How did Minas Ithil fall?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.พ. 2021
- Everyone knows what happened to Minas Ithil, but nobody knows how it happened. I don't know how it happened either, but in this video, I attempt to offer up plausible scenarios nevertheless.
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I would agree that the city getting cut off by the witch king's army and then sieged until it fell is the most plausible option.
shadow of war thats how
Osgiliath in the movies always seemed to me like a minor fringe city from ancient times. The fact that it was the capital, most central, and largest city of Gondor, is rather shocking. Puts the whole war into a new perspective, instead of a stagnating empire slumbering from a long period of inaction as Gonder appears in the movies, this paints more the picture of a losing war, end of times, a desperate last stand by the shattered remainders of Gondor in Minas Tirith to try and turn the tide of a war that seemed all but lost.
That would explain some of Denethor and Boromir. Interesting idea.
It was only somewhat central in this early period. As Gondor got more prosperous it expanded. While they did indeed lose everything east and south of the Anduin by the war of the ring, they still had a lot of land to the West. Even while Minas Tirith is the Capital, it's on the very eastern side of Gondor. It lost a lot of the outer lands over time, but it's not crumbling.
Well due to the location and nature of the Morgul Vale, it would be very easy to cut off from the rest of Gondor. Any relief force would have to approach through the narrow vale, from there it's simply a matter of starving it out while exhausting the garrison inside which already would have been weakened from the Plague and lack of harvest.
in summation, it's an isolated city at the peripheral of the Gondorian border while it's right at the border of Mordor. A sudden attack to encircle the city would not be difficult. The relief force couldn't maneuver and just wait things out.
You cover the matter quite well.
Gondor didn't have the numbers anymore it all happened during the plague
Please, don't stop making videos. You're doing content for deep fans and for that we keep watching fanatically your videos.
Don't worry. No intention of stopping. I have fun making these videos. Hundreds of views, thousands of views, tens of thousands - doesn't matter, I'm just happy to have an audience.
You'd be the only guy answering the *really* interesting qeustions
man thought the same fuckn thing... as always with Darth
the other channels just always say the same known things
I concur as well
Cool ideas, the plague most definitely had some connection to Minas Ithil's decline.
One thing I'd love to learn more about (if there is any information on it) is the stairway leading up to Shelob's Lair. I always wonder who built it, and when, and why. It just doesn't seem to make sense for Gondor or Mordor to have built a path circumventing a fortress whose main purpose was to deny passage across the Ephel Dúath, so I figure it must have been built by someone (or something) else without the knowledge or permission of whoever currently held the city.
I read in the lore that king Earendil tried to relieve the city but failed. I’m pretty sure I read that on Tolkien gateway over the city. As to the overall importance of the city I think had the city not fallen to Sauron in the second age it would have thrived better (maybe not as much as the other cities) as it was said that ithilien and the vale of ithilien were some of if not THE fairest places of the world. The main issue I have with Minas Ithil comes from a world building Stance, I get that it is this gorgeous place but it is literally on the borders of a realm that were known to the Numenoreans as being Sauron’s and they knew they never defeated his armies before Arpharazon captured him. With it being so close to enemy territory and not having a strong network of established forts and citadels guarding the eastern pass it always seemed like it was doomed to be blind sided. They corrected this after the fall of Barad Dur but Cirith Ungol was made as a watchtower against the return of Sauron not specifically as a bulwark for Minas Ithil. Not to say it couldn’t provide both but regardless of the times or situation most people with a brain would see that the city was not in an ideal situation and would rely on bulwarks protecting its eastern flank and prevent it from being cut off. I would also say that Mina’s ithil not having bulwarks protecting the western portion or even northern ithilien and southern ithilien was equally dumb. If I’m the ruler of a vale on the border of a very old but very strong (now dormant enemy) but I’m also on the wrong side of the river that puts me closest to hostile men coming from the south and north (Rhun and harad coming through ithilien) then I would want protection to prevent me from being cut off from my only support (coming from the west). Much of my gripes and worries are the same when looking at the fall of osgiliath. If you’re the jewel of the kingdom then I am placing Constantinople-esque defenses on the eastern bank where all my known enemies are at the minimum. Just as adrianople has had like 17 battles fought at it due to armies marching on Constantinople met opposing forces there I would make some strong point on either side to help hold ithilien. I know Cari andros was a thing in the north but it isn’t mentioned much in the lore until the war of the ring and doesn’t seem to be of much help to either city.
Sorry for the rant but this has bothered me when I think of all the lost palantir and glory of Gondor. Tolkien did amazing work at about everything he did but sometimes his strategic view of the world is inconsistent especially when considering the physical terrain of areas around important cities which I found odd sense he loved detailing the landscape and geography of his world
Like you said the Nazgul were probably able to block the western approach to the city early in their attack giving them ample time to wear down the garrison. I’ve always though that the terror of the Nazgul would have been their most potent weapon here, with few members of any relief force able to stand and fight the against the nine, the majority too terrified to advance. Regarding duration it was potentially only end of 2000 to start of 2002 (less than 18 months). Also the Nazgul might have waited to attack when the king and/or his son were far away trying to reclaim their southern or eastern provinces, with few left in Gondor to counter-attack. Possibly the biggest unanswered question though is where the hell were those who could have turned the tide aka Gandalf, Elrond, Glorfindel etc? They’d literally fought a war alongside each other 25 years earlier. Seemed a bad time to decide to let “men” deal with their own problems. Ring-wraiths defo come under their remit.
Agreed. Posting just 1 or 2 Nazgul near the Crossroads might have been sufficient to keep most reinforcements at bay for long enough that the orcs could have set up a blockade.
It has always bother me. Two years is quite a lot of time, especially that the city was very close (not like for e.g Umbar) and it was quite important. So where were gondor's armies?
Certainly not in the Westfold.
@@DarthGandalfYT :D
The witchking attacked during the great plague of sauron, it killed off atleast half of the gondorian population. It reduced the army which led to its fall but it took the nazguls 2 years to take out the defenders without a captain or king thats pretty impressive for gondor.
To be honest i feel like it was a quick rush and grab by the army of the Witch king which was prepared for years to take this fortress, and When Gondor had responded and fully rallied it's forces, I assume Sauron likely had raids going on elsewhere to distract the King and his son. By the time Gondor had rallied the city was already fallen or the small entrance into the canyon to get to the city was to guarded and even if Gondor had broken through I doubt they would have siege craft ready to besiege and take such a fortress guarded by so many evil forces. I mean Sauron had years to build and prepare siege works to take Minas Ithil and later Minas Tirith.
Plus we don't know if in secret Sauron had not used some of his dark arts or magic to aid in the taking and holding of this fortress.
it was a 2 year seige though
@@Marcusjnmc For the time setting though and the state of Gondor at the time that would still be fast for such a fortress city and with a not full powered Morder yet.
Love how your channel goes into subjects like this, thanks 🧝♂️
I do think the Witch-King's Nuclear arsneal would have been sufficiant do storm the city
Probably. Maybe the poisonous vapours coming from the flowers in Imlad Morgul was actually just radiation.
@@DarthGandalfYT The Morgul Vale is really just the Minas Ithil Exclusion Zone.
Probably a siege. It may have been long, if the Gondorians had prepared and stocked up food and water, it may have been short, if the armies of the Nazgul came out of nowhere and gave their enemies no time to gather supplies
Yes, the placement of Minas Ithil always seemed a little odd to me but, in Isildur's defense, he probably thought Sauron had been destroyed in the Downfall of Numenor.
That was the case. But Minas Ithil was built primarily as a fortress to protect Osgiliath rather than a city, so it was supposed to guard the passage into Mordor.
As a decades-long aficionado of Tolkien, I'm pleased to say how excited I am to listen to these new summative angles on the good Professor's lore.
One of your best imo, but you are getting better video after video. Great job wizard lord
I should imagine Minas Ithil's proximity to Mordor and its disposition at the entrance of the Morgal Vale made it particularly vulnerable to the evil of Mordor.
Man your channel and overall lore content is too slept on
Awesome channel, man.
Ithilien is my favourite region of Middle-Earth, after Lothlorien. It's the most beautiful out of all the Dunédain kingdoms, full of fertile meadows, plains, and streams, it's really unfortunate that it was simply not well-defended. Cair Andros is probably the most well-defended settlement closest to Ithilien, which implies that Ithilien would tactically benefit with settlements and fortifications closer to the Anduin.
Crazy how it was really close to the border of Mordor. I would not live there knowing there's orcs just a hike up the mountain
Yeah it's an incredibly bad position for a big city. A fortress I get but it was always said to be a twin city to Anor. Just doesn't really make sense why you'd post up there to live
@@Captain_Insano_nomercy The answer is that when Minas Ithil, Minas Anor and Osgiliath were built, it was thought that Sauron persished in the fall of Numenor and therefore no threat would come from Mordor later
It's similar to several historic cities. Cities such as Dara and Nisibis, on the old Roman(later Byzantine)-Persian border were constantly under threat of war yet they were inhabited by civilians. Later, Constantinople, in the late Byzantine Empire, for a hundred years before the fall of the city, was facing Turkish-held Chalcedon right across the Bosphorus.
I have a theory of when the city fell in between the two challenges the witch king issues to eanur. The first one he rejects do to the council of the Steward. The second time however Minas ithil has fallen under eanurs watch a huge slap in the face so when the witch king challenges again eanur is not only angry and prideful but he saw the twin city fall and could do nothing to stop it.
I reckon it fell because Gondor was busy repopulating it outer territories a few centuries after plague and it was just cut off instantly and Gondor knew it couldn’t help so they was busy preparing to destroy Mordor again like when Isildur and anarion and they father elendil but the garrison was not many but held the orcs and witch king back for as long as possible
It is said that after his victory against the Wainriders, the King Calimehtar rebuilt Minas Ithil and fortified it, so Minas Ithil endured 2 years of siege because of that.
Where is it said ?🫤
You're making great video's! Hopefully you'll launch like the other lotr lore channels :)
The real question is why it was built in such a bad position in the first place. It clearly wasn't designed to hold indefinitely against a strong and determined enemy who can attack from both sides of the pass simultaneously. However, the location is actually pretty strategic, when you take into account that it was built on the basis that Gondor is strong and Mordor is very weak and assumed to stay that way (or at least that Gondor would have an early warning and a lot of time to prepare if it begun to regain its strength at some point).
Minas Ithil blocked the passage to and from Mordor and also would be able to send a relief force from the rear if anyone tried to approach and siege Osgiliath from the Eastern side of the river. Minas Anor could do the same on the Western side of the capital city. It was vulnerable only if the fortress were completely cut off from the rest of the kingdom by an enemy that also had the logistics to support a very long siege while holding off relief attempts coming from Osgiliath. This would never have been the case with anyone coming from the North or South. It also might be that the fortress originally supported a large enough garrison to break even the Witch Kings eventual siege with relative ease, especially with a coordinated relief force coming from the West, but that the garrison was severely downsized later on due to economic and demographic factors.
The small watchtower and fort at the top of the pass (I don't want to use Cirith Ungol as that won't have been its original name) should have been built as a massive fortress. Something capable of blocking an army and very difficult to breach. If nothing can break through the actual pass, then besieging Minas Ithil becomes nigh on impossible. Building something that is made in the same way as Orthanc and the outer walls of Minas Anor and without a gate on the Morgai side, then breaking through would have been much harder. I call that poor planning by Gondor.
Yessir, I tend to be of the, "Gondor could not break the seige." Camp.
My opinion.
"The Answer to these questions, we don't actually know, but that isn't not going to stop me from trying to answer them." Typical Darth given little to know info yet still comes up with a plausable explination. As for what happened the failed rescue in possible and most likely, with a possbile attempted escape that went wrong at the end.
I say this as kings were up for fighting and not lazy so i feel that even if they were forced to except the city was lost they would have tried to allow an escape but it went wrong and either few or no one got out and that is how the palantier was captured.
LOL I wasn't expecting that remark at the end.
Commander of Minas Ithil to King Earnur, via the Palantir: "Highness, we just head a loud voice outside the city"
Earnur: "What did the voice say?!"
Commander: "Nuclear launch detected"
The plains of Mordor were rich with volcanic ash, makes for good farmland. I feel like I read that in one of the books somewhere that they farmed that land. Not sure if it was slaves of Sauron or men from Minas Ithil.
So like does the city glow green and spout a magic evil skybeam in the books too? Or is that all movie conjecture? I know that the city was befouled, and took a long time to cleanse so any info or ideas on what an earth made the city so scary in such a different way to general mordor? Maybe do a video on that, itd be epic man. Great video as always!
That's mostly from the books, but they took some artistic liberties. The city glowed white as Minas Ithil, but the Witch-king corrupted that, turning it into a dim "corpse-light". The light is reflected in Gollum's eyes at one point and it's described as being "green-white". So there was probably a green light to the city, but maybe not to the extent of what the movies show. The sky beam is a little different - the Witch-king answered Sauron's beacon, but with forks of blue lightning instead of the green beam. Thanks for the kind words.
Treason was always a problem for those resisting Melkor or Sauron -- and also in many real-life sieges. Maybe there was an equivalent of Wormtongue who persuaded the city to surrender, or maybe guards were bribed to open the gates.
That was the case with the tower of Cirith Ungol, in the books it's stated that "treachery yielded up the tower to the Lord of the Ring Wraiths"
In LOTR, Tolkien specifically states that Cirith Ungol was built to keep enemies in Mordor, not out, and the way it is designed reflects this.
Honestly it's not to hard to believe that the population of Minas Ithil slowly dwindled. If resources were pulled from the defenses of the other fortresses guarding mordor I doubt Minas Ithil would not have had the same done to it. However it is likely a token garrison force was maintained as the morgul vale was one of the more direct entrances to Mordor and even if the watch at the black gate was pulled, Cair Andros still existed in the north of the anduin to allow for sufficient warning. However due to the proximity of the morgul vale to ostgillath it probably had a higher priority. Another interesting thing you mentioned about the plantir, it's possible that many people either forgot how to use them or that they were there in the first place, the orthanc stone was left in the tower of orthance after it was "abandoned" by Gondor meaning its value might have been forgotten, which could also have happened to the Ithil stone.
A 2 year siege is rather long for, in this scenario, a low garrisoned Fortress City like Minas Ithil to hold out against someone like the Witch King. They must have had enough provisions for most of those 2 years and substantial reinforcements for men lost during said siege. Even with a chokehold on the valley, there is a possibility the lines would break within those 2 years and that Gondor could have provided reinforcements during the respite before the Witch King promptly returned to take up the siege again.
Strategically Minas Ithil was always doomed to fall
Im guess isildur believed creating a beacon of light in a sea of darkness was a nice thought but strategically flawed a massive city hugging the edge of the mountains left it perpetually vulnerable to become cut off the shadow of Mordor surrounding it with many dark arms.
the lands of ithilian have always been a buffer area for Gondor Osgiliath and Minas Arnor( Tirith) being too far way to send help help quickly.
I like the Alesia comparison but, knowing Mordor, chances are the orcs were attacking Ithilien, thus keeping the armies of gondor occupied
Elesia yes , fascinating battle
Cheers
💙 oke
That's why I like game that shows it's fall forget the name but was extremely well done think shadow of war or something but the king was corrupted and handed the city over
Where are you getting the maps you’ve been using?
You could make an amazing movie about this, everyone will be happy because is an "empty " spot. Much better than what has been done in Rings of Power as far as im concerned.
Great video!
Isn't possible the city fell due to betrayal?
Well, we actually know from the books that the tower of cirith ungol fell due to treachery
Where does it say that?
@@Trainstoppersunited Good question
How about someone using the stone within MInas Ithil and being turned by Sauron?
That is impossible because the ithil stone was the stone sauron was using. The Annuminas and amon sol stone were lost in the ice bay of forochel in T.A 1974, the osgiliath stone was lost in the anduin when the city fell in T.A 1437. Minas Ithil fell in T.A 2002. That left only the orthanc stone, the anor stone and the elostirion stone sauron could have used but the anor and orthach stones were secure and the elostirion stone had a defect in that it only looked out to the west towards valinor as well as being in the grey heavens.
You forgot to say the cirith ungol tower was deserted since the great plague and the ithilien countryside ravaged by the wainriders. So, minas ithil was probably very isolated and vulnarable to a surprise attack by the unguarded morgul stair.
Maybe the palintir was locked away, so only certain people could access it. Whoever had access might have been killed before they could get to it, or even been influenced by sauron through it & defected
To be fair, worm tongue threw a palantir, so maybe it was just left behind or someone tried to take it, but was caught. Also by then, didnt Mordor have a palantir from arnor? Maybe the people knew it was tainted or not secure and left it. There are a lot of rational explanations
"we can be fairly sure the Witch-King didn't use nuclear weapons, for example"
*cough* Mount Doom
Middlearth: Shadow of War while not canon is a fun game that shows maybe what happened. This heresy for purists, of course, but the game actually does a pretty good job of being mindless fun and using the lore in a creative way to explainwhat happened. I like what they did and I hope they make more ME games. F*ck the haters cuz they gonna hate...
Ironic isildurs city state fell. Sauron petty af.
They don't even have a Wetherspoon.
How did Minas Ithil fall? simply look at Shadow of War
So i was rewatching this and a few other videos and i found a theory as to how the city fell, so if we assume the great plague was made by Sauron then maybe they made another one and used it on the city only this plague wiped the city out over night, now the reason they never used it again was because it was so deadly and so easy to pass on that while yes it would kill a city off it would kill itself off to quick or it was deemed to deadly to the forces of darknesses own forces that Sauron or the Witch King thought it was either to much a risk of wiping their own army out or they thought with the overwhelming numbers using the plague again wasn't needed esspecially givien the risk to their own forces.
darth gandalf. what a terrible combination of worlds
If i was in Minas Ithil during its fall i'd just end it fuck being captured by orcs led by Nazgul's
Tolkien-verse is full of gate keepers
Like in real life, a great evil returned in the 1980s. In Middle-earth, it was the Witch-king. In our world, it was neoliberalism with Thatcher and Reagan 😂
Hey, the Witch-king was evil but he wasn't that evil.
@@DarthGandalfYT HA!
Sorry but your wrong the great evil was in the 70s in Britain, They where dark days then.
@@Historyfan476AD for the working class, the hell started in the 1980s, and never really stopped.
@@elliotcrossan6290 Nah my grandfather tells me the socialism in the 70s they tried in Britain was worse than thatcher.
kinda reminds me of the fall of Constantinople, once it fell, it would be nearly impossible to retake