Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
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Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
1–10 of 428 posts
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#2My immediate thought is that the technium of Middle Earth did not develop like ours due to rhe ubiquity of magic.
Indeed, it is in these books that the last lights of magic are fading, and the world is being given over to other powers.
Imagine if there were like an additional physics sitting on top of ours, and its use was isolated to a few hereditary practitioners, and let us see if the mundanes can scraps together enough gumption for gunpowder. Who knows if it even works in those circumstances?
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#3My immediate thought is that the technium of Middle Earth did not develop like ours due to rhe ubiquity of magic. Indeed, it is in these books that the last lights of magic are fading, and the world is being given over to other powers. Imagine if there were like an additional physics sitting on top of ours, and its use was isolated to a few hereditary practitioners, and let us see if the mundanes can scraps together…
Its been a long time since i read the books so im not sure if this is present in the books, but there is gunpowder in the movies because the orcs use a bomb at one point.
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#4The LoTR/Rambo x-over would be so epic.
Taking down a balrog with an RPG never looked so cool
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#5A point made in the article is that industrialization was limited due to lack of coal but don't the dwarves use coal to run their forges?
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#6"Confession time. I have never read Lord of the Rings" - the guy who wrote an entire article about how much he doesn't like it.
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#7Reminds me of this:
"Reassured, the boggies donned their greaves, corslets, gauntlets, and shoulder padding and slathered themselves with Bactine. Each was armed with a double-edged putty knife, its blade both keen and true. Goodgulf wore an old deep-sea diver’s suit of stoutest latex. Only the well-trimmed beard was recognizable through the helmet’s little round window. In his hand he carried an ancient and trusty weapon, called by the elves a Browning semiautomatic." - Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#8My immediate thought is that the technium of Middle Earth did not develop like ours due to rhe ubiquity of magic. Indeed, it is in these books that the last lights of magic are fading, and the world is being given over to other powers. Imagine if there were like an additional physics sitting on top of ours, and its use was isolated to a few hereditary practitioners, and let us see if the mundanes can scraps together…
Its been a long time since i read the books so im not sure if this is present in the books, but there is gunpowder in the movies because the orcs use a bomb at one point.
The books are ambiguous. There's an explosion caused by a device made by Saruman, but it isn't described and there's no indication AFAIK if it's supposed to be simple black powder or something magical.
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#9My immediate thought is that the technium of Middle Earth did not develop like ours due to rhe ubiquity of magic. Indeed, it is in these books that the last lights of magic are fading, and the world is being given over to other powers. Imagine if there were like an additional physics sitting on top of ours, and its use was isolated to a few hereditary practitioners, and let us see if the mundanes can scraps together…
Its been a long time since i read the books so im not sure if this is present in the books, but there is gunpowder in the movies because the orcs use a bomb at one point.
They had fireworks. Of course they may have been magical.
Re: Why hasn't Middle Earth had an Industrial Revolution?
#10There are several sentient species simultaneously, and the resulting xenophobic/genocidal struggle takes huge toll - in particular the populations of those various species are small (in my view Tolkien is a bit unrealistic in the sense that in his world the most powerful species hadn't totally put others out of existence like for example Cro-Magnon did to Neanderthals). Industrial revolution is about scale (the machines make economic sense only in mass production) and small population can't have it.