Of the Strongbow & Dragon-helm | The Children of Húrin: Tolkien's First Age Explained - Part 5 of 13

if Orcs have dreams then surely turin's son of hurin is the stuff of their nightmares over the span of a single year he is going to rise from Outlaw Captain to Absolute Legend of Middle Earth a lord of his own land and at the end of this year the time will come for his greatest battle yet a fight to determine his future a war for the fate of the wild [Music] Maya Govan and melanin and welcome to another installment in this series explaining and breaking down tolkien's epic First Age tale of the children of houdin over the past few videos I've talked about turin's time as the captain The Outlaws the wolf men of the wild I've talked about his delightful friendship with the Epic elf bellega kothalion his complex friendship with the Manish Outlaw androg the Archer and his intensely complex friendship with the semi-sinister but also semi-sympathetic Petty dwarf meme whose caves within the Red Hill of Armon Ruth are now being used as a home and a stronghold by turin's gowda wife but among this unlikely band of wild Outlaws not everything is tranquil meme hates androg for unknowingly but still kinda intentionally killing his son androg hates meme for cursing him and forcing him to break his own bow and lay it at the feet of meme's dead son and they both absolutely hate belleg for being an elf belek himself of course does not hate anyone their leg is wonderful but it seems that the only thing keeping the Gower wife of Armon Ruth together is that all of them agree on one thing is their Captain they will do as he commands and under his leadership they will be reforged into a fighting force that will stand against the Dark Lord morgoth that will keep the Wild free of him for just a little bit longer now there is a lot of super awesome stuff to talk about in regards to Turin and belleg and androg and Meme and the rest of the gowda wife but before I crack on with it I want to First Take a look at the lands of balerion as a whole and specifically look at them from the perspective of morogoth himself because by this time in the First Ages history which by the way is 519 years after feyenoord and His Rebel noldor first arrived in belarian and began the war of the jewels Anyway by this time that war is very much going in morgot's favor he hasn't quite won not just yet but it does now seem pretty impossible for him to lose the northern Highlands have fallen the Northwest has fallen the Northeast has fallen the passes of the river syrion have fallen the armies of mordgoth Rome relatively freely through balerion and to appropriate some language from The Lord of the Rings the enemies of morgoth the free peoples are now pretty much confined to these metaphorical Islands surrounded by a sea of many perils and there aren't even that many islands of resistance left in a few of these videos I have mentioned a book in the history of Middle Earth series called morogoth's ring and the title of that book can be a little bit confusing because morgoth never forged a ring however what this title is referring to isn't a literal piece of jewelry like a ring of power it is instead a metaphor for balerioned itself as we all know in the second age Sauron forged a ring and into it he poured his malice and his dominion and his own life force that ring is imbued with a part of sauron's essence and so long as it exists he cannot be fully destroyed and in the first age sauron's former Master mordgoth does a very similar thing except instead of pouring his malice and his Essence into a ring he pours it into the land of valerion he is slowly infusing this country with his own evil life force corrupting the home of his enemies and he knows that if he succeeds there will be no way to destroy him without also destroying the entirety of valerion valerian is moragoth's ring so by this point in the story corrupting and conquering all of balerion is mordgoth's Ultimate Mission and so the Orcs come in ever greater numbers they recapitalize on the absence of bellega kuthalyan and they reconquer dimbar infesting the land just to the north of doriath's border while the dark lord sits upon his dark Throne weighing up his malice he receives Tidings from spies and traitors and other sneaky servants and in the eyes of his mind he understands far more of the deeds and purposes of his enemies than even the wisest of them feared except for melian the Maya to her often his thought reached out and there was foiled Queen melian represents the most powerful of all mordgoth's enemies in balerion but even she cannot withstand him in the long run she is a wise and mighty Maya but back in the day melchor was the mightiest of all things created by illuvatar and the dark lord has time on his side every year the might of angban grows Every Spring his Orcs defile more and more land and every year his enemies diminish by now there really are only a handful of places in all balerion that could put up any kind of meaningful resistance and so it is to those last bastions of resistance that morgoth is now turning his full attention so the most iconic of all these islands amid a sea of perils is of course the super secret city of gondolin this is the place that morgoth fears most gondolin is not a community of refugees gondolin is an immensely powerful kind of city-state ruled by King turgon Second Son of the former High King of the noldor fingolfin and it is occupied by the last great Army of the noldor left in Middle Earth but gondolin is hidden and for now there's not much morgoth can do except desperately try to find it the second great threat to morgoth's Dominion is of course the cinder Kingdom of doriath ruled by high king eluthindol and queen melian the Maya however unlike gondolin dordia isn't a particularly significant military threat to Unbound there's only been one pitched battle between morgoth and the sindar and that was a very long time ago before the null door even arrived in Middle Earth it's true there are a few staggeringly badass individuals from doriath belleg and mablung being the main two and they do do their best to protect their neighbors the vulnerable woodsmen in the forest of breathil but at the end of the day doria's power lies in defense they might slow the spread of morgoth's minions they might even stop them in some places but they are never going to overthrow on the bond however as long as melian is Queen angband can also never overthrow Doria the third great stronghold of morogoth's foes is nargothrond further to the South the underground Elvish Kingdom that was founded by the fundamentally fabulous finrod fellowgund but is now ruled by his younger brother or potentially his nephew depending on which version of the family tree you go with a guy called autodreath and in some ways nardigothrond can be thought of as a coming together of gondolin and doriaf just like gondolin nargothrond is exceptionally secretive and as of right now not one of mordigoth's servants have ever found it to them it is only a name of fear however a little bit like doriath nadogothwand is a predominantly defensive Kingdom they have sent out Warriors to fight in both the Battle of sudden flame and the Battle of unnumbered tears but for the most part the elves of nargothrond now favor stealth and Ambush over pitched battles and they prioritize guarding their secret borders over all other things so gondolin doriath and nargothrond they are the big three the three places that morgoth is going to have to destroy in order to win now there are one or two other places in belarian heathens where some Elves and Men dwell relatively safely Beyond morgoth's reach but these aren't like bastions of opposition they are shelters for refugees by far the most relevant of these Havens can be found about as far south in balerion as South goes right down here at the very bottom of the map after the recent Battle of unnumbered Tears the coastal havens of eglarest and breathombar were overrun and destroyed by Orcs And The Lord of these Coastal Havens kierdan the ship right my joint favorite elf of all time along with his sort of foster son his Ward future High King of the noldor giligalad LED his people on many gray ships to the island of balar just off the coast of belarion where it is hoped that they will be safe at least until all else has fallen have also established a safe haven for Elvish and Manish refugees right here at the mouths of syrion but as I say this is not a place of Warriors this is not a stronghold that can ride out and do battle against morgoth it is a literal Last Hope for many many displaced people whose homes have already been conquered there are one or two other places that mordigoth hasn't yet quite brought under his Dominion don't forget about The Woodsman of breathial who I think morogoth simply doesn't consider important enough to be worth wiping out just yet and of course there are the Blue Mountains in the East where the dwarves live and also the summery southern regions of Assyrian where the sons of feyenoor are currently hanging out but unlike all the other places that I just mentioned neither or Syrian nor the Blue Mountains are going to be a particularly relevant part of this story so I'll come back to them in future series however right now there is one more place to talk about one more Island in a sea of perils that absolutely is resisting the Dark Lord's Conquest let's put ourselves back in mordigoth's point of view for Just One More moment it's been 537 years since he returned to belarian with feyenoord silmarils it's been 518 years since his armies fought their first battles against the cindar and the noldor it's been 425 years since the construction of gondolin began and 387 years since the completing of nardigothwand also doriath has already been a thing for over 3 000 years so the point is mordigoth has had a good few centuries to figure out exactly who his main enemies are and what their strength is but then almost overnight a brand new enemy has suddenly appeared seemingly out of nowhere wearing the dragon Helm of The Chieftains of the house of hardor when morgoth sent Orcs and other evil things to attack the eaves of the forest of breathial and to hunt for signs of nargothrond and just to generally make this part of valerian as awful as the north they first had to pass pretty close to the Red Hill to Arman Ruth and so morgoth is swiftly forced to realize he now has a brand new enemy to conquer not some vulnerable Woodsman of breath eel not some secretive wood elves of nargothrond instead these are dangerous wolf men of the wild Outlaws under the command of the man who arguably hates the dark lord more than anyone else in all of Middle Earth an enemy who morgoth's servants are very right to be afraid of so in the spring of this year 489 of the first age Turin turned 25. and at that same time he and his Elvish buddy bellega kuthalion became two of the most epic Warrior friends in like all of Middle Earth history we are told that when Turin first joined the gouda wife there were about 50 of them although sickness and War and also Turin himself have now caused that number to dwindle however due to the Woodcraft of belleg and The Valor of Turin these fewer than 50 Outlaws seem to their orcish enemies like a full host of Warriors a wild Terror upon the Red Hill the Orcs that came South were spied by The Outlaws they were hunted in the wilderness and when they gathered in even larger numbers and marched to War as a full force Of Orcs they would be ambushed by the Gower wife in some narrow place and the last thing that these Orcs would ever see would be the dragon Helm and his men tall and fierce leaping from the Shadows of the trees before long the very sound of the Outlaws horns would cause the orc captains to Quail in Terror and eventually it got to the point where the would simply turn and flee from turin's lands before any Arrow wind or any sword was even drawn such was the Dreadful Terror that Turin and belleg inspired in the Servants of their enemy however it's not just Turin and belleg being absolute badasses here we also have to talk about the goldwife's second in command androg as I've already mentioned on drug the Archer absolutely hates meme the petty dwarf androg kind of accidentally killed meme's son and in retribution meme Afflicted on drug with a dwarvish curse meme declared to androg he that loosed the shaft shall break his bow and his arrows and he shall never take an arrow nor Bear bow again if he does he shall die by it and so whilst all of this epic awesomeness is going on with the hunting of the Orcs in the wild androg the Archer is forced to give up on archery for fear of meme's curse however it wasn't long before androg began to question if a dwarvish curse really was all that powerful and when another warband Of Orcs strayed too close to the slopes of Armon Ruth and Rog defied means curse he took up a new bow and he went out to do battle with these Orcs but even though the Orcs were all slain and the Outlaw's home of barn danweth remained utterly Untouchable it turns out that androg absolutely did underestimate the curse of meme in the fighting androg was shot by a poisoned orc Arrow just as meme declared he would be and he is brought back to bar and done with dying and in agony I imagine meme was a pretty stoked to learn of this but as it goes he too underestimated the power of one of his Nemesis because although the wolf men the gowd wife typically have very little in the way of skill in healing that is not true of belleg we already know that he is one of the finest healers alive in Middle Earth at this time him and he uses his Elvish gifts to heal ondrag's wound to draw out the orc poison and to bring him back from the brink of death thus it was that the curse of meme of the petty dwarf was overturned by The Healing Hands of bellegion now the bad news is that the hatred that Meme bore to bellag was increased still more after this event and although beleg undid meme's curse the dwarf says to himself that it will bite again but there is good news because don't forget that prior to ondrag's Mortal wound he and belleg were absolutely not friends in fact the only thing that androg and meme have in common is that they both kind of like Turin and they both absolutely despise belleg and yet things are now beginning to change on that front when androg first met bellig he tied him to a tree for multiple days he starved him he ordered his torture and he would have had him executed if Turin hadn't shown up in time to prevent it but because bellag is such an immensely wonderful person none of those things stopped him from saving androg's life when he was in need and so although meme's hatred toward belleg has increased significantly on drugs hatred is lessened and he finally seems able to not only make peace with the elf but even to befriend him after his near-death experience androg does seem to come across as a much more reasonable and even heroic Outlaw anyway as this year moves forward and spring turns into summer things only get more awesome for Turin and belleg rumors of these two captains travel far and wide throughout Valerian and in time it becomes well known to all the enemies of morgoth living hopeless and desperate in the wastes that the strong bow and the dragon Helm represent A New Hope a refuge where evil things cannot endure and so slowly but surely many wandering peoples both men and elves who went leaderless dispossessed but undaunted remnants of battle and defeat and lands laid waste took heart again and came to seek the two captains from all across balerion homeless and hopeless people take New Hope in these tales of the helm and the bow and they seek out the two Heroes until eventually the ranks of turin's resistance is reinforced with great numbers and his followers swell into a great fighting force almost an army of rebels upon the advice of beleg Turin welcomes all of these newcomers but he does not permit them to dwell on Armon Ruth or within the gaudelwhite's home of bar in danwell instead he establishes many other guarded camps and makeshift fought just to the south of the Red Hill and over time his territory expands more and more until eventually it spans this entire swathe of land not much smaller than the kingdom of doriath and right in the center of turin's territory is Armon Ruth from which Turin can look out at all the lands under his influence and all those living in his lands can look up at the stronghold of their mysterious captain Turin does a number of breathtakingly epic things during his relatively short life and this has got to be towards the top of that list five years ago he was a prideful young guy only 20 years old who made the foolish decision to leave his home in doriath and to flee into the Wilds without anyone or anything to help him but only five years later he is the Lord of his own land he dwells in secret caves within an immensely strategic Hill he is an astonishingly Troublesome wrench in morgoth's attempted conquest of belarian and he is renowned among all free peoples I kind of Imagine him at this point in the story as sort of like the Spartacus of Middle Earth and yet apart from belleg no one actually knows who this Captain truly is the gowd whites still call him Nathan the wronged but among the newcomers to this land Turin takes up a new name for himself gorthal The Dread helm and as the might and reputation of gorthal grows and spreads about Valerian Turi names all of these wildlands beneath his lordship and he claims them as his own country he calls it which in cindering means the land of Bo and helm and so before this summer even came to an end gorthal the Lord of dor kuarthal has become a bit of a household name throughout this part of the world and after the following of Turin had swelled to a great force and the power of angaband was thrown back even the highly secretive elves of nargothrond began to really pay attention to the land of Bo and helm as you will already know the secret underground Elvish stronghold of nardagothrond was originally founded by garladriel's eldest brother the flabbergastingly fantastic fenrod feligund but during the tale of Baron and luthien fenerod was of course slain by one of sauron's werewolves and so the ruler of nardothwand during this story is finrod's younger brother or potentially his nephew honestly in this instance it really doesn't matter beanward's younger and slightly less awesome Kinsmen the now King orotreth when word reaches or address people that an outlawed mortal man is causing such hurt to the enemy many of the elves grow Restless believing that they should take a leaf out of this gorthal's book and they too should ride out and make open war against morgoth however orodreth refuses he knows that nargothwan's strength lies in its secrecy and although he absolutely is the king of this little kingdom in all things he followed theme goal the high King and what address great uncle and right the truth is relative to some of the other noldering Lords of the first age order drift is not the most spectacular he's a good guy and I do think he's sometimes a little bit unfairly criticized but he doesn't have the strongest will in the world that's certainly true and he does tend to do whatever the most convincing person at any given moment tells him to do but he is not without intelligence and Tolkien tells us he was a wise Lord according to the wisdom of those who considered first their own people and how long they might preserve their life and wealth against the lust of the North therefore he allowed none of his people to go to Turin and he sent Messengers to say to him that in all that he might do or devise in his War he should not set foot in the land of nargothrond but help other than in arms he offered to the two captains should they have need and in this it is thought he was moved by Thin Gaul and melion and so we can presume that autograph probably did send stores of food and Provisions to turin's vastly Growing group of followers on nargothwon's doorstep but he sent no Warriors to join their fight turns out though From turin's perspective it would seem he doesn't really need them things appear to be going really really well for the rebels of dorcular but don't be fooled this is not a happy story and as horrendous as morgoth obviously is he does kind of know what he's doing as this summer wears on morgoff launches assault after assault and although each one of these attacks ends with total victory for Turin and his Rebels what Turin does not realize is that morgoth's assaults upon his land are only a deception only feigned attacks so that by easy Victory the confidence of these Rebels might become overweening as it proved indeed mordigoth is basically throwing away many many orc lives for the sole purpose of instilling over confidence in his enemies now probably it goes without saying of all the Warriors in door kurthal there is one who displays a far greater wisdom than all the others one who is kind of able to see through the machinations of morogoth and that is of course the other captain bellegion one day after Turin and belleg have just taken out another warband Of Orcs Turin perceives that his best friend seems sad and thoughtful so Turin asks what's up and belleg answers the wrath of angband we have burned the fingertips of the black hand but no more it will not now withdraw now to this Turin replies is not the wrath of angband our purpose and Delight but this conversation highlights a very significant difference between the fighting styles of the Dragon Helm and the strong bow in one of tolkien's alliterative verse poems known as the lay of the children of hurin which was constructed somewhere between 1917 and 1924 so decades before this version of the story existed Tolkien wrote thus Turin who trusted to Taj and sword who was fan of fighting with those well seen a Taj is a type of round medieval shield and fane in this context means pleased to so in other words Turin much prefers open Warfare as opposed to like sneaky Warfare but belleg is the opposite he recognizes that Turin is truly talented when it comes to killing Orcs upon the field of battle but he also recognized is that he may be too talented for his own good too successful at slaying morgoth's servants which reminds me a little bit of that other Outlaw band that we see play a prominent role in the silamarillion The Outlaws of barahir father of Baron at the beginning of Baron and luthien's story we are told the rumor of the Deeds of barahir and his companions went far and wide and mordegoth commanded Sauron to find them and Destroy them if you're gonna dedicate your entire life to resisting morgoth's Dominion of the wild it would seem that it's wise to fly beneath the radar if you are too competent you'll get noticed and eventually destroyed that's what happened to barah here and it's not a million miles from what's going to happen to Turin they are both just too heroic for their own good and remember although morgoth cursed hoodin and is held in captive for 17 years now he never did find out what became of houdin's son from the Dark Lord's perspective Turin has been a mysterious loose end he's Afflicted with mordigoth's curse but until now he had long been lost in the shadows and under the veils of melian beyond the knowledge of unband except that now Turin has made himself renowned by putting on the dragon Helm of hurin's Grandfather he named himself gorthal The Dread Helm he named his territory the land of Bo and Helm and So eventually rumor of this Manish hero wearing the iconic ancestral Helm of hurin's house reached morgoth in angband and he laughed for now Turin was revealed to him again but it's not all good news for morgoth there is a part of him that is afraid of the son of hurin and morigoth began to fear that taurine would grow to such a power that the curse that he had laid upon him would become void and he would escape the Doom that had been designed for him this is a pivotal moment in turin's life mordgoth himself is acutely aware that Turin has the potential to undo all the evil that has been designed for him he might have the power to overcome his curse or he might Retreat back to doriath and be lost from the Dark Lord's sight once again but as we all know by now Turin simply cannot bring himself to go backwards in life and return to doriath he cannot bring himself to forbear the dragon Helm of his ancestors and he cannot bring himself to give up on his victories in open battle and let fear of the dark lord dictate his actions and so mordigoth takes advantage he decides that killing Turin is just not cruel enough and in the darkest recesses of his mind he decides that Turin must be taken carried back to unband alive and there he will be tormented tortured and enslaved just like his father and so morgoth sends more of his servants into the south towards the hill of Armon Ruth but unlike the previous war bands we've seen these Servants of the enemy aren't so much soldiers as they are his most skilled Scouts and spies and these spies are commanded to lurk unobserved in the wilderness and to make no move against the rebels until the time is right however despite mordigoth's demand for secrecy there is one among the rebels who fairly swiftly does become aware of these Orcs spying about his home unfortunately though it is not necessarily the rebel that you would want knowing something that no one else knows you see it is meme the petty dwarf who first discovers that spies of mordigoth are watching the Red Hill but instead of warning Turin or anyone else for that matter the hatred that he bore to belleg led him now in his darkened heart to an evil resolve one day towards the end of the year meme left his home and he told the men in barn done with that he was going with his son ibun to search for roots for their winter store but this was a lie memes true purpose was to seek out these spying Servants of morgoths and to lead them to turin's hiding place it would seem that means hatred of all elves has overcome every other part of his personality sept it's just not that simple in the children of hurin Standalone novel which is pretty much what I'm going through in this series we are told what I just said memes true purpose was to seek out the Servants of morgoth and to lead them to turin's hiding place however in the chapter of the silamarillion which deals with the tale of Turin we get a slightly different version of events in that story we are told meme the dwarf and iboon his son went out from bar and done with to gather roots in the wild for their winter store and they were taken captive by Orcs then for a second time meme promised to guide his enemies to his home on Armon Ruth but yet he sought to delay the Fulfillment of his promise and demanded that gorthal should not be slain to which the orc Captain agrees as I've already said mordigoth servants are under very strict instructions to take Turin son of hurin alive and this version of memes betrayal I think portrays him if not in a positive light in a more positive light in this rendition he isn't a straight up traitor motivated solely by hatred towards one of the loveliest people in the entire story let's be honest he is instead just doing whatever it takes to stay alive not exactly heroic but much more defensible than what the children of Hoodie novel tells us and yet still there is another telling of this tale which casts another light upon means treachery you see after that sentence from the children of houdin where we are told memes true purpose was to seek out the Servants of morgoth there is an asterisk leading to a footnote the only footnote in the entire book and what that footnote says is this but another tale is told which has it that Meme did not encounter the Orcs with deliberate intent it was the capture of his son and their threat to torture him that led meme to his treachery and in my mind this footnote version makes meme even more sympathetic than he is in the cinema really on in this version he's not betraying The Outlaws to save his own life he's doing it to spare his last surviving son and the last surviving Petty dwarf anywhere in the world apart from himself the torment of orc torture if this version is you know true whatever true means then I think it becomes quite hard to really condemn meme's actions yes he did a terrible thing but it was to save his son from abject suffering or maybe it wasn't the question remains Is MeMe a vengeful villain who betrays Our Heroes due to an entirely misplaced hatred of an elf who has done nothing wrong is his treachery the result of self-preservation or is he a victim of the Orcs forced to make a horrendous decision to spare his own son from a fate worse than death well the answer to all three of those questions is yes there is a strong argument born out of textual evidence that suggests each one of these seemingly entirely contradictory interpretations is correct that's what makes meme the petty dwarf such a fascinating figure anyway whichever version we end up going with there are a few things that remain the same most notably meme betrays The Outlaws to the Orcs but he does so after attempting to impose certain conditions upon them he makes four demands firstly he insists that the Orcs pay him the weight in Iron of each man whom they catch or slay upon Armon Ruth but for belleg's capture he wants to be paid the elf's weight in gold secondly when Baron done with is eventually rid of Turin and belleg and antwog and the rest of the girl the wife it must be given back to Meme and no Orcs are ever to harass him or his son ever again thirdly although the Orcs are to have free reign in the killing of the galdewife meme demands that belleg be left for him the Orcs are to beat the elf and to bind him but they must let meme be the one to kill him and the final demand is that the gaudelweith's captain Nathan or gorthal as the Oaks know him must be spared Turin must be allowed to go free now the emissaries of mordigoth readily agree to all these demands but with no intention of fulfilling either the first or the second their orc Captain thought that the fate of belleg might as well be left to meme but as to letting Turin Go free alive to Unbound were his orders and there is no wiggle room on that at this moment turin's capture and his torture in angband before the very eyes of his father potentially even providing the leverage in getting hoodin to spill the beans on gondolin that matters more to morgoth than any number of Outlaw elves or men or dwarves there's one more catch the Orcs agree to memes demands at least they say they do but their Captain insists that iboon be held by them as a hostage as a means of ensuring memes cooperation when the time comes we're actually explicitly told that when the Orcs take ibun meme became afraid and tried to back out of his undertaking or else to escape but the Orcs had his son and so mean was obliged to guide them to bar and done with thus was the house of Ransom betrayed now I will talk about the Battle of Armon Ruth in just a minute but before I do I want to take a moment to speculate on the fate of meme's son iboon this is chronologically the very last time he is ever mentioned and we know absolutely nothing about what became of him afterwards except that in a later part of the story which I won't spoil now we are told that Meme is the last of his people heavily implying that iboon was either killed at the hands of these Orcs or he was killed by something else shortly after and if we speculate that yes iboon was killed by these Orcs And we accept the version of events where memes sought out the Orcs purposefully with the intention of betraying The Outlaws for their role in the death of his other son Kim then that would mean that Meme ended up getting his second son killed in an attempt to avenge the death of his first son as I say this isn't explicitly stated by Tolkien but I think it's a very poetic perspective on meme's character he is so consumed by hatred albeit potentially justifiable hatred and he is so unable to forgive that he ends up losing both of his sons and becoming the very last one of his kind perhaps it didn't need to be that way but such is the self-destructive nature of hate anyway the attack on Armon Ruth unlike some of middle Earth's other battles we don't actually know a huge amount about the details of this conflict but it began with meme leading the Orcs by secret ways up to the doors of bar and done with two Dean's Watchmen Atop The Summit of Amon Routh did indeed see the Orcs approaching and he warned the others that battle was imminent but by the time he did it was already too late under memes Guidance the Orcs shot many of the Gower wife who stood atop of the summit of the hill and although Turin and belek heroically led a sortie to try and slay the Orcs still climb the slopes they were eventually driven back and forced to seal up the entrance to bar and done with with a great Stone they were treated into the caves but as far as Turin and bellega knew there was now no way out however once again there is a single Outlaw who knows something that the rest do not remember in the last video when I mentioned androg wandering through the the many tunnels and caves of bar and done with before stumbling upon a secret hidden stare that led him from meme's house up to the flat Summit of Armon Ruth well this is the reason that got a mention you see as the Orcs try desperately to enter the caves ondrag leads Turin and belleg and the rest of the surviving God wife up to the summit of the Red Hill where they can surprise the Orcs that had already come there by the outer parts Drive their enemies over the edge of the cliffs and hopefully still win the day for a while this does seem to work the Orcs scaling the hill are held back many are slain and the remaining form a defensive Ring Around The Summit however unfortunately the red peak of Armon Ruth is utterly Without Shelter and so the Orcs swiftly realized that they do not need to scale the sheer slopes or climb the outer paths all they need to do is shoot the girl wife from below many of the Outlaws were slain in this fashion but Tolkien actually tells us the most Valiant of them all was androg himself just as meme once declared with his curse androg the Archer is shot by another Archer and he falls mortally wounded upon the summit of Armon Ruth eventually with androg dying Turin and belleg are left with only 10 surviving Outlaws and although they do fight heroically and make a Last Stand for every orc that is slain more keep taking their place and before too long every last one of the Gower wife is killed until belleg and Turin are the only two left I imagine that the dragon Helm and the strong bow fought with utter Fury to defend each other but in the end the multitude of Orcs cast Nets about them both belleg was wounded by orc blades his wrists and his ankles were bound and he was tied down to iron pins that the Orcs had driven into the Rock houdin was also bound but he was taken by the Orcs alive and back to unband now with the dragon Helm as their captive and of a strong bow left wounded and beaten Atop The Hill the Orcs entered bar and done with and they defiled it ravaged it but they did not find meme lurking in the caves and So eventually the Orcs departed from Armon Ruth leaving belleg there to die and taking Turin as their prisoner back to suffer the agony and anguish of angband now you might be wondering well what happened to all those other people the men and elves who flocked to dorthal and dwelt in the guarded camps just south of the Red Hill well the answer is I don't know Tolkien doesn't tell us but I have a hypothesis so that is a character that I have not yet mentioned he isn't ever mentioned in the children of houdin or in the silimarilion or in the unfinished tale but his name is and Veer and and Veer is the son of androg turns out Armstrong has had a son living with him among the gouda wife this whole time but the only place where this son is ever mentioned is in an introductory note from a chapter of the war of the jewels called other writings not forming part of the Quinta Cinema really on anyway the reason that I mention this and vir son of androg is because he is the only member of the Guard wife apart from belleg and Turin who isn't killed in the fall of Amman Ruth he is the only other Survivor in fact I would say the reason that he even exists within the legendarium is because there needs to be someone who survives to tell the story otherwise how would we know about Turin and the guard wife well as it goes Tolkien tells us that this anvir told a Manish poet called dear haval and according to tolkien's very complex framing device this dude dear haval is the guy who actually wrote the narnikin hurin the tale of the children of hurin and we are told that and vir son of androg told dear haval this story when he was an old man living among other refugees in that sanctuary of the uttermost South the Havens protected by kierdon the shipwright and his Ward the future High King Gila Garland so my speculation would be that after the fall of Armon Ruth and the death of androg and Veer and some of the others who dwelt in the camps all around the Red Hill fled into the South where many probably died but at least some made it to the mouths of Sirion and joined the refugees under the care of kirodon but I could not possibly end this video without explaining what becomes of belleg he is bound and beaten and wounded and waiting for death atop Amon Ruth and I imagine In This Moment his thoughts must have turned to Turin and the unimaginable torment that he has now doomed to endure but then meme reveals himself he draws a knife from his belt and as he approaches belleg's unmoving body he sharpens it he gloats in front of the elf savoring his suffering and walking among the bodies of the coward wife who all lie dead due to his treachery it's just as meme is about to take his Vengeance about to murder belek kothalion in Cold Blood one of the Gower wife bodies begins to crawl towards him the Archer is not quite dead he seizes a sword and he thrusts it at meme only a moment before meme can kill belek the dwarf shrieks and in his fear he runs to the brink of the cliff and then disappears over the edge in his Panic he isn't killed but we won't be seeing meme again for quite a long time anyway with the very last strength of his life androg cuts the bonds that bind and he releases him then androg dies by bellig's side here in the moment of his death androg is I think to extent redeemed that's not to say that all his negative actions are undone but on the last day of his life ondrag is described as being the most Valiant among the Goud wife he avenges his brothers by getting rid of the treacherous dwarf and in his very last Act he saves Bellic he makes right what was wrong between them and he ensures that Turin will not now be entirely alone androg knows that he cannot save his best friend and his captain but he also knows that belleg just might and so that is where I will end things for now the Outlaws are destroyed Armon Ruth has fallen Turin is taken by the enemy and there is only one person who could get him back once again has a quest to achieve the stakes have never been higher but he knows what he must do the same thing he's been doing for years find Turin in the wild kill those that would harm him and bring him home so to make sure you don't miss the next part of this story hit subscribe if you haven't already and be sure to click like and leave a comment on this video If you enjoyed it however until next time as always my dear friends much love stay groovy and navier melanin oh [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Tolkien Untangled

Views: 29,107

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Id: c5axT6-454A

Length: 62min 4sec (3724 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 02 2023