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Fantasy » alt.fan.tolkien » Re: Gollum's Escape
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #50808] Di, 31 Mai 2005 03:48
Belba Grubb From Stoc  
R. Dan Henry wrote:

<snip>
>
> The orcs chasing Gollum would have spread out if they weren't good
> trackers, so as to make it harder to evade them. This would have
> resulted in less obscuring of the footprints than if they were all
> together, with Gollum in a bunched group of orcs (unless Gollum was at
> the back for some reason).

I'd have to disagree about the orcs spreading out very much in that
terrain to track Gollum as, the more they spread out, the more trees and
dense undergrowth Gollum would have to hide in and just be very still
and let the hunters walk right by him. Very tough place to chase anyone.


>>The former point isn't quite so strong because all the parties
>>involved (Gollum, the Orcs and the Wood-elves) are woodscrafty;
>
>
> These orcs aren't, though,

Right; I had forgotten Legolas' comment about them not being familiar
with the forest. For that matter, though, how much experience had
Gollum in forests? He had been through Mirkwood once years earlier but
hardly in a skilled way: the whole forest rang with the horror of his
passage.

Yet both he and the Orcs could still be called woodscrafty in the way
Aragorn could be called a woodsman even when he wasn't in a forest; I
suppose huntman would be a better word, though certainly an overly noble
one to use for Gollum or an orc. At any rate, they would still have
known the basic dodges of any hunt and used them as they could to throw
off the pursuing Orcs and Wood-elves, respectively. And in such
terrain, as mentioned, they might well have used the same tricks in the
same opportune places and so left tracks so close together that a bit
later the excited Wood-elves misread them as being coincident in time as
well as space. It's an easy mistake to make.

Indeed, if there was anyone of intelligence among the Orcs, they might
have even tried to make it look like Gollum was with them, knowing that
their chances of catching him were slim; if the Wood-elves caught him,
they might in their wrath slay him and save the Orcs the trouble or at
least would hold him so that the Orcs could make another attempt. But
Gollum evaded all of them, crossed the River and hid in Moria.

> which strengthens the "spread out orcs
> obscure tracks less" hypothesis. The Wood-elves, however, have some
> experienced woods-trackers among them and by "experienced" I mean
> they've been at it for centuries. They can probably pick out Gollum's
> tracks unless they have been pretty completely run over. Even if there
> are only a few spots where the orcs take a different path (Gollum runs
> under a low branch, slightly taller orc warriors go a couple of feet
> to the left) there would be evidence of Gollum and the orcs traveling
> the same route, with some clearly distinguished prints.

But the naturally spooky Wood-elves are rattled now by the sudden attack
in the heart of their kingdom, and they have dead to avenge as well as
a trust to Gandalf and Aragorn to live up to (look how quickly the
Chieftain of the Dunedain starts up about how they 'failed in their
trust' when he first hears word of it). Their paranoia is in full
swing, too, and they're just not thinking straight when they go out
after the Orcs. Legolas himself is still showing the effects of shock
at the Council when he says in one breath that 'more is known of our
doings than we wish' and yet that the Orcs were 'unused to the woods'
(no one unfamiliar with Mirkwood could have learned much at all about
Thranduil's kingdom and its ways, as the experiences of Thorin & Co
show) and he even admits that the trail finally 'escaped our skill.'

Just doesn't hang together at all, but Elrond kept quiet and Gandalf
quite tactfully let the prince of Mirkwood off the hook and also defused
Aragorn's anger (which was quite understandable, given the work and
unpleasantness the Ranger had gone through to catch Gollum and bring him
north in the first place) with a "Well, well, he is gone" and a
refocussing of the council's attention onto the wizard's own recent
experiences.

I would submit that the Wood-elves misread the trail from the beginning
because they didn't start out on it with clear minds; as the trail grew
colder and their adrenaline levels dropped a bit they finally began to
realize that what they were seeing wasn't fitting their preconceived
notions of what they should be seeing, but so near to Dol Guldur there
was now too much danger for them to step back and more clearly rethink
the whole thing; rather, they compounded their error by blaming their
failure on a cunning enemy and heading back home empty-handed, when they
might have guessed that a Gollum fleeing the Orcs would eventually have
headed to the River, a path that the Wood-elves could intercept if they
dropped the Orc trail immediately and headed straight for the River
themselves.

That is an interesting comment, though, about the Orcs being from over
the mountains. Where else could they have come from, then, but
Isengard? And that puts an entirely different face on the matter!

Barb
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #52174 ] Di, 31 Mai 2005 23:23
danhenry  
On Mon, 30 May 2005 20:48:22 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock
<barbb [at] dbtech.net> wrote:

>R. Dan Henry wrote:
>
><snip>
>>
>> The orcs chasing Gollum would have spread out if they weren't good
>> trackers, so as to make it harder to evade them. This would have
>> resulted in less obscuring of the footprints than if they were all
>> together, with Gollum in a bunched group of orcs (unless Gollum was at
>> the back for some reason).
>
>I'd have to disagree about the orcs spreading out very much in that
>terrain to track Gollum as, the more they spread out, the more trees and
>dense undergrowth Gollum would have to hide in and just be very still
>and let the hunters walk right by him. Very tough place to chase anyone.

A dense forest like Mirkwood has very little undergrowth. Undergrowth
needs sunlight penetrating the canopy. There wasn't much of that in
Mirkwood.

>Yet both he and the Orcs could still be called woodscrafty in the way
>Aragorn could be called a woodsman even when he wasn't in a forest; I
>suppose huntman would be a better word, though certainly an overly noble
>one to use for Gollum or an orc. At any rate, they would still have
>known the basic dodges of any hunt and used them as they could to throw
>off the pursuing Orcs and Wood-elves, respectively.

The Orcs have no reason to. They can't hide their whole force and any
delay would let Gollum get farther away. Better to stay close behind
him, and spread out so that if he tries to turn, you'll catch him
before he's past your line. With a close pursuit in the relatively
unfamiliar Mirkwood, Gollum would need to keep going as fast as he
could and hope for a lucky chance to get away.

From a small number of pursuers, there are a lot of trick you can use,
even in an old forest with little ground cover. When a small army is
sweeping behind you, there is little you can do but run.

> Legolas himself is still showing the effects of shock
>at the Council when he says in one breath that 'more is known of our
>doings than we wish' and yet that the Orcs were 'unused to the woods'
>(no one unfamiliar with Mirkwood could have learned much at all about
>Thranduil's kingdom and its ways, as the experiences of Thorin & Co
>show) and he even admits that the trail finally 'escaped our skill.'

Sauron and his high minions may well know much of the doing of the
Wood Elves without the sword-fodder knowing anything more than their
orders. I imagine the Orcs eventually crossed a significant river and
took the chance to obscure their trail then, but that would likely
have been after many miles. Plus "escaped our skill" may have been a
euphemism for "got too close to the spooky part of the wood".

>I would submit that the Wood-elves misread the trail from the beginning
>because they didn't start out on it with clear minds;

On that we agree (or, at least, that's my assumption on the
it-wasn't-a-rescue hypothesis).

>That is an interesting comment, though, about the Orcs being from over
>the mountains. Where else could they have come from, then, but
>Isengard? And that puts an entirely different face on the matter!

Well, there are a lot of mountains to be from over (and unless they
backtracked them over the Mountains of Mirkwood, how would they even
*know* they came from over mountains? Unfamiliarity with their woods
they could have told from their tracking and observations when they
attacked, but the mountains? Somebody maybe had a map with the attack
route in his pocket?)

--
R. Dan Henry
danhenry [at] inreach.com
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #52184 ] Mi, 01 Juni 2005 06:12
Larry Swain  
Belba Grubb From Stock wrote:
> R. Dan Henry wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>
>> The orcs chasing Gollum would have spread out if they weren't good
>> trackers, so as to make it harder to evade them. This would have
>> resulted in less obscuring of the footprints than if they were all
>> together, with Gollum in a bunched group of orcs (unless Gollum was at
>> the back for some reason).
>
>
> I'd have to disagree about the orcs spreading out very much in that
> terrain to track Gollum as, the more they spread out, the more trees and
> dense undergrowth Gollum would have to hide in and just be very still
> and let the hunters walk right by him. Very tough place to chase anyone.



I agree with you here entirely. Add to that that Gollum was making for
Dol Guldur???? Doubtful if he wanted to give these chaps the slip.
>
>
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #60118 ] So, 12 Juni 2005 16:54
Belba Grubb From Stoc  
Larry Swain wrote:
>
>
> Belba Grubb From Stock wrote:
>
>> R. Dan Henry wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>
>>> The orcs chasing Gollum would have spread out if they weren't good
>>> trackers, so as to make it harder to evade them. This would have
>>> resulted in less obscuring of the footprints than if they were all
>>> together, with Gollum in a bunched group of orcs (unless Gollum was at
>>> the back for some reason).
>>
>>
>>
>> I'd have to disagree about the orcs spreading out very much in that
>> terrain to track Gollum as, the more they spread out, the more trees
>> and dense undergrowth Gollum would have to hide in and just be very
>> still and let the hunters walk right by him. Very tough place to
>> chase anyone.
>
>
>
>
> I agree with you here entirely. Add to that that Gollum was making for
> Dol Guldur???? Doubtful if he wanted to give these chaps the slip.

Why would he want to go to Dol Guldur, after having just "escaped" from
Mordor before being caught by that nassty Ranger, curse it, yesss,
Precious. He really wanted only one thing: to go find the Shire and his
Ring, right? Hence, the crossing of the River and entry into Moria --
they were to the West where, somewhere, the Shire and the residence of
Thief Baggins lay.

Barb
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #60123 ] So, 12 Juni 2005 16:39
Belba Grubb From Stoc  
R. Dan Henry wrote:
> On Mon, 30 May 2005 20:48:22 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock
> <barbb [at] dbtech.net> wrote:
>
>
>>R. Dan Henry wrote:
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>>The orcs chasing Gollum would have spread out if they weren't good
>>>trackers, so as to make it harder to evade them. This would have
>>>resulted in less obscuring of the footprints than if they were all
>>>together, with Gollum in a bunched group of orcs (unless Gollum was at
>>>the back for some reason).
>>
>>I'd have to disagree about the orcs spreading out very much in that
>>terrain to track Gollum as, the more they spread out, the more trees and
>>dense undergrowth Gollum would have to hide in and just be very still
>>and let the hunters walk right by him. Very tough place to chase anyone.
>
>
> A dense forest like Mirkwood has very little undergrowth. Undergrowth
> needs sunlight penetrating the canopy. There wasn't much of that in
> Mirkwood.

That was such a good point it forced me to go back and review the field
reports from those who have actually been there or else have had
conversation with knowledgeable beings about such places, and that has
delayed my response a bit.

In these latter days what you are saying holds true pretty much
everywhere -- any old-growth forest is a biological desert, at least at
ground level. And JRRT confuses the issue more by mentioning the lack
of undergrowth underneath the beeches in Thranduil's kingdom, which
certainly is true of a pure beech stand in our own time as well.

But these days we know that this effect happens because the beech leaves
contain a high percentage of cellulose, a material in which roots and
seedlings of any potential undergrowth just can't get started and which
also blocks off the light those rootlets and seedlings need to grow
(coincidentally, my one and only degree is in forestry (never got the
geology degree, unfortunately), which is the only reason I know this,
and a particularly useless piece of knowledge it has been until now, too
:-) ).

Beech woods in our own times are generally brighter than other dense
stands (a spruce thicket, for instance). The beech woods in Thranduil's
kingdom also allowed a bit more light in, and as mentioned were free of
undergrowth, but in that place and time we can't totally rule out that
this brightness and lack of undergrowth wasn't an effect wrought by the
Elves in their kingdom. Nowhere does JRRT actually say this "magic" had
an effect, in particular, in keeping the pursuing spiders away from &
Company when they reached an area where Elves had been feasting, or in
keeping the path clear of webs, but accepting this as a possible
explanation does help us progress well through the account; having done
so, we must live with the consequences: the laws of nature in that land
are not necessarily the same as those we know so well in our Reality.
Indeed, in comparison with Earth, Middle-earth, as with all realms of
Faerie, can be a rather lawless, if quite logical, place.

Luckily, we have the accounts of two hobbits who happened to meet The
Ent, and he explained the matter quite well to them, although he didn't
fully understand it himself. Trees wake up sometimes and Ents sometimes
doze off -- there is a sort of grey area there when it comes to
determining exactly how much consciousness any given tree or wood has
developed or given up.

The changeability of Greenwood the Great/Mirkwood would seem to indicate
quite a lot of consciousness was there. Sure, Sauron darkened it, but
like Gandalf he needed to have something to work with when spelling.
The Dark Lord must have had quite a lot to work with for the huge wood
to go from the "wide halls and aisles" described in /The Silmarillion/
("Of the Rings of Power...") to the "boughs thick and threatening" that
Thorin & Company found during their walk through it.

We don't need to invoke undergrowth as a means to impede passing kelvar
(including Orcs and Gollum), but only the will to impede passage, and
that certainly would have been present, instilled by Sauron (or perhaps
he just magnified and distorted the relatively passive resentment found
in those sentient trees who possessed what Fangorn called "/bad/
hearts") and nourished from Dol Guldur until the ill will grew and
darkened the whole forest.

If the experiences of Thorin & Company were typical, the impediments put
up by the trees of Mirkwood likely would have been limbs quite close to
the ground, at least down to just above the head of a seated adult
hobbit, entwined and matted quite thickly. Tangled boughs also lined
either side of the path at dwarf and hobbit level. There was, in
addition, some undergrowth described in parts of the forest that had
little light, which is also unusual, although the closest Bilbo comes to
describing it in detail elsewhere in his account is "nothing wholesome."

All in all, it would have been a happy haven for anyone with a taste for
darkness who was being pursued, and a nightmare for any pursuers. The
Orcs' strong card would certainly have been their ability to throw off
the pursuing Wood-elves rather than their ability to catch Gollum.

>
>
>>Yet both he and the Orcs could still be called woodscrafty in the way
>>Aragorn could be called a woodsman even when he wasn't in a forest; I
>>suppose huntman would be a better word, though certainly an overly noble
>>one to use for Gollum or an orc. At any rate, they would still have
>>known the basic dodges of any hunt and used them as they could to throw
>>off the pursuing Orcs and Wood-elves, respectively.
>
>
> The Orcs have no reason to. They can't hide their whole force and any
> delay would let Gollum get farther away. Better to stay close behind
> him, and spread out so that if he tries to turn, you'll catch him
> before he's past your line. With a close pursuit in the relatively
> unfamiliar Mirkwood, Gollum would need to keep going as fast as he
> could and hope for a lucky chance to get away.
>
> From a small number of pursuers, there are a lot of trick you can use,
> even in an old forest with little ground cover. When a small army is
> sweeping behind you, there is little you can do but run.

Again, sweeps are for clear ground. In the tangle of Mirkwood it could
be every Orc for himself, even when one's fellow was only a couple of
feet away. All Gollum would have to do is climb up a little bit or
scrunch down among the tangled roots and keep quiet.

>
>
>>Legolas himself is still showing the effects of shock
>>at the Council when he says in one breath that 'more is known of our
>>doings than we wish' and yet that the Orcs were 'unused to the woods'
>>(no one unfamiliar with Mirkwood could have learned much at all about
>>Thranduil's kingdom and its ways, as the experiences of Thorin & Co
>>show) and he even admits that the trail finally 'escaped our skill.'
>
>
> Sauron and his high minions may well know much of the doing of the
> Wood Elves without the sword-fodder knowing anything more than their
> orders. I imagine the Orcs eventually crossed a significant river and
> took the chance to obscure their trail then, but that would likely
> have been after many miles. Plus "escaped our skill" may have been a
> euphemism for "got too close to the spooky part of the wood".

I'm sure it was. :-)

The problem with the "sword fodder" argument (which is otherwise a good
one) is that somebody who is woodscrafty would have to lead them, so
they wouldn't get turned around, caught by spiders, fall into the
enchanted stream and doze off or just plain miss their target while
traveling some 375 miles through the dark tangle of woods to that single
tall tree (that's one way, of course; Sauron wouldn't care about their
return -- to such a one as the Dark Lord, all the world outside his own
Eye is expendable, if otherwise in need of total control).

>>I would submit that the Wood-elves misread the trail from the beginning
>>because they didn't start out on it with clear minds;
>
>
> On that we agree (or, at least, that's my assumption on the
> it-wasn't-a-rescue hypothesis).
>
>
>>That is an interesting comment, though, about the Orcs being from over
>>the mountains. Where else could they have come from, then, but
>>Isengard? And that puts an entirely different face on the matter!
>
>
> Well, there are a lot of mountains to be from over (and unless they
> backtracked them over the Mountains of Mirkwood, how would they even
> *know* they came from over mountains? Unfamiliarity with their woods
> they could have told from their tracking and observations when they
> attacked, but the mountains? Somebody maybe had a map with the attack
> route in his pocket?)
>

The Wood-elves had to pursue them over the Mountains of Mirkwood and
then roughly another 300 miles to get to the Dol Guldur area. Likely it
was the Mountains of Mirkwood Legolas meant, and by implication, that
the attackers came from Dol Guldur.

Looking more closely at the map, I would guess that everything decisive
happened at around that "neck of the woods" some 200 miles southwest of
the mountains -- it's the ideal point for Gollum, squeezed by the
pressure of the pursuing Orcs and Elves and the menace of Dol Guldur up
ahead, to break out and run for the River. Who knows what the Orcs did,
but that would also be the natural place for the Wood-elves to give up,
too...if they had only turned west instead and at least investigated the
area between there and the River! Sam would have understood it -- they
had no hope.

Barb
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #60137 ] So, 12 Juni 2005 22:33
Christopher Kreuzer  
Belba Grubb From Stock <barbb [at] dbtech.net> wrote:
> R. Dan Henry wrote:

[The merry travails of Gollum, orcs and elves in Mirkwood]

>> A dense forest like Mirkwood has very little undergrowth. Undergrowth
>> needs sunlight penetrating the canopy. There wasn't much of that in
>> Mirkwood.
>
> That was such a good point it forced me to go back and review the
> field reports from those who have actually been there or else have had
> conversation with knowledgeable beings about such places, and that has
> delayed my response a bit.

Do you mean 'real world' reports, or are you referring to your later
reports about Mirkwood from a certain B. Baggins, and about Fangorn from
Messrs Brandybuck and Took? :-)

<snip>

> The changeability of Greenwood the Great/Mirkwood would seem to
> indicate quite a lot of consciousness was there. Sure, Sauron
> darkened it, but like Gandalf he needed to have something to work
> with when spelling. The Dark Lord must have had quite a lot to work
> with for the huge wood to go from the "wide halls and aisles"
> described in /The Silmarillion/ ("Of the Rings of Power...") to the
> "boughs thick and threatening" that Thorin & Company found during
> their walk through it.

Interesting idea. For some reason I had never thought of Mirkwood as
being like Fangorn or the Old Forest, and having "conscious trees", and
trees like Old Man Willow with dark hearts. But it does make a lot of
sense now that you mention it. I snipped the bit where you mention what
Treebeard said to Merry and Pippin, but I'd like to return to that scene
and add some quotes:

Treebeard on trees that wake up:

"...you find that some have bad hearts. Nothing to do with their wood
[...] there are some trees in the valleys under the mountains, sound as
a bell, and bad right through. That sort of thing seems to spread [...]
I do not doubt there is some shadow of the Great Darkness lying there
still away north [referring to the Old Forest]; and bad memories are
handed down. But there are hollow dales in this land [Fangorn] where the
Darkness has never been lifted, and the trees are older than I am.
Still, we do what we can. We keep off strangers and the foolhardy; and
we train and we teach, we walk and we weed." (Treebeard)

Now imagine Mirkwood as the Shadow spread from Dol Guldur! No Ents to
weed and train the trees. Imagine a thousand Old Man Willows, but worse,
in the dark areas of Mirkwood! Then add the "fell beasts". But even this
might pale in comparison with the dark mountain dales of Fangorn Forest,
since Mirkwood has not always been dark, but Treebeard says that there
are areas in Fangorn "where the Darkness has never been lifted".

We get a hint of the awesome power of the woken trees (I presume
Treebeard means Huorns and their ilk) when the victors of Helm's Deep
ride through a Huorn forest:

"...on either side the great aisles of the wood were already wrapped in
dusk, stretching away into impenetrable shadows; and there they heard
the creaking and groaning of boughs, and far cries, and a rumour of
wordless voices, murmuring angrily." (The Road to Isengard)

[Compare this with the earlier description of the Old Forest, quoted
later in this post.]

In the First Age, we encounter similarly dreadful forests in Beleriand.
When Morgoth gains control of the highland area of Dorthonion, we read:

"...all the forest of the northward slopes of that land was turned
little by little into a region of such dread and dark enchantment that
even the Orcs would not enter it unless need drove them, and it was
called Delduwath, and Taur-nu-Fuin, The Forest under Nightshade. The
trees that grew there after the burning were black and grim, and their
roots were tangled, groping in the dark like claws; and those who
strayed among them became lost and blind, and were strangled or pursued
to madness by phantoms of terror." (Of the Ruin of Beleriand and the
Fall of Fingolfin)

Note that Mirkwood is later described thus:

"...the name of the forest was changed and Mirkwood it was called, for
the nightshade lay deep there..." (Of the Rings of Power and the Third
Age)

So it seems almost certain that Mirkwood, under the nightshade, would be
a dreadful echo of Taur-nu-Fuin.

Back in the main text of /Quenta Silmarillion/ we hear very briefly
about the vast woodlands of Taur-im-Duinath:

"But south of the Andram, between Sirion and Gelion, was a wild land of
tangled forest in which no folk went, save here and there a few Dark
Elves wandering; Taur-im-Duinath it was named, the Forest between the
Rivers." (Of Beleriand and Its Realms)

Though this may be an altogether more innocent wood.

And finally, there is the moment when the dwarven forces from Nogrod,
fleeing back from the killing of Thingol, encounter the Shepherds of the
Trees:

"And as they climbed the long slopes beneath Mount Dolmed there came
forth the Shepherds of the Trees, and they drove the Dwarves into the
shadowy woods of Ered Lindon: whence, it is said, came never one to
climb the high passes that led to their homes." (Of the Ruin of Doriath)

It seems that the pleasant land of Osiriand also has shadowy mountain
dales (the woods of Ered Lindon) to rival those of Fangorn in the Third
Age.

> We don't need to invoke undergrowth as a means to impede passing
> kelvar (including Orcs and Gollum), but only the will to impede
> passage, and that certainly would have been present, instilled by
> Sauron (or perhaps he just magnified and distorted the relatively
> passive resentment found in those sentient trees who possessed what
> Fangorn called "/bad/ hearts") and nourished from Dol Guldur until
> the ill will grew and darkened the whole forest.
>
> If the experiences of Thorin & Company were typical, the impediments
> put up by the trees of Mirkwood likely would have been limbs quite
> close to the ground, at least down to just above the head of a seated
> adult hobbit, entwined and matted quite thickly. Tangled boughs also
> lined either side of the path at dwarf and hobbit level. There was,
> in addition, some undergrowth described in parts of the forest that
> had little light, which is also unusual, although the closest Bilbo
> comes to describing it in detail elsewhere in his account is "nothing
> wholesome."

And the Old Forest itself is a good example. In Merry's words:

"...the Forest is queer. Everything in it is very much more alive, more
aware of what is going on, so to speak, than things are in the Shire.
And the trees do not like strangers. They watch you. [...] Occasionally
the most unfriendly ones may drop a branch, or stick a root out, or
grasp at you with a long trailer. [...] all the trees were whispering to
each other, passing news and plots along in an unintelligible language;
and the branches swayed and groped without any wind. They do say the
trees do actually move, and can surround strangers and hem them in."
(The Old Forest)

> All in all, it would have been a happy haven for anyone with a taste
> for darkness who was being pursued, and a nightmare for any pursuers.
> The Orcs' strong card would certainly have been their ability to
> throw off the pursuing Wood-elves rather than their ability to catch
> Gollum.

You would have needed someone of the skill of Beleg Cuthalion:

"...not even in the dreadful woods of Taur-nu-Fuin did he swerve from
the trail, for the skill of Beleg was greater than any that have been in
Middle-earth." (Of Turin Turambar)

<snip>

> In the tangle of Mirkwood it
> could be every Orc for himself, even when one's fellow was only a
> couple of feet away. All Gollum would have to do is climb up a
> little bit or scrunch down among the tangled roots and keep quiet.

I agree.

[Legolas's comment about orcs from "over the mountains"]

>> Well, there are a lot of mountains to be from over (and unless they
>> backtracked them over the Mountains of Mirkwood, how would they even
>> *know* they came from over mountains? Unfamiliarity with their woods
>> they could have told from their tracking and observations when they
>> attacked, but the mountains? Somebody maybe had a map with the attack
>> route in his pocket?)
>
> The Wood-elves had to pursue them over the Mountains of Mirkwood and
> then roughly another 300 miles to get to the Dol Guldur area. Likely
> it was the Mountains of Mirkwood Legolas meant, and by implication,
> that the attackers came from Dol Guldur.

I agree that it looks like Legolas meant the Mountains of Mirkwood.

> Looking more closely at the map, I would guess that everything
> decisive happened at around that "neck of the woods" some 200 miles
> southwest of the mountains -- it's the ideal point for Gollum,
> squeezed by the pressure of the pursuing Orcs and Elves and the
> menace of Dol Guldur up ahead, to break out and run for the River.

This assumes the pursuit lasted that long. Legolas does say that the
pursuit was "nearing Dol Guldur", so maybe it did last that long. That
is quite some journey, for both Gollum, the orcs, and the elves.

Christopher

--
---
Reply clue: Saruman welcomes you to Spamgard
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #60155 ] Mo, 13 Juni 2005 10:57
srowe  
Belba Grubb From Stock wrote:

> Nowhere does JRRT actually say this "magic" had
> an effect, in particular, in keeping the pursuing spiders away from &
> Company when they reached an area where Elves had been feasting, or in
> keeping the path clear of webs

Actually he does ('Flies and Spiders')

The dwarves then noticed that they had come to the edge of a ring
where elf-fires had been. Whether it was one of those they had seen
the night before, they could not tell. But it seemed that some good
magic lingered in such spots, which the spiders did not like. At any
rate here the light was greener, and the boughs less thick and
threatening, and they had a chance to rest and draw breath.
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #60998 ] Mo, 13 Juni 2005 14:08
Larry Swain  
Belba Grubb From Stock wrote:
> R. Dan Henry wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 30 May 2005 20:48:22 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock
>> <barbb [at] dbtech.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> R. Dan Henry wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>> The orcs chasing Gollum would have spread out if they weren't good
>>>> trackers, so as to make it harder to evade them. This would have
>>>> resulted in less obscuring of the footprints than if they were all
>>>> together, with Gollum in a bunched group of orcs (unless Gollum was at
>>>> the back for some reason).
>>>
>>>
>>> I'd have to disagree about the orcs spreading out very much in that
>>> terrain to track Gollum as, the more they spread out, the more trees
>>> and dense undergrowth Gollum would have to hide in and just be very
>>> still and let the hunters walk right by him. Very tough place to
>>> chase anyone.
>>
>>
>>
>> A dense forest like Mirkwood has very little undergrowth. Undergrowth
>> needs sunlight penetrating the canopy. There wasn't much of that in
>> Mirkwood.
>
>
> That was such a good point it forced me to go back and review the field
> reports from those who have actually been there or else have had
> conversation with knowledgeable beings about such places, and that has
> delayed my response a bit.

I'd missed this part of the discussion somehow. But it isn't such a
good point. If we have a chap running through the trees and the
pursuers strung out in a line behind him so as to avoid the pursued from
ditching behind a tree and being missed, then it would obvious to the
trackers that Gollum's footprints are not "among" those of the pursuing
orcs, since the orcs' tracks are all spread out in a line which is not a
very good defensive way of avoiding those pursuing, tracking elves. A
decent tracker would read the signs easily.
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #60999 ] Mo, 13 Juni 2005 14:11
Larry Swain  
Belba Grubb From Stock wrote:

>>
>>
>> I agree with you here entirely. Add to that that Gollum was making
>> for Dol Guldur???? Doubtful if he wanted to give these chaps the slip.
>
>
> Why would he want to go to Dol Guldur, after having just "escaped" from
> Mordor before being caught by that nassty Ranger, curse it, yesss,
> Precious. He really wanted only one thing: to go find the Shire and his
> Ring, right? Hence, the crossing of the River and entry into Moria --
> they were to the West where, somewhere, the Shire and the residence of
> Thief Baggins lay.
>
> Barb

We're making the same point. If Gollum escaped on his own and was not
aided by the orcs, and he was running ahead of orcs who were pursuing
him, then why is he going toward Dol Guldur?
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #61021 ] Di, 14 Juni 2005 01:05
danhenry  
On Sun, 12 Jun 2005 09:39:07 -0500, Belba Grubb From Stock
<barbb [at] dbtech.net> wrote:

>If the experiences of Thorin & Company were typical, the impediments put
>up by the trees of Mirkwood likely would have been limbs quite close to
>the ground, at least down to just above the head of a seated adult
>hobbit, entwined and matted quite thickly. Tangled boughs also lined
>either side of the path at dwarf and hobbit level.

Yet more reason to fan out. Tripping and slowing would tie up the
whole line if they stayed close as you've suggested.

Also, none of this suggests good hiding places, which was your reason
for having the orcs *not* spread out (and even then, there's no point
in more orcs together than it takes to beat the bushes, if there are
bushes). Also, hiding only works if you can get out of sight, which is
hard if there is a line of see-in-the-dark orc warriors in hot
pursuit.

>Again, sweeps are for clear ground. In the tangle of Mirkwood it could
>be every Orc for himself, even when one's fellow was only a couple of
>feet away. All Gollum would have to do is climb up a little bit or
>scrunch down among the tangled roots and keep quiet.

Climbing up a bit would work just as well with a few orcs passing him
or many -- if he has time to get into the thick branches, he's away.
So the thing to do is not give him time, which means staying hot on
his heels, which means spreading out and moving quickly.

>>>Legolas himself is still showing the effects of shock
>>>at the Council when he says in one breath that 'more is known of our
>>>doings than we wish' and yet that the Orcs were 'unused to the woods'
>>>(no one unfamiliar with Mirkwood could have learned much at all about
>>>Thranduil's kingdom and its ways, as the experiences of Thorin & Co
>>>show) and he even admits that the trail finally 'escaped our skill.'
>>
>>
>> Sauron and his high minions may well know much of the doing of the
>> Wood Elves without the sword-fodder knowing anything more than their
>> orders. I imagine the Orcs eventually crossed a significant river and
>> took the chance to obscure their trail then, but that would likely
>> have been after many miles. Plus "escaped our skill" may have been a
>> euphemism for "got too close to the spooky part of the wood".
>
>I'm sure it was. :-)
>
>The problem with the "sword fodder" argument (which is otherwise a good
>one) is that somebody who is woodscrafty would have to lead them,

Or somebody with a bit of bug spray and a compass. "Unused to the
woods" doesn't mean incompetent. If the enchantments of the woods
aren't a danger, a small army is pretty secure and if they wander a
bit getting there, it's no big deal. If one of them can speak
bird-language or a bird-ally speaks Black Speech, orc dialect, or
Westron, a bird could be the leader.

>so they wouldn't get turned around

Compass. Map. Technologies far less advanced than many others
available to the Enemy.

>caught by spiders

Freakin' *small army*. Not a band of lost, panicked dwarves. The
spiders don't fare well against one invisible rock-thrower. Do you
really think a few volleys of concentrated arrow fire can't handle
them?

>fall into the enchanted stream and doze off

Ability to follow orders and build a log bridge. Heck, even if a few
do fall in, there are losses in war. The Elves would have taken out a
few Orcs, too.

>or just plain miss their target while
>traveling some 375 miles through the dark tangle of woods to that single
>tall tree (that's one way, of course; Sauron wouldn't care about their
>return -- to such a one as the Dark Lord, all the world outside his own
>Eye is expendable, if otherwise in need of total control).

The need to find one tree does suggest use of birds -- or other animal
allies -- as scouts once they get close. Small creatures used to the
tree tops would easily locate Gollum.

--
R. Dan Henry
danhenry [at] inreach.com
Re: Gollum's Escape [message #65522 ] Di, 21 Juni 2005 18:25
Belba Grubb From Stoc  
Larry Swain wrote:
>
<snip>
>
> I'd missed this part of the discussion somehow. But it isn't such a
> good point. If we have a chap running through the trees

Do we have such a chap, though? Or rather, is he actually running
through the trees? Seeing is believing, they sometimes say, and I have
had opportunity to pass through a spruce thicket maybe 100 yards wide in
the northern woods. It's not easy to get through at all, and you don't
even walk through the trees, let alone run. You force your way through
as much as you can, anywhere you can (and people behind you are going to
come through the same areas, as these are the only passageways that may
be used, so there is going to be overlapping of footprints seen when yet
a third group comes along the inevitable passageway, tracking those who
have come before them), and you promise yourself to never, EVER do that
again once you come out, scratched and with possibly some torn clothing
and lost baggage, on the other side. In Mirkwood, the trees were bigger
than spruce and also possessed of a will to hinder intruders (anyone on
two legs), so it would have been much more difficult even than a spruce
thicket. For over 300 miles...I imagine even the Wood-elves, in addition
to their pre-existing excitement and turmoil, were a little punch drunk
after such a hard journey and so even more prone to errors of judgment
and interpretation of the trail.

Barb
Vorheriges Thema:LotR Chapter of the Week: Bk 6 Ch 8 "The Scouring of the Shire"
Nächstes Thema:Tolkien: Frequently Asked Questions (1/2)
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