Aragorn's mistake concerning the army raised from the Paths of the Dead
 

The army that Aragorn raised from the Paths of the Dead was said to be the most mortiferous army on M.E., and that no other force could rival it when raised by that who will wield Narsil reforged...

So... why not continuing the victory achieved in the Pelennor Fields with the aid of the Dead Army and go straight directly to Mordor to destroy Sauron's armies?

Imagine taking the forces of Gondor, the forces of Rohan, the forces of all the other allies and the Dead Army... They would not have depended on the destruction of the One Ring to destroy Mordor's forces... they would wip out the menace that Sauron's forces are... and even if Frodo failed, the worst thing that could happen was that Sauron would be vanished, not destroyed... and even probably Gandalf and the other forces of Good (Aragorn, Eomer, Elrond, Galadriel) would wip all the evil out of Mordor... And eventually destroy the One Ring after regaining it from Frodo...

I never understood that... And if it was really a mistake from Aragorn, his error almost costed the future freedom of M.E.

What do you think?

Well, I think that to use the Dark army against Sauron to overthrow him and destroy the Ring would have been a deed worthy of Sauron himself. That is, Aragorn couldn't and did not want to use such soldiers, such ;wraiths of fear and darkness' that evoked a nameless fear, not only in his enemies, but in his allies as well. It would have been no telling the good side from the bad side then.
In addition, I don't think that the dead would have it this way. My understanding was that they were summoned only for a single battle, which makes it a truly hard for Aragorn to decide which battle this would be.

I've often thought Aragorn should have kept the Dead around too, so perhaps I should leave it to the erudite wights who are less expediency driven than myself to answer, but I have one observation.

I'm not entirely sure what would happen if Frodo failed and Sauron regained the Ring. I think it quite likely that a Sauron possessing the One Ring would fill all his minions with such fear and rage that it would wipe away any fear of the Dead, and the Dead could not exactly do too much in the way of fighting. The Dead operated by fear. If that fear is removed they are not so effective.

[ September 19, 2003: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]

Kuruharan, you are right. But Im thinking more about the possibility that by the time Frodo claims the One Ring in Mount Doom, Sauron's forces are being overrun by Aragorn and all the armies at the Morannon...

Which event deserves more attention? Your forces being destroyed in the Black Gate... or the hobbit in your mountain?

I am the Queen of What If's in LotR but this one never occured to me. I don't think it was a mistake per se but more of a well thought out decision. There is more that could go wrong with the plan to bring the dead to Mordor. And Aragorn must have felt that his duty was to Gondor first or something of the like.
Haha you would think it would be the forces at the gate... unless you're Sauron and you see a familiar looking ring on said Hobbit's hand...

[ September 19, 2003: Message edited by: Cinderella ]

The hobbit in your mountain. The hobbit can't resist you. All you have to do is take the Ring back from him and all your problems will be solved.

Too true, person with the purple horse (I'm sorry, I can't remember your name!).
But I had always thought that the Dead conquered by scaring away all the people. Or was I wrong? Because if so, Sauron's people would be scattered, not destroyed, and if Frodo failed a little more utterly than he did in the books (ie no one challenged Frodo's taking of the Ring), and Sauron took it off Frodo, as no doubt he would, these Orcs etc would easily be reunited, methinks. Oooh long sentence...oops.

As usually, the answer can be found in the books. In this case, we have the - as I will show - clearly wrong assumption that Aragorn could have taken the army of the Dead further than the Pelennor. However, LotR V,2 disproves this:
“Then Aragorn said: ‘The hour is come at last. Now I go to Pelargir upon Anduin, and ye shall come after me. And when all this land is clean of the servants of Sauron, I will hold the oath fulfilled, and ye shall have peace and depart for ever.”
If Aragorn made a mistake at all, it would have been to set the condition for the fulfillment of the oath like he did, and not extend it. Given that we should assume Aragorn’s knowledge to be greater than ours, we can conclude that the original oath the Dead had broken did in turn NOT extend beyond ‘this land’.
Added to this would be the fact that the Dead Men were hardly an apt army, let alone retinue for a King unless in most dire need: “But defenders and foes alike gave up the battle and fled when we came, crying out that the King of the Dead was upon them. Only Angbor, Lord of Lamedon, had the heart to abide us;” (LotR V,9).

Also, the Dead once served Sauron himself. That was the reason that Isildur cursed them in the first place. Even though Aragorn has great strength of will, and can even be said to be a match for Sauron (he did wrest back the Palantir of Orthanc), would he be able to ensure the loyalty of the army of the Dead? Shades, fear, wraiths, and etc. are under Sauron's dominion, and the Big S. definitely has more experience than Aragorn in commanding armies, ensuring their loyalty (even through fear), etc. I'm not sure that the Dead would stay beside Aragorn if they were confronted with Sauron's forces.

As usual, the answer can be found in Sharkû's post. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

But, even assuming that the original oath did extend beyond the lands of Gondor, I am not at all sure that the Army of the Dead would have been an effective force against the host of Sauron. As Kuruharan stated:

The Dead were effective against the Men pressed into Sauron's service because their fear of the Dead outweighed their allegiance to Sauron. But the bulk of Sauron's host was made up of Orcs and Trolls, who (as I understand it) were directed by Sauron's own will, and who were themselves led by the undead in the form of the Nazgul. So I suspect that the Army of the Dead would have been far less effective against them.

[ September 19, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]

But effective or not, the army of the Dead would have proved a very needed support when the confrontation at the Morannon. Fear was indeed their biggest weapon, but not the only one.

Besides, Sauron would not control the army. Even though Gorthaur does indeed control a vast army of creepy creatures, and even though he controls the Nazgul and the Silent Watchers, it doesnt mean that he can control every phantom he knew about...

If he did, then the army of the Dead would not have supported Aragorn in the Pelennor, and certainly they would not have been imprisioned by the "mere" curse of a human king...

Besides, it was an army. An enormous force that proved to be the decisive force when the Pelennor... being dead, they cant be destroyed by the Dark Lord's army... And fighting against orcs, men and trolls without being destroyed would have proved victory for Aragorn and Co.

And the Army of the Dead fulfilled their oath because they wanted to rid themselves of the curse and rest in peace...

They would not committ the same mistake twice and condemn themselves to another zillion years cursed to live as undead...

Theyre dead, not stupid... they would not commit the same mistake twice...

If they are not effective then they would not be a great support at the Morannon. You can't have that both ways.

I'm not sure about that. I think that fear probably was their only effective weapon.

And neither could they destroy the Dark Lord's army. I don't think that they could impact the physical world anymore. Baldor seems to have died of fear and the blades of the Dead did not seem to "bite" the Haradrim. It would have been a rather dull battle with neither side able to do anything to the other (assuming that the orcs stood their ground).

I don't think Baldor died of fear, rather, he probably died of something more practical and realistic, hunger and thirst. He had trapped himself inside the Paths (and I'm assuming that his was the skeleton that Aragorn & Co. found in the Paths) and since dead men don't need food or drink, there was none in there. Baldor slowly starved to death, and eventually tried to hack his way out, breaking his sword (which Aragorn & Co. also found).

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, there is not any way to prove it one way or the other. I just don't think that the "starved to death" theory quite squares with the effect that the Dead had on everybody else (except Aragorn and company).

You've got a point there. Baldor could have also gone mad with fear, and tried to hack his way out of the place, also effectively shattering his sword.

A point of clarification is in order: the Oathbreakers never came to the Pelennor. Aragorn released them after they frightened off the defenders at Pelargir. It is probably no stretch to assume that the dead would make lousy crewmen for a fleet, and in any case, would make it impossible to bring living allies along, as that Shadow Army had the pesky tactical drawback of scaring the wits out of friend and foe alike.

Why is that pesky? It does not matter if your friends run away as long as the enemy does too; if you are the last man there you win.

The old "scatter all formations to the four winds" tactic, eh?

As history has shown, grabbing a piece of ground and holding it are two different things (especially if all your friendly forces are gibbering and drooling with fear in the deepest cave they could find to hide in).

Beyond mere tactics, though, there's little strategic value to be gained in such a dubious 'victory'. Hitching your cart to an Army of the Dead just doesn't pay. There's no future in it.

Yeah, especially if all they can do is scare the wits out of people.

Yeah, maybe he had a heart attack or something...

I think that Aragorn wanted to fight his battles on his own terms, mainly to prove to himself and to the world that he was a worthy Heir of Isildur, and that he could reunite the Kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor, with his own strength and will-power, on his own terms. If he had used the Army of the Dead at the Pelennor Fields, folk would have said that it was due to their strength that Aragorn won, not due to his own strength. A King who comes to power thanks to the strength of others is no King at all, and Aragorn realized that. He knew that he could have to fight for his kingship (and eventuallly with it the hand of Arwen) by himself. (by himself being a relative term, since Legolas, Gimli, & Co. were with him).

Yes, I thought that was the case. I checked my Book before posting before and could find no reference to them at the Pelennor. But, since I was not sure whether there might be another reference of which I was not aware, I "fudged" my post by referring to their effectiveness against "Men pressed into Sauron's service". [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

The fact that the Oathbreakers were not present at the Pelennor is interesting in light of the condition which Aragorn set on their service (as posted previously by Sharkû):

Clearly, Gondor was not clean of Sauron's servants prior to the victory at Pelennor Fields. So either Aragorn waived that condition and considered their oath fulfilled following the defeat of the Corsairs at Pelargir or they were not released from their oath until following the Battle of Pelennor Fields. Either way, rather than making a mistake, I tend to believe that Aragorn simply did not consider tham to be a suitable Army to take onto the Pelennor, for the very reason that they would not be effective.

I would go so far as to say that it was their only weapon, certainly the only one they needed. Legolas tells Merry and Pippin in The Last Debate:

The Army of the Dead did not attack the Corsairs with their weapons but with fear:

The fear of the Dead drove most of the Corsairs to leap to watery deaths. Those who did not drown were killed by the living. Nowhere is it said that the Dead fought physically with the Corsairs.

Aragorn was certainly wise not to bring the Army of the Dead to the Pelennor. Imagine the fear and confusion that this would have caused amongst the Men of Rohan and Gondor, regardless of its effect on their enemies. To say that it would not be good for morale would be a considerable understatement.

And I would maintain that they would not be an effective force against those amongst Sauron's army who came from the Land of Shadow and who were themselves led by those masters of the use of fear as a weapon, the Nazgul.

You are right, of course, but perhaps not in the obvious way. Militarily speaking there would be no difficulty. Holding the land would be the least of their problems, there would have been nobody left to challenge Aragorn's hold, which is the highest goal of a campaign of conquest. Assuming that all went well in the battle, of course.

The problems would probably be social rather than military.

[ September 24, 2003: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]

As Clausewitz observed, “The War of a community--of whole Nations, and particularly of civilised Nations--always starts from a political condition, and is called forth by a political motive. It is, therefore, a political act. [...] If we reflect that War has its root in a political object, then naturally this original motive which called it into existence should also continue the first and highest consideration in its conduct.”

Aragorn’s political objective, of course, was to claim the throne of Gondor. It would have been a grievous error both politically and strategically for Aragorn to press on from Pelargir with the Shadow Army (assuming he even could). He would forge a reputation as the “King of the Dead” (RotK, V, 2) and frighten and alienate friendly forces (not to mention the subjects he aspired to rule) instead of cementing key political alliances at the Pelennor and beyond as he did.

If we’re talking about the tactical use of the Shadow Army in a vacuum free of political considerations, there are still problems: the enemy forces are not destroyed or captured, only scattered. But likewise, your own living allies are also scattered, and your moral authority in leading them severely damaged. You might be able to hold ground indefinitely as long as you control the Shadow Army, but what good does it do you? One might surmise that Sauron, aka “The Necromancer”, would have soon found some solution to this problem, and even if not, you have to release them sooner or later and deal with living friends and foes.

Simply for the sake of arguing [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] (and I'm not really, I'm just thinking this through), I would say that there would be effect on the Orcs, because those Orces weren't exactly fond of the Nazgul, were they? They gave the Orcs the shivers or whatever it was (I'm thinking of the bit where Shagrat and Gorbag are following their men to the Tower of Cirith Ungol and Sam is listening to them). And if a black winged thing could have such a scaring effect on them, what could a host of ghosts manage? I suppose it would come down to which thing held the most fear. The Witch-king, who was killed, or the host of ghosts.

But I still am not convinced that were this to work it would be constructive- for the simple reason that it would scatter the allies too (as has been said many a time...so what on earth am I talking about??? [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] )

The remaining 8 Nazgul (at least) would not be scared of the Dead.

"Do you not know Death when you see it?"

Also, I can't remember a quote, but it seems to me (if even unpspoken) the Dead were only held to redeeming themselves with one stand taken under their king. I don't think there was any reason (or possibility) of the Dead going on beyond their oath's fulfillment - they had waited a long time for redemption. After redemption, it seems certain they wouldn't have been able to continue with Aragorn even if they desired to.

On their effectiveness, I'm very sceptical about the "scare factor." The orcs had been subject to Nazgul command (and some most likely had direct contact with Sauron or at least saw him) - the Nazgul and Sauron are quite terrifying on their own, something the orcs had to adjust to. Sharku also pointed out (in an earlier conversation between he and I) that the Dead's scariness was mainly effective with men because they are dead men anyway...even the orcs of Saruman or the Misty Mountains probably would not have been as susceptible to fear of the Dead.

[ September 24, 2003: Message edited by: Legolas ]

Sauron was called "the Necromancer" in The Hobbit. That suggests that he has some control over at least some dead creatures, or uses death to perform spells. That suggests that while the Dead obviously have great effect on the men who serve Sauron, they may not have such an effect on the big guy himself.

Good points Lego. Here's some more backup: Which it seems highly unlikely that they would. Consulting HoME, with all the usual caveats, disclaimers, and cautions, may yield some clues to the professor’s thoughts on these matters.

In one version of Gimli and Legolas’s account of the events at Pelargir, Gimli claims, “...the Shadow Host halted and wavered, unwilling at the last, as it seemed, to make war on Sauron.” This was softened in the final text, where the Shadow Host “hung back at the last” without any explanation for their reluctance.

It’s reasonable to conclude that the Dead were bitter about having been cursed for centuries, and in any case they were cursed in the first place because they were faithless allies. Also from HoME: “But there were among them [the Haradrim] captains sent by Mordor, and orc-chieftains, and they were not so easily dismayed, and they endeavoured to hold their men to a defence.” These were removed from the final version, where there was no fight and the Dead ruled the field by fear, yet the reference supports the notion that the scare tactics of the Shadow Host would be much less effective against Sauron’s more hardened, non-human troops.

P.S. - Sauce, I forgot to congratulate you on the "fudging" of your earlier post. Drafted with the canniness of a true loyer!

[ September 25, 2003: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]