[davem]

I was struck by what may seem at first a throwaway line:

Men said that in the far-off days of the glory of Gondor the sea-kings had built here this fastness with the hands of giants.

This is reminiscent of the opening lines from the Anglo Saxon poem 'The Ruin':

The city buildings fell apart, the works
Of giants crumble. Tumbled are the towers
Ruined the roofs, and broken the barred gate,
Frost in the plaster, all the ceilings gape,
Torn and collapsed and eaten up by age.
And grit holds in its grip, the hard embrace
Of earth, the dead-departed master-builders,
Until a hundred generations now
Of people have passed by. Often this wall
Stained red and grey with lichen has stood by
Surviving storms while kingdoms rose and fell.
And now the high curved wall itself has fallen.

The heart inspired, incited to swift action.
Resolute masons, skilled in rounded building
Wondrously linked the framework with iron bonds.
The public halls were bright, with lofty gables,
Bath-houses many; great the cheerful noise,
And many mead-halls filled with human pleasures.
Till mighty fate brought change upon it all.
Slaughter was widespread, pestilence was rife,
And death took all those valiant men away.
The martial halls became deserted places,
The cities crumbled, its repairers fell,
Its armies to the earth. And so these halls
Are empty, and this red curved roof now sheds
Its tiles, decay has brought it to the ground,
Smashed it to piles of rubble, where long since
A host of heroes, glorious, gold-adorned,
Gleaming in splendour, proud and flushed with wine,
Shone in their armour, gazed on gems and treasure,
On silver, riches, wealth and jewellery,
On this bright city with its wide domains.
Stone buildings stood, and the hot streams cast forth
Wide sprays of water, which a wall enclosed
In its bright compass, where convenient
Stood hot baths ready for them at the centre.
Hot streams poured forth over the clear grey stone,
To the round pool and down into the baths.

This is so close in mood to this section of LotR. the Numenoreans built Helm's Deep 'with the Hands of Giants', & as with the Romans of the poem their works have crumbled. Helm's Deep had fallen into disrepair & has had to be rebuilt:

There in the Hornburg at Helm's Gate Erkenbrand, master of Westfold on the borders of the Mark, now dwelt. As the days darkened with threat of war, being wise, he had repaired the wall and made the fastness strong.

The Gondorians may be the last remnant of the people of Numenor but they & their works have begun to crumble, & it is left to their 'inheritors', the men of Rohan, to repair what they had made & make it strong. The glory of Gondor may flourish under Aragorn's rule, but the Gondorians will eventually pass away, like the Romans, leaving only memories & song.

Then we have the 'fire of Orthanc'. This is gunpowder, obviously. It is the source of Gandalf's fireworks, but turned to destruction. Effectively what we see is 'Art' turned into the Machine. Fireworks are ephemeral, they burst in light & noise & then pass into nothing. Saruman's 'blasting fire' is designed to desroy, to reshape the world. It blasts even the works of the 'giants' into nothingness. This is the beginning of the modern world, or of modern warfare - if they aren't the same thing. (Well, that's not strictly true, I suppose, not if we accept the early 'Fall of Gondolin', where 'tanks' are employed by Morgoth.) This is an intrusion of the 'primary world' into the 'secondary world'. The 'blasting fires' of WW1 have intruded into Middle earth.

In so many ways Saruman embodies the ‘modern world’. He is responsible for bombs & factories, deforestation, genetic engineering & double-think. He is a ‘man’ born outside his time. He belongs in the primary world of the 20th century, not in the secondary world of Middle earth.

The peoples of Middle earth mayl win out over Saruman the wizard, but what he represents will in the end win out over Middle earth. He will ultimately win out over Sauron himself. Sauron is a Mythological figure, & belongs in Middle earth. Saruman is all too ‘real’, in a sense all too mundane,in his attitudes & behaviour. The glory of the Dark Ages is at an end, & that end is shown here taking root in the mythological world. The orcs may be slaughered in their thousands, but they keep on coming. Legolas & Gimli hack them down & crow about their achievement, but the orcs keep on coming. The trees may tear them limb from limb but the victory will be short lived. Helm’s Deep is a victory, but it is merely a respite in the ‘long defeat’.

The hosts of Isengard roared, swaying this way and that, turning from fear to fear. Again the horn sounded from the tower. Down through the breach of the Dike charged the king's company. Down from the hills leaped Erkenbrand, lord of Westfold. Down leaped Shadowfax, like a deer that runs surefooted in the mountains. The White Rider was upon them, and the terror of his coming filled the enemy with madness. The wild men fell on their faces before him. The Orcs reeled and screamed and cast aside both sword and spear. Like a black smoke driven by a mounting wind they fled. Wailing they passed under the waiting shadow of the trees; and from that shadow none ever came again.

Well, yes, maybe, & that’s all very well, but this victory too shall pass & the White Light will be broken & the White Page overwritten. Helm’s Deep is a little victory, of Light over Darkness, of White over Black, of Art over the Machine. Yet the defeat of the forces of darkness here will bring a dawn that will soon be obliterated in the clouds wreathed by Sauron.