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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Edena_of_Neith" data-source="post: 457962" data-attributes="member: 2020">Hile Troy (SPOILER)SPOILER WARNING    -  -  -   SPOILER WARNING    -  -  -   SPOILER WARNING    -  -  -   SPOILER WARNING    -  -  -   SPOILER WARNING    -  -  -   One must wonder if Stephen Donaldson the Author chose the name Hile Troy, because in classic literature there was a Troy who represented false hope?  Although I would daresay Hile Troy did the best he could, he did better than most military generals in the Real World have done historically, and he did better than I think any D&D character (except that rare 1 in 1,000) would have done.  Hile Troy had the Warward:  16,000 men and women on foot, lightly armored, heavily armed.  4,000 men and women on horseback, lightly armored, heavily armed.  About 8 Lords (men and women of (equivalent) high level both as fighters and mages/druids.)   Hile Troy was hoping for help from the Unhomed.  As ANYONE who has read the Illearth War knows, that worked out rather ... badly.  Lord Foul had the Army of Fleshharrower  20,000 Cresh (giant wolves) (approximate.)  20,000 Ur-Viles (all of them mages)  20,000 Cave Wights (all of them very formidable fighters)  400,000 (approximately) monsters created from the Illearth Stone and native beings of the Sarangrave and other places.  A shard of the Illearth Stone (the equivalent of an artifact/relic.)  Mind you, Fleshharrow was leading only a little over a THIRD of Lord Foul's total force.  (Lord Foul was holding back the rest of his forces, for - incredibly - he was expecting Fleshharrower to be defeated.  However, Hile Troy did not know this!)  Hile Troy received bad intelligence, and did not know Fleshharrower was coming until 10 days after he set out.  The only defensible place east of Andelain, Landsdrop, could not be reached by the Warward prior to Fleshharrower's arrival.  Hile Troy estimated Lord Foul's strength at 50 thousand (maybe 100 thousand at the outside.)  - - -  Now how in the name of all the Gods is anyone supposed to be able to win against odds like those???  - - -  Even when Minas Tirith was besieged (The Siege of Gondor, Chapter 3, Return of the King, by Tolkien) the odds were not nearly so bad for the Men of Gondor.  Even had Theoden and the Rohirrim not shown up, and even if the Corsairs of Umbar HAD shown up (and not Aragorn and the army of Lebinnin instead), the odds would not have been so lopsided.  Of the Warward, only 4,000 of them survived.  About 4 of the 8 Lords survived.  Hile Troy, effectively did not survive.  Yet, his strategy saw Fleshharrower's entire army destroyed, to the last and least.  Fleshharrower himself was caught and hung, although the Raver escaped (after terrible suffering.)  A pretty good job by Hile Troy, really.  I defy anyone else in his position to do it better.  - - -  P:S  Oh yes, while Foul was building his colossal army, the Lords were building a pretty rock garden and a beautiful, graceful, defenseless tree city.  LOLOLOLOLOL!!!  P<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />:S  Maybe if the Lords and Hile Troy had built a GUN AND AMMO FACTORY, things might have gone differently.  Troy could have done it, too.  He came from Covenant's world, from the ARMY of all places, and he plenty of time in which to instruct the people of the Land on Firearms.  But no, they have to spend their time arranging pretty rocks and growing trees.  Can't waste their time doing something that actually might enable their survival.  P<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />:S  Knowledge unearned ALWAYS rebounds on the learner (much less the user of such unearned knowledge), in the Land.  The Lords understood this particular Law of their world very, very well.  So why in the name of the Creator did they presume to seek the Seventh Ward (even if it did approach them first) when they had not yet gained the first Six Wards?  Did they ever consider their own wisdom?  Nothing is given out freely (even if it tries to give itself away!)  Everything must be earned.  Power and understanding requires effort and sacrifice.  But, of course, when a chance at power came, wisdom and restraint went out the window, and they went for the Seventh Ward.  Doesn't wisdom and restraint usually go out the window when power beckons?  All too often, it happens in our Real World.</blockquote>

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