Fun fact, tolkien calculated not only the distances and travel times, but also the moon phases to make sure to always describe the night sky coherently with the time of the year the characters were looking up.
This level of detail is what every world builder aspires to. By the time he wrote LotR, he had created millennia worth of history, mythology, landscapes, cultures and creatures that make the world feel real. Every ruin or settlement the Fellowship passes has its place in the lore and reason for existing. Every name has roots in at least one of the dozens of languages used in this world. Songs and prayers reference the deeper lore, making them internally consistent... That's what you get when a setting has been planned out and refined over the better part of a century.
Yes, exactly. The thing that I really love about The Lord of the Rings is that you can trace out on a map exactly when and were the fellowship is. That differs Tolkien's work from other writers.
You've got to remember that Tolkein was old enough he actually fought in WW1 as a young man. He was _very_ familiar with how far a man could walk in a day, and would have been able to accurately estimate the time required for the journey. If anything, the grueling nature of the pace required would be due to him simply forgetting to account for the hobbits having shorter legs.
On the other hand, the Western Front wasn't really known for long marches and troop movements... For example, a Wehrmacht soldier in 1941 would have walked a much longer distance than his father in 1918.
Hobbits were tough though, very tough. They would not necesarily have tired at the same rate as a human would, allowing them to cross more distance over time.
Also, y'know, a competent medieval scholar. The war experience definitely helped to shape the sheer psychological impact, but Tolkien in general just had a lot of academic knowledge about the kind of warfare he wanted to depict. Incidentally, I highly recommend looking up either the blog, a A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, or alternatively it's narrated version here on youtube under the user 'AGreatDivorce'. Professor Bret Devereaux goes into great detail breaking the major battle, both film and book version, and does a pretty good job explaining why Jackson made some of the decisions he did when adapting from one medium to the other, also acknowledging when some of those decisions were suboptimal.
In Boromir's defense, he said one does not SIMPLY walk into Mordor. You can, in fact, walk in if you're careful or stealthy enough but it's not going to be easy. You have to get past a nearly impossible mountain pass, a giant spider, an army of thousands of orcs and trolls, evil Men from Rhun and Harad, fell beasts flying overhead, the Nazgul if they've been called home by their boss, and the far-seeing Eye of Sauron that is actively surveying the area.
You can also walk into Mordor by the figurative backdoor, taking the long hike around through either Rhûn or Near Harad and Khand, into the plains of Nurn, cross the internal mountain range into Gorgoroth and toss it into Fires. However, you will need an actual army to fight off the locals, since they are all under Sauron's sway, and a lot more time, since it's so much more distance. As time was of the essense and nobody had that huge a military force to spare, the Fellowship indeed was the only way it was going to work.
I was about to make this comment. Boromir was right. One does not 'Simply' walk into Mordor. Not "One cannot walk into Mordor." It is about the perils of the journey. In fact, this video proves Boromir right.
Yeah except that's twisting the meaning of the phrase. People don't say that phrase in the way you mean. The phrase implies the impossibility, with "simply" just being added for emphasis. You could be a good politician/news reporter 😉
@@masteroogvvay Yeah, this is probably not what Boromir meant. But what Frodo and Sam were able to achieve proves that one can walk into Mordor. It's just really difficult.
Like, even if the distance is less than some well-used mountain trails, doing a grueling mountain trail while being hunted down my an army of doom and being psychologically tortured by High Fantasy's satan figure is not exactly my idea of "easy".
This was also the reason Bilbo was able to survive his encounter with Smaug. The dragon could basically smell everything he'd ever touched, or done, and every place he'd ever been, but he wasn't familiar with the scent of a Hobbit, having never before encountered one.
That’s not true. Even though that was originally the plan, by the time they reached Erebor, Bilbo’s own stench was overpowered by dwarf smell. Smaug points that out several times.
So, since he never encountered a Hobbit, the smell should've been foreign and therefore extremely noticeable. So no, your reasoning is not why Bilbo survived, you absolute chud
@@cryptic-lemon9755 OP is a typical moron, one who proudly states things that are demonstrably false, and then gets praise for it, thus reinforcing his wrongness and arrogance
Actually, Samwise's weightloss was because Sean Astin took up Marathons and Triathlons during the course of the trilogy. In fact, he got too fit at one point, and Jackson told him to stop training while filming. Little did Jackson realize, the weightloss made the toll of the quest more believable.
@@notanotaku1101 absolutely, like that scene of Gandalf accidentally bonking his head in Bad End and Peter Jackson kept that scene in the movie. Or when Aragorn kicked that Orc helmet and screamed out in pain cause he broke his toe and Jackson left that part in cause it was perfect.
I always took that line to mean that it's not a simple task. You don't just stroll into Mordor; there's more to it than that. They needed to sneak in. They needed a whole battle to act as a distraction. There needed to be a plan.
In modern parlance, Boromir was saying "Walk into Mordor? What you gonna do next? Kick flip a magazine into a AK and 360 noscope the whole army? Bruh I call BS."
He knew what the Ring was, he just didn't know WHICH ONE. There were hundreds of Elven-Rings made in Eregion; he didn't know it was a Ring of Power until Bilbo talked about feeling "thin and stretched" in addition to being immortal while he kept the Ring. Saruman knew about the Rings, but Gandalf always sensed that Saruman wanted it; so Gandalf knew he had to find out himself.
They didn't exactly have internet. Imagine walking on a cross country research journey, searching through ENTIRE LIBRARIES by hand hoping to find relevant information and not being able to ask for help in case the thing you're researching turns out to be a superweapon.
@@reubenoakley5887 yeah you have to travel in days just to find information like he being in middle earth by thousand of year as a semi human angel immortal. You can't blame him for not knowing if this is sauron ring like.
Just wanna say that the Sam and Frodo absolutely did not make it look easy. They were miserable for almost the full length of their trip, and Frodo just about died of exhaustion and ring-poisoning halfway up the slope of Mt Doom.
He did forget to add that into the equation, Frodo was pretty much ill for a good majority of the trek because of the ring, that would have slowed him down.
Exactly. Not only was their journey through Mordor extremely deadly, they also were only able to get into Mordor at all by finding a secret path where they have to scale near vertical cliffs, avoid the ringwraiths and orcs and fight a massive spider.
When Sam wielded the ring, it tempted him to use its power. It showed him turning the desolate landscape of Mordor into a lush garden. That's it. That was Sam's greatest desire
ikr, and if I'm remembering correctly his response was something along the lines of "Well that seems like far too much work one little old hobbit, I'd much rather just stick to my small garden."
not just that. He also felt super OP and undefeatable and his aura of power and might drove nearby orks away in fear and reverance. But in the end he was just like "oof, how about we fuckin don't, I don't want to be an overlord" and gave it back to frodo
I think what most people leave out is that Boromir was most likely talking about an army invading Mordor, not about a small stealthy party. Thus, his words at the counsil about 10 thousand men.
My thoughts exactly, since reading the books in the 70s (grade school)...the man is a soldier, a leader of legions....he was thinking on a far grander scale than a couple 'remarkably light on thier feet' Hobbits. Not well known to Boramir or Faramir, he would never have considered at that stage that: "In fact, they can pass unseen by most.” {~ per Gandalf the Gray}... It would have been completely unknown to Boramir.
It boils down to one word. Simply. You can walk into Mordor, but it's not a simple thing. The hobbits needed to be pushed to even start the journey. Then they needed protection. They needed rest at friendly areas and at times needed transportation. And in the end they needed Sauron to be distracted. It was no simple Sunday stroll.
If we’re being nitpicky, I have an argument: them crossing the border of Mordor, the specific place and time and circumstances that they did, _was_ a case of ‘simply walking into Mordor’ The rest of it, including the part leading up to and directly after, wasn’t simple at all, but a paralyzed Frodo getting carried by some Orcs with Sam trailing behind was the simplest their whole trip had been since The Shire and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly where they crossed into Mordor at
@@oriongurtner7293 If I recall correctly, it's just after Cirith Ungol that counts as the true 'border of Mordor'. They are both conscious and upright when they do walk over that border. But they are both pretty rough, having just escaped the riot. They may simply walk over the line that counts as the border, but they'd already experienced a whole lot of difficult in the hour or two leading up to it.
I didn't realize that having to climb a giant staircase practically straight up, sleeping on said staircase, getting stung by a giant spider after climbing up the big @$$ staircase, and trying to make sure one's master didn't get eaten by that giant spider was a simple thing. You must have such difficult lives if those things are simple for you.
@@bogan8865 Hobbits age slower then humans though. 33 is their equivalent to 18 in men. Also due to the rings influence Frodo hadn’t aged a day past 33 since bilbos birthday.
It's the "simple" part of that quote that's the most accurate. "One does not simply walk into Mordor": can you walk in there? Yes. Is it simple? Absolutely not: that is why there is story to tell after Rivendell. So yeah, Boromir did kinda know what he was talking about.
boromir was more qualified to talk about the "simple" than most others at that meeting he was hearing and participating in gondors conflict with mordor his whole life
I'm really glad some people caught the actual connotations of Boromir's words. It was not saying "You cannot pass the border on foot!" It was, "You need a plan, a strategy, supplies, etc". But as per usual MatPat has gone off into Literal Land just to get clicks.
@@jonokai I mean, in the film he goes on to explain how dangerous, poisonous, and dark Mordor is and says "not with 10,000 men could you do this" before calling the whole mission "folly". I think you could not be more off-base in saying he meant they needed a plan and supplies. He was directly telling the entire council that they could not go into Mordor and destroy the ring, and if it wasn't for two very hardy Hobbits and a lot of luck then he would be right. It also bears mentioning that he was saying all of that as part of his pitch for why the ring should go to Gondor instead of being destroyed at all. Your interpretation that he was only encouraging the council to come up with a better plan or supplies or whatever actually makes no sense considering all that. It really seems like you're just trying to find something to insult MatPat about.
@@akiameko1984 Actually, the sad part is that in the midst of fans thinking about and overexplaining the content they love, there are still people like you who will judge them for having fun.
This was a really good one. Honestly kind of refreshing to see a story proved feasible, and then hammering home Tolkien’s themes was icing on the cake. I think it’s also mentioned in the books that Sauron couldn’t conceive of someone trying to destroy the ring. In its whole history, the only people to willingly give it away were Bilbo, Sam, and Frodo (sort of, Gandalf refused and Frodo ends up taking it back as the official ring bearer at the Council of Elrond)
Aside from those 3 only Smeagol and Isildur had possession of the ring. Isildur was on his way to Rivendell to seek counsel about the ring when he was killed by those orcs.
@@skitariiranger4346 Its not that they were necessarily super difficult to corrupt. They were harder to corrupt than menfolk, but the ring also scales according to power, so the more powerful are more strongly affected. It also depends on ambition, and the effect of the rings given to the dwarves typically led them to be greedier and harsher (think Thorin in the hobbit)
For some odd reason that makes sense to me. I feel like a dwarf would make fun of it for being such a simple ring and likely insult sauron for his choice. I can imagine rich mining dwarf saying things along the lines of ''I bet it's full of impure metals" and alike. Like he said in the video hobbits did care about the ring for the fact it was a valued physical object. So while not as pure hearted it would make sense if dwarfs cared more for wealth than power. I feel like Thorin (I think that's the right name) would happily take the arkin stone over the ring. I guess not if it hat time to take over him ofcourse.
I always took the expression "one does not simply walk into Mordor" to mean you need more than that, including preparation, caution, and an acknowledgement that you likely aren't coming back
This is accurate, as Mordor is Sauron's stronghold and just walking in without any preparation or care is simply not possible. The whole quest hinged on keeping Sauron too distracted to notice what was really going on, or it definitely would have failed.
Not to mention that the actual destruction of the ring took a literal act of the Valar, Smeagol breaking his oath. Even Frodo wasn't able to drop the ring into the fire.
Boramir didn't say " one does not walk into Mordor" He said " one do's not SIMPLY walk into Mordor" And he was right. It wasn't simple, it was quite difficult.
A difficult walk is sill simply walking. simply refers to the means of travel, just like the theorist said no one expected two hobbits to simply walk into Mordor. Yet that's exactly what they did.
@@avalon00x but it wasn’t simple. So they did not walk in a manner that could be considered ‘simply’. Let’s face it they were going to be walking one way or another so simply was definitely referring to the difficulty, regardless of intent that’s how it pans grammatically.
I always thought Boromir actually referred that you can't just walk in by the multiples dangers that there are in the whole path: orcs (a LOT of orcs), goblins, the nazguls, men from rhun and harad, saruman, men that follow saruman, he didn't knew it at the time but uruk-hais, plus every living thing that follow its own way and didn't care of the ring, PLUS those who get tempted by the ring (example: his own father)
Boromir was right...to a certain extent. His issue was that he'd spent way too long listening to his father Denethor's opinions about men and other 'lesser' races. He wasn't saying it outright but what he was probably thinking was , "These short, weak Hobbits aren't going to just waltz into Mordor."
People always seem to make assumptions of how it could've happened AFTER seeing how it played out. For example if your saying "they could've done this and that" after watching the film and knowing that let's say, saurman dies. Your already at an unrealistic opinion because you KNOW that saurman dies and therefore can't effect any plan you have now made. If your actually in the film and trying to get to mordor knowing saurman is watching all the way with his spies etc, not possibly knowing he would be killed at some point your perspective is a millions times different and therefore so is your judgement. I hope that wasn't confusing I just tried to give an example of my mindset when I hear people say "they could've just done this and it wouldve been easy"
As a thru-hiker on the AT, I can say with confidence that it is DEFINITELY possible. We used to make jokes about LOTR all the time. Katahdin was our Mt. Doom. I even knew a guy whose trail name was Frodo. He had a ring that he wore around his neck that he planned to chuck off the top of the mountain
ok but now add about 30 000 ennemys aroudn teb mouuntain a god like vilain looking at the mountain and imagine for a second you are in Australia and you are facing a giant man eating spider, which even in australia there isn't. it's not about the destination but the friends and foes you encounter along the way, and there ain't friends in mordor.
The best possible in and out of universe explanation for how Frodo and Sam were able to destroy the ring is that Sauron in his ambition was quite hubris and it never even occurred to him that someone would ever want to try to destroy the ring. Beautiful thematic storytelling and very plausible! It makes perfect sense and is just so perfect that he wrongly assumed anyone who had it would try to use it.
the way Tolkien crafted these stories and how cohesive they are is nothing short of incredible. There is not one plot hole. The TV shows or movies could never recreate that. (although i LOVE the pj trilogy, knowing all the details from the books helps make sense of things.) The trilogy is an absolute necessity and must read IMO.
That's the whole thing, and then you can't forget the prime opportunity later on of it somewhat working out. Alot of forces gathered at the gate, where with Sauron's hubris. The whole battle was basically not only seemingly instantly won to him, but he'd just gained a prime opportunity at butchering some major key players.
The strain of the hike is actually accountes for by the end of the movies too when you come to think of it. Both Frodo and Sam are utterly exhausted by the time they reach the mountain, and are at their breaking point, so it adds up in that regard as well.
Frodo and Sam didn't "simply" walk into Mordor though. They had to take the hidden way that only Gollum knew, which nearly cost them both their lives b/c of Shelob. And the orcs weren't worried about that weak spot b/c they knew anyone going through would likely be killed by Shelob.
The Orcs were the main problem, since they were always watching the passage; and the Silent Watchers kept anyone from getting through unless they had magic, like the Phial of Galadriel (the orcs also said spies from Gondor could get through).
More insight on the Ring's inability to attempt hobbits: in the books, it tried to make Samwise take it for himself, but all it could do was make him imagine Mordor covered in flowers.
In hindsight, it's kind of funny how hard of a time the One Ring has regarding tempting hobbits. They're so simplistically pleased with minor things that none of the Ring's usual tricks of inflating ambition, greed, or ego can work so it has to try ridiculous things that normal people would fall over laughing at. Not even Gollum fell into those vices, and he was the most extreme case of ring poisoning possible.
Tolkien made a statistic to measure the stride of the hobbits to ensure that the hobbits could have made it to mordor in the time he stated. That is how dedicated Tolkien was to this story.
in the Middle Earth Atlas they found he had even taken into account the curving of earth as it was based on the British lands with a lower sea level (can't recall the exact name for it).
Sauron wasn't worried about the ring being destroyed. Even Frodo actually turned away from destroying it at the last minute. The only reason it is destroyed is because Gollum attacks him to steal it and in his greed accidentally falls into the volcano with the ring.
all true, but it is his promise he gives to frodo "WE SWEARS IT!! WE SWEARS IT!!" and Frodo going "the Ring is treacherous. It will hold you to your word" and everything else you wrote is true :)
This is foreshadowed by Gandalf when he talks to Frodo in Moria about "Bilbo's pity" and "Gollum's part to play" The Istari were part of the song that created Middle-earth, though he doesn't remember exactly how it all plays out, he has a vague rememberance.
Mordor is a massive fortress in a world shaped by World War 1. Boromir always meant "Mordor is really hard to get into. It's not entering Wal-Mart". Those challenges mentioned are precisely the things Boromir feared
@@connorcarrillo1139 he’s saying that Boromir saying “one cannot simply walk into Mordor” isn’t supposed to be literal. The LOTR proved that you can walk into Mordor, it just isn’t simple. It required an entire army to cause a distraction just to get the hobbits close
Yes, the hobbits ended up traveling to the nearest Target because they thought walking into Walmart would be too boring. You see, Sauron aka Obama owns all the store cooperations, and Target was the only one vulnerable. In the sequel to LOTR, called The Lord of THINE Rings, it is made clear that Boromir was on Crack at all times, so when he said all da stuff, stuff didnt make sense, like this comment u are now reading
I mean they basically entered the war zone, lost their strongest member, then were separated from their most adept traveler (Aragorn) by the enemy and the two Hobbits had the slightest clue on how to get there
That's because the second and third are focused more on the battles and invasions, while the first one is almost entirely about the journey/travelling itself
Tolkien knew that the Internet was coming and the entire world would unite to nitpick his whole story one day. Probably not, but I'm sure he definitely did his research just in case some of his fellows at the time wanted to take it apart.
Honestly, I already know about observer bias because of the Hitman games. You didn't always need a disguise as long as everyone didn't look too closely. They usually look at the uniform rather than the face.
And, he could disguise himself as an individual person even though he's bald. "Hey, Jimmy! Oh, did you get a haircut? Looks good! Let's get to serving ice cream to these nuns then." (Random example. I've never played these games but they look fun!)
It really works in real life, even without a uniform or ID. It’s 99.9% in the attitude. If you can keep yourself in a steady mental state of belonging where you’re going as if you do it every day of your life, people’s brains will not notice you sticking out in a crowd at all. You have to basically believe it yourself. Ultimate casual energy. It takes lots of practice, but is *strangely* effective.
I worked in a cheese factory for a few months. In my first days of training, they ran out of blank uniforms in my size because they just switched companies, so a manager gave me a uniform of a recently retired admin with an embroidered nametag. For a few days, I was "Jim" and everyone was extra nice.
It was a series of very specific events that allowed them to "simply walk into mordor" -only made it past Shelob due to having Sting and the Phial of Galadriels -only made it across the Dead Marshes with guidance by Gollum -only had as easy as easy a time as they did due to Aaragorn and Gandlaf bringing the army to the back gates -Sauron expected Aargorn or Pippin to have the ring and knew their location, hence even less attention paid for some random back door hobbits They absolutely were not just some bros who waltzed in, Boromir 100% knew where it was at.
haha that autocorrect / typo has to be a meme. Aragorn and Gandalf coming to the back gate, "Sauron. We just need to trim our hedge from the other side. That's all."
Then Sauron says to the orcs, "get them a ladder for goodness sake." Orcs come through with a siege ladder which they prop up against the wall for Aragorn.
The eye also isn't a genuine literal eye in the books, it's just the manifestation of Sauron through the Palantír and his armies, and being able to see the world from that lens.
That makes perfect sense about casually sneaking into places where you don't belong. A lot of people aren't gonna look at you twice if you act like you're supposed to go into the place you're sneaking into. Many people will look out for people that have nervous appearance cuz they might be trying to do something they aren't supposed to do. I tell my friends that all the time when we sneak into places. "Look like you're supposed to be here and no one will double check your story."
I always did the opposite; even though I was legit to be there I would act suspicious and even do the Mission Impossible theme, like Peter Griffin in that cut away. 😂 One time me and a buddy were tossing some rolled up carpet so we bulged the middle and stuck some boots on broomsticks so they hung out the end and "suspiciously walked" it over to a van. 😂 No one batted an eye.
My husband and I accidently snuck into a green room at a convention and got basically front row seats to the cosplay contest. I genuinely had no idea what it was. We just waltzed right in
there's actually a book series called rangers apprentice that talks about how rangers where people can easily miss a rangers simply because they aren't expecting a ranger.
There's also one thing to note. Time in elven realms doesn't pass normally, but it's kind of "slowed down". So the two months that they spent in Rivendell weren't actually two months
I think it's good that you talked about the *film's* canon, not confusing it with book canon, as in the actual lore, Sauron is not really an actual floating eyeball. The Eye of Sauron is more of a metaphorical thing in the books as he does actually still possess a body, but he uses the symbol of the Eye for his armies. He also has a Palantir, like the one Saruman had, which lets him see across vast distances. The literal fire Eye on top of the tower is really only a liberty taken by the filmmakers.
@@noahsan92 Nope on both accounts. Sauron was one of the Maiar, an angel of sorts, and hardly was considered with Celebrimbor aside from manipulating and working with him to create the 9 rings of men and 7 for the dwarf lords.
@@noahsan92 kind of but not really. Sauron was never really an elf, but he was disguised as one when tricked Celebrimbor into making rings. Sauron is a very powerful Maia, which you could think of as an "angel" in the lore. Not a god but a powerful magical being. Balrogs and Wizards are also Maiar.
@@noahsan92 Maybe you're getting Sauron confused with the first orcs? They were "Dark Elves" and by that I mean elves that never went to Valanir (or whatever the place is, I cant remember all the names) and saw it's light. That's why they were "Dark" elves.
Well considering the fact that in this video you listed out that they needed to travel thousands of miles, have specially qualified people to bring the ring in who were stealthier, and literally throw a hail Mary pass to distract the dark lord at the very end, I'd say it wasn't a simple walk into Mordor.
I found out from a VERY young age that you can just walk into almost any restricted area confidently as if you’re supposed to be there and no one will give a second glance. Got into a lot of places I shouldn’t have been
It’s true lmao that happened at my old work once when one directions was ther it was even a member ther just get ther early and stole a golf cart and one of the managers for the concert and yelled at him over it for 15 mins lmao
literally when i forgot my uniform for work, and the people had no idea i worked there. i just walked into the back like i was always a worker (i was 2 days in my first week.) and no one noticed or cared.
I've walked into hospitals, moving companies, and security companies by just dressing the part while being "distracted" by a clipboard while moving with a sense of urgency. I've even ended up backstage in dressing rooms with people who generally ignored me when not just nodding a "hello". I've done it for gain a lot, but when I found out how easy it was, I mostly did if for sh^ts and giggles. So, yeah, like you, I can confirm MatPat is right here.
One mustn't forget that hobbits, being halflings, have to take about twice the amount of steps. Very thoughtful & thorough of you to bring that detail up!
Hearing about observer bias reminded me of when we played mat ball in gym and I would just walk from one mat to the next and nobody tried to get me out because they didn't realise that I was moving from one base to the next and instead thought I was just one of the kids on their team walking around. I saw my gym teacher after I left the school and he said I was "the best walking mat ball player" he had ever seen
I would like to ask what mat ball is but I did a similar thing in foxes and hounds, I still had my "tail" (they were sports bibs tucked into the back of trousers) but I was just sort of wandering so people assumed it was a stolen one that I was holding weird and never paid me any mind. After a while they instated a "foxes should always be running" thing to get me to "participate more"
Mordor always seemed too conveniently fortified by the mountains surrounding it, to me. The thought that Morgoth, ages ago, may have made it that way intentionally and strategically for future plans is something I really like.
Literally just a few days ago a Navajo woman walked 2,400 miles from Sweetwater Arizona to Washington D.C. on a prayer walk. And it took her just over 3.5 months
As divided as we all are, one of the most unifying features of our culture is our love for this one story. It cuts across so many groups, generations, demographics. It's really a pleasure to have watched the film series adaptation as a unifying cultural touchstone, and I'm glad to have shared my moments of inspiration watching this film series with many close friends and strangers.
I'm pretty sure that orcs did see sam walking into mordor in the books but the effect of the ring made him look like an extremely formidable opponent. They were terrified of him so turned a blind eye.
12:00 literally if you act confidently enough and wear appropriate clothes, you can waltz in just about anywhere that doesn't have a fingerprint scanner. I've genuinely used this tactic in some cases, though obviously not to rob a museum. Just know that it works like a charm and if anyone looks at you weirdly, look back weirdly. They'll likely think they haven't gotten an obvious memo and back off before they're caught "uninformed"
I am actually shocked that you didn't address the guardians at the gates. If Golum wasnt there to show them the secret passes to stay hidden, they would never have been able to get past the gates at Morgul and Mordor.
@@ht4236 They mention it, and they took it out, because we were interested not at the armies, forces and stuff, but the actual physical feasibility of traveling from point a to point b
The fact that Sam and Frodo had to physically push themselves to complete their journey just adds to their heroism. They had to exert their bodies to their physical limit in order to save the world and it makes for nice headcanon.
Not just their bodies, their sanity and mental state as well. Frodo returned to the Shire a broken man, both physically and mentally, which is part of why he left for the Undying Lands in the end
Um, Mat, I don't think the saying literally means that it's physically impossible to walk into Mordor. They're saying that there are so many dangers waiting for you both there, and on your journey there, that no one in their right mind would actually try to get in that way.
fun fact Tolkien had a response to "why didn't the fellowship just use eagles to fly it and be done with it?" his response is really good and you can find recorded audio from Tolkien himself giving the answer, well worth the listen :)
Don't the novels themselves make that clear. The Eagles didn't help simply because they didn't want to. It's why a lot of people who could have helped didn't and why Sauron wasn't stopped early on before he became a looming threat .It's a theme throughout the books.
@@riftvallance2087 Sadly that's very true to life. We only know in hindsight how important certain events are. Hate to drag out the same old example but WW2, and even WW1 didn't need to happen. There were many turning points which could have prevented them, but we can only see those points looking back. At the time, all of the events played out in the usual predictable ways and caution was thrown to the wind.
@@D64nz which I believe is what Tolkien was trying to say. I've heard before that the Eagles represent the United States in ww1, only getting involved towards the very end when they should have involved themselves sooner.
@@riftvallance2087, i don't seem to recall anything in regards to the eagles not wanting to help i know a lot of people didn't help because they were so concerned with keeping power for themselves that they wouldn't entertain the idea of Sauron even being able to come back. In the case of the eagles someone asked Tolkien, why didn't they use the eagles and Tolkien went on a small speech about how he would tell this interviewer the same answer that he gave to the other person who asked him. Tolkien replied "Shut up!". ruclips.net/video/1-Uz0LMbWpI/видео.html
The moment I heard you mention the distance the AT is the first thing that came to my mind. My dad and uncle walked the whole trail in 6 months and I walked the last 5/6 of it in 5 months, I missed the first month for classes I was taking at the time. It was exhausting, it was hard, it was expensive and at times it was even painful! But all three of us and several other people did it!
It’s worth mentioning (at least in the book) Sauron also had to manually pierce the very wards and obscuring effects he’d placed to find where the Ring was
That last point also helps that in the books, Sauron had a physical body, and wasn't just a giant glowing eye. The eye was his own literal eyes that were enchanting and powerful.
@@levipetersen4406 well yes, but that goes to show that he required even more focus because he had to operate through something else rather than just seeing with a giant flaming eye
One of the cool maths that carried over into dnd about 'halflings' like this is that Hobbits don't need hours of rest. They have multiple meals a day in part because hobbits only need four hours sleep a night. In the books especially they learned the meditation techniques at the elven city. So more time free for walking.
I like how they did this entire theory by misunderstanding what "you cannot simply walk into Mordor" means. It doesn't mean you can't physically walk into Mordor it means there's a bunch of other factors that you have to account for in order to get in safely, you can't just walk in like you own the place.
I used a walking app called Walk To Mordor going thru various LOTR and Hobbit sights. It’s cool to know we can walk the same path as Bilbo and Frodo did on their respective journeys
@@notyou2353 it’s The Conqueror app. They have a ton of different virtual challenges you can do but the LOTR one is a specific one. Edit: at least, that’s what I’m using. I would imagine it’s what they were using too
I think the key word there was "simply" it wasn't simple, it was physically & emotionally damaging, requiring tons of aid, & a army to act as decoy. That being said I do enjoy the discussion on how possible the trip was.
Someone should check for me because I could be wrong but I brought up to my dad the fact that despite their long journey we never once see someone give the hobbits shoes.
Boromir didn't know it, but Sauron didn't expect anyone to walk into Mordor to destroy the One Ring. Sauron strategized asuming the ring would be used for power and to charge into Mordor (as he would have done), that's why Aragorn's YOLO distraction worked. One does not simply march into Mordor, maybe?
To add to this, I believe Tolkien said (in his letters, if I remember correctly), that no one _could_ intentionally destroy the one ring, not the hobbits, not even Sauron himself. The ring corrupts absolutely, and _no_ _one_ had the will power to destroy it. Hobbits are the most naturally immune because there wasn't much there to corrupt. This let them walk up Mt Doom, with the _intention_ of destroying it (where most people would have the ring leading them by the nose, taking Sauron head on, where it would abandon them), but, in the end, Frodo was still unable to do it. It took Gollum coming up, stealing the ring, and then _accidentally_ falling in, destroying it.
Fun fact, in the book Bilbo actually starts to get corrupted by the ring. We also saw the game thing with Gollum, according to his backstory, Gollum was a hobbit, his friend found the ring and Gollum loved it so much he unalived him to get it, Gollum then hid in a cave to try and protect his ring, his precious, fact, even Bilbo started to call the ring his precious at the start of The fellowship of the ring. So making a theory on Hobbits not being corrupted is false, but it’s a very cool theory never the less!
He didn't say Hobbits are immune to the Ring's corruption, just that they're usually so lacking in ambition compared to other races they aren't susceptible to its standard conning method.
@@diannt9583 Yeah but he couldn't be trusted with it either. Gandalf considered him but he concluded that Tom would wander off and forget he was on a mission
I admit, I was kind of hoping for an analysis of what would have happened if the Fellowship instead had simply decided to sneak into Mordor's back door through Nurn. 🙂
Just remember everyone, just because you could technically walk into Mordor doesn't mean you should, as it's pretty much a literal hellscape full of dangerous monsters and its one of the most defensive areas in Middle Earth
But consider that without Gollum, Frodo and Sam would probably have never gotten out of Emyn Muil, let alone know how to actually get INTO Mordor. Frodo was heading for the front door, and it was only Gollum's knowledge of Cirith Ungol that got them in Mordor itself.
Also, from a Lore perspective. When Iluvatar had the Ianur play music in the great music hall, he played a theme that was soft and sutle and difficult to corrupt. (Which I've always took to refer to the hobbits.) It seems to sutle imply that either the Valar or the Iluvatar himself was working things towards the downfall of the ring and Sauron.
Yes. Gandalf says Frodo was /meant/ to have the ring. So who else meant it to happen but Eru Iluvatar? He put the right people into the right places to allow good to triumph over evil.
Just going to add in that Illuvatar's theme was comprehensive of Elves and Men (therefore including but not exclusive to Hobbits, since they are offshoots of men). That's why both Elves and Men are called the Children of Illuvatar. In contrast, things like plants, animals (besides Elves and Men), and minerals were a part of the music produced by the Ainur.
To be fair to Boromir here, if it wasn't for the elvish equipment they had they still wouldn't have been stealthy enough to sneak through reliably and Sam never would have been able to reach Frodo after he was captured, since even on that back path there was some weird spell on the gate to stop people from just waltzing on through. I think. It's been a while since I read it.
Tolkien 100% thought about how long it would take to travel. I think your distance estimate is a bit too high, other estimates are closer to 1k miles. But really liked the ending where you explained how Tolkien did it all on purpose. He was extremely brilliant which is why they stand up today (unlike the trash Amazon series).
Not only that, but when Boromir said that iconic line, he was referring to walking through the front gates. It took Sam and Frodo taking a secret passage in order to get in, mostly, undetected. Then there's the point you mention, Sauron was focusing on the battle.
I mean no, one of the biggest faults of the mpvies is horribly missrepresenting the journey through mordor. In the books we have chapters of frodo and sam being on the brink of starvation since they lost most of their food at cirith ungol. It is insane how PJ turned this into a 5 minute walk.
Another fantastic theory. I love it when MatPat tackles older movies/series and discovers new things to discuss and uncover. And when all that juicy lore connects is so satisfying, keep it up MatPat!
If you look at the beginning scenes in the shire everyone was active abs running and dancing. So they may have been in really good shape before starting which may have given them a boost, and could have helped them speed up at some points.
Fun fact, tolkien calculated not only the distances and travel times, but also the moon phases to make sure to always describe the night sky coherently with the time of the year the characters were looking up.
That’s one of the things that make this stand out. It has so many little details that just improve it immensely
This level of detail is what every world builder aspires to. By the time he wrote LotR, he had created millennia worth of history, mythology, landscapes, cultures and creatures that make the world feel real. Every ruin or settlement the Fellowship passes has its place in the lore and reason for existing. Every name has roots in at least one of the dozens of languages used in this world. Songs and prayers reference the deeper lore, making them internally consistent... That's what you get when a setting has been planned out and refined over the better part of a century.
Genius!
@@SKy_the_Thunder That's what you get when spending time with your wife is your other option.
Yes, exactly. The thing that I really love about The Lord of the Rings is that you can trace out on a map exactly when and were the fellowship is. That differs Tolkien's work from other writers.
You've got to remember that Tolkein was old enough he actually fought in WW1 as a young man. He was _very_ familiar with how far a man could walk in a day, and would have been able to accurately estimate the time required for the journey. If anything, the grueling nature of the pace required would be due to him simply forgetting to account for the hobbits having shorter legs.
On the other hand, the Western Front wasn't really known for long marches and troop movements... For example, a Wehrmacht soldier in 1941 would have walked a much longer distance than his father in 1918.
Hobbits were tough though, very tough. They would not necesarily have tired at the same rate as a human would, allowing them to cross more distance over time.
@@535phobos yes
Also, y'know, a competent medieval scholar. The war experience definitely helped to shape the sheer psychological impact, but Tolkien in general just had a lot of academic knowledge about the kind of warfare he wanted to depict.
Incidentally, I highly recommend looking up either the blog, a A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, or alternatively it's narrated version here on youtube under the user 'AGreatDivorce'. Professor Bret Devereaux goes into great detail breaking the major battle, both film and book version, and does a pretty good job explaining why Jackson made some of the decisions he did when adapting from one medium to the other, also acknowledging when some of those decisions were suboptimal.
@Jacky138 I think it's some kind of spam attempt. Obviously, don't click on the link XD
"Nine were given to Disney, who above all else desire power!"
This fits so freaking well!
You mean amazon?
@Jim Harrington rings of power has nothing to do with disney
not like thats the point 💀
Way off topic and to the OP, I love the Mika plushie pic! I have one of those too 😁
Correct.
In Boromir's defense, he said one does not SIMPLY walk into Mordor. You can, in fact, walk in if you're careful or stealthy enough but it's not going to be easy. You have to get past a nearly impossible mountain pass, a giant spider, an army of thousands of orcs and trolls, evil Men from Rhun and Harad, fell beasts flying overhead, the Nazgul if they've been called home by their boss, and the far-seeing Eye of Sauron that is actively surveying the area.
You can also walk into Mordor by the figurative backdoor, taking the long hike around through either Rhûn or Near Harad and Khand, into the plains of Nurn, cross the internal mountain range into Gorgoroth and toss it into Fires.
However, you will need an actual army to fight off the locals, since they are all under Sauron's sway, and a lot more time, since it's so much more distance. As time was of the essense and nobody had that huge a military force to spare, the Fellowship indeed was the only way it was going to work.
I was about to make this comment. Boromir was right. One does not 'Simply' walk into Mordor. Not "One cannot walk into Mordor." It is about the perils of the journey. In fact, this video proves Boromir right.
Yeah except that's twisting the meaning of the phrase. People don't say that phrase in the way you mean. The phrase implies the impossibility, with "simply" just being added for emphasis.
You could be a good politician/news reporter 😉
@@masteroogvvay Yeah, this is probably not what Boromir meant. But what Frodo and Sam were able to achieve proves that one can walk into Mordor. It's just really difficult.
Like, even if the distance is less than some well-used mountain trails, doing a grueling mountain trail while being hunted down my an army of doom and being psychologically tortured by High Fantasy's satan figure is not exactly my idea of "easy".
This was also the reason Bilbo was able to survive his encounter with Smaug. The dragon could basically smell everything he'd ever touched, or done, and every place he'd ever been, but he wasn't familiar with the scent of a Hobbit, having never before encountered one.
@RR bot
That’s not true. Even though that was originally the plan, by the time they reached Erebor, Bilbo’s own stench was overpowered by dwarf smell. Smaug points that out several times.
So, since he never encountered a Hobbit, the smell should've been foreign and therefore extremely noticeable. So no, your reasoning is not why Bilbo survived, you absolute chud
@@cryptic-lemon9755 OP is a typical moron, one who proudly states things that are demonstrably false, and then gets praise for it, thus reinforcing his wrongness and arrogance
@@cryptic-lemon9755 if that was the case, than why did Smaug mistake him for one of the men of Dale?
Actually, Samwise's weightloss was because Sean Astin took up Marathons and Triathlons during the course of the trilogy. In fact, he got too fit at one point, and Jackson told him to stop training while filming. Little did Jackson realize, the weightloss made the toll of the quest more believable.
I think they must've realized that benefit, given that they didn't re-tailor the clothes to fit better.
What a chad
One of those wonderful moments where real world influences end up inadvertently leading to good film storytelling
@@notanotaku1101 absolutely, like that scene of Gandalf accidentally bonking his head in Bad End and Peter Jackson kept that scene in the movie. Or when Aragorn kicked that Orc helmet and screamed out in pain cause he broke his toe and Jackson left that part in cause it was perfect.
Oh, I thought he lost weight from carrying all that attitude around
I always took that line to mean that it's not a simple task. You don't just stroll into Mordor; there's more to it than that. They needed to sneak in. They needed a whole battle to act as a distraction. There needed to be a plan.
Yeah, I mean the word "simply" is the key here hahah
In modern parlance, Boromir was saying "Walk into Mordor? What you gonna do next? Kick flip a magazine into a AK and 360 noscope the whole army? Bruh I call BS."
Exactly what i was thinking
That's because that is 100% what he meant
“For Frodo.”
It took only 6 months for them to destroy the ring, but gandalf 17 years to figure out what the ring was.
He knew what the Ring was, he just didn't know WHICH ONE.
There were hundreds of Elven-Rings made in Eregion; he didn't know it was a Ring of Power until Bilbo talked about feeling "thin and stretched" in addition to being immortal while he kept the Ring. Saruman knew about the Rings, but Gandalf always sensed that Saruman wanted it; so Gandalf knew he had to find out himself.
They didn't exactly have internet. Imagine walking on a cross country research journey, searching through ENTIRE LIBRARIES by hand hoping to find relevant information and not being able to ask for help in case the thing you're researching turns out to be a superweapon.
@@reubenoakley5887 yeah you have to travel in days just to find information like he being in middle earth by thousand of year as a semi human angel immortal.
You can't blame him for not knowing if this is sauron ring like.
When a relic and the lore that accompanies it has been lost it can take a lifetime to figure out what it was 🤷
There were a lot of rings made in eregion, it was only reasonable to assume this rather boring looking ring was one of the earlier weaker ones.
Just wanna say that the Sam and Frodo absolutely did not make it look easy. They were miserable for almost the full length of their trip, and Frodo just about died of exhaustion and ring-poisoning halfway up the slope of Mt Doom.
Also believing Boromir of all people? You literally can't trust a word he said
He did forget to add that into the equation, Frodo was pretty much ill for a good majority of the trek because of the ring, that would have slowed him down.
Exactly. Not only was their journey through Mordor extremely deadly, they also were only able to get into Mordor at all by finding a secret path where they have to scale near vertical cliffs, avoid the ringwraiths and orcs and fight a massive spider.
(Ignore the bots/comments with links)
www.youtu.be.com/ut-kADAlu9A
When Sam wielded the ring, it tempted him to use its power. It showed him turning the desolate landscape of Mordor into a lush garden. That's it. That was Sam's greatest desire
well, he is frodo's gardner :P
I didn't know that cause I haven't read the books. I should
ikr, and if I'm remembering correctly his response was something along the lines of "Well that seems like far too much work one little old hobbit, I'd much rather just stick to my small garden."
not just that.
He also felt super OP and undefeatable and his aura of power and might drove nearby orks away in fear and reverance.
But in the end he was just like "oof, how about we fuckin don't, I don't want to be an overlord" and gave it back to frodo
the ring looked through sams mind and fully could not find anything else to latch onto other than gardening, and that's fuckin baller
One can walk to Mordor, but not SIMPLY walk to Mordor. It is a difficult task, not a simple one.
Good one friend
*Ok_Dont_Read_My_Names* 😐
Exactly what I was thinking mate, poor Boromir wasn't wrong.
It’s also “walk INTO Mordor.”
@[卐]Lakehuntist ⸜⁄ says the one with a fake verification check
I think what most people leave out is that Boromir was most likely talking about an army invading Mordor, not about a small stealthy party. Thus, his words at the counsil about 10 thousand men.
My thoughts exactly, since reading the books in the 70s (grade school)...the man is a soldier, a leader of legions....he was thinking on a far grander scale than a couple 'remarkably light on thier feet' Hobbits.
Not well known to Boramir or Faramir, he would never have considered at that stage that: "In fact, they can pass unseen by most.” {~ per Gandalf the Gray}... It would have been completely unknown to Boramir.
I like your funny words magic man.
Only in the movies.
If he was talking about a lot of men, why would he say "One"?
@@My_usual_username_was_takenOne army? One group of people?
This theory just proves how much of a masterpiece The Lord of the Rings is.
And how dedicated to details Tolkien was
ruclips.net/video/ut-kADAlu9A/видео.html
Facts. This story is great. The movies captured it so well.
@@journeyerjyoti8642 now that's A LOT OF BOTS
@@JmonsterNEO All for Rings of Power to throw it away and pander for “modern audiences”.
“Nine were given to Disney, who above all else desired power…” Spot-on as usual, MatPat. 😎
spot on with that.. but he said rings of power was pretty good. he was dead wrong about that.
@@phillyfoden4164 Well, you can’t win ‘em all. 😁
It boils down to one word. Simply. You can walk into Mordor, but it's not a simple thing. The hobbits needed to be pushed to even start the journey. Then they needed protection. They needed rest at friendly areas and at times needed transportation. And in the end they needed Sauron to be distracted. It was no simple Sunday stroll.
@Not gonna lie report them for misinformation and move on
If we’re being nitpicky, I have an argument: them crossing the border of Mordor, the specific place and time and circumstances that they did, _was_ a case of ‘simply walking into Mordor’
The rest of it, including the part leading up to and directly after, wasn’t simple at all, but a paralyzed Frodo getting carried by some Orcs with Sam trailing behind was the simplest their whole trip had been since The Shire and I’m pretty sure that’s exactly where they crossed into Mordor at
@@oriongurtner7293 If I recall correctly, it's just after Cirith Ungol that counts as the true 'border of Mordor'. They are both conscious and upright when they do walk over that border. But they are both pretty rough, having just escaped the riot. They may simply walk over the line that counts as the border, but they'd already experienced a whole lot of difficult in the hour or two leading up to it.
@@tyrannicpuppy ah thank you, couldn’t remember the exact part, I just remember that they basically did ‘simply walk into Mordor’ at some point there
I didn't realize that having to climb a giant staircase practically straight up, sleeping on said staircase, getting stung by a giant spider after climbing up the big @$$ staircase, and trying to make sure one's master didn't get eaten by that giant spider was a simple thing. You must have such difficult lives if those things are simple for you.
Sam is a bad @$$! LMAO
Reminder that Sam was a fuckin' gardener before going off in the adventure of the lifetime.
@@christosanagn.9041 he was also almost 30 at the time, while Frodo was fucking 50.
@@Sad-Lesbian sam was 38 almost 40. Him and Frodo were the eldest at 38 and 50
Merry was 37 one year beneath sam, and pippin was the youngest at 29
@@bogan8865 Hobbits age slower then humans though. 33 is their equivalent to 18 in men. Also due to the rings influence Frodo hadn’t aged a day past 33 since bilbos birthday.
It's the "simple" part of that quote that's the most accurate. "One does not simply walk into Mordor": can you walk in there? Yes. Is it simple? Absolutely not: that is why there is story to tell after Rivendell. So yeah, Boromir did kinda know what he was talking about.
boromir was more qualified to talk about the "simple" than most others at that meeting he was hearing and participating in gondors conflict with mordor his whole life
I'm really glad some people caught the actual connotations of Boromir's words. It was not saying "You cannot pass the border on foot!" It was, "You need a plan, a strategy, supplies, etc". But as per usual MatPat has gone off into Literal Land just to get clicks.
@@jonokai I mean, in the film he goes on to explain how dangerous, poisonous, and dark Mordor is and says "not with 10,000 men could you do this" before calling the whole mission "folly". I think you could not be more off-base in saying he meant they needed a plan and supplies. He was directly telling the entire council that they could not go into Mordor and destroy the ring, and if it wasn't for two very hardy Hobbits and a lot of luck then he would be right.
It also bears mentioning that he was saying all of that as part of his pitch for why the ring should go to Gondor instead of being destroyed at all. Your interpretation that he was only encouraging the council to come up with a better plan or supplies or whatever actually makes no sense considering all that. It really seems like you're just trying to find something to insult MatPat about.
@@akiameko1984 Actually, the sad part is that in the midst of fans thinking about and overexplaining the content they love, there are still people like you who will judge them for having fun.
This was a really good one. Honestly kind of refreshing to see a story proved feasible, and then hammering home Tolkien’s themes was icing on the cake.
I think it’s also mentioned in the books that Sauron couldn’t conceive of someone trying to destroy the ring. In its whole history, the only people to willingly give it away were Bilbo, Sam, and Frodo (sort of, Gandalf refused and Frodo ends up taking it back as the official ring bearer at the Council of Elrond)
And Frodo did offer it to Galadriel, so he was even willing to give it up.
Aside from those 3 only Smeagol and Isildur had possession of the ring. Isildur was on his way to Rivendell to seek counsel about the ring when he was killed by those orcs.
he should do a theory on moral oral
@@Darth_Insidious Isildur refused to destroy it, and so did Frodo. Sam seemed incorruptible and presumably could've done it by free will.
"everyone was tempted by the ring"
Well to be fair... Gimli was the only one who actually attempted to destroy the ring by himself
Probably because his desire was to not look weak infront of elves
@@Scorprock102 no, dwarves are canonically super difficult for the ring to corrupt,
@@skitariiranger4346 Its not that they were necessarily super difficult to corrupt. They were harder to corrupt than menfolk, but the ring also scales according to power, so the more powerful are more strongly affected. It also depends on ambition, and the effect of the rings given to the dwarves typically led them to be greedier and harsher (think Thorin in the hobbit)
For some odd reason that makes sense to me. I feel like a dwarf would make fun of it for being such a simple ring and likely insult sauron for his choice. I can imagine rich mining dwarf saying things along the lines of ''I bet it's full of impure metals" and alike. Like he said in the video hobbits did care about the ring for the fact it was a valued physical object. So while not as pure hearted it would make sense if dwarfs cared more for wealth than power. I feel like Thorin (I think that's the right name) would happily take the arkin stone over the ring. I guess not if it hat time to take over him ofcourse.
Sam also gave away the ring willingly which is an almost impossible task
I always took the expression "one does not simply walk into Mordor" to mean you need more than that, including preparation, caution, and an acknowledgement that you likely aren't coming back
This is accurate, as Mordor is Sauron's stronghold and just walking in without any preparation or care is simply not possible. The whole quest hinged on keeping Sauron too distracted to notice what was really going on, or it definitely would have failed.
I agree. This was not "SIMPLY" walking at all. Aragorn had to lead a whole army just to give them a slim chance.
Not to mention that the actual destruction of the ring took a literal act of the Valar, Smeagol breaking his oath. Even Frodo wasn't able to drop the ring into the fire.
As Gandalf himself said "There never was much hope. Just a fool's hope."
@@mikelitoris8809 Wait, he was a Valar, I thought he was a hobit
Boramir didn't say " one does not walk into Mordor"
He said " one do's not SIMPLY walk into Mordor"
And he was right. It wasn't simple, it was quite difficult.
I was going to say exactly this😁
A difficult walk is sill simply walking. simply refers to the means of travel, just like the theorist said no one expected two hobbits to simply walk into Mordor. Yet that's exactly what they did.
@@avalon00x but it wasn’t simple.
So they did not walk in a manner that could be considered ‘simply’.
Let’s face it they were going to be walking one way or another so simply was definitely referring to the difficulty, regardless of intent that’s how it pans grammatically.
@@GentlemanSnakeSculptures they weren't simps nor simping on the way so indeed they weren't "simply" walking /s
"One does, however, VERY DIFFICULTLY walk into Mordor."
I always thought Boromir actually referred that you can't just walk in by the multiples dangers that there are in the whole path: orcs (a LOT of orcs), goblins, the nazguls, men from rhun and harad, saruman, men that follow saruman, he didn't knew it at the time but uruk-hais, plus every living thing that follow its own way and didn't care of the ring, PLUS those who get tempted by the ring (example: his own father)
That's how I take it too. One does not *simply* walk into Mordor. He's right. It's anything but simple. And he never said it's impossible.
And you know the whole ring=big bloody beacon thing.
Boromir was right...to a certain extent. His issue was that he'd spent way too long listening to his father Denethor's opinions about men and other 'lesser' races. He wasn't saying it outright but what he was probably thinking was , "These short, weak Hobbits aren't going to just waltz into Mordor."
Yeah, he was referring to how you can't just simply walk in unopposed, not that you physically can't
People always seem to make assumptions of how it could've happened AFTER seeing how it played out.
For example if your saying "they could've done this and that" after watching the film and knowing that let's say, saurman dies. Your already at an unrealistic opinion because you KNOW that saurman dies and therefore can't effect any plan you have now made.
If your actually in the film and trying to get to mordor knowing saurman is watching all the way with his spies etc, not possibly knowing he would be killed at some point your perspective is a millions times different and therefore so is your judgement.
I hope that wasn't confusing I just tried to give an example of my mindset when I hear people say "they could've just done this and it wouldve been easy"
As a thru-hiker on the AT, I can say with confidence that it is DEFINITELY possible. We used to make jokes about LOTR all the time. Katahdin was our Mt. Doom. I even knew a guy whose trail name was Frodo. He had a ring that he wore around his neck that he planned to chuck off the top of the mountain
ok but now add about 30 000 ennemys aroudn teb mouuntain a god like vilain looking at the mountain and imagine for a second you are in Australia and you are facing a giant man eating spider, which even in australia there isn't.
it's not about the destination but the friends and foes you encounter along the way, and there ain't friends in mordor.
@@valentinlageot4101well maybe gollum
I love how Sauron is barely seen throughout the trilogy, but his presence is constantly felt. Part of what makes him an iconic villain.
He’s like satan
Honestly seeing sauron physically arrive and fight is one of my dreams
*Dont_Read_My_Names.* 😒
@@BiggiecheeseAKAgod dude it’s the internet everything is stolen💀
@@BiggiecheeseAKAgod not everyone has cancer, and I never said it was good more so it’s pointless to point it out.
This took “Walk in there and act like you own the place” to a whole new level.
Will the memes ever end lol
The best possible in and out of universe explanation for how Frodo and Sam were able to destroy the ring is that Sauron in his ambition was quite hubris and it never even occurred to him that someone would ever want to try to destroy the ring. Beautiful thematic storytelling and very plausible! It makes perfect sense and is just so perfect that he wrongly assumed anyone who had it would try to use it.
Hubristic is the word you're looking for.
the way Tolkien crafted these stories and how cohesive they are is nothing short of incredible. There is not one plot hole. The TV shows or movies could never recreate that. (although i LOVE the pj trilogy, knowing all the details from the books helps make sense of things.) The trilogy is an absolute necessity and must read IMO.
can't blame sauron there, Isildur and Elrond had the perfect opportunities for destroying the ring, but they couldn't
@@Ragazaloth Elrond probably would have, but Isildur was the one in posession of it.
That's the whole thing, and then you can't forget the prime opportunity later on of it somewhat working out. Alot of forces gathered at the gate, where with Sauron's hubris. The whole battle was basically not only seemingly instantly won to him, but he'd just gained a prime opportunity at butchering some major key players.
The strain of the hike is actually accountes for by the end of the movies too when you come to think of it. Both Frodo and Sam are utterly exhausted by the time they reach the mountain, and are at their breaking point, so it adds up in that regard as well.
that's one of the reasons the ring started to effect Frodo so badly as well
Frodo and Sam didn't "simply" walk into Mordor though. They had to take the hidden way that only Gollum knew, which nearly cost them both their lives b/c of Shelob. And the orcs weren't worried about that weak spot b/c they knew anyone going through would likely be killed by Shelob.
The Orcs were the main problem, since they were always watching the passage; and the Silent Watchers kept anyone from getting through unless they had magic, like the Phial of Galadriel (the orcs also said spies from Gondor could get through).
that’s what i was thinking the whole time. when the captains of the west tried to simply walk in the gate, they were met with an army
Borimir was referring to Mordor crawling with orcs, and nearby lands being riddled with spies rather than the actual distance.
Theres also a gaint flaming eye scanning all of mordor that needs to be distracted
All of which would require you to slow down to hide, or leave the established roads and trails which also slows you down.
More insight on the Ring's inability to attempt hobbits: in the books, it tried to make Samwise take it for himself, but all it could do was make him imagine Mordor covered in flowers.
*Dont_Read_My_Names.* 😒
Do not attempt me Frodo! My heart has been broken before.
I love how Sam's reply to that is basically "yeah nah... my little garden back homes good enough for me!"
In hindsight, it's kind of funny how hard of a time the One Ring has regarding tempting hobbits. They're so simplistically pleased with minor things that none of the Ring's usual tricks of inflating ambition, greed, or ego can work so it has to try ridiculous things that normal people would fall over laughing at. Not even Gollum fell into those vices, and he was the most extreme case of ring poisoning possible.
@Thank me later STOP SPAMMING!!!!!!!!!!!!
Tolkien made a statistic to measure the stride of the hobbits to ensure that the hobbits could have made it to mordor in the time he stated. That is how dedicated Tolkien was to this story.
in the Middle Earth Atlas they found he had even taken into account the curving of earth as it was based on the British lands with a lower sea level (can't recall the exact name for it).
He served in WW1 so he'd definitely know how far a man can walk in a day
Fitting pfp, considering Tolkien faught in WW1 for the Brits
so you could say that the hobbits were neither late nor early but arrived precisely when they means to
Sauron wasn't worried about the ring being destroyed. Even Frodo actually turned away from destroying it at the last minute. The only reason it is destroyed is because Gollum attacks him to steal it and in his greed accidentally falls into the volcano with the ring.
all true, but it is his promise he gives to frodo "WE SWEARS IT!! WE SWEARS IT!!" and Frodo going "the Ring is treacherous. It will hold you to your word" and everything else you wrote is true :)
This is foreshadowed by Gandalf when he talks to Frodo in Moria about "Bilbo's pity" and "Gollum's part to play" The Istari were part of the song that created Middle-earth, though he doesn't remember exactly how it all plays out, he has a vague rememberance.
Mordor is a massive fortress in a world shaped by World War 1. Boromir always meant "Mordor is really hard to get into. It's not entering Wal-Mart". Those challenges mentioned are precisely the things Boromir feared
what?
@@connorcarrillo1139 he’s saying that Boromir saying “one cannot simply walk into Mordor” isn’t supposed to be literal. The LOTR proved that you can walk into Mordor, it just isn’t simple. It required an entire army to cause a distraction just to get the hobbits close
Yes, the hobbits ended up traveling to the nearest Target because they thought walking into Walmart would be too boring. You see, Sauron aka Obama owns all the store cooperations, and Target was the only one vulnerable. In the sequel to LOTR, called The Lord of THINE Rings, it is made clear that Boromir was on Crack at all times, so when he said all da stuff, stuff didnt make sense, like this comment u are now reading
@@tsmith0187 I was referring to the comments about WW1 and Walmart. Which in this context is baffling and makes no sense.
That's exactly why it was a simple matter of putting on orc uniforms and walking in. It's so crazy it works.
it would be really cool to see more fantasy stuff covered here. the Loring opening was beautiful
I mean it's all fantasy stuff but I get what you're saying.
@alida flus in a way, it does. that's what his livelihood depends on
i never actually realized that they covered like 80% of the way in the first movie and the remaining 20% in the remaining two :O
One does not simply walk INTO Mordor; walking TO it is easy.
Pareto principle at its finest
I mean they basically entered the war zone, lost their strongest member, then were separated from their most adept traveler (Aragorn) by the enemy and the two Hobbits had the slightest clue on how to get there
That's because the second and third are focused more on the battles and invasions, while the first one is almost entirely about the journey/travelling itself
Thing is, Tolkien probably thought of each and every one of these points when making the story
absolutely
based kaguya pfp
Tolkien knew that the Internet was coming and the entire world would unite to nitpick his whole story one day.
Probably not, but I'm sure he definitely did his research just in case some of his fellows at the time wanted to take it apart.
Honestly, I already know about observer bias because of the Hitman games. You didn't always need a disguise as long as everyone didn't look too closely. They usually look at the uniform rather than the face.
No wonder agent 47 did all that so easily
And, he could disguise himself as an individual person even though he's bald. "Hey, Jimmy! Oh, did you get a haircut? Looks good! Let's get to serving ice cream to these nuns then." (Random example. I've never played these games but they look fun!)
It really works in real life, even without a uniform or ID. It’s 99.9% in the attitude. If you can keep yourself in a steady mental state of belonging where you’re going as if you do it every day of your life, people’s brains will not notice you sticking out in a crowd at all. You have to basically believe it yourself. Ultimate casual energy. It takes lots of practice, but is *strangely* effective.
I worked in a cheese factory for a few months. In my first days of training, they ran out of blank uniforms in my size because they just switched companies, so a manager gave me a uniform of a recently retired admin with an embroidered nametag. For a few days, I was "Jim" and everyone was extra nice.
He has some excellent dry humour and referencing.
I have a feeling this comment will get popular
How many bots?
Yes.
*Ok_Dont_Read_My_Names.* 😒.
E
It was a series of very specific events that allowed them to "simply walk into mordor"
-only made it past Shelob due to having Sting and the Phial of Galadriels
-only made it across the Dead Marshes with guidance by Gollum
-only had as easy as easy a time as they did due to Aaragorn and Gandlaf bringing the army to the back gates
-Sauron expected Aargorn or Pippin to have the ring and knew their location, hence even less attention paid for some random back door hobbits
They absolutely were not just some bros who waltzed in, Boromir 100% knew where it was at.
haha that autocorrect / typo has to be a meme. Aragorn and Gandalf coming to the back gate, "Sauron. We just need to trim our hedge from the other side. That's all."
Then Sauron says to the orcs, "get them a ladder for goodness sake." Orcs come through with a siege ladder which they prop up against the wall for Aragorn.
@@anthonychurch1567lol
The eye also isn't a genuine literal eye in the books, it's just the manifestation of Sauron through the Palantír and his armies, and being able to see the world from that lens.
That makes perfect sense about casually sneaking into places where you don't belong. A lot of people aren't gonna look at you twice if you act like you're supposed to go into the place you're sneaking into. Many people will look out for people that have nervous appearance cuz they might be trying to do something they aren't supposed to do. I tell my friends that all the time when we sneak into places. "Look like you're supposed to be here and no one will double check your story."
I always did the opposite; even though I was legit to be there I would act suspicious and even do the Mission Impossible theme, like Peter Griffin in that cut away. 😂
One time me and a buddy were tossing some rolled up carpet so we bulged the middle and stuck some boots on broomsticks so they hung out the end and "suspiciously walked" it over to a van. 😂
No one batted an eye.
You can get into a surprising numbers of places quite easily if you're carrying a ladder.
My husband and I accidently snuck into a green room at a convention and got basically front row seats to the cosplay contest. I genuinely had no idea what it was. We just waltzed right in
there's actually a book series called rangers apprentice that talks about how rangers where people can easily miss a rangers simply because they aren't expecting a ranger.
Great way to get free food from mc Donald's. Walk in with a polo and hat, grab some fries, walk out.
this is the greatest opening matpat has ever done, the first 40 seconds had me almost in tears. i need more lotr theories now please?
The clever intros never cease to amaze me 😂😭
the disney thing took me by surprise, i almost did a spit take at that
*Ok_Dont_Read_My_Names.* 😒.
There's also one thing to note. Time in elven realms doesn't pass normally, but it's kind of "slowed down". So the two months that they spent in Rivendell weren't actually two months
I don't think that's the case for Rivendell, but it is hinted that there's some temporal strangeness in Lorien.
Yeah they would have gotten a year's worth of rest in just one month
I think it's good that you talked about the *film's* canon, not confusing it with book canon, as in the actual lore, Sauron is not really an actual floating eyeball. The Eye of Sauron is more of a metaphorical thing in the books as he does actually still possess a body, but he uses the symbol of the Eye for his armies. He also has a Palantir, like the one Saruman had, which lets him see across vast distances. The literal fire Eye on top of the tower is really only a liberty taken by the filmmakers.
wasn't Sauron also actually an elf, and Celebrimbor was his sort of rival
@@noahsan92 Nope on both accounts. Sauron was one of the Maiar, an angel of sorts, and hardly was considered with Celebrimbor aside from manipulating and working with him to create the 9 rings of men and 7 for the dwarf lords.
@@noahsan92 kind of but not really. Sauron was never really an elf, but he was disguised as one when tricked Celebrimbor into making rings. Sauron is a very powerful Maia, which you could think of as an "angel" in the lore. Not a god but a powerful magical being. Balrogs and Wizards are also Maiar.
@@noahsan92 Maybe you're getting Sauron confused with the first orcs? They were "Dark Elves" and by that I mean elves that never went to Valanir (or whatever the place is, I cant remember all the names) and saw it's light. That's why they were "Dark" elves.
@@Not_Ciel are you sure that's the orcs?
Well considering the fact that in this video you listed out that they needed to travel thousands of miles, have specially qualified people to bring the ring in who were stealthier, and literally throw a hail Mary pass to distract the dark lord at the very end, I'd say it wasn't a simple walk into Mordor.
I found out from a VERY young age that you can just walk into almost any restricted area confidently as if you’re supposed to be there and no one will give a second glance.
Got into a lot of places I shouldn’t have been
Good thing you live in a relatively safe time now
It’s true lmao that happened at my old work once when one directions was ther it was even a member ther just get ther early and stole a golf cart and one of the managers for the concert and yelled at him over it for 15 mins lmao
literally when i forgot my uniform for work, and the people had no idea i worked there. i just walked into the back like i was always a worker (i was 2 days in my first week.) and no one noticed or cared.
If you look like you know what you are doing people assume you do
I've walked into hospitals, moving companies, and security companies by just dressing the part while being "distracted" by a clipboard while moving with a sense of urgency. I've even ended up backstage in dressing rooms with people who generally ignored me when not just nodding a "hello". I've done it for gain a lot, but when I found out how easy it was, I mostly did if for sh^ts and giggles.
So, yeah, like you, I can confirm MatPat is right here.
One mustn't forget that hobbits, being halflings, have to take about twice the amount of steps. Very thoughtful & thorough of you to bring that detail up!
Hearing about observer bias reminded me of when we played mat ball in gym and I would just walk from one mat to the next and nobody tried to get me out because they didn't realise that I was moving from one base to the next and instead thought I was just one of the kids on their team walking around. I saw my gym teacher after I left the school and he said I was "the best walking mat ball player" he had ever seen
I would like to ask what mat ball is but I did a similar thing in foxes and hounds, I still had my "tail" (they were sports bibs tucked into the back of trousers) but I was just sort of wandering so people assumed it was a stolen one that I was holding weird and never paid me any mind. After a while they instated a "foxes should always be running" thing to get me to "participate more"
Mordor always seemed too conveniently fortified by the mountains surrounding it, to me. The thought that Morgoth, ages ago, may have made it that way intentionally and strategically for future plans is something I really like.
Spammer + bot
It’s impossible for Oscar universe to write an original comment
Bro you only need to comment once. We get it.
@@pickledturnip5113 he is copying new comments and reposting them as his own for likes. No different than a bot
or maybe they settled there because how defendeble region is?
"One does not simply walk into Mordor..."
Actually it's going to be Super-Easy, Barely even an inconvenience😆😂🤣
Literally just a few days ago a Navajo woman walked 2,400 miles from Sweetwater Arizona to Washington D.C. on a prayer walk. And it took her just over 3.5 months
Aragorn whispering YOLO is actually the best joke I've heard Mat Pat say.
For YOLO!!
As divided as we all are, one of the most unifying features of our culture is our love for this one story. It cuts across so many groups, generations, demographics. It's really a pleasure to have watched the film series adaptation as a unifying cultural touchstone, and I'm glad to have shared my moments of inspiration watching this film series with many close friends and strangers.
This film series and 'Ernest Goes to Jail' will be humanity's saving grace!
I'm pretty sure that orcs did see sam walking into mordor in the books but the effect of the ring made him look like an extremely formidable opponent. They were terrified of him so turned a blind eye.
12:00 literally if you act confidently enough and wear appropriate clothes, you can waltz in just about anywhere that doesn't have a fingerprint scanner.
I've genuinely used this tactic in some cases, though obviously not to rob a museum. Just know that it works like a charm and if anyone looks at you weirdly, look back weirdly. They'll likely think they haven't gotten an obvious memo and back off before they're caught "uninformed"
My father used to call that tactic "walking in as if you own the place"
I am actually shocked that you didn't address the guardians at the gates. If Golum wasnt there to show them the secret passes to stay hidden, they would never have been able to get past the gates at Morgul and Mordor.
That’s because this channel doesn’t know what it’s talking about again
Mentions it kind of about 9 minutes in
@@ht4236 They mention it, and they took it out, because we were interested not at the armies, forces and stuff, but the actual physical feasibility of traveling from point a to point b
1st thing I thought of
I can never be disappointed with these theories lol.
You have my sympathies, so many bots smh
@@ItsChevnotJeff Thanks
@[卐]Lakehuntist ⸜⁄ OH really.
E
The stride length may be accurate, but the cadence can also go up with the shorter stature, so the total impact to speed may be surprising.
Absolutely adored this theory and proving how amazing Tolkien's story and Jackson's films are once again. :D
Yeah. But the plug of Amazon's failure was irredeemable.
The fact that Sam and Frodo had to physically push themselves to complete their journey just adds to their heroism.
They had to exert their bodies to their physical limit in order to save the world and it makes for nice headcanon.
Not just their bodies, their sanity and mental state as well. Frodo returned to the Shire a broken man, both physically and mentally, which is part of why he left for the Undying Lands in the end
Middle earth's calendar is actually slightly different to ours, and also to be precise, the Hobbit calendar the books use
Ж
Finally, someone that noticed that.
The fact he said rings of power was “pretty good” got me dying lol
Um, Mat, I don't think the saying literally means that it's physically impossible to walk into Mordor. They're saying that there are so many dangers waiting for you both there, and on your journey there, that no one in their right mind would actually try to get in that way.
yes obviously but he needs to take it literally to have a reason to make this theory lol
I think he knows but he doesn't care lol
That's part of why we make fun of it. We know its implicit meaning, but making fun of its literal meaning is too easy not to do.
fun fact Tolkien had a response to "why didn't the fellowship just use eagles to fly it and be done with it?" his response is really good and you can find recorded audio from Tolkien himself giving the answer, well worth the listen :)
Don't the novels themselves make that clear. The Eagles didn't help simply because they didn't want to. It's why a lot of people who could have helped didn't and why Sauron wasn't stopped early on before he became a looming threat .It's a theme throughout the books.
@@riftvallance2087 Sadly that's very true to life. We only know in hindsight how important certain events are. Hate to drag out the same old example but WW2, and even WW1 didn't need to happen. There were many turning points which could have prevented them, but we can only see those points looking back. At the time, all of the events played out in the usual predictable ways and caution was thrown to the wind.
@@D64nz which I believe is what Tolkien was trying to say. I've heard before that the Eagles represent the United States in ww1, only getting involved towards the very end when they should have involved themselves sooner.
@@riftvallance2087, i don't seem to recall anything in regards to the eagles not wanting to help i know a lot of people didn't help because they were so concerned with keeping power for themselves that they wouldn't entertain the idea of Sauron even being able to come back. In the case of the eagles someone asked Tolkien, why didn't they use the eagles and Tolkien went on a small speech about how he would tell this interviewer the same answer that he gave to the other person who asked him. Tolkien replied "Shut up!". ruclips.net/video/1-Uz0LMbWpI/видео.html
@@riftvallance2087 I doubt that, as Tolkien hated allegory.
I love the idea of Aragon actually whispering YOLO right as he charges to overwhelming numbers of orcs
"For YOLO er I mean for Frodo"
Also the distance here isn’t even taking account for how long they possibly walked in circles in those mountains before hitting the marshes
The moment I heard you mention the distance the AT is the first thing that came to my mind. My dad and uncle walked the whole trail in 6 months and I walked the last 5/6 of it in 5 months, I missed the first month for classes I was taking at the time.
It was exhausting, it was hard, it was expensive and at times it was even painful! But all three of us and several other people did it!
It’s worth mentioning (at least in the book) Sauron also had to manually pierce the very wards and obscuring effects he’d placed to find where the Ring was
That last point also helps that in the books, Sauron had a physical body, and wasn't just a giant glowing eye. The eye was his own literal eyes that were enchanting and powerful.
He had a palantir and used that as a way to scry whatever he wanted. The eye works well to portray this without explaining how palantir work.
@@levipetersen4406 well yes, but that goes to show that he required even more focus because he had to operate through something else rather than just seeing with a giant flaming eye
Here is the full clip : when i met matpat
ruclips.net/video/HvyqYJ4Iv48/видео.html
Here is the recommended clip that explains all :-
ruclips.net/video/2EXjRrTzTgQ/видео.html .
11:21 The orcs are also canonically stupid brutes, it doesn't take a lot to fool them
One of the cool maths that carried over into dnd about 'halflings' like this is that Hobbits don't need hours of rest. They have multiple meals a day in part because hobbits only need four hours sleep a night. In the books especially they learned the meditation techniques at the elven city. So more time free for walking.
Here is the recommended clip that explains all :-
ruclips.net/video/2EXjRrTzTgQ/видео.html .
I like how they did this entire theory by misunderstanding what "you cannot simply walk into Mordor" means. It doesn't mean you can't physically walk into Mordor it means there's a bunch of other factors that you have to account for in order to get in safely, you can't just walk in like you own the place.
Still entertaining though
well i mean doing exactly that was part of the success looking and acting like they belonged there was part of how they eventually made their entrance
To be fair you have to have a very high IQ to understand MatPat. The humor is extremely subtle.
@@alri1054 pretty sure it isn't, a child could follow along. If anything, it's made easy enough for low IQ to pick up.
@@alri1054 ikr your iq has to be at LEAST 50 to understand the jokes he makes
I used a walking app called Walk To Mordor going thru various LOTR and Hobbit sights. It’s cool to know we can walk the same path as Bilbo and Frodo did on their respective journeys
Aye same here! I just made it through the mines.
That's actually a really cool idea. I'm gonna have to look it up.
What's the app called?
@@notyou2353 it’s The Conqueror app. They have a ton of different virtual challenges you can do but the LOTR one is a specific one.
Edit: at least, that’s what I’m using. I would imagine it’s what they were using too
@@notyou2353 it’s called Walk To Mordor
Observer bias is how I got into so many college parties in highschool lol
That's the thing, though. The hobbits did not "simply walk" into Mordor; they painstakingly snuck in by secret passages. Big difference there.
Loved the proof that hobbits are simple unambitious folk:
When Sam held the ring, the only thing it could think to bribe him with is a bigger garden.
I think the key word there was "simply" it wasn't simple, it was physically & emotionally damaging, requiring tons of aid, & a army to act as decoy. That being said I do enjoy the discussion on how possible the trip was.
Someone should check for me because I could be wrong but I brought up to my dad the fact that despite their long journey we never once see someone give the hobbits shoes.
You missed the fact that Aragorn convinced Sauron he had the ring, which is why Sauron focused on him and not the Hobbits.
That’s only in the extended edition of ROTK so quite a few people won’t know about the whole epic battle of wills between Aragorn and Sauron
thank you Mat, now I will go binge watch the whole movie once again because you gave me nostalgia
Just steer clear of that Amazon tripe!
Boromir didn't know it, but Sauron didn't expect anyone to walk into Mordor to destroy the One Ring. Sauron strategized asuming the ring would be used for power and to charge into Mordor (as he would have done), that's why Aragorn's YOLO distraction worked. One does not simply march into Mordor, maybe?
To add to this, I believe Tolkien said (in his letters, if I remember correctly), that no one _could_ intentionally destroy the one ring, not the hobbits, not even Sauron himself. The ring corrupts absolutely, and _no_ _one_ had the will power to destroy it.
Hobbits are the most naturally immune because there wasn't much there to corrupt. This let them walk up Mt Doom, with the _intention_ of destroying it (where most people would have the ring leading them by the nose, taking Sauron head on, where it would abandon them), but, in the end, Frodo was still unable to do it. It took Gollum coming up, stealing the ring, and then _accidentally_ falling in, destroying it.
Fun fact, in the book Bilbo actually starts to get corrupted by the ring. We also saw the game thing with Gollum, according to his backstory, Gollum was a hobbit, his friend found the ring and Gollum loved it so much he unalived him to get it, Gollum then hid in a cave to try and protect his ring, his precious, fact, even Bilbo started to call the ring his precious at the start of The fellowship of the ring. So making a theory on Hobbits not being corrupted is false, but it’s a very cool theory never the less!
They are much less corruptible than anyone else.
He didn't say Hobbits are immune to the Ring's corruption, just that they're usually so lacking in ambition compared to other races they aren't susceptible to its standard conning method.
He just said that they don’t use the ring for world destruction but they are definitely cuoorpted by the ring. Like what you said.
Unfortunately, the movies forgot about Tom Bombadil. That was the one entity in the book that could not be corrupted by the One Ring.
@@diannt9583 Yeah but he couldn't be trusted with it either. Gandalf considered him but he concluded that Tom would wander off and forget he was on a mission
I admit, I was kind of hoping for an analysis of what would have happened if the Fellowship instead had simply decided to sneak into Mordor's back door through Nurn. 🙂
That would add hundreds if not several thousand miles to the trek and they d have to walk past the the majority of saurons domain.
this is matpat were talking about, he probably doesn't know what nurn is
Just remember everyone, just because you could technically walk into Mordor doesn't mean you should, as it's pretty much a literal hellscape full of dangerous monsters and its one of the most defensive areas in Middle Earth
You act like I CAN
if u could go to Middle Earth and try the hike safely wouldn't you?
@@SalamiSelimbo most likely not
But consider that without Gollum, Frodo and Sam would probably have never gotten out of Emyn Muil, let alone know how to actually get INTO Mordor. Frodo was heading for the front door, and it was only Gollum's knowledge of Cirith Ungol that got them in Mordor itself.
The last part about the lore should have been called “The Lore of The Rings”
Also, from a Lore perspective. When Iluvatar had the Ianur play music in the great music hall, he played a theme that was soft and sutle and difficult to corrupt. (Which I've always took to refer to the hobbits.)
It seems to sutle imply that either the Valar or the Iluvatar himself was working things towards the downfall of the ring and Sauron.
Subtle/subtly :)
Yes. Gandalf says Frodo was /meant/ to have the ring. So who else meant it to happen but Eru Iluvatar? He put the right people into the right places to allow good to triumph over evil.
Just going to add in that Illuvatar's theme was comprehensive of Elves and Men (therefore including but not exclusive to Hobbits, since they are offshoots of men). That's why both Elves and Men are called the Children of Illuvatar. In contrast, things like plants, animals (besides Elves and Men), and minerals were a part of the music produced by the Ainur.
I don't know if it's the depression spiral I'm in or not, but the intro killed me. Absolute perfection and I don't know why. 😂
To be fair to Boromir here, if it wasn't for the elvish equipment they had they still wouldn't have been stealthy enough to sneak through reliably and Sam never would have been able to reach Frodo after he was captured, since even on that back path there was some weird spell on the gate to stop people from just waltzing on through.
I think. It's been a while since I read it.
Tolkien 100% thought about how long it would take to travel. I think your distance estimate is a bit too high, other estimates are closer to 1k miles.
But really liked the ending where you explained how Tolkien did it all on purpose. He was extremely brilliant which is why they stand up today (unlike the trash Amazon series).
Why is the Amazon series bad
@@minioop2Breaks the lore and has bad writing
The two didn’t just walk into Mordor alone. There was a Army of the free world attacking the orcs and drawing all attention on them
Here is the recommended clip that explains all :-
ruclips.net/video/2EXjRrTzTgQ/видео.html .
Not only that, but when Boromir said that iconic line, he was referring to walking through the front gates. It took Sam and Frodo taking a secret passage in order to get in, mostly, undetected. Then there's the point you mention, Sauron was focusing on the battle.
I mean no, one of the biggest faults of the mpvies is horribly missrepresenting the journey through mordor. In the books we have chapters of frodo and sam being on the brink of starvation since they lost most of their food at cirith ungol. It is insane how PJ turned this into a 5 minute walk.
@@Human-zx4rb and turned the battle of the helm to an HOUR long dragging mess
That intro was genuinely made me laugh out loud lmao
Would love to see more theories on fantasy related stuff!!
youtu.be.com/ut-kADAlu9A
Here is the recommended clip that explains all :-
ruclips.net/video/2EXjRrTzTgQ/видео.html .
Another fantastic theory. I love it when MatPat tackles older movies/series and discovers new things to discuss and uncover. And when all that juicy lore connects is so satisfying, keep it up MatPat!
Calling Sauron a light house and Saruman a hype man made my day.
I'd like to just point out how absolutely freaking fire that intro was.
If you look at the beginning scenes in the shire everyone was active abs running and dancing. So they may have been in really good shape before starting which may have given them a boost, and could have helped them speed up at some points.
I am not in a good shape. But I can still run around and dance. That just requires not being in an actively bad shape ;)
@@natanoj16 yeah but comparing us to hobbits isn't a good comparison. Their life style depicted is different.
Hobbits were also praised for their exceptional endurance throughout the series
That throwback to Isengard was something I didn’t know I needed. RUclips circa, like what, 2009??? Amazing.
MatPat: while it looks like the creators of amazons new series saw that theory and didn't like it...
amazon: uh oh... he knows
I feel bad that Sauron can't see everything everywhere all at once -- it's a fantastic film