What happened to Mordor?

[The Sixth Wizard]

I always pictured Nurn like the swamps in Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. I'll try to find a screenshot.

http://i.pbase.com/u48/morsla/upload...owindswamp.jpg

Nurn would be sort of gloomy even in the daytime, scattered with ramshackle huts and peopled by a broken race, who endlessly till the poor but boundless fields and farm the strange animals...

[Groin Redbeard]

The book was called Tales from the Shadows by Braden Burgess. I don't consider it to be reliable material that is approved of by Tolkien, but I thought that it might hold just a grain of truth.

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

Nurn would be sort of gloomy even in the daytime, scattered with ramshackle huts and peopled by a broken race, who endlessly till the poor but boundless fields and farm the strange animals...

I pictured Nurn to be the most hospitable place in all of Mordor. Since Sauron's slaves farmed the area the soil would have to be rich and not thorny or rocky like the plains of Gorgoroth. After all, King Ellessar gave the lands to Sauron's slaves after the downfall of the dark tower so I'm sure there would have been sunlight and fruitful plains for people to make a living.

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Groin Redbeard

The book was called Tales from the Shadows by Braden Burgess. I don't consider it to be reliable material that is approved of by Tolkien, but I thought that it might hold just a grain of truth.

Hmmm...I've never heard of Braden Burgess. So I looked up Braden Burgess on Google, and then I looked up Burgess Braden, and it seems Google has never heard of him either. This...book...who is the publisher? How did Mr. Burgess get by Tolkien Enterprises and/or the Tolkien Family Trust to write a fictional account of Middle-earth, which would clearly be copyright infringement (and it would seem more fan-fic than anything canonical)?

[The Might]

To Groin:
That is 100% fan-made stuff.

Nice idea from the fans, but still, not Tolkien.

[Groin Redbeard]

Originally Posted by The Might

To Groin:
That is 100% fan-made stuff.

Nice idea from the fans, but still, not Tolkien.

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Originally Posted by zxcvbn
No, Gondor wasn't a colonial power.

Actually, Gondor, and later the Rohirrim, were essentially
colonial powers in Rohan, chasing out the Dunlendings-
which is why that folk helped Saruman.

From Robert Foster's the cpmplete guide to Middle-Earth:

In the Third Age they hated the Rohirrim, who
had driven them out of the northern valleys of the Ered
Nimrais and the plains of western Rohan, and so they
frequently attacked that country.

I must say I've always been not unsympathetic to the
Dunlendings plight, reminiscent of North American and
Australian native peoples (but without the virtual genocide
conducted in those regions).

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Tuor in Gondolin

Actually, Gondor, and later the Rohirrim, were essentially
colonial powers in Rohan, chasing out the Dunlendings-
which is why that folk helped Saruman.

I'm not certain 'colonizers' would be the best classification for Rohan, and more specifically, Gondor. Gondor seemed to me to be more of a feudal Imperial power, receiving vassalage from the Rohirrim (who were originally colonists of Gondor, so to speak). In addition, they received tribute from various client nations (like Harad), and various lords had jurisdiction over pieces and parts of the realm (Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, Faramir, Prince of Ithilien, etc.).

As I said, Rohan was originally a colony of Gondor, rather like when the English exported Scots Protestants to Northern Ireland, but they were autonomous. Perhaps a better analogy would be when the Roman Emperor gave the Goths an area already abandoned by the Romans to be their homeland (the Gondorions in effect gave Rohan land they could no longer control).