The Man Who Bit a Fell-Beast

[Huinesoron]

Not to ascribe all ills to the actions of dark powers, but I'm becoming convinced that this ill can be ascribed to... you get it. ^_~

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

1) Tolkien never states that it is created by Sauron (or anyone for that matter)

He comes within half an inch of doing so, though!

Originally Posted by Appendix A

Soon after a deadly plague came with dark winds out of the East. The King and all his children died, and great numbers of the people of Gondor, especially those that lived in Osgiliath. Then for weariness and fewness of men the watch on the borders of Mordor ceased and the fortresses that guarded the passes were unmanned.

Later it was noted that these things happened even as the Shadow grew deep in Greenwood, and many evil things reappeared, signs of the arising of Sauron. It is true that the enemies of Gondor also suffered, or they might have overwhelmed it in its weakness; but Sauron could wait, and it may well be that the opening of Mordor was what he chiefly desired.

Tolkien is not, by and large, an unreliable narrator, so when he says in a published book that 'everyone thought X', I'm inclined to accept that X is something he wants to tell us is true. But! Also, that line about how the plague came 'with dark winds' out of the East. That's not a natural phenomenon - it reminds me too much of the Shadow over Minas Tirith, or of the Black Breath.

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

2) It seems to be a one off thing in the third age.

Continuing from the second point, if you developed chemical warfare (or improved on it, as Melkor appears to be the creator), and it had the desired effect. Why on middle-earth would you limit your self to one go? Surely you could perfect it, or make it even more precise in targeting exactly the creatures you want to rid your self off.

Side-effects and means of deployment. Middle-earth functions on natural rules, so it follows that to spread a genuine plague (not a magical curse like the Black Breath) Sauron would need to use natural means. He can create it magico-technologically, but to spread it he needs a vector. That tells me two things:

1) The plague began in the east, devastating the people of Rhun and knocking out Sauron's own army. That's fine if, as Boro says, you're happy to wait a few hundred years to take advantage!

What's less fine is if someone takes notice of your armies' weakness and decides to attack you. Nobody knew Sauron was out there at the time of the Plague, but once the Wise started to realise... well, he'd been attacked by an unexpected alliance who should have still been reeling from catastrophe before, he wasn't going to give them another opportunity.

2) Even if he'd wanted to, though - how? Plagues are carried by animals, humans included. The Great Plague came at a time when Rhun, Rhovanion, and Gondor all lived side by side, allowing for easy airborne transmission, or movement of rats in shipments, or what have you. After the plague, though, Rhovanion was essentially gone! There was no even slightly friendly contact between Sauron's domain and the West - meaning there was no way for a New Plague to cross between them.

If we assume that Sauron had to start it by letting it loose in his own population and having it spread naturally, using it after Rhovanion's depopulation would be a wild gamble. Nine times out of ten, it would just run through the folk of Rhun and then burn out before reaching anyone he actually wanted dead. Sauron's pretty dumb, but even he didn't want that.

~

On a different note, COVID definitely helps to paint in the details of how people in Gondor would have reacted (details Tolkien knew first-hand from the Spanish Flu). You'd have seen everything from people refusing any contact even with the rest of their household, to people insisting there was no plague and that it was just a bad cold even as they died of it. There'd be cities which locked down instantly when they heard about it (and watched their economies crash), and others which mocked them for their skittishness until their own people began to die off wholesale. Government response would range from ineffective and slapdash, to heavy-handed oppression.

In fact... it's plausible to paint a picture of King Telemnar in Osgiliath, insisting to one and all that Everything Is Fine (it's just the Rhovanion lot making a fuss over nothing), while his nephew Tarondor, steward of Minas Anor, locks down the fortress and refuses to let anyone in or out. Fast forward only a few months, and Telemnar's family is dead, Tarondor is king - and in order to keep his new realm under control, he calls back the soldiers from the gates of Mordor to patrol the streets of his remaining cities and prevent the people protesting his harsh measures.

Yeah, lots and lots of details we can paint in.

(Meanwhile in Arthedain: "Your majesty, the last of the people of Cardolan have succumbed to the plague!" "Oh! I didn't realise there was anyone left there anyway. ... does that mean it's mine now?")

hS