Piwin -> RE: What do you mean, 'Who's the author?' - ALL OF THEM! (Mar. 14 2021 3:25:00)
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Your oath has been fulfilled....oh WAIT hold up, before you go, can you meet us over at Mordor for just a second? The simple answer is that there is no definitive answer as to why Aragorn didn't have the Dead Men of Dunharrow do more. Then there's a lot of speculation, some good, some not so good, from people who go rummaging through everything Tolkien ever wrote. So, putting my nerd cap on for a second: One aspect is this: Sauron is almost certainly the Necromancer mentioned in The Hobbit. And in the poem Lay of Leithian, Tolkien writes this about him: "(...) that necromancer held his hosts of phantoms and of wandering ghosts." From there you could speculate that Sauron had his own "army of the dead" (there's very little to go on to know what kind of army Sauron still had waiting in Mordor. Neither in terms of number nor of "kind" of creatures) or that he had the ability to control, or at least sway those fighting for the Free Peoples. You could also speculate about what power the dead actually have over those who exist in the "Unseen World". That excludes all the races like orcs, elves, humans, etc. But the Maiar (people like Sauron, Gandalf, Saruman, etc.) exist not only in the physical world but also in this "Unseen World". This is also the case of the Nazgûl, 8 of which were still "alive" after the battle of Pelennor Fields. So there are various theories to say that Sauron did have some forces to counteract the Dead Men of Dunharrow. One other theory (it's really a stretch...) questions whether the dead could physically harm the living at all. All bark and no bite, as it were. This comes from a passage in LoTR where Legolas and Gimli are describing the battle with the Corsairs and one of them says that he did not know whether their swords had any bite but it didn't matter because the fear they instilled in the Corsairs was enough to win the battle. It also comes from a short note Tolkien made in one of his earlier drafts, in which, next to the section about the fight on the Corsairs' ships, he wrote: "No fight, but the Shadows flow into the ships and all men leap overboard except the chained captives." Another aspect (which is the one I personally find more convincing) is that using the dead is seen as a grave sin. In the History of Middle-earth, Tolkien writes: "It is therefore a foolish and perilous thing, besides being a wrong deed forbidden justly by the appointed Rulers of Arda, if the Living seek to commune with the Unbodied, (...) Some were enslaved by the Dark Lord and do his work still, though he himself is gone. They will not speak truth or wisdom. To call on them is folly. To attempt to master them and to make them servants of one's own will is wickedness. Such practices are of Morgoth; and the necromancers are of the host of Sauron his servant." So Aragorn's reluctance to use them isn't just about the fear they inspire. There's also a practical (it's "foolish") and moral ("forbidden justly by the appointed Rulers of Arda") component to it. From there you can imagine what is going on in his mind. Thinking he has no other choice, he will dabble in this forbidden act but never go so far as to actually command them. So whenever they decide they've had enough, he will release them from their oath. I suppose there's a fine line between him just allowing them to fulfil their oath and then releasing them, and him becoming in some sense a necromancer. And on the practical side, since these were men that once worshipped Sauron, he is probably always weighing the benefits of having them on his side vs. the risk of them either abandoning him (as they had done to his predecessor) or worse, turning on him and siding with Sauron. He then decides (speculating of course) that it is best to take them out of the picture once they've dealt with the Corsairs, instead of risking taking them to Mordor and Sauron convincing them to join him. @rombsix Sorry! Just saw it now!
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