Featured Image Credit: New Line Cinema
Topics: The Lord Of The Rings, TV And Film
Lying to the east of Gondor and the south of Mirkwood, Mordor remains one of the most iconic locations in fiction.
However, with us only seeing Mordor after Sauron and his forces have invaded it, fans have been wondering what the land looked like before.
Did it used to be lush and beautiful or was it always a barren hellscape?
Created by J.R.R. Tolkien, Mordor is found in the fictional continent of Middle-earth and is the home to much of the action in The Lord of the Rings franchise.
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Mordor’s mountain, Mount Doom, was the location of the quest to destroy the One Ring and it is also where Sauron settled both himself and his forces.
It is believed that Tolkien based the land of Mordor on his experiences in the Black Country of the English Midlands so it begs the question as to what Mordor actually looked like before it fell to Sauron.
That is what one fan asked over on r/lotr recently.
“Was there ever a time where Mordor didn’t look like a hellscape? If so, what was it like and how quickly did it fall to Sauron’s forces?
Like, did it look like a lush, green landscape with towns and cities like Minas Tirith? Or was it always kind of craggy and not much lived there, so Sauron basically just moved in on free land?”
Of course, it was not long before The Lord of the Rings’ fans appeared in force to explain the history of Mordor and that includes user KaiserMacCleg.
“Not all of Mordor *was* a hellscape, at least, not in the sense of its appearance”, they explained.
“The Plateau of Gorgoroth, in the north-west corner, was a volcanic hellscape. To the south, though, was the land of Nurn, which was actually very fertile, and was farmed by slaves to feed Sauron's armies.
If Gorgoroth is Tolkien's version of Tartarus, then Nurn is more like Limbo: a place of sadness and suffering and loss, yes, but not necessarily eternal torment.”
“For a long time, Gondor maintained a watch on Mordor, and garrisoned the fortresses on its outer edge, like the Black Gate and the Tower of Cirith Ungol. And it wasn't even entirely dead at the time of the Lord of the Rings,” they continued.
Not only that but they included a passage from Tolkien himself explaining what Frodo and Sam found beneath Cirith Ungol.
"Upon its outer margins under the westward mountains Mordor was a dying land, but it was not yet dead.
And here things still grew, harsh, twisted, bitter, struggling for life. In the glens of the Morgai on the other side of the valley low scrubby trees lurked and clung, coarse grey grass-tussocks fought with the stones, and withered mosses crawled on them; and everywhere great writhing, tangled brambles sprawled".
So it seems as though Mordor was not always a barren hellscape and Sauron and his forces got to work on destroying any beauty the land may have once had.
Just another reason to hate him I think.