Wk7 Bk5 Ch10: SUMMARY: The Black Gate Opens

[Stormrider]

From: AnnieLT (Original Message) Sent: 5/1/2003 4:26 PM

The picture was lost and there was no comment on where it came from or who painted it.

Wk7, Bk5, Ch10 SUMMARY: The Black Gate Opens

Two days after the debate, the armies gather on the Fields of the Pelennor. All but Merry will be part of the company for he is still recuperating from his wounds. He is despondent as he and Bergel watch the armies depart.

No sign of any enemy is seen from Minas Tirith to the Crossroads. Here Aragorn sent trumpeters and heralds down each of the four roads announcing, "The Lords of Gondor have returned and all this land that is theirs they take back." While at the crossroads, we are told that an orc head had been removed from the old statue of the King and the old King’s head had been replaced.

Now, they must decide whether to travel on to Minas Morgul or the Northern Gate. Gandalf counsels against the road to Morgul for that is the way Sam and Frodo have gone. They must not risk the eye of Mordor to look that way.

En route they change their cry from "This Land belongs to the Lords of Gondor." to this land belongs to King Elessar. Thrice each day the heralds proclaim the King’s coming. No one answers the challenge. At the end of the second day of their march from the crossroads they are ambushed by Orcs and Easterlings. Being well warned, the captains of the West destroy the force. Nazgul fly silently far above following their every move and none but Legolas can see them. Some of the Host become discouraged and Aragorn sends them to Cair Andros to take and hold it for Gondor and Rohan.

At last they come to the Black Gate, Morannon. All is quiet and no enemy can be seen. The Heralds cry out, "Come forth! Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Justice will be done upon him. For wrongfully he has made war upon Gondor and wrested its lands. Therefore the King of Gondor demands that he should atone for his evils, and depart then forever. Come forth!" No sound or cry is heard in response and nothing is seen. They wait, and I hold my breath wondering what will happen next. Finally after much waiting the Captains turn to depart.

And then the rolling of drums, the braying of horns and the gate opens. Out comes an embassy from the Dark Tower led by an evil black shape mounted on a huge and hideous horse like creature. The Lieutenant of Barad-Dur, he is, but identifies himself as the "mouth of Sauron" and he shows them tokens: a short sword, a grey cloak with an elven brooch and a coat of mithril-mail. The "spy" they have caught will meet an awful fate if Gandalf and company do not agree to Sauron’s terms. In response Gandalf seizes the tokens and refuses to agree to the terms. The amazed Messenger gallops madly back to Cirith Gorgor and with the blaring of their horns, innumerable Orcs pour out of the hills and a host of Easterlings assail the trapped men of the West.

In the ensuing battle, Pippin and Beregond fight bravely side by side. Then a troll bears down on Beregond and smites him. Just as the troll reaches out with claws to rip its victim’s neck, Pippin stabs him. The foul beast topples and crushes Pippin beneath him. As he looses consciousness, Pippin hears the cry of "The Eagles are coming!" He questions this, "Is this some memory from Bilbo’s Tale?" His last thought is that his own tale is ending now.

[Stormrider]

From: Kendal Sent: 8/21/2003 2:26 AM
Just for fun: This "poser" came up long ago in a not so friendly, cut-throat, "game" of Tolkien quizes.

"How many gates are there in the Moranon?"

Concerning the Black Gate, The Moranon, some slight inconsistencies seems to exist in the two main descriptions of this gate -- Book Four,Chapt. III, "The Black Gate is Closed;" and Book Five, Chpt. X, "The Black Gate Opens."

In the first description we are told that the wall of the Moranon is pierced by a solitary gate: "Across the mouth of the pass, from cliff to cliff, the Dark Lord had built a rampart of stone. In it there was a single gate of iron..." (p. 662 hard bound edition). But when we reach page 921, "The Black Gate Opens," we have the following: "The two vast iron doors of the Black Gate under its frowning arch were fast closed."

For a while I pondered over this alteration from a single gate to what might be a "double," and finally assumed Tolkien meant that there was a solitary portal through the wall, but that it was composed of two leaves, a right and a left valve. But then the next, pertinent statement seemed to make no sense at all: "And thereupon the middle door of the Black Gate was thrown open with a great clang, and out of it came an embassy from the Dark Tower." (page 922)

Whoa! Even I know that "middle" presupposes at least THREE portals, either lined up one behind the other in the long throat of a single openning, or laid out horizontally, (three separate gates!) as a left, middle, and right.

With Tolkien's revisionary attention to detail, do these passages mark an inconsistency not corrected? Or is there some other explanation for the seeming flexibility of the Moranon portal structure?

Brief addendum: I see from her drawing of the Morannon, p. 140, that Karen Wynn Fonstad has decided to opt for three portals, "arched," placed horizontally; and then, (on her own authority?) assumes that all three are set within a single, overall gate structure made of iron. Apparently Sauron did not have the Numenorean technology of the impenetrable, "adamantine" stone work available for use in the first wall of Minas Tirith and the central tower or Orthanc -- so he substituted iron...

Opps: Getting sloppy (ier) in my dottage, the bib reference is to Karen Wynn Fonstad's "The Atlas of Middle-Earth," Houghton Mifflin, 1973, 1977, 1979.