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The best part of the hobbit films was Dain Ironfoot. Bro was a badass

For the orcs, wraiths, etc. The Fourth Age was the worst for them to be alive!

Annoyingly nit-picky…war is not the only thing that governs population growth…disease, climate change, critical resource shortages, change in trading partner nations, disease etc Just because he didn’t explain it, doesn’t mean he’s wrong…it’s his world 🤦‍♂️

In the words of Macho Mandolph, "You shall not pass, brother"!

It's a great time to be alive right now because we've been getting a steady stream of DarthGandalf videos. Your rate of uploads has been amazing this year. Thank you!

A good video on a long debated matter. If no one already provided this input, as for Dale JRR wrote: "Bard had rebuilt the town in Dale and men had gathered to him from the Lake and from South and West..."(The Hobbit; XIX), that suggests immigration of Northmen from across the plains, Mirkwood and the Vales. As for Arnor I'm unsure if we can settle a decline in the Third Age before the sundering in 861 [also with FotR; II; II and Appendix A in mind] rather than a rise from an undefined low population after the War of the Last Alliance; I don't expect you to see this comment but would be intresting if there is any quote that you deem verifies a decline before that year. A similar argument may perhaps be made for Gondor in 2510. That said said, to be frank it is easy to lose track on the legendarium (for all its compelling historicity) being mythology foremost, and that the matter of plausible demographics may been as flexible to the Professor as were matters like clothes (Letter 211) or fidelity to real geography (Letter 165).

Honestly the Legendarium always felt mythic to me, on based on real world physics and logistics. There are stars that were magical jewels launched into the sky by gods/angels, after a hero and heroine stole them from Not-Satan's crown, which got there because he stole them from the pair of magic trees that used to stand in for the sun and moon. And yet you guys are analysing the population demographics compared to acres of farmland in a certain number of square miles to feed the triumphant armies led by a prophesy king and a wizard? It might have been better if no numbers were ever mentioned for people to fixate on, if you checked the towns population tally instead of engrossed in the story something has gone wrong

Some of us believe a collapse of society is exactly what we need right now.

I've just read the Silmarillion, and most of this doesn't fit that or anything not published posthumously many many years later? In the First Age many men simply ignored Melkor and many joined the elves and helped them. The followers of Morgoth were a specific group of humans recruited in secret amongst the elves human allies, and then betrayed them mid battle.

Just for the last joke alone this video deserved a like.

childhood me: "I want to go on exiting adventures like Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli!" .. todays me: "damn man, those Hobbitses not involved in the Ring-War truly livin the dreaaaaam.."

it IS funny how we mostly see Numenor as the good guys when at the same time they were d*cks to the rest of the world.. but then again Iluvatar purged ALL(children and babes as well) the Numenoreans left on the island, regardless of whether they were "faithfull" aka "good guys".. wtf Iluvatar?.. WTF Tolkien?!

Okay, reading through the comments, there's a lot of confusion about how population growth, demographics, etc. actually work. To start with, every population of any animal, including humans (though perhaps not elves and dwarves), grows at an exponential rate until it hits the carrying capacity of the environment. Factors like deaths in battle, disease and high infant mortality can affect the speed at which the population reaches the carrying capacity, but not the carrying capacity itself. Agricultural technology (and this includes the crops you're using) increases the carrying capacity of the environment. And the agricultural technology depicted in Tolkien's work is actually quite advanced. It's a lot closer to 18th century technology than it is to the dark ages. It's misleading to compare any of this to modern population declines in Japan or Ireland or wherever because 1) they started from a very high population density, driven by industrial technology, and 2) modern birth control, global migration, etc. have been real game changers. And in the case of the decline of the Roman Empire, there were two things going on there. One, the total collapse of long distance trade made the old, unproductive cities unviable. And two, some Eastern provinces like Pannonia and Dacia were overrun by nomadic peoples who didn't practice much agriculture. But people didn't just forget to farm, and the western rural populations hardly declined at all. There's just no reasonable explanation for vast swathes of productive land lying fallow for centuries. And this is one case where "but it's an unreliable narrator" just doesn't work, unless Frodo and Bilbo somehow forgot to mention that they spent most of their adventures camping in people's back yards.

I assumed that due to Moria's vast size, that the Balrog only emerged in the first place because they dug absurdly deep (Gandalf even references tunnels so deep while fighting it that were made by gnawing nameless things). As such lone travellers like Gandalf and Aragorn, or relatively small groups like Balin's company simply never caused much attention. Until the One Ring is present, making the tiny Fellowship the exception in the same way later Frodo, Sam and Smeagol can sneak through active warzones such as Osgiliath unnoticed right up until the Ring makes a connection with a great evil such as the Nazgul, or in this case the Balrog

If anything, this analysis understates the problem. War affects population density, but not in the way Tolkien uses it. Long conflicts create buffer zones where no useful agriculture happens. That will reduce the population density in proportion to the amount of territory that's left fallow. But human populations recover from wars ridiculously quickly, in the absence of modern birth control. Same with diseases. Your population density is going to depend on how good your farmland is, what crops you have, and what technologies you have. Full stop. There's a strangely specific detail that breaks the worldbuilding here. And it's potatoes, of all things. In reality, Europe didn't have potatoes until they were introduced from the Americas. When they were, they caused a population explosion. Potatoes turn otherwise marginal land into calorie factories. Even without potatoes, the human population density should be orders of magnitude higher than it is. But Tolkien wants stone age population densities with 18th century crops and technologies, and no amount of war or disease can make that work. Weirdly, Hobbits appear to have a more realistic population density, but no interest in expansion. The couple of times we saw them fight pitched battles as a community, they proved that they were capable fighters. So, the real question is why they haven't conquered middle earth with their 100 to 1 advantage in population per acre.

I thought ghostly marsh/swamp lights are called wisps and will-o-the-wisps and fairy lights, with corpse candles historically being those candles made of 'corpse tallow' (human fat). Or is 'the term corpse candles' used in the LotR books themselves?

First time viewer, really liked the video! Criticism was well thought out and clearly came from a place of care for the source material. Here’s my like, sub and comment

“This is a fairly common question” Me scrolling my recommended, baked at 11:36: 👁️👄👁️ uhuh

I'd say LOTR took place during a Dark Age. Although, for the people living there, it would have *felt* post-apocalyptic. It doesn't help that there were Barrow Zombies along the road between Buckland and Bree, lol. That definitely adds to the post-apocalyptic flavour.

I still wonder how he managed to keep 10000 orcs/uruk-hai secret.

To begin let me thank you for your video. I appreciate your research and your thoughts and the time and effort it took to make the video. I appreciate you going into these topics and sharing them. While some find the topic engaging, I really don’t. Certain areas of middle earth are populous at times and depopulated at others. Some places remain bereft of population. For me that’s just so Tolkien can tell a story. It doesn’t have to make sense, it has to serve his narrative goal. And I’m OK with that. On a side note, a major turn in fantasy has been the development of the systematizing of magic. Using a system means an explanation… Explicable action means science… therefore most current fantasy is actually science fiction. If I pick up a fantasy novel, I have already suspended my disbelief in magic. Tolkien didn’t explain magic and I am fine with that. Also, not everything is notable nor provable. When I was in school, we didn’t study the bronze age collapse. But now it is a recognized major event in world history and yet we can’t explain it. War, famine, disease, pestilence, etc. we don’t know all the factors involved. Sometimes we just don’t know. And I have to be OK with that. More than demographics, my bigger problem with Tolkien is the lack of technological advancement in middle earth. This is the first of your videos that I’ve seen so if you have addressed this in another video, that I apologize for bringing it up here. In middle earth, it has been less than 7000 years since the rising of the sun and the moon. Yet there have been a few technological advancements in that time. In the numberless years before the rising of the sun, the Ainur and the Quendi developed language, writing, smithing, architecture, horticulture, agriculture, fishing, the loom, fashion, domestication of numerous animals, and shipbuilding. The wheel, medicine, irrigation, and all other basic facets of society. I do not remember if Feanor’sfirst arms were of iron or steel, but in the at least 7000 years since humanity has not really advanced in weaponry. I would argue that the two greatest advancements were the fire of orthanc by Sarumanand the domestication of the mumakil by the Haradrim. The greatest technological advances of the Edain were in shipbuilding, embalming, and then masonry. The advances by the Eldar were in the creation of writing only visible by moonlight, in hidden doors, and in magic rings. I think there were two advances in horticulture; the uses kingsfoil and pipe weed. And I think all of this is intentional by Tolkien. The only advancements in war were made by the enemy. Tolkien needs the world to stay static in technology. This provides him a familiar place in which to tell his stories. It allows for his heroic and romantic characters to be courageous and honorable. It is not because there is a limit on the intelligence quotient for the Quendi, the Atani, the children of Aule, the Ents, and the orcs. The peoples of middle earth are not limited in creativity. It is not because they are limited in resources and are forced to live in the Stone Age as certain peoples are in the rainforest of the Amazon or in the Andaman islands. What good are the shards of Narsil when the current technology uses drone warfare and nuclear submarines? Who needs a sapling of the white tree when we have DNA testing? Tolkien wrote to tell his views on theology, culture, morality, ecology, romance, friendship, etc. in his own personalized setting. I’m OK with that. Again, thank you for your video. Thank you for your thoughts.

What happened to the population of Ankor Wat? What happened to the people who built Göbekli Tepe? What happened to the people who built the lost temples of South America? There should be millions of people but there aren’t. We don’t know what happened to them. Plagues come and wipe everyone out and there’s nobody to leave historians a note of explanation. Climates change and wipe out agrarian civilizations, and the people pack up and abandon old cities and a thousand years later all they have left are fragmented myths and legends telling where they came from.

The costumes don't look like clothes people would actually wear. They look like costumes.

Tbh, this is a thing with the vast majority of fantasy.

4:20 No, that's incorrect. From _Morgoth's Ring_ The Later Quenta Silmarillion (II), the elves that remained in Middle-earth (the Lingerers) have had their hröa faded by their fëa to the point that their "bodily forms may no longer be seen by us mortals, or seen only dimly and fitfully." They still have bodies that they can reveal to men if they want to. The Houseless are elves whose hröa have been destroyed through violence or mishap and have refused the summons of Mandos, choosing to wander the world as a disembodied fëa. That itself indicates being tainted by the Shadow.

When they announced Covid they promised the end of the world with a ten percent loss in human population... what a rip off... Two percent...

The American example of this is that all US presidents are related even Obama with the flip side being that any American who can trace their heritage back to the colonial period are related as well....and from there you get in to connections to exiled /expatriated British nobility aka "founding fathers" and their connections to the Royals.

Could Eriador have been cursed or poisoned by he which King? it's a power stretch I know and no evidence of it I can think of

Imagine a TV series set just as the Great Plague starts and it's centered on human survivors trying to outrun the plague. They could be unknown carriers spreading it to new human communities as they flee from borders of Rhun to the far west in Arnor. The story could explore how different human settlements along their journey would react to what is happening and see how they explain or who they blame for the plague's cause. Would be interesting to also tie in how human-elf-dwarf relations changed during this time. Since they were immune to sickness did they provide aid or were they indifferent seeing it as not their problem? A good writing team could have so many interesting narratives available to make a great story that could respect the lore while showing a fresh perspective...

Can you do "The Best Times To Be Alive In Middle-earth"?

If there's one thing Tolkien gets right is the demographics. His books have excellent demographics. The best.

I don't see any reason to argue with any of these, but I still feel like I can pick what, for me, would be the worst point. I'm not going to describe it well, with years, and locations, by name, but there is a region of western Middle Earth, or at least it WAS, that is now just gone; list underwater after the wars with Morgoth. Even after endless fighting, and giving everything they had to resist, or conquer, Morgoth; even when they did technically claim a victory, their very lands were lost under the swell of the sea. Sure, Beleriand was broken, Nargothrond destroyed, and even Gondolin was sacked, but despite Tolkien sometimes bizarrely leaving areas fallow of people, or forgetting that they breed quickly, in times of peace, cities can be rebuilt. Yet, the very land some of these places once stood is now gone. A traveling historian couldn't go visit the ruins, or a descendant go pay respects, unless they were hardy swimmers, and could breathe underwater. To fight so hard to Dave, or even just reclaim, your homeland, just to watch the very world swallow it up; to know that, even as Numenor was raised out of the sea, as reward, your home had been consigned to the depths, would beso disheartening, leaving you to need to find a home in foreign domains. And the tide, though it washed in, would never recede, and the place of your home, and history, was gone forever, save in your memories.

Obviously Tolkien did not care about demographics in his world building and that is totaly fine. He was an artist who cared about mythology, religion, language, landscape and people not sociological or economical data. His map and description of middle earth has many blank areas like every other real historical map from the antique and medieval time and that is one part of the flavor. Tolkiens world inspired and created the whole modern fantady genre therefore it is totaly fine for me that everybody should feel free to fill the gaps with his own imagination

I don’t think Illuvitar has any qualms about yeeting millions. He orchestrated the events of the war of the ring through his songs. The rise of Sauron and Saruman’s betrayal were part of his design.

I'm guessing that at the end for first age a lot of slaves were liberated

What was the worst time to be an orc?

Best time to be alive in Middle Earth: be in Bree the day after Gandalf blesses all the beer in the Prancing Pony!

Did Fëanor unwillingly saved the seceond children of Iluvatar by his rebelion?

Very cool video once again Lord DarthGandolf

A good analog for the worst time to be alive in America would be the Age Of Disco 1974 to 1980.

Did Trump name his kid after Beren?

I'm tickled by Tolkien's use of "outlaw". Tuor and Turin's Gaurwaith make sense, the Easterlings have a price on Tuor's head and the Gaurwaith were feared by the Haladin presumably preying on innocents until Turin redirected them to fighting Orcs. But how is Barahir's band a band of outlaws? Are they robbing innocents? Are they defying any Mannish or Elven government? Or is it just like, "We're wanted by the Law. The Law of literally Satan." And Morgoth stands there with a ten-gallon hat and a Shirrif's Star.

My bet would be the awakening of the elves and men. Imagine opening your eyes for the first time. Seeing the stars… seeing the rising sun… and then suddenly you’re abducted inside a dark fortress and suffered all manners of torture until all you’re left with is an empty instinct to obey your master’s command Or If you’re a low ranking Maiar, minding your business being a steward of some forest, river, or mountain, and then suddenly you saw the introvert Ainur raining hellfire on everything.

Good LOTR knowledge & good arguments!

The Dunlendings were Finland of WWII, allying with Nazi Germany against the USSR. Not because they were Nazis, but because their very survival as a nation made it necessary. Does being allied to those with dodgy motives undermine your ethics? Sure does. But I think you're also a week bit dismissive of how poverty and oppression, especially many, many generations of it, can warp people's conception, or prioritisation, of right and wrong. I think another aspect is interesting in this and that's Tolkien's apparent susceptibility to the Halo Effect. Throughout his writing (and this is a generalisation) there's a sense that good looking = good. The morally worthy, especially the nobility, are usually beautiful, while those who fall short of that tend to have been on the end of a sound beating with ugly stick.

I wonder what was the world like outside of Beleriand in the first age considering Morgoth attention and his monsters were focused on Beleriand its likely the worst you would encounter in the far east was some rival human tribe

You'd be lucky to make it to 8, let alone 80 in parts of the First Age when Morgoth sent forth his plague across the lands. Plus unless you lived under the protection of the Elves you were subject to constant raids by Orcs and Easterlings, as well as Westerners who themselves had lost everything. Pick any 80 year block you want from that period and it's going to be a pretty shitty time to live.

Tolkien obviously didn't think it necessary to become so lost in the minutiae of world-building that it overtook the telling of the actual story. He engaged in it to the extent needed, but probably felt it better in order to get the story finished on time to ignore what inconsistencies there were than to have endless delays that would ultimately have prevented publication. If one absolutely needs an in-world explanation for why populations that should have bounced back following catastrophes didn't, it may be inferred that the servants of Mordor and its master did not sit idle during the centuries following, but kept picking away at targeted regions. Combine that with human stupidity-for instance, allowing things to crumble rather than maintain them because doing so was considered too expensive (see: Rome, U.S., etc.)-and it's not difficult to imagine that populations in certain areas of Middle Earth simply didn't grow because there was little incentive for rulers and subjects to alter their societies much, whereas in other places such as the rebuilt Dale, populations grew rapidly because Bard and his descendants engaged in aggressive campaigns to invite people back to a once-ruined, again prosperous town that was being rebuilt and expanded. No dragon to threaten the safety of the human residents, Orcs having remained in relative hiding until Mordor and Isengard began churning them out in preparation for war, and the gaps in Tolkien's world-building may be filled. I think Tolkien's genius in writing lies partly in the realization that it is all too easy to get lost in fleshing out a fictional world to the point the story as a whole suffers. The rule of thumb is to build just enough of your fictional universe to get the audience interested and immersed, but be flexible enough that the world-building doesn't create paint the storyteller into a proverbial corner.

Twelve O nine am and that was fascinating and also made me feel awful. I’m going to watch some Teddy Ruxpin to recalibrate before bed.

Seventh Age 2024