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masterghandalfThis is a crosspost from Das_Sporking2. Previous installments of this spork may be found here.
Warning: This post contains discussion of rape, suicide and mutilation.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Kirill Yeskov’s The Last Ringbearer! Last time, we wrapped up Part III, as Tangorn had his meeting with Elandar, decided to run off with Alviss, got himself killed in a very silly way, and in dying wound up fulfilling his mission entirely by accident. Today, it’s time to start Part IV: Ransom for a Shadow, in which this story will finally come to a close. Joining us once again will be Havaktri!
Chapter Fifty-Five
MG: Since this is the beginning of a new Part (technically, the final Part), we open with a real-world quote. Over and over the story, ending as he began: / “Make ye no truce with Adam-zad – the Bear that walks like a Man!” Per the endnotes, this is from Rudyard Kipling’s poem Truce With The Bear. And, while I can think of several possible interpretations of this quote and its relevance to the Part, I feel like the most obvious one would be that the elves of Lorien are the “bear that walks like a man” with whom one must never make a truce. Which only serves to underscore Yeskov’s interpretation of the elves as evil, inhuman monsters – which he’s clearly fine with, despite the fic supposedly exploring and deconstructing the demonization of Mordor and the orcs, because they’re not the faction he likes.
Elven Brutality: 171
Havaktri: It would be fitting, considering all that we’ve seen thus far… though I’m not sure what’s so wrong about making a truce with a bear? I’ve heard of druids who can take the shape of bears, and they sound like perfectly fine people… though I doubt Yeskov is overly fond of druids. We open the chapter proper at Mirkwood, near Dol-Guldur June 5, 3019, which I believe would indicate we’ve jumped back several weeks from where we left poor Tangorn. The chapter begins with someone named Runcorn commenting on a fresh track, and gesturing for Haladdin and Tzerlag to follow him. Oh, it’s been so long since we’ve seen them! I almost miss them… perhaps I’d miss them more if they had more than a few shreds of personality between them! Tzerlag comes up to Runcorn, and both sergeants engaged in an elaborate scouting ritual by a small spot of wet clay, trading quiet phrases in Common. Haladdin’s opinion did not interest the rangers at all, of course; not even the Orocuen’s thoughts counted for much in that discussion: the scouts have already worked out a pecking order. The erstwhile enemies – the Ithilien ranger and the squad leader of the Cirith Ungol Rangers – treated each other with exaggerated respect (like, say, a master goldsmith and a master swordsmith might), but the desert is the desert, and the forest is the forest. Both professionals knew the scope of their expertise very well. The Ithilien ranger had spent his entire life in these forests. I… wasn’t aware that there was any sort of rivalry between goldsmiths and swordsmiths, since those are, after all, rather different professions… perhaps I’m mistaken?
MG: “Runcorn” just makes me think of that guy Harry Potter impersonated to sneak into the Ministry of Magic in Deathly Hallows, tbh. Also, we’re in Southern Mirkwood, near Dol Guldur (no hyphen) per our timestamp. Mirkwood is a completely separate forest from the woodlands of Ithilien – there’s a freaking desert between them. If Runcorn’s an Ithilien ranger, logically he can’t also have spent his whole life in Mirkwood. Pick a forest, Yeskov!
Linguistic Confusion: 65 (“Runcorn” doesn’t make sense as a Sindarin name; “Dol Guldur” doesn’t have a dash; the Common Tongue is Westron, not just “Common”)
Mixed Up Mythos: 152 (Mirkwood =/= Ithilien)
Havaktri: And suddenly we find ourselves learning all about Runcorn. On the one hand, a part of me is glad that Yeskov has decided to develop a side character – imagine how horrible it would be, going through life as a nameless, faceless extra! – but on the other, is this strictly necessary? I believe we only have a relatively small number of chapters left – is Runcorn going to be so important to the resolution of the story that we must learn all of this now? And if not… then why are we learning it at all? Does Runcorn’s life story hold within it the key to unlocking the mysteries of the cosmos? Let’s see! Back then he still walked upright and with shoulders squared (the right one was not yet higher than the left one), while his face was yet free of a badly healed purple scar; he was handsome, brave, and lucky, with his bottle-green Royal Forester uniform fitting him like a glove – in other words, a serious threat to womankind. *raising her hand* Ah, I for one don’t care overmuch for men who are a threat to me – perhaps we don’t need to be learning about Runcorn after all? The local peasants disliked him, which he considered normal: villeins only like accommodating foresters, whereas Runcorn took his service with all the seriousness of youth. Being a King’s man, he could disregard the local landlords; he quickly put their courts, which under his predecessor used to visit the royal forests like their own larder, in their place. Ah, at least he’s protecting nature? Though maybe he could stand to be a little accommodating…
MG: Also… where are we? If Runcorn’s supposed to be an Ithilien ranger, in canon, Ithilien was during the lead-up to the War of the Ring disputed territory between Gondor and Mordor, with no permanent civilian population. In TLR, it seems to have never belonged to Gondor at all, probably, based on Yeskov’s weird insistence on Faramir’s fiefdom being a “colony” and not part of Gondor proper. Neither of which is consistent with this stereotypical feudal setup.
Mixed-up Mythos: 153
Havaktri: And so, we continue. Everybody knew the story of Eggy the Kestrel’s band that had wandered into their country once – Runcorn did away with those guys all by himself, not deigning to wait for the sheriff’s men to pry their behinds off the benches of the Three Pint Tavern. Ah, so he seems quite the one-man army, then! How remarkable! Also, am I the only one imagining this apparent bandit chief as a large egg with bird wings and feet sticking out of it? I mean, he is Eggy the Kestrel… To sum it up, the neighbors treated the young forester with cautious respect but not much sympathy, which he did not care much for anyway. He was used to being by himself since he was a child, and socialized with the Forest way more than with his peers. Hmmm; perhaps I should introduce him to Harsk, our ranger. They seem to have much in common… Harsk doesn’t say much, but I’ve always found him rather thoughtful… The Forest was everything to him: playmate, interlocutor, mentor, eventually becoming his Home. Some people even claimed that he had in him the blood of the woodwoses – forest demons from the ominous Drúadan Dell. Well, people in remote forest villages say all sorts of things during chilly fall evenings, when only the feeble light of a splinter keeps the ancient evils from creeping out of the dark corners … That, on the other hand, I don’t know what to say to…
MG: I do. The Woses, who appear briefly in the book of LotR, are a remnant of an ancient Mannish people, the Druedain (or Drug, in their own language) who live in the Druadan Wood north of Minas Tirith. Tolkien discusses their history and culture in rather more detail in Unfinished Tales, in the essay called, appropriately enough, “The Druedain.” They’re a tribal people who mostly keep to themselves; apparently, they’d been persecuted and hunted by the Gondorians in the past, but Aragorn ensures their safety and sovereignty after he takes the throne. Considering the relationship between the two peoples, it seems unlikely, but not impossible, that a Gondorian forester might have some Druadan blood – but IMO it would only make sense if he was from near the Druadan forest, which is in the province of Anorien, on the opposite side of the Anduin from Ithilien. And, as of the time of LotR, the Druadan forest is a place almost no one in Gondor goes into (since the stone quarries on its other side have fallen into disuse, and the road through the forest is mostly forgotten save by the Woses themselves) and thus seems unlikely to have a resident Gondorian forester. So now we have Runcorn’s backstory tying him to three separate forests in three completely different locations, probably mutually exclusive. Fun!
Mixed-up Mythos: 154 (the Druadan Forest also =/= Ithilien)
Havaktri: How odd… perhaps there’s three of them? Has anyone made sure Runcorn isn’t actually a set of identical triplets sharing an identity? To top it all off, at one point Runcorn stopped showing up at village festivities (to the acute disappointment of all eligible maidens in the vicinity) and instead hung out at a tumbledown shack at the edge of Drúadan, where an old medicine woman from the far north (maybe as far as Angmar) had settled some time before with her granddaughter Lianica. Manwe only knows what such an eligible bachelor saw in that puny freckled girl; many supposed that witchcraft was involved – the old woman certainly knew some spells and could heal with herbs and laying of hands, which was her livelihood. Lianica was known to talk to birds and beasts in their language and could have a ferret and a mouse sit together in the palm of her hand. This rumor may have been due to the fact that she avoided people (as opposed to forest animals) so much that she was originally thought to be dumb. When someone would mention the royal forester’s strange choice, the local beauties snorted: “Whatever. Maybe they’ll make a good couple.” So, I suppose we are at the Druadan Forest, now? But for how long? Also, Lianica seems nice. *she sighs* I somehow doubt her story will end happily…
MG: Not giving a point for “Lianica,” since I don’t know what language it’s supposed to be; also, we seem to have another hint that Angmar still exists in TLR’s present, despite falling a thousand years ago in canon.
Havaktri: Well, we don’t know how old Lianica and her grandmother really are, do we? Witches have their ways! Or is that liches? Oh, but of course, One day the girl ran into the young landlord, out with his merry company to hunt and ‘improve the serfs’ blood line a bit;’ those exploits of his had even caused some of his neighboring landlords to grumble: “Really, young sir, this penchant of yours to screw everything that moves …” It was a routine matter, nothing to get excited about, really. Who’d’ve thought that the fool girl would drown herself, as if something precious had been taken away from her? No, guys, it really is true that all northerners are nuts. *weakly* Well, I suppose that is it for poor Lianica, then. A tragic fate, to be introduced and killed off within a single page, sacrificed on the altar of Runcorn’s angst! Runcorn buried Lianica alone – the old woman could not bear the loss of her granddaughter and passed away two days later without regaining consciousness. The neighbors came to the cemetery mostly to check whether the forester would put a black- feathered arrow on the fresh grave, signifying an oath of vengeance. But no, he did not risk that. Nor was that a surprise; sure, he’s the King’s man, but the King is far, while the landlord’s bodyguard (eighteen thugs, gallows material all) is right here. Still, the guy turned out to be much weaker than we first thought … So did those villagers who had foolishly bet on Runcorn’s declaration of vengeance (two- or even three-to-one) grouse in the Three Pint Tavern, sourly counting out the coins they have lost onto the sticky tables. At least poor Lianica got a proper burial? Though I admit, the presence of her vengeful ghost might have made this story less resolutely mundane…
MG: And of course, Yeskov casually has a girl raped and murdered as part of the angsty backstory of a character who, spoilers, only appears in a couple of chapters. All the taste and class we’ve come to expect from TLR, right? Also, on a less horrifying note – “the king is far,” really? Assuming we are near the Druadan Forest, we should be in Anorien – in other words, the central province of Gondor where Minas Tirith is. The king is probably very close nearby, and if it’s supposed to be Denethor (who, I’ll remind you, was apparently a king and not a steward in TLR-verse)… well, no matter what version you look at, the man has his faults, but I have a very hard time seeing him condoning his nobles randomly raping their subjects, especially if the charge is brought by a royal official.
The Dung Ages: 85
Mixed-up Mythos: 156 (where are we, anyway? And Gondor, so far as we see, doesn’t have “serfs,” in the traditional sense of bonded farmers tied to the land)
Havaktri: And so, we learn that However, the young lord was of a different opinion – he was exceedingly prudent in all matters that did not involve his passion for ‘pink meat.’ That… makes it sound like the “young lord” is a cannibal. Is that better or worse? I don’t know! The forester did not strike him as a man who would either let such a thing pass or go to court and write petitions (which amounted to the same thing). That sprightly peasant girl upon whom he bestowed his favor in the forest despite her objections (damn, the bitten finger still hurts) … To be honest, had he known that a man such as Runcorn was courting her, he would’ve simply passed by, especially seeing as the girl turned out to be nothing much. But what’s done is done. Comparing his impressions with those of his chief bodyguard, the landlord became certain that the absence of a black arrow meant only that Runcorn was not one for theatrical gestures and cared little for the bystanders’ opinions. A serious man, to be dealt with seriously … That same night the forester’s house was set on fire from all four sides. The arsonists propped the door shut with a large beam; when a man’s shadow appeared in the fire-lit attic window, arrows flew from the darkness below; after that, no one tried to escape the burning hut. And all of this… continues to be remarkably horrible. Why are we spending so much time on it – and why do we need to get into the mindset of a nameless rapist? That is something I could have quite done without! And so, we’re told that the “young lord” explains to the court magistrate from Harlond that Runcorn was unpopular, and it must have been poachers getting their revenge who killed him, as he doesn’t want to be accused of murdering a king’s forester. The magistrate in turn asks after the dead girl, of whom the rapist, of course, professes to know nothing. They fall to discussing the rapist’s estate and the taxes he pays, and ultimately the rapist picks a particular poacher to scapegoat for the murder and bribes the magister to go along with it. What a stirring insight into the justice system we have! Though perhaps justice isn’t the right word…
MG: Harlond, for the record, is the port town on the Anduin that services nearby Minas Tirith. What, exactly, a magistrate from Harlond is randomly doing up by the Druadan Forest I’m less sure on, though at least both regions would be in Anorien so it’s not entirely impossible he’d have jurisdiction here. There’s another place in Third Age Middle-earth called Harlond, but that’s an elf port in Lindon, not far from the Grey Havens, which makes even less sense so I’m ruling it out for now.
The Dung Ages: 86 (do you get that Gondor’s corrupt yet? Because it totally is!)
Mixed-up Mythos: 157 (I don’t even know what’s going on with the geography anymore)
Havaktri: And so, we learn that the rapist’s people never found Runcorn’s bones in the ruins of his house. The rapist had initially thought they’d simply burned to ash but being prudent – Yeskov keeps using that word for him, and I can’t say I agree with it – checks again. It turns out Runcorn had a hidden tunnel and manages to kill the man sent to search the house. “Find him!” the young lord ordered – quietly, but in a tone of voice that made his hastily assembled henchmen break out in goose bumps. “It’s us or him, no going back. So far, Oromë be praised, he’s licking his wounds somewhere in the forest. If he escapes, I’m a dead man, but you will all die before me, I promise.” Well, at least Orome, if I understand correctly, seems the right Vala to invoke in this context – though I doubt he’d be very willing to answer the prayers of such a man! The rapist takes charge of the hunt, determined to see Runcorn dead with his own eyes. Closer to evening the chief bodyguard found a cocked arbalest hidden in the bushes by the trail; more precisely, the weapon was found later, after its bolt had already buried itself in his gut. While the bodyguards bickered around the wounded man, another arrow whistled in from somewhere, taking a man in the neck. Runcorn gave himself away thereby – his silhouette showed briefly between the trees some thirty yards away down the dale, and they all chased him down a narrow clearing between the bushes. That was the forester’s idea: to get them all to run without looking down. As a result, three men wound up in that pit, more than he expected. Eggy the Kestrel’s bandits had crafted it with skill and care: eight feet deep with sharp stakes at the bottom, smeared with rotten meat to guarantee a blood poisoning at the very least. *weakly* That’s… nice. Though perhaps not undeserved, in this situation?
Twilight fell, and the gloom deepened rapidly. The landlord’s men were very cautious now, moving along in pairs; when they finally spotted Runcorn in the bushes, they showered him with arrows from twenty yards away rather than risk a close approach. Alas, when they did approach the supposed corpse (right in the path of a five-hundred-pound log that dropped from a nearby treetop), they found only a roll of bark dressed in some rags. Only then did the landlord realize that even simply getting away from Eggy’s forest stronghold where this damned wos had so expertly lured them would be very difficult: the night forest around them was chock-full of deadly traps, and their four wounded (not to mention two dead) have robbed their company of mobility. Another thing he understood now was that their overwhelming numerical superiority was of no consequence in this situation and the role of prey was theirs at least until dawn. And so, on that note, the chapter ends. In the middle of the backstory of a minor character we just met, presently following the perspective of a nameless rapist! Yeskov has made many odd choices in this story thus far, and yet he continues to find new ways to baffle me… And for that matter, I still wonder, why are we spending so much time on this? If the secrets of the universe are to be revealed in the Saga of Runcorn’s Revenge on the Nameless Rapist… perhaps we’re all better off not knowing them?
Chapter Fifty-Six
Havaktri: And so, we open this chapter still with the rapist and his men – why? – as they set up their defenses in an overgrown dale. Their situation is clearly wearing on them, and eventually one of the men cries out Woses! And shoots one of the others, which results in the whole group scattering. *she sighs* I am not expert on military tactics – I leave that in the Captain’s capable hands – but this can’t be good, can it? This was no accident, though: the ‘someone’ who caused the free-for-all with a shot at his comrade was none other than Runcorn. The forester had appropriated the cloak of one of the dead (who were left unguarded), blended in with the lord’s men as they were setting up their defense, and waited. He certainly had a hundred opportunities to put an arrow into the landlord and vanish into darkness in the ensuing chaos – but in his judgment the man did not deserve such an easy death, so he had other plans. Oh, so I guess it was on purpose, then. And it looks like all of these enemies are helpless before Runcorn’s brilliance, and even though we’re following their perspective – I think – I certainly feel no sympathy for them, so… why are we bothering to drag this out? Perhaps this scene holds some deep meaning for Yeskov that I haven’t yet determined… That morning, the hunters find that they’ve lost two more men, along with the landlord himself, they go looking for him, and finally They found him a couple of miles away, guided by the cackling of crows. The young lord was tied to a tree, his genitals sticking out of his bloodied mouth – “choked on his balls,” as the serfs later whispered in relish. *looking faintly green* Oh. Well… I can’t say it wasn’t deserved, but I’m not sure I actually wanted to see that… and I suppose thus falls the nameless rapist at the hands of vigilante justice. He won’t be missed but still… what is the point of all this?
And so, a general hunt is called for Runcorn, and seemingly his only option is to become an outlaw. *beat* I think I read something like this in one of Thyra’s chapbooks she let me borrow, albeit with less rape and… mutilation involved. Wounded in a fight with the sheriff of Harlond’s men, broken on the rack, Runcorn was about to grace the local gallows when Baron Grager rode into town looking to recruit reinforcements for the decimated Ithilien Regiment. “Oh, this one’ll do,” said the baron in approximately the tone of a housewife picking out a cut of ham at the butcher’s (“… and slice it thin!”); the sheriff could only grit his teeth. Does Grager, whose unit operates in Ithilien, actually have authority to recruit a prisoner from Anorien with no ties to Ithilien? I have to wonder… also, I suppose this is how Runcorn joined the Ithilien rangers, but, if he’s from the Druadan Woods, went to Ithilien, and is now in Southern Mirkwood, he really can’t have known those same forests all his life, can he? *she gasps* Unless time and space have warped so badly that all three have collapsed together into one single eldritch forest! Il-Yannah preserve us! The war beyond Osgiliath was going so-so; the Ithilien Regiment fought noticeably better than any other unit and, as is customary, was the last one to be replenished. In general reinforcements were hard to come by (the folks at Minas Tirith who screamed the loudest about the ‘need to free Middle Earth from the Eastern darkness once and for all’ have all suddenly developed pressing business on this side of the Anduin, whereas the common folk had never cared for the War of the Ring to begin with), so the special dispensation that Faramir had bargained for – ‘even right off the gallows’ – had to be used very frequently. Grager himself was walking in the gallows’ shadow, but the reach of the courts of Gondor was too short to grab a front-line officer in wartime. So, if the common people don’t care for the War of the Ring, and the ruling class doesn’t care for the War of the Ring, and the people actually fighting the War of the Ring don’t care about it… why are we fighting at all? I’m so confused…
MG: And I’ll note that in canon, Gondor as a society had pretty much entirely restructured itself around fighting first Minas Morgul, and then the resurgent Mordor (since they’d been under threat from first one and then both for about a thousand years at all), as Faramir laments. And considering Gondor is a society where the lords are clearly expected to also serve as officers, and the heir of the Steward was traditionally also the chief captain of the realm… yeah, this isn’t a country where the important people have “pressing business on this side of the Anduin” keeping them out of the war. And the common people are the ones who stand to be enslaved or murdered if Mordor conquers Gondor, so they have reason to care too… but all of that would require admitting that Mordor is, you know, bent on conquest, so of course Yeskov can’t bring himself to do it.
The Dung Ages: 88
Mixed-up Mythos: 159
Havaktri: Indeed! And so, we learn that it took a lot of effort for Faramir’s physicians to bring Runcorn back to full health, and with his injured shoulder he’d never be as good an archer as he was, but his skills as a tracker were worth it! He finished the war with the rank of sergeant, then participated under his lieutenant’s command in freeing and elevating Faramir to the throne of Ithilien, and was just about to start building himself a house – somewhere far from people, in the Otter Creek dell, say – when His Highness the Prince of Ithilien invited him over. Would he kindly agree to accompany two of his guests north, to Mirkwood? And that, I suppose, is how we come to the present of the tale? *she has a sudden shocked realization* Unless those are two other guests Faramir hasn’t told us about!? Runcorn is reluctant, but Faramir promises to pay him any price – that could go rather badly wrong, depending on what he wants – but disappointingly, Runcorn only wants to be paid in money. I’m not really sure why people are so enamored of that… I’ve seen many silver coins, and they all look much the same! “Forty silver marks,” Runcorn blurted out off the top of his head, just to get them off his back. But the wiry hook-nosed Orc (who seemed to be the leader) only nodded: “Done,” and undid the money bag with Elvish embroidery. When a handful of assorted gold coins appeared on the table (Haladdin had long wondered where Eloar might have gotten the Vendotenian nyanmas or the square chengas from the Noon Islands), the ranger could no longer back out gracefully. Well, I’d assume Eloar was well-traveled, but considering he is an elf, and this is Yeskov writing, perhaps he was merely a very successful and eclectic robber?
MG: No idea where the Noon Islands are supposed to be, for the record, and the endnotes provide no further context. Vendotenia, of course, is Yeskov’s favorite made-up country. Anyway, in context I think we can assume that the “wiry hook-nosed Orc” is supposed to be Haladdin, but still… that description bugs me. “Orc,” we’ve been told, is in TLR-verse a slur for “Orocuen.” Tzerlag is an Orocuen. Haladdin… we’ve been explicitly told is of Umbaran heritage and looks it (and this will be relevant again before the end of the fic), even though Yeskov’s Umbar is a melting pot that probably doesn’t have a distinct “look” in the first place. Haladdin did grow up in Mordor – but in Barad-dur, and Yeskov has always drawn a clear distinction between Mordor’s city people and the desert-dwelling Orocuen and presented them as distinct peoples (and the mountain Trolls are different still). I suppose Runcorn could be using “Orc” as a general slur for anyone from Mordor – but that doesn’t even make sense based on canon, where plenty of people who aren’t orcs fight for Mordor in some capacity. So, all I can assume is that Runcorn is really racist, and really bad at telling people apart, which doesn’t make me think very well of him.
Elven Brutality: 172 (where did Eloar get all that money?)
Mixed-up Mythos: 160
Havaktri: And so Yeskov takes a moment to treat us to some logistics, I think. Runcorn took all responsibility for preparations for the trip to Dol Guldur, so Haladdin and Tzerlag enjoyed a total lack thereof. The scout tried the leather ichigas bought for them with obvious anxiety (the Orocuen did not trust any footwear without a hard sole), but he really liked the ponyagas the locals used instead of rucksacks. Those rigid frames of two bird-cherry arcs conjoined at a straight angle (the wood is bent right after cutting and becomes bone-hard when it dries) allow one to carry a lumpy hundred-pound load without worrying about fitting it to one’s back. If only I knew what some of those words mean…
MG: Per the endnotes, ichigas comes from Siberian Russian and refers to a kind of boot, and ponyagas, from the same dialect, are a kind of load-bearing device. Why we’re using these words in Middle-earth escapes me.
Linguistic Confusion: 67
Havaktri: While preparations are being made, we’re told Tzerlag decides to move from Faramir’s guest quarters to the barracks, to Haladdin’s surprise. “I’m a simple man, sir, I’m like a fly in honey amidst all this luxury. It’s bad for the fly and bad for the honey.” Well, this simple monk can’t argue with that… though I’m not sure literally sleeping in the barracks of enemy soldiers would be a good way to find simplicity. I imagine if I tried to bed down in a Riedran barracks, it would end poorly for someone… though I’m not sure for who, just yet. He showed up the next morning sporting a large shiner but quite pleased with himself. It turned out that the Ithilienians, who had heard tell of the sergeant’s exploits on the night of the prince’s escape, prodded him into challenging the two best hand-to-hand fighters they had. Tzerlag won one fight and lost (or, perhaps, had the smarts to lose) the other to complete satisfaction of all involved. Now even the Orocuen’s dislike for beer, uncovered during long evening bull sessions, met with the rangers’ understanding: a competent man within his rights. What’s the drink you got over there – kumiss? Sorry, man, we’re fresh out of the stuff … One day Haladdin visited the barrack to talk to his companion and noted how a lively conversation in Common died down the moment he showed up and an awkward silence reigned – the learned doctor was nothing but a hindrance to farmers’ sons finally free of the necessity to shoot each other, a boss….or, I suppose, it could all turn out perfectly fine, as Tzerlag befriends the Gondorians entirely without incident! Is this some strange power he possesses? Or was Yeskov too busy spending time with the nameless rapist to actually bother showing us this? Do I want to know?
MG: Per the endnotes, kumiss is from Mongolian, and is an alcoholic beverage made from mare’s milk. Why they drink it in Mordor, I couldn’t tell you. Now, the Easterlings do seem to canonically take some inspiration from steppe peoples (though iirc, the Wainriders – the largest and most dangerous Easterling nation Gondor ever dealt with – are generally considered to be based on the Huns, rather than the Mongols) … but Tzerlag isn’t an Easterling, who are presented as a completely separate people from the “Orocuen.”
Linguistic Confusion: 68
Havaktri: I don’t suppose any of these people would happen to have some tea? I like tea… well, with all the pleasantries out of the way, the journey begins. Since they did not know who was in charge in the Brown Lands on the left bank of the Anduin, they chose a water route.
MG: Breaking in again to say that I doubt anyone is in charge in the Brown Lands. Those would be the desert I mentioned earlier. So, bit of backstory here. A long, long time ago, the Ents of Fangorn Forest and their female counterparts, the Entwives, went their separate ways – the Ents preferred the wild forests, while the Entwives were more interested in gardening and agriculture. The Entwives crossed the Anduin and made great gardens there and may have been the ones who first taught farming to early Men. Eventually, in the mid to late Second Age, something happened, and the gardens were destroyed, probably by Sauron. The Entwives vanished; though the Ents believe they’re still alive somewhere in Middle-earth, they never found out what happened to them (which is why the Ents are a dying race – with their genders separated, they can’t reproduce anymore). Whatever devastated the Entwives’ gardens blasted the land so deeply that nothing ever grew there again. That’s the Brown Lands (Berennyr in Sindarin), and they are apparently completely lifeless. So far as we see in the book, no one goes there, or wants to, and our heroes would probably want to avoid them no matter who nominally claims them. Also, Haladdin’s merry band are currently going against the current of the largest river in western Middle-earth. Good luck with that.
Mixed-up Mythos: 161 (yeah, you should probably stay away from the Brown Lands for reasons entirely unrelated to who’s “running” them)
Havaktri: Well, I suppose if I ever find myself in Middle-earth, that is one place I should avoid visiting, no? From there they had to use light dugout canoes. Haladdin and Tzerlag spent that part of the journey as cargo: “You don’t know the River, so the best you can do for the company is keep your asses glued to the bottom of the boat and make no sudden moves.” On June 2nd the expedition reached the North Undeep, a twist of the Anduin right before the mouth of River Limlight originating from Fangorn. The Enchanted Forests began here – Lórien on the right bank, Mirkwood on the left; that left just a tad over sixty miles to Dol Guldur as the crow flies. Faramir’s men remained behind to guard the boats (on the Rohan bank, just in case), while the three of them reached the jagged black-green wall of Mirkwood firs the next day. Well, that was easy!
MG: Especially since, once they passed the falls, they’d have to be going against the rapids of Sarn Gebir, where, according to Aragorn “no boat can live.” Of course, they could have carried their boats along the side of the river, as the Fellowship did… but Yeskov of course makes no mention of that. And now that we’re at “the Enchanted Forests,” something I want to take a moment to talk about. The term is original to Yeskov; it’s nowhere in Tolkien. Lorien one could fairly call “enchanted,” as it’s under the power of Galadriel and her Ring of Power, Nenya, and is explicitly described as an otherworldly place Galadriel seems to have infused with some degree of her memories of Valinor. Sam describes it as like being “inside a song.” Mirkwood on the other hand… it has elves, but they live in Northern Mirkwood, well beyond where we’re at right now. And Thranduil does not have a Ring of Power (and generally comes across, IMO, as the least impressive of the major elven-lords of the late Third Age – himself, Galadriel and Celeborn, Elrond, and Cirdan – which doubtless galls him) and does not exert the same sort of power over the Woodland Realm as Galadriel does in Lorien (and certainly not in Mirkwood beyond the Woodland Realm). And Mirkwood is full of magic… but most of it is very dangerous magic, because Dol Guldur, where Sauron dwelt as “the Necromancer” for centuries after he first returned from exile in the mid Third Age, but before he could reclaim Mordor. Lumping the two forests together doesn’t make much sense (indeed, Fellowship positions Lorien and Southern Mirkwood as the antitheses of each other). Of course, in TLR Sauron was a mortal man, not an immortal demigod sorcerer, and as for what Yeskov is doing with Dol Guldur, it’s going to be… different.
Mixed-up Mythos: 162
Havaktri: Well, we immediately get a description of the forest, in any case. This forest was completely unlike the sun- and life-filled groves of Ithilien: complete absence of undergrowth and bush made it resemble an endless colonnade of some mammoth temple. Silence reigned under its ceiling, as the thick carpet of acid-green moss, dotted here and there by little whitish flowers that resembled potato sprouts, swallowed all sound. This stillness and the greenish twilight made for a perfect illusion of being under water, further enhanced by ‘seaweed’ – unappetizing hoary beards of lichen hanging off fir branches. Not a ray of sunlight, not a breath of a breeze – Haladdin physically felt the pressure of a thick sheet of water. The trees were enormous, their true size given away only by the fallen ones; these were impossible to climb over, so they had to go around them anywhere from a hundred to a hundred fifty feet in either direction. Larger patches of storm-felled trees were completely impassable and had to be circumvented. The insides of those trunks were carved out by huge palm-sized ants that fiercely attacked anyone who dared touch their abode. Twice they came across relatively fresh human skeletons; graceful coal-black butterflies swarmed noiselessly over the bones, and this was so scary that even the jaded Orocuen made the sign of the Eye. Interesting… I almost feel like I recognize this place from its descriptions in the original story! How very odd for Yeskov… though he seems to have left out the giant spiders. I can’t say I blame him for that… though I should really respect all life, I’m not overly fond of spiders. They have so many eyes… it reminds me of something deep in the recesses of my memory I’d rather forget…
This on the other hand doesn’t seem quite right. Packs of werewolves and cartwheel-sized spiders turned out to be fairy tales: this forest did not deign to actively oppose Man, being absolutely alien to him, like the expanse of the ocean or the cold fire of Ephel Dúath glaciers; the forest’s power expressed itself in alienation and rejection, rather than confrontation, which is why forester Runcorn felt it most acutely. I wasn’t aware there were supposed to be werewolves in Mirkwood – but I think that description makes me think more of what I’ve heard of Fangorn, an ancient forest indifferent to humanity, while Mirkwood should be more… malevolent. It was this power that Dol Guldur had been gathering inside its charmed stones over the ages, century after century, drop by drop. The three magic fastnesses – Dol Guldur in Mirkwood, Minas Morgul by the Cirith Ungol pass, and Ag Jakend amidst the lifeless high mountain plateau called Shurab in northern Khand – enclosed Mordor in a protective triangle fed by the ancient power of the forest, the light of mountain snow, and the silence of the desert. That… I was not expecting!
MG: Needless to say, there’s no basis for this in canon whatsoever. Ag Jakend is Yeskov’s creation (no linguistics point, since I have no idea what language it’s supposed to even be) and thus I’m setting it aside, but Dol Guldur and Minas Morgul aren’t even related. Dol Guldur, originally Amon Lanc, was built by Thranduil’s father Oropher in the early Second Age, though he later abandoned it for unknown reasons. Sauron moved in circa TA 1000; he remained there until the White Council drove him out, but that was a feint and he returned safely to Mordor, which the Nazgul had been secretly preparing for him. He later sent forces to occupy Dol Guldur again, and during the War of the Ring attacks were launched from there against the Woodland Realm and Lorien. At the end of the war, Lorien launched a retaliatory attack, and Galadriel levelled Dol Guldur, seemingly by her own power. Minas Morgul was originally Minas Ithil, capital of Ithilien and one of Gondor’s three chief cities, along with Minas Anor (later renamed Minas Tirith) and Osgiliath (the original capital of the whole country, later ruined and abandoned). It was taken by the Witch-king in TA 2000, renamed Minas Morgul, and for roughly a millennium waged war on Gondor as an independent fiefdom. When Sauron returned to Mordor, the Witch-king submitted to his old master once more and took up his position as Sauron’s chief vassal and general. Minas Morgul was seemingly abandoned after the Witch-King’s defeat at the Pelennor Fields, and ultimately was apparently destroyed by the Gondorians, who had no other effective way to cleanse it of the corruption built up over centuries of the Witch-king’s residence. So, yeah, Yeskov has linked too fortresses that were originally entirely unrelated, save that both belonged to Mordor at various points, at least one of which should be destroyed at this point, into one magical network (together with a third fortress of his own devising) and like everything to do with his take on the Nazgul, it remains completely incongruous with his hyper-rational, technologically based Mordor.
Mixed-up Mythos: 165
Havaktri: Perhaps it’s all a clever diversion? The Nazgúl that had erected those magical ‘resonators’ made them look like fortresses in order to conceal their true purpose; one supposes that they must have had a good laugh watching yet another Western general dazedly wander the cracked flagstones of Dol Guldur’s courtyards, futilely trying to locate any trace of a garrison that had been battling his soldiers. (This trick was last used two months ago: the ‘mirror garrison’ had distracted the Elves and the Esgaroth militia for nearly two weeks, allowing the real North Army to retreat to Morannon almost without casualties.) Only the castle’s dungeons were unhealthy for anyone to get into, as indicated by clear warnings in Common chiseled into the walls. Perhaps if they wrote their warning in Westron, it might have gone over better?
MG: Also… yeah, apparently hyper-rational technological Mordor can field entire illusionary armies. Now, certain forms of glamour-based magic to alter the appearance of things do exist in Middle-earth, but this is a bit ridiculous! Also, apparently the elves never noticed they were fighting illusions for two weeks. Wow; we’re supposed to fear these people why, exactly? Also, if the “mirror garrison” were fighting the elves and Esgaroth, does that mean that the entire assault on Lorien, Battle Under Trees in the Woodland Realm, and the Siege of Erebor and Battle of Dale were fought, at least in part, by illusions? Wow. Though if the “Northern Army” made it back to the Morannon, they were presumably wiped out there with the rest of Mordor’s military, so maybe this isn’t that impressive in the long run.
Mordor the Magnificent: 83 (Mordor has a whole magical network they didn’t have in canon, guys, despite it being totally antithetical to everything TLR!Mordor stands for!)
Not So Magnificent: 45 (…but it didn’t help much in the long run, did it?)
Havaktri: I think I’ll stick with my own people’s arts, thank you! And so, we now find ourselves back where we started, with Haladdin listening to the two rangers arguing about their path; they have been walking paths through deep forest, avoiding the road joining Dol Guldur to Morannon, and yet the scouts constantly felt human presence even in these enchanted thickets. And now this: fresh bootprints of a Mordorian infantryman … yet Sharya-Rana had mentioned no Mordorian forces near the fortress. Maybe this is more of those illusions? But is it really so surprising there are Mordorians in a Mordorian garrison? The two rangers argue over whether they could be deserters, and think that the boot prints look new, rather than worn, like they’d expect from the North Army (I think the North Army needs a new quartermaster! I’ve always heard an army marches on its stomach… but I think boots should still come in handy!). They can’t even be sure these are Mordorians, just that they’re wearing Mordor-style boots. Haladdin suddenly makes a decision, which we’re told is totally irrational and a stab in the dark. Oh, dear… though I’ve always felt the rational and the irrational have far more overlap than people think! “All right, here’s what we’ll do. As I understand it, it’s less than a dozen miles to Dol Guldur. We’ll go to the road now, where you will camp and I’ll continue to the fortress alone. If I’m not back in three days, I’m dead and you’re to go back. Do not approach the fortress under any circumstances. Any circumstances, understand?” Tzerlag thinks Haladdin is crazy, but Haladdin asks if he understands his orders, and he does. “Wonderful. I need to have some sleep and a good think about what I’m going to tell these guys in brand-new boots, should they be in charge of the fortress. Who I am, where have I been all these months, how did I get here, and all that … why I’m shod in ichigas – no detail is too small.” But what about the large details! It wouldn’t do to remember to explain your boots but forget your own name! Regardless, the chapter ends there!
MG: Indeed, it does! The good news is that with these chapters, we’re finally done with Umbar, and the actual main plot can get started again. I actually recognize some stuff from LotR in here, marvel of marvels! The bad news is that to get there we take a chapter-and-a-half detour into the backstory of a minor character who, after these two chapters, will get mentioned maybe a handful of times again. I mean, did we really need to spend so much time learning about Runcorn when this fic’s main plot is already pretty squeezed between various tangential digressions? Not to mention that Runcorn has a painfully cliched “noble outlaw” backstory, complete with a fridged girlfriend. Because what Middle-earth really needed was more rape and murder. Yay. In the long term, the only purpose this seems to serve is to underscore how corrupt and backwards TLR’s Gondor is. Anyway, next time, Haladdin meets an old friend, and the grand plan continues to unfold. We’ll see you then! Our counts stand at:
Age of Anachronisms: 151
The Dung Ages: 88
Elven Brutality: 172
Linguistic Confusion: 68
Mixed-up Mythos: 165
Mordor the Magnificent: 83
Not So Magnificent: 45
Spies Like Us: 260
Take That, Tolkien!: 50
I’m also partway through my reread and commentary on the (in)famous epic Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic Embers which can be found here if you’re interested!
Since this January, 2024, marks my tenth anniversary as a sporker at this comm, I also did a brief writeup reflecting on my experiences here, my past sporkings, and a bit on what I’m likely to be doing in the near future; you can read it on my journal here if that interests you!
Warning: This post contains discussion of rape, suicide and mutilation.
MG: Well, everyone, it’s time to continue our journey through Kirill Yeskov’s The Last Ringbearer! Last time, we wrapped up Part III, as Tangorn had his meeting with Elandar, decided to run off with Alviss, got himself killed in a very silly way, and in dying wound up fulfilling his mission entirely by accident. Today, it’s time to start Part IV: Ransom for a Shadow, in which this story will finally come to a close. Joining us once again will be Havaktri!
Chapter Fifty-Five
MG: Since this is the beginning of a new Part (technically, the final Part), we open with a real-world quote. Over and over the story, ending as he began: / “Make ye no truce with Adam-zad – the Bear that walks like a Man!” Per the endnotes, this is from Rudyard Kipling’s poem Truce With The Bear. And, while I can think of several possible interpretations of this quote and its relevance to the Part, I feel like the most obvious one would be that the elves of Lorien are the “bear that walks like a man” with whom one must never make a truce. Which only serves to underscore Yeskov’s interpretation of the elves as evil, inhuman monsters – which he’s clearly fine with, despite the fic supposedly exploring and deconstructing the demonization of Mordor and the orcs, because they’re not the faction he likes.
Elven Brutality: 171
Havaktri: It would be fitting, considering all that we’ve seen thus far… though I’m not sure what’s so wrong about making a truce with a bear? I’ve heard of druids who can take the shape of bears, and they sound like perfectly fine people… though I doubt Yeskov is overly fond of druids. We open the chapter proper at Mirkwood, near Dol-Guldur June 5, 3019, which I believe would indicate we’ve jumped back several weeks from where we left poor Tangorn. The chapter begins with someone named Runcorn commenting on a fresh track, and gesturing for Haladdin and Tzerlag to follow him. Oh, it’s been so long since we’ve seen them! I almost miss them… perhaps I’d miss them more if they had more than a few shreds of personality between them! Tzerlag comes up to Runcorn, and both sergeants engaged in an elaborate scouting ritual by a small spot of wet clay, trading quiet phrases in Common. Haladdin’s opinion did not interest the rangers at all, of course; not even the Orocuen’s thoughts counted for much in that discussion: the scouts have already worked out a pecking order. The erstwhile enemies – the Ithilien ranger and the squad leader of the Cirith Ungol Rangers – treated each other with exaggerated respect (like, say, a master goldsmith and a master swordsmith might), but the desert is the desert, and the forest is the forest. Both professionals knew the scope of their expertise very well. The Ithilien ranger had spent his entire life in these forests. I… wasn’t aware that there was any sort of rivalry between goldsmiths and swordsmiths, since those are, after all, rather different professions… perhaps I’m mistaken?
MG: “Runcorn” just makes me think of that guy Harry Potter impersonated to sneak into the Ministry of Magic in Deathly Hallows, tbh. Also, we’re in Southern Mirkwood, near Dol Guldur (no hyphen) per our timestamp. Mirkwood is a completely separate forest from the woodlands of Ithilien – there’s a freaking desert between them. If Runcorn’s an Ithilien ranger, logically he can’t also have spent his whole life in Mirkwood. Pick a forest, Yeskov!
Linguistic Confusion: 65 (“Runcorn” doesn’t make sense as a Sindarin name; “Dol Guldur” doesn’t have a dash; the Common Tongue is Westron, not just “Common”)
Mixed Up Mythos: 152 (Mirkwood =/= Ithilien)
Havaktri: And suddenly we find ourselves learning all about Runcorn. On the one hand, a part of me is glad that Yeskov has decided to develop a side character – imagine how horrible it would be, going through life as a nameless, faceless extra! – but on the other, is this strictly necessary? I believe we only have a relatively small number of chapters left – is Runcorn going to be so important to the resolution of the story that we must learn all of this now? And if not… then why are we learning it at all? Does Runcorn’s life story hold within it the key to unlocking the mysteries of the cosmos? Let’s see! Back then he still walked upright and with shoulders squared (the right one was not yet higher than the left one), while his face was yet free of a badly healed purple scar; he was handsome, brave, and lucky, with his bottle-green Royal Forester uniform fitting him like a glove – in other words, a serious threat to womankind. *raising her hand* Ah, I for one don’t care overmuch for men who are a threat to me – perhaps we don’t need to be learning about Runcorn after all? The local peasants disliked him, which he considered normal: villeins only like accommodating foresters, whereas Runcorn took his service with all the seriousness of youth. Being a King’s man, he could disregard the local landlords; he quickly put their courts, which under his predecessor used to visit the royal forests like their own larder, in their place. Ah, at least he’s protecting nature? Though maybe he could stand to be a little accommodating…
MG: Also… where are we? If Runcorn’s supposed to be an Ithilien ranger, in canon, Ithilien was during the lead-up to the War of the Ring disputed territory between Gondor and Mordor, with no permanent civilian population. In TLR, it seems to have never belonged to Gondor at all, probably, based on Yeskov’s weird insistence on Faramir’s fiefdom being a “colony” and not part of Gondor proper. Neither of which is consistent with this stereotypical feudal setup.
Mixed-up Mythos: 153
Havaktri: And so, we continue. Everybody knew the story of Eggy the Kestrel’s band that had wandered into their country once – Runcorn did away with those guys all by himself, not deigning to wait for the sheriff’s men to pry their behinds off the benches of the Three Pint Tavern. Ah, so he seems quite the one-man army, then! How remarkable! Also, am I the only one imagining this apparent bandit chief as a large egg with bird wings and feet sticking out of it? I mean, he is Eggy the Kestrel… To sum it up, the neighbors treated the young forester with cautious respect but not much sympathy, which he did not care much for anyway. He was used to being by himself since he was a child, and socialized with the Forest way more than with his peers. Hmmm; perhaps I should introduce him to Harsk, our ranger. They seem to have much in common… Harsk doesn’t say much, but I’ve always found him rather thoughtful… The Forest was everything to him: playmate, interlocutor, mentor, eventually becoming his Home. Some people even claimed that he had in him the blood of the woodwoses – forest demons from the ominous Drúadan Dell. Well, people in remote forest villages say all sorts of things during chilly fall evenings, when only the feeble light of a splinter keeps the ancient evils from creeping out of the dark corners … That, on the other hand, I don’t know what to say to…
MG: I do. The Woses, who appear briefly in the book of LotR, are a remnant of an ancient Mannish people, the Druedain (or Drug, in their own language) who live in the Druadan Wood north of Minas Tirith. Tolkien discusses their history and culture in rather more detail in Unfinished Tales, in the essay called, appropriately enough, “The Druedain.” They’re a tribal people who mostly keep to themselves; apparently, they’d been persecuted and hunted by the Gondorians in the past, but Aragorn ensures their safety and sovereignty after he takes the throne. Considering the relationship between the two peoples, it seems unlikely, but not impossible, that a Gondorian forester might have some Druadan blood – but IMO it would only make sense if he was from near the Druadan forest, which is in the province of Anorien, on the opposite side of the Anduin from Ithilien. And, as of the time of LotR, the Druadan forest is a place almost no one in Gondor goes into (since the stone quarries on its other side have fallen into disuse, and the road through the forest is mostly forgotten save by the Woses themselves) and thus seems unlikely to have a resident Gondorian forester. So now we have Runcorn’s backstory tying him to three separate forests in three completely different locations, probably mutually exclusive. Fun!
Mixed-up Mythos: 154 (the Druadan Forest also =/= Ithilien)
Havaktri: How odd… perhaps there’s three of them? Has anyone made sure Runcorn isn’t actually a set of identical triplets sharing an identity? To top it all off, at one point Runcorn stopped showing up at village festivities (to the acute disappointment of all eligible maidens in the vicinity) and instead hung out at a tumbledown shack at the edge of Drúadan, where an old medicine woman from the far north (maybe as far as Angmar) had settled some time before with her granddaughter Lianica. Manwe only knows what such an eligible bachelor saw in that puny freckled girl; many supposed that witchcraft was involved – the old woman certainly knew some spells and could heal with herbs and laying of hands, which was her livelihood. Lianica was known to talk to birds and beasts in their language and could have a ferret and a mouse sit together in the palm of her hand. This rumor may have been due to the fact that she avoided people (as opposed to forest animals) so much that she was originally thought to be dumb. When someone would mention the royal forester’s strange choice, the local beauties snorted: “Whatever. Maybe they’ll make a good couple.” So, I suppose we are at the Druadan Forest, now? But for how long? Also, Lianica seems nice. *she sighs* I somehow doubt her story will end happily…
MG: Not giving a point for “Lianica,” since I don’t know what language it’s supposed to be; also, we seem to have another hint that Angmar still exists in TLR’s present, despite falling a thousand years ago in canon.
Havaktri: Well, we don’t know how old Lianica and her grandmother really are, do we? Witches have their ways! Or is that liches? Oh, but of course, One day the girl ran into the young landlord, out with his merry company to hunt and ‘improve the serfs’ blood line a bit;’ those exploits of his had even caused some of his neighboring landlords to grumble: “Really, young sir, this penchant of yours to screw everything that moves …” It was a routine matter, nothing to get excited about, really. Who’d’ve thought that the fool girl would drown herself, as if something precious had been taken away from her? No, guys, it really is true that all northerners are nuts. *weakly* Well, I suppose that is it for poor Lianica, then. A tragic fate, to be introduced and killed off within a single page, sacrificed on the altar of Runcorn’s angst! Runcorn buried Lianica alone – the old woman could not bear the loss of her granddaughter and passed away two days later without regaining consciousness. The neighbors came to the cemetery mostly to check whether the forester would put a black- feathered arrow on the fresh grave, signifying an oath of vengeance. But no, he did not risk that. Nor was that a surprise; sure, he’s the King’s man, but the King is far, while the landlord’s bodyguard (eighteen thugs, gallows material all) is right here. Still, the guy turned out to be much weaker than we first thought … So did those villagers who had foolishly bet on Runcorn’s declaration of vengeance (two- or even three-to-one) grouse in the Three Pint Tavern, sourly counting out the coins they have lost onto the sticky tables. At least poor Lianica got a proper burial? Though I admit, the presence of her vengeful ghost might have made this story less resolutely mundane…
MG: And of course, Yeskov casually has a girl raped and murdered as part of the angsty backstory of a character who, spoilers, only appears in a couple of chapters. All the taste and class we’ve come to expect from TLR, right? Also, on a less horrifying note – “the king is far,” really? Assuming we are near the Druadan Forest, we should be in Anorien – in other words, the central province of Gondor where Minas Tirith is. The king is probably very close nearby, and if it’s supposed to be Denethor (who, I’ll remind you, was apparently a king and not a steward in TLR-verse)… well, no matter what version you look at, the man has his faults, but I have a very hard time seeing him condoning his nobles randomly raping their subjects, especially if the charge is brought by a royal official.
The Dung Ages: 85
Mixed-up Mythos: 156 (where are we, anyway? And Gondor, so far as we see, doesn’t have “serfs,” in the traditional sense of bonded farmers tied to the land)
Havaktri: And so, we learn that However, the young lord was of a different opinion – he was exceedingly prudent in all matters that did not involve his passion for ‘pink meat.’ That… makes it sound like the “young lord” is a cannibal. Is that better or worse? I don’t know! The forester did not strike him as a man who would either let such a thing pass or go to court and write petitions (which amounted to the same thing). That sprightly peasant girl upon whom he bestowed his favor in the forest despite her objections (damn, the bitten finger still hurts) … To be honest, had he known that a man such as Runcorn was courting her, he would’ve simply passed by, especially seeing as the girl turned out to be nothing much. But what’s done is done. Comparing his impressions with those of his chief bodyguard, the landlord became certain that the absence of a black arrow meant only that Runcorn was not one for theatrical gestures and cared little for the bystanders’ opinions. A serious man, to be dealt with seriously … That same night the forester’s house was set on fire from all four sides. The arsonists propped the door shut with a large beam; when a man’s shadow appeared in the fire-lit attic window, arrows flew from the darkness below; after that, no one tried to escape the burning hut. And all of this… continues to be remarkably horrible. Why are we spending so much time on it – and why do we need to get into the mindset of a nameless rapist? That is something I could have quite done without! And so, we’re told that the “young lord” explains to the court magistrate from Harlond that Runcorn was unpopular, and it must have been poachers getting their revenge who killed him, as he doesn’t want to be accused of murdering a king’s forester. The magistrate in turn asks after the dead girl, of whom the rapist, of course, professes to know nothing. They fall to discussing the rapist’s estate and the taxes he pays, and ultimately the rapist picks a particular poacher to scapegoat for the murder and bribes the magister to go along with it. What a stirring insight into the justice system we have! Though perhaps justice isn’t the right word…
MG: Harlond, for the record, is the port town on the Anduin that services nearby Minas Tirith. What, exactly, a magistrate from Harlond is randomly doing up by the Druadan Forest I’m less sure on, though at least both regions would be in Anorien so it’s not entirely impossible he’d have jurisdiction here. There’s another place in Third Age Middle-earth called Harlond, but that’s an elf port in Lindon, not far from the Grey Havens, which makes even less sense so I’m ruling it out for now.
The Dung Ages: 86 (do you get that Gondor’s corrupt yet? Because it totally is!)
Mixed-up Mythos: 157 (I don’t even know what’s going on with the geography anymore)
Havaktri: And so, we learn that the rapist’s people never found Runcorn’s bones in the ruins of his house. The rapist had initially thought they’d simply burned to ash but being prudent – Yeskov keeps using that word for him, and I can’t say I agree with it – checks again. It turns out Runcorn had a hidden tunnel and manages to kill the man sent to search the house. “Find him!” the young lord ordered – quietly, but in a tone of voice that made his hastily assembled henchmen break out in goose bumps. “It’s us or him, no going back. So far, Oromë be praised, he’s licking his wounds somewhere in the forest. If he escapes, I’m a dead man, but you will all die before me, I promise.” Well, at least Orome, if I understand correctly, seems the right Vala to invoke in this context – though I doubt he’d be very willing to answer the prayers of such a man! The rapist takes charge of the hunt, determined to see Runcorn dead with his own eyes. Closer to evening the chief bodyguard found a cocked arbalest hidden in the bushes by the trail; more precisely, the weapon was found later, after its bolt had already buried itself in his gut. While the bodyguards bickered around the wounded man, another arrow whistled in from somewhere, taking a man in the neck. Runcorn gave himself away thereby – his silhouette showed briefly between the trees some thirty yards away down the dale, and they all chased him down a narrow clearing between the bushes. That was the forester’s idea: to get them all to run without looking down. As a result, three men wound up in that pit, more than he expected. Eggy the Kestrel’s bandits had crafted it with skill and care: eight feet deep with sharp stakes at the bottom, smeared with rotten meat to guarantee a blood poisoning at the very least. *weakly* That’s… nice. Though perhaps not undeserved, in this situation?
Twilight fell, and the gloom deepened rapidly. The landlord’s men were very cautious now, moving along in pairs; when they finally spotted Runcorn in the bushes, they showered him with arrows from twenty yards away rather than risk a close approach. Alas, when they did approach the supposed corpse (right in the path of a five-hundred-pound log that dropped from a nearby treetop), they found only a roll of bark dressed in some rags. Only then did the landlord realize that even simply getting away from Eggy’s forest stronghold where this damned wos had so expertly lured them would be very difficult: the night forest around them was chock-full of deadly traps, and their four wounded (not to mention two dead) have robbed their company of mobility. Another thing he understood now was that their overwhelming numerical superiority was of no consequence in this situation and the role of prey was theirs at least until dawn. And so, on that note, the chapter ends. In the middle of the backstory of a minor character we just met, presently following the perspective of a nameless rapist! Yeskov has made many odd choices in this story thus far, and yet he continues to find new ways to baffle me… And for that matter, I still wonder, why are we spending so much time on this? If the secrets of the universe are to be revealed in the Saga of Runcorn’s Revenge on the Nameless Rapist… perhaps we’re all better off not knowing them?
Chapter Fifty-Six
Havaktri: And so, we open this chapter still with the rapist and his men – why? – as they set up their defenses in an overgrown dale. Their situation is clearly wearing on them, and eventually one of the men cries out Woses! And shoots one of the others, which results in the whole group scattering. *she sighs* I am not expert on military tactics – I leave that in the Captain’s capable hands – but this can’t be good, can it? This was no accident, though: the ‘someone’ who caused the free-for-all with a shot at his comrade was none other than Runcorn. The forester had appropriated the cloak of one of the dead (who were left unguarded), blended in with the lord’s men as they were setting up their defense, and waited. He certainly had a hundred opportunities to put an arrow into the landlord and vanish into darkness in the ensuing chaos – but in his judgment the man did not deserve such an easy death, so he had other plans. Oh, so I guess it was on purpose, then. And it looks like all of these enemies are helpless before Runcorn’s brilliance, and even though we’re following their perspective – I think – I certainly feel no sympathy for them, so… why are we bothering to drag this out? Perhaps this scene holds some deep meaning for Yeskov that I haven’t yet determined… That morning, the hunters find that they’ve lost two more men, along with the landlord himself, they go looking for him, and finally They found him a couple of miles away, guided by the cackling of crows. The young lord was tied to a tree, his genitals sticking out of his bloodied mouth – “choked on his balls,” as the serfs later whispered in relish. *looking faintly green* Oh. Well… I can’t say it wasn’t deserved, but I’m not sure I actually wanted to see that… and I suppose thus falls the nameless rapist at the hands of vigilante justice. He won’t be missed but still… what is the point of all this?
And so, a general hunt is called for Runcorn, and seemingly his only option is to become an outlaw. *beat* I think I read something like this in one of Thyra’s chapbooks she let me borrow, albeit with less rape and… mutilation involved. Wounded in a fight with the sheriff of Harlond’s men, broken on the rack, Runcorn was about to grace the local gallows when Baron Grager rode into town looking to recruit reinforcements for the decimated Ithilien Regiment. “Oh, this one’ll do,” said the baron in approximately the tone of a housewife picking out a cut of ham at the butcher’s (“… and slice it thin!”); the sheriff could only grit his teeth. Does Grager, whose unit operates in Ithilien, actually have authority to recruit a prisoner from Anorien with no ties to Ithilien? I have to wonder… also, I suppose this is how Runcorn joined the Ithilien rangers, but, if he’s from the Druadan Woods, went to Ithilien, and is now in Southern Mirkwood, he really can’t have known those same forests all his life, can he? *she gasps* Unless time and space have warped so badly that all three have collapsed together into one single eldritch forest! Il-Yannah preserve us! The war beyond Osgiliath was going so-so; the Ithilien Regiment fought noticeably better than any other unit and, as is customary, was the last one to be replenished. In general reinforcements were hard to come by (the folks at Minas Tirith who screamed the loudest about the ‘need to free Middle Earth from the Eastern darkness once and for all’ have all suddenly developed pressing business on this side of the Anduin, whereas the common folk had never cared for the War of the Ring to begin with), so the special dispensation that Faramir had bargained for – ‘even right off the gallows’ – had to be used very frequently. Grager himself was walking in the gallows’ shadow, but the reach of the courts of Gondor was too short to grab a front-line officer in wartime. So, if the common people don’t care for the War of the Ring, and the ruling class doesn’t care for the War of the Ring, and the people actually fighting the War of the Ring don’t care about it… why are we fighting at all? I’m so confused…
MG: And I’ll note that in canon, Gondor as a society had pretty much entirely restructured itself around fighting first Minas Morgul, and then the resurgent Mordor (since they’d been under threat from first one and then both for about a thousand years at all), as Faramir laments. And considering Gondor is a society where the lords are clearly expected to also serve as officers, and the heir of the Steward was traditionally also the chief captain of the realm… yeah, this isn’t a country where the important people have “pressing business on this side of the Anduin” keeping them out of the war. And the common people are the ones who stand to be enslaved or murdered if Mordor conquers Gondor, so they have reason to care too… but all of that would require admitting that Mordor is, you know, bent on conquest, so of course Yeskov can’t bring himself to do it.
The Dung Ages: 88
Mixed-up Mythos: 159
Havaktri: Indeed! And so, we learn that it took a lot of effort for Faramir’s physicians to bring Runcorn back to full health, and with his injured shoulder he’d never be as good an archer as he was, but his skills as a tracker were worth it! He finished the war with the rank of sergeant, then participated under his lieutenant’s command in freeing and elevating Faramir to the throne of Ithilien, and was just about to start building himself a house – somewhere far from people, in the Otter Creek dell, say – when His Highness the Prince of Ithilien invited him over. Would he kindly agree to accompany two of his guests north, to Mirkwood? And that, I suppose, is how we come to the present of the tale? *she has a sudden shocked realization* Unless those are two other guests Faramir hasn’t told us about!? Runcorn is reluctant, but Faramir promises to pay him any price – that could go rather badly wrong, depending on what he wants – but disappointingly, Runcorn only wants to be paid in money. I’m not really sure why people are so enamored of that… I’ve seen many silver coins, and they all look much the same! “Forty silver marks,” Runcorn blurted out off the top of his head, just to get them off his back. But the wiry hook-nosed Orc (who seemed to be the leader) only nodded: “Done,” and undid the money bag with Elvish embroidery. When a handful of assorted gold coins appeared on the table (Haladdin had long wondered where Eloar might have gotten the Vendotenian nyanmas or the square chengas from the Noon Islands), the ranger could no longer back out gracefully. Well, I’d assume Eloar was well-traveled, but considering he is an elf, and this is Yeskov writing, perhaps he was merely a very successful and eclectic robber?
MG: No idea where the Noon Islands are supposed to be, for the record, and the endnotes provide no further context. Vendotenia, of course, is Yeskov’s favorite made-up country. Anyway, in context I think we can assume that the “wiry hook-nosed Orc” is supposed to be Haladdin, but still… that description bugs me. “Orc,” we’ve been told, is in TLR-verse a slur for “Orocuen.” Tzerlag is an Orocuen. Haladdin… we’ve been explicitly told is of Umbaran heritage and looks it (and this will be relevant again before the end of the fic), even though Yeskov’s Umbar is a melting pot that probably doesn’t have a distinct “look” in the first place. Haladdin did grow up in Mordor – but in Barad-dur, and Yeskov has always drawn a clear distinction between Mordor’s city people and the desert-dwelling Orocuen and presented them as distinct peoples (and the mountain Trolls are different still). I suppose Runcorn could be using “Orc” as a general slur for anyone from Mordor – but that doesn’t even make sense based on canon, where plenty of people who aren’t orcs fight for Mordor in some capacity. So, all I can assume is that Runcorn is really racist, and really bad at telling people apart, which doesn’t make me think very well of him.
Elven Brutality: 172 (where did Eloar get all that money?)
Mixed-up Mythos: 160
Havaktri: And so Yeskov takes a moment to treat us to some logistics, I think. Runcorn took all responsibility for preparations for the trip to Dol Guldur, so Haladdin and Tzerlag enjoyed a total lack thereof. The scout tried the leather ichigas bought for them with obvious anxiety (the Orocuen did not trust any footwear without a hard sole), but he really liked the ponyagas the locals used instead of rucksacks. Those rigid frames of two bird-cherry arcs conjoined at a straight angle (the wood is bent right after cutting and becomes bone-hard when it dries) allow one to carry a lumpy hundred-pound load without worrying about fitting it to one’s back. If only I knew what some of those words mean…
MG: Per the endnotes, ichigas comes from Siberian Russian and refers to a kind of boot, and ponyagas, from the same dialect, are a kind of load-bearing device. Why we’re using these words in Middle-earth escapes me.
Linguistic Confusion: 67
Havaktri: While preparations are being made, we’re told Tzerlag decides to move from Faramir’s guest quarters to the barracks, to Haladdin’s surprise. “I’m a simple man, sir, I’m like a fly in honey amidst all this luxury. It’s bad for the fly and bad for the honey.” Well, this simple monk can’t argue with that… though I’m not sure literally sleeping in the barracks of enemy soldiers would be a good way to find simplicity. I imagine if I tried to bed down in a Riedran barracks, it would end poorly for someone… though I’m not sure for who, just yet. He showed up the next morning sporting a large shiner but quite pleased with himself. It turned out that the Ithilienians, who had heard tell of the sergeant’s exploits on the night of the prince’s escape, prodded him into challenging the two best hand-to-hand fighters they had. Tzerlag won one fight and lost (or, perhaps, had the smarts to lose) the other to complete satisfaction of all involved. Now even the Orocuen’s dislike for beer, uncovered during long evening bull sessions, met with the rangers’ understanding: a competent man within his rights. What’s the drink you got over there – kumiss? Sorry, man, we’re fresh out of the stuff … One day Haladdin visited the barrack to talk to his companion and noted how a lively conversation in Common died down the moment he showed up and an awkward silence reigned – the learned doctor was nothing but a hindrance to farmers’ sons finally free of the necessity to shoot each other, a boss….or, I suppose, it could all turn out perfectly fine, as Tzerlag befriends the Gondorians entirely without incident! Is this some strange power he possesses? Or was Yeskov too busy spending time with the nameless rapist to actually bother showing us this? Do I want to know?
MG: Per the endnotes, kumiss is from Mongolian, and is an alcoholic beverage made from mare’s milk. Why they drink it in Mordor, I couldn’t tell you. Now, the Easterlings do seem to canonically take some inspiration from steppe peoples (though iirc, the Wainriders – the largest and most dangerous Easterling nation Gondor ever dealt with – are generally considered to be based on the Huns, rather than the Mongols) … but Tzerlag isn’t an Easterling, who are presented as a completely separate people from the “Orocuen.”
Linguistic Confusion: 68
Havaktri: I don’t suppose any of these people would happen to have some tea? I like tea… well, with all the pleasantries out of the way, the journey begins. Since they did not know who was in charge in the Brown Lands on the left bank of the Anduin, they chose a water route.
MG: Breaking in again to say that I doubt anyone is in charge in the Brown Lands. Those would be the desert I mentioned earlier. So, bit of backstory here. A long, long time ago, the Ents of Fangorn Forest and their female counterparts, the Entwives, went their separate ways – the Ents preferred the wild forests, while the Entwives were more interested in gardening and agriculture. The Entwives crossed the Anduin and made great gardens there and may have been the ones who first taught farming to early Men. Eventually, in the mid to late Second Age, something happened, and the gardens were destroyed, probably by Sauron. The Entwives vanished; though the Ents believe they’re still alive somewhere in Middle-earth, they never found out what happened to them (which is why the Ents are a dying race – with their genders separated, they can’t reproduce anymore). Whatever devastated the Entwives’ gardens blasted the land so deeply that nothing ever grew there again. That’s the Brown Lands (Berennyr in Sindarin), and they are apparently completely lifeless. So far as we see in the book, no one goes there, or wants to, and our heroes would probably want to avoid them no matter who nominally claims them. Also, Haladdin’s merry band are currently going against the current of the largest river in western Middle-earth. Good luck with that.
Mixed-up Mythos: 161 (yeah, you should probably stay away from the Brown Lands for reasons entirely unrelated to who’s “running” them)
Havaktri: Well, I suppose if I ever find myself in Middle-earth, that is one place I should avoid visiting, no? From there they had to use light dugout canoes. Haladdin and Tzerlag spent that part of the journey as cargo: “You don’t know the River, so the best you can do for the company is keep your asses glued to the bottom of the boat and make no sudden moves.” On June 2nd the expedition reached the North Undeep, a twist of the Anduin right before the mouth of River Limlight originating from Fangorn. The Enchanted Forests began here – Lórien on the right bank, Mirkwood on the left; that left just a tad over sixty miles to Dol Guldur as the crow flies. Faramir’s men remained behind to guard the boats (on the Rohan bank, just in case), while the three of them reached the jagged black-green wall of Mirkwood firs the next day. Well, that was easy!
MG: Especially since, once they passed the falls, they’d have to be going against the rapids of Sarn Gebir, where, according to Aragorn “no boat can live.” Of course, they could have carried their boats along the side of the river, as the Fellowship did… but Yeskov of course makes no mention of that. And now that we’re at “the Enchanted Forests,” something I want to take a moment to talk about. The term is original to Yeskov; it’s nowhere in Tolkien. Lorien one could fairly call “enchanted,” as it’s under the power of Galadriel and her Ring of Power, Nenya, and is explicitly described as an otherworldly place Galadriel seems to have infused with some degree of her memories of Valinor. Sam describes it as like being “inside a song.” Mirkwood on the other hand… it has elves, but they live in Northern Mirkwood, well beyond where we’re at right now. And Thranduil does not have a Ring of Power (and generally comes across, IMO, as the least impressive of the major elven-lords of the late Third Age – himself, Galadriel and Celeborn, Elrond, and Cirdan – which doubtless galls him) and does not exert the same sort of power over the Woodland Realm as Galadriel does in Lorien (and certainly not in Mirkwood beyond the Woodland Realm). And Mirkwood is full of magic… but most of it is very dangerous magic, because Dol Guldur, where Sauron dwelt as “the Necromancer” for centuries after he first returned from exile in the mid Third Age, but before he could reclaim Mordor. Lumping the two forests together doesn’t make much sense (indeed, Fellowship positions Lorien and Southern Mirkwood as the antitheses of each other). Of course, in TLR Sauron was a mortal man, not an immortal demigod sorcerer, and as for what Yeskov is doing with Dol Guldur, it’s going to be… different.
Mixed-up Mythos: 162
Havaktri: Well, we immediately get a description of the forest, in any case. This forest was completely unlike the sun- and life-filled groves of Ithilien: complete absence of undergrowth and bush made it resemble an endless colonnade of some mammoth temple. Silence reigned under its ceiling, as the thick carpet of acid-green moss, dotted here and there by little whitish flowers that resembled potato sprouts, swallowed all sound. This stillness and the greenish twilight made for a perfect illusion of being under water, further enhanced by ‘seaweed’ – unappetizing hoary beards of lichen hanging off fir branches. Not a ray of sunlight, not a breath of a breeze – Haladdin physically felt the pressure of a thick sheet of water. The trees were enormous, their true size given away only by the fallen ones; these were impossible to climb over, so they had to go around them anywhere from a hundred to a hundred fifty feet in either direction. Larger patches of storm-felled trees were completely impassable and had to be circumvented. The insides of those trunks were carved out by huge palm-sized ants that fiercely attacked anyone who dared touch their abode. Twice they came across relatively fresh human skeletons; graceful coal-black butterflies swarmed noiselessly over the bones, and this was so scary that even the jaded Orocuen made the sign of the Eye. Interesting… I almost feel like I recognize this place from its descriptions in the original story! How very odd for Yeskov… though he seems to have left out the giant spiders. I can’t say I blame him for that… though I should really respect all life, I’m not overly fond of spiders. They have so many eyes… it reminds me of something deep in the recesses of my memory I’d rather forget…
This on the other hand doesn’t seem quite right. Packs of werewolves and cartwheel-sized spiders turned out to be fairy tales: this forest did not deign to actively oppose Man, being absolutely alien to him, like the expanse of the ocean or the cold fire of Ephel Dúath glaciers; the forest’s power expressed itself in alienation and rejection, rather than confrontation, which is why forester Runcorn felt it most acutely. I wasn’t aware there were supposed to be werewolves in Mirkwood – but I think that description makes me think more of what I’ve heard of Fangorn, an ancient forest indifferent to humanity, while Mirkwood should be more… malevolent. It was this power that Dol Guldur had been gathering inside its charmed stones over the ages, century after century, drop by drop. The three magic fastnesses – Dol Guldur in Mirkwood, Minas Morgul by the Cirith Ungol pass, and Ag Jakend amidst the lifeless high mountain plateau called Shurab in northern Khand – enclosed Mordor in a protective triangle fed by the ancient power of the forest, the light of mountain snow, and the silence of the desert. That… I was not expecting!
MG: Needless to say, there’s no basis for this in canon whatsoever. Ag Jakend is Yeskov’s creation (no linguistics point, since I have no idea what language it’s supposed to even be) and thus I’m setting it aside, but Dol Guldur and Minas Morgul aren’t even related. Dol Guldur, originally Amon Lanc, was built by Thranduil’s father Oropher in the early Second Age, though he later abandoned it for unknown reasons. Sauron moved in circa TA 1000; he remained there until the White Council drove him out, but that was a feint and he returned safely to Mordor, which the Nazgul had been secretly preparing for him. He later sent forces to occupy Dol Guldur again, and during the War of the Ring attacks were launched from there against the Woodland Realm and Lorien. At the end of the war, Lorien launched a retaliatory attack, and Galadriel levelled Dol Guldur, seemingly by her own power. Minas Morgul was originally Minas Ithil, capital of Ithilien and one of Gondor’s three chief cities, along with Minas Anor (later renamed Minas Tirith) and Osgiliath (the original capital of the whole country, later ruined and abandoned). It was taken by the Witch-king in TA 2000, renamed Minas Morgul, and for roughly a millennium waged war on Gondor as an independent fiefdom. When Sauron returned to Mordor, the Witch-king submitted to his old master once more and took up his position as Sauron’s chief vassal and general. Minas Morgul was seemingly abandoned after the Witch-King’s defeat at the Pelennor Fields, and ultimately was apparently destroyed by the Gondorians, who had no other effective way to cleanse it of the corruption built up over centuries of the Witch-king’s residence. So, yeah, Yeskov has linked too fortresses that were originally entirely unrelated, save that both belonged to Mordor at various points, at least one of which should be destroyed at this point, into one magical network (together with a third fortress of his own devising) and like everything to do with his take on the Nazgul, it remains completely incongruous with his hyper-rational, technologically based Mordor.
Mixed-up Mythos: 165
Havaktri: Perhaps it’s all a clever diversion? The Nazgúl that had erected those magical ‘resonators’ made them look like fortresses in order to conceal their true purpose; one supposes that they must have had a good laugh watching yet another Western general dazedly wander the cracked flagstones of Dol Guldur’s courtyards, futilely trying to locate any trace of a garrison that had been battling his soldiers. (This trick was last used two months ago: the ‘mirror garrison’ had distracted the Elves and the Esgaroth militia for nearly two weeks, allowing the real North Army to retreat to Morannon almost without casualties.) Only the castle’s dungeons were unhealthy for anyone to get into, as indicated by clear warnings in Common chiseled into the walls. Perhaps if they wrote their warning in Westron, it might have gone over better?
MG: Also… yeah, apparently hyper-rational technological Mordor can field entire illusionary armies. Now, certain forms of glamour-based magic to alter the appearance of things do exist in Middle-earth, but this is a bit ridiculous! Also, apparently the elves never noticed they were fighting illusions for two weeks. Wow; we’re supposed to fear these people why, exactly? Also, if the “mirror garrison” were fighting the elves and Esgaroth, does that mean that the entire assault on Lorien, Battle Under Trees in the Woodland Realm, and the Siege of Erebor and Battle of Dale were fought, at least in part, by illusions? Wow. Though if the “Northern Army” made it back to the Morannon, they were presumably wiped out there with the rest of Mordor’s military, so maybe this isn’t that impressive in the long run.
Mordor the Magnificent: 83 (Mordor has a whole magical network they didn’t have in canon, guys, despite it being totally antithetical to everything TLR!Mordor stands for!)
Not So Magnificent: 45 (…but it didn’t help much in the long run, did it?)
Havaktri: I think I’ll stick with my own people’s arts, thank you! And so, we now find ourselves back where we started, with Haladdin listening to the two rangers arguing about their path; they have been walking paths through deep forest, avoiding the road joining Dol Guldur to Morannon, and yet the scouts constantly felt human presence even in these enchanted thickets. And now this: fresh bootprints of a Mordorian infantryman … yet Sharya-Rana had mentioned no Mordorian forces near the fortress. Maybe this is more of those illusions? But is it really so surprising there are Mordorians in a Mordorian garrison? The two rangers argue over whether they could be deserters, and think that the boot prints look new, rather than worn, like they’d expect from the North Army (I think the North Army needs a new quartermaster! I’ve always heard an army marches on its stomach… but I think boots should still come in handy!). They can’t even be sure these are Mordorians, just that they’re wearing Mordor-style boots. Haladdin suddenly makes a decision, which we’re told is totally irrational and a stab in the dark. Oh, dear… though I’ve always felt the rational and the irrational have far more overlap than people think! “All right, here’s what we’ll do. As I understand it, it’s less than a dozen miles to Dol Guldur. We’ll go to the road now, where you will camp and I’ll continue to the fortress alone. If I’m not back in three days, I’m dead and you’re to go back. Do not approach the fortress under any circumstances. Any circumstances, understand?” Tzerlag thinks Haladdin is crazy, but Haladdin asks if he understands his orders, and he does. “Wonderful. I need to have some sleep and a good think about what I’m going to tell these guys in brand-new boots, should they be in charge of the fortress. Who I am, where have I been all these months, how did I get here, and all that … why I’m shod in ichigas – no detail is too small.” But what about the large details! It wouldn’t do to remember to explain your boots but forget your own name! Regardless, the chapter ends there!
MG: Indeed, it does! The good news is that with these chapters, we’re finally done with Umbar, and the actual main plot can get started again. I actually recognize some stuff from LotR in here, marvel of marvels! The bad news is that to get there we take a chapter-and-a-half detour into the backstory of a minor character who, after these two chapters, will get mentioned maybe a handful of times again. I mean, did we really need to spend so much time learning about Runcorn when this fic’s main plot is already pretty squeezed between various tangential digressions? Not to mention that Runcorn has a painfully cliched “noble outlaw” backstory, complete with a fridged girlfriend. Because what Middle-earth really needed was more rape and murder. Yay. In the long term, the only purpose this seems to serve is to underscore how corrupt and backwards TLR’s Gondor is. Anyway, next time, Haladdin meets an old friend, and the grand plan continues to unfold. We’ll see you then! Our counts stand at:
Age of Anachronisms: 151
The Dung Ages: 88
Elven Brutality: 172
Linguistic Confusion: 68
Mixed-up Mythos: 165
Mordor the Magnificent: 83
Not So Magnificent: 45
Spies Like Us: 260
Take That, Tolkien!: 50
I’m also partway through my reread and commentary on the (in)famous epic Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic Embers which can be found here if you’re interested!
Since this January, 2024, marks my tenth anniversary as a sporker at this comm, I also did a brief writeup reflecting on my experiences here, my past sporkings, and a bit on what I’m likely to be doing in the near future; you can read it on my journal here if that interests you!
