Rhudaur - The Traitor Kingdom
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- In this video, we look at the history of Rhudaur, the smallest and weakest of Arnor's successor states, and the first one that would fall to darkness.
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/ darthgandalf
At 10:10, I say that Arador lived in the Coldshaws. This is incorrect. Arador lived in the Coldfells. I somehow spliced Trollshaws and Coldfells into the "Coldshaws", a place that doesn't actually exist in Middle-earth.
I'm going to call those areas the Coldshaws in third age total war now
@@Funkopotomis
It's a cool name.
At least he didn't live in Coleslaw.
I like it
Rhuadur at the time of the war of the rings seems so interesting to me, empty lands with hills, darks forrests and dark towers, dangerous trolls. Wouldn't it be a great setting for a openworld game where you play a ranger who discovers orcs and hillmenn are gathering again to strike against the free people?
There are several problems with the idea of Bilbo or the trolls lying:
1. They get their food from somewhere. Mutton, cheese and beer aren't magic swords or golden coins, they get spoiled (or eaten by trolls) pretty quickly. So there must be some human settlements nearby so that the trolls were able th get those supplies from somewhere. And I think that Bilbo is quite reliable narrator when he describes food.
2. There is also description of clothes of trolls' victims. Should we believe that Bilbo himself invented such a grim detail for no reason?
3. Since we know that Arador lived near Trollshaws, we already have information that contradicts Aragorn's words that "No one lives here".
There are several possible explanations. Either Aragorn didn't know about recent human settlements in Rhudaur (that's unlikely), or he was lying (also unlikely), or he meant that no one lived in this land now (but somebody may had lived several decades ago). During the period from 2930 to 2952 Rangers were clearly weakened (they lost two chieftains and were leaderless until Aragorn became a new chieftain), and the period between 2930 and 2941 (when the Orcs of the Misty Mountains were defeated in the Battle of Five Armies) probably was the hardest, so some recent settlements in Rhudaur may be lost to Orcs and Trolls. Aragorn, speaking to a wounded Frodo, probably didn't want to tell him such grim and frightening story, so he decided to talk about ancient history instead.
Tolkien would probably condone that.
I actually missed the clothes, so that's a good point. They must've been reasonably recent because otherwise they would've rotted away. The idea that the trolls were getting at the Dunedain is a strong possibility.
In danger of it being already covered in this video… I’ll propose something that may or may not violate canon..
There are still hillmen of Angmar and Rhudaur. Men of stock similar to the Dunlendings that have lived in the region since before the arrival of Numenoreans in the mid second age.
Why I say it violates canon is that Tolkien tells us in one of the appendices that the evil hillmen of Angmar were all wiped out after the destruction of Arthedain and the collapse of Angmar. The implication is that none were left alive west of the Misty Mountains.
@@DarthGandalfYT Maybe not only/specifically at the Dunedain. There were other Men in Eriador (in Breeland, in Tharbad and so on), and when the Dunedain were strong enough to protect the region around Trollshaws, some settlers may come from those places to live there. But after the Dunedain were defeated, those settlers either fled away or get themselves killed (or enslaved) by the Orcs or eaten by the trolls.
@@user-yy5xs6xj7r
These explanations are convincing.
It should be added that Bilbo is actually a very trustworthy person, except on the topic of magic rings, something Gandalf himself confirms.
Always my favorite kingdom! Arthedain and Cardolan are just vanilla medieval realms, Rhudaur has that strong rustic "ruin" vibe!
Awesome title ! Totally got my attention . I must say, Rhudaur was one of the first regions that really activated my mythical imagination - when I read the Hobbit and Bilbo reported the forlorn ruins on the hills near the Great East-West Rd. So cool . Tolkien's art has an "Asian" quality in that he teases you- gives you just enough to get you hooked , but then stops short . The"empty spaces" and the unknown is precisely what it makes his work compelling . George Martin seems to be completely oblivious to this kind of artistic genius .
I agree and disagree both, because sometimes I'd rather know the details and Tolkien gave us maddening few of them. Such as who the nazgul were originally, I'd give much to know that honestly
And Martin does employ this too, but less often; only in the regions of myth in his story like Sothoryos, the Five Forts, and of course beyond the Wall
@@Captain_Insano_nomercy
Yeah, I see your point. I , too, would love to know something about the Nazgul ! The vast potential for other stories never told is definitely hard to swallow.
@@1CASSIODORUS the Blue Wizards, what happened to the Entwives, the other 4 clans of the dwarves, etc. I wish we had closure on certain things just a bit more
Asian quality? Let me guess, you love anime, wish you had a waifu and you have a very dodgy hentai collection. Grow up son.
Personally, i'd say that we don't need to know who nazgul were. It is part of their poetic fall - gaining immortality in literal sense, they lost a chance to be immortal in memory of their people. I like it tge way they are (exept Khamul, I don't wanna know his name, that buggs me. Why suddenly we know some random easterling and not one of three runemoreans? Oh, well, maybe it isn't really his name after all...)
Always love expanding my knowledge of Middle Earth. Thank you!
Only just found this channel today, but f*cking loving it already!
So much original content about things that are actually interesting and unexplored - not mindless repetitions of "What if Boromir took the ring? What if Galadriel took the ring? WHAT IF GANDALF TOOK THE RING OMG" until the end of time
I actually don't mind What ifs, since each RUclipsr has at least the chance to put a different spin on them (I think Men of the West has an interesting one with dwarves that surprised me with how dark it was, although I don't really care for the channel otherwise). What I find more annoying are the channels that do the umtieth "The Valar explained" video, using much of the same artworks as all the other channels in their videos. And that's why, at least to me, Girl Next Gondor, Darth Gandalf, Tolkien Untangled (much lore stuff but also great original content like his massive "How Amazon's The Rings of Power should have been written" series) and In Deep Geek (not the most original content, but Robert is just such a pleasant narrator) reign supreme :)
But hey, a colleague of mine is a huge LOTR fan who has read the books around five times already, but the Silm not even once and he likes those channels. So to each their own I guess...
This is absolutely fascinating. I've listened to this video at least 6 times. The more we can get on these failed states of the Numenoreans the better. It's tasty af.
I'm reading lotr for the first time and all this background lore gets me so hype
Solid overview of Rhudaur. You always do a good job when exploring these lesser known settings.
The "village and a half" that the Trolls ate could've been a settlement of Rangers. It's unlikely that three Trolls could've defeated a significant amount of Rangers, but maybe most of the fighting-age men were away.
I just found you recently but I love seeing all the shots from lotro, gives me good memories
That's interesting. Do we know WHERE the Witch-King comes from? Could he have been one of the dispossessed Dunedain living in Rhudaur? Might explain why he would be interested in the power one of the Nine Rings would give him and why he was interested in founding a northen kingdom for himself.
I find both Cardolan and Rhudaur quite interesting as regions. What stands out for Rhudaur though is how is it even possible for the Dunedain to linger around the Angle, with Angmar at their doorstep. That led me to believe that they were sent there by Argeleb either to settle the land or to act as secret operations and watch for the enemy KIND LIKE what the Ithilien Rangers did. Which would explain why they survived the fall of Arnor and why Aranarth went there. Simply, they were never discovered by the Witch-king.
Who knows? Perhaps this force of Dunedain at the Angle was the inception of the Rangers or a Grey company.
Fascinating.
Tolkien seemed to like to incorporate the "Robin Hood" style of outlaw among his Men, unwilling to either submit or to abandon their land... but only "outlaws" in the eyes of the evil usurper that took those lands. Beren, Turin, Tuor, Aragorn all lived that way for periods of their lives.
Never take the word of trolls. Even modern day trolls lie for no reason, and we can expect their ancestors to have been equally as troublesome.
Lol that’s a great point!
Never assume first that someone is blatantly lying.
It's much more likely that Aragorn wasn't entirely clear in his words. It was important to him to say that the trolls didn't build the towers and that the evil people who did are no longer around. Essentially, he wanted to communicate to Frodo that there is no danger despite the frightening landscape. Saying a land has long been empty doesn't necessarily mean it's completely uninhabited; you can describe a very sparsely populated area as "empty." However, based on Aragorn's words, I would assume that the villagers are not descendants of the original inhabitants, but rather new settlers.
Watching this 7 months later, and DG has not yet been killed or eaten by Trolls. Cheers! :)
Awesome lore for my The One Ring campaign
I have a Video Suggestion:
What if Beleriand hadn’t sunk after the War of Wrath?
Good question
Very good video cheers
Rhudaur got its name because the people living there were so rude. Get it? The people were "rude". You know, "Rude"... "Rhudaur"... Uhm... Hey folks - Try the veal!
Why should we try the veal? (knowing what the answer is going to be)
The Hillmen of Rhudaur seems to be the same people that are later called the Dunlendings.
Hmm, I've always been interested in the climate in Rhudaur. It seems like it might be semi-arid based on description so be less amenable to full sedentary settlements. But I'm not sure that fits with the size of Angmar's armies unless you assume Angmar's army was mostly orcs and they were supplied by Sauron from the south.
Sauron was formless and didn't have a fortress during this period.
I don't think Rhudaur was semi-arid, more so that the terrain was less suitable for settlement, and that being inland and higher in altitude left it colder than the rest of Eriador. As for Angmar's armies, it was a mix of both native Men and Orcs from the Misty Mountains. I don't think they were particularly large considering Gondor later crushed them, more that Arnor was just weak.
@@DarthGandalfYT Semi-arid would make sense based on the geography, though. The Misty Mountains would create a rain shadow.
“Cheers, farewell, and remember, remember, farewell, and cheers!” Poetry at its finest Lmao
Great video. Love Middle-Earth lore. Subscribed. :)
brilliant as ever
Have you played divided and conquer? If you beat the angmar faction you then get the raudaur units
It's definitely not canon, but in some of the old MERP RPG supplements they say that Rhudaur incorporated mines in the Misty Mountains on its eastern border. A plausible explanation for settlement on lands that are not very fertile.
MERP was awesome in thier attempt to fill in on things. Best maps of any rpg as well
Another interresting video!! Keep it up mate!
Rhudaur - the place is very much how its name sounds...
What was the reason for Dunedain settling in the Angle? Just close proximity to the elves? If their mission was to guard remaining civilisation in Eriador, there are better strategic options, like Weather hills or South Downs.
It was defensible, hidden, and out of the way. A perfect place for non-combatants. The Rangers themselves operated out of other places such as Sarn Ford, and possibly Fornost or near to it (they're said to visit it quite often).
You never miss
The people the trolls ate probably had moved east from Bree and weren't originally from there.
interestingly both middle earth nad narnia have ettinmoors
Etten (ettin) is just an archaic name for a giant.
Ent is derived from the same root.
See, The One Wiki to Rule Them All.
Where did Rhudaur and Angmar get these massive arimies. The population was so tiny in those areas with no way to support a large army/population
There is a pronunciation guide in the Silmarallion. All of the names mean something when you break them down by the syllables that make up the name.
Edain is “men”, pronounced Ed-a-In, with the I pronounced as a long E. That makes it Arth-Ed-a-In and Dun-Ed-a-In.
Mith- is “gray” and -Ithil is “brilliant”, “shining” or “bright”. That would mean the Mitheithil likely means the “bright gray” river or the “shining gray” river.
I've never heard Eriador pronounced the way this channel creator does it.
@@whiteknightcat I definitely don't pronounce everything correctly. I struggle with "th" due to a lisp, I can't roll my "r" because I speak English, and I generally just like to ruin words because I'm Australian. Generally, if people know what I'm talking about, I consider it a pass.
@@DarthGandalfYT The nightmare of it is that Tolkien was a professor of linguistics. It isn't just rolling your R.
Words like Edain have three syllables like a Finnish or a Native American pronunciation would. The last syllable is a glottal stop, which doesn't exist in English at all, but does in Native American words like Tsalagi or Tlingit, in Chinese Tsu or Tso and in Japanese like Tsushima.
@@DarthGandalfYT ....Us Americans too!
@@almitrahopkins1873 Anyone born in America is a native. You mean American Indians.
Where did the king of Rhudaur reside? Did Rhudaur have a capital?
That’s a great question. There doesn’t seem to be any remaining sign of such a place. It must have long ago decayed into ruins in some place off the beaten track that the characters in the story never came near.
I thought Arador was killed hunting trolls, he didn’t live in Coldfells.
i wonder how many dunedain lived in the angle. i imagine it wasn't more than a few villages or hamlets hidden in the woods
I've always thought the high number would be around 3,000-5,000, and the low number around 500.
Rhudaur seems like the kind of place where people live because they don't have a better choice or prefer/need to be isolated from others.
P.S. Does Australia have much of a troll problem? I'd think that would have made the news at some point!
We used to, but they all perished during the frequent out-of-control bushfires. Silver linings and all that.
@@DarthGandalfYT
Sad, but I suppose they'd have made upland areas unattractive places to live.
I shall remember that.
Cheers & farewell! 😂
With rhudaur Going bad how did arthedain maintain line of communication with imladris?
Good question. I'm guessing Rhudaur and Imladris were fine until Rhudaur sided with Angmar. I can't imagine the Dunedain of Rhudaur attacking Elven emissaries on their way to Arthedain.
Well since it was sieged quite often it may have been difficult but the successor states did have control of the River Gwathlo up till the Swanfleet (at least until Cardolan fell) so sending messages by ship would have been a more secure way of doing things. Also I don't know if the Elves of Lindon had some other ways of communication but they could have gone through them.
Video request: can we get a mysteries of middle earth video for the identities of the nazgul?
Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game and Shadow of War have some more Nazgul identities, but they are non-canon. I think the only canonical Nazgul names/identities are Witch-King of Angmar and Khamul the Easterling. 3 of the Nagzul IIRC were Numenorians.
That's it, I'm reinstalling RotWK
You are doing really well young Padawan, You should reward Yourself with a proper microphone ;-)
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