the lord of the rings - How large were Saruman's and Sauron's armies?

I was pondering about Saruman's role as an opportunist ally of Sauron, when I realized that I had absolutely no idea how strong his army was compared to Sauron. We know Saruman fielded an impressive war economy in the relatively compact area of Isengard, and Sauron had behind him the might of the entire realm of Mordor, also implied to be heavily geared towards military production. Both have an obvious numerical superiority in the battles they fight.

However, I have no idea at all how large their armies were, overall. It is implied that Saruman's army was mostly gone after Helm's Deep, so I guess Sauron, who manages to keep fighting despite the crushing casualties at Pelennor fields, has by far more soldiers under his command. I'd like to see numbers, though. Is there anything in canon about the total amount of troops Saruman and Sauron could muster?

Answer

As noted by Richard in the comments, there isn't any definitive figure for Sauron's army, but we could guess anywhere upwards of 50,000 due to this bit of text, taken from Richard's link here:

Mordor's troops consisted of some 18,000 Easterlings and Haradrim,[2] several Haradrim war Oliphaunts, and tens of thousands of Orcs.

Again Saruman's army in the Battle of Hornburg is not specified, rather just an army "of great size". However the films mention 10,000 Uruk Hai. Not much is said about what is left of the army after that battle, and Saruman himself flees to Hobbiton with a group of men nearby and set up a thug gang calling himself "Sharkey".

Expanded analysis:

The important thing to note here, which you touched base with in the question, is that Tolkien implies technology, progress and military regime as bad and evil. The more natural Elves and Hobbits are depicted ultimately as good and innocent, and Man falls somewhere inbetween, which I personally feel is very fitting for the post-1900 world.

The idea of a huge "machine" of military is very much the depiction of evil Tolkien witnessed as a soldier in WWI, and his witnessing the industrialization of the world, the falling of trees and forests for "progress," is a direct influence on his writings.

Even though it's fairly obvious that big + aggressive = bad in Tolkien's world, and small + brave and courageous = good, it's still interesting to take it apart and theorize it's roots.

Comments

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

Blog

Search This Blog