Mordor without Sauron?
 

I been thinking about that nice little piece of real estate called mordor. I been wondering what everyone out there thinks happened to the land of shadow? I it could be the next rivendell. The little elves can make smores over mount doom. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

After Sauron's fall, Mordor was still the same, a bleak land, though practically abandoned and less dark. Mt. Doom, I believe, pulled a Mt. Saint Helens, and blew itself to pieces, but that's just what I think.
But if not, I suppose some adventurous folk of Middle-earth could go camping there. Roasting marshmallows over an open volcanic crater sounds good to me. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

From the film at least, I got the impression that Mt. Doom was sort of like Kileuea or Etna, in constant but benign eruption.

I felt that mordor's darkness and decay had a lot to do with it's inhabitants and Sauron himself. I always thought that Mordor would eventually (over hundreds of years) clear up, and trees would grow once more, grass would grow, people would live there. Then again, there would still be a lot of orcs in mordor, the remnants of the dark lords armies, so maybe you wouldn't want to live there.

I thought when Sauron had died, the Men has hunted and killed the remaining Orcs that were still alive.

Well, yeah, but it would take a long time wouldn't it?
I suppose it has to do with how orcs reproduced. If sauron was somehow breeding them, i.e, their reproduction depended on sauron, they would all die out pretty quickly. on the other hand, if they reproduced independently, then every one would have to be killed until mordor was free of them, else they would just return.

Plus, the men of Nurn were there to work on it.

Orcs could reproduce independently. They weren't created by Sauron after all, and were able to maintain a large enough population during the time period between Morgoth's banishment from Arda and Sauron's rise to power after the War of Wrath for Sauron to start using them for his own purposes.

i think the land of mordor would forever be bleak that is i mean gorgorth as im shure that the area round the sea of nurnen would one day recover

You have to take into consideration that Sauron chose Mordor to be his stronghold in the year 1000 of the 2nd age. so it probably wasn't so evil before he got there. in fact, it was probably like Tunisia or Morocco, only without the casbahs.

Anyhoo, after Sauron was destroyed, i'm sure that it retuned to being like Morocco (after several hundred years). And think of orcs as being like ants- annoying but bloody easy to kill if you have the right technology. so, if you gathered a large-ish bunch of Gondorian warriors, who have been killing orcs for, like, five thousand years, i'm sure you would find it pretty damn easy to wipe the buggers out.

Thanks I had been out for a while and i had forgotten that I had made this topic. Well thanks again to everyone that posted

Mordor would probably remain uninhabitable for quite some time. Wastelands don't become verdant all on their own; they need time and help.

[ June 03, 2003: Message edited by: Susan Delgado ]

My personal idea (silly but no more so than making smores at Mt. Doom) [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] is that the Mouth of Sauron embarked on a new career in real estate, telemarketing to the folk of Gondor to get them to buy beachfront lots at the Sea of Nurnen, maybe giving out lifesize Olog-Hai lawn ornaments (stone!) and the Nine Rings as promotional prizes.

More seriously, probably nobody would want to live in Mordor for a few centuries. Aragorn tells Faramir after making him Prince of Ithilien to live in the Emyn Arnen, rather than Minas Ithil-Morgul because it will be some time before it is cleansed. Mordor did remain desolate throughout the entire 3rd Age, but that was partly because Sauron's spirit was still around.

I think that over a long period of time, vegetation would start to grow there. I'm not sure if it would look nice but I think that no one would want to live there so it would become like Arnor and like Carn Dum and Angmar and most likley, it would be like the barrow downs. No one would live there and it would seem erie and strange.

But that's just what I think.

Tolkien said in his letters that middle-earth is a earth in a mythic prehistory. The Sea of Nuren and The River Anduin flood, Modor becomes the Black Sea and Minas Tirith becomes Byzantium.

Well, Gorgoroth probably stayed really uninhabitable, smelly, and dark.

Nurn, on the other hand, had to be a bit fertile. Elessar gave Nurn to the slaves in Mordor, and I don't think he would've given land similar to Gorgoroth to a group of recently freed slaves. I expect that Nurn was (since it was on the inland sea) comparable to Lebennin (of course not as fertile, since it borders Gorgoroth, but comparable. Or maybe to Egypt on the Nile).

I doubt that Morgul Vale healed for a long time, but that it did eventually. The Elves moved in to Ithilien, and they do wonders on formerly-foul lands (South Mirkwood/East Lórien, anyone?).

Gorgoroth never would be redeemed...it's like Ard-galen after the Battle of Sudden Flame.

Here's a question that goes hand and hand with the original:

How long would it take to get Mordor back to greenery (if possible) such as grass and trees?

Burzdol

Back? Did it change?

It's geography suggests that Gorgoroth was pretty arid to begin with. It was a plateau, meaning that water from the Sea of Núrnen couldn't get there, and Ephel Dúath and Ered Lithui must've done a great job stopping rain from coming from the Sea of Rhûn or Ethir Anduin.

By the maps, we know that Gorgoroth had no major rivers flowing through it, although Nurn had four. As I said before, Nurn probable was fairly fertile. I don't think that pure evil transformed Nurn, so it didn't need to "get back" to being green.

Well after Orodruin's titanic eruption at the end of it's existence, I imagine the Nurnians had enoguh fertile land (volcanic ash) to last a very long time. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

During most of the Third Age Sauron wasn't in Mordor, true, yet it remained evil and horrible. Reason for thsi would be the things living in it. Spiders. Orks. Nazgul which pop in and out. Worse things. Enough to curdle the land's "blood".

But in the Third Age...Nurn we can assume would be fine. Most of S' servants and slaves would be destroyed. His allies, such as the Easterlings, wouldn't be able to make Mordor a nasty place, because they're (a) miles away (b) not actual monsters with "monster powers", like the Nazgul.
Furthermore, we've seen how Sauron can control the very land and weather of Mordor (Dawnless Day, Boromir's mention oif follore that Saruon can control storms on ountains (mayube true, maybe false, maybe exaggerated, but the Dawnless Day shows he can manipulate/control Doom's fumes at least). Sauron seems to have a link to Mount Doom (unsurprising, as it's the one place the Ring can be destoryed, and where it was forged) - when he is angry, it erupts. I think it's safe to assume that his evil personality caused the smoke to cover Mordor in darkness and make the air foul. So when he's gone, these fumes and darkness would go too.

Of course, the landscape of Nurn would probably remian tortured for many lives of men, but eventually would heal - to some kind of Israel/Lebbannon-like state - dry, very dry, but fertile and liveable.

Liek aragorn says, Morgul will eventually heal...but not for a long time. It's the city of the Ringwariths, so one of the worst places in Mordor. So the same porbably applies to Gorgoroth - as Manwe said, "it's like Ard-galen after the Battle of Sudden Flame," but I think that...eventually...it would heal. Like Frodo says, "they cannot conquer forever!"


Of course, the Mountains of Shadow, with their spiders, could remain dangerous for a very long time. But nurn at least could turn out ok.

Mind you, if I was a fred slave, I'd go home rather than staying in dusty old Nurn. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Olorin, I'm sure the dawnless day was merely the result of Sauron causing Mt. Doom to erupt, ie the smoke from it blocked the sun.
To whoever said that they thought Mt. Doom wa constantly erupting - it's not. I recall somebody saying something along the lines of: the mountain of fire has woken again, implying that it was dormant for a period before that.
Olorin, enjoy being dead! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Thanks! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I think what they may have meant is during the War of the Ring, when it erupted quite a lot, especially at the end of each movie. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

While I agree that Orodruin would have caused (or been the major source of (nasty goings on in Orc pits could have been spewing some of this stuff out too) ) the clouds that caused the Dawnless Day, I also think that...well, just the way they act, spreading so far and over hsi enemies must mean that Sauron controlled or manipulated the Cloud. After all, Melkor did a similar thing with the Evil Breath, and the Balrogs can control shadow, which for a mair like Sauron I'd imagine may be easier than controlling cloud (but then again - I'm not a mair. Yet. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ). Also, note the timing - perfectly coinciding with the assaults on Gondor.
But the passage I think that most supports this is either at the end of "The Siege of Gondor" or the beginning of "The Battle of Pellenor Fileds", where it says that the darkness was breaking too soon, before the date his [the Witch-King's] master had set for it, which indicates that Sauron was, to an extent, in control. Not enough of an extent to avoid Aragorn's fresh wind, but then again, maybe that wasn't the cause - the whole dark and light theme is very...thematic...and ancient, and the fact that the Rohirrim charge to the rescue, and Aragorn and the Dead Men are coming, in other words, the tables are turning on Sauron, could be manifested in a very literal triumph of lgith over darkness.

So just to kind of tack onto the end of both this and my previous post in this thread, I think that the land and weather seem as much affected by the presence of mythical (orks, nazgul, etc) evil and mythical (heroic) good forces as they do of "real" factors. The Third Age is, after all, the end of the "Faerie" days of Middle-earth - the last Mythical evil (Tolkien's own words) has been defeated, the Elves have crossed, Valinor and all the valar and maiar, good and bad, are unreachable, and so these Mythic effects of the pwoerful forces of pure good and evil (almost symbolism) are in there last days too - but still there.

[ June 03, 2003: Message edited by: Olorin_TLA ]

In LotR, it is said that the earth and soil of Mordor as a whole cannot be healed of its corruption unless the waters of the Great Sea itself sweep over it and cleanse it.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 3:17 PM January 12, 2004: Message edited by: Lord of Angmar ]

Two miles from my home is an area of woodland called Hollywood. It has the appearence of an ancient wood, but it is not.
For eight hundred years it was an area of coal and iron ore mining and iron smelting. The land was abandoned and the buildings torn down early in the twentieth century and without any human intervention it has grown into a mature wood. The only things that hint at its poluted industrial past are the uneven shape of the ground and several very deep pools formed from flooded mine shafts.

Hollywood was once a land of mine spoil tips and foundry slag heaps. The polution of Gorgoroth would have been worse but it had the advantage of volcanic ash to form fertile soil.
Plants grow quickly in my rather damp homeland, England. Mordor was much drier but not entirely without water and plant life, as Frodo and Sam found after they escaped from Cirith Ungol.

I suspect that, once Sauron's evil influence had been removed, drought-resistant plants would begin to colonise Gorgoroth very quickly. With very little help from Men or Elves, the high plateau around the volcano could become upland pasture where the people of Nurn could graze their goats in a few hundred years.

[ June 05, 2003: Message edited by: Selmo ]

Hello Selmo, nice to see another English-speaker on the net! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] (So that makes 3 Hollywood's I've heard of now...one in/next to Belfast, one in Staffordshire, and one in California. Cool.)

That's a very nice story, and one that's very applicable to Mordor. Reminds me of when I was in France and Belgium, looking around trecnhes of World War one such as Vimy Ridge and others, and a giant crater caused at the start of the Battle of the Somme, and just comparing all the green, grass-filled, serene countryside in my mid with the images in the museums of the enitre landscape torn up and drowning in mud.

But as Lord of Angmar said:

"In LotR, it is said that the earth and soil Mordon as a whole cannot be healed of its corruption unless the waters of the Great Sea itself sweep over it and cleanse it."

Aragorn said that eventually even Morgul Vale would be cleansed. But perhaps in those regions most affected by Sauron, most tortured by him, like where Barad-dru stood, only the Healing of the World (long overdue) could heal it?

I think mordor might be a cool place to live. Its perfect for getting away and being alone.

Just going on science, and i believe this could be applicable to Mordor, there is something called Primary and Secondary succession which is the return of plants and soil to an area devastated by a natural disaster. I think it would be evil for some time but eventually creatures and plants from Ithilien would make their way into Mordor.