Talk:Isengard/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Hog Farm (talk · contribs) 18:39, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for taking this on. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:35, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Criteria

1. Prose ✓ Pass

2. Verifiability ✓ Pass

3. Depth of coverage ✓ Pass

4. Neutrality ✓ Pass

5. Stability ✓ Pass

6. Illustrations ✓ Pass

7. Miscellaneous ✓ Pass

Comments

1.

• Wikilink Palantír

Done.

• Wikilink Orcs as a piped link to Orc#Tolkien

Done.

• "The Orcs of Isengard bore upon their shields a White Hand on a black field." - In Middle-earth, the White Hand is a proper noun, but it's used as a common noun here, in whichc case it would be lowercase.

Said "the symbol of the White Hand".

• In the infobox, you give the years Saruman ruled Isengard, but this isn't cited or in the text. These years should either get a citation, or be removed (Third Age years aren't going to mean much to most readers, so I'd lean remove)

Done.

• "led by a hereditary Captain" - Not sure Captain should be capitalized here

Fixed.

• "Gradually the messages from Minas Tirith decreased" - First time messages are mentioned, so it sticks out as a little funny. Maybe a different wording that makes it clear that it's contact from Minas Tirith in general should be used.

Reworded.

• Some duplicate links, such as Gondor (maybe more, didn't check them all).

Removed.

• Éothéod and Rohirrim link to the same section of Rohan (Middle-earth), should the both be linked.

Fixed.

• "Helm Hammerhand, a Dunlending Lord, Freca and his son Wulf nearly managed to destroy the Rohirrim" - This makes is sound like Helm is Dunlending, which he was not.

Well spotted! Reworded.

• Bunch of duplicate links in the War of the Ring section

Removed.

• "received Théoden King of Rohan, Aragorn and Gandalf at the gates.[T 2] Gandalf spoke with Saruman and broke his staff. Grima Wormtongue threw the Orthanc palantír, a stone of seeing, at the party;[T 3] both Pippin and Aragorn later used it, seeing and deceiving Sauron as to the Fellowship's intentions.[2]

After his defeat, Saruman was confronted by Théoden King of Rohan, Gandalf and Aragorn, at which time Gríma Wormtongue, Saruman's servant, threw the palantír at the group.[T 3]" - Is the last sentence of this section even necessary? It's basically the same thing as the previous two.

Good catch, removed.

• "During the Fourth Age, when Aragorn had been crowned as King Elessar ("Elfstone"), he visited Orthanc, finding there heirlooms of Isildur, among them the Elendilmir, the Star of Arnor, and the small gold case on a chain that Isildur had used to carry the One Ring, evidence that Saruman had found and apparently destroyed Isildur's remains.[T 8][3]" - Shouldn't this be in the Fourth Age section, instead of the War of the Ring section?

Moved and copy-edited.

• "note in their Reader's Companion to Lord of the Rings" - In my opinion, it would be better to use the book's exact title.

Or perhaps we needn't mention it at all? Let's try without.

• Palantir is capitalized in the homogenity of evil section, but in lowercase and italics elsewhere. Usage should be consistent.

Lower case it is.

• "the Dwarves, the Elves, the Druadan, and the Shire leads to diversity," - I think the entries in this list that haven't been wikilinked elsewhere should probably be wikilinked for context.

Done.

• "The so-called miniature of Orthanc" - Huh? What does "so-called miniature" mean?

It was so big they called it a "bigature": the scale and height are already given - they found it hard to call a 15 metre tower "miniature". Reworded.

2

3.

• Okay, in the industrial hell section: I think WP:UNDUE would probably limit this to a couple sentences, but is there any other scholarly assessment of Tolkien's views on technology that can be added to give a little background? He does seem to give favor to the more rustic kingdoms (The Shire, Rivendell, Rohan, etc.), but I don't know if this is discussed in scholarly sources.

Added a few other scholars' takes on the same thing.

4.

5.

6.

7.

• The lead is in the present tense, but the fictional history is in the past tense. Is there a reason for this change?

Fixed.

• Orthanc is linked in the infobox, but it's just a circular link to a section in the same page that no longer exists. Same with the pillar of the White Hand.

Fixed.

• Should the War of the Ring section be a lower-level heading than the Third Age section, since the War of the Ring is part of the Third Age?

Ah, I see. I've renamed the other sections to suit the context better. The War is of course the main action.

• Should Orcs#Tolkien and Uruk-hai be linked back to back, since they link to essentially the same place?

Merged the links, they're the one group of beasties.

That's it, Hog Farm (talk) 02:27, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap - Looks good, passing now. Hog Farm (talk) 15:20, 30 March 2020 (UTC)