Film Theory: Um actually, you CAN simply walk into Mordor but it'll take a while (Lord of the Rings)
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Published 2022-10-16
With Rings of Power in full swing, I felt the need to revisit the world of Middle Earth myself... for the memes. Most of you have probably seen the Boromir meme that reads "One does not simply... [insert thing here]." The original quote finishes, "walk into Mordor." But... that is exactly what Frodo and Sam do. So, was Boromir just completely wrong or should the journey have killed the Hobbits? Let's find out!
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Credits:
Writers: Matthew Patrick, Mark Hofmeyer and Forrest Lee
Editors: Tyler Mascola, Danial "BanditRants" Keristoufi, JayskiBean, Dan "Cybert" Seibert, Friendly Fireball and Mark Thornton
Assistant Editor: GeekyPeanut
Sound Editor: Yosi Berman
#LordOfTheRings #LoTR #RingsOfPower #Frodo #Gollum #Aragorn #Gandalf #Legolas #FilmTheory #Matpat #Trailer
All Comments (21)
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Fun fact, tolkien calculated not only the distances and travel times, but also the moon phases to make sure to always describe the night sky coherently with the time of the year the characters were looking up.
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Just wanna say that the Sam and Frodo absolutely did not make it look easy. They were miserable for almost the full length of their trip, and Frodo just about died of exhaustion and ring-poisoning halfway up the slope of Mt Doom.
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In Boromir's defense, he said one does not SIMPLY walk into Mordor. You can, in fact, walk in if you're careful or stealthy enough but it's not going to be easy. You have to get past a nearly impossible mountain pass, a giant spider, an army of thousands of orcs and trolls, evil Men from Rhun and Harad, fell beasts flying overhead, the Nazgul if they've been called home by their boss, and the far-seeing Eye of Sauron that is actively surveying the area.
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It took only 6 months for them to destroy the ring, but gandalf 17 years to figure out what the ring was.
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You've got to remember that Tolkein was old enough he actually fought in WW1 as a young man. He was very familiar with how far a man could walk in a day, and would have been able to accurately estimate the time required for the journey. If anything, the grueling nature of the pace required would be due to him simply forgetting to account for the hobbits having shorter legs.
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Actually, Samwise's weightloss was because Sean Astin took up Marathons and Triathlons during the course of the trilogy. In fact, he got too fit at one point, and Jackson told him to stop training while filming. Little did Jackson realize, the weightloss made the toll of the quest more believable.
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I think what most people leave out is that Boromir was most likely talking about an army invading Mordor, not about a small stealthy party. Thus, his words at the counsil about 10 thousand men.
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I didn't realize that having to climb a giant staircase practically straight up, sleeping on said staircase, getting stung by a giant spider after climbing up the big @$$ staircase, and trying to make sure one's master didn't get eaten by that giant spider was a simple thing. You must have such difficult lives if those things are simple for you.
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When Sam wielded the ring, it tempted him to use its power. It showed him turning the desolate landscape of Mordor into a lush garden. That's it. That was Sam's greatest desire
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"Nine were given to Disney, who above all else desire power!" This fits so freaking well!
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"everyone was tempted by the ring" Well to be fair... Gimli was the only one who actually attempted to destroy the ring by himself
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As a thru-hiker on the AT, I can say with confidence that it is DEFINITELY possible. We used to make jokes about LOTR all the time. Katahdin was our Mt. Doom. I even knew a guy whose trail name was Frodo. He had a ring that he wore around his neck that he planned to chuck off the top of the mountain
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I always took that line to mean that it's not a simple task. You don't just stroll into Mordor; there's more to it than that. They needed to sneak in. They needed a whole battle to act as a distraction. There needed to be a plan.
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One can walk to Mordor, but not SIMPLY walk to Mordor. It is a difficult task, not a simple one.
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i never actually realized that they covered like 80% of the way in the first movie and the remaining 20% in the remaining two :O
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12:00 literally if you act confidently enough and wear appropriate clothes, you can waltz in just about anywhere that doesn't have a fingerprint scanner. I've genuinely used this tactic in some cases, though obviously not to rob a museum. Just know that it works like a charm and if anyone looks at you weirdly, look back weirdly. They'll likely think they haven't gotten an obvious memo and back off before they're caught "uninformed"
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This was also the reason Bilbo was able to survive his encounter with Smaug. The dragon could basically smell everything he'd ever touched, or done, and every place he'd ever been, but he wasn't familiar with the scent of a Hobbit, having never before encountered one.
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Boramir didn't say " one does not walk into Mordor" He said " one do's not SIMPLY walk into Mordor" And he was right. It wasn't simple, it was quite difficult.
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The strain of the hike is actually accountes for by the end of the movies too when you come to think of it. Both Frodo and Sam are utterly exhausted by the time they reach the mountain, and are at their breaking point, so it adds up in that regard as well.
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Tolkien made a statistic to measure the stride of the hobbits to ensure that the hobbits could have made it to mordor in the time he stated. That is how dedicated Tolkien was to this story.
