#Land of Mordor

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"...HE WROUGHT HIMSELF A NEW GUISE, AN IMAGE OF HATRED AND MALICE MADE VISIBLE..."

PIC INFO: Spotlight on an illustration of Sauron, the Dark Lord and Enemy of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, as he appeared during the Battle of Dagorlad in Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" film trilogy (2001-2003). Artist unknown.

"...his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea, and came back to Middle-earth and to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dûr, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible; and the Eye of Sauron the Terrible few could endure."

-- "QUENTA SILMARILLION," "Akallabêth," written by J.R.R. Tolkien, published 1977

Sources: www.pinterest.com/pin/488218415837584309 & www.henneth-annun.net/events_view.cfm?evid=1060.

[scion-of-kings]

//Tag drop

[find-the-path]

my computer is STILL getting fixed, so poor Ryndel has been frozen in Mordor for over a month

[loremastering]

the master mangler is once again the victor!

[3months2mordor]

October 28

The Return of the King, Book 6, Chapter 2: The Land of Shadow

[bh-52]

Omega, precious one, Mordor isn't safe.

[afarcry5fromstraight]

"Never trust a man in a tunic"

"..? I'm an ELF!"

One of my favorite hobbies is thinking about the fucked up implications of this fantasy world map my parents got me for christmas

[Image ID: photo of a map. On the left side of the map is Middle Earth, with the Shire and Mordor labeled. To the direct right of Mordor is Whoville.]

[southernspiritnorthernheart]

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Then shouldering their burdens, they set off, seeking a path that would bring them over the grey hills of the Emyn Muil, and down into the Land of Shadow.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" - J.R.R. Tolkien

[sindar-princeling]

mixed feelings about Tolkien making people of the east and south come to Aragorn for pardon like he's actual jesus christ on judgement day, but I really appreciate that Tolkien's idea of a good king is 1) realising that the true enemy is defeated, and not making the war last longer that it needs to last 2) sending free the people who used to be on the other side of the war, but now come to you in peace 3) freeing slaves 4) giving people their land (the woses's land is their own and no-one is allowed to enter without their permission, same for the shire, rohan does not become a part of the Reunited Kingdom, slaves of mordor get land of their own)

[velvet4510]

The fact that Sauron finds out what the real plan was when he senses Frodo wearing the Ring in Mordor ultimately adds to the satisfaction of his downfall. If Frodo hadn’t done that, Sauron wouldn’t have known why his land was suddenly collapsing and why his own form was withering away. But because of what happens, when the Ring is finally destroyed, Sauron knows exactly why and how. And his last thoughts are about how he was fooled, tricked, deceived, and totally outwitted by people with 1000x less power than him. That was actually the best punishment that Frodo could’ve given him: the blow to his ego that he deserved.

[glorfindel-of-imladris]

(tw: death, gore, horror)

I love how downright creepy Sauron is.

He's your neighbourhood psychopathic genius, a skilled sorcerer whose allegiance was realigned once (to his true alignment imo) and then never since waivered.

Unlike Morgoth, who was more straightforward in his execution, Sauron's style is insidious, and in a sense more horrific for how slow and personal his tactics can be. His temper is such that he can play the long game, even play at being weak in order to earn trust or make his enemies complacent, and then next thing you know he has an old friend's corpse up as a war banner, or he has sunk a once great island down the Sea.

He bred the Orcs. Tolkien played with different version of the origin of Orcs, but what I like best is the version where they were corrupted Men, maybe even Elves, and although they were Melkor's idea, it was Sauron who had the ability, patience and tenacity to make the idea come to fruition.

He built cults. Do you know what cults are like? How they draw people in, what they make people believe, what they get people to do? From an outsider looking in it must have looked truly bizarre, but Sauron was able to turn a powerful nation against the Valar and painted Morgoth as the true god. Eru Ilúvatar was denied as a false god, and the Valar made to be liars. There were blood sacrifices, human sacrifices—all for a religion Sauron invented, but was so successful that, once Númenor was gone, Sauron brought the cult with him to Middle-earth.

He was called The Necromancer. What made him garner the title? Who gave it to him, and what had they seen? Surely the Nazgûl were not the first of their kind, not when the Nine were already so well-made. What manner of experimentation had Sauron done in order to make them, and what did the "failures" look like? What knowledge did he use to corrupt and circumvent the Gift of Ilúvatar, which gave Men free will and death, allowing their spirits to transcend Arda? And yet the Nazgûl were unable to die, and as wraiths they also lost their free will, bound to Sauron and the call of the Ring.

He corrupted kings. He corrupted his own kind. Curumo could not have been the only one, and we know Curumo was a powerful Maia in his own right, the leader of the Istari. Sauron played mind games with the best of people, and won. His ability to seduce even the most powerful beings and get them in his service was unparalleled.

Now imagine being a native of Mordor and witnessing the poisoning of the lands. And then an age later, imagine being from one of the villages around Rhovanion and experiencing the slow haunting of Amon Lanc. At least the Eldar could see Sauron and his agents; none of the Men can do so. What defense did the common Man have against such insidious evil? There must only have been odd sensations, a dread settling in, dreams that lure them in before turning into nightmares.

[torchwood-99]

When movie!Boromir says "by the blood of my people your lands are kept safe", I just get chills. The strain in his voice, the despair, he feels their sacrifice, he feels their suffering. The fact his home has been at war for years, that he seen so many deaths, so much destruction, hasn't been enough to numb him to the loss. He loves his people, he loves his home. And the Ring promises him an instant end to all of that.

It's hard to feel that the temptation the Ring has for him, more than the rest of the Fellowship, is due to a comparative lack of virtue on his part, and more a desperate urgency to end the bloodshed of his people. Although other members of the Fellowship have fought and suffered defending Middle Earth at this point, it is Boromir who lives in sight of Mordor, it's Boromir whose people live in sight of Mordor.

Of course the Ring is going to tempt him the most,

[marietheran-archived]

Yes - the "The Chinook is blowing!" scene at the end of Long Winter just might have been my first experience with eucatastrophe.

Little House on the Prairie and On the Banks of Plum Creek made it clear that Wilder is very good at portraying the wearying grind of survival. There are so many moments of desperation and despair, where they're blindsided by another disaster or emergency, and all they can do is just bear up and keep going and hope they can live through it without going mad.

But the flip side of this is that she's a master at portraying the relief and joy of the moments when the disaster finally ends. The uplifting rush of, "It's over. We made it. Things are going to be better now." The sorrow and the joy are both so vivid. It makes the book feel real and emotionally affecting, devastating and uplifting, just like life can be.

[bh-52]

One does not simply walk into Mordor?

Not only would Galen do just that, but he'd tear down its gates, perform a one-man siege against it, and destroy everything in his path

[curioscurio]

gonna stop calling it depression and start saying I'm in my frodo era. and then that will trigger the sleeper agent in my brain that runs on hobbit yaoi to activate, and I will be forced to take care of myself the way sam took care of frodo in the fires of Mount Doom in the Land of Mordor in some sort of self fulfilling hobbit fujo mental health miracle