# Why Ithillain rangers got no authority to get equipped with mithril?



## Hisoka Morrow (Mar 6, 2022)

Yeah, such elite armed forces trained as hardly as tower guard and appointed to much more risky military tasks than the previous,yet with lower hardware? Was it due to prevention of any mithril classified stuff from being captured or anything else? Any idea?


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## Aldarion (Mar 6, 2022)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> Yeah, such elite armed forces trained as hardly as tower guard and appointed to much more risky military tasks than the previous,yet with lower hardware? Was it due to prevention of any mithril classified stuff from being captured or anything else? Any idea?


Probably because they don't have enough mithril for actual military usage, so symbolic value is much more important.


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## vor0nwe (Mar 6, 2022)

Are _Ithilien Rangers_ a thing?

I got the impression that Frodo encountered Faramir there not because it was his fixed base, but rather because the enemies they wanted to waylay were passing through there, and there was a good place for an ambush not very far from Henneth Annûn — and having a defendable fortified place in the neighbourhood is always nice.

As for the _mithril_, I agree with @Aldarion: there probably wasn’t enough mithril for (routine) military usage. Remember that Gandalf valued Frodo’s mithril mail shirt as “more than the whole Shire and everything in it”. You’d have to be obscenely rich to equip your soldiers with the equivalent of an entire country; not to mention the risk of losing entire countries' worth whenever you lose a soldier...


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Mar 6, 2022)

It's stated somewhere that "Sauron was greedy for mithril". I don't offhand recall much else being said about that, but it would seem to indicate he'd likely captured a great deal of what might have been floating around. What he did with it is anyone's guess.


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## m4r35n357 (Mar 6, 2022)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> Yeah, such elite armed forces trained as hardly as tower guard and appointed to much more risky military tasks than the previous,yet with lower hardware? Was it due to prevention of any mithril classified stuff from being captured or anything else? Any idea?


On top of the other reasons given here, think of the Numenorean "tomb-culture". There was probably a huge quantity of mithril taken out of circulation through burial alongside the Numenorian Kings down the ages.


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## vor0nwe (Mar 6, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> It's stated somewhere that "Sauron was greedy for mithril". I don't offhand recall much else being said about that, but it would seem to indicate he'd likely captured a great deal of what might have been floating around. What he did with it is anyone's guess.



"Covet it", according to Gandalf. Whatever that may mean... 🙃



> *A Journey in the Dark, Book II, The Lord of the Rings:*
> 
> ‘Then what do the dwarves want to come back for?’ asked Sam.
> ‘For mithril,’ answered Gandalf. ‘The wealth of Moria was not in gold and jewels, the toys of the Dwarves; nor in iron, their servant. Such things they found here, it is true, especially iron; but they did not need to delve for them: all things that they desired they could obtain in traffic. For here alone in the world was found Moria-silver, or true-silver as some have called it: _mithril_ is the Elvish name. The Dwarves have a name which they do not tell. Its worth was ten times that of gold, and now it is beyond price; for little is left above ground, and even the Orcs dare not delve here for it. The lodes lead away north towards Caradhras, and down to darkness. The Dwarves tell no tale; but even as mithril was the foundation of their wealth, so also it was their destruction: they delved too greedily and too deep, and disturbed that from which they fled, Durin's Bane. *Of what they brought to light the Orcs have gathered nearly all, and given it in tribute to Sauron, who covets it.*’


But Sauron wasn’t the only one to really want the stuff:


> ‘Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass; and the Dwarves could make of it a metal, light and yet harder than tempered steel. Its beauty was like to that of common silver, but the beauty of mithril did not tarnish or grow dim. The Elves dearly loved it, and among many uses they made of it _ithildin_, starmoon, which you saw upon the doors. Bilbo had a corslet of mithril-rings that Thorin gave him. I wonder what has become of it? Gathering dust still in Michel Delving Mathom-house, I suppose.’
> ‘What?’ cried Gimli, startled out of his silence. ‘A corslet of Moria-silver? That was a kingly gift!’
> ‘Yes,’ said Gandalf. ‘I never told him, but its worth was greater than the value of the whole Shire and everything in it.’
> Frodo said nothing, but he put his hand under his tunic and touched the rings of his mail-shirt. He felt staggered to think that he had been walking about with the price of the Shire under his jacket. Had Bilbo known? He felt no doubt that Bilbo knew quite well. It was indeed a kingly gift.


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