# Gondolin's economic power



## Hisoka Morrow (Mar 7, 2021)

Yeah, since the unnumbered tears, Gondolin must have been undergoing it's economic hard time in order to keep it safe. Yet, when Morgoth started it' siege at Gondolin, whose whole state's power was still destructive enough to cost him the heaviest casualties he had ever met. Is there anything able to prove Gondolin's economic power so strong that it kick Morgoth's ass so hurt, according to JRRT's or his authorized writers's works?


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## Aldarion (Apr 3, 2021)

I do not think it was Gondolin's _economic _power which hurt Morgoth so. Tolkien's work is heavily immaterial, and things such as moral, morale, soul, spirit and magic play huge role - their influence in fact is often much greater than that of purely physical factors (as it often is in reality: wars are won mostly by breaking the will of the enemy to fight). Gondolin had much of the elven nobility, including warriors of great renown (Glorfindel!); it is not surprising that any attack there will have been costly for Morgoth.


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## Alcuin (Apr 3, 2021)

What “economic power”? A city-state living in autarky, sc. _economic self-sufficiency_, does not project “economic power”, and it can well be argued does not possess economic power as such. To possess or project economic power requires that a given population of people _trades_ – exchanges goods, services, and currency – with other populations. Gondolin was isolated by design. Its economy does not seem to have suffered, however: its shops and markets were full of goods and foods, its people do not seem to have suffered any want, unless it was that they forbidden to leave the confines of the Vale of Tumladen; but this they accepted out of choice, since otherwise Morgoth’s minions would have seized them, as they did Maeglin on one of his mineral scouting missions. 

Remember, too, that this is fantasy, what Tolkien calls _Faerie_ in his essay “On Fairy-Stories”. It is not entirely like our world, but an imaginative extract from it. Tolkien admits in _Letter_ 153 that “economics, science, artefacts, religion, and philosophy are defective, or at least sketchy” for Middle-earth. As Aldarion mentions,


Aldarion said:


> Gondolin had much of the elven nobility, including warriors of great renown (Glorfindel!); it is not surprising that any attack there will have been costly for Morgoth.


I whole-heartedly agree: Many of Gondolin’s inhabitants were born in and had been residents of Aman. The power they derived from their long sojourn there even was widely recognized, a point mentioned in _Silmarillion_, “Of Men”:
In [the First Age] Elves and Men were of like stature and strength of body, but the Elves had greater wisdom, and skill, and beauty; and those who had dwelt in Valinor and looked upon the Powers as much surpassed the Dark Elves in these things as they in turn surpassed the people of mortal race. Only to the realm of Doriath, whose queen Melian was of the kindred of Valar, did the Sindar come near to match the Calaquendi of the Blessed Realm.​


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 4, 2021)

All three great Elven kingdoms of the time were "Hidden Kingdoms". The Encyclopedia of Fantasy has a short article on "polders" which is helpful:









SF Encyclopedia Editorial Home


Welcome to the third edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.




sf-encyclopedia.uk





It makes clear how common the trope is in fantasy, but Tolkien used it almost obsessively, from the little Shire to Valinor itself.


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## Hisoka Morrow (Apr 13, 2021)

Aldarion said:


> ...Tolkien's work is heavily immaterial, and things such as moral, morale, soul, spirit and magic play huge role - their influence in fact is often much greater...





Alcuin said:


> ...Age] Elves and Men were of like stature and strength of body, but the Elves had greater wisdom...


Hmmm...=''=..., Or how about describing JRRT's work is heavily "personnel dominant", for instance, both of Free People and Dark side knew magic, yet all the Dark side could use magic on no more than carpet bombard often, in huge comparison with the Free People always use it in much more sophisticated ways like communication(Palantir), and so on, if magic could get considered as a kind of "material stuff", I wonder. 
On the other hand, material ways often got used by JRRT to describe wisdom, such as the Noldor and Numenor's advanced military hardware was a significant proof of their wisdom. 
Just consider my negligible offer.


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