Skip to main content

the lord of the rings - Does the depiction of Uruk society in Shadow of Mordor have any basis in LotR canon?


We already know from the excellent answers on this question that the main storyline of Shadow of Mordor does not make a lot of sense in LotR canon.


But for me the most interesting part of Shadow of Mordor's story is the depiction of Uruk society, which the previous question's answers did not touch on at all. For those who haven't played the game:



  • Uruk are led by Captains. The most powerful Captains are called Warchiefs.

  • Warchiefs typically have one or more Captains as bodyguards.

  • There are five Warchiefs assigned to each region of Mordor.

  • When a Warchief dies, one of his bodyguards takes his place, even if that bodyguard was the one who killed him.

  • When an Uruk kills another Uruk of significant standing, he may cut off the defeated Uruk's ear and use that as proof of the kill.


  • Captains will regularly fight other Captains, sometimes in one-on-one duels, sometimes in larger battles.

  • Captains will regularly increase their power/influence by holding feasts, staging hunts for Ghuls/Caragors/Graugs, putting themselves through trials of strength, and recruiting new soldiers.

  • Most manual labor is done by human slaves, and the Uruk are--unsurprisingly--extremely cruel masters.

  • The Uruk armies are most likely fed by food grown around the Sea of Nurnen (this is the only item in this list that I could find evidence for on the LotR wiki)


Does mainstream LotR canon discuss Orc/Uruk society at all? If so, does it support what was depicted in the game? Or did Monolith simply make up all of this?



Answer



There is certainly a rank of captain in Mordor's army.



By all the signs, Captain Shagrat, I'd say there's a large warrior loose...




(The Choices of Master Samwise)


Some provisions for Mordor's army are provided by slave-worked farms around the Inland Sea of Nurnen.



Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the fumes of the Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake Nurnen; nor of the great roads that ran away east and south to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the Tower brought long waggon-trains of booty and fresh slaves.



(The Land of Shadow)


It's reasonable to assume that the slaves mentioned here are human, though we don't know much about the lands east and south of Mordor. The rest has no basis in the LotR or other Tolkien canon, as far as I know. (You might find something similar in Middle-Earth Roleplaying (MERP) books, though.)


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more