It Seems Like It Sucks Up There.

Jared, Oriana and Ned discuss Ned’s choice of topic: Arnor and Angmar. Only half-referenced in the Jackson adaptations, the long-gone realms of Arnor and Angmar don’t have much place in the original Lord of the Rings text itself – in fact, Tolkien didn’t fully introduce either of them by time and set a firm sense of what exactly they were until much later in the overall revision process, including the development of the appendices. Arnor was the northern equivalent of Gondor, a realm in exile founded by Númenor’s refugees, but one that slowly fractured and then faded away or was conquered bit by bit. Angmar was the realm doing most of the conquering, set up and ruled over by the Lord of the Nazgûl in the guise of the Witch-king, though after his final conquest of the remains of Arnor, Angmar itself was soon after destroyed via an invasion from Gondor. But while centuries have passed since both their ends, the realms have a strange, at times unsettling impact on the characters and situations in the main text. What was the legacy of both kingdoms as it affected Aragorn in particular, as well as the remnant of peoples he found himself leading, even at times at a great distance? How did the sense of history in England itself in terms of lost kingdoms and mysterious ruins play into what Tolkien imagined for both realms? Was the nature of Angmar always just a matter of convenience, and what does it mean that it seems to be drawing on numerous different peoples and species? And if nature abhors a vacuum, how much did the nature of fandom contribute in terms of fan work talking about both of them? (Answer: quite a bit.)