# Problems In Moria



## Bucky (Jan 23, 2013)

Okay, so I'm reading TLOR _again,_ must be about the 30th time.....

I'm seeing a couple fairly reasonable problems in the storyline as The Fellowship reaches Moria & enters the long trip through the mines:

1. At the end of the first march, the company enters the guardroom where the old well has the cover broken off...

Pippin drops the stone down the well, setting off the beater of the drums.

Gandalf gets mad, rightfully so, calls Pippin a "fool of a took" and...

Lights up a joint. (according to PJ). :*D

Seriously, smokes some pipeweed a few hours later.

Does this make any sense?

To begin with, even without Pippin having alerted _somebody_ to the company's presence, what effect in the long dark & still stagnant air would smoking pipeweed have? How far would it travel? What creatures would it draw, hostile to the Company or with their own agenda, which might not be any better?

And considering 'the beater of the drums' has just been 'awaken' or 'put on notice' that somebody is about, doesn't this seem rather foolish on the part of a wizard?


2. How the heck does Gollum get out of Moria and follow the company?

For starters, he's _following the Company_ & the Chamber of Mazarbul is _blocked from behind._

This requires another route...

_But,_ the Bridge of Khazad-Dum has hundreds of Orcs and at least two trolls on that side, & on top of it, collapses, so isn't acessable.

Thirdly, Boromir _plainly_ states that coming down the back way out of the Chamber of Mazarbul, now blocked was the only route: "The fire has cut them off. We are on the wrong side."

So since Gollum is on the wrong side, filled with Orcs & Trolls, no bridge over the chasm anyhow, how does he get past the Orcs, out of Moria & right back on the remaining members of the Fellowship so quickly?

It seems rather implausable.

Any comments/answers?


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## Andreth (Jan 23, 2013)

Good points, especially the second; well, about it I've no plausible answer. I would say that Gollum, sensing the presence of the orcs ( and why not? Living for hundreds of years in a cavern had improved his senses ), reached the exit before the attack. That seems to me the only way, considering that the bridge was an uttermost defence, and so surely hadn't any other way to reach it than the appointed ones.
and, speaking of Gandalf... I think that, knowing they were already discovered, it seemed not too important if he stated again their presence with the smoke of the pipeweed; and, besides, I don't think Moria had smoke detectors  maybe, being the drums so far from them, he just thought it was not important.


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## Turgon (Jan 24, 2013)

Honestly... if I was in Moria at that point and heard the drums in the deep... I think I'd need a smoke too. I'd give Gandalf a pass on that one.

As for Gollum's escape... the easiest explaination that comes to mind is that at this point he was already over the bridge. Gollum would be completely at home in the Mines of Moria and had become skilled enough to hunt goblins in his old Misty Mountain lair without the use of The Ring. If he had tracked the fellowship to the Chamber of Mazabul... it's not great stretch of the imagination for him to have snuck passed during the battle in the chamber and decide then either trail the company from the front or to go ahead (perhaps in terror of the Balrog) and wait at the eastern gate for them. It does appear that Gollum was following the fellowship closely rather than at a distance, think how close he was to them on the Great River... the darkness of the mines would have made him even bolder I think.


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## Bucky (Jan 25, 2013)

Can't buy that, Turgon...

Gollum's right behind them as Frodo watches that night in the Chamber... Frodo sees his eyes. Legolas follows the next watch that 'night'.....

Besides, the thought that Gollum could sneak by Gandalf, Boromir, Leglas & especially Aragorn, who's also (at least) aware of him, is also hard to believe. These are some folk with senses attuned to danger.

What makes matters more confusing, Gollum's _ahead_ of the orcs when they get to Lorien. Frodo sees his eyes in the distance long before the orcs arrive & the tree incident.

Tolkien simply dropped the ball here.


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## Prince of Cats (Jan 30, 2013)

Interesting questions ...

As for the smoke ... presumably the orcs would light fires wherever they were down in Moria for light and cooking so they must have been so far off or the air still-enough for the fellowship not to smell the orcs' fire in the first place. Also, like Turgon said ... kind of hard to blame the guy given the circumstances

In regard to gollum ... well I suppose were at a point where we can either pick 1.) the idea that Tolkien has some incongruity here or 2.) that gollum was able to get ahead of the fellowship, as Bucky and Turgon suggested respectively. I'm inclined to follow Turgon's tale here - it's easy for me to imagine that gollum could move faster on foot than the fellowship, both in the wild and in Moria. It's a little entertaining to imagine gollum seeing the fellowship being met by the balrog from ahead of them and at the balrog being like, "shoot! shoot! No, Go Away! It's MINE!" :*D


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## Starbrow (Feb 7, 2013)

I always figured that Gollum snuck out of Moria a bit after the Fellowship. I imagine that there were probably some exits out of Moria other than the main gates and Gollum was sneaky enough to avoid the orcs and get out. While the Fellowship was grieving for Gandalf, he would have had time to catch up.


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## Withywindle (Apr 10, 2013)

Good points:

As far as the first is concerned... it doesn´t matter whether you filling the tank at a petrol station, or suffering from acute bronchitis- when you gotta smoke, you gotta smoke!

On the second, I admit I´d never considered the problem before, but might we consider that since the time of the Dwarves, Moria had been burrowed by the Orcs, at least in its lower levels. The East Gate and the Hollin door were probably no longer the only points of entrance the Mines. Indeed Gollum had entered Moria in the first place, and can hardly have passed by the guards at the East Gate.

Perhaps as a long time dweller of the cave systems of the Misty Mountains, Gollum already knew how to enter and exit Moria by routes inexistant in the time of the Dwarves, and therefore unknown to lore.


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## Grond (Apr 11, 2013)

Withywindle said:


> Good points:
> 
> As far as the first is concerned... it doesn´t matter whether you filling the tank at a petrol station, or suffering from acute bronchitis- when you gotta smoke, you gotta smoke!
> 
> ...


Couldn't have said it better myself. Gollum had been living in Moria for an extended period of time. He would have known every nook and cranny just like he did in his cave in the Misty Mountains. I've never considered this to be an issue at all.

Cheers,

Grond


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