[REQUEST] Comments on Tolkien spoof pls
Doug Manzer
written a short spoof on that masterpiece (its relevance to this
group should be obvious by the first few paragraphs) and would
appreciate anyone giving me a critique before I post it to
alt.fan.tolkien, especially if there are more references I could
add to the story. Another reason for posting it here is that
putting a familiar account in a new context might (and then
again might not) shed some new light on it.
Note: I had to bend a few "facts" and more or less slander some
favourite characters to create the effect. Although Tolkien's story
is a great classic, it does ignore some political realities which I
have tried to address, while remaining at least marginally respectful
to the original.
Regards, D.M.
===================
THE MORDOR WARS
by Douglas Manzer
Concerning the original inhabitants of Mordor: apart from one passing
reference that after the Wars of the Ring King Elessar "gave them the
region around Lake Nurnen to be their own," very little is written
about these people and how the wars effected them in all of Tolkien's
long trilogy. This is despite the fact that their homeland was in a
way the focus of the whole story. To fill in for this singular
omission I am offering the following account:
Although the Mordorians were once a proud and independent people
early in the Third Age, they had the misfortune of being overrun by
many other warlike tribes, including Wainriders, Rohirrim, and
finally by the Nazgul led by Sauron himself. Throughout these long
invasions, however, they managed to maintain a unique culture and
traditions, and quite justifiably expected to have their own
sovereign and independent nation after liberation from Sauron in the
Ring Wars.
This was not to be, however, as the Rohirrim, who had possessed the
region long ago before Sauron, immediately moved in to reassert their
territorial claim. King Elessar of Gondor, not wishing discord with
his best ally, raised no objections despite private misgivings, for
the Rohirrim were already rather touchy about the loss of prestige
associated with the defeatism of their late king and especially his
chief counsellor, Grima Wormtongue.
Another reason was political. A movement had sprung up many years
earlier among the Easterlings of Rhun and Harad and especially in
Mordor, based on the writings of the wizard Saruman and his economic
theory of "gathering and sharing." Although this system had been
briefly implemented in the Shire towards the end of the Ring Wars it
was quickly dismantled and discredited by the hobbits upon the return
of Frodo & Co. Meanwhile, however, the Gather and Share movement had
also taken hold in Mordor, especially in the North, where it had
attached itself to an awakening nationalist movement. When Rohan
cavalry arrived to reclaim the territory, a fragile accomodation with
the Mordorians quickly broke down into an outbreak of hostilities led
by the Gather and Sharists. Although the Rohirrim captured the cities
they could not control the countryside, and a period of armed
incursion soon escalated into a full-scale partisan war.
This conflict came to a climax when the Rohirrim built a fortified
position in northwest Mordor in the Ephel Duath Mountains near Cirith
Ungol. They were confident that the Mordorians could not threaten the
fortress, but unbeknownst to everyone in the West the insurgents
managed to drag heavy siege engines up the steep slopes and
surrounded it, which fell after a bombardment of several months. By
this time support for the war amongst the populace of Rohan had
collapsed. At a peace conference in Edoras, King Eomer signed a
treaty with the partisans, agreeing to withdraw his troops south of
a temporary Line of Truce, with elections to be held within 2 years
with a view to reunification.
However, a newly installed regime in South Morder refused to honor
the agreement to hold elections, claiming that the aggressive tactics
of the Gather and Sharists made a truly free election impossible.
Another difficulty was that the Southern government was dominated by
those of the "Universalist" religion which venerated the Valar,
whereas the majority of Mordorians were Mystics by faith - a
development arising out of long millenia of oppression and suffering.
It may be appreciated that there was now a major clash in
philosophies, because while the Mystics had a neutralist view of
moral values, the Universalists insisted in seeing the world as a
battleground between Good and Evil. They could hardly be blamed for
this view as they had only recently been involved in the downfall of
Sauron, the latest and most powerful servant of the Evil One, Melkor.
However, their mindset also constrained them into conceiving of
themselves as necessarily on the "Good" side, and viewing any and all
opponents -- especially the Gather and Sharists -- as servants of The
Enemy in some new arising. Mystics were not above suspicion either in
that they were seen, if not actively supporting Evil, at least to
have reached an accommodation with it, and heavy handed attempts were
made to suppress this religion.
Due to this and other reasons such as widespread corruption and
insensitivity to the needs of the rural population and a habit of
forcing them to relocate in fortified villages, the regime became
increasingly isolated from the mass of its people as political power
became centralized in the capital city of Nurn.
The Republic of South Mordor was financed mostly by Gondor, which
also send "advisors" to assist it. Meanwhile, the Democratic Republic
of (North) Mordor soon began to supply weapons and foot soldiers to
insurgents in the RSM, using infiltration routes and sanctuaries in
neighbouring Ithilien. When pressed by Gondor to suppress this
activity, Prince Faramir attempted negotiations, but refused to
allow Gondor troops on his soil, claiming that to do so would
compromise his nation's neutrality and independence.
Gondor's King Elessar, for his part, well understood the nature of
partisan warfare, as he himself had for long years been an
anti-Sauronist Ranger in Eriador and elsewhere. Soon, as he foresaw,
the insurgents became so powerful that the security of the RSM was
threatened. Something had to give, and all it needed was an incident.
That came one foggy day, when two Gondorian patrol boats on Lake
Nurnen each came under fire of a hail of arrows. It turned out later
that the two boats were actually shooting at each other by accident
in the fog and there were no North Mordorian boats at all, but that
didn't matter. King Elessar sought and received from the Council of
State an enabling act called the Lake Nurnen Resolution, giving him
unlimited powers to defend the RSM and "resist aggression." Within a
few years, hundreds of thousands of knights and foot soldiers were
conducting full scale military operations in Mordor, despite the
counsel of Gandalf the Wise to "never get involved in a land war in
Rhun."
Civilian opposition in Gondor against the war grew as it escalated,
and reached a climax one New Year's holiday, a traditional period of
truce, when the North Mordorians launched a series of co-ordinated
surprise attacks throughout South Mordor. Although the offensive was
defeated, a significant (and vocal) percentage of Gondorians came to
believe that the war was unjust and unwinnable, and popular
opposition expressed itself with riots and demonstrations in Minas
Tirith and other towns as far north as Bree. Surprisingly, there
were even disturbances in the Shire, normally an extremely
conservative and loyal region.
After a long series of secret negotiations King Elessar finally
signed a treaty of his own with the DRM, agreeing to withdraw his
forces, but at the same time attempted to arm and train the South
Mordorians to defend themselves, a program he called "Mordorization."
Announcing the "Elessar Doctrine", he also pledged to assist any
other nation wishing to resist Gather and Sharism.
Mordorization failed, however. With the withdrawl of Gondorian
knights, the North launched a series of conventional attacks by
regular men-at-arms against South Mordor which eventually succeeded.
The final act of the drama was the evacuation of Gondor's High
Commissioner and other emissaries by Gwaihir and his fellow eagles
from the roof of the embassy castle in Nurn.
EPILOG
While Gather and Sharism appeared to have won the day, the irony is
that even then the seeds of its eventual decline had been sown.
Within a few decades the Easterlings of Rhun and Harad had more or
less abandoned the system, leaving Mordor a singular anachronism;
that unhappy land once again under an oppressive and economically
backward regime.
===================
dma...@wimsey.com
Monte Olsen
This is, as usual, terrific.
Monte