The Dead and The Undead

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

To add a bit to this discussion, I am linking an old thread (which, in turn, links another even older one) that touches upon some of these issues. I certainly am not doing this to discourage discussion, but rather to add more ammunition.

http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthr...ght=necromancy

Reading over the Necromancy thread, I was struck by William Cloud Hicklin speculating that at one point, Tolkien might have considered werewolves and vampires to be the spirits of the dead forced by Sauron into the bodies of animals, and presumably bound fast to his will. It's not a well-supported idea, but "Sauron the Chainer of Souls" would account for basically all of the "Undead".

• The Barrow-wights are souls pushed into human bodies other than their own.
• Werewolves and vampires, if they even count, would be human/elvish souls stuffed into wolves and giant bats.
• The Silent Watchers would be bound in stone - easy enough for Sauron, who had already stuffed part of his own spirit into a Ring.
• The Nazgul are bound in the remnants of their own bodies, and possibly even more under Sauron's control for it.
• The Dead Marshes are literally just spirits trapped in the water.
• The Ghosts of Cardolan are probably the same - the souls of the dead, 'sleeping' where they fell.
• Eilinel too? She's called a "phantom devised by wizardry", but that doesn't mean she can't have been the 'sleeping' spectre (= ghost = phantom) of the real woman.
• The Dead of Dunharrow... it would be really dumb of Sauron not to put "and your souls belong to me when you die" into his religion. The men of the Mountains had abrogated their right to pass from the world, but Sauron was defeated and unable to claim them; they had to stay where they were until either the Dark Lord rose to full power, or they fulfilled the conditions laid on them by Iluvatar's chief priest - Isildur, as High King - to reclaim their rightful fate.

There's a clear distinction between spirits which are actively doing Sauron's will (the Wights, the Nazgul) and those which are just 'sleeping' (the ghosts of the Marshes and Cardolan). Speculatively, the difference might be that the active set chose to serve Sauron after death, whereas the 'sleepers' were ensnared, by dying somewhere that was under his power. The Dead of Dunharrow would come somewhere in the middle - they're there willingly, so have an active 'fear' effect, but also have a way out provided to them by Isildur, so aren't utterly dominated slaves. Gorlim, too - he obeyed Sauron but repented, so while he may have been trapped, he wasn't (fully?) controlled. If we want a happy ending for Gorlim and Eilinel, we can assume that Sauron's 'sleeping' souls were released when Luthien broke his power.

Ar-Pharazon and his soldiers, I don't think are undead at all. Iluvatar can put His children into stasis-like sleep - he did it to the Fathers of the Dwarves for centuries! The Numenoreans are probably in the same state.

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Well, it could have simply been an old man, that is I believe the traditional reading is the face value interpretation. Some 2500 years pass from when Isildur cursed them and Baldor finds the door. Despite that I think the area was still populated by Pukel-men and the Men of Dunharrow were ancestors of the Dunlendings, who had been pushed into the White Mountains by the Numenoreans and then the Rohirrim.

(Edit: and actually the quote from The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor does suggest it was a living old-man, as the end suggests enemies snuck up from behind Baldor and broke his legs. Grim!)

An earlier draft specifically says the old man looked a lot like the Pukel-men statues, which strongly implies he wasn't one. I still wonder if he might have been a Wose, though, standing guard over the ancient evil.

I actually don't much like the 'snuck up behind and broke his legs' story: the text in LotR implies a supernatural explanation, with Baldor wasting away while hacking and scrabbling at the stone door under an overwhelming compulsion to get inside. The idea that he wandered in, got beat up, couldn't find the way out so just kept trying the door in front of him while he bled out is pretty dull by comparison.

But if it did happen, given the swords of the Dead have no bite, it seems to imply either the Men of the Mountains were still a viable population thousands of years after their cursing (presumably each one who died left another ghost?), or that someone - the Woses? - was really determined that nobody be allowed to unlock their secrets.

Or, zombies. But I feel like that might have come up while Gimli was going on about them just being spooky ghosts.

hS

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Huinesoron

Ar-Pharazon and his soldiers, I don't think are undead at all. Iluvatar can put His children into stasis-like sleep - he did it to the Fathers of the Dwarves for centuries! The Numenoreans are probably in the same state.

But if they are peacefully asleep, doesn't it defeat the point of the punishment? They have to be conscious in order for it to count, so that they can feel just how weary they are and regret their choices. You can't do that asleep. And I equally don't believe the Fathers of the Dwarves were conscious during their long sleep, that would be cruel to them. No peaceful nap for Ar Phar. Sleep paralysis - maybe.

Originally Posted by Hui

I actually don't much like the 'snuck up behind and broke his legs' story: the text in LotR implies a supernatural explanation, with Baldor wasting away while hacking and scrabbling at the stone door under an overwhelming compulsion to get inside. The idea that he wandered in, got beat up, couldn't find the way out so just kept trying the door in front of him while he bled out is pretty dull by comparison.

So I am also not a fan of real living people being the cause of Baldor's desperation and death. Whatever happened, I prefer that it happened by the power that the dead have over the living. Baldor could easily have broken his own legs if he was recklessly fleeing a nameless fear in complete darkness in the caves.

But by the same token, one of the ideas I've entertained for a while is that we don't even know if he was under an overwhelming compulsion to get in, or get out. Aragorn assumes he was going in, because he's standing there with a torch and a sense of direction. But it's equally possible that Baldor, driven half to madness and losing his way in the dark for however long, was desperate to get out of the caves and could not find the way back. Or, if not get out, then possibly get away, hide, run. All of these are well in the power of the dead spirits. We assume he was after what's behind the door, but we don't know what motivation drove him so intensely to hack at the stone as his strength failed.

Do we know the contents of Baldor's vow? ROTK only says "a rash vow he spoke". If the vow was just to enter the passage, it was fulfilled, he had no reason to seek anything beyond for the vow's sake. If it was to discover the secrets of the place - perhaps, but how strong would it's force be against the dead? And besides, surely there are other places to discover secrets except for this locked door, there's no reason to die scratching at it fruitlessly when there are other options around that would fulfil the vow. So I don't think Baldor stayed there by his own choice, at least; it was not likely his vow that kept him at it.

[Boromir88]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

In regards to the Dead Marshes, of course Tolkien was referring to his horrid experience in WWI seeing dead bloated soldiers staring lifelessly as they bobbed up from the murky water at the bottom of bomb craters and foxholes: "the Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme."

Hey good to still see you around Morthoron. I know nothing about William Morris, so I can't add anything to that piece of information. I am familiar with the connection Tolkien makes between the Dead Marshes and Northern France. I believe in the letter he briefly writes the plot doesn't represent the World Wars, but perhaps the landscape did.

Which is the interpretation that made the most sense to me, because I think the descriptions of the landscape through the entire story are perhaps the most fascinating. The land has a "character" of its own, influenced by the people (or unknown things) who lived there. As Gandalf says to the Fellowship going through Hollin:

"I think we will rest here, not only today but tonight as well. There is a wholesome air about Hollin. Much evil must befall a country before it wholly forgets the Elves, if once they dwelt there."~The Ring Goes South

Then Legolas feels out of place, because it was a land inhabited by Celebrimbor and his followers. The Noldor had a better relationship with dwarves, so the land takes on the character of their inhabitants:

"That is true," said Legolas. "But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them. Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago."~ibid

So, we have the land of Hollin holding on faintly to the memory of its Noldor inhabitants, but it is only in the stones.

Perhaps the Dead Marshes are actually trapped spirits of those killed in the battle from the 2nd Age. It's a topic I'm not at all familiar with besides some basic understanding. Could they be something like a "memory imprint" on the land? Similar to Hollin, where the memory of the Noldor still resides in the stones?

Huey and G55, I agree that the quote from The Rivers and Beacon-hills of Gondor does remove a lot of the interest in the "legend" of Baldor's disappearance. Of course the Grey Company come across his remains, but the legend of what exactly happened to him remained. In any case, the essay still has yet to be published in full, so I think the full context could still be missing. It certainly has me even more excited about the new Tolkien book.

Regarding Ar-Pharazon and the Numenoreans, again what happens to the fëar after dead is something not at all in my wheelhouse. I'm hoping when I read The Silmarillion again I will remember more, but until then I differ to other members.

I wonder if understanding the Ringwraiths will shed some light on the Numenoreans who rebelled against the Valar? I don't think it would be the same extent as the Ringwraiths, but it might give some ideas.

In Letter 246, there is the note the Witch-King had been "reduced to impotence" after his body was slain by Merry and Eowyn.

The importance of Merry's blade is re-iterated in a few places. A blade enchanted with spells, specifically designed to be the "bane of Mordor." And the quote from the Lord of the Rings proper:

No other blade, not though mightier hands had wielded it, would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter, cleaving the undead flesh, breaking the spell that knit his unseen sinews to his will.~Battle of Pelennor Fields

So the Witch-King's undead body was destroyed, "reduced to impotence" to me suggest that as a spirit the Witch-King was completely helpless and powerless. They required a body to have any power in the living world. This makes them different from the Oath-breakers in the fact that we know the Oath-breakers were not powerless, even though they could not interact with physical objects. The Ringwraiths, without a body were "impotent.” However, as Gandalf points out in Rivendell, at the Fords of Bruinen, the best hope is their mounts were killed, because the Ringwraiths would not have been killed in the flood.

I believe though, the Ringwraiths spirits were binded to Sauron, or perhaps to their 9 Rings which Sauron held? I remember in my thread about the Ringwraiths, coming across the fascinating quote in Unfinished Tales: Hunt for the Ring, that Sauron issued "threats that even filled the Morgul lord with dismay." This would imply:

1. G55's hilarious point in the thread that Sauron has anger management problems
2. That Sauron, since he held the 9 rings, and was in control of the Nine's fëar, he could inflict some kind of spiritual pain/torment upon them. Otherwise, I don't know what physical threat could have "dismayed" the Witch-King?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Hey good to still see you around Morthoron. I know nothing about William Morris, so I can't add anything to that piece of information. I am familiar with the connection Tolkien makes between the Dead Marshes and Northern France. I believe in the letter he briefly writes the plot doesn't represent the World Wars, but perhaps the landscape did.

Which is the interpretation that made the most sense to me, because I think the descriptions of the landscape through the entire story are perhaps the most fascinating. The land has a "character" of its own, influenced by the people (or unknown things) who lived there. As Gandalf says to the Fellowship going through Hollin:

Then Legolas feels out of place, because it was a land inhabited by Celebrimbor and his followers. The Noldor had a better relationship with dwarves, so the land takes on the character of their inhabitants:

So, we have the land of Hollin holding on faintly to the memory of its Noldor inhabitants, but it is only in the stones.

Perhaps the Dead Marshes are actually trapped spirits of those killed in the battle from the 2nd Age. It's a topic I'm not at all familiar with besides some basic understanding. Could they be something like a "memory imprint" on the land? Similar to Hollin, where the memory of the Noldor still resides in the stones?

Hello Boro:

I think the issue with the Dead Marshes is that it's not merely the land retaining remnants and vague recollections of previous inhabitants, like Hollin, for instance.

Frodo was able to determine the fallen warriors' identities: "They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair."

Yet he adds the further descriptor: "But all foul, all rotting, all dead. A fell light is in them."

So, something evil and seductive draws Frodo to the pools; however, there are clearly faces of dead Elves among the fallen looking up at him. And Frodo refers to them directly: "Many faces proud and fair, and weeds in their silver hair."

"Silver hair" would indicate Telerin, or more precisely Sindarin Elves. One would assume that the fëar of these Elves would have been called to the Halls of Mandos after they died in battle. I'm not sure how they would become dispossessed spirits enthralled by Sauron when these Elves died during the War of the Last Alliance, in which Sauron himself was defeated. The Dead Marshes came to claim the graves of the fallen warriors over time -- hundreds or thousands of years?

So, when did this "fell light" consume these fallen warriors and reveal their visages after so many centuries? Tolkien never explained.