reading the Laws of Magic, his incompetence as a magic user made every time he had to use it seem so forced. I thought the plot of the whole series was incredibly lame. The same with the Wheel of Time, it's true that he becomes more competent throughout the series and I enjoyed that, but there are so many references to how great it used to be that it makes me wonder: 'If it was so great back then, then why didn't you write about that conflict?' Would it hurt so much to have a main character go into a story with at least some competence? Have him struggle with emotional issues instead of the issues concerning magic that the writer forced on him.

 

[BronzeOracle]

I think Tolkein's world (and Robert Jordan's and Tad Williams') is steeped in a sense of loss, of something beautiful and wonderful that was there long ago and is now no more. The glamour age of bounty, wonder and connection to higher powers. I think it partly reflects the whole fantasy genre in general, which for me is about a time before the age of enlightenment and colonisation, when the forces of nature were not well understood, when the natural world was feared and so much of the map was covered by 'here be dragons'. Now we see through the glasses of science and reason and the glamour/wonder is lost. When I read the Silmarillion I got this loss vibe big time - the sunken world of Belariand and Numenor, the continent of Aman no longer reachable - these were places of bounty that were destroyed by evil. Paradise Lost. I found it very sad to read that book and its no wonder that Tolkien did not feature it as his main work but instead chose the triumph of LOTR - perhaps that is also why Robert Jordan did not choose to write about the old times in Wheel of Time. When I read through the world of Middle Earth in LOTR I got a strong theme of emptiness, ruins and a long, long history that is almost forgotten. I think the emptiness is intentionally part of Tolkien's world, its not a place like our own middle ages.

On another note I think Sauron was completely justified in going for an overkill of orcs against some tiny has-been kingdoms - even with thousands upon thousands of them + ring wraiths + trolls + mumakil + southrons they still got beaten!!

 

[2WayParadox]

Sure, they got beaten but it's through kind of a deus ex machina. Sure, Sauron can't be whole without the ring, but he's managed for decades or centuries (?) without it. He might not be able to move from his tower, but he's alive in a sense. The ring wraiths threw themselves in the fires of mount Doom, so there's not much to be said about that. But destroying the Orc army and all of its friends just because the ring is destroyed is a pretty big deus ex machina if you ask me. That's not to say I didn't like it.

That feeling of loss isn't something I want to write myself, but it's true that it keeps on returning in fantasy. A great series called the Black company also talks about the past of the company and how much bigger they were, but they manage to grow again and then get smaller once more. It's part of the company's identity that it's somewhat of a phoenix. They're not better or worse off, the story is firmly rooted in current events. Another series, that I haven't finished yet is the book of malazan, as far as I can tell and remember, that feeling of loss isn't as strong there. In the chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the past is actively despised. So you see, it's possible to get great stories that don't have that feeling of melancholy and loss, that forced need to be scraping by.

 

[Devor]

Forgive me if my memory of the books is a bit off. But here's a map of Gondor:

As you can see, the capital, Minis Tirith, is in the North-East corner, probably to keep the response time minimal if something happens in Mordor. To the North is Rohan, where the fellowship is coming from. To the southwest is the coast and the farmland.

I'm not sure I would expect the landscape and the population to be any different than it's presented as.

Finally, Rohan only had a few days to gather it's full army, which came after the orcs ravaged the countryside. It's a rushed army from a country in bad shape, so I'm not sure that its army is a good place to extrapolate its population.

 

[Incanus]

More misstatements. Should I bother pointing them out? Does anyone care?

Middle-earth and Lord of the Rings have lots of little mistakes, or bits that don't always add up. It strikes me as at least a little ironic that, in pointing out such mistakes, mistakes are being made.

Oh well.

 

[2WayParadox]

@incanus and possible others: apologies for not looking up details, I'm winging most of them. The feeling of emptiness and the fading presence of humanity is the main thing I was referring to when I named this thread Tolkien's Void.

 

[Incanus]

No worries. I can get a bit pedantic when it comes to Middle-earth. Hope I'm not coming off as whiny.

I agree that there is plenty of evidence to suggest that this world does not have a tremendous population. However, I don't see that it has much relevance to the story at hand, and in a way, it all fits: these events were to have taken place on THIS earth, in a dim era of pre-history--and that means there would be way, way less people than there were even during medieval times. Of course, the presence of elves, dwarves, orcs, and hobbits bumps it back up a bit.

 

[skip.knox]

If you're looking for emotional issues, try Moorcock's Elric saga. To name but one.