Talk:Battle of the Pelennor Fields
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I'm presuming somebody who doesn't speak english as a mother tongue wrote this, because although the content is good the grammar is appalling. Saccerzd 03:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Notes:
- Contrary to popular belief, the name given to the inhabitants of Gondor, "Gondorians" is incorrect. Originally hailing from the island kingdom of Numenor, their correct name is Numenorians.
- The original colonists/refugee Numenorians who founded Gondor after Numenor was destroyed could be called Numenorians because they lived there, but the inhabitants that were there 3,000+ years later were not. For example, Elendil, Isildur, Anarion, and the soldiers of Gondor seen fighting at the Battle of Dagorlad when Sauron is first defeated, are "first generation" Gondorians: they came from Numenor, and many had lived there, but were part of the new nation of Gondor. But by Third Age 3019 (3019 years later), they could no longer be called "Numenorean". They were of Numenorean descent, but the more common term for this is "Dunedain"="Man of the West" (Dun=west, Edain=Men, Numenor was the furthest West mortal land until its destruction). This term of course could apply to anyone descended from Numenorean realms-in-exile: namely, the sister-realm of Gondor, Arnor.
Case-in-point, Aragorn and the Rangers of the North are the last survivors of Arnor, the north-kingdom. Thus, they are also "Dunedain"; in fact, Aragorn is repeatedly refered to in the books as "Dunadan" ("westman") notably by Bilbo. So without question, these men were Dunedain, and thus also "Numenoreans".
>>>>Arnor and Gondor used to be one big kingdom ruled by the High-King Elendil, before Sauron killed him in the final battle (Isildur was also briefly High-King). Elendil was the leader of the Numenorean survivors. Thus, all the inhabitants of Elendil's realm were "Numenoreans" (for the first generation anyway). When the kingdom politically split into Arnor and Gondor, the inhabitants of both countries were still both called "Numenoreans". Thus to refer to late Third Age Gondorians as "Numenoreans" would exclude the fact that they aren't the only Numenorean descendants. But that is not the main reason your reasoning is wrong:
"Contrary to popular belief, the name given to the inhabitants of Gondor, "Gondorians" is incorrect."
The inhabitants of Gondor in the 3019th year of the Third Age are correctly named "Gondorians". Only the original founders of Gondor, the first generation, were also called "Numenoreans". By the later date, they were "Gondorians". I am now going to go through this entire wiki and replace every improper "Numenorean" insertion you made with their original wiki: "Gondorians".
- Calling the Third Age Gondorians "Numenoreans" is like calling the 20th century Scots "Irishmen", because their ancestors came to Scotland from Ireland. Ausir 12:44, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Can any of you folks cite a reference from Tolkien to the term "Gondorian"? I'm not trying to dispute it, I just want to be able to commit one way or the other. It's certainly not a term as frequently and clearly used as "Rohirrim". --Aranel 00:35, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- I pretty sure 'Gondorian' was never used in the books.. it should be just 'Gondor' as in the Gondor armies etc. Astrokey44 09:21, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
- I don't know. 'Gondorian' never was used in the books but, to be honest, does it really matter? Apart from the ancient Numenoreans and a few barbarian races (the Haradrim, for example) Tolkien never really named the various races of Man in Middle-Earth, therefore we can probably use whatever term we wish as long as people can understand the terminology. Encyclopedias such as Wikipedia may strive to have perfect accuracy, but sometimes that's not possible. It's a fine idea to strive for this perfect accuracy, but it's not really worth wasting countless irreplacable hours of our relatively short lives on one single term such as 'Gondorians'. In any case, how do we even know that's the correct spelling? Couldn't it be 'Gondoreans'? Such a point is debatable, and human beings are the most prominent known being for the collection of knowledge (and therefore have a practical duty to be correct in this knowledge) but really, is the small term 'Gondorian' worth such discussions? We will never be certain unless a definite reference is unearthed from somewhere in Tolkien's effects or maybe in some hitherto unstudied corner of his books (if such a thing is possible) but as that's not likely to happen, I feel that we should stick to whatever we feel is correct. Use whichever of the many terms you wish for this discussion page, but leave the Wiki entry as it is. It's perfectly fine, as all can understand it. --Lord Akria 18:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
I think though that as Tolkien-scholars we should look for a canonical term while distiguishing between the "Golden Age of Gondor" when Numenorean blood was strong and after the "golden age" when the line of Numenorean blood become "diluted" so to speak because Tolkien seems to take to contrasting these two epochs. As the Numenorean blood became "diluted" Gondor's former glory seems to fade. A key period in time would be the diversion of Isildur's line after his death in distinguishing between NUMENOREANS and "Gondorian"/Dunedain. Dunedain seems the most canonical distinguishing term between NUMENOREAN and "Gondorian". Please consider an amateur tolkien scholar's spouting.--Randalllin 05:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Strength of Forces
I found this change on August April 14, 2005:
"The Forces 1
Note 1 : There cannot have been 200,000 orcs because the Host of the West (6000 strong) was outnumbered eleven or twelve times by the Army in the Black gate (around 70,000 strong) in the Battle of the Morannon .Gandalf and Denethor clearly found that there was a greater force remaining in Mordor than the one which attacked Cair Andor, Osigiliath, the coasts, Linhir, Anorien and Minas Tirith. So their Total cannot have exceeded 60,000 strong. "
Look snaga, Gandalf during The Last Debate said that the forces of Mordor at Pelennor Fields were only about a tenth of his full strength. A MAJOR point you don't seem to grasp is that they were rushing to attack Sauron before he could gather all of his forces, or tricking him into attacking before he was ready. Thus, while it's fairly certain that around 60,000 were arrayed against the Army of the West at the Black Gate, it was NOT his entire army.
Your logic seems to be "Gandalf said Mordor had more armies, and because we know the forces At the Black Gate were 60,000, surely the Pelennor Forces must have been fewer"---->The Black Gate isn't the only part of Mordor. Given only two weeks, Sauron could not bring all of his forces to the Black Gate, just the ones around Gorgoroth.
I got the impression that Sauron may have had a standing army of up to a half-million strong, not just in Mordor but spread over all of Middle-earth.
Also, as you may recall, Aragorn goaded Sauron using the Palantir into launching his attack on Minas Tirith earlier than he wanted to and "the hasty stroke oft goes astray". The Pelennor Fields army was smaller than it should have been; he couldn't gather all of his armies to send out in time.
Bottom line: Pelennor Fields had maybe ~200,000, Black Gate only 60,000...and even more large armies were in Mordor that couldn't get to the Black Gate in time.
Further, the Battle of Pelennoor Fields is repeatedly refered to as the "greatest battle of the age"...meaning it was bigger than the Battle of the Morannon. ---Ricimer
Okay, you win but I still think that there is no way that 25,000 of the West could have defeated 200,000 orcs (as you say Ricimer) and have had 9000 remaining (as you say Ricimer) unless aragorn bought two million with him.- NanoBoy
Actually: The Orcs were leaderless at that point, and as I mentioned Eomer and Aragorn caught them in a pincers move. Most importantly, Aragorn brought ~10,000 men of Gondor's Southern Army, fully fresh to the battle while the Mordor forces had been continuously fighting since the night before (Aragorn arrived at about noon). Plus, numbers don't quite matter: a principle is that Orcs have a "quantity over quality" policy, as one Orc usually isn't a match for a Gondorian but by sheer weight of numbers they can overwhelm. Plus, the forces of Mordor had essentially no cavalry, while the Riders of Rohan were all mounted. As for "9,000 remaining", they left Minas Tirith in 2 days with 7,000 men, while they said they left a skeleton crew guarding the city, but they weren't worried about that because in a matter of days more men from southern Gondor (now liberated from the Corsair attack) would be arriving north and actually be able to garrison more men inside than were already there. And actually, it was less than that: it wasn't "25,000 defeating 200,000" it was ~3,000 in the city, 6,000 Rohirrim, and ~10,000 from the coasts. How many times can I stress this: under 20,000 Free Folk could defeat a 200,000 Mordor army because Mordor stresses quantity over quality, have poor archers, no cavalry, and poor tactics.---Ricimer
NONE of this matters at all since Tolkien DOES NOT say how many orcs and defenders of the city there were... the numbers given about those force should be removed IMMIDIATLY Ariakas 08:11, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I have changed the strength box to what is certainly known from the book, since one of the numbers (4000 in Minas Tirith) cannot possibly be true.
I have found the following references:
- 6000 Rohirrim, number given by King Theoden
- somewhat less than 3000 from the south arriving before the city is besieged watched by Pippin (with the given single contingent numbers adding up to 2000)
- Northern army retreating from Osgiliath and Pelennor Wall with 2/3 strength remaining, but no number given.
- When Faramir was retreating to the Pelennor Wall after Saurons forces won the crossing over Anduin his forces (Northern Army) were ten times outnumbered. This number probably includes those forces that later block the road to Anorien and do not participate in the battle. 85.176.84.13 22:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Lesser battering rams
I removed the part that says that before Grond other, smaller, battering rams were used. I couldn't find any mention of this in the book. And why would you spend all that effort to make Grond if you weren't going to use it? (Yes, I am aware the other rams are in the movie.) Eric119 00:20, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Corsairs of Umbar
The corsairs played a little roll in the beggining of the battle just before Aragorn's army took over them. They were responsible for the thieving frenzy that destroyed at least every small town at the banks of the river Pelennor. DarthPlaegis; 03:10 (UTC); October 1, 2005
[edit] Gondorians vs. Gondor
I still think we can use the name "Gondorians". Nonetheless, I feel that the last edit handled it deftly: originally it was changed to read "Gondor" which actually doesn't work if you're saying "5,000 Gondor"; however the recent "5,000 Men of Gondor" edit really got it down. --Ricimer 17:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] The Siege of Minas Tirith
During the Siege of Minas Tirith (incidentally a separate entity from the battle of the Pelennor Fields; the Battle was begun some minutes before the Siege ended but then the Charge of the Rohirrim interrupted the actual siege) the Black Host didn't use their catapults against the walls themselves, did they? I seem to remember that any bombardment would have had no effect against the Gondorians themselves, as the walls were like those of Orthanc, impenetrable by normal means. The Ents hurled themselves against Orthanc when they became furious during the Siege of Isengard but still had no effect, and the soldiers of Gondor laughed at the Orcs because the Gondorians thought that the Orcs would fire catapults against the walls. Therefore, shouldn't the Wiki entry say that the bombardment was directed against the Gondorians themselves, not the walls of Minas Tirith, so as to avoid confusion?
[edit] Complete destruction of Sauron's army?
The infobox says that casualties on the side of Mordor were "Complete destruction of army of Sauron" - yet there were still tens of thousands of troops still inside Mordor. In light of this I think it would be better to say the entire attacking force was destroyed - not the whole army. --UrbaneLegend 11:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I take your point, but when you send some men to battle, whether seven men or seven thousand, you send AN army. An army sent to a battle is not necessarily the entire army of that nation/man (eg., the Territorial Army is a part of the overall, generally referred to British Army (and in any case, you could also argue that a division is an army inside an army)). Therefore, we can say that Sauron sent an army to the Pelennor Fields and so, by inference, we can say that the army was completely destroyed. The army belongs to Sauron, and therefore that ALSO means that 'Sauron's army' can be used as a correct term, both under the laws of English English and American English. This particular article is in English, and so while that may not be true in various other languages under that particular language's rules of grammar, in English it is grammatically correct. Lord Akria 13:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
- Werent some of them taken prisoner? so it wouldnt be the complete destruction -- Astrokey44|talk 13:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
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- From the book: All were slain save those who fled to die, or to drown in the red foam of the River. Few ever came eastward to Morgul or Mordor, and to the land of the Haradrim came only a tale from far off: a rumour of the wrath and terror of Gondor. Yes, there were some survivors, but in military terms the army was completely destroyed, as there was nothing left that could be regrouped into a fighting force. Nevfennas 08:01, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] The first movie image is inappropriate...
...since it shows the siege of Minas Tirith rather than the battle proper. Could someone get a another screenshot (or even better, a fair use illustration)? Uthanc 08:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] This Article Requires Cleanup
It appears that some editors began writing this article from a book source and did not specify the events of the battle as it was before. --DarthPlagueis 13:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)DarthPlagueis, 09:13, November 15, 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Without order?
"charged his cavalry headlong (and without order)"
Seems to me that the charge was a series of wedges, which would be logical. Even against spears a sufficiently motivated heavy cavalry can prevail, as Philip II Macedon proved in Greece.
