[ SECRET POST #4273 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4273 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #612.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Most of the praise I've heard about Tolkien and world-building relates to language, and I do appreciate that things hold together linguistically and mythologically and the way that makes the world feel old and lived in and the societies of Middle Earth, if not currently very interconnected, then at least having a shared history.

I do sometimes wonder about, like, Shire imports and exports and how much direct contact there is between societies besides Gondor and Rohan, but I think part of the point is that by the time of The Hobbit/LotR things are in a bit of a dark ages with population declines and Sauron-induced violence and danger, so everyone has gone a bit insular. In the movies it was kind of weird how Minas Tirith is just sitting there on its own with nothing around it, but I figured those plains were usually planted in crops or pasture for livestock and they just hadn't been able to keep farming because of the orcs. Still, I would have expected some scattered farmsteads and hamlets between Minas Tirith and Osgiliath and some fencelines or field walls or some other evidence of infrastructure because, otherwise, where do they get their food? I mean, ancient Rome wasn't surrounded by pristine, empty countryside.

Geologically, it's kind of a mess, which for me, personally, is an issue, but not one unique to Tolkien so I let it go.

[(Anonymous)]

It’s been ages since I read the books (...really need to do it again asap), but Mina’s Tirith being just plonked there without farms etc is pretty much a film adaptation thing. Iirc, there were mentions of farmland etc in the book.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I definitely took that as a movie-only thing. New Zealand is beautiful but dropping a city into the pristine countryside without any other sign of civilization around it just looks weird. (Edoras worked because we know in the movies that there are other settlements in Rohan.)

[(Anonymous)]

da Edoras didn't work for me in the movies at all. It was just plonked down in an empty landscape. It looked like what it was, a film set.

Nor did Minas Tirith. In the book there's a description of the town-lands around it - ie farms, a big paved area just outside the gates and a big road, wide enough to take lots of refugees westwards, plus a grass gallop beside it. Also wharves on the Anduin quite close to the city. Tolkien's city works, it's Jackson's that doesn't.

[(Anonymous)]

There were mentions of farmland in the book (and we did actually see some in the movies with Rohan) but much of the population had retreated into Minas Tirith for obvious reasons.