Easterlings?

[Evan van Eyk]

Originally posted by AslanC
Sorry Evan but the Southrons were shown later in the film with the Oliphant and they looked remarkably different than what were identified as the easterlings.

Also they marched around perhaps to show respect and enter Mordor through the black gate instead of just walking in the back door.

Would you want to risk pissing off Sauron?

There are two large people in Harad, Far Harad and Harad - and there are many smaller tribes in the region which all answer to Sauron. But what I actually spoke of was just the depiction of the book, which the first army fits quite well.
And I did not mean that they entered the back door, but come from the East. The Black Gate faces North West so the Easterlings would approach it from right ( if looking on a map ) not from below.

[Evan van Eyk]

Oh, maybe another point which is important. In the first Age of middle Earth three tribes of Men eventually came to Beleriand. Their later descendants are the Dunedain and Northman, including the Rohirrim.
The Dunedain are High Men ( Including Corsairs, Black Numenoreans...), Rohirrim and the rest of this three tribes are 'only' middle men, because they have no connected lineage to Elves. Yet there were some Men who were afraid of the Elves and went not to Beleriand - yet later supported Melkor. Those are the Dark Men. Not neccessarily speaking of their morality but of the fact that they remained in the dark parts of Middle-Earth. And those dark men are the Easterlings - whoch still dwell in the areas where Men awoke in the First Age. But as they never had such connections with the Valar and Elves, they have not developed such a high culture as others.

[Calcoran]

<i>Sorry to highjack your thread for a while Aslan, but in the end maybe it can be of some help too.</i>

Now there is a thing that has always puzzled me. When the first Elves awoke in the darkness under the stars, they awoke somewhere inland, and then travelled west, to the sea, and then some of them over the sea. Similarly, when the first Men awoke, they awoke inland, and travelled west, to the sea. Some of the Elves elected not to travel west, and became the Avari. Some of them you will probably use as the main enemy Aslan. Some of the Men elected to stay were they awoke, and still dwell there: the Easterlings. They fell under Morgoth's shadow, and later Sauron's, for they were more easily influenced than Elves.

So, in the end, everybody went west. Or stood there. What the hell is there to the east, then? If over the sea, to the west, gets you to Valinor, why not go east too? Or is there no sea to the east? Just like light came from Valinor to the west, does darkness come from the east? Is middle earth even round then? But if it isn't, why the name?

I know there must be some answers in "The Silmarillon" but my last read of it was quite a few years ago and I don't quite recall what Tolkien said about it. It just puzzled me that east was so seldom mentioned in Tolkien's books. Maybe there is something more to get from there?

[Evan van Eyk]

At the beginning Middle-Earth was actually not round. Only as Tar-Pharazon from Numenor tried to invade Aman. After that occurance, the Valar took Valinor out of the direct way actually lifting it up and making all except the Elves come out at the other end of Middle-Earth ( actually its called Ea, Middle Earth is just one continent ). There is also a thrid continent somewhere South East of Middle Earth.

[Calcoran]

Errr ... the second being Valinor, right?
Where is this 3rd continent mentioned, Evan?

[Calcoran]

Been thinking a bit, and what Evan said seems to fit with what the hypopotamus of recollection kept in store in the muddy waters of my memory (hey, great butchering of TP's quote ).

So, earth was flat.The Void then Sea to the west, with Valinor somewhere in it, Middle Earth in the middle, then the Void again to the east. No wonder nothing worth noting ever happened there .
Then indeed at the end of the second age, the earth is reshapen and made round. The interesting thing is that the Easterling, folks who had never seen the Sea, suddenly found themselves facing a great big bucket of salty water in front of them, where there was nothing before. Admittedly, there must have been a bit of an Armageddon when it happened, so there were probably only few survivors to notice, but still. What have they done with it, one might wonder. I mean, the Japanese (and a bit less the Chinese) civilization was greatly influenced by the sea (being an island might have helped there). Would such civilizations have had time enough to form between the beginning of the third age and the timeset of your campaign, Aslan? Or something radically different?

[Evan van Eyk]

I actually do not know. I think its somewhere in 'History of Middle-Earth' or the 'Atlas of Middle-Earth'. I do not remember though. Anyone Else?

[Dan Stack]

Sounds like it is from the Atlas of Middle Earth along with the Illustrated Encyclopedia.

[Chris Landmark]

OK, quick geography lesson for you. In the beginning, Arda (that's the Earth, by the way) was created flat. It was constantly reshaped by the conflicts between the Valar and Melkor (aka Morgoth). Eventually what they ended up with was this: Valinor in the west (where all the Valar hung out), a mountainous land in the east (which was too rugged to support life), and Middle Earth (aka Endor) in the center (where all the Elves and Men and Dwarves and Hobbits eventually appeared). There were oceans on both sides of Middle Earth, and the Encircling Seas all around the edge of the world (except in the far north were they froze up to become the Grinding Ice, and possibly in the south as well but we know absolutely nothing of this). The sun and moon had to travel through caverns under the earth in order to get in place in time to rise again.

At the end of the First Age, the island of Numenor was raised between Middle Earth and Valinor (within sight of the latter, in fact) and Beleriand (the westernmost part of Middle Earth, where all the big First Age stuff happened; it was everything from the Blue Mountains west) was sunk, leaving just a remnant now known as Lindon and an island or two. The world remained otherwise the same, geographically.

At the end of the Second Age, when Ar-Pharazôn tried to invade Valinor and claim immortality as a spoil of war (a fools errand which Sauron convinced him was possible), the Valar threw up their hands and called on Eru Illuvitar (aka God with a capital "G") to fix his little red wagon. Eru basically took the edges of the flat world and bent them around to form a sphere, but left Valinor in it's "original location" so that the elves could still sail the "straight way" (the normal seas now being bent, since the world is now round) and reach Valinor when they tired of Middle Earth. Numenor got the Atlantis treatment, and apparently new lands emerged elsewhere on the new globe. This is where everything begins to slowly decay from mythic prehistory to a more "scientific" reality.

For someone else's take on the lands of Rhûn and Harad, check out this site. It's yet another speculation on what might be beyond the edges of the maps suppled with the Lord of the Rings. Some of the ideas are relatively good, others are a bit "iffy" (the lost kingdom of Amazôn being one of them).

More on Easterlings: Since someone brought them up, don't equate the "Swarthy Men" Easterlings of the First Age (some of whom secretly went over to Morgoth and betrayed the Edain and the Eldar, some of whom remained loyal and paid the price) with the Easterlings of the Third Age. They're separated by thousands of years and thousands of leagues. The things they do hold in common are that they aren't as "fair" as the Edain and their distant kin (like the Rohirrim) and they came from the East once the Edain were established in the West.

-Chris Landmark

[Evan van Eyk]

Originally posted by Chris Landmark
The sun and moon had to travel through caverns under the earth in order to get in place in time to rise again.

At the end of the First Age, the island of Numenor was raised between Middle Earth and Valinor (within sight of the latter, in fact) and Beleriand (the westernmost part of Middle Earth, where all the big First Age stuff happened; it was everything from the Blue Mountains west) was sunk, leaving just a remnant now known as Lindon and an island or two. The world remained otherwise the same, geographically.


More on Easterlings: Since someone brought them up, don't equate the "Swarthy Men" Easterlings of the First Age (some of whom secretly went over to Morgoth and betrayed the Edain and the Eldar, some of whom remained loyal and paid the price) with the Easterlings of the Third Age. They're separated by thousands of years and thousands of leagues. The things they do hold in common are that they aren't as "fair" as the Edain and their distant kin (like the Rohirrim) and they came from the East once the Edain were established in the West.

Just a short add. The sun and moon were formed later in the age. First there were the two trees which brought light to Aman and later the large towers holding ( I think it was the Silmaril ), after Melkor had destroyed the trees - btw the very trees the white tree of Numenor is a decendant of. Later when Morgoth also destroyed the towers and took the gems, Sun and Moon were created to keep Morgoth' dark creatures in check.


There were was even some more change. The Island tol Erressar was used as 'escape pod' for many Elves who wanted to leave Middle Earth. It was placed before Aman's harbour in reach of it. You could see it faintly from Numenor when the weather was good.


As a not on the Easterlings: Of course they are different from those early men but they are of less noble decent then Dunedain and the Northman. Faramir explains it quite well in his talk with Frodo.

[thiskitty]

Originally posted by Evan van Eyk
[B]Just a short add. The sun and moon were formed later in the age. First there were the two trees which brought light to Aman and later the large towers holding ( I think it was the Silmaril ), after Melkor had destroyed the trees - btw the very trees the white tree of Numenor is a decendant of. Later when Morgoth also destroyed the towers and took the gems, Sun and Moon were created to keep Morgoth' dark creatures in check.

Well, it was the towers first in Middle Earth, and when Morgoth toppled the towers, the Valar moved westward (to Valinor) and Yavanna grew the Trees there. Feanor captured the light from the trees in the Silmarils, which is why everyone wanted them.

The Sun and Moon were created after the trees were destroyed. They are actually each a fruit from one of the trees.

[Thror]

I read Easterlings as being Mongol/Hun types, I won't go into details, I would just be repeating (very well) researched strings. Some were obviously Viking-type (the bearded axemen from Rhun). Tolkien calls them all 'wild and evil men'.

No great civilizations, sorry.

BTW: the guys marching into the Black Gate in TTT are Southrons (Haradrim), check out their banner (red with gold serpant) and re-read the battle of Pelannor Fields.

[Phantom]

The Haradrim were the ones taken out by Faramir and his friends, the ones marching into Mordor, according to info I have seen, are Easterlings.

[Janus]

I believe Rhovanion and the lands east of Rhûn were to near for a true “Asian” population. Tolkien had in mind something like a “proto-Europe” and so it is likely that the Easterlings we heard from were akin to the old sytian peoples. We even have something of a parallel between history and Middle Earth “history on this particular subject:

It exists a certain level of parallelism between the Ostrogothic kingdom in Ukraine and the Kingdom of Vidugavia and his descendents in Rhovanion (and the fact that Tolkien used gothic names to “translate” proto Rohirim names is certainly not a coincidence neither). Considering this, it becomes plausible that the nomads living nearby the Northmen were akin (at least culturally) to the sytian peoples that lived near the Ostrogoths in our world. Further, the few descriptions of the Wainriders remind me much of the Cimmerians too, adding to the idea that they were similar to the Iranian nomads of our world.

[AslanC]

There is a line where they say "Southrons and Easterlings are passing though the Black Gate everyday." (paraphrased).

In the movie at least, the ones who are fooled by the elven cloaks are Easterlings.

I believe the line is during the scenes with Faramir in Osiligath.