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Witch King

Nazgul

Why is the mountain range square. How did the mountain range form. Why is there one singular volcano in the center. Why does it act like a composite volcano but have magma that acts like it’s from a shield. If it’s hotspot based volcanic activity why is there only one volcano.

my favorite thing is the american great lake snowbelts! so, the 'flow' of weather across north america, in very general terms, blows from the northwest on down south and east to the gulf of mexico.

so the wind is blowing from west to east, and in the winter it's a dryer wind than in the summer because it's colder. but after blowing across a great lake for a hundred miles, the wind is wet again. and that wet turns into snow. so for all of these lakes, the big cities are on the west side, not the east sides, because the east sides absolutely suck to live on.

the sole exception is buffalo, NY, which literally has to be there because, unfortunately, that's where all the important canal stuff between lake ontario and lake erie is happening.

also this always strikes me as cool, check out where cleveland is:

On a Watsonian level, sure.

On a Doylistic level, Mordor looks like that because plate tectonics was a fringe, ludicrous, laughable theory that nobody outside serious geology nerds had ever heard of until scientists proved seafloor spreading in the early 1960s. The first edition of the LotR trilogy was published in 54-55. We literally did not know that plate tectonics was real until almost a decade after the book was published, so obviously, it was not something Tolkien could have been considering as he made his maps.

LotR has recurring themes of the reckless imposition of one's will on the natural world creating ugliness, an order you thought was inherently an improvement that in fact is inferior to what you have displaced. (Typified by reckless tree-felling; a reflection of the despoiling of the English countryside and the world by Progress.)

Moria is the only place in Middle-Earth where mithril is found, right? That's kind of a big deal. So, why? What makes that location so special? Is it just random?

I found a paper that had just been published *that year*, 2011 or 2012 as I was writing it, that studied the locations of precious-metals mines in the Pyrenees, the similarly long skinny mountain chain that divides Spain and France. This paper discovered that where there was a bend in the mountain chain, from one of the continental plates having an awkward corner in it that got subducted under the other plate, that had dug deeper into the mantle and caused precious-metal-bearing ores to flow up to the surface in ways they didn't do anywhere else in the Pyrenees.

There's a conversation in The Fellowship of the Ring where one of the hobbits -- I don't have my copy handy or I'd get the direct quote -- asks why they can see the Misty Mountains ahead of them at one point if they're still heading south from Rivendell, and it's explained that south of Caradhras (which you may recall is the surface mountain under which Moria runs) the mountain chain bends and runs southwest instead of due south for a while.

Tolkien had absolutely no way to know *why* this particular feature of a mountain range was associated with intrusions of rare and unique metal ores, but he had gone backpacking in mountains enough to know How Things Should Look.

Ónen i-Estel Edain, Ú-chebin estel anim.

Which, in my version of the books, translates to: "I give Hope to the Dunedain, I have kept no Hope for myself" (The Return of the King, 1392).

In the novels, this line was Gilraen's (Aragorn's mother) last words to Aragorn. She dies from age, saying that, "I am aged by care... and now that it draws near I cannot face the darkness of our time that gathers upon Middle-Earth" (1329). Essentially, her final lines are why she is passing. All the hope she had, she gave to the Dunedain, and now that the darkness of Sauron draws near, she does not have enough for herself to survive his terror.

In the films, this line is shared by Elrond and Aragorn.

Elrond delivers Aragorn the reforged shards of Narsil (now Andúril) in the tent of Theoden, as all the men of Rohan ride to the aid of Gondor. Elrond, who had a hand in raising Aragorn, has the first part of the line that is seen in the screen cap above. "I give hope to men", Aragorn then responds with "I keep none for myself."

Important note: In the novels, after his father's death, Aragorn is sent to be raised in Rivendale, where he is given the name Estel. Estel, meaning Hope. Aragorn does not know his proper name until he is twenty, nor does he know his true lineage. Elrond hides it from him until he has earned it. More or less. Also, none of this information has been contradicted by the films' lore, so I am considering it canon in both sources.

Aragorn's journey and his role within the narrative are about hope. Within the films, he is the one who consistently reminds Gandalf that hope remains that Frodo can complete the job.

One of my favourite moments within the books is in Fellowship of the Ring after Gandalf's "death" in Moria. Aragorn stands up, raises his sword to the mountain and cries, "Farewell, Gandalf... What hope have we without you?" and then he promptly turns to the rest of the fellowship and says, "We must do without hope... weep no more! Come!" (433). I like this moment because to himself we see a moment where Aragorn is questioning how they will continue their journey, but will not infect the others in the fellowship with his hesitation.

"Sorry, I can't help you."

    ‘I am in fact a Hobbit in all but size.’