The Full Story of the ITHILIEN RANGERS | Middle Earth Lore

the affiliate ranges are one of my favorite factions in all of middle earth those and maybe the dunadine ranges i'm not sure what it is about those sort of characters i just find them really cool anyway today's video is all about the history of the rangers of ethilian [Music] worthy so first of all what is athillion it's a region in gondor on the very borders of mordor it was the only kingdom between the river anduin and the ethel duath also known as the outer fence which was essentially a load of mountains that surrounded mordor and housed shelob to make this a little clearer you had ministereth here then australia ethylene minas morgal then the mountains of ethelduath and then mordor when ethylene was first founded in the second age it was a great land with many beautiful forests and gardens but this was when gondor was at its strongest and mordor was particularly deserted its main city was minas ethel a fortress that protected gondor's then capital city or skilleth from attacks from mordor in the early part of the third age as gondor's army slowly began to weaken it was eventually overrun and captured by the forces of mordor then they used it as a base to attack gondor from and it slowly decayed into the fortress later known as minas morgul the entire population of ethilian then began to migrate across the anduin and into australia to try and escape the lumen threat of the nazgul that were now housed in manasmorgal however during the watchful peace which is a period of around 400 years in the third age where gondor experienced a relatively peaceful period they began strengthening their borders and while keeping an eye on minas morgul where the nazgul had remained quiet gondor slowly started to relax their defenses although the reason saron had been quiet was because he was building his armies creating a strong alliance with the easterlins adding even more men to his force during this time some hardy folk had began to reoccupy ethylene but then the watchful piece came to an end when an army of urics from mordor devastated the region although they were driven back to minus morgul by boromir the first this is not the boromir from the fellowship this is far before his time rage then continued intermittently and made living in ethilian a very difficult task a few centuries later attacks from orcs and haradrim intensified and the remaining population of ethylene had to flee the then steward of gondor turin ii decided to have scouts remain in athelian in secret and be based out of a secret outpost location such as henneth and noon this is the caves with the waterfall and the pool that we see pharamia take frodo and sam to during the war of the ring a secret place we have somewhat less than 10 miles from here the orcs and spies of the enemy have not found it yet and if they did we could hold it long even against many so the purpose of the secret scouts now known as rangers of ethilian was to use stealth and surprise to ambush the servants of sauron and prevent them from entering australia by the time of the war of the ring they also attacked and hunted orc scouting parties and often went into the mogul vale to harass the forces of the enemy in gondor's old domain they became known for their proficiency with a bow their stealth agility and archery abilities were even said to be on par with that of the elves of whom they had likely only ever heard of through stories they named themselves mablung and damrod soldiers of gondor and they were rangers of a thillion for they were descended from folk who lived in athillion at one time before it was overrun from such men the lord denethor chose his fereys who crossed the anduin secretly how or where they would not say to harry the orcs and other enemies that roamed between the ethel duath and the river so these rangers were very busy during the war of the ring led by faramir son of the ruling steward denathor in june 3018 saron's forces attacked osgiliath aided by harandrim and easterlins and under the command of the witch king of angmar himself they overwhelmed gondor's defenses and the men were forced to retreat they managed to break the bridge over the anduin as they retreated osgiliath was actually situated with half of its city on either side of the river so this prevented sauron's forces from taking over the entire city for now this battle along with sauron's attack on merkwood was the first official battle of the war of the ring it wouldn't be until nine months later that sauron would once again attack oscillate this time conquering the entire city faramir had many of his men stationed there to aid the defense of the city but it was no use and the majority of them were killed just before this second attack in march 1319 faramir and his rangers attacked a large regiment of haradrim with muma kills and pretty much managed to kill all of them after the majority fled when they managed to bring down one of the mumma kill an impressive feat for a small group of men it was just after this battle that the rangers captured frodo and sam and took them to henneth and noon farmer learned that frodo was in possession of the one ring but let them go a day later to seek entry into mordor here is a nice passage about how sam perceived the rangers it gives us a nice description of their appearance as well as telling us how they move with such stealth with his keen hobbit eyes he saw that many more men were about he could see them stealing up the slopes singly or in long files keeping always to the shade or grove of thicket or crawling hardly visible in their brown and green raiment through grass and break all were hooded and masked and had gauntlets on their hands and were armed like faramir and his companions before long they all passed and vanished the sun rose till it neared the south the shadows shrank so after this it can be assumed that some of the rangers participated in the battle of the palinor fields most likely defended minas tirith from inside the walls but one of their most important roles for the outcome of some of the main heroes was during the march to the black gate before the final battle of the war of the ring the athelian rangers were sent forwards as scouts discovering an ambush that had been set by a force of orcs and easterlins this allowed them to report back to their captains and essentially trap the ambush themselves it was near the end of the second day of their march from the crossroads that they first met any offer of battle for a strong force of orcs and easterlings attempted to take their leading companies in an ambush and that was in the very place where faramir had waylaid the men of harrod and the road went in a deep cut in through an out outthrust of the eastwood hills but the captains of the west were well warned by their scouts skilled men from hennepin led by mablung and so the ambush was itself trapped the horsemen went wide about westward and came up on the flank of the enemy and from behind and they were destroyed or driven east into the hills who knows what might have happened if they had not discovered the ambush in advance so after the defeat of sauron and after pharamia had been appointed the prince of ethilion his ranges became known as the white company the guard of pharamia created by king al-assar beregond was appointed the first captain of the white company in recognition of his brave acts performed during the siege of ministerith which saved faramir's life it's likely that the white company would have played a part in helping king alassa vanquish the remainder of sauron's servants after the war so there we have it that is everything we know about the athillion rangers an extremely important faction for the survival of gondor and the outcome of the war of the ring in general so a little side question here would you guys like to see a full video on faramir he is one of my favorite characters from the books and i feel he genuinely does not get the appreciation that he deserves my main question for you guys today is this if you could have been a soldier in any of gondor's armies which one would you have picked an affiliate ranger a ministerus knight a knight of dalam roth a god of the fountain court let us know in the comments down below okay that's it from me today my friends time has come as always to thank our patrons big shout out goes to the members of our three highest tiers kevin abram matt gluffindle of gondolin nashith denver steel gregory john andrew and pirates747 you guys are supporting our short film and we could not be more grateful towards the end of october we will hopefully be doing a live stream with the writer of our film where you guys can ask as many questions as you like we may also be dropping some of the first big hints about the title the setting and the story so make sure you keep an eye out for that it'll be sometime around the 20th of october we are finally getting somewhere with this project anyway thank you all so much for watching today i hope you have a fantastic day and i will see you next time on the broken sword [Music]

Channel: The Broken Sword

Views: 55,815

Keywords: The Broken Sword, History of the Ages, History of Middle Earth, The Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings Lore, Middle Earth Lore, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, Tolkien Lore

Id: ZiQCQB5z16U

Length: 9min 14sec (554 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 30 2021