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#1 | ||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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Back to reality, the possibility of taking some secret pass through the mountains seems logical, but I still can't help to doubt that Gandalf had known Mordor so well that he could come up with such a way, and as I said before, he couldn't have known if Sauron did not close that road since reocuppying Mordor (because if Gandalf even was at the borders of Mordor, I hardly believe that he did this when the Dark Lord was back there again). I remember Gandalf saying that "he visited only the older and lesser hold of the Enemy", Dol Guldur - and Aragorn seemed rather unnerved just from wandering the valley of Morgul and near the Black Gate, I doubt Gandalf ever did much more. Maybe that idea of Orc disguise is not as bad - after all, it is a typical "heroic" way to get into the land of enemy (Beren, Finrod, Lúthien) and Frodo himself uses it in the end. I can imagine Gandalf metamorphing into a werewolf, Aragorn and Boromir masking as Uruk or Easterling warriors, Gimli as a strong Orc warrior, the hobbits becoming simple snagas (Phrodosh, Sham, Moriadog and Püpphan), and Legolas taking on a form of shadow-covered creature of dark. Then they go right through the Black Gate and straight to Mount Doom, where the last events take place. This is the best idea I can come up with at the moment.
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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#2 |
Guard of the Citadel
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Oxon
Posts: 2,205
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I especially liked Sham
![]() There is however one person in the Fellowship who might have known a way - Aragorn. He himself went on the Morgul road, and he had been on journeys very far away, even all the way South to Harad, "where the stars are strange". Clearly it was far away,since he seems to have passed in the Southern Hemisphere. If he had traveled so far it might be that he had discovered some other way to enter Mordor, either from North Ithilien, South Ithilien or from South of the Mountains. Of course all this is speculation, but it would make sense.
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“The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.”
Delos B. McKown |
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#3 |
Fading Fëanorion
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: into the flood again
Posts: 2,911
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I don't think there was another way to pass the Ephel Dúath. Frodo and Sam tried to cross the smaller Morgai, but couldn't find a possible way. If it was impossible to pass the Morgai, it must have been at least as impossible to cross the Ephel Dúath. 'Ephel' even means 'fence', and I'm sure those mountains didn't carry that name for no reason. I imagine them like an evil (miniature-) counterpart of the (almost) unpassable Pelóri. I doubt there was a different feasible road but the Black Gate and the Morgul Road/Cirith Ungol. The Ered Lithui sound a bit nicer, but not really that much.
A similar question just popped up in my mind: Why did the fellowship try to pass the Misty Mountains by the pass of Caradhras? I mean, the Misty Mountains are an incredibly long mountain range, so it is quite hard to imagine there was no other pass south of Rivendell, preferably crossing a mountain with a more trustworthy reputation. PS: What about Fladnag and Odorf? And wouldn't it have been an incredible showdown for Gandalf and the Witch-King if they would have done a magic song contest at the Black Gate like Finrod and Sauron used to? He hissed a song of wizardry... ![]() |
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#4 | |
Guard of the Citadel
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Oxon
Posts: 2,205
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The Misty Mountains are a different story, because of the snow and their height, they were harder to pass. And I think Gandalf wanted to go to Lorien before going further, so Caradhras was the shortest way except Moria perhaps, but we all know what Moria meant.
Now, it is quite clear that not all parts of the Ephel Duath were impassable. When the Host of the West refuses the terms named by the Mouth of Sauron we see Sauron's trap: Quote:
And as far as the Morgai are concerned...it was not impossible. We see them coming to a ravine formed by the small water they encountered, so there clearly were ways of getting down. But they had other, more important reasons to keep going north. They knew they were being looked for after the incident at the gate with the watchers, so the only way was to keep going. And in some cases it would have been no use to attempt such a feat, since Orcs had raised their camps just below the slopes, and they would have noticed Frodo and Sam.
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“The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.”
Delos B. McKown |
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#5 | |||||
A Voice That Gainsayeth
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: In that far land beyond the Sea
Posts: 7,431
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And the Mountains of Shadow? I think it was more or less the same, and thinking about what you posted brings me again to conclusion that even Gandalf or Aragorn could not have had other options to cross the mountains of Mordor, even if they have known of some passage, they wouldn't risk passing it. There were no scouts who could explore the passes of Mordor, and Gandalf&Aragorn wouldn't know if a band of Orcs had not built a tower right at the end of the pass they wanted to use. So I think now it's finally clear that whatever way the Fellowship wanted to use, Ephel Dúath or Ered Lithui would not be the option even if there were million passes in them.
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"Should the story say 'he ate bread,' the dramatic producer can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general and picture it in some form of his own." -On Fairy-Stories |
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