Headscratchers / The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Headscratchers for the trilogy as a whole

Council of War

• After the victory on the Pelennor Fields, they hold a council to decide what to do next. Present are Gandalf and his cronies (Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Pippin) and King Eomer. No-one is there to represent Gondor or Minas Tirith (surely Denethor had deputies beyond Faramir?) It's just not believable that a city that was taught to see "Gandalf Stormcrow" as an untrustworthy villain would all of sudden accept him and his protégé as their leaders, and follow them on a suicide mission, the purpose of which was not explained to them.
  • Actually, Stormcrow was a nickname given to Gandalf by Théoden. In Gondor, they refer to him as Mithrandir, Sindarian for the Grey Pilgrim.
  • In the original, the city is under the command of another Gondorian noble (Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth).
  • In an interview, Peter Jackson and the writers talk about how they wanted to add in Imrahil, but it seemed like too late in the game to add in another main character.
  • Given that people have heard the rumor that Aragorn is the true king and Denethor and his heirs are dead or incapacitated, it's not unthinkable that the people of Minas Tirith let Aragorn represent them. And Gandalf too, to an extent. After all, he took over the defense of Minas Tirith after Denethor had his BSOD.
  • Aragorn is the representative of Minas Tirith and Gondor at that point, as he is the rightful heir to the throne. Presumably, after showing up with the Army of the Dead and saving the city, whoever remained in command of the city in a civil capacity formally recognized Aragorn as the king.
  • Faramir likely would have been there had he not been in the House of Healing. After Denethor's death, Faramir would have likely become the next Steward.

Merry and the battle at the Black Gate

• What is Merry doing at the battle at the Black Gate towards the end? If Éowyn is stuck in the Houses of Healing, Merry should be, too.
  • Merry didn't get his arm broken, just magically burned/shocked and a little bit squashed. He would have been fine after a day or two rest.
  • Hmm, not in the book he wasn't.
  • Maybe after the stunt Éowyn pulled at Pelennor, Éomer told her she was under no circumstances going to go out fighting, and she decided to stay because hey, someones' got to keep Faramir company.
  • The full "Houses of Healing" bit wasn't going to make it into the theatrical release. The last theatergoers saw of Merry before the Black Gate was him gasping his pain and grabbing his arm. Book readers immediately know what this is about, but not everyone read the book first. If Jackson hadn't put him in the battle, it would have caused a lot of "where the hell was Merry?" questions, and maybe he figured "what the hell, everyone knows hobbits are tough" and thought that having all the seven remaining of the Fellowship in the same place was better. Also, Eowyn's sword arm was more hurt than Merry's was by the shield bash (not broken by the way Aragorn handles it, but you don't want a sprained shoulder or whatever when you're about to face the full force of Mordor).
  • And doesn't Eowyn decide to give up fighting after Pelennor Fields? It's at that point she's finally over her desire to die in battle. Sure she could go along if she really wanted to. But she was banged up pretty bad, and had probably realised she could do more good in the reconstruction efforts after the fighting was over.
    • In the books, that isn't the case - once Aragorn healed her body, she would've stormed out of the Houses of Healing and back to the battlefront if not for the Warden holding her at bay, and then Faramir catching her attention. She doesn't renounce her battlelust until Faramir declares his love for her.

Gandalf versus Witch-King

• Gandalf is a Maia/Angel, correct? And the Witch-King is basically just a corrupted undead Human, right? Then how in all the seven Hells is the Witch-King able to shatter Gandalf's staff?! Does not compute!!
  • In the book, it's heavily implied that the Ringwraiths can draw on some degree of Sauron's power ("the power of their Master is in them..."), and Gandalf pretty much says that the Witch-King would be a tough fight even for him. But you're right — the kind of curbstomping the WK dishes out in the movie shouldn't have happened, and Gandalf would (especially as the White) almost certainly win any conflict between them, though WK would doubtless make him work for it.
  • The Wizards are pretty much forbidden to match power with power. Remember, they're not there to beat down Sauron or the Ringwraiths; they're there to convince the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth to work together to beat down Sauron and the Ringwraiths. Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth also shows that Olórin/Gandalf thought that he was too weak to face Sauron.
  • Gandalf all but says that he did intend to fight the Witch-King at the Pelennor Fields, but was distracted by having to save Faramir from Denethor. It's distinctly possible that he just intended to keep WK tied up and out of the main battle, however, rather than actually going in for the "kill". Also, the prohibition about meeting force with force doesn't seem completely absolute — it's doubtful Gandalf killed the Balrog in direct combat using just the abilities of an old man. In any case, while Gandalf might not have been willing or able to defeat the WK directly, it's also very unlikely that the WK could curbstomp Gandalf so effortlessly.
  • In the case of the Balrog, it technically was not in league with Sauron (note how the Orcs in Moria fled at the sight of the thing), so the prohibition of the Istari on using their full power in combat with it would not have applied.
  • One thing I would point out is that Gandalf does take on the Nazgûl once in the book — at Weathertop before Strider and the Hobbits get there. He mentions that their battle caused a lot of flashes of light, so we can assume he's not afraid to show his true power in the face of danger. It may be that the ringwraiths were not so powerful by that point. Personally, I wouldn't accept the WK alone treading water against Gandalf, but I could accept him channelling Sauron to give pause to a lesser Maiar.
  • Channelling Sauron definitely seems to be the case, given that the WK's Morgul blade gains a fiery glow right before Gandalf's staff shatters. Almost as though it were a miniature Great Eye.
  • The battle was against Four Nazgûl, not all nine. They were probably the weaker ones, as the Witch-King and the Number 2 were chasing Frodo at the moment. Gandalf eventually had to retreat and the Nazgûl were none the worse for wear. Of course, the White Wizard is more powerful, but it seems Corrupted Undead are dangerous enough to give him pause. He does admit that "Black is Greater still", and he said that after hailed as the White Rider. I mean, Wargs almost killed him once. The Nazgûl are essentially compared to being an extension of Sauron's Will more then individual beings. And this isn't the ONLY upset that has happened....a Man has also killed quite a few Dragons, and they were said to be more powerful then Balrogs even. Of course, how it was a CURB STOMP battle is abit odd. It does make sense because Sauron is unwilling or unable to appear himself, he has to project his power through the Nine who are tied to his Will. And in terms of combat skill, the Leader of the Nazgûl has a fairly good track record in the backstory. Destroying Arnor, requiring what was essentially the second greatest battle of an age to bring him down at last, THEN surviving and conquering Minas Ithil a few years later.
  • In all likelihood, if Gandalf really wants to "win" he might have to overclock his body and die. Again. Otherwise, he'll be too strained by the limitations the Valar placed on him.
  • Gandalf actually was facing all nine Nazgûl on Weathertop. He escaped, and four of them went after him.
  • This is a little wanky, but I assumed Sauron had given him a tailor made 'kick Gandalf's ass' spell and training in how to best handle him. Gandalf is the single most powerful combatant on the field, it would make sense to have a plan to take him down.
  • Neither the movies nor the LoTR books ever say Gandalf is a Maia; they don't even mention the Maiar. Even the Silmarillion, where Valar and Maiar are introduced, doesn't say wizards are Maiar. That idea comes from a text that was only published after Tolkien's death. We may never know whether he even wanted it to be published. So, if we leave out this extratextual information, nothing in the text itself (the movies or the books) suggests Gandalf is way more powerful than the Witch-King.
  • He mentions to Faramir in a flashback that his name in the East was Olórin, and the Silmarillion describes a Maia by that name. So, while he doesn't spell it out in six-foot high letters across the front cover, the intent is obviously there. Not to mention that if he comes from the West, isn't an elf, and wields the Secret Fire, if he isn't a Vala or Maia, then just what the fuck is he?
  • "Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten"
  • Again, the idea that there was a Maia named Olórin comes from a book (The Silmarillion) which Tolkien never finished, and which was only published posthumously. If we look at the evidence found in the two books that were published as Tolkien intended them (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings), the Wizards could simply be a group of extremely long-lived and powerful Men, or they could be members of a race separate from Men, Elves, Dwarves, and Hobbits.
  • I'm sorry, but you're grasping at straws here. Gandalf isn't a Man — lifespan issues notwithstanding, the only Men to have ever reached Valinor were Eärendil and (possibly) Tuor. The Istari are agents of the Valar sent from Valinor, so without other evidence, this constrains them into being Maiar or Elves. The most damning evidence, however, lies in the circumstances of his death and rebirth: "The darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. Naked I was sent back-for a brief time, until my task was done." Now, we know that Elves go to the Halls of Mandos after death, and this isn't really any special knowledge. Gandalf's description, however, matches the expectations of what would happen to a Maia whose physical body is slain: he was left as a disembodied spirit (like Sauron at the end of the Second Age), but with the potential to be re-embodied (by Eru's intervention, it is implied).
  • I've just thought of something; Gandalf would have been defending Minas Tirith for several hours by that point. It was still daytime when the siege began, and was sunrise when the Witch-King confronted him. He would have been exhausted by that point. He's normally stronger than the Nazgul, but he was in a weakened state.
  • Consider also the time and location the third movie takes place in versus the first one: in the first film, the Wraiths (which the Hobbit films established as having been 'dead' for thousands of years before being reawakened by Sauron) are in the Shire and the wilderlands around Bree, which is practically on the other side of the continent from Mordor. So, at this point in the story, they are far from the source of their power, and still gathering strength. Gandalf is close to the 'West,' and has not expended too much of his power by the time he faces the Balrog. During the battle of Minas Tirith, Gandalf is likely expending huge reservoirs of his strength bolstering the fighting will of the Men of Gondor (and indeed looks exhausted and haggard at multiple points of the siege), while the Witch-King is practically right next to his master's seat of power (and it's further implied Sauron's power is being pushed out with the bulk of his army). It's basically an exhausted angel facing an overcharged avatar of the devil.
  • Consider the various Gandalf one-on-one battles:
    • Gandalf (Grey) vs. Saruman Round 1: Saruman wins with ease, imprisons Gandalf in Orthanc.
    • Gandalf (Grey) vs. Balrog: fight lasts for days and ends in a draw.
    • Gandalf (White) vs. Saruman Round 2: Gandalf wins with ease, at a distance.
    • Gandalf (White) vs. Saruman Round 3: Gandalf wins with ease, breaks Saruman's staff.
    • Gandalf (White) vs. Witch King: Witch King wins with ease.
  • So we conclude that Gandalf (Grey) is no match for Saruman but could (barely, and with the aid of a Ring of Power and an Elvish sword) take The Balrog, and Gandalf (White) easily defeats Saruman (twice) but can't match the Witch King, who is possibly channeling Sauron at the time.

How did Shelob's stinger penetrate Frodo's mithril armor?

• The cave troll's spear failed to injure Frodo, and that was made of metal.
  • The shirt isn't very long. Possibly Shelob managed to stab Frodo right under it. Or else, it might simply be because she's Shelob! The last daughter of Ungoliant who made Morgoth Bauglir cry like little girl. If any creature can corrode even mithril with its poison, it's Shelob.
  • She struck low and her stinger went under the mithril. It's a shirt, not a full suit of armor.
  • Narrow, pointed edges can penetrate chainmail, even fine and sturdy chainmail; most maille vests had leather padding underneath because the point of a spear or arrow will still dig into the skin and could potentially break it. All Shelob's stinger needs to do is get a little bit into the skin. A small, superficial cut that would barely be noticed in the heat of a battle is all it would need to get venom into Frodo's bloodstream.
  • Also important to remember, the movies don't really get into it other than vague implications (because we're not given any real insight by characters that know better) but Shelob is not just a giant spider monster. Something closer to a minor god. There is every possibility that the stinger just went through the shirt like an ethereal weapon. (It's also extremely lucky those orcs came along, because if Shelob had found the Ring on Frodo, Middle Earth would have been extra double screwed.)
    • A very intriguing thought this one in the brackets, given that Shelob was not subordinate to Sauron and recalling the Melkor-Ungoliant story mentioned above...

Arwen, Elrond, and the last ship out.

• So, Elrond wanted Arwen to go to the Undying Lands so she wouldn't have to face the pain of watching the man she loved grow old and die and subsequently die herself of brokenheartedness, right? So he sends her off with the boarding party to go to the ship and . . . he doesn't go himself? He stays behind to die and leave his daughter alone for the rest of eternity?
  • It wasn't the last ship. Where do you think the ship that Frodo sailed off in came from?
  • Elrond couldn't leave with her at the time, because he wears one of the Three. If he sails off before he's sure the One has been destroyed, he'd have to leave the Ring of Air behind so he's not carrying Sauron's influence into the Undying Lands with him.
  • The Three were the only rings of power in whose creation Sauron had no part, and so they were not tainted by his malice. It wasn't that Elrond would "carry his influence" with him if he took his ring over sea — but the fact remains that possession of one of the Three carried with it the perpetual duty to use it to help keep the fight against Sauron kindled. Elrond could not lay down this task while the struggle went on; but in the darkest of hours when he felt the battle was nearly lost he could at least send his only daughter to safety in the Uttermost West on what he believed would have been the last ship.
  • In the films it is different from the novels. The "last ship" is only in the films to provide cinematic closure. But in the novels, decades after the ring-bearers had left Middle-earth, Sam would leave on another ship. Legolas would eventually build a ship for himself and Gimli to also sail to Valinor. The implication being that anyone with Elven aid could still make the journey well into the early Fourth Age at the very least. Elrond would have wanted Arwen to leave before he did, so that he could be assured that she was safely in Valinor no matter what happened in the war with Sauron. Arwen herself had a different goal.

The final splitting of the group.

• Two questions — one, why were the remaining Hobbits not given invitations to join Frodo on the last ship out? Was this not possible, or was there no room? Two, did Frodo just not care about anything but his own self-interest when he saw how much grief and agony his leaving would cause his friends, especially poor Sam?
  • Frodo was only offered the spot because he was a Ringbearer, and in the books, Sam does join him later on (after he's done living his life with his family), because he bore the Ring temporarily. Merry and Pippin never bore the Ring, so they don't get the invite. Frodo left because he simply didn't fit in the Shire anymore.
  • It was more that Frodo left because he hoped that, in the Undying Lands, he might find some peace from the injury that he recieved from the Witch-King, along with an escape from the memories of carrying the Ring.
  • The movie only calls attention to Frodo feeling pain return every year on the anniversary of it being "dark in the dell under Weathertop", but in the books he experiences the exact same thing in response to being poisoned by Shelob; additionally, he is given a jewel by Arwen that he takes to fingering in the absence of the Ring. Passing into the West would allow these hurts to finally heal and never trouble Frodo again.
  • Would it be any easier for Sam et al. if Frodo died of his injuries or went mad? In the book, he's ill every year on the anniversaries of Weathertop and Cirith Ungol, and he seems to be getting worse each year. The compressed film timeline, so we don't see how he suffers, make it seem less reasonable.
  • If one of my closest friends is invited to go to some sort of worldly paradise for immortals, I’ll probably miss him, but I won’t stand in his way, I’ll be happy for him. I’m not sure who would be more “selfish” in that situation... well scratch that, definitely the more selfish would be the guy who thinks Frodo should stay in order to avoid his grown up friends the sadness of his absent.
  • Also you're missing the point that the others don't want to go. They have lives, families, children and friends in the Shire and they're happy there. Frodo can't be any more. They're sad to see him go but they understand and they have their own lives to live. As noted above Sam does go eventually, though I don't think it's 'cos he was a Ringbearer, since Gimli of all people took the trip eventually, the only Dwarf ever to go, but more because Sam actually wanted it. Basically if you want to go and the Elves are happy to take you then you can go. Legolas spoke up for Gimli.
  • I believe the appendices to the book confirmed that, no, Sam did get to go over sea in the end precisely because he had once been a ringbearer. Gimli received a one-off dispensation, that no other dwarf ever got, because of the unique strength of his lifelong bond with Legolas and his "love for the Lady Galadriel" or words to that effect.
  • It's also possible that Galadriel's gift to Gimli, three locks of her hair, was more than it seemed. Something that physically intimate to one of the most powerful Elves in the world would have been more than just hair: as a part of her psyche and physical body, it also had the right of return to Valinor. Galadriel may have known even then that she was giving Gimli his boarding pass for a ship to the Elf-Lands.

How big are orcs exactly?

• Orcs are the same size as Men during the battle of Minas Tirith and the Black Gate, yet they are also the same size as Frodo and Sam after the scene with Shelob and when they Dress As The Enemy near the end.
  • There are different breeds of orc. Orc soldiers, like you'd see at major battles such as the Pelennor Fields, are human-sized or slightly shorter, but there are other breeds (like trackers, one of which is described at one point in the book of ROTK) which are quite a bit smaller. Frodo and Sam would still be on the small end for orcs, but not so much as to instantly arouse suspicion.
  • Smallest Orcs (Moria Goblins) were even shorter than Hobbits and very monkey-like in appearance. It's the scene in the first film, before the Balrog comes, when Goblins climb desperately the pillars. They look much shorter than Men and slightly shorter than Gimli or the Hobbits.
  • Orcs come in a number of breeds and sizes. Goblins are typically smaller, about the size of hobbits, with the exceptional ones being as tall as men. Uruks are commonly around the same size as men, and make up the majority of Mordor's armies. Uruk-Hai are as tall as, if not larger, than most men.
  • Considering, also, that in PJ's version of LOTR, that 'uruk' as a term describes a specific kind of elite orc, it would make sense that Aragorn (as one professional fighting man to another) would describe what he was chasing as a band of uruk-hai. It's a specific descripter that a seasoned warrior like Eomer would understand immediately (recoginizing the distinct difference between a band of elite fighters versus a raiding band of orcs or goblins).

Unicorns? In my Mordor?

• If you look closely at the Battle of Minas Tirith, when the enormous wolf-headed battering ram is brought out, it's pulled by what look like two enormous one-horned rhinoceroses. Are those creatures ever elaborated on?
  • The book says that "great beasts" drew Grond and nothing more. Sauron has Middle-Earthian pterodactyl-substitutes, it's not much of a stretch to assume he has Middle-Earthian dinosaur-substitutes as well.
  • The movie design team say that the Great Beasts were based on Megacerops, an extinct rhinoceros ancestor which stood at 8 feet tall. Interesting side note: Tolkien had limited knowledge of dinosaurs and other extinct megafauna (partly because some of the discoveries were still being made at the time he was writing), but when someone pointed out to him how much the Fell Beasts (the Nazgûl winged mounts) resembled real-life pterodactyls, he basically went along with that train of thought. He thought that the resemblance to be a delightful boon to the framing device that his stories were actually histories of a long-past age of the world.

Frodo in Osgiliath

• Pippin looks into the palantír, and ends up having to go on the run with Gandalf because Sauron thinks he's got the Ring. Merry says as much explicitly. Except, this doesn't make any sense. Why would Sauron think that Pippin has the Ring in Rohan, when he knows for a fact that the Ring-bearer was in Osgiliath? Not suspects, knows. Frodo went all weird, and ended up offering the Ring clear as day to the nearest Nazgûl he could find. Did the Nazgûl just forget to tell Sauron that the Ring was in Osgiliath? In the book this wasn't an issue, by virtue of Frodo being nobloodywhere near Osgiliath, but in the film this just creates a massive plot hole that I cannot get my head around. A plot hole that then drives the entire plot of the third film.
  • Why would the Nazgûl think it was The One Ring? They can sense it when Frodo puts it on but no earlier. Remember, the first time hobbits encounter a Ringwraith, he's literally a feet away from them but cannot find them. So when the Nazgûl in Osgiliath was about to attack Frodo, he probably didn't even see in detail what that stupid midget was doing. He saw Frodo in the open and decided to feed him to his Fell Beast. Then Faramir shot the beast and the Ringwraith retreated, because he saw no point in direct confrontation at that point. Had he known WHAT Frodo was bearing, there is no way in hell he'd backed off.
  • Frodo was holding the bloody thing out in front of him! He could not have made it more obvious if he tried. The Nazgûl can sense the presence of the Ring if it's close by, with or without Frodo wearing it. Tolkien made that pretty clear by the way the Wraiths stalk Frodo and company in Fellowship. In Osgiliath, Frodo was holding the Ring out in both his hands, bright as day, practically offering it to the Ringwraith. Are we to assume that after all the effort of Fellowship, the Ringwraith was too incompetent to see the Ring when it was literally being offered to him by the very hobbit he's spent the last few months tracking? Because that doesn't really say very much about PJ's 'additions' to the story.
  • The armies of Mordor are marching out and launching a full-scale attack on Gondor shortly after the battle at Osgiliath. It's safe to say that yes, the Nazgûl told Sauron where the Ring was. Sauron then concluded that the Ring was in Gondor, driving him to attack, because that would be the only direction to take the Ring; they came from the North, they wouldn't go south because of the Southron forces, and they're certainly not going to go east into Mordor with the Ring, because that would be silly. The only reason to go into Mordor with the Ring would be to toss it into Mount Doom, and no one would want to destroy the Ring, by Sauron's estimation.
    • Sauron makes this assumption in the book as well: "He supposes that we were all going to Minas Tirith; for that is what he would himself have done in our place. And according to his wisdom it would have been a heavy stroke against his power."
  • You're of course assuming that both Merry and Gandalf knew that the Ringwraiths knew the ringbearer was in Osgiliath. Honestly, when I first watched the film (which was admittedly almost a decade ago), I just assumed that Gandalf went to Gondor primarily because of The "Gondor's gonna get invaded really soon" part of Pippin's vision, and thus wanted to hopefully lend some more help to the Steward in preparing defences while also requesting he relinquish the throne to Aragorn, with Pippin tagging along because he wanted to keep up his charade not knowing it was already found out.
  • Just because Merry says to Pippen "Sauron thinks you have the ring" doesn't mean Merry is right.
  • One further note: That particular palantír was pillaged from Isengard. Sauron knew that Isengard had fallen, though maybe not all of the details. It would be plausible for Sauron to think that Gondor would have sent a force to Isengard. Since no ring-bearing Hobbits were found either dead or fleeing to Minas Tirith following the fall of Osgiliath, Sauron could reasonably deduce that the ring had been retreated at least as far as Minas Tirith, if not further.
  • Also, Sauron knows they want to keep the Ring from him and his Nazgul do as well. When Frodo held out the Ring, the Nazgul may have thought it to be a decoy intended to lead it astray from wherever the real thing is. After all, why would any of them hand it over willingly?
  • That's a nice way of looking at it! Weirdly, Frodo practically offering it right up like that may have been an inadvertent Refuge in Audacity.

The Death of the Witch-King

• The whole No mortal man can kill me / I'm no man line spoken by Éowyn. Was this just overconfidence on his part or a genuine loophole in his powers? Because the sheer concept of being able to circumvent someone's immortality solely by what you have between your legs just flabbergasts me. Although having said that I am appreciative of the fact that in an age where the only soldiers were male it would certainly be a handicap that wouldn't present a problem too often.
  • The Witch-King is especially susceptible to women in the same sense that Macbeth was especially susceptible to soldiers with leaves in their hats. It's a twist upon a prophecy, nothing more.
  • Basically, keep in mind that this is a prophecy (made by the elf-lord Glorfindel, one of Elrond's retainers and a powerful reincarnated hero of the First Age), not part of the Witch-King's powers — destiny is in play here. It's not that he can't be killed by a man, but that he won't be: a subtle but important distinction. Seems like Éowyn and the Nazgûl Lord were always meant to cross paths on the Pelennor Fields.
  • In the movie this isn't the case. The Witch-King says "No man can kill me" and the idea that he cannot be killed (except by some sort of magic) fits everything we're ever told about the Nazgûl. They are ghostlike beings who cannot be made dead because they are already not alive in the first place. Nothing supports any idea that they would have invulnerability to death by males only. In the book, Merry has a magic sword that makes him vulnerable, but the movie doesn't show this.
  • But in the movie, "I am no man" basically comes across as a badass bit of Literalist Snarking on Éowyn's part: and it has a kind of psychological/spiritual force, too, in both book and movie. This is the moment where she conquers her fear, the Nazgûl's greatest weapon, and turns it back on him. Shaking off his influence, believing that she has the power to kill him, and shocking him into doubting the invulnerability he's believed certain, she is able to overpower him. The sword through the head is almost superfluous, and it's not ultimately about her genitalia either, but about both Éowyn and the Witch-King believing he's met an exception to his rule.
    • That fits with Éowyn in a larger sense, too. Her whole shtick is that she insists on fighting even though the entire world tells her not to. If you tell her she can't fight, she'll fight anyway. If you tell her the Witch-King is invincible, she'll stab him anyway. Her willingness to attempt the "impossible" is what allows her to achieve it.
  • It just violates the whole idea that they can't be killed by physical weapons for the same reason the Army of the Dead can't be killed by physical weapons. The movie could have fixed this plothole with a few lines, but didn't.
  • Also remember that it's Merry who damages the Witch-King first. By definition, Merry isn't a man either, in fact he's not even human. While Merry didn't stab the Witch-King in a vital organ, it is possible that this whole "No man can kill me" is negated, and whatever protection that the Witch King may have had, no longer exists due to Merry's contribution. In addition, in the books, the sword with which Merry stabbed the Witch-King was created 1600 years earlier and had been specifically enchanted against the Witch-King. Him stabbing the Witch-King in the knee broke through his protective enchantments.
  • It is important to note that words have meaning here. The Oath of Fëanor, for example, was so powerful that it compelled his sons to obey, even as it repeatedly led to tragedy for all involved. Compelled as in, one son knew obeying it was wrong and yet couldn't not carry it out. If a creature of sufficient power — oh, say, Sauron — were to say "No dong-haver can harm you", it likely means just that. Of course this still leaves the door open for the Maiar and the eagles to wreck his shit as applicable.
  • “No man can kill me” is never stated to be a prophecy in the movies, and it comes off as more of a Badass Boast on the part of the Witch-King. As shown in The Desolation of Smaug, living men actually did kill him in the past. The fact that the White Council is unable to kill him at Dol Guldur, despite stabbing him with Elven weapons and causing the same flashes of white light as when he is killed by Merry and Éowyn, is likely due to his close proximity to Sauron, who is presumably channeling his power into the Nazgûl, such as when the Witch-King is able to destroy Gandalf's staff, something only another Maia is capable of doing. Despite his formidable combat skills, he is still vulnerable, and when Merry stabs him in the leg with an Elven blade, he is wounded and distracted, enabling Éowyn to strike a killing blow.
  • The problem with some of these theories is that you can't invoke the books when they're directly contradicting something that happened in the movie canon, which is the context in which this question was asked. When Sauron first gave the nine rings of power to the kings of Men, they did not become the ringwraiths. They simply lived unnaturally long lives, like Gollum, but, also like Gollum, could be killed by normal means. When Sauron was defeated, the Last Alliance also hunted them down and killed them, burying their clearly earthly remains in the high fells of Rhudaur. After Sauron reestablished himself at Dol Guldur, he resurrected his fallen servants, with Beorn reporting rumors that the dead had been seen walking the high fells. Because their bodies had long since decomposed, their spirits were all that remained and they became wraiths. Because they had no physical forms, they could not be killed by any man, woman, ent, or anyone else. The Witch-King was the greatest of the Nine, so the rumor, which is never stated to be a prophecy in the films, is attributed to him, though it applies to the other eight. They are visible and can only touch things when close to Sauron, as they are at Dol Guldur, which explains why they can be seen in their true forms by people not wearing the One Ring in The Hobbit. When away from their master, they must wear their cloaks, probably bearing some enchantment, so that they can interact with the physical world. When the Witch-King leads the armies of Mordor against Gondor, he is powerful enough to break Gandalf’s staff, meaning that Sauron has likely channeled a lot of his power into him. Because magic in Middle-Earth is imbued into the material world itself, it presumably cannot exist without some sort of physical form, which would mean that in order to possess such power, the Witch-King must consist of more matter than usual, so he would be susceptible to being killed by normal, unenchanted swords like the ones used by Merry and Eowyn in the films. When the One Ring is destroyed, then the rest of the Nazguls' connection to the now-deceased Sauron is broken, and their only tie to Middle-Earth is their cloaks, which are destroyed by fire.
  • The problem with all of that is that it's pure Peter Jackson fabrication. The Nazgul were never, EVER 'killed'. They are already undead. They are wraiths, which is not the same as being spirits. That's why they can be only seen when you wear the ring, because the ring doesn't really make you invisible — it moves you into the twilight world, where undead can still be seen. They can hold weapons and ride horses via their armour, which they are physically WEARING. In the film, Jackson retains the 'no living man can kill' element because the Witch-King has existed almost undefeated for thousands of years, and was prophesied to never be killed by the hand of a man. The Witch-King's fate was pure old-fashioned prophecy, in the same manner as real-world ancient mythology. His fate was to be killed by a warrior who was not a man — and that's exactly what happens. At the time it was said, though, nobody would've really known what it truly meant as it was over a thousand years later that he was destroyed.
  • The movie doesn't even establish a prophecy at all. Gandalf refers to the Witch-King as "The one they say no man can kill" and later WK says "Fool! No man can kill me!" You could read it as a prophecy twist, or you could read it as Gandalf saying "That dude is really hard to kill" and then WK says "I'm really hard to kill" and then Eowyn says "Screw you, buddy! I'm killing you anyway!", except that everyone phrases it poetically.

Gondor's Outer Defenses

• Denethor objected to Faramir abandoning Minas Tirith's outer defenses by withdrawing from Osgiliath. The problem with that is, what outer defenses? Osgiliath was rather obviously indefensible, and had been so for a long time. Why did they not take some effort to actually fortify it? At a minimum, they should have torn down any structure that could be used to anchor a bridge from the other side, and dumped the rubble into the river to make it harder for the enemy to boat across. A river is only a defensive barrier if you take efforts to ensure that it's hard to cross it somehow.
  • Osgiliath sits astride the Anduin, the biggest river in Middle-Earth. You could've thrown houses into Anduin and it make no difference.
  • Stuff left out of the adaption, unfortunately. In the book Minas Tirith did have some extensive outer defenses. The entire Pelennor Fields was encircled by a great ringwall, the Rammas Echor, which Denethor had only just finished repairing when the attack from Minas Morgul comes. As for Osgiliath, more is made of it in the movie than in the book; in Tolkien's chronology it was already declining by the time of a great plague some 1400 years earlier, and it's been little more than an abandoned ruin for over 500 years. There isn't much left to fortify. In addition, it's a running theme throughout the book that Denethor has become a neglectful ruler in his despair and age, and has simply left defenses and affairs of state to decay.
  • Denethor does know that the outer defences won't hold, but that doesn't mean he just gives them up. He must make Sauron pay for the territory he gains — and if that costs him whole companies of men — well, "Much must be risked in war."
  • Even with pontoon bridges and smallcraft, crossing a river under enemy fire is no fun at all, especially for the unfortunate engineers who are trying to coordinate it. Osgiliath is the best place for Sauron to attempt the crossing, though: northward, there's marshland, and southward the river gets wider. There's also a good access road, to bring up the armies and the engineering train. The defense isn't very effective because PJ's tactics are univerally abysmal throughout the films — the situation required archers and artillery in the greatest concentration Faramir could bring to bear, targetting as far out into the river and the far bank as they can reach, and that is presumably what he did in the books. Also, in the books, once he realises he can't hold the crossing, he withdraws in good order to the Causeway Forts, where the road crosses the outer walls. Even once the Fort falls, it still isn't a rout and they're getting the wounded back to the city, until the Nazgûl scatter the rear-guard.
    • In the film Faramir's defense were reasonable, and they had been holding off the Mordor troops for a long time, until the Orcs managed to sneak a raiding force across that tied up the defenses long enough for a larger force to get across.
  • Simple: Denethor is wrong because he's a horrible strategist, he's basing his opinion off of his emotions, not reason.
  • Further, and in line with Denethor's general decline, Osgiliath was not serving in any actionable was a forward line of defense. It either should have acted as a stop-gap to allow reserve forces to rush and bolster it from better mustering areas (which, there was none: during what looked like a very length attack, no reserves or reinforcements came to Osgiliath), or as a strong bastion in and of itself (which it couldn't be, because it was a heavily undermanned ruin). Basically, while Denethor is right in broad principle, he's scolding Faramir for failing to empty a pond with a teacup: Faramir was in a position he could not feasibly hold, and withdrawing his forces was the right thing to do.

Legolas thinks Grí­ma makes good target practice

• Why else would he shoot him? He's just rid them of one huge pain in the ass and has made no direct attacks against them. Why put an arrow through him?
  • Legolas was trying to keep Grí­ma from finishing off Saruman, a rather valuable intelligence source. It didn't work, but that was why Grí­ma ended up dead.
  • What about Legolas's ability to hit him to begin with? That angle? A distant target that small at that altitude? From horseback? Yeah I know, it's Legolas, but still.... Of course, they could somehow hear everything that was being said even from that distance...
  • Saruman was projecting his voice. In the books, Saruman's voice was said to have mesmerizing/magical properties. A Wizard Did It.
  • In the books, Saruman is standing on a balcony just above the door, not miles up the tower.
  • Legolas was trying to stop Grima from killing Saruman, as stated above. But also, remember that Grima had been caught helping Saruman before and Aragorn showed him mercy. At that point Grima had every chance to just walk away from everything, but instead he went right back to Saruman. He's proven that he's unrepentantly treacherous and Legolas figures that he deserves to die.

Army of undead = poor use of resources

• So we get to see the full power of the Army of the Dead during the battle for Minas Tirith: they're invincible, fast and efficient, and effectively curbstomp the enemy army with no losses whatsoever. After this, they're freed and vanish. But hang on: how come nobody thought of asking them "Since y'all are immortal and all it'd be jolly good if you could help us by, y'know, killing all the orcs and other unpleasant individuals behind the gates of Mordor". There's no guarantee they'd accept, but at least Aragorn could try. Come to think of it, Aragorn could just have made the promise differently — "help us win this war in its entirety and I free you".
  • It's probably dependent on the exact wording of the oath that the Army failed to keep before death. In the original novel, the ghosts only fought against the corsairs before their oath was fulfilled. Then Aragorn stripped the fortresses on Gondor's southern border of men (Who had been posted there to guard against the corsairs) and sailed them to Minas Tirith in the captured ships.
  • In the novel the ghosts didn't even fight the Corsairs, only frightened them off their ships and enabled Aragorn and the Gondorian troops to take them. It's implied that they simply can't fight the living, being merely ghosts and all.
  • This is a good example of an Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole, since the film introduces the idea of Aragorn deciding to free them only after the Pelennor Fields, which seems noble but foolish in context.
  • One explanation is that they thought it would be an unwise idea to bring a dead army anywhere near Sauron, who has also been known as the Necromancer (ie, someone who has magical power over the dead). Sure, the orcs and human armies of Mordor can't fight the ghosts, but Sauron himself probably could, and easily. Worst case scenario, Sauron takes control of them and turns them against the heroes, giving him yet another powerful army with which to conquer the world. It's not worth the risk.
  • In the novel, the race that became the ghosts actually worshiped Sauron for a time. Bringing them into direct contact with him at the Black Gate might have enabled them to overcome Aragorn's authority, or at least be easily turned against the Armies of the West by Sauron.
  • The ghosts were cursed in the first place for skipping out on one battle. If Aragorn hadn't released them from service after they'd made up for it by winning one battle, as he'd promised them, they might well have cursed him as an oath-breaker. As for why seizing the corsairs' ships hadn't already set them free, for all we know the corsairs booked it outta there the instant they saw the ghosts, so it didn't count as a "fight".
  • Simple: Aragorn asked them to fight for him, and he would hold their oaths fulfilled. Their oaths were to Isildur to join the Battle of the Last Alliance. It was his only bargaining chip - he had to promise on his honour that he would hold the oaths fulfilled. That's why their leader/king says 'You SWORE!' when Gimli mentions not releasing them. Aragorn knows he can't break that sworn promise, so releases them because it's demanded of him. He probably hoped he'd be able to keep them around against Sauron, but when it came to it he kept his word.
  • It's important to remember that at the time that Aragon released the Army, he had defeated a major part of the armies of Mordor and did not know that they would be marching in short order to the Black Gate. That and the time it would take to march the Army of the Dead to the black Gate may have made them a bit cross. Keep in mind that Aragorn isn't in direct control of the Army; he's offering to release them from their oath if they fight for him, and if it looks like Aragorn isn't going to release them from their oath they can just fuck off or may even turn on him.

Aragorn's ability to break reality

• In the City of the Dead, it is clear that the Dead are immune to conventional weapons, as evidenced by Legola's Epic Fail of an arrow. Now Aragorn blocking the King's blade with Narsil: I can understand since it was Isildur's sword. But then, Aragorn proceeds to GRAB the King by the throat. How in the HELL did Aragorn magically manage to grab a ghost's throat when later on, that same ghost king is seen going straight through Aragorn. Ok, King of the Dead, can Aragorn touch you or no? Make up your damn mind.
  • When Aragorn grabs him, he was exercising his power as the King of Gondor. Isildur was the one who put the curse on them, and so had power over them; Aragorn, as Isildur's Heir, has that same power if he wishes to use it. In other words, yes it actually was magic that allowed Aragorn to grab the King of the Dead. Very specific magic that likely wouldn't work on any other ghosts Aragorn would happen to encounter.
  • And as for the King of the Dead passing through Aragorn, that's merely Aragorn choosing not to exercise the aforementioned power. He doesn't need to be forceful towards the King at all times.

The title of Bilbo and Frodo's story?

• Why did they not call it Frodo Nine Fingers and The Ring of Power.? That is a line that Sam uses in the book when they are in Mordor, beat to hell, and talking about all the old stories and how this story is not one of them. Sam (or perhaps Frodo, can't remember at this point) gives that line as the title for a story based on their adventures.
  • The original title Frodo uses in the book is The Downfall of The Lord of the Rings. Over time that got shortened to 'The Lord of the Rings'. It's not that unusual really; it's just a name for the war, like if we called World War Two 'The Downfall of Hitler'.
  • The full title is "The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King". There's also a subtitle "(as seen by the Little People; being the memoirs of Bilbo and Frodo of the Shire, supplemented by the accounts of their friends and the learning of the Wise.) Together with extracts from Books of Lore translated by Bilbo in Rivendell".
  • Meanwhile, "Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom" is the title of a song that a minstrel sings while honoring the heroes in the Fields of Cormallen. Sam is especially gratified to hear it because earlier (as he and Frodo waited to die by lava immolation on the slopes of Mount Doom) he had speculated about calling their story or song "Nine-Fingered Frodo and the Ring of Doom." There was also an earlier converstaion about the great stories and where their story fit in on the steps of Cirith Ungol, but no speculation was made about the title then, and "Nine-Fingered" wouldn't have made sense since Frodo still had all his fingers intact at that point.

The Faramir "being dead" fiasco

• After Faramir led a doomed charge to retake Osgiliath, the entire group, except for Faramir himself, was wiped out. However they at first thought he was dead, but Pippin notices that he's just KO'd and needs medicine to which Denethor ignores, yelling, "My line has ended!". When he yells to his soldiers to abandon their posts, Gandalf knocks Denethor out and yells "Prepare for battle!" Why didn't Pippin or one of the other Gondor people take advantage of Denethor being knocked out unconscious and take Faramir to the healers?! And when Denethor takes Faramir's uncoscious body to burn it and himself in the Tomb of the Stewards, why did none of the other soldiers question Denethor's suicidal thoughts and incapacitate him for being insane, or check for a pulse on Faramir and tell Denethor that he was still alive?! Has no one in Gondor have a brain or something?!
  • In the first case, because they were preparing for battle and trying to fight off an army of orcs and trolls was more important than getting one guy to the healers. In the second case, Denethor is still in charge, suicidal or not, so soldiers are going to obey direct orders from him.
  • There is something of a Freeze-Frame Bonus during the funeral pyre scene. At least one of the soldiers holding the torches is really hesitant. He's slower than the others and keeps looking around at them. You can almost hear what he's thinking. "Um, guys? Are we really doing this?"
  • Back to the first case. Faramir was important too. Taking him to the healers would also keep him safe!
  • Who's to say they didn't? Some guards bring him to be healed offscreen and then Denethor shows up to drag him to the pyre with no one stopping him because of the above reasons.
  • But couldn't soldiers be get morally righteous and pull off a Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!, or go You're Insane! to Denethor and disobey him for being suicidally insane? Especially if it's the case of "If our leader kills himself, WHO'S GONNA LEAD US?!"?
  • Doing what you think is "right" on the spur of the moment rather than with hindsight is much more difficult than people seem to think. The men had probably been soldiers for most of their adult life; after a decade or so of following orders and having "obey your superiors" drilled into their psyche, it's completely understandable that the soldiers ignored their moral qualms and just obeyed orders. For those who doubt it, go look up the "just following orders" Nazi soldiers working the concentration camps in the Holocaust and the Milgram Experiment
  • For the second objection, neither Denethor nor Faramir was leading the Gondorian army. Faramir was unconscious and near death and it's clear that after Denethor's Villainous BSoD and Gandalf's smackdown, the Gondor military was following Gandalf. Besides, Denethor was never meant to be a leader in a time of war, he was a politician; he would've had generals (like Imrahil in the book) leading the army.
  • Denethor was also in the middle of a "abandon everything and just give up, we're going to get slaughtered, nothing we can do to stop it" speech when Gandalf knocked him about. At the time the situation was looking very grim. These soldiers easily could have been depressed and suicidal themselves thinking, "sure Faramir is alive but it doesn't make much difference. He'll be dead in a weeks time with much torture in between no matter what we do. Only right thing is to burn him alive to please his father before we all take our own lives."
  • Given the timeframe the films and books are also emulating, household guards and servants would indeed follow their masters into VERY questionable situations. This is well-before the concept of duty with reservation, but a proto-feudal society. These weren't soldiers in the sense of modern soldiers trained to follow a creed and a set of laws, these were men likely raised from childhood in service to the family of the Stewards to be their bodyguards. Their oath wasn't to Gondor, it was to the Stewards, and disobeying the Steward (no matter how mad his demands would seem) would be a greater sin than stopping him from doing something wrong, because stopping him is violating an oath: they aren't in a position to stop him.

Do orcs have five legs?

• When the forces of Mordor march on Minas Tirith — about 1.45 into the extended version — they're marching to a drumbeat in 5/4. How do they not stumble?
  • The beats are still spaced out evenly, you can still walk a steady pace to 5/4 as long as you alternate your starting foot at the start of the rhythm.
  • The 5/4 time was probably also an audio callback to the 5/4 time signature of the Uruk-hai/Isengard leitmotif and subtly implying that all evil think alike. Or copy each other.
  • It's possible, as well, that the drums aren't there for the benefit of the orcs marching in cadence: given how mishapen, bent, and differently sized the orcs are, it's unlikely that they can physically keep time with the march. The drums do have a profound psychological effect. They can certainly be motivating to the orcs (who would love the sounds of war and the pomp that goes with it), while terrifying and overwhelming the defenders of Minas Tirith.

Gollum and Shelob

• Why, after putting up with Sam from Emyn Muil to Minas Morgul, does Gollum want to get rid of him right before he's about to be eaten by Shelob? It makes no sense to risk confrontation at this point, when he only has to put up with him for a few more hours at most. Just let Shelob deal with him!
  • Because Sam was starting to become suspicious of Gollum. It wasn't about "putting up with him," it was about getting rid of him before he convinced Frodo that Gollum had to go.
  • But Sam had already tried and failed to convince Frodo. Unless something else happened, there was no real risk of Frodo changing his mind at this point. And even if they did send Gollum away, they would still have to go through Shelob's lair, since it was the only open way, so Gollum could just have followed them like he did earlier.
  • Sam clearly planned to be persistent about it, and even if Frodo said no, Sam was going to watch Gollum closely, which means Gollum can't get away with as much. And that's discounting the possibility that Sam decides to just kill Gollum. Also, two hobbits together have a better chance at getting through Shelob's lair than one hobbit alone.
  • Plus, Gollum is pretty much not on a speaking basis with sanity. Why does Gollum behave irrationally? Because he is irrational.
  • Something else would have happened: Sam would have seen Cirith Ungol and likely tried to convince Frodo it was suicide. There's also the possibility that Sam succeeds in wounding Shelob enough to back off (as he later did).
  • Shelob kills to eat, not to annihilate: she takes one victim at a time. If Sam and Frodo are together when she ambushes them, there's a 50-50 chance she'll attack either of the two first. If it's Sam that's no problem for Gollum — he'd just strangle Frodo, who's too messed up by the Ring's weight to defend himself — but if she snatches Frodo and carries him off, a tearful and enraged Samwise will be left behind to cut Gollum's throat for leading them into a trap.
  • Shelob kills to eat, but she won't let her victims escape. The orcs who take Frodo to Cirith Ungol talk a bit about Shelob, and they explain how she has a venom that kills her victims, and another that paralyzes her victims (presumably to save them for later). If I remember correctly, one of the orcs says that he once found an orc that had gone missing days earlier, paralyzed and trapped among the webs (he laughed that he left the trapped orc like that, by the way). Shelob would have killed the first hobbit, then stored the second hobbit for later. Of course, it's entirely possible that Gollum knew nothing about this.
  • Given all of the above, how did Frodo manage to survive?
    • Shelob used the paralytic on him, not the deadly venom. She didn't know about a second hobbit and thought Frodo was alone. And then... as we see, Sam arrives and manages to drive Shelob off.
    • Frodo was also incredibly lucky that he had the Phial and Sting, which was enough to fend Shelob off whilst he was in the cave. Had he not had those, Shelob would have probably been able to sting and cocoon Frodo without much difficulty during their initial encounter (in this hypothetical scenario, Gollum’s plot would have very likely gone exactly as planned).

Paths of the Dead

• In the Extended version scene in the Paths of the Dead, there are a lot more skulls buried there than actual ghosts. Where did they all come from?
  • The people who were brave/foolish enough to attempt to travel the Paths of the Dead without having the authority to command the dead.
  • Alternatively, the Men of Dunharrow lived there for a long time before they were called on to fight Sauron. Therefore, there would be many generations of their dead buried in the catacombs, but only the final generation which was alive when they broke their oath became ghosts. Plus, from the composition of the army, it looks like their noncombatants were given a pass on the 'doomed to haunt the earth until redeemed' thing, but they'd still need burying when they died.
  • Considering how the Dunharrow feels like an eldritch location, it's also possible that the skulls aren't actually there, but something intruders see as the place begins to overwhelm them with dread.

Smeagol's mannerisms.

• In the flashback at the beginning, Deagol seems to be a perfectly normal dude, but Smeagol's a twitchy, creepy, degenerate mess — even before he ever encounters the Ring. He's got massive bags under his eyes, his skin seems to have a bit of an uncanny pallor to it that Deagol's doesn't, he's already talking in that exaggerated, croaky, hissing, back-of-the-throat voice, and he's even speaking in plurals ("Give that to us") even though, by all rights, his split personality shouldn't even be close to existing yet. I understand that there was a need to make the character recognizable, to convey easily and immediately that the man we're seeing is Gollum, but don't all these things really undermine the idea that the Ring is what twisted and perverted him? The way it's portrayed in the movie, it seems like the only difference between the uncorrupted Smeagol of the past and the tormented creature of the present is his physical appearance.
  • That dialogue quirk is actually straight from the book, when Gandalf is telling Frodo the story in Bag End. As to why he would refer to himself that way back then, still a good question. (Maybe in the context of speech patterns like "our Harriet told us" when the speaker is just referring to their individual self, maybe it was Gollum's truthful account verbatim and Gandalf didn't bother to verbally copyedit). Smeagol was already kind of a weirdo, too, making a habit of digging around everywhere (possibly he didn't get outside much with all his digging, which would account for the pallor?), looking for secret things, and was apparently more susceptible to the Ring than most people in the first place—he's in a murderous rage just minutes after he sees it, and it takes Boromir months of travel to make a grab for it. He wouldn't have become a murderous wretch if the Ring never entered his life, but he was still a little creepy.
  • There may have also been a mental health disorder that made him particularly vulnerable to it's corruption. Bilbo held the Ring for decades and the close he came to attempting murder was his freak out in Rivendell. Frodo carried it to Mordor and resisted it until the very end, where it would be pushing everything into corrupting him so it could survive. Sam might have been briefly tempted to keep it after Shelob rather than give it back to Frodo but after Frodo pleaded for him to give it back a few times, he was pretty quick and it's possible his brief reluctance was due to the harm it was doing Frodo. So it is possible that most Hobbits is somewhat resistant to temptation and Smeagol had some issue that made him vulnerable. I'm not saying mental issue = easy to corrupt. But it's well known people with a support network cope better. Maybe Smeagol had an issue but didn't have a good support system so he was easy prey for the Ring whereas someone with the same issue but a good support system would have taken longer. This theory makes the splitting of the party more significant since it removes a good portion of Frodo's protection against the Ring, leaving Sam alone as his support and protection.

Immolation, or drowning?

• So Gollum takes the high dive into the lava of Mount Doom, still clutching the Ring. Never mind the fact that he should be a Flaming Hobbit before he even hits the lava; scores of movies make that mistake. What gets me is, once he hits, not only does he not burst into flame, he's not even acting like the SCALDING HOT LAVA even hurts. He acts more like a drowning victim going under for the last time. Which is exactly how he appears to die. Wha? Hobbits are that tough?
  • The Ring is giving him every last drop of power it can in an attempt to save itself from destruction. But it can only resist Mount Doom for so long.
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've heard that when a person is burned by an intense heat, the nerve cells that sense heat get cooked and stop sending signals to the brain, so all that the person feels is cold/numbness. It's quite possible that Gollum was completely numb by the time he fell into the lava and couldn't feel anything. As for not bursting into flame, Rule of Drama probably.
    • You're wrong in this instance. Third and fourth degree burns would cause a feeling of cold because open flesh and internal nerve endings that haven't yet been burned away are exposed to the air. The brain interprets the feeling as being cold (similar to how the brain has difficulty sometimes telling the difference between cold and wet sensations). In this circumstance, there is no air exposure. Besides the acceptable explanation of the ring attempting to exert power to save itself, his expression could also be sudden onset of shock.
  • The Ring is so desperate to avoid being dropped onto the magma that it damped Gollum's pain, just so that he'd keep still and hold it up out of the molten rock for another second or two.

Where did the horses go in the Battle at the Black Gate?

• When they go to the Black Gate and Aragorn gives the speech, he's on horseback. So are Gandalf and Legolas. But when they charge, they're on foot. I miss something?
  • Doesn't explain where the horses go, but since the Men of the West are completely surrounded with no space to maneuver, cavalry would be severely limited in their effectiveness. Also, having your most important people riding on horses in clear view of all nearby people is just asking to get shot by a lucky archer.
  • Isn't standing in a tight crowd in plain view of the enemy also asking for that? Come to think of it, Why Didn't the orcs Just Shoot them? Was Sauron so noble he wanted to give them a fighting chance?
  • The army of Mordor may very well have not had that many archers left by this point. I cannot imagine that wood is plentiful enough in Mordor to equip enough archers and spearmen to attack Gondor and the force that fights at the black gate adequately.
  • I thought only the Gorgoroth plain was barren, and Mordor actually had plantations and such. But even so - surely the gatekeep should have ballistas or something.
  • They probably do but Sauron isn't interested in tactics here. He just wants to send out an endless wave of orcs and end it in a simple overwhelming charge. At that point he is just 110% done with this crap.

Gondor Calls for Aid

• In the novel, the signal fires are set on a range of low hills that skirt the Misty Mountains, along the road from Rohan to Gondor. In the movie, many of the signal fires are seen on peaks far above the clouds. So who are the poor bastards who have to live on the barren peaks of alpine mountains, tending bonfires that haven't been lit in a generation or more?
  • White Mountains.
  • The signal fires were most likely military outposts, and so were manned by regular Gondorian soldiers. It's an important job, but probably a crap detail, since it's been literally centuries since those things were lit. Maybe that's where Gondor ships the problem recruits.
  • So being sent to man the beacons is essentially like "taking the black". It's the equivalent of being sent to man the Wall.
  • In the special features, Peter Jackson muses that soldiers probably get sent out on "Beacon Duty", where you just live in a little shack near the beacon for a couple years until your time is up (at which point someone comes to replace you and you rejoin the regular army). He also imagined that the role might be passed from father to son. "I never got to light the beacons, son, but maybe you'll have a chance!"
• Wouldn't it be very easy for the evil's spies to find the posts (it's not like they're concealed, you just look for the next huge pile of firewood in the clear vicinity of the one in Minas Tirith and so on) and then for the orcs to quietly slaughter a post or two, thus disrupting the link? In fact, I'm surprised they didn't do that.
  • Even given Denethor's state of mind, the interior defenses of Gondor were still pretty solid, and the beacons are deep inside Gondor proper: it would probably be difficult to infiltrate orcs into the geographically inaccesible mountains without being noticed by Gondor's defenses.
  • That'd be a little less effective that it sounds. If Beacon A goes off but Beacon B doesn't, the guys at Beacon A are going to see that. Presumably then one Beacon A guy goes to the closest garrison for reinforcements (in case Beacon B got attacked) while the other Beacon A guy just marches up to Beacon B himself (in case the Beacon B people are simply sleeping on the job), and quite possibly they've got a third guy who gets on a horse and rides to Beacon C in case the Beacon B problem never gets fixed for whatever reason. It would delay the signal by a day or two, but ultimately it would still work out.
  • They didn't do that because they didn't expect the beacons to be lit. The guy in charge is in a state of permanent despair and insanity, which Sauron knows that. Orcs aren't master tacticians, so they wouldn't think to go disrupt signal fires in the middle of a siege.
  • Also, up until the orcs began moving across the Pelennor Field, Gondor still had cavalry supremacy on that side. Their patrols would easily spot orcs trying to cross to sabotage those defenses.
  • It's also worth mentioning that, in the books, the beacons are just an alert system, not the main way for Gondor to call for aid (in the books, this is instead done via a messenger carrying a red arrow). Much less important so, when added to the reasons mentioned above, probably not worth the effort.

Arwen dying

• What is the thing with Arwen dying anyway? The only explanation we get from Elrond is that "her fate is linked to the Ring's" or something like that, but how did that happen?
  • When Arwen made the decision to stay with Aragorn in Middle-Earth, she gave up her Elven immortality (she has the choice to do this because there's human ancestry in her blood: Elrond's brother Elros made a similar decision a couple thousand years back). Thus, she became mortal. This meant that she could no longer travel with the Elves to Valinor, and was, more or less, stuck in Middle-Earth. That's why her fate is bound up with the Ring: if Sauron recovers the Ring and wins, she dies when he takes everything over. If the Ring is destroyed and Sauron loses, she lives happily ever after with Aragorn.
  • Also Elves can suffer illness and even injury from emotional wounds. Aragorn being gone and in terrible danger makes her ill, him dying would probably kill her.
• It is one of the inconsistencies that abound throughout the Legendarium. Arwen does have some human blood through her father, but even he was not technically a half-elf, since he had slightly more Elven than human ancestry, even before you count a small bit of Maiar ancestry. Arwen's mother Celebrían was the daughter of Celeborn and Galadriel, who were as Elven as they come. So Arwen and her brothers were less than one-quarter human. It seems more likely that she was given the Gift of Men as a special case. Although it does come across like cheating the system if she was given the choice of the half-elves after living for so long, since she died at the age of 2,901 years old.
  • This is what Tolkien wrote on the matter in one of his letters:
  The view is that the Half-elven have a power of (irrevocable) choice, which may be delayed but not permanently, which kin's fate they will share. Elros chose to be a King and 'longaevus' but mortal, so all his descendants are mortal, and of a specially noble race, but with dwindling longevity: so Aragorn (who, however, has a greater life-span than his contemporaries, double, though not the original Númenórean treble, that of Men). Elrond chose to be among the Elves. His children – with a renewed Elvish strain, since their mother was Celebrían dtr. of Galadriel – have to make their choices. Arwen is not a 're-incarnation' of Lúthien (that in the view of this mythical history would be impossible, since Lúthien has died like a mortal and left the world of time) but a descendant very like her in looks, character, and fate. When she weds Aragorn (whose love-story elsewhere recounted is not here central and only occasionally referred to) she 'makes the choice of Lúthien', so the grief at her parting from Elrond is specially poignant. Elrond passes Over Sea. The end of his sons, Elladan and Elrohir, is not told: they delay their choice, and remain for a while.

The noncombatants in Minas Tirith

• Why were the women and children only evacuated when the first level was being overrun by the orcs instead of days earlier, and instead incredibly complicated a orderly withdrawl to the second level and needlessly getting many killed in the chaos.
  • Because the guy in charge of the city was in severe denial and out of his mind and not able to make rational choices. The movies are pretty clear about this.
  • This is also why there are no armies protecting Minas Tirith. Gandalf even asks where Gondor's armies are.

Keep the army of the dead on?

• Why does Gimli suggest Aragorn not release the Army of Dead as promised? Besides being uncharacteristically dishonourable for Gimli, he would surely know that they are not slaves of Aragorn and would not be bound to do any more fighting for him. In fact, after seeing them in action, it's clear they would be more than capable and motivated for a brutal revenge for such treachery.
  • Maybe he was afraid that the ghosts would immediately turn on them?
  • Here's a wild thought: he was joking.
  • Or he pointed out their usefulness just to confirm that Aragorn was sure he had to release them right away. If the terms of their pact could be stretched via Loophole Abuse, it would have been very useful to retain their assistance against Mordor's remaining forces. But Gimli can't be certain if it's workable to compel them to further service or not, because he's not up to speed on the finer details of human honor codes and pacts: he's just broaching the subject so Aragorn can decide if the ghost army really does have to be released now.
  • I figured he was just complaining about how they had to give up their new superweapon so soon after getting it.

Is Gandalf in charge of Gondor?

• Denethor sees the enemy massing outside Minas Tirith and immediately declares that people should flee. Gandalf promptly knocks him unconscious and orders the soldiers to battle stations. From then on he appears to be the person in overall charge of Minas Tirith's defences. Nobody ever seems to raise any objection to him battering their Steward (unpopular as he may have been), but later we see that Denethor has gotten up and is proceeding with his funeral pyre, apparently with the compliance of the Citadel guards. If Denethor is still in control then why does he not take action to overrule Gandalf at any point? If the soldiers have accepted Gandalf as their leader then why is there no attempt to keep Denethor out of the way and get medical care for Faramir?
  • The guards in Denethor's immediate circle may still have had a close loyalty to him, or at least a deference to the role he represented, and/or may have been unwilling — or unable — to stand in the way of someone with lunatic strength and determination. The bulk of the soldiers, however, would probably have taken the pragmatic view that if anyone with some sort of authority was taking decisive charge of the defence efforts then it made sense to follow the new plan. They'd likely have been far too preoccupied with the vast army attempting to break in though to spare manpower to deal with the rogue Steward and his Only Mostly Dead son upstairs.
  • In the absence of effective leadership, people tend to follow whoever seems to know what they're doing, especially in military organizations (it's not uncommon to see lower ranking Soldiers taking charge in crisis situations when a higher ranked Soldier is present provided that Soldier is unable or unwilling to take charge themselves). Plus, Gandalf has the ring Narya, which makes his presence and orders not only much more commanding, but much more inspiring (encouraging the soldiers of Gondor to follow him).
    • As the 70 Maxims put it, "A Sergeant in motion outranks a Lieutenant who doesn't know what's going on."

What happens to Gandalf's white staff?

• The confrontation with Angmar is only seen in the Extended Edition. Viewers of the theatrical cut must have wondered why the staff just disappears midway through the film and then reappears at the very end.
  • True, if they were paying close attention — but there was enough chaos that it wouldn't be immediately obvious. That the confrontation with the Witch-king ('Angmar' was just the name of the evil realm he ruled up North for a while a few centuries earlier) didn't appear in the regular edition doesn't mean Gandalf is just standing around twiddling his thumbs for the whole battle, after all.

Legolas and Gimli's drinking contest

• Why would people guarding the most vital secret of the whole war get into a drinking contest and risk loose lips!?
  • 1) They're drinking with their comrades in Edoras, not with strangers in some shady inn, 2) Legolas seems confident that the drinks won't affect him, and is responsible enough to stop drinking when he notices the effects, 3) Legolas, or one of the other members of the Fellowship, would probably be able to shush Gimli if he started spilling the beans, or notice if someone was taking advantage of his lowered inhibitions to probe about secrets, 4) Gimli would be too busy drinking to maintain a coherent story about a couple of hobbits who, when last seen, had gone off on their own to find Mount Doom.

A one-way trip to Valinor

• It's heavily implied that Frodo is saying goodbye forever at the end. He's never coming back to visit his friends, and his friends will never go visit him. Why? I know there's some mystical reason for it, but I can't figure out the details.
  • Valinor is a bit of a strange place. Without getting too deep into it, it's sort of a mix between Heaven and Tir Na Nog. His friends can't go and visit him, they do not know the way. And even if they found it, they would not be able to enter. Only those who have the 'gift of the Valar' are allowed to enter. This includes all elves, and very rare mortals who are bestowed the gift (ie Frodo, Bilbo, and Sam, and later Gimli who was given the gift by Galadriel herself). As to why Frodo would not return, I can't find any exact reasons, but I can think of at least two. The first would be that no elf would want to sail back to Middle Earth. The latter is that the reason Frodo left for the undying lands was because it was the only place that can ease the intense, chronic pain that he suffers from the twofold affliction of being stabbed by a morgul blade and being a bearer of the ring.
  • Actually, Sam, Legolas and Gimli would also pass into the West decades later. If Frodo were still alive by then he would have seen them, along with having been with those he traveled with on his own ship. But keep in mind that he was mortal, and time seems different to mortals in Aman since it was designed for immortal inhabitants. Frodo could have happily lived out his life there without being surrounded by constant reminders of what he went through during the war.

The breaking of Gandalf's white staff?

• In the confrontation between Gandalf and Saruman, Gandalf shatters Saruman's staff and the result is that Saruman's powers are instantly negated - he retains only a fraction of his previous power and is reduced to human-level nastiness and malice - all he can do after this is flee to the Shire and use purely human nastiness to take over. He has no magic or deeper power left. When the witch-king destroys Gandalf's staff in the fight at Minas Tirith, why is Gandalf not similarly reduced to nearly nothing?
  • Gandalf also had the Elven ring Narya, the Ring of Fire. While its exact magical powers are as ambiguous as those of the other rings, consider what Elrond and Galadriel were able to achieve with Vilya and Nenya respectively. Saruman had no such fallback. So whatever constraints the Valar imposed on the Istari's powers while they were active in Middle-earth, Gandalf at least had another device. One whose power did not have anything to do with him being a Maiar.

Sam taking the ring

• Obviously, we see a lot of Frodo after he gets wrapped in a web cocoon between the scenes where Sam is attempting to talk to him, and then when the orcs find him. We know that Sam takes the ring off of Frodo before the orcs arrive. However, Sam only tore the web off of Frodo’s face, it was still on his head and neck. It was also in the exact same condition when the orcs find Frodo. How was Sam able to get the ring off whilst Frodo without ripping any of the web away?

Gondor Soldiers Useless?

• Making allowances for fear and lack of orders, did they take Denethor's 'flee for you lives!' at face value, only to return to their posts at Gandalf's instruction? Then we have 'Not at the towers! Aim for the trolls!' that comes shortly afterwards. Like, these people are trained soldiers and not conscripts, right? I'm not a big stickler for Hollywood tactics, but even so it's a bit of a stretch.
  • What exactly is strange about this? In all cases they were given orders and they followed them. Denethor shouted an order, was relieved via a knock on the head, and then Gandalf gave them new orders that they followed. Gandalf ordering them to shift targets was an entirely valid and normal correction and no sign of incompetence. It's not a sign of poor training when a commander adjusts the target that artillery is aiming at. It would be a sign of poor training if they didn't follow their commander's orders.
  • Right, but they needed to be told not to shoot arrows at the towers. The towers wouldn't be damaged by arrows, and they weren't using flame or anything. It'd be like if Aragorn had to tell the elves to aim at the uruks and not the ladders. Maybe I'm overthinking it though.