Talk:Battle of the Pelennor Fields/Archive 1

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Untitled

I'm presuming somebody who doesn't speak english as a mother tongue wrote this, because although the content is good the grammar is appalling. Saccerzd 03:34, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Notes:

Contrary to popular belief, the name given to the inhabitants of Gondor, "Gondorians" is incorrect. Originally hailing from the island kingdom of Numenor, their correct name is Numenorians.

The original colonists/refugee Numenorians who founded Gondor after Numenor was destroyed could be called Numenorians because they lived there, but the inhabitants that were there 3,000+ years later were not. For example, Elendil, Isildur, Anarion, and the soldiers of Gondor seen fighting at the Battle of Dagorlad when Sauron is first defeated, are "first generation" Gondorians: they came from Numenor, and many had lived there, but were part of the new nation of Gondor. But by Third Age 3019 (3019 years later), they could no longer be called "Numenorean". They were of Numenorean descent, but the more common term for this is "Dunedain"="Man of the West" (Dun=west, Edain=Men, Numenor was the furthest West mortal land until its destruction). This term of course could apply to anyone descended from Numenorean realms-in-exile: namely, the sister-realm of Gondor, Arnor.

Case-in-point, Aragorn and the Rangers of the North are the last survivors of Arnor, the north-kingdom. Thus, they are also "Dunedain"; in fact, Aragorn is repeatedly refered to in the books as "Dunadan" ("westman") notably by Bilbo. So without question, these men were Dunedain, and thus also "Numenoreans".

>>>>Arnor and Gondor used to be one big kingdom ruled by the High-King Elendil, before Sauron killed him in the final battle (Isildur was also briefly High-King). Elendil was the leader of the Numenorean survivors. Thus, all the inhabitants of Elendil's realm were "Numenoreans" (for the first generation anyway). When the kingdom politically split into Arnor and Gondor, the inhabitants of both countries were still both called "Numenoreans". Thus to refer to late Third Age Gondorians as "Numenoreans" would exclude the fact that they aren't the only Numenorean descendants. But that is not the main reason your reasoning is wrong:

"Contrary to popular belief, the name given to the inhabitants of Gondor, "Gondorians" is incorrect."

The inhabitants of Gondor in the 3019th year of the Third Age are correctly named "Gondorians". Only the original founders of Gondor, the first generation, were also called "Numenoreans". By the later date, they were "Gondorians". I am now going to go through this entire wiki and replace every improper "Numenorean" insertion you made with their original wiki: "Gondorians".

Calling the Third Age Gondorians "Numenoreans" is like calling the 20th century Scots "Irishmen", because their ancestors came to Scotland from Ireland. Ausir 12:44, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Can any of you folks cite a reference from Tolkien to the term "Gondorian"? I'm not trying to dispute it, I just want to be able to commit one way or the other. It's certainly not a term as frequently and clearly used as "Rohirrim". --Aranel 00:35, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I pretty sure 'Gondorian' was never used in the books.. it should be just 'Gondor' as in the Gondor armies etc. Astrokey44 09:21, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. 'Gondorian' never was used in the books but, to be honest, does it really matter? Apart from the ancient Numenoreans and a few barbarian races (the Haradrim, for example) Tolkien never really named the various races of Man in Middle-Earth, therefore we can probably use whatever term we wish as long as people can understand the terminology. Encyclopedias such as Wikipedia may strive to have perfect accuracy, but sometimes that's not possible. It's a fine idea to strive for this perfect accuracy, but it's not really worth wasting countless irreplacable hours of our relatively short lives on one single term such as 'Gondorians'. In any case, how do we even know that's the correct spelling? Couldn't it be 'Gondoreans'? Such a point is debatable, and human beings are the most prominent known being for the collection of knowledge (and therefore have a practical duty to be correct in this knowledge) but really, is the small term 'Gondorian' worth such discussions? We will never be certain unless a definite reference is unearthed from somewhere in Tolkien's effects or maybe in some hitherto unstudied corner of his books (if such a thing is possible) but as that's not likely to happen, I feel that we should stick to whatever we feel is correct. Use whichever of the many terms you wish for this discussion page, but leave the Wiki entry as it is. It's perfectly fine, as all can understand it. --Lord Akria 18:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

I think though that as Tolkien-scholars we should look for a canonical term while distiguishing between the "Golden Age of Gondor" when Numenorean blood was strong and after the "golden age" when the line of Numenorean blood become "diluted" so to speak because Tolkien seems to take to contrasting these two epochs. As the Numenorean blood became "diluted" Gondor's former glory seems to fade. A key period in time would be the diversion of Isildur's line after his death in distinguishing between NUMENOREANS and "Gondorian"/Dunedain. Dunedain seems the most canonical distinguishing term between NUMENOREAN and "Gondorian". Please consider an amateur tolkien scholar's spouting.--Randalllin 05:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

To Akria (and I apologize for the long overdue rebuttal) -- an emphatic yes, it certainly does matter, and most importantly, it would matter to Tolkien. You need to remember that he was first and foremost a philologist, and a professor of Anglo-Saxon besides. He was a stalwart linguist, and would not suffer the ignorance of a famous lit critic who misspelled Gandalf ('Gandalph', sic), writing a response to the man's complete lack of understanding that 'ph' is a Latin diphthong, whereas 'f' is the proper form for an Anglo-Saxon based name. Tolkien's languages are constructed from various real (albeit dead or dying) languages and/or dialects. In his Tolkien's own words (originally having appeared in The Letters of JRR Tolkien):

The invention of languages is the foundation... The "stories" were made rather to provide a world for the languages than the reverse...

(source: The Road To Middle Earth, by Tom Shippey, page 25 [paperback edition])

Ryecatcher773 06:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

'Gondorian' is used occasionally by Tolkien - e.g., in 'Cirion and Eorl' ('In the days of Cirion Angrenost was still manned by a guard of Gondorians') and the preface to 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil' (where Firiel is described as a 'Gondorian name, of High-elvish form'). But Numenorean/Race of Numenor/Men of Numenor seems to have remained in use in some story-internal contexts as late as the War of the Ring. Saruman claims that there is 'no hope left in Elves or dying Numenor', Boromir that 'If any mortals have claim to the Ring, it is the men of Numenor', Faramir (referring to post-downfall generations in Gondor) notes that 'the Numenoreans still, as they had in their old kingdom, and so lost it, hungered after endless life unchanging', Eowyn asks 'Was there no woman of the race of Numenor to choose?', the barrow blade is called 'work of Westernesse' (Numenor), though made in Arnor, etc. Probably they still thought of themselves as Numenoreans just as the people of the Byzantine empire considered themsleves 'Roman', though the seat of power had shifted east. 'Dunedain' could correctly be used to refer to either the original pre-downfall Numenoreans, or to their descendants in the Realms in Exile; Gil-galad refers to 'the ancient friendship of Eldar and Dunedain' when writing to the king of Numenor ('Aldarion and Erendis') Bilbo translates Dunadan as 'Man of the West, Numenorean.', Aragorn is 'Chief of the Dunedain in the North', Frodo realises that Faramir's group are 'Dunedain of the South', etc.

Rdwperl (talk) 19:44, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Gondorian is the correct term to use in the context of this page. All the people ruled by the Stewards were Gondorian but not all Gondorians were of Numenorean stock. Forlong of Lossarnach was specifically stated to be of non-Numenorean origins, but he was a noble of Gondor. Northmen are mentioned as migrating into Gondor and becoming part of the population.

Urselius (talk) 18:56, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Strength of Forces

I found this change on ~~August~~ April 14, 2005:

"The Forces 1

Note 1 : There cannot have been 200,000 orcs because the Host of the West (6000 strong) was outnumbered eleven or twelve times by the Army in the Black gate (around 70,000 strong) in the Battle of the Morannon .Gandalf and Denethor clearly found that there was a greater force remaining in Mordor than the one which attacked Cair Andor, Osigiliath, the coasts, Linhir, Anorien and Minas Tirith. So their Total cannot have exceeded 60,000 strong. "

Look snaga, Gandalf during The Last Debate said that the forces of Mordor at Pelennor Fields were only about a tenth of his full strength. A MAJOR point you don't seem to grasp is that they were rushing to attack Sauron before he could gather all of his forces, or tricking him into attacking before he was ready. Thus, while it's fairly certain that around 60,000 were arrayed against the Army of the West at the Black Gate, it was NOT his entire army.

Your logic seems to be "Gandalf said Mordor had more armies, and because we know the forces At the Black Gate were 60,000, surely the Pelennor Forces must have been fewer"---->The Black Gate isn't the only part of Mordor. Given only two weeks, Sauron could not bring all of his forces to the Black Gate, just the ones around Gorgoroth.

I got the impression that Sauron may have had a standing army of up to a half-million strong, not just in Mordor but spread over all of Middle-earth.

Also, as you may recall, Aragorn goaded Sauron using the Palantir into launching his attack on Minas Tirith earlier than he wanted to and "the hasty stroke oft goes astray". The Pelennor Fields army was smaller than it should have been; he couldn't gather all of his armies to send out in time.

Bottom line: Pelennor Fields had maybe ~200,000, Black Gate only 60,000...and even more large armies were in Mordor that couldn't get to the Black Gate in time.

Further, the Battle of Pelennoor Fields is repeatedly refered to as the "greatest battle of the age"...meaning it was bigger than the Battle of the Morannon. ---Ricimer

Okay, you win but I still think that there is no way that 25,000 of the West could have defeated 200,000 orcs (as you say Ricimer) and have had 9000 remaining (as you say Ricimer) unless aragorn bought two million with him.- NanoBoy

Actually: The Orcs were leaderless at that point, and as I mentioned Eomer and Aragorn caught them in a pincers move. Most importantly, Aragorn brought ~10,000 men of Gondor's Southern Army, fully fresh to the battle while the Mordor forces had been continuously fighting since the night before (Aragorn arrived at about noon). Plus, numbers don't quite matter: a principle is that Orcs have a "quantity over quality" policy, as one Orc usually isn't a match for a Gondorian but by sheer weight of numbers they can overwhelm. Plus, the forces of Mordor had essentially no cavalry, while the Riders of Rohan were all mounted. As for "9,000 remaining", they left Minas Tirith in 2 days with 7,000 men, while they said they left a skeleton crew guarding the city, but they weren't worried about that because in a matter of days more men from southern Gondor (now liberated from the Corsair attack) would be arriving north and actually be able to garrison more men inside than were already there. And actually, it was less than that: it wasn't "25,000 defeating 200,000" it was ~3,000 in the city, 6,000 Rohirrim, and ~10,000 from the coasts. How many times can I stress this: under 20,000 Free Folk could defeat a 200,000 Mordor army because Mordor stresses quantity over quality, have poor archers, no cavalry, and poor tactics.---Ricimer

NONE of this matters at all since Tolkien DOES NOT say how many orcs and defenders of the city there were... the numbers given about those force should be removed IMMIDIATLY Ariakas 08:11, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

I have changed the strength box to what is certainly known from the book, since one of the numbers (4000 in Minas Tirith) cannot possibly be true.

I have found the following references:

6000 Rohirrim, number given by King Theoden
somewhat less than 3000 from the south arriving before the city is besieged watched by Pippin (with the given single contingent numbers adding up to 2000)
Northern army retreating from Osgiliath and Pelennor Wall with 2/3 strength remaining, but no number given.
When Faramir was retreating to the Pelennor Wall after Saurons forces won the crossing over Anduin his forces (Northern Army) were ten times outnumbered. This number probably includes those forces that later block the road to Anorien and do not participate in the battle. 85.176.84.13 22:11, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

"...under 20,000 Free Folk could defeat a 200,000 Mordor army because Mordor stresses quantity over quality, have poor archers, no cavalry, and poor tactics.." Mordor doesnt stress quantity over quality - Place a single Dunedain knight against a single Olag-hai and you have one very dead knight. Mordor builds them big, cunning, strong and fast, it also makes loads of them. Sauron was continuously trying to improve his soldiers. From snaga orcs to Uruk-hai, from Dumb mountain trolls to Olag-hai.
By the way, why does it indicate Gothmog died? Perhaps I'm wrong but I cant remember the books specifically saying he died/was killed.--Gorthaur 13:33, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

In answer to this year-and-a-half old post: He was invented by Peter Jackson, so he didn't exist in the first place.213.202.135.8 (talk) 17:20, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Lesser battering rams

I removed the part that says that before Grond other, smaller, battering rams were used. I couldn't find any mention of this in the book. And why would you spend all that effort to make Grond if you weren't going to use it? (Yes, I am aware the other rams are in the movie.) Eric119 00:20, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Corsairs of Umbar

The corsairs played a little roll in the beggining of the battle just before Aragorn's army took over them. They were responsible for the thieving frenzy that destroyed at least every small town at the banks of the river Pelennor. DarthPlaegis; 03:10 (UTC); October 1, 2005

Gondorians vs. Gondor

I still think we can use the name "Gondorians". Nonetheless, I feel that the last edit handled it deftly: originally it was changed to read "Gondor" which actually doesn't work if you're saying "5,000 Gondor"; however the recent "5,000 Men of Gondor" edit really got it down. --Ricimer 17:23, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The Siege of Minas Tirith

During the Siege of Minas Tirith (incidentally a separate entity from the battle of the Pelennor Fields; the Battle was begun some minutes before the Siege ended but then the Charge of the Rohirrim interrupted the actual siege) the Black Host didn't use their catapults against the walls themselves, did they? I seem to remember that any bombardment would have had no effect against the Gondorians themselves, as the walls were like those of Orthanc, impenetrable by normal means. The Ents hurled themselves against Orthanc when they became furious during the Siege of Isengard but still had no effect, and the soldiers of Gondor laughed at the Orcs because the Gondorians thought that the Orcs would fire catapults against the walls. Therefore, shouldn't the Wiki entry say that the bombardment was directed against the Gondorians themselves, not the walls of Minas Tirith, so as to avoid confusion?

Complete destruction of Sauron's army?

The infobox says that casualties on the side of Mordor were "Complete destruction of army of Sauron" - yet there were still tens of thousands of troops still inside Mordor. In light of this I think it would be better to say the entire attacking force was destroyed - not the whole army. --UrbaneLegend 11:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I take your point, but when you send some men to battle, whether seven men or seven thousand, you send AN army. An army sent to a battle is not necessarily the entire army of that nation/man (eg., the Territorial Army is a part of the overall, generally referred to British Army (and in any case, you could also argue that a division is an army inside an army)). Therefore, we can say that Sauron sent an army to the Pelennor Fields and so, by inference, we can say that the army was completely destroyed. The army belongs to Sauron, and therefore that ALSO means that 'Sauron's army' can be used as a correct term, both under the laws of English English and American English. This particular article is in English, and so while that may not be true in various other languages under that particular language's rules of grammar, in English it is grammatically correct. Lord Akria 13:04, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Werent some of them taken prisoner? so it wouldnt be the complete destruction -- Astrokey44|talk 13:19, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

From the book: All were slain save those who fled to die, or to drown in the red foam of the River. Few ever came eastward to Morgul or Mordor, and to the land of the Haradrim came only a tale from far off: a rumour of the wrath and terror of Gondor. Yes, there were some survivors, but in military terms the army was completely destroyed, as there was nothing left that could be regrouped into a fighting force. Nevfennas 08:01, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

The first movie image is inappropriate...

...since it shows the siege of Minas Tirith rather than the battle proper. Could someone get a another screenshot (or even better, a fair use illustration)? Uthanc 08:27, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

No, don't bother. It would just be another timy picture that tells you nothing. 72.182.33.219 (talk) 01:49, 2 December 2014 (UTC) Eric

This Article Requires Cleanup

It appears that some editors began writing this article from a book source and did not specify the events of the battle as it was before. --DarthPlagueis 13:15, 15 November 2006 (UTC)DarthPlagueis, 09:13, November 15, 2006 (UTC)

Without order?

"charged his cavalry headlong (and without order)"

Seems to me that the charge was a series of wedges, which would be logical. Even against spears a sufficiently motivated heavy cavalry can prevail, as Philip II Macedon proved in Greece.

Settling some details

In the book, Oliphaunts, not trolls, drew the siege towers. Grond was drawn by great beasts, most probably Oliphaunts, and wielded by trolls:

Ever since the middle night the great assault had gone on. The drums rolled. To the north and to the south company upon company of the enemy pressed to the walls. There came great beasts, like moving houses in the red and fitful light, the mûmakil of the Harad dragging through the lanes amid the fires huge towers and engines. Yet their Captain cared not greatly what they did or how many might be slain: their purpose was only to test the strength of the defence and to keep the men of Gondor busy in many places. It was against the Gate that he would throw his heaviest weight. Very strong it might be, wrought of steel and iron, and guarded with towers and bastions of indomitable stone, yet it was the key, the weakest point in all that high and impenetrable wall.

The drums rolled louder. Fires leaped up. Great engines crawled across the field; and in the midst was a huge ram, great as a forest-tree a hundred feet in length, swinging on mighty chains. Long had it been forging in the dark smithies of Mordor, and its hideous head, founded of black steel, was shaped in the likeness of a ravening wolf; on it spells of ruin lay. Grond they named it, in memory of the Hammer of the Underworld of old. Great beasts drew it, Orcs surrounded it, and behind walked mountain-trolls to wield it.

The gate was hit four times before it burst, the last three with Grond magically enhanced:

The drums rolled and rattled. With a vast rush Grond was hurled forward by huge hands. It reached the Gate. It swung. A deep boom rumbled through the City like thunder running in the clouds. But the doors of iron and posts of steel withstood the stroke.

Then the Black Captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone.

Thrice he cried. Thrice the great ram boomed. And suddenly upon the last stroke the Gate of Gondor broke. As if stricken by some blasting spell it burst asunder: there was a flash of searing lightning, and the doors tumbled in riven fragments to the ground.

All from ROTK, "The Siege of Gondor". Uthanc 09:25, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Ttom's info - now on Middle-earth warfare

I thought it was in the wrong article, so I moved it here with minor formatting tweaks. Uthanc 08:17, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I think this can help reduce gross speculation on strengths and help develop a regular, defensible, referenced language format to describe Me battles and wars. To that end, a separate article would be fine if it can be somehow linked to as a reference itself somehow. What do you think?Tttom1 13:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, would you consider putting the section on the War of the Ring back into Pelennor Fields, its pertinent to the article, its fairly well referenced with straight forward calculations and can stand on its own?Tttom1 18:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I used some of your stuff, but the War of the Ring section is too general; some info would be better suited in Battle of the Morannon. Anyway, the content can be now found on Middle-earth warfare (so I removed it here). Uthanc 08:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Eowyn-wiki.jpg

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Fair use rationale for Image:Rideoftherohirrim.jpg

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Fair use rationale for Image:Pelennor-armies.jpg

Image:Pelennor-armies.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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Regarding Grond and how many licks it took to get to the center...

There seems to be some conflicting reports between this article and the article on Grond...

Aided by spells laid on it by the Witch-king of Angmar, lord of the Ringwraiths, and the :spells cast upon it during its forging in Mordor, Grond destroyed the formidable gate of Minas :Tirith in just three blows.

No mention of the first "pre-enhanced" blow. Curious. Ryecatcher773 06:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Corrected it, though it's more precise here. See just above: Talk:Battle_of_the_Pelennor_Fields#Settling_some_details Uthanc 12:17, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

prod

this page was proposed for deletion, with the following rationales: "This does not follow Wikipedia WP:NOTE standards and is an extraordinarily too-detailed article on a fictional event which amounts to a detailed plot summary. This should not be merged, as it is already discussed on the main page of the War of the Ring, and its present summary on the War of the Ring page is suitable enough. Furthermore, this nomination for deletion is to bring universal enforcement in-line with the recent decision to delete the Second Battle of Hogwarts article for reasons of excessive plot summary, notability violations, and fan cruft. (Proponents' arguments in favor of deletion found here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Second battle of Hogwarts) These same arguments are applicable to Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Evidently Wikipedia is not a fansite, be it Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, and this article violates this tenet."

I deprodded , and suggested that it possibly might be better to send to afd, because it will probably be controversial. Personally, I think a merge would be in order because some of the detail here is significant. But the main article seem to be clearer and better written. Just my 2 cents. DGG (talk) 07:08, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvement

More critical response - crucial.
Perhaps the adaptations section could be boiled down to each version's deviations from the book? Uthanc 05:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Fictional conflict infobox

(copied from User talk:Carcharoth)

I see you've deleted Template:Infobox fictional conflict from the Battle of the Pelennor Fields article. It was specially created for such pages (contrast with Template:Infobox Military Conflict), and half of the details that were conveniently placed in it you incorporated instead into the (overlong) leading section. Why? Súrendil 18:34, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if you found that a bit abrupt. Given the AfD, I was looking at the article with a ruthless eye and with a thought for how the article might look without the infobox - I never presume any article needs an infobox, as I find infoboxes can distort things better presented as prose. My problem with this infobox was the way that it puts an emphasis on commanders, numbers and other things, an emphasis that is not found in the book. Using infoboxes initially designed for real battles has never made much sense for me as far as fictional battles go. It turns a literary article into a Top Trumps card game. Also, infoboxes should, in my view, only summarise information found in the article - they are an alternative way to access the information, and all the information in the infobox should be presented as prose as well. About the lead section: it is not overlong. A lead section should summarise the article and can be several paragraphs long if need be. We should probably discuss this further on the article talk page. I'll copy this there. Carcharoth 19:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Then seemingly we just disagree on the usefulness of infoxes. IMHO, some minor details that are mentioned both in the leading section as it stands now and further in the article can be conveniently placed in the infobox instead of leading text, e.g. fictional date and place. The same goes for adaptations (and possibly earlier versions): a short list in 'Depictions' part of infobox would look better for me than an embedded list. All this, though, is a matter of taste. About emphasis on troop sizes etc. - as far as I know, most of this is material contributed by Tttom and is intended to be supplied by Middle-earth warfare article. This is of course not in the book, but Tttom's material seems to be quite referenced and justified. Moreover, isn't it the purpose of Wikipedia to provide additional information to the book? The (approximate at the least) numbers seem quite handy. Súrendil 20:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, I think the Middle-earth warfare article is original research. It is very interesting stuff, but it is synthesising separate material to reach a novel conclusion. I would expect to read about it in a book, or on a website, or in an academic journal, but not on Wikipedia. As for this article, can we try and edit it without an infobox for a while, and then consider how best to dseign an infobox on Middle-earth battles? I think that we will have to design one that works for Tolkien's works, rather than use one designed for fictional battles in general. Pick out the 4 or 5 most important things you would want to know about battles in Tolkien's writings, and then consider if those items can be provided for all battles you want to put an infobox on. For example: book it appears in; location; date; characters present; characters who die in the battle. Keep it minimal and avoid things like "sides" and "results" and "commanders", and "numbers", as such things are not always clear, they attract speculation and controversy, and such things are best treated in the article itself anyway. How does this sound? Carcharoth 21:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

? Template:Infobox Me battle? This does not include sections for casualities etc. which are most likely to be counted as OR, but has 'books' and 'adaptations' entries. Since all parametres are optional, it can either be used as a simple list of facts, with or without 'result' and 'participants', or in a more classical way - divided in two with combatants etc. In either case participants is to be used as more appropriate in M-e context than 'commanders'. Súrendil 13:01, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I like it! I'm going to use it here, and once we've tried it on a few articles (I suggest Nirnaeth Arnoediad next, as in your example), we can ask for opinions and then roll it out across the ME-battle articles. Carcharoth 21:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

As now the article is going to be kept on a shaky standard at best, the battle info box at least should be maintained. Prose is inneficient and the battle box provides primary details for the engagement which is an incredibly useful tool for a battle-article. The reader needs a clear and concise table laying it out for them, as the fan-cruft-prose fails on that count. Auror 14:50, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

You are missing the point. This is an article about a fictional world first, and an article about a battle second. Battle infoboxes are useful for real battles, but are not useful for fictional battles (unless you want to pretend that the fictional battles are real). In other words, don't write as an inhabitant of Middle-earth describing the battle, but write as an inhabitant of this world, describing the battle in its fictional context and its relation to the real world (author, readers, adaptations, literary analysis, and so on). Do you see the difference. Read the guideline on writing about fiction, where it says "infoboxes meant for real-world entities should not be applied to their fictional counterparts, since, for example, information important to a description of a real-world company may be tangential to a fictional one". Now have a look at Template:Infobox fictional conflict - "Adapted from Template:Infobox Military Conflict. The parameters are the same, apart from the addition of a mandatory 'depictions' parameter." - this is a classic case of inappropriately copying a real-world example. What should have happened is that the template for fictional battles should have been designed from scratch. Carcharoth 20:48, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

edits

Firstly I made an error with my first edit, and a bot thought I was vandalising. Rectified that now. I removed duplicated info, some stuff in the wrong place, and shortened - manual of style tells us that a plot synopsis should be brief.87.102.36.162 00:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Aragorn leading dead.jpg

Image:Aragorn leading dead.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 07:21, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Uncertainty in the nature of Imrahil's force

Tolkien mentions "Knights of Dol Amroth" and "men-at-arms" as forming Imrahil's force. In the wiki text it says knights and infantry, the words used by Tolkien cannot be assumed to mean this. Tolkien was a scholar of the Middle Ages (specialising in Anglo-Saxon and Middle English) and the original meaning of "men-at-arms" (Gens-d'armes, gendarmes, in French) was "fully armoured horseman," knight was a social grade. A knight would serve as a man-at-arms if going to war but not all men-at-arms were knights (they could be 'esquires' such as Geoffrey Chaucer's son when he fought at Agincourt, or even landless mercenaries). Assuming that Tolkien meant 'infantrymen' when he used the term "men-at-arms" is profoundly unsafe.

The general assumption that 'man-at-arms' means "low-grade footsoldier" seems to derive from a mistaken use of the term in role-playing literature and post-dates the writing of LOTR by many years.

Urselius (talk) 13:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

External links modified

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Critical response

The "Critical response" section doesn't actually say anything about the battle.--Jack Upland (talk) 08:55, 27 December 2019 (UTC)