MovieChat Forums > The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) Discussion > Where was Gondor?

Where was Gondor?

posted 3 years ago by Volley (3366)
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So was King Theoden not aware that Gondor had been involved in increasingly hostile Mordor skirmishes for many decades? Gondor's armies were dwindling, and they kept losing ground to the orcs. They could not have spared an army, even if they wanted to.

Not to mention a good chunk of Gondor's citizens lived on the south side of the White Mountain range, and it would have been quite an effort to rally them all to help Rohan in its time of need, besides the distance going around the mountain range to get to Edoras, the Westfold, or Helm's Deep.

Gondor wasn't just Minas Tirith like some may think. However, those living south of the White Mountains (at least in the books, in the movies it's a ridiculous soapy green undead army) would later be used by Aragorn to assist in the Battle of Pelennor Fields. So I always found it a little odd, at least in the films, Theoden seems unaware of Gondor's commitment to keeping Mordor at bay.

[–] Otter (24464) 3 years ago

Theoden hadn't been aware of much until Gandalf de-aged him. He'd have NO clue that Gondor was facing a threat from Mordor, or that no representative of Rohan had ever asked Gondor for help!

[–] CoachGainz (453) 3 years ago

Good point!

(Just from the movies and no info from the books) I always took it has more of a prideful refusal to accept help than being unaware of Gondor's troubles. His line of where was Gondor was more of an excuse not to call them than actually questioning why they hadn't helped.

Also remember that info probably traveled pretty slow in Middle Earth.(Again just from movies) It didn't seem evident that Gondor and Mordor were at war. Yes, we saw Rangers attack men from the east when Frodo is captured, but it wasn't until the on going siege of Osgiliath that it was clear that Mordor was attempting an invasion of Gondor. Aside from Boromir's speech about his people's blood keeping the rest safe there wasn't much to suggest that anything was going on. All of middle earth seemed to be lofing about from Rohan to the Shire completely unaware that Mordor was slowly wearing Gondor down and was priming to take over the world. Gandalf himself is out partying and smoking with the hobbits for Bilbo's birthday. So maybe Theoden was perplexed as to why Gondor was just allowing Isengard to build an orc army and invade his lands.