LotR -- Book 4 - Chapter 08 - The Stairs of Cirith Ungol

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

If Mordor is a destroyed land, is Imlad Morgul a land in the process of being destroyed? In Mordor, evil is a given thing, it has totally taken over, to the point that is taken for granted.

Is the more active feeling of evil that I associate with Minas Morgul perhaps a sign that evil there has to be more active, because it has not yet totally subdued the land? Mordor seems to have been a less-than-attractive land even before Sauron set up shop, and he's had an age and a half to make it evil, whereas the Witchking has only been in Minas Morgul for a millennium or so. And perhaps there is more inherent resistance to evil in the "bones" of old Minas Ithil. We know that the land remembers the Elves long after they leave. Could a similar thing happen with the Numenorians?

This occurred to me too. My own thought in answer was that Mordor was under the domination of the 'machine' of Mount Doom, which used killing fire to destroy the land. In contrast, the Witch King's 'machine' is the evil coming from the negative spirit-realm that Frodo enters whenever he wears the Ring, and is therefore both more subtle and pervasive. It's as if the Un-life of the Witch King is infecting the life of the vale with a cancerous (for lack of a better analogy) substitute to real life.

I also think that length of time, as you've suggested, has a part to play.