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Old 04-25-2014, 06:14 AM   #21
Alfirin
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 435
Alfirin has been trapped in the Barrow!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerwen View Post
Even in the movie, I doubt very much whether the Easterlings’ armour is meant to be *made* of gold.
Agreed. Gold is a lousy metal to make armor out of; it's very heavy and more importantly, very soft. It might be OK for "parade" (ceremonial or ornamental) armor, but no one with any sense would wear it as protection in actual combat. I can sort of imagine someone wearing gold PLATED armor,for ornament (though unless Harad has a LOT of gold, even that might be stretching things for any but the highest ranking officers.) I can even imagine a few useful effects of this. Since gold doesn't corrode such armor would never need to be polished and would be rust resistant (provided you remembered to patch and holes that weapons made in the plating). But under the plate, it would still be iron, steel or bronze with the reference in the book heavily suggesting bronze as the most likely option (actually the reference says "brazen" which would mean brass, but I've never heard of anyone making armor out of brass, so I think it possible that the plates were bronze and Sam misidentified).
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