Why didn't Aragorn take the Oathbreakers to Mordor?

i recently had a comment asking me why aragorn dismissed the oath breakers of pelican and why did he not instead take them to menace tirith or even beyond to mordor itself i thought this was a good question so i decided to make a video about it why didn't aragorn take the earthbreakers to mordor the oathbreakers played an important yet limited role in the war of the ring upon being summoned by aragorn at the stone of eric they follow him through southern gondor and drive the corsairs and the haradrim from the crossing at linhare before pursuing them to peliger at peliger aragorn wins a decisive victory the corsairs and the haradrim are so afraid of the oath breakers that they flee in terror with many of the corsairs diving into the anduin and abandoning their ships this allows aragorn to seize the fleet and crew the ships of gondorian soldiers with the intention of sailing north up the anduin to relieve the besieged minas tirith but before he sets sail aragorn holds the oaths of the oathbreakers fulfilled released from their curse of undeath the oath breakers vanish following the victory at peliger aragorn does indeed sail north and his fleet reaches ministerif only a few hours after the arrival of the rohirrim his forces play a pivotal role in the battle which seemed to be going ill at that point and the mogul hosts alongside their manish allies are completely crushed and the few survivors retreat across the anduin although they were not present at the battle of pelinor fields the actions of the oath breakers at peliger was a major contribution towards the eventual victory but let's get to the question considering the effectiveness of the oath breakers at peliger it seems like a no-brainer to bring them to the pelinor fields as well much like what happened at peliger they could have been unleashed upon the morgle host terrifying them and causing them to rout from the field this might have lessened the amount of losses sustained by the three peoples in the latter half of the battle afterwards why not then unleash them upon mordor itself for similar results alright i'm going to split this video into two sections first i'm going to talk about why this might not have even been possible and secondly i'm going to talk about why it might not have even been a good idea and why it might not be as effective as it sounds so firstly could aragorn have even kept the earthbreakers after pelagia we don't actually know he had the power to release them from their oath but the power that cursed them came from a louvitar himself which makes it uncertain whether aragorn truly had the final say in their fate if aragorn did have ultimate control would it have even been just to deny them peace after pelicare it's important to look at the exact words that are used by aragorn when he addresses the oath breakers after summoning them at eric the hour has come at last now i go to peliger upon anduin and ye shall come after me and when all this land is clean of the servants of sauron i will hold the oath fulfilled and you shall have peace and depart forever for i am a lesser isildur's heir of gondor now aragorn promises them that when all this land is clean of the servants of sauron he will release them at first glance you might think he's talking about gondor as a whole but this line comes after aragorn specifically refers to peliger and given aragorn does eventually release the oath breakers at peliger that seems to be the context for the line regarding this land so aragorn has promised the oath breakers that he will release them once pelugia is cleared of sauron's servants so what happens if he doesn't follow through with this promise we don't know for certain but probably nothing good we know how much power oafs have in arda there's a relevant line from the silmarillion for so sworn good or evil an oath may not be broken and it shall pursue the oath keeper and oathbreaker to the world's end aragorn has made a promise and while a promise and an oath aren't necessarily the same thing one could argue there is little difference in this circumstance although i doubt breaking this promise would open aragorn up to divine punishment on the same scale that the oath breakers received it's still possible that there would be consequences for denying the oath breakers their rest these consequences may include something bad happening to aragorn himself or to gondor as a whole as to what could happen your guess is as good as mine it could even lead to a comical scenario where the oath breakers attempt to curse aragorn alternatively iluvatar himself might intervene and bypass aragorn's authority by releasing the oath breakers himself there's also more mundane consequences by refusing to release the oath breakers aragorn would be taking a major step towards becoming a tyrant which would only open him to further corruption in the future such a tyrannical despicable act would definitely not endear him to the people of gondor which is especially important because aragorn has not yet become king realistically it benefits aragorn to associate himself with the oathbreakers as little as possible and wielding them like a personal weapon will not go down well there's also the matter of the oath breakers themselves denying their request might cause them to rebel which means at best they return home and at worst they might even switch sides so denying the earthbreakers of their rest isn't a decision to be taken lightly it's not a matter of aragon simply going actually you guys are kind of useful i might keep you around it's a decision that might have both short and long-term consequences consequences that might not seem clear at that time at the end of the day if you're dealing with an army of vengeful ghosts that exist thanks to a 3 000 year long curse it's probably best not to play around too much with them alright on to the second part of the question let's assume aragorn is able to keep the oath breakers after pelican because i said earlier we're not sure if it would have been truly possible or not so assuming he does is it even worth it because just how effective are the earthbreakers in the peter jackson films the army of the dead was basically a free win card they were a giant ghost army that could slaughter their way across the battlefield whilst being completely immune to damage this is not the same as the oath breakers in the books in fact legless even says that he was unsure whether the oathbreaker's weapons could harm and going by the rules of tolkien's universe the oath breakers shouldn't be capable of physically harming anyone they are ghosts they do not seem to have bodies this is not the same as the nazgul who are referred to as rafes traditionally interchangeable with ghosts but the nazgul do have bodies they're just invisible lacking the capability of causing physical harm the oath breakers are limited to one use spreading terror let's not downplay the usefulness of this but at the same time we must also recognize an important reality you can only spread terror as long as people are afraid of you ghosts are scary but they become significantly less scary once people realize that they are unable to physically harm you so as soon as sauron's forces recognize that the oath breakers are to put it bluntly just a scary magic trick then the effectiveness of the oath breakers plummets so the oath breakers were effective at pelican and would likely be effective at the pelinor fields but beyond that sauron's forces would likely work out that the oathbreakers are incapable of truly hurting them while orcs and wicked men would certainly still be afraid of them they would be even more afraid of their own commanders such as the nazgul or even sauron himself who would go a long way in holding them together in the face of this fear so by the time aragorn decides to march on mordor the oath breakers might be completely useless what i'm saying is that the oath breakers were like a special party trick cool once or twice but after that it gets kind of old you might be thinking well okay but given how successful the oath breakers were at pella gear surely they would still be useful at the pelinor fields why wouldn't aragorn use them there's two things to consider here firstly peligor and the pelinor fields were two vastly different battles by driving away the corsairs at peliger aragorn was able to seize their ships this was a huge strategic victory for the free peoples because the seizing of the corsair fleet left sauron without a navy and severely limited his strike potential against southern gondor however if aragon were to deploy the oath breakers against the morgle host at pelinor fields it would not achieve the same level of success sure the free peoples would have a temporary tactical victory on the count of the morgle host fleeing but after a few days it's likely the mughal host would reform reinforce and would then attack ministerif a second time so the free peoples haven't truly won the battle of pelinor fields they've simply delayed it this is a worse outcome than what occurs in the actual timeline where the mughal host was decisively destroyed giving aragorn enough time to march on the black gate the second thing i want to mention is collateral damage although aragorn controlled the earthbreakers he could not control the effects they had on these allied soldiers notably when the oathbreakers arrived at lin here both sauron's forces and gondor's forces fled the field only one man was brave enough to stand his ground angbor lord of lamidon aragorn bids angbor gather his forces and follow but they hang back and only begin gathering at peliger after aragorn has released the oath breakers evidently no one wants to be around them now imagine if aragorn arrived at the pelinol fields with the oath breakers not only would sauron's forces route but so too would the rohirrim as with gondor's forces that had sallied forth from ministerif with the exception of the grey company even aragorn's own forces would likely still be afraid had they chosen to come the battlefield would descend into complete and utter chaos as men and orcs flee in every direction as i said earlier there would be no decisive outcome to the battle it would just be resetting the pieces for a second engagement now imagine aragorn taking the oath breakers to the black gate his army is severely outnumbered they're going to fight in a completely hostile terrain and a thousand of them have already refused to go any further now imagine this same demoralized army having to deal with perpetual fear of having an army of ghosts around them even if the ghosts are on your side it's an unnerving thing to have to deal with and it might be the straw that breaks the camel's back on the other side of the field mordor's forces are controlled by sauron himself and you know his will is going to be powerful enough to hold them together no matter what they face alright so to summarize everything we have learned why didn't aragorn take the earthbreakers to mordor firstly there's no guarantee that he would even be able to aragorn seems to stipulate that he would release the oath breakers after peliger it's possible that if he went back on that promise he would suffer consequences of his own iluvatar might bypass his authority over the earthbreakers the oathbreakers might rebel or his own soldiers and followers might disapprove of such actions secondly if aragorn could continue to use the oathbreakers they would quickly become ineffective if used at the palindor fields the oath breakers would have a fear effect on both sides causing everyone to withdraw and rendering the battle inconclusive it wouldn't take long for sauron's forces to recognise that the oathbreakers had no real power except for fear thus we arrive at the final answer could aragorn have taken the earthbreakers to mordor maybe would they have been effective probably not would they have been worth it probably not in fact there is a good chance they would have been more of a hindrance than a help at that point in the end aragon used the oath break as well he used them to win a substantial victory and didn't push his luck any further and knowing when not to push your luck is a good leadership quality in itself thank you for watching i hope you enjoyed it or at least found it interesting because i've never said it before probably because i've never had the opportunity while i actually do like the law behind the earthbreakers i really do hate their usage in the story that's all i have to say cheers farewell and remember

Channel: Darth Gandalf

Views: 107,331

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Id: f1v9SWJ7pY0

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 27 2022