noWizardme
Gondolin
Aug 5 2020, 4:02pm
Views: 2820
|
|
But a wizard is always right! ;)
|
|
|
"Ere long now," Gandalf was saying, "the Forest will grow somewhat more wholesome. The North will be freed from that horror for many long years, I hope." But a wizard is always right! (I'm not sure what that does for the reliability of a no-wizard.)  Aside from that though, I agree that Gandalf's prediction is probably our best guess as to what would change.
I wonder what 'somewhat more wholesome' would look and feel like to a traveler? I'm supposing Mirkwood would remain 'dark' in the everyday ecological sense - I imagine it as being like a dense pine wood or beech wood. So low light levels, little food to find, easy to get lost - not a place for an expedition that is inexperienced, under-prepared or just a bit unlucky (all things that seem to affect Thorin & Co aside from anything 'dark' as in Dark Lord related). On a practical level too, someone would need to repair the pathways and river crossings to give travelers an easier time than Bilbo had .
Woods and forests in Middle-earth can of course also be what you might call psychologically dark: seeming to have a strangeness, oppressiveness or malice beyond just being difficult and strange terrain and physically cut off from sunshine. Of course sometimes that is little or nothing to do with Sauron - in the Old Forest for example, Old Man Willow is the local troublemaker. But my guess is that Mirkwood growing more 'wholesomeness' would be something to do with the removal of those psychologically dark feelings.
Whether a survey of spider monsters and other problematic things would find fewer after Sauron's withdrawal, I don't know. At the Council of Elrond, Gandalf later tells us that Sauron only feigned to flee. My guess is that the deception there was in Sauron actually did withdraw influence and/or control, but did so as part of a grander plan (that is, he chose to appear to be weak enough to be forced out). But I do see that Gandalf could mean that Sauron's influence or forces didn't really withdraw (it just was made to look like that and they were hiding or something).
~~~~~~
"You were exceedingly clever once, but unfortunately none of your friends noticed as they were too busy being attacked by an octopus."
-from How To Tell If You Are In A J.R.R. Tolkien Book, by Austin Gilkeson, in 'The Toast', 2016 https://the-toast.net/...-a-jrr-tolkien-book/
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Aug 5 2020, 4:04pm)
|
