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dernwyn
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Nov 10 2008, 11:27am
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The Tower of Cirith Ungol II: Welcome to Mordor!
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What a beastly land, ranges with "crags like fangs", and a mountain-side which "seemed to be drenched with blood". A plain like a "lake of darkness dotted with tiny fires": does this latter description remind you of another location in Middle-earth?
"From [Orodruin] rose in huge columns a swirling smoke": why would there be more than one column? Is this "canopy" of volcanic smoke typical of eruptions?
And the rivers of lava: "some would wind their way into the stony plain, until they cooled and lay like twisted dragon-shapes vomited from the tormented earth." How well do you think Tolkien's description imparts the sinister nature of this land? Does the water-imagery seem out of place?
Now we turn our gaze to the award-winner for Worst Application of a Wedding Cake in Architectural Design: the Tower of Cirith Ungol itself. Orignally conceived as having four tiers, one of Tolkien's early sketches showed this tower, with "its strange structure, as it were flowing down the mountain-side" (Christopher T's description): the heat of Mordor no doubt "melting" the "cake". But can you get a good enough sense of the layout from the description: "The horn that he had seen from the other side was only its topmost turret. Its eastern face stood up in three great tiers from a shelf in the mountain-wall far below; its back was to a great cliff behind, from which it jutted out in pointed bastions, one above the other, diminishing as they rose, with sheer sides of cunning masonry that looked north-east and south-east. About the lowest tier, two hundred feet below where Sam now stood, there was a battlemented wall enclosing a narrow court."
Taking it all in, "Sam understood, almost with a shock, that this stronghold had been built not to keep enemies out of Mordor, but to keep them in." What gives him that impression?
And why does "MacArthur Park" keep playing in my mind while thinking about that tower? Or are you blessedly too young to have heard that song?
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Nov 10 2008, 11:19pm
Post #2 of 18
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I think that Tolkien has ziggurats in mind more than wedding-cakes. For that matter, the sculptures of Minas Morgul sound somewhat Assyrian to me.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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squire
Gondolin
Nov 10 2008, 11:54pm
Post #3 of 18
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OK, follow me here. Loosen up. Get silly.
BEHOLD: The Tower of Cirith Ungol.
It faces east, into Mordor.
It is built against a cliff, rising in three successive storeys of battlemented walls.
In front of it is - what? a narrow shelf of level ground, and then a road that winds down the hillside to a bridge. At some point it meets up with the road coming up from the Morgul Pass, the main road into Mordor from the West.
It doesn't sound like there is any place to stage a siege. Where would all the soldiers and machinery go, that the Tower's battlements are designed to resist?
But thanks to the clever use of balloon supported siege engines, the enemy has triumphed! A host of Mordor's finest - er, worst - have taken the Tower! Now they can flood through the pass of the Spider and invade Gondor by surprise!
Wait. Um... the only road through the pass is a narrow set of tunnels filled with several millennia's worth of Shelob's turds. She, of course, hides in the face of this overwhelmingly strong army of Mordor's finest - er, worst.
HAH! Through the tunnel, holding their noses, the army bursts out, to find...
Oops.
Very very very narrow and steep stairs. Long. Steep. Dark and windy. One soldier at a time. Careful there, buddy! You almost slipped and fell in to the abyss. Whose idea was this? This is no invasion route. This is a thrill ride of death, clumsy heavily armed soldier by clumsy heavily armed soldier.
Ok. Ok. We're down. We made it! Not too many losses from slipping and vertigo. Now we're on the road. Now for Gondor. The soft Men of the White Tower will rue the day they tried to confine us to Mordor...
Wait. Wait. Wait up, guys.
What?
That. That city.
Yeah?
That's Minas Morgul over there. We're on the Morgul Road.
So what? Let's go!
You fool! You clumsy, stupid fool! We could have walked down here on the main road! The main pass - wide open, ready for any evil army that cares to break out of the Land of Shadow. What's the point of guarding the Spider's Pass? What's the point of that huge, multi-storeyed tower and its fang-like rocks, the color of blood in the light of Orodruin? It only guards a very narrow, very difficult alternate path that begins and ends on the main road through the Morgul-pass. Only we - only we are the fools, the creatures of a depraved literary imagination, we who wasted our time trying to break out of Mordor via an impassable pass, when the entire time we had the men and the evil will to take the main pass and the City of the Moon itself. It's not like this staircase from hell bypasses the City - it dumps us right at the front door!
Yeah, I get it. We've been played for suckers! It's like a fantasy or a romance, where the poet's evocative art takes precedence over a dull tactical reality.
Oh, shut up.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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dernwyn
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Nov 11 2008, 3:08am
Post #4 of 18
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seem to work their way into much of Tolkien's imaginings, such as his crown of Gondor which has a very Egyptian tone.
A ziggurat style would seem to imply a failed culture, wouldn't it - just as the Numenoreans failed in their watch. What were the characteristics of Assyrian sculpture?
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"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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dernwyn
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Nov 11 2008, 3:15am
Post #5 of 18
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All the sweet, green icing flowing down...
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"Oops." Exactly! How in the world does that setup give Sam the impression that this place is designed to keep enemies in?
Unless, of course, he's imagining that it was once set up with trebuchets along the battlements, for hurling stones down on the road to Minas Morgul...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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N.E. Brigand
Gondolin
Nov 11 2008, 3:39am
Post #6 of 18
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Yeah, I figured it guarded the main road.
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It's not far from the road to Morgul: Sam and Frodo are able to run from the tower to the main road in just a few minutes.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
We're discussing The Lord of the Rings in the Reading Room, Oct. 15, 2007 - Mar. 22, 2009!
Join us Nov. 3-9 for "The Black Gate Opens".
****************************************
And we're discussing Tolkien's classic essay, "On Fairy-stories", Oct. 20-Nov. 30. This week:
"Let us not divide the human race into Eloi and Morlocks: pretty children ... with their fairytales (carefully pruned), and dark Morlocks tending their machines."
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How to find old Reading Room discussions.
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batik
Dor-Lomin
Nov 11 2008, 4:06am
Post #7 of 18
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This reminds me of the Spatial Relation portion of ...
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a test I took in 8th or 9th grade...did well on the rest but... ugh! 
Will just enjoy reading and leave this one for those who are much more capable than I.
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FarFromHome
Doriath
Nov 11 2008, 9:29am
Post #8 of 18
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This must be a watch-tower built to guard the road between the border of Mordor and Minas Morgul. It's a kind of gate-house set by Men between the enemy lands and the first great fortress of Minas Ithil. "An eastern outpost", the story says. Casting my mind over hilltop castles I've seen in the real world, often guarding a fortified city below, this does seem to make some logical sense. And it also explains how Sam can understand the function of the tower, once he sees the lay of the land. The tower would once have been a first line of defence against incursions from Mordor. Now it's an impassable watch-tower for anyone trying to cross the other way. I think the story is implying that the hobbits could not have passed the tower unseen, making this disaster of Frodo's capture one of those examples of fate turning certain failure into unlooked-for success. If Gollum had not betrayed them, they might well have both been captured here instead, as perhaps Gandalf feared when he first saw those tokens in the hands of the MoS.
Normally I don't bother questioning this kind of stuff, I must admit - it's easier to just think it's all "fantasy", so who cares? But it's surprising how often, once you pay it some attention, a fantasy element turns out to have a logical explanation that's simply not given in the text. (Squire's examination of the statue at the Cross-roads in our last discussion still stays in my mind as the perfect example of this.) I just quoted Tolkien in another thread further down the board, but the same quote seems to work here as well:
I feel it is better not to state everything (and indeed it is more realistic, since in chronicles and accounts of 'real' history, many facts that some enquirer would like to know are omitted, and the truth has to be discovered or guessed from such evidence as there is). (From Letter #268).
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship’s beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Bilbo's Last Song
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a.s.
Doriath
Nov 12 2008, 1:20am
Post #9 of 18
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they're not "more capable" than you or I...
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Will just enjoy reading and leave this one for those who are much more capable than I.
I always just listen with admiration to this kind of discussion, because no matter how I try, I can't get things like the layout of buildings or how a tower looked against a mountain to stick in my mind.
The next time I read this part of LOTR, it will be just like the previous reading. I'll remember, perhaps, that "they" discussed it in the RR, but I won't remember what "they" said about why or why not the layout or description was confusing.
It takes all kind of readers, and I'm the kind that lets the buildings just be there and doesn't care when the directions inexplicably change in the middle of a chapter (because I probably don't notice). Don't know why, that's just how I am.
And I defend my capability as a reader, you know. And yours, too!
a.s.
"an seileachan"
"If any one had begun to rehearse a History, say not I know it well; and if he relate it not right and fully, shake not thine head, twinkle not thine eyes, and snigger not thereat; much less maist thou say, 'It is not so; you deceive yourself.'"
From: Youth's Behaviour, or, Decency in Conversation amongst Men, composed in French by Grave Persons, for the use and benefit of their Youth. The tenth impression. London, 1672
Call Her Emily
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batik
Dor-Lomin
Nov 12 2008, 1:54am
Post #10 of 18
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Thanks a.s.--Yes, readers we be...
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but thinking in 3-D (or whatever that is) obviously is of my less than "finely-honed" skills  (probably didn't capture my interest during childhood thus underdeveloped) Would much rather explore the "words" and leave the rest to the more experienced. Makes these discussions that much more of a broadening-my horizons-experience. Most always a good thing!
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
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Nov 12 2008, 2:31am
Post #11 of 18
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Just kidding...and I'm having a bit of fun with the nature of that tower, so don't let it bother you!
Besides, you guys are way above me when it comes to philosophical-type discussions...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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Beren IV
Mithlond
Nov 12 2008, 5:21am
Post #12 of 18
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"From [Orodruin] rose in huge columns a swirling smoke": why would there be more than one column? Is this "canopy" of volcanic smoke typical of eruptions?
Yes, quite realistic. The ash cloud expands as it rises due both to the decreasing pressure of the air as well as the heat generated by the condensation of water vapor in the cloud itself. This means that volcanic ash clouds are mushroom or cauliflower-shaped. And, because there is volcanic ash in that cloud instead of just water droplets and ice crystals, underneath such a cloud it can get utterly, utterly dark.
Fireballs generated by nuclear explosions also spread out into mushroom clouds for the same reason, except that volcanoes do it on a much, much larger scale!
How well do you think Tolkien's description imparts the sinister nature of this land? Does the water-imagery seem out of place?
John Wesley Powell once wrote of the Colorado River in the lower reaches of the Grand Canyon (which he was exploring at the time): "What a conflict of fire and water it must have been; a river of molten rock, against a river of melted snow."
Volcanoes can make landscapes pretty desolate when they are erupting.
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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Beren IV
Mithlond
Nov 12 2008, 5:21am
Post #13 of 18
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Isn't the Tower of Cirith Ungol also on the main road? I sort of thought it was a waystation, which as well as a watchpost, which is why it was fortified. No, the Pass of Cirith Ungol is a nice place to sneak spies across, but for Shelob, but no place for an army.
Once a paleontologist, now a botanist, will be a paleobotanist
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Nov 12 2008, 4:29pm
Post #14 of 18
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Why would there be more than one column of smoke?
A) Fumaroles. Vents from the volcano besides the main crater, probably reeking of vaporized sulfuric acid, which is what makes the air so hard to breathe the nearer you get to the volcano.
B) Additional columns from Mordor-style industries. Doubtless Sauron has a whole lot of smelting going on, what with all the gear necessary to equip so vast an army. Since sulfur plays a role in converting iron to steel, and Sauron would have had the knowledge necessary to forge steel, and volcanoes abound in sulfur, building foundries near the volcano makes sense, especially if you can breed orcs and capture slaves faster than the sulfur fumes can kill them off.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
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Nov 12 2008, 4:30pm
Post #15 of 18
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Thank you, I knew someone would come along with the scientific explanation for that cloud-cover!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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dernwyn
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Nov 12 2008, 4:40pm
Post #16 of 18
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Good point about the usefulness of an active volcano! Now I'm wondering why there wasn't a town built around the base of Orodruin, a factory-complex taking advantage of this. Maybe the lava flows were the problem; could the sulphur have been conveyed elsewhere?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I desired dragons with a profound desire"
"It struck me last night that you might write a fearfully good romantic drama, with as much of the 'supernatural' as you cared to introduce. Have you ever thought of it?"
-Geoffrey B. Smith, letter to JRR Tolkien, 1915
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
Nov 12 2008, 4:55pm
Post #17 of 18
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No town could exist in the fumes. Children would die faster than adults, and there goes your replacement labor. The workers would have had to live some distance away and commute, to stretch out their usefulness longer.
How they might have commuted I don't know, but Sauron might have had all kinds of cleverness up his sleeve. I do recall the seeming anachronism of several train-references in "The Hobbit" (such as Bilbo's shriek sounding like a train-whistle.) The more tech-oriented peoples of Arda might have had extremely limited rail capabilities--dwarves might have had short mine-trains underground, for instance, to haul buckets of ore to processing. That technology began even before the steam engine, with mule-drawn cars. Sauron would have more than that. Tolkien constantly refers to his engines and machines, while leaving to our imaginations what these might be or what they did.
So, I'm imagining. A small train within Mordor certainly seems feasible to me, although Sauron would use it sparingly, preferring to keep his soldiers in shape by marching them everywhere. In a case like this, though, a train could carry metal goods from a foundry more effectively than anything on legs, and while it was at it, it might as well carry workers in and out to prolong their shelf-life. They might even consider themselves lucky, privileged, to get a job where they can kick back and ride now and then--at least until they started coughing up blood.
I realize that I am going way, way UUT on this. Let's just say that the train's on the other side of the mountain and that our hobbits cannot see it. Heck, it might well provide one more column of smoke!
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Curious
Gondolin
Nov 12 2008, 8:14pm
Post #18 of 18
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A plain like a "lake of darkness dotted with tiny fires": does this latter description remind you of another location in Middle-earth?
The Muster of Rohan?
... why would there be more than one column?
More than one outlet.
Is this "canopy" of volcanic smoke typical of eruptions?
The canopy effect seems a bit extreme in this case, especially when the Great Darkness engulfs Gondor as well. But certainly an active volcanoe can produce enormous clouds of smoke. In his treatment of Mount Doom's eruption, Tolkien carefully treads the line between nature and evil magic. Only the fact that everyone we meet assumes Sauron is responsible for the smoke, and the unmaking of the Ring is responsible for the final eruption, clearly distinguishes this eruption from something more natural. But then is anything really natural in Middle-earth, or is it all manipulated by good or evil forces?
How well do you think Tolkien's description imparts the sinister nature of this land?
Pretty well.
Does the water-imagery seem out of place?
Not to me.
Taking it all in, "Sam understood, almost with a shock, that this stronghold had been built not to keep enemies out of Mordor, but to keep them in." What gives him that impression?
Probably the fact that it faced Mordor, and was built inside Mordor. And I agree with the theory that it guarded not just the upper pass, but also the lower one.
And why does "MacArthur Park" keep playing in my mind while thinking about that tower? Or are you blessedly too young to have heard that song?
I liked that song, even if the lyrics didn't make much sense.
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