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Originally Posted by Eomer of the Rohirrim
How on Earth (and Middle-earth) can ghosts pose an apparently physical threat?
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Maybe they just scared the pants off the orcs? I mean literally. So these Orcs would be standing there with no kecks on and would be so mortified they'd pop their clogs?
What happens when an Orc dies anyway? I presume there is some Orcish equivalent of the Halls of Mandos, being as they are immortal and presumably tied to the earth just as the Elves are. And would this be in Middle Earth? Maybe that explains why they were so hard to deal with, like ants they just kept coming back.
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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
But if we are going to come over all realistic about it, how on earth (and in Middle-earth) can ghosts exist at all?
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Darn, I'm going to have to pull out the "I haven't got my books with me" Monopoly card here, but in HoME, in Morgoth's Ring, there is quite a bit of evidence to suggest that ghosts did exist in some form. There is a description of the nature of the houseless fea of an Elf which is quite beautiful, and very suggestive of ghosts. I sometimes wonder whether this is Tolkien's own attempt to 'explain' ghosts and/or earth spirits.
Why should 'ghosts'
not exist in Middle earth? The idea of hroa/fea would make plenty of room for the possibility of 'ghosts'. After all, we only have an idea of what a 'ghost' might be like, we have no concrete explanation of our own so Tolkien like many writers has been free to play around with that.