[Altariel]

I don't think the lights are a natural thing... Mordor sometimes seems like a pretty unnatural place. I think that they are the spirits of the people who died in the battle before the Black Gates, but JUST the spirits. The bodies themselves are probably gone. So, I think that one of two thing happened.

1. Their souls might not have been able to depart (perhaps because of the location, perhaps for some other reason) and now they lure travellers into touching the water and use some kind of magic-dead-face-wighty thing to trap the travellers' souls too, or maybe they just are mesmerised, and fall in and drown. So maybe they are like Barrow-wights, trying to lure in the spirits of the living, as Nuranar said.

Or...

2. They are an illusion, a warning to any who would assail Sauron, put there by Sauron himself to either frighten or ensnare those who try to enter Mordor secretly. They might just be there to scare people or they might actually be dangerous.

I believe the book said that their were different kinds of faces in the water: the faces of Men, Elves, Orcs, etc. So, if there are Orc faces, something makes me think that Sauron didn't do it, that it is a natural thing (natural meaning "unintentional", . Not necessarily "something put there by nature," like a Will o' the Wisp. More like a Wight.).

Why would Sauron want to advertise the fact that he lost the battle by putting Orc-faces in the Marshes? If he had created this illusion, couldn't he just create the illusion that there were only the faces of Men and Elves in the Marshes?

[ April 06, 2002: Message edited by: Altariel ]