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#1 |
Spirit of Mist
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Tol Eressea
Posts: 3,393
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The characterization that the plague was carried "on the wind" is a typical archaic reference. The recognition of means of transmission is a modern discovery. I have seen the Spanish Flu from 1918 characterized in period pieces as black clouds and smog. Tolkien would not attempt to incorporate concepts such as aerosol transmission into his mythos; they would be out of place.
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Beleriand, Beleriand, the borders of the Elven-land. |
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#2 | |
Gruesome Spectre
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: Heaven's doorstep
Posts: 8,039
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To me the mystery is whether the illness was a physical malady or something spiritual. If the former, there must have been some means of spreading the affliction to the right people. If the latter, how would it be communicated from one victim to the next?
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Music alone proves the existence of God. |
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#3 | ||||
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Ensconced in curmudgeonly pursuits
Posts: 2,515
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And your little sister's immaculate virginity wings away on the bony shoulders of a young horse named George who stole surreptitiously into her geography revision. Last edited by Morthoron; 03-21-2020 at 07:18 PM. |
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#4 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: The realm of forgotten words
Posts: 10,480
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If the malady was spiritual (akin to the Black Breath, the depression-which-kills-directly, or something similar), it would not even need a contagion for transmission. If Sauron poisoned Gondor's population by taking away their will to fight for life as the Nazgul did, would it have required any physical means or vector? I would imagine that version as more of a changing of moods like the changing of weather: something that hovers over everyone at once, with some people perhaps being a bit more affected than others. Like rainfall. Or electromagnetic radiation. Or something else that directly affects the population at large. If that was so, though, I do wonder whether Gondor's famous healers would have used words like "plague" for something that was not infectious. And how well they would be able to differentiate infectious versus the "curse from above" scenario. This is again an offshoot of my old vision of the plague as a physical explosion of Sauron's malice in the form of pathetic fallacy. But whether a physical infection or a spiritual malady - I might even prefer the latter, but wouldn't bet against the former.
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You passed from under darkened dome, you enter now the secret land. - Take me to Finrod's fabled home!... ~ Finrod: The Rock Opera |
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#5 | |
Loremaster of Annúminas
Join Date: Oct 2006
Posts: 2,330
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it. |
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