Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3511574" data-attributes="member: 4937">Abandoned is the key word.&nbsp; The population of a ME at the time of the novel is a small fraction of its previous population.&nbsp; Various invasions, plagues, and famines have denuded much of Middle Earth of its population.&nbsp; We can assume that Sauron has been orchastrating the destruction of the free people of ME for centuries now.You are confused.&nbsp; Aragorn and company ride up into Helms deep from the valley side, passing many burning hamlets and villages to either on the way.&nbsp; This is explicitly mentioned.&nbsp; The Hobbits never approach Helm's Deep until after the battle.&nbsp; They go straight to Isengard with the Ents.&nbsp; For the most part, Aragorn and company deliberately keep to sparsely inhabited areas during the Fellowship.&nbsp; For example, the helms of the guards of the white tower.&nbsp;But seriously, its a novel.&nbsp; All the world building detail can't be squeezed into it.&nbsp; We are able to infer that the Dwarves maintain a trade network across the whole of the middle earth, and that they have built roads for those purposes.&nbsp; We don't actually here about it except when Bilbo employs it to prepare for his Birthday party, and the fact that Dwarves apparantly stop regularly in Bree.&nbsp; Tolkien mentions that there are actually a great many Hobbits living outside of the Shire, but except for Bree and its surrounding communities we never see any of them.&nbsp; There are many communities implied by the text that aren't even on the map.&nbsp; They just aren't part of the story.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 3511574, member: 4937"] Abandoned is the key word. The population of a ME at the time of the novel is a small fraction of its previous population. Various invasions, plagues, and famines have denuded much of Middle Earth of its population. We can assume that Sauron has been orchastrating the destruction of the free people of ME for centuries now. You are confused. Aragorn and company ride up into Helms deep from the valley side, passing many burning hamlets and villages to either on the way. This is explicitly mentioned. The Hobbits never approach Helm's Deep until after the battle. They go straight to Isengard with the Ents. For the most part, Aragorn and company deliberately keep to sparsely inhabited areas during the Fellowship. For example, the helms of the guards of the white tower. But seriously, its a novel. All the world building detail can't be squeezed into it. We are able to infer that the Dwarves maintain a trade network across the whole of the middle earth, and that they have built roads for those purposes. We don't actually here about it except when Bilbo employs it to prepare for his Birthday party, and the fact that Dwarves apparantly stop regularly in Bree. Tolkien mentions that there are actually a great many Hobbits living outside of the Shire, but except for Bree and its surrounding communities we never see any of them. There are many communities implied by the text that aren't even on the map. They just aren't part of the story. [/QUOTE]

Verification