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DarkLord153
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Post Couldn't Angmar rise again?
on: July 06, 2017 01:49
Why couldn't Angmar rise again? The old fortress could easily be ran by 5,000 to 10,000 mordor Orcs and if that ever happened, Rivendell and Lorien would fall. Why didn't send Orcs to Angmar so they can renew the castle and attack the Elves?
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sairina_star
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on: July 06, 2017 09:56
Hi DarkLord153, I think that is a great question and I'm not an expert in Tolkien literature. But, I think that the possibility of an uprising is always there but it is an unwritten story. If Mr. Tolkien were still alive he might have found a new plot to continue the story in Middle Earth. I think like in any war, the war may be over but there's always the clean up to worry about. There might be many bands of Orcs pillaging villages and the good races of Middle Earth have to sort them out. The Orcs and goblins would need a leader to unify and organize them but if they are constantly being hunted then organizing would become difficult.

Well that is my opinion I'm sure there are other better ideas out there.
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Gandolorin
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on: July 06, 2017 11:47
I’m not sure what you mean by Angmar, DarkLord153. Perhaps when you speak of an “old fortress”, you mean Mount Gundabad? Not the same thing. And when should Angmar rise again? After the War of the Ring, i.e. in the Fourth Age?

Angmar was a Witch-kingdom, with the Witchking, i.e. the chief of the Nazgûl, being its ruler. Sauron had sent the WK to Angmar to wage war on Arnor, which, despite originally being Elendil’s realm (Gondor being jointly ruled by his sons Isildur and Anárion) was most like always the (much) less populated realm. As per Appendix B in RoTK, Arnor was divided into the three smaller kingdoms Arthedain (the senior one), Cardolan and Rhudaur in TA 861 upon the death of King Eärendur or Arnor, because his three sons could not agree upon a single kingship. Not until c. 1300 TA does the Witch-king appear in Angmar, over 500 years later. And it still takes almost 700 years, until 1974 TA, until the North Kingdom, or its remnant Arthedain, finally falls. There had been civil war in the north, probably instigated by the WK. Rhudaur was first to fall under his dominion, then Cardolan (though not the entire area of the (sub-) kingdom; but with its armed forced and “nobility” destroyed, it certainly stopped functioning as an opponent of the WK). The royal line, however, remained unbroken, if in much reduced status as Chieftains of the Dúnedain. And in stark contrast to the royal line of Gondor, which again and again had childless kings, the kingship then moving “sideways” to near relatives. Ironically, Eärnur was the last King of Gondor (after that the Stewards ruled in their stead, without taking the title of king), the same Eärnur whose force had defeated that of the WK in Arnor in 1975 TA (though it was Glorfindel who finally chased the WK from the battlefield).

With the aim of destroying the North Kingdom accomplished (though not the aim of destroying the royal line), Sauron lost interest in Angmar, and the WK had new, other things to do in the south against Gondor.

And as for Mount Gundabad, it had been sacked by the Dwarves in the War of the Dwarves and Orcs 2793-2799 TA, is named as the gathering-place of the Orc armies of the north before the Battle of Five Armies 2941 TA (The Hobbit). In this battle three quarters of the Orcs of the north were destroyed. I can’t find any explicit mention of Gundabad later, but perhaps Orc forces from there were the forces attacking Thranduil’s realm during the War of the Ring; they were again defeated.

More generally about Orcs, the Great Goblin, Azog and Bolg are anachronisms on a par with Tom Bombadil in the legendarium (and never mind PJ’s baddie-loving instincts which stick out like a sore thumb throughout all six movies!). They needed some non-Orc leadership to gather together in more than bands of bandits of the sort which have plagued human history all over the globe. They were very likely to fall to fighting among themselves, and often needed a very degraded form of the Common Speech (Westron) to be able to communicate with each other, as they were not able to keep their own (Black Speech?) dialects orderly enough to use it as a common communications tool. And I believe I vaguely remember that after the War of the Ring, there were some mopping-up actions against Orcs; this (and other details) is definitely an area where we need the support of our Master of the Sources, Elthir!

P.S.
Just thought of what in LoTR supports my hypothesis that Orcs without a higher power to keep them somewhat under control probably do a lot, making any really large gathering of them constatly succumb to self-destruction: how Shagrat's and Gorbag's Orcs massacered each other so that Sam was actually able to enter the Tower of Cirith Ungol to rescue Frodo.

[Edited on 07/09/2017 by Gandolorin]
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DarkLord153
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on: July 11, 2017 10:15
When I say Angmar I mean the Kingdom (?) that the Witch-King created. If Angmar's main capital was reclaimed, I doubt there would be enough forces to fight back evil on both Angmar AND mordor.
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Lord_Sauron
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on: July 11, 2017 11:57
Even if the Kingdom of Angmar did rise again and was full of Orcs I don't think they would be able to cause the Kingdoms of Lothlorin and Rivendell to fall. Although the outer the woods of Lothlorien were ravaged the Orcs couldn't attack the Elves because of they were protected by Galadriel. It says somewhere in the book that Lothlorien would not fall unless Sauron himself would come (with or without the one ring it doesn't say).
I also think the same about Rivendell as it was protected by Elrond and his Ring.
Gandolorin
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on: July 12, 2017 03:20
DarkLord153 said:When I say Angmar I mean the Kingdom (?) that the Witch-King created. If Angmar's main capital was reclaimed, I doubt there would be enough forces to fight back evil on both Angmar AND mordor.

Here I would say that if Sauron had been able to do it, he would have. But he needed the Witch-king to lead the assault on Gondor. And as I mentioned, there were assaults on Thranduil's Kingdom, which failed.
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