Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivriniel
*grins*
Good, lateral thinking. I'm not sure what tool of Will would be needed to negotiate with such a thing and it was a 'watchman' wasn't it. Rather careful about the Durin Doors remaining closed, and rather bent on keeping them closed. It pulled the trees growing to either side of the door down, to ensure the doors were closed. Implies sentience. Further, not of evil origin. Why would an evil watcher want good things *not* to go into Moria where there was a Balrog.
It seems to me, the watcher, being all 'wet' in water really didn't like beings of Shadow and Fire, and had an, erm, anti-Balrog disposition  .
Cheers
Ivriniel |
The best answer I can gives as to "why" is that, since we really aren't told all that much about the watcher's orgins, we really do not know much about his motivations. If, as you suggest the reason he came out was simply to prevent "good" people from going into Moria, why he try and grab Frodo in the first place? He could have simply used his tentacle to slam the door shut before they got in. Unless you want to think the watcher is SO perceptive he senses the ring on frodo, and is afraid that, should the party get in, the Balrog might get it and put it on.
My guess is that the watcher, in as much as it want's anything, doesn't want ANYONE going in or out of the doors, good or evil, for simple fear. He may or may not sense the Balrog in there, but, assuming he has been there long enough to have seen Moria when the Dwarves and the Orcs were battling for it and been worried about what might happen should the door get open permanantly and there be hordes of Orcs moving in and out of it. Orcs being as orcs are, I imagine they aren't particulary good about keeping bodies of water near them clean (well, clean by the standards of a water dweller, let's just say "unbefouled" and if they knew the watcher was there, they might look at him as basically several tons of
ika/takosashimi. The watcher is an ambush predator, we don't know how well he would fair against a batallion of hungry Orcs with sharp axes who already knew he was there.
That also would be why he would take care of the trees, even if it was counterintuative (if the trees cover the door, it would be a lot harder to find, and the trees might make it so the door couldn't be opened, even if you did know the password.) There is a risk of the tree roots breaking the stone and wrenching the doors open.
But if you are right, and the Watcher is actually a Watchman for the Dwarves, something put by Durin in the lake to keep and eye on them, then the convincing job becomes even easier. There no NEED for the doors to be watched anymore, at least soon after the end of the ring. The Balrog is gone, the Orcs dead or driven out. Moria is back in the hands of the Dwarves, the rightful rulers. There are presumably Dwarven guards on Durin's doors so they can be used by other dwarves. In short either the Watcher's job is done (if he is an independent) or if he is some how employed/enthralled/enobligated to the ruler of Moria, then the Ruler of Moria could ask or tell him to leave his post to do this job, then return. If you are right and the Osgiliath stone is still in the Anduin, the job for him would be pretty easy; he'd be done and back in a year or two (in open water, Octopi and squids are pretty fast swimmers. Well, squids are, but octopi aren't all that slow either.)