Minas Tirith

[lore_master]

3 questions

1: after the war af the ring, and after Aragron became king, did he rename Minas Tirith back to Minas Anor?

2: did Aragorn use Minas Tirith as his headquarters after he gained all of Arnor back?

3: this doesn't really have anything to with Minas Tirith but, did aragorn get minas morgul back, and did he rename it Minas Ithil?

[Sharkû]

Incidentally, the Epilogue to LotR, which was omitted from the published versions for obvious reasons [and is now to be found in History Middle-earth IX], but not because the ideas therein are abandoned, gives some information.

King Elessar still called the city Minas Tirith, as becomes obvious in the title of the letter he sends Samwise: "To Samwise and Rose the King's greeting from Minas Tirith" (HoME IX, xi).

It also becomes apparent from that that the King still perceived MT as the capital of his realm. Note that at the time of said letter he had not been in the North since Elanor was very little, i.e. more than 10 years.

However, I'm afraid I cannot say anything definte about Minas Morgul. The Nazgûl were utterly destroyed, and Elessar was expanding his realm far and wide, so it would at least seem surprising if he shouldn't have also taken Minas Morgul back. Resettling or renaming thereof might be another matter entirely.

[lore_master]

ok, thanks for clearing that up for me

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Now in their debate some had counselled that Minas Morgul should first be assailed; and that if it might be taken, should be utterly destroyed. [The Black Gate Opens, RotK]

Minas Morgul had been totally corrupted and ruined, methinks, and would probably -- although no longer a threat upon Gondor, as it was unmanned -- have had to have been demolished. The valley it lay in had been utterly defiled by blackness and evil; 'the evil that lay upon that vale...', so that I doubt it could have in any way been reclaimed.

A more interesting question is that of Osgiliath. It, unlike Minas Morgul, was presumably still rebuildable. I would have thought that the King Elessar would undertake to raise it up from its ruins, the once-mighty city, although still keeping Minas Tirith -- I suppose it really had become, irriversably, a Tower of Guard rather than a mere 'Tower of the Sun' -- suitably as his already long-established capital.

Re Minas Tirith being the centre of the King's united-Numenorean kingdom power; this would make sense, although Arthedain was still the capital of the North (perhaps in the same way that Edinborough, to use a modern example, is capital of Scotland under London), as Gondor would always be the stronger of the two domains.

[Inderjit Sanghera]

Note, on your quote on destroying Minas Morgul, it was a sugggestion of Imrahil and others that they should 'take' Minas Morgul, which would have been by and large been emptied out in the Battle of Pellenor fields (Minas Morgul seems to be slightly 'independent' from Mordor. Some of the Orks from their are reffered to as the 'morgul rats' and Sam also notices that whilst the Ork's of Cirith Ungol have the red eye painted on them the ones from Minas Morgul had a crescent moon, or soemthing to do with a Moon, I cant remember)and hence they would march into Mordor from that way rather then attempting to assail the unassailble Black gate, [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] but of course Gandalf would have wanted to keep Saurons eye away from Frodo and Sam. But we later hear that the Vanguard broke the bridge of Minas Morgul, so evidently the vanguard must have consisted of stout-hearted men since they didn't go crazy with fear, and so maybe some stouthearted men could have re-built it, but I doubt it, since it was too evil by then, maybe, and also I think that Gandalf's ring may have helped them keep courage.

[Firnantoonion]

somewhere in RotK or the appendixes (and i don't have time to look it up right now) it says that Aragorn did rebuild Osgiliath and that he wanted to scourge (read: burn and rebuild) Minas Morgul and rename it after to Minas Ithil