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Old 07-20-2016, 07:17 AM   #30
denethorthefirst
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Well Marxism-Leninism and National-Socialism are political religions insofar as that they are structured and function very much like religions ... you have holy scriptures, a "church", a messias, a paradise that awaits after the worldly struggles, heretics, orthodoxy, etc. In that sense the blending of religion and politics in Mordor makes sense and could also be read as a critique of the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. Mordor is a totalitarian dictatorship: the "state" invades every space of the individual and there is no privacy or individualism left. Sauron is King and God for his subjects.

About the "modernity" of Mordor: its obvious that it has extensive infrastructure and industry. That would be necessary for the war effort and you would need an effective bureaucracy to manage and oversee the whole thing. I guess this class of bureaucrats would consist mostly of black Numenoreans and elite, long-living Orcs (orcs that have retained some elvish-blood or maybe even are descended from Boldogs) - the official language would be the black speech - there would probably be some kind of "privileged housing" and educational institutions to maintain that bureaucracy.
The Problem is that a lot of Mordor is left unexplained by Tolkien. For example: where do the Orcs live? Are there any large Cities? Is Barad-Dur itself a monstrous City-Complex (very like i.m.o.)? How extensive is the Industry? And how "magical" is Mordor?
I guess the decline that the People and Cultures of Arda experienced from the second to the third Age also affected Mordor (and Sauron), so there is probably a substantial difference between the Mordor of the Second and the Mordor of the Third Age. I always imagined the Mordor of the Second Age to be like a Dark Numenor, an almost futuristic Place, considering that Sauron was a pupil of Aule and probably very knowledgeable and interested in Technology (of course i am talking about the infrastructure and technology here, the life of the majority of orcs and men in Mordor was probably still of very low quality) - but during the Third Age, after the loss of a lot of his power, after giving up every pretense, i guess that the Mordor of the Third Age was a lot more "medieval", primitive and run down. Maybe because Sauron lacked the power to re-build the lost technology or maybe because he no longer deemed it necessary against his reduced enemies.
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