View Single Post
Old 03-26-2021, 04:36 PM   #6
Boromir88
Laconic Loreman
 
Boromir88's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: USA
Posts: 7,507
Boromir88 is wading through the Dead Marshes.Boromir88 is wading through the Dead Marshes.Boromir88 is wading through the Dead Marshes.Boromir88 is wading through the Dead Marshes.Boromir88 is wading through the Dead Marshes.Boromir88 is wading through the Dead Marshes.
Send a message via AIM to Boromir88 Send a message via MSN to Boromir88
Thank you for the link (and the link in the thread you linked), Mithadan. I think they will do exactly what you intend, and spark more discussion. Necromancy is certainly linked to a topic about the dead and the undead.

I was intrigued by the comment, in one of the threads, about Isildur and his heirs (Aragorn) being able to use weapons of Sauron (the Dead of Dunharrow) against him. I don't recall reading any character making that comment, but Aragorn is able to command the spirits of the oath-breakers. I don't think we could call Isildur or Aragorn necromancers, but it is an interesting point in perhaps understanding the power Aragorn had to "summon the dead to fight."

Looking at the words of Isildur's curse is interesting:

Quote:
'Then Isildur said to their king: "Thou shalt be the last king. And if the West prove mightier than thy Black Master, this curse I lay upon thee and thy folk: To rest never until your oath is fulfilled. For this war will last through the years uncounted, and you shall be summone once again ere the end."~The Passing of the Grey Company
So the curse is their spirits will never be able to rest until they fulfill the oath they made to Isildur. What is perhaps more interesting is Isildur says Sauron was their "Black Master." Over the years I've perhaps forgotten and just assumed the Men of Dunharrow did not fight because they were scared of their mortality and frightened of the power of Sauron, but it's more than that:

Quote:
"But when Sauron returned and grew in might again, Isildur summoned the Men of the Mountains to fulfill their oath, and they would not: for they had worshiped Sauron in the Dark Years."~ibid
This is going to be a lot of speculation on my part, but it contradicts what I had always assumed. I assumed they didn't fight because they feared death and then ironically, breaking their oath was the punishment for fearing their own mortality. But it goes beyond that, reading they had "worshiped" Sauron I think suggests possibly a cult or practitioners of sorcery. Is it too much of a stretch to see "worship" as having an association to necromancy, and therefor the Dead Men are indeed a case of weapons of Sauron being used against him?
__________________
Fenris Penguin

Last edited by Boromir88; 03-26-2021 at 04:41 PM.
Boromir88 is offline   Reply With Quote