# Gunpowder in Lord of the Rings



## Aldarion (Jul 14, 2021)

So I have been thinking about the Hobbit and how Goblins made use of gunpowder (and maybe even Gandalf himself). Now, gunpowder is never attested by name in _Lord of the Rings_, and we have only two instances of its potential military use: the blasting fire used during the siege of the Helm's Deep, and also when Sauron's army is destroying the (already taken) Rammas Echor. Both of these instances are vague enough that they can be explained away as "magic".

But I think that, thematically, it would actually make more sense for it to be gunpowder. Yes, Sauron and Saruman do use magic, with One Ring being obvious example. But there is a theme which pervades imagery of Mordor more than anything else: industrialization. Mordor itself is a slag heap atop a slag heap, an area which could well be the product of industrial pollution. Saruman destroys the Vale of Isen in his rush to industrialize and produce a machine of war. Orcs of Mordor have not only names, but serial numbers as well, and actually talk like proper soldiers. Mordor's tactics are reminiscent of the World War I human wave tactics which so many incompetent commanders utilized in early years of the war, and dehumanization of the orcs may well stand for the dehumanization of humans which is a consequence of modern society, and modern way of war in particular.

Thoughts?


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## m4r35n357 (Jul 14, 2021)

I sincerely believe that Tolkien is actually making a serious point here; that sufficiently advanced technology can look like magic to those who do not understand it. I think he does this to make the reader think the same way about other incidences of "magic" in the story, encouraging the suspension of disbelief in those cases too.

If you _want_ to believe it is gunpowder, then it is


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## Olorgando (Jul 14, 2021)

Here John Garth's 2003 book "Tolkien and the Great War" provides some highly interesting points. That the horrors of the trench warfare at the Somme in 1916 formed JRRT's views on battles has been widely discussed.

This is from chapter 8 "A bitter winnowing", page 153 of my 2019 paperback reprint, second page of the chapter, describing the events surrounding Robert Quilter Gilson's unit on 01 July 1916, the beginning of the Battle of the Somme (Gilson was the TCBS member killed that day):

"At 7:20 a.m., ten minutes to 'zero hour', every gun in the artillery accelerated to its maximum rate of fire in a hurricane bombardment. The air was brown with the chalk dust of disrupted fields an red with the pulverized brick of village and farmstead. Then, with two minutes to go, the ground reeled. Lieutenant Gilson and his men had been warned to expect this; they had been kept back to protect them from concussion. Across No Man's Land, and a little to Gilson's left, the earth erupted thousands of feet into the smoky blue air as twenty-four tons of explosive ammonal (ammonium nitrate mixed with aluminium) were detonated under the enemy trenches where they formed a strongly protected salient. Clods of soil and chunks of chalk rained down, as big as wheelbarrows."

If you think ammonium nitrate rings a very recent bell, you're right. From Wikipedia:

"On 4 August 2020, a large amount of ammonium nitrate stored at the port of the city of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, exploded, causing at least 207 deaths, 7,500 injuries, and US$15 billion in property damage, and leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. A cargo of 2,750 tonnes of the substance (equivalent to around 1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in a warehouse without proper safety measures for the previous six years, after having been confiscated by the Lebanese authorities from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus. The explosion was preceded by a fire in the same warehouse, but as of April 2021, the exact cause of the detonation is still under investigation.

The blast was also felt across Turkey, Syria, Israel, Palestine, parts of Europe, and was heard in Cyprus, more than 240 km (150 mi) away. It was detected by the United States Geological Survey as a seismic event of magnitude 3.3, and is considered one of the most powerful artificial non-nuclear explosions in history."

And also, ammonium nitrate was the main component of the worst terrorist attack in the US before 9/11, Timothy McVeigh's supremely cowardly attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

As to my memory, JRRT does not describe either Saruman or Sauron as being overly, or even faintly, interested in agriculture. At least for Sauron, there is the vague mention of such stuff in "outer Mordor", but I'd guess that was delegated to subordinates seriously "downstream" of any military lackeys. Gunpowder is definitely hardly more than a firecracker compared to "enhanced fertilizer". Perhaps JRRT would have changed that in a rigorously "mannish tradition" rewriting of his legendarium ...


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## Hisoka Morrow (Jul 14, 2021)

Aldarion said:


> name in _Lord of the Rings_, and we have only two instances of its potential military use: the blasting fire used during the siege of the Helm's Deep, and also when Sauron's army is destroying the (already taken) Rammas Echor.


"Firepower" described as blasting siege towers into pieces or causing mass fire in the battle of Minas-Tirith of ROTK was also possibly implication of gunpowder.


Aldarion said:


> Both of these instances are vague enough that they can be explained away as "magic".


In addition, the cases I mentioned above were described as "magic" but other military common words such as firepower, ammo, and so on.


m4r35n357 said:


> If you _want_ to believe it is gunpowder, then it is


Yeah, after all, it's "fantasy". XD

In general, to speak more accurately, JRRT seemed to describe gunpowder from a mythic point, as an result, not only occult words "magic", but science words such as "munitions", could be used to imply gunpowder or not. In addition, gunpowder, though mostly was a symbol of industrial society, able to be described as a symbol of elitism style, fitting the Free People if described appropriately, such as Numenor.


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## Aldarion (Jul 14, 2021)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> "Firepower" described as blasting siege towers into pieces or causing mass fire in the battle of Minas-Tirith of ROTK was also possibly implication of gunpowder.


I don't know. I always attributed former to normal stones, and latter is clearly some variant on Greek Fire.


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## Hisoka Morrow (Jul 16, 2021)

Aldarion said:


> ...clearly some variant on Greek Fire...


But did Greek Fire got that explosive power to "blast" siege tower into pieces?According the records of Greek Fire, it seemed rather cause damage by blazing instead of explosion.


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## Goldilocks Gamgee (Jul 16, 2021)

I believe Tolkien was making a point about Mordor and Isengard, when they used gunpowder. Both those places are shown to be without nature, industrialized and ruined. The 'good ones', on the other hand, valued places which were full of growth and blooming. They never used any gunpowder or anything of that sort! I think what Tolkien meant to say was that it ruins good things, and it would be best to do without it.


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## Aldarion (Jul 16, 2021)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> But did Greek Fire got that explosive power to "blast" siege tower into pieces?According the records of Greek Fire, it seemed rather cause damage by blazing instead of explosion.


I am referring to incidenary projectiles used by forces of Mordor in the siege of Minas Tirith.

You can "blast" siege tower into pieces with a simple rock - I think you are rather underestimating how powerful trebuchet- or even catapult-launched rocks can be.


Goldilocks Gamgee said:


> I believe Tolkien was making a point about Mordor and Isengard, when they used gunpowder. Both those places are shown to be without nature, industrialized and ruined. The 'good ones', on the other hand, valued places which were full of growth and blooming. They never used any gunpowder or anything of that sort! I think what Tolkien meant to say was that it ruins good things, and it would be best to do without it.


Agreed. Gunpowder symbolizes industrialization, which means separation from the nature.


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## Hisoka Morrow (Jul 19, 2021)

Aldarion said:


> ...referring to incidenary projectiles used by forces of Mordor in the siege of Minas Tirith...


Hmmm...oh yes, even Greek fire could cause explosion. But on the other hand, black powder could cause the same mechanic of damage as well, I'm pretty sure some of the ancient china gunpowder weapons did same mechanic way of damage by spreading massive incidenary projectiles instead of shocking shards and shock-wave through explosion.


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