Helm's Deep Query

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

That said, Tolkien was not a fan of modern technology, & probably did not want such things included in his Legendarium. Of course, he toys with the idea of technological advancement among the Numenoreans - their 'flying ships' for example - but I think he decides against it for aesthetic reasons - he didn't want guns & aircraft in his secondary world anymore than he wanted them in the primary one.

There is also the sense that ancient weapons such as axes, swords, arrows (and all the other even less savoury ones) are more heroic. Guns, aircraft, cannon, missiles all remove the soldier from battle to some extent, the latter far more than the first named weapon, of course. When the soldier does not even need to see the face of his enemy--the whites of his eyes--the nature of warfare changes. It no longer pits one soldier against his enemy, so that both are at risk, where the outcome depends upon the physical prowess and "moral fibre" of the combatants.

I think for this reason it is possible to idealise the old warrior epics as heroic battles where the outcome was determined by the courage and heroism of the combatants rather than by the machinery of their weaponry. There's something inherently unheroic and even questionable where one can kill with the push of a button without risking oneself at all, save for the possibility of carpal tunnel syndrome developing.

It is the mano e mano fighting aspect which Tolkien's view of war commemorates.