I speculate that had Sauron won the war, the Shireling Hobbits would have found themselves working in Nurn. Sauron might not have many good uses for Hobbits, but one thing that Hobbits are good at is farming, so I'd imagine this is what he would use them for.
I can imagine Nurn being much like the Salton Trough, in inland southern California. An agriculturally incredibly productive land, but also an ecological disaster, a place quite uninviting, desolate and sick, especially in the absence of modern technology, industry and planned irrigation systems. The Salton Sea is basically the Sea of Nurnen IRL based on the description of both. The Jordan River Valley with the Dead Sea is actually not so different either.
I became incredibly curious about this region back when I played Shadow of Mordor, as I had only recently seen the films at that point and knew nothing about the greater Legendarium. Reading more about what this region was, is what eventually caused me to dive deeper into Tolkien's world, so it'll always be special to me.
That's why I'm never scorched earth with adaptations. Even if they suck, there's still a chance they will get people deeper into the lore. And credit to the Shadow games, they did cover aspects of the lore that nothing else has.
@@lanceclement4087nothing was really accurate in the first, there are no rangers of the black gate, the rangers don’t know abt sauron, no necromancer orcs, celebrimbor as a character… Shadow of mordor series are fun action games that happen to take place in middle earth, they are not meant to be taken seriously.
Given how fertile volcanic soil is, provided the poisonous fumes from Mt doom go west/don't contaminate the soil, and the smoke doesn't blot out the sun further south, Nurn could potentially be one of the most fertile regions in ME Also sidenote: there is an optional battle map for Nurn in BFME as well, but it's all parched and barren so I was left wondering how any crops or livestock could possibly survive there 😂
more than likely Sauron had industrialized farming. he is very knowledgeable about science, and probably understood how to create synthetic fertilizers. probably had his orcs and slaves taking volcanic soil and mixing it with other things (bad things) to create fertilizers. more than likely slaves who died would be recycled into fertilizers.
Do not forget the logistics Mordor. Logistics are something fundamentally essential in or out of any kind of war as somebody is gonna have to make sure the conveys of supply chains and land marks are still at peak efficiency. It is said amateurs talk strategy but professionals study logistics.
5:58 Ok so there is this awesome thing called Trauma Bonding, enduring hardships with people is a great way to get people to work together, great example? militaries, you spend (in my country) 16 weeks training with a whole bunch of guys from different backgrounds, cultures, religions, wealthy-ness, ethnicities, all of those differences burn away.
"We know a remote farm in Nurn, where Mrs. Grishnakh lives. Every July, corn grows there. We know a certain fjord in the Sea of Nurnen, near where the hagfish gather in great shoals. There, Ugluk's slaves freeze the hagfish at sea and then add a crumb, crisp coating. We know a little place in the Mordor Far East, where Lorgan Headcleaver chops up the finest prairie-fed man-flesh and tastes..." What do you mean, missed it? But you can't emphasize "flesh", that's like he's wanting me to emphasize "in" before "July". Come on fellas, you're losing your heads!
So my theory about the Sea of Nurnen is that it is like the dead sea in our world, so highly saline that nothing can live in it. This would makes sense as the sea of Nurnen has no outflow.
@@generalgrievous2202The sea itself becomes an accumulation point for salt runoff from its tributary rivers over a long period of time but the rivers themselves can be or are outright fresh water. The people can use the rivers for irrigation and then harvest the sea itself for salt which was highly valuable in ancient and medieval times.
@@genghiskhan6809 Such a large sea would also create a climate around it where water from it evaporates, forms into clouds and then rains down in the surrounding lands, with the mountain ranges acting as natural barriers. So you don't necessarily even need to rely on the rivers for irrigation.
I love the smaller, lesser known, early writing, regions, i also love the lore behind the peoples and regions of Far Harad in the 1.7.10 MC Mod made by Mevans, although he hasn't it.
Considering the vast cultural diversity of the inhabitants of Nurn and their past as slaves, I like to think that in the Fourth Age Nurn became an independent kingdom with a strong anti-slavery policy and where different peoples and religions of Middle-earth lived together. Something similar to the free city of Braavos in Song of Ice and Fire.
I imagine there’s an extensive tunnel network traversing the sea of nurnen inside the tower of Baradur No way Sauron managed to hold off a 7 year siege unless he get supplies from outside the fortress
Its possible the siege was loose enough for some supplies to break though occasionally- it happens often enough irl. And Baradur is large enough that splitting your forces to cover all entrances could risk being defeated in detail. I suspect you might be able to herd flocks of goats or somesuch though hidden trails though the Ash mountains from Rhûn as well.
barad-dur was filled to brimming with slaves. tunnels throughout those mountains were inevitable, but cannibalism of dead and badly wounded slaves, orcs or otherwise, would hardly have been frowned upon by the leadership. saves feeding 'em, too. sauron had plenty and to spare, apparently. it was the quality of the troops of men, elves, and dwarves that made them superior, not their numbers.
@@thehellyousay Cannibalism is not the most effective long term logistical strategy though. No Dwarves in this war. I may be wrong but I do not think Tolkien treated orcs like they made terrible fighters. The descriptions of their forces does not seem to indicate a notable inferiority to those of men.
@@benlewis4241 He did directly say they were not the equals of elves or humans but they made up for it in numbers. That it ss not to say totally inferior on a one to one basis but in war small differences in the quality of troops can lead to large differences on the battle field. That's why vetran troops are always so valuable. Discipline being a huge factor.
Barren wasteland...very litte flowing water...depressing shrubs are the only vegetation...and there are lots of flies...OH MY GOSH, AUSTRALIA IS MORDOR.
"The soil is real nice for growing, lots of volcanic loving crops: coffee, pineapples, potatoes, tea, like Hawaii" "Like where?" "Uhhh nevermind, anyway we'll be fine"
@@talesoftheeldar8688 I seem to recall an interview where one of the developers expressed interest in showing Angband or Numenor if they were allowed, maybe in an instance, but I could be misremembering
Existence of Nurn creates another question, how did Morgoth feed his armies when Angband was containing armies far bigger than those of Saurons whilst also being basically an inhabitable iceland?
probably the same way. Mans from the east paid him tribute. We know Morgoth was the first who "discovery" a humans and he had big influence on them. Some of them even travel to the beleriand and join union of Maedhros. Also even during the long peace when the armies of the elves besieged Angband, the siege wasn't completely closed.
@@peger Thats true I guess. Gotta wonder why didnt Noldor just kill Morgoths servants in the East to starve his armies but hey Morgoth is a Vala so perhaps he had other ways to make his armies feed by means unknown
The MERP module ( I don't claim it's cannon) was explicit : Angband was feed by limited subsidence faming where possible and by caravans of supplies form the East. Not sure how realistic that was given how far Angband was from any Eastern land friendly to Sauron.
@@oguzhanenescetin5702 I would like to point at the lembas bread here. It is magical and the making was taught to Galadriel by one of the mayar, Melian (thx for the comments) and it is verry possible that morgooth knew of similar ways of nourishment.
Angband contained large armies centuries before Men came west, back when he was besieged by the Noldor. The only direction open to Morgoth was going further north into the icy Iron Mountains. Since Tolkien developed Angband and the rough geography around it while he still thought of orcs as soulless creatures built by Morgoth, there was no need for any kind of agriculture around Angband. Tolkien didn't think about the issue in the 1940s and 1950s when he was working on a Silmarillion to be released alongside LotR as far as we can tell, either. But considering how much more detailed and "realistic" Tolkien's Silmarillion rework from the late 1950s onwards (mostly documented in HoMe X and NoMe) was, he probably would've had to tackle this issue eventually.
The RTS game Battle For Middle Earth 2 had an adaptation of the Nûrn region. It was shown as a large flat and bleak land. The sea of Nûrn dominated the center of the map. It was one of the largest maps that one could play both custom and campaign games on.
If the fertile volcanic soil of Hawaii is anything to go by, breadbasket is definitely the right word! Sauron was quite silly for attempting to take over lands he already bordered by natural mountains, when he had a whole plain of volcanic soil suitable for growing in his backyard.
Nurn sounds like egypt and the nile. A fertile breadbasket, but withouth the military power to be independent for most of it's history and so is a subject go more powerful military powers that exploits it to the bone.
Could it be it was know as the sad water because its an area associated with slavery and forced labour in harsh conditions? Its not going to be a happy region under Sauron no matter how fertile the land and pleasant the water is.
@@stephenpickering8063 I really think that is true, especially since it seems to be a reference from the West. I don't think Sauron called it the Sad Waters. He'd probably call it the "Work Harder!" Waters.
The slaves had been working together there for generations. Im sure they wouldve developed their own language and identity by that point, maybe by mixing bits and pieces of their own, and taught it to new batches of slaves that were brought in. Or just adopted the black speech or whatever the orcs gave them orders in
Given that the slaves were likely pf many different cultures, of the freed slaves who stayed, I can imagine a culture similar to the creole cultures of the Caribbean forming there.
Historically slaves would quickly pick up language of their masters and culture and lose their own. It would be hard for them to return home, especially to live next to the tribes etc who enslaved them in the first place.
Or at least develop a creole (after going through a pidgin phase) of the enslaver's language and whatever native languages they came with. This only takes a couple of generations.
@@josephbrandenburg4373 well, they successfully won against their slavers and got lucky cause Napoleon just gave up… having a successful country is a different story
Worth noting I suppose is that in addition to growing crops, much of Nurn must have had large ranches for domesticated cattle, goats, sheep etc. as well. Can't really picture 100s of thousands of Orcs living off barley and potatoes. I suspect dead human slaves didn't go to waste either. :)
Great video. On the Shadow of Mordor games, personally I don't think there's any point to 💩 on them. They aren't canon and never claimed to be. They just use the platform of Tolkien to create a gameified similar but alternate timeline of events. I think they did a great job making a very cool story for a video game and showing us what other regions of Arda, that we don't get a close look at in canon, might be like. That said it is completely fair to breakdown and compare game to canon.
I would think it's a putried festering dark jungle because of the sea and volcanic soil. Make it ridiculously fertile but would take a ton of slave labor to keep clear and only certain types of rye could really be grown there. Rye that could go bad or turn poisonous really easy. Which seems like orc food.
I like how Mordor was shown in Shadow of War. I only recently started the books and my first steps were the movies and games as most others. Seeing parts of Mordor as green and lush makes it much more realistic. And shows how much Sauron and the Orcs turn all things into a perverse and horrible version of the original.
So about the shadow of war and shadow of mordor games, It's my head cannon that Tallian is a Gondorian story. Something a group of Ithilian rangers or Gondor Soliders would sit around the camp fire and tell the story of Tallian the Ranger Who died and came to undeath to avenge his fallen family. The spirit of a ranger and the vengeful elf spirit of Celebrimbor merged to fight the dark lord. Talian would represent the Fighting spirit of Gondor and Celebrimbor would represent the age long malice against Sauron. I don't know if that's what the game Developers Were going for, but I do think, like in our world , middle earth would have fictional stories. To my knowledge, in the lore, you don't really see fiction. You see a lot of legends based on reality in that world. We even see a lot of art and music and various ways of expression. So I don't believe it's far-fetched to think that a writer or perhaps a poet would have Written an uplifting story about the never-ending fight against sauron With some literary liberties. After typing all this I did just realize that Sam did write a little fictional ditty about a troll sitting on a stone. So yeah, fiction does exist in middle earth. I don't know , that's my two cents on the Lore of Shadow of War and Shadow of Mordor games.
Since it doesn't have an outgoing river the Sea of Nurn is bound to be extremely salty most likely being very similar to the Great Salt Lake of Utah and its even close to the same size. However there is a possibility that it might not be as salty since it has four rivers feeding into it. If I had to guess I bet the farm communities run irrigation from the rivers and the run off feeds the Nurn sea so while they can maintain crops and still get plenty of freshwater with out having to rely on the terminal lake which would be subject to algae blooms and swarms of akaline flies.
@@baneofbanes that's because of how much freshwater was flowing into the Aral sea. It's the same with the Caspian it's not nearly as salty as the oceans and could be a whole lot saltier but it gets fed by lots of fresh water.
I'd imagine Nurn as being a place where the weather's always miserable, cloudy, and often rains, but still has farmland and is still fertile. I'd imagine the people of Nurn would form their own kingdom, some might've gone home, but it's possible that there were second generation slaves who wouldn't have anywhere to go. Incidentally, "Nurn" is the name of the planet in which the Elder Scrolls games are based.
tolkien left such huge fertile fields in his world for fan fiction of incredible quality to be grown without requiring anyone ever altering or violating the known lore he wrote, but no, hollywood and amazon just couldn't resist ruining yet another masterpiece by turning the tilling growing, and harvesting the vast possibilities the open roads into the wider world of the story offered. no, they had to try and make tolkien's work "theirs". turned middle-earth into a landfill instead. a mordor in its own right. o, the irony ...
I am not sure how orcs are depicted is always correct. They are depicted as having basic iron working skills and as being pre-modern, quite backwards and tribal etc. But something Tolkien revealed to us about his Middle Earth and parallels to our world made me think twice about this. Tolkien said his work was not allegorical, but he did reveal one key thing that probably should make us think about orcs and Sauron's forces in a different way. Tolkien had a romantic view of the old world. He treasured what he saw as idyllic village life in the English countryside. The actual shires of England. He valued living off the land and had a reverence for nature etc. Both the Hobbits and the Elves reflect that. What Tolkien was not so happy about was the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the English shires that he loved so much. A darkness spreading over the land. He said so that this became a theme of his books. The industrial sprawl and urbanization. How it destroyed so many beautiful places. How villagers moved to the industrial centers and the effect that could have on them. It was quite often an effect Tolkien may have viewed as fallen or degenerate so to speak, e.g., slum living, drunkenness like during the gin craze, spread of diseases like typhoid and cholera in London, loss of traditional values as Tolkien would see it with his Catholic world view, etc, etc. Elves that had fallen and been twisted by that darkness. Therefore, the urbanized industrial workers of the 1800s and early 1900s are the orcs. Less of a race, but more like a class within a social trend that Tolkien viewed as too destructive. If the orcs are the minions of that spreading darkness, then Sauron ruling with his commanders et cetera and bringing that to the entire world would represent the so called captains of industry. More advanced in a way according to how we view modern history, technological progress and modernized populations, but with it came what Tolkien called fell beasts and a corrupting darkness etc (due to its destructive effects). During the early 1900s concern about the effects of industrial sprawl upon the land and upon people's lives were not uncommon. Watership Down is another book with a similar theme. Perhaps reactionary to an extent, but also valid. Industry and technological progress is positive and can produce vastly more of our material wants and needs than previous modes of human living, e.g., feudalism or pastoralism et cetera, but it can be very destructive in various ways too.
Makes sense that Nurn was Mordor’s economic bread basket as there was no way it could have fed itself and it’s massive armies without a massive agriculture food rich region right at its heart to make use of.
@@MerryMohProductions True, but trade lanes to rhun are not secure with that elvish kingdom sitting near the sea of rhun on the east side of it. Plus trade lines to both are long and time consuming to gather supplies in by.
@@MerryMohProductions Indeed, but those supply lines are long and dangerous ones open to attack, disruption and blocking by the armies of the free peoples. Compared to Nurn, that is securely inside Mordor already and protected from attack by its myriad defences and armies.
4:11 I wouldn't expect Sauron's allies to have any legitimacy concepts like dignity and nobility to their government but fear. And slavery goes hand in hand with fear. I mean, they literally worship Melkor.
The real mystery is how Morgoth supported far larger armies of orcs, trolls, and wargs in Angband, which had no agricultural hinterland at all, only the Iron Mountains and the forbidding ice pack north of them. In theory Morgoth could have sent orc to cultivate crops in the fertile lands between the Blue and Misty Mountains, but the logistics would have been difficult and the crop land vulnerable to devastation by the Noldor.
I would really love to know what the east looked like. I know some of the Dwarven houses went east, and I wonder if they fared any better than the western houses?
I’ve always felt the SoM nurn must be what it looks like. How else would Sauron realistically feed his armies using Nurn if it was desolate or barely able to produce food? I feel the volcanic ash, a decently wet atmosphere, and the rivers feeding the sea must make the place rather lush and fertile. I do wonder if maybe the the people don’t really have any specific origins? Like just a mix of everything lol. From haradrim to easterlings to black numenoreans from umbar to gondorian prisoners. But because most people there after Sauron’s defeat were born and raised there or have no home to go back to, decided to stay since the place ain’t horrible and they can now live freely there.
Tolkien was a master at languages and lore, but his world "building" skills left a lot to be desired. Be that as it may, it is still possible for all contradictions to be true at the same time. The lake could easily be like the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, but it is the rivers that feed into the lake that provide the fertile crops. Moreover, Sauron's forces are orcs; we don't need high quality food products being grown here. It's quantity and not quality. The potential for volcanic soil was massive, but a lot of that potential was probably wasted by the need to keep food requirements simple for the orcs.
Giving Nurn to the former enslaved people of Mordor was possibly the smartest and most ethical move on Aragorn's part. 1. The cost and logistics of resettling a huge influx of refugees would have been an economic burden. 2. They probably had nothing to go back to in the very lands that enslaved them in the first place. 3. They were essentially being justly compensated for their forced labor by being awarded the land they were forced to cultivate. A similar idea was proposed after the American Civil war, which unfortunately never happened. And even though Nurn is a gloomy place of little value, they've worked on it long enough to know how to make it at least livable.
During the war of the ring it would have been a good idea from the free peoples to launch a surprise attack on Nurn. Maybe a few hundred troops trained in mountainous warfare. If that would be successful, it would have forced Sauron to send forces to protect Nurn while also fighting Aragon and his army at the black gate. It would have forced him into a two front war, he would have won given enough time but it would also mean that Aragorn's army would have a easier job at the black gate.
It would have also taken the war to the south of Mordor and forced Sauron to push his armies that way...directly through the lands Frodo and Sam were travelling and defeating Gandalf and Aragorn's whole reason for attacking in the first place.
I always assumed Nurn was inhabited by lower men, then Sauron enslaved them (possibly using Black Numenorean overlords to govern) and supplemented those salves with fresh slaves from the south or east.
I think all these LotR YT lore videos that keep appearing in my feed demonstrate while Tolkien was an amazing story teller his world building left something to be desired when it came to explaining the economy of Middle Earth and the lives of everyday people. i.e. where are all the trading posts, hamlets, farms, & small & medium towns that should dot the land? What's the system of government? Despotic feudalism? Does that mean all the common people are serfs? Ofc if Tolkien were reading this he'd likely say something to the effect "I wrote these stories to entertain myself and my children - stop being a pedantic NERD and don't read too much into the areas of my fantasy world that objectively make no sense..."
Tolkien certainly didn't go into detail, but at the same time most of these areas do not have any other issues besides lacking detail. You can fill most of it by extrapolating or using your own imagination, which is fine as none of these things are that relevant to the stories.
Bitter sea/Bitter water historically meant salt water. I mean historically before christ, in the age of mesopotamian civilizations, the sea was always described as the bitter sea. In the first map ever, which was preserved on a cuneiform tablet has the world surrounded by a ring of water called "the bitter river". Very nice detail, that it appears here.
Could it be possible to harvest fruits and vegetables there? We know, or at least it's heavily implied that orcs are omnivores, plus there were humans, both slaves and willing servants alike, so only having grains wouldn't be healthy for your troops. Not that Sauron would've been concerned with their wellbeing, but maybe even he acknowledged that a more varied diet with more nutritional value and daily serving of vitamins to keep them healthy and well fed to keep them functional if Sauron wants to maintain their usefulness. Plus, the slaves are given that land after Sauron's defeat. I dont think anyone would stay in a land that could ONLY sustain grains; unless they were imported from Harad or Rhun, BUT I'm prolly overthinking it.
If the inland sea has no outlet, then it will be saltwater and thus "bitter" because it is undrinkable. This is the same as the bottom of Death Valley which is a place called "Bad Water" because it has a salty pond. The water in the inland sea would not be suitable for agriculture, but the rivers feeding it absolutely would be. And if it is a large enough body of water, it could certainly also generate rain from evaporation. The idea of pollution fits exactly with Tolkien's belief about nature & industry. I'm sure he would have thought that a body of water in the heart of the evil land would be polluted, poisoned, & dead from the irresponsible industry of Mordor.
I speculate that had Sauron won the war, the Shireling Hobbits would have found themselves working in Nurn. Sauron might not have many good uses for Hobbits, but one thing that Hobbits are good at is farming, so I'd imagine this is what he would use them for.
a halfing trail of tears to Nurn 😥
Might be more likely that Sauron makes the Shire a second Nurn, his breadbasket of the West as Nurn is his foodsupply in the South.
And as a bonus, they likely taste great. So Sauron gets some livestock besides farmers
@@danielscheurwater2466 Yes I agree with you
Saruman had designs to industrialise the pipe-weed industry, you can see the beginning of this plan in the Scouring of the Shire.
Maggoty breadbasket of Mordor.
Yep
Maggots are nutrinionally far superior to bread
Maggots are a good source of protein though it means less meat goes on the menu.
Basket of maggoty bread.
Yup, wouldn't want to work as a human soldier in his army.
😭
I can imagine Nurn being much like the Salton Trough, in inland southern California. An agriculturally incredibly productive land, but also an ecological disaster, a place quite uninviting, desolate and sick, especially in the absence of modern technology, industry and planned irrigation systems. The Salton Sea is basically the Sea of Nurnen IRL based on the description of both. The Jordan River Valley with the Dead Sea is actually not so different either.
I became incredibly curious about this region back when I played Shadow of Mordor, as I had only recently seen the films at that point and knew nothing about the greater Legendarium. Reading more about what this region was, is what eventually caused me to dive deeper into Tolkien's world, so it'll always be special to me.
That's why I'm never scorched earth with adaptations. Even if they suck, there's still a chance they will get people deeper into the lore. And credit to the Shadow games, they did cover aspects of the lore that nothing else has.
@@DarthGandalfYT *looks at Rings of Power*
I'mma go take a nappy...
@@DarthGandalfYTthe first one was a lot better with the lore lol. Still had some contradictions but it was fun. The second one though…. Oh boy
@@lanceclement4087nothing was really accurate in the first, there are no rangers of the black gate, the rangers don’t know abt sauron, no necromancer orcs, celebrimbor as a character…
Shadow of mordor series are fun action games that happen to take place in middle earth, they are not meant to be taken seriously.
Given how fertile volcanic soil is, provided the poisonous fumes from Mt doom go west/don't contaminate the soil, and the smoke doesn't blot out the sun further south, Nurn could potentially be one of the most fertile regions in ME
Also sidenote: there is an optional battle map for Nurn in BFME as well, but it's all parched and barren so I was left wondering how any crops or livestock could possibly survive there 😂
more than likely Sauron had industrialized farming. he is very knowledgeable about science, and probably understood how to create synthetic fertilizers. probably had his orcs and slaves taking volcanic soil and mixing it with other things (bad things) to create fertilizers. more than likely slaves who died would be recycled into fertilizers.
A lot of Slaves worked the farms in Nurn so it makes sense
I think Aragorn gives the freed slaves a choice to stay and own Nurn so maybe it wasn't utterly horrid
True. It could be improved if worked by free folk.
And those folk became the Slavic people in our timeline, tell me this wasnt Tolkiens intention?
@@glennross85 Huh?
@@glennross85 no
@@MrChickennugget360 why not?
Do not forget the logistics Mordor. Logistics are something fundamentally essential in or out of any kind of war as somebody is gonna have to make sure the conveys of supply chains and land marks are still at peak efficiency. It is said amateurs talk strategy but professionals study logistics.
And Sauron is the most toxic 4X player to rule them all.
5:58 Ok so there is this awesome thing called Trauma Bonding, enduring hardships with people is a great way to get people to work together, great example? militaries, you spend (in my country) 16 weeks training with a whole bunch of guys from different backgrounds, cultures, religions, wealthy-ness, ethnicities, all of those differences burn away.
Yeah, those who survive are gonna be bonded by an experience that no one, not even their original societies, can understand.
"We know a remote farm in Nurn, where Mrs. Grishnakh lives. Every July, corn grows there. We know a certain fjord in the Sea of Nurnen, near where the hagfish gather in great shoals. There, Ugluk's slaves freeze the hagfish at sea and then add a crumb, crisp coating. We know a little place in the Mordor Far East, where Lorgan Headcleaver chops up the finest prairie-fed man-flesh and tastes..." What do you mean, missed it? But you can't emphasize "flesh", that's like he's wanting me to emphasize "in" before "July". Come on fellas, you're losing your heads!
Theres too much directing going on here.
I'm confused
Look up Orson Welles "Frozen Peas" outtakes, and you'll get the joke.
So my theory about the Sea of Nurnen is that it is like the dead sea in our world, so highly saline that nothing can live in it. This would makes sense as the sea of Nurnen has no outflow.
The Dead Sea, the Great Salt Lake, Lake Van... almost all lakes without an outlet eventually become salt water.
The problem is that it must be fertile to some extent, because its surrounded by arable land
@@generalgrievous2202The sea itself becomes an accumulation point for salt runoff from its tributary rivers over a long period of time but the rivers themselves can be or are outright fresh water. The people can use the rivers for irrigation and then harvest the sea itself for salt which was highly valuable in ancient and medieval times.
@@genghiskhan6809 that's true, plus, the salt could be useful for preserving meat on long marches, as we know the orcs eat loads of meat.
@@genghiskhan6809 Such a large sea would also create a climate around it where water from it evaporates, forms into clouds and then rains down in the surrounding lands, with the mountain ranges acting as natural barriers. So you don't necessarily even need to rely on the rivers for irrigation.
I love the smaller, lesser known, early writing, regions, i also love the lore behind the peoples and regions of Far Harad in the 1.7.10 MC Mod made by Mevans, although he hasn't it.
That mod is how I learnt about Nurn in the first place, it’s really good
I’ve learnt about so many regions in that mod it’s easily the best minecraft mod out there
@Mawhinz after its came out I stopped playing minecraft in any other way, its still the only minecraft I'll ever play 🤣🤣🤣
I loved learning about Nurn in the LOTR, it adds so much nuance to the world of Middle Earth.
Considering the vast cultural diversity of the inhabitants of Nurn and their past as slaves, I like to think that in the Fourth Age Nurn became an independent kingdom with a strong anti-slavery policy and where different peoples and religions of Middle-earth lived together.
Something similar to the free city of Braavos in Song of Ice and Fire.
"All MEN are created equal" Orks- but wut about us?
0:43 fishes that belch fumes, terrifying.
FISSURES!
Stop
I imagine there’s an extensive tunnel network traversing the sea of nurnen inside the tower of Baradur
No way Sauron managed to hold off a 7 year siege unless he get supplies from outside the fortress
Its possible the siege was loose enough for some supplies to break though occasionally- it happens often enough irl. And Baradur is large enough that splitting your forces to cover all entrances could risk being defeated in detail.
I suspect you might be able to herd flocks of goats or somesuch though hidden trails though the Ash mountains from Rhûn as well.
barad-dur was filled to brimming with slaves. tunnels throughout those mountains were inevitable, but cannibalism of dead and badly wounded slaves, orcs or otherwise, would hardly have been frowned upon by the leadership. saves feeding 'em, too. sauron had plenty and to spare, apparently. it was the quality of the troops of men, elves, and dwarves that made them superior, not their numbers.
@@thehellyousay Cannibalism is not the most effective long term logistical strategy though.
No Dwarves in this war.
I may be wrong but I do not think Tolkien treated orcs like they made terrible fighters. The descriptions of their forces does not seem to indicate a notable inferiority to those of men.
@@benlewis4241 He did directly say they were not the equals of elves or humans but they made up for it in numbers. That it ss not to say totally inferior on a one to one basis but in war small differences in the quality of troops can lead to large differences on the battle field. That's why vetran troops are always so valuable. Discipline being a huge factor.
Orcs are known cannibals and has no civilian population to speak of. Makes preparing for a siege easier…
Barren wasteland...very litte flowing water...depressing shrubs are the only vegetation...and there are lots of flies...OH MY GOSH, AUSTRALIA IS MORDOR.
In Lotr, Satan wasn't banished to hell but somewhere even more terrifying, Australia
The relationship between Nurn and the volcanic region of Mordor sounds like Hammerhall in Age of Sigmar.
please don’t compare AoS and Lotr… It’s literally comparing cow dung and gold…
please don’t compare AoS and Lotr… It’s literally comparing cow dung and gold…
Never seen a video on nurn. Interesting! You got a new subscriber❤
"The soil is real nice for growing, lots of volcanic loving crops: coffee, pineapples, potatoes, tea, like Hawaii"
"Like where?"
"Uhhh nevermind, anyway we'll be fine"
Hope lord of the rings online gets nurn one day
I hope we see Rhun one day too
I hope one day it gets the rights to the First Age
Beleriand pre Dagor Bragollach or even ruined Beleriand in that game would be epic
@@talesoftheeldar8688 I seem to recall an interview where one of the developers expressed interest in showing Angband or Numenor if they were allowed, maybe in an instance, but I could be misremembering
@@superslayerguy Agreed! Maybe even get to play some good Easterlings as a premium Man race, since all the others have their own Premium subraces.
I like your region videos! Keep up the good work!
Imagine if Tainted Entwives where forced to farm that harsh land
When I see a new Darth Gandalf video I watch
Existence of Nurn creates another question, how did Morgoth feed his armies when Angband was containing armies far bigger than those of Saurons whilst also being basically an inhabitable iceland?
probably the same way. Mans from the east paid him tribute. We know Morgoth was the first who "discovery" a humans and he had big influence on them. Some of them even travel to the beleriand and join union of Maedhros. Also even during the long peace when the armies of the elves besieged Angband, the siege wasn't completely closed.
@@peger Thats true I guess. Gotta wonder why didnt Noldor just kill Morgoths servants in the East to starve his armies but hey Morgoth is a Vala so perhaps he had other ways to make his armies feed by means unknown
The MERP module ( I don't claim it's cannon) was explicit : Angband was feed by limited subsidence faming where possible and by caravans of supplies form the East. Not sure how realistic that was given how far Angband was from any Eastern land friendly to Sauron.
@@oguzhanenescetin5702 I would like to point at the lembas bread here. It is magical and the making was taught to Galadriel by one of the mayar, Melian (thx for the comments) and it is verry possible that morgooth knew of similar ways of nourishment.
Angband contained large armies centuries before Men came west, back when he was besieged by the Noldor. The only direction open to Morgoth was going further north into the icy Iron Mountains.
Since Tolkien developed Angband and the rough geography around it while he still thought of orcs as soulless creatures built by Morgoth, there was no need for any kind of agriculture around Angband. Tolkien didn't think about the issue in the 1940s and 1950s when he was working on a Silmarillion to be released alongside LotR as far as we can tell, either. But considering how much more detailed and "realistic" Tolkien's Silmarillion rework from the late 1950s onwards (mostly documented in HoMe X and NoMe) was, he probably would've had to tackle this issue eventually.
The RTS game Battle For Middle Earth 2 had an adaptation of the Nûrn region. It was shown as a large flat and bleak land. The sea of Nûrn dominated the center of the map.
It was one of the largest maps that one could play both custom and campaign games on.
If the fertile volcanic soil of Hawaii is anything to go by, breadbasket is definitely the right word! Sauron was quite silly for attempting to take over lands he already bordered by natural mountains, when he had a whole plain of volcanic soil suitable for growing in his backyard.
Nurn sounds like egypt and the nile. A fertile breadbasket, but withouth the military power to be independent for most of it's history and so is a subject go more powerful military powers that exploits it to the bone.
I hope the water isn't as sad anymore.
Could it be it was know as the sad water because its an area associated with slavery and forced labour in harsh conditions? Its not going to be a happy region under Sauron no matter how fertile the land and pleasant the water is.
@@stephenpickering8063 I really think that is true, especially since it seems to be a reference from the West. I don't think Sauron called it the Sad Waters. He'd probably call it the "Work Harder!" Waters.
5:58
Would be funny if they adopted the Black Tongue of Mordor as their Lingua Franca.
Even orcs themselves weren't that devout😁
That was in fact Sauron's plan for Black Speech, but it never worked out. Many orcish dialects are degraded versions of Black Speech.
Maybe the name is more symbolic than literal, like the waters of Nurnen are hopeless and figuratively dead
The slaves had been working together there for generations. Im sure they wouldve developed their own language and identity by that point, maybe by mixing bits and pieces of their own, and taught it to new batches of slaves that were brought in. Or just adopted the black speech or whatever the orcs gave them orders in
Given that the slaves were likely pf many different cultures, of the freed slaves who stayed, I can imagine a culture similar to the creole cultures of the Caribbean forming there.
Historically slaves would quickly pick up language of their masters and culture and lose their own. It would be hard for them to return home, especially to live next to the tribes etc who enslaved them in the first place.
Or at least develop a creole (after going through a pidgin phase) of the enslaver's language and whatever native languages they came with. This only takes a couple of generations.
Thats exactly how Haiti came to be.. from a succesful slave uprising
@@untitled568"successful" is probably the wrong word...
@@josephbrandenburg4373 well, they successfully won against their slavers and got lucky cause Napoleon just gave up… having a successful country is a different story
I learned about Nurn through Shadow of Mordor and SoW. I had no idea they were basically the only pieces of media to depict Nurn
Always a good day when Darth Gandalf uploads a new vid!
Always intrigued me. Thanks
Worth noting I suppose is that in addition to growing crops, much of Nurn must have had large ranches for domesticated cattle, goats, sheep etc. as well.
Can't really picture 100s of thousands of Orcs living off barley and potatoes.
I suspect dead human slaves didn't go to waste either. :)
Great video. On the Shadow of Mordor games, personally I don't think there's any point to 💩 on them. They aren't canon and never claimed to be. They just use the platform of Tolkien to create a gameified similar but alternate timeline of events. I think they did a great job making a very cool story for a video game and showing us what other regions of Arda, that we don't get a close look at in canon, might be like. That said it is completely fair to breakdown and compare game to canon.
I would think it's a putried festering dark jungle because of the sea and volcanic soil. Make it ridiculously fertile but would take a ton of slave labor to keep clear and only certain types of rye could really be grown there. Rye that could go bad or turn poisonous really easy. Which seems like orc food.
An army always marches on its stomach.
Im still waiting for the Lostladen video ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
Aw yeah, finally some agriculture content!
love these videos bro keep it up, cheers!
Good stuff.
Nice to reach out beyond what was mentioned and written and intelligently speculate about lands outside of common lore.
Thank you.
There is actually village called Nurney in County Klldare, Ireland
I like how Mordor was shown in Shadow of War. I only recently started the books and my first steps were the movies and games as most others.
Seeing parts of Mordor as green and lush makes it much more realistic. And shows how much Sauron and the Orcs turn all things into a perverse and horrible version of the original.
So about the shadow of war and shadow of mordor games, It's my head cannon that Tallian is a Gondorian story. Something a group of Ithilian rangers or Gondor Soliders would sit around the camp fire and tell the story of Tallian the Ranger Who died and came to undeath to avenge his fallen family. The spirit of a ranger and the vengeful elf spirit of Celebrimbor merged to fight the dark lord. Talian would represent the Fighting spirit of Gondor and Celebrimbor would represent the age long malice against Sauron. I don't know if that's what the game Developers Were going for, but I do think, like in our world , middle earth would have fictional stories. To my knowledge, in the lore, you don't really see fiction. You see a lot of legends based on reality in that world. We even see a lot of art and music and various ways of expression. So I don't believe it's far-fetched to think that a writer or perhaps a poet would have Written an uplifting story about the never-ending fight against sauron With some literary liberties.
After typing all this I did just realize that Sam did write a little fictional ditty about a troll sitting on a stone. So yeah, fiction does exist in middle earth.
I don't know , that's my two cents on the Lore of Shadow of War and Shadow of Mordor games.
Since it doesn't have an outgoing river the Sea of Nurn is bound to be extremely salty most likely being very similar to the Great Salt Lake of Utah and its even close to the same size. However there is a possibility that it might not be as salty since it has four rivers feeding into it. If I had to guess I bet the farm communities run irrigation from the rivers and the run off feeds the Nurn sea so while they can maintain crops and still get plenty of freshwater with out having to rely on the terminal lake which would be subject to algae blooms and swarms of akaline flies.
Eh not all terminal all and seas are dead. The Aral Sea before it was drained supported fishing communities in its waters for exmaple.
@@baneofbanes that's because of how much freshwater was flowing into the Aral sea. It's the same with the Caspian it's not nearly as salty as the oceans and could be a whole lot saltier but it gets fed by lots of fresh water.
I'd imagine Nurn as being a place where the weather's always miserable, cloudy, and often rains, but still has farmland and is still fertile.
I'd imagine the people of Nurn would form their own kingdom, some might've gone home, but it's possible that there were second generation slaves who wouldn't have anywhere to go.
Incidentally, "Nurn" is the name of the planet in which the Elder Scrolls games are based.
tolkien left such huge fertile fields in his world for fan fiction of incredible quality to be grown without requiring anyone ever altering or violating the known lore he wrote, but no, hollywood and amazon just couldn't resist ruining yet another masterpiece by turning the tilling growing, and harvesting the vast possibilities the open roads into the wider world of the story offered. no, they had to try and make tolkien's work "theirs".
turned middle-earth into a landfill instead. a mordor in its own right. o, the irony ...
I am not sure how orcs are depicted is always correct. They are depicted as having basic iron working skills and as being pre-modern, quite backwards and tribal etc. But something Tolkien revealed to us about his Middle Earth and parallels to our world made me think twice about this. Tolkien said his work was not allegorical, but he did reveal one key thing that probably should make us think about orcs and Sauron's forces in a different way.
Tolkien had a romantic view of the old world. He treasured what he saw as idyllic village life in the English countryside. The actual shires of England. He valued living off the land and had a reverence for nature etc. Both the Hobbits and the Elves reflect that.
What Tolkien was not so happy about was the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the English shires that he loved so much. A darkness spreading over the land. He said so that this became a theme of his books. The industrial sprawl and urbanization. How it destroyed so many beautiful places. How villagers moved to the industrial centers and the effect that could have on them. It was quite often an effect Tolkien may have viewed as fallen or degenerate so to speak, e.g., slum living, drunkenness like during the gin craze, spread of diseases like typhoid and cholera in London, loss of traditional values as Tolkien would see it with his Catholic world view, etc, etc. Elves that had fallen and been twisted by that darkness.
Therefore, the urbanized industrial workers of the 1800s and early 1900s are the orcs. Less of a race, but more like a class within a social trend that Tolkien viewed as too destructive. If the orcs are the minions of that spreading darkness, then Sauron ruling with his commanders et cetera and bringing that to the entire world would represent the so called captains of industry. More advanced in a way according to how we view modern history, technological progress and modernized populations, but with it came what Tolkien called fell beasts and a corrupting darkness etc (due to its destructive effects).
During the early 1900s concern about the effects of industrial sprawl upon the land and upon people's lives were not uncommon. Watership Down is another book with a similar theme. Perhaps reactionary to an extent, but also valid. Industry and technological progress is positive and can produce vastly more of our material wants and needs than previous modes of human living, e.g., feudalism or pastoralism et cetera, but it can be very destructive in various ways too.
Ironically, this would make Yeskov's parody canon.
Makes sense that Nurn was Mordor’s economic bread basket as there was no way it could have fed itself and it’s massive armies without a massive agriculture food rich region right at its heart to make use of.
There was still trade with Rhun and Haradwaith
@@MerryMohProductions True, but trade lanes to rhun are not secure with that elvish kingdom sitting near the sea of rhun on the east side of it. Plus trade lines to both are long and time consuming to gather supplies in by.
@@wedgeantillies66 Yet they it's stated Sauron's southern and eastern allies paid tributes and fresh goods, booty and slaves
@@MerryMohProductions Indeed, but those supply lines are long and dangerous ones open to attack, disruption and blocking by the armies of the free peoples. Compared to Nurn, that is securely inside Mordor already and protected from attack by its myriad defences and armies.
4:11 I wouldn't expect Sauron's allies to have any legitimacy concepts like dignity and nobility to their government but fear. And slavery goes hand in hand with fear. I mean, they literally worship Melkor.
I was playing shadow of mordor and wondering this and then got this recommended after
Weird but good
Video request for Ciryatandor from MERP
In the game "Battle For Middle-Earth 2" Nurn exists as map in the game, the map is called "Mordor" but it's Nurn
Shots fired in the end.
Hi Darth!
Have you done a video specifically about Cair Andros?
I wonder if this is where Skyrim got -Nirn- from
On that note, Akatosh's name comes from one of Bethesda's old forum members named "AKA The Old Smaug Himself".
@@ElliotKeaton really eh Good to know
Apparently it's based on Lop Nur, in the Tarim Basin.
The real mystery is how Morgoth supported far larger armies of orcs, trolls, and wargs in Angband, which had no agricultural hinterland at all, only the Iron Mountains and the forbidding ice pack north of them. In theory Morgoth could have sent orc to cultivate crops in the fertile lands between the Blue and Misty Mountains, but the logistics would have been difficult and the crop land vulnerable to devastation by the Noldor.
Harondor next please?
I would really love to know what the east looked like. I know some of the Dwarven houses went east, and I wonder if they fared any better than the western houses?
Sry the video jumped from no nothing about nurn. To definitley more fertile and must be the breabasket? Did i miss it? Where is this information from?
I’ve always felt the SoM nurn must be what it looks like. How else would Sauron realistically feed his armies using Nurn if it was desolate or barely able to produce food? I feel the volcanic ash, a decently wet atmosphere, and the rivers feeding the sea must make the place rather lush and fertile.
I do wonder if maybe the the people don’t really have any specific origins? Like just a mix of everything lol. From haradrim to easterlings to black numenoreans from umbar to gondorian prisoners. But because most people there after Sauron’s defeat were born and raised there or have no home to go back to, decided to stay since the place ain’t horrible and they can now live freely there.
@Darth Gandalf what sort of food do you think could've been cultivated in Nurn?
I'm no farmer. Maybe grain? Wheat? Are they the same thing? I also think that there was probably a fair amount of animal husbandry going on.
@@DarthGandalfYT Fair enough
I thought Kursk was their breadbasket?
Lithlad next?
How green was my Balrog?
Tolkien was a master at languages and lore, but his world "building" skills left a lot to be desired. Be that as it may, it is still possible for all contradictions to be true at the same time. The lake could easily be like the Great Salt Lake or the Dead Sea, but it is the rivers that feed into the lake that provide the fertile crops. Moreover, Sauron's forces are orcs; we don't need high quality food products being grown here. It's quantity and not quality. The potential for volcanic soil was massive, but a lot of that potential was probably wasted by the need to keep food requirements simple for the orcs.
Giving Nurn to the former enslaved people of Mordor was possibly the smartest and most ethical move on Aragorn's part.
1. The cost and logistics of resettling a huge influx of refugees would have been an economic burden.
2. They probably had nothing to go back to in the very lands that enslaved them in the first place.
3. They were essentially being justly compensated for their forced labor by being awarded the land they were forced to cultivate. A similar idea was proposed after the American Civil war, which unfortunately never happened. And even though Nurn is a gloomy place of little value, they've worked on it long enough to know how to make it at least livable.
A small number of wildlife must've likely thrived in that region. Until men and orcs set foot.
During the war of the ring it would have been a good idea from the free peoples to launch a surprise attack on Nurn.
Maybe a few hundred troops trained in mountainous warfare.
If that would be successful, it would have forced Sauron to send forces to protect Nurn while also fighting Aragon and his army at the black gate.
It would have forced him into a two front war, he would have won given enough time but it would also mean that Aragorn's army would have a easier job at the black gate.
It would have also taken the war to the south of Mordor and forced Sauron to push his armies that way...directly through the lands Frodo and Sam were travelling and defeating Gandalf and Aragorn's whole reason for attacking in the first place.
@@morgant.dulaman8733 Ups.
Maybe my master plan wasn't that good 😅
@@ulbingelias6894 To be fair, it's still better than the time I thought it would be a good idea to make ramen noodles...flavored with Tang.
if its akin to the real life dead sea then I wonder if they used the salts for things like fertilizers and such. I believe its called Potash
I always assumed Nurn was inhabited by lower men, then Sauron enslaved them (possibly using Black Numenorean overlords to govern) and supplemented those salves with fresh slaves from the south or east.
0:51 morgai flies reference?
The volcanoes make the soil perfect for farming.
There's not much written about these lands because they're Nurn of your business!
This place looked very pretty in the game shadow of war
Nuner fish is back on the menu boys 🐟
I think all these LotR YT lore videos that keep appearing in my feed demonstrate while Tolkien was an amazing story teller his world building left something to be desired when it came to explaining the economy of Middle Earth and the lives of everyday people. i.e. where are all the trading posts, hamlets, farms, & small & medium towns that should dot the land? What's the system of government? Despotic feudalism? Does that mean all the common people are serfs? Ofc if Tolkien were reading this he'd likely say something to the effect "I wrote these stories to entertain myself and my children - stop being a pedantic NERD and don't read too much into the areas of my fantasy world that objectively make no sense..."
I think we are the nerds, who love the lore and want to expand it. Fanfiction, fanart, and Corporate reboots, remakes, and sequels/prequels.
Tolkien certainly didn't go into detail, but at the same time most of these areas do not have any other issues besides lacking detail. You can fill most of it by extrapolating or using your own imagination, which is fine as none of these things are that relevant to the stories.
"Makes no sense" . What haha.
Wowie ok, Nurn....Nirn....wonder where The Elder Scrolls got the name for the planet where the continent Tamriel is?
Sea of nurn is a left over part of the sea of helkar
Unless some sort of dark or different crops grow in nurn, it would have to be a green and lush place. Crops don’t grow in the dark
Look at where those rivers rise. That sea will be a salt lake…it doesn’t drain anywhere
Bitter sea/Bitter water historically meant salt water. I mean historically before christ, in the age of mesopotamian civilizations, the sea was always described as the bitter sea. In the first map ever, which was preserved on a cuneiform tablet has the world surrounded by a ring of water called "the bitter river". Very nice detail, that it appears here.
bagels are popular there
It's the Levant/dead sea. The ring is a metaphor for religion
Mordor would be Israel hehe
Volcanic environments also make the most fertile soil
Well, let's be honest, Sauron just wants the perfect order in the East.
That’s a character in LISA: The Painful.
Looks like Vegetables are on the table
Could it be possible to harvest fruits and vegetables there? We know, or at least it's heavily implied that orcs are omnivores, plus there were humans, both slaves and willing servants alike, so only having grains wouldn't be healthy for your troops. Not that Sauron would've been concerned with their wellbeing, but maybe even he acknowledged that a more varied diet with more nutritional value and daily serving of vitamins to keep them healthy and well fed to keep them functional if Sauron wants to maintain their usefulness.
Plus, the slaves are given that land after Sauron's defeat. I dont think anyone would stay in a land that could ONLY sustain grains; unless they were imported from Harad or Rhun, BUT I'm prolly overthinking it.
If the inland sea has no outlet, then it will be saltwater and thus "bitter" because it is undrinkable. This is the same as the bottom of Death Valley which is a place called "Bad Water" because it has a salty pond.
The water in the inland sea would not be suitable for agriculture, but the rivers feeding it absolutely would be. And if it is a large enough body of water, it could certainly also generate rain from evaporation.
The idea of pollution fits exactly with Tolkien's belief about nature & industry. I'm sure he would have thought that a body of water in the heart of the evil land would be polluted, poisoned, & dead from the irresponsible industry of Mordor.
Perfect for growing wheat to make stinking magotty bread
Do a video on lithlad!!!!
MERP actually had the people of Nurn speaking a common language, derived at least in part from Black Speech.
nice work 😎😎😎😎
Prefer breadbasket of Naan.