The ones portrayed in Peter Jackson’s film were enticed to attack by Saruman’s promise of dental insurance.

‘The Dunlendings: Playing Middle Earth on Hard Mode’

They thought the Rohirrim were evil but changed their minds after being showed mercy in Helms Deep. Do not underestimate the voice of Saruman.

Whenever someone says that the Lord of the Rings idealizes imperialism and Tolkien is a racist I always think of stuff like this and I'm like yeah you clearly did not read the same story I did. The good guys make several terrible mistakes and some people fight on the side of evil because of them more so than any loyalty to actual evil

What Tolkien left out is the elves views of the Dunlendings. It totally looks like Gil-Galad saw Aldarion as a strong ally against Sauron and was prepared to overlook habitat destruction and ethnic cleansing in exchange for security for his realm to the north.

Now that's what I call an interesting topic. I always thought of them as miserable pawns that were expelled from their lands and used by Saruman as revenge tools. Although in different periods they played different roles. They are not entirely innocent and they stirred the pot many times. Freca had it coming.

What I find fascinating is what the Dunlandings didn't do: reclaim their land, specifically southern Arnor after the Witch King had destroyed Cardolan and Arnor as a whole. Perhaps they were scared of the Wights, but I'd have expected them to at least try colonizing parts of Cardolan not situated near the Barrow Downs, as well as southern regions in Arthedain and Rhudaur, perhaps trying to settle the lands south and west of Bree. As the Hobbits had only migrated a few generations before the fall of Fornost, I imagine some would have at least known of their old neighbors from Dunland, and could have used this to create better relations.

The conflict between the Rohirrim and the Dunlendings is reminiscent of the British land grab by the Anglo-Saxons, who pushed the indigenous Celtic population to the fringes. The conflict between the Numenorians and the ancestors of the Dunlendings, on the other hand, can be seen as an example of the negative effects of colonialism and imperialism. In a more or less similar way, this may have happened in Harad, for example, except that the indigenous population there was also partly subjugated or enslaved.

And people say Tolkien never had shades of grey or moral ambiguity in his works!

I think of the Dunlendings as a "celtic" kind of people, like the welsh or Irish or Picts. People the Saxons wouldve warred with. I dont think the Rohan Dunland conflict is a case of good vs evil, but the kind of conflict that arises in the normal course of human affairs especially after the Dominion of Men. Heres a question I wonder: if the Rohirrim are based on Anglo Saxons, where are all the slaves? 10 to 20 percent of anglo saxon society was enslaved.

So, how much did the Dunland tourism bureau pay you for the promo? 😁 It's easy to lump the Dunlendings in with the Easterlings and the Haradwaith but their actual history is more complicated. Sometimes they were free to handle their own affairs and sometimes they were ruled by others. Their lands often ended up being the place where greater powers fought their wars. At least it sounds like the 4th Age got off to a better start for them than the previous ages.

Dunlendings are basicly new players to a Grand Strategy game

There is a 1600 year gap between the defeat of Sauron and the Plague. During this time the Dunlendings appeared to have been pretty much left alone in Enedwaith. After the Great Plague they began to move into Calenardon. This event is analogous to the successive waves of barbarian incursions into the Roman Empire beginning with the Antoine Plague. Gondor was in dire straits in 2510, but the fate of Rome was averted by the timely arrival of the Rohirrim, who drove out the Dunlender "barbarians", placing a friendly vassal on Gondor's Northern border. From Gondor's perspective, the Dunlendings were invaders of Gondorian land, and they had every right to grant Calenardon as a fief to Eorl. From the Dunlender perspective, Calenardon was theirs because Gondor did not drive them out by force and there was room for all. But one cannot argue that Dunland *had* to expand eastwards. Enedwaith was also largely empty after the Plague. The Dunlenders never bothered to claim Tharbad, letting it fall into ruin. They also let commerce with the Northlands (Breeland, the Shire, Lindon, Blue Mts) dry up. It's more likely the beef the Dunlendings and Rohirrim had with each other was cultural. The Dunlendings were people of the dark (pagan), while the Rohirrim were "men of the west" (Christian) and that was enough for enmity. The same is true of Easterlins and Haradrim.

If King Helm Hammerhead approved Wulf's request to marry his daughter, how would that impact Rohan's relationship with the Dunlendings?

Even when I first read the trilogy, I was struck by Tolkien's nuanced references to the Dunlendings and their sad history with Gondor and the Rohirrim. They definitely seem a people who just can't get a break, leaving them vulnerable to Saruman's exploitation.

The Dunlendings remind me of Gallic Celts, Gaelic Celts, Celtiberians and Brythonic Celts. The Numenoreans being Rome screwing them over. And it doesn't take a uneducated guess who the Eolingas are.

I always found it interesting during the scenes when they are being spared after helms-deep and orthanc there seen to be just normal people not just evil monsters like orcs

I think their situation could have improved in the Fourth Age. I'm not sure if Eomer occupied Dunland in the Fourth Age. Whether or not, I think they could have been part of the founding populations of the new colonies in Enedwaith and Arnor. Who knows, eventually they might have even migrated into Eregion once Khazad-dum was reestablished.

Being that Tolkien borrowed heavily from both Germanic and Celtic histories, it would make sense for the Dunlendings to be an amalgam of how the Romans would have viewed the Germans (and to a lesser extent, the Slavs) while subjugating them, and to how the English (particularly during the Norman era) viewed the Celts while they did the same.

The CC keeps calling them the dumb lendings lmao

Consider the following: Tolkien wrote his legendarium pretending to having access to ancient writings and documents about Middle Earth, these documentation is obviously written by Dunedain and Elves so there is a case for doubting the veracity of the information they provide about the Dumlings, specially when we already know how racist and supremacist the Dunedain were about the native peoples of Middle Earth, even amongst the faithful.

Excellent content. I never knew much about them other than the origin of the feud with Rohan.

Like the use of the looter loading page from MB2 Bannerlord. Great video. Very interesting.

Is there a tourism bureau or something like that where I can turn to to plan a trip to Funland? That slogan really sticks, and now my wife and kids are excited to go!

Dunlendings: Unbound, Unbent, Unbroken Had everyone to avenge themselves against their aggressive neighbor.

I came into this video arguing no evil is inherent evil. But as usual It so much more nuanced! incredibly well thought out video

Awesome thanks mate, that was fantastic

another excelent video bro, wonderfull misterys uncovered, always felt the same way about them... descendent from the Edain... you should do a video on the middle men of second and third age bro keep up the work, love it

Too be completely fair Saruman is said to have the ability of magical influence. Your honor I argue that dunland was a victim of magical persuasion. And Saruman might be able to dissuade their fears by saying these orcs are different, disciplined and intelligent.

Great Video!! Please do a video on the Variags of Khand, Balcoth, and the Haradrim

Another great video!

Nice to see some Lord of the Rings lore content from an Aussie. Keep up the good work mate!

amazing video dude

And there was one crime which they helped: the torches on the Westfold

Dunland is funland might be your best quote ever

I love your videos, you have an analytical and neutral point of view; this is refreshing regarding the world of Middle Earth.

it's interesting to me because it's clear from both their name and the situation they are in that they are a stand in for the british celts. Everything from a great empire who is technically related to them calling them barbaric and taking their land and recourses as well as slaves, to a germanic (or germanic stand in) people coming into their land, through a grant do to military aid which sparks centuries of war and conquest between the peoples. Not to mention Dunlending sounds a lot like like it means "people of the dun-land" in which dun is a common celtic word for a hill fort, which there were many of scattered across the pre-roman, and post-roman british land scape.

8:34 that`s why Saruman could nurse vengeful sentiments in them towards Gondor and Rohan... Much like some real life leaders these days... But lets not get into this, right? Tolkien did warn us about the presence of Saruman like people in our midst, that's for sure.

This was fascinating indeed! May I ask what were your sources? History of Middle Earth?

So where were the Ents during all this tree-murdering that the Numenorians were doing? Were they off doing something else or were they banned from hurting the Numenorians because they technically serve one of the Valar? Or is this just a plothole that JR never got around to solving?

They're not on anyone's side because no one is all together on their side

Do you think that they may have been deceived by Saruman and Sauron war tends to make people do desperate things and how were they after the war of the ring

In a world where sin thrives and unlawful unrighteous deeds,behavior, and ambitions go without rebuke evil can take place and grow within the hearts of all nations and their people and the leaders who set the policy and enforce it.

About Gwaithurim. I cant find the word anywhere in Tolkiens writings. I searched through The Hobbit, LotR, Silmarillion, HoME (1-12), Unfinished Tales, Nature of Middle earth and the Letters of Tolkien, The Children of Hurin,, Fall of Gondolin AND Beren and Lúthien (easy when having all digitally) . Where is it mentioned? Help!

If we use we use DnD alingment system for the Dunlendings i think a "neutral evil" role is best suited for them. A neutral evil character has no compunctions about harming others to get what they want, but neither will they go out of their way to cause carnage or mayhem when they see no direct benefit for themselves.

Yeah, what you said. Precisely so. Victims, but their responses were unjustifiable. They, like all the other Edain of pre-Numenorean stock had a great capacity for greater nobility and wiser choices, even after being terribly wronged. But Saruman's voice probably tipped them over the edge. I think that was an exculpatory consideration in their favor, but yeah.

Totally worth second watch two months out. You seem remarkably sensitive and astute, even compassionate towards the moral dualities in discerning who is actually being wronged and at what point. (**cough ** For a thug **cough**). You and Bilbo have that in common. There's more to you than meets the Great Eye... and it makes for spectacular content.

Dunlanding history in one sentence: Then things got worse.

I used to be a regular patron at Lord of the Rings Plaza and I once DID think about it...I created a story series, 2 or 3 shorts tales about what happened...if anyone is interested, I can dig them up...

With the felling of trees it sounds like my Irish ancestors troubles with the English

What makes me curious is the Dunlandings interactions with the Orcs? What made them get along so well and fight alongside one another?

Celts. My favs. Victims fore sure. Cheers mate.

Ive decided to use them for a custom campaign on the BFME 2 im doing for my channel. They would be invaded my legions of wild goblins and playing isengard. I must defeat the goblins and earn their allegiance. Ive got a list of the levels and enemies i will face.

These people were the biggest mystery to me.

There's quote I remember When the oppressed become the oppressors

BOTH!

both

So the vid is a year old so I doubt most people will see this, but I feel some other things need to be said. Firstly, they were an oppressed people a majority of the time they are being mentioned in the histories. Now Tolkien was a believer in objective good and evil, so he would probably state that the weakness of the dunlandings was being willing to side with evil any chance it gave them a one up against their enemies.... who they never had a chance to actually defeat without dark lord, dark pirate, or dark wizard help. That being said, saruman was very convincing guy, like magical voice.... and orcs tales of orc talk about them being evil, but did they raid dunlanding homes? Not sure it talks about it in histories, heck the dunlandings were once falsly considered "servants of the dark ones" until they joined the "dark army" to fight the colonial oppressors they faced. Who writes the histories anyway? The always "good guy" gondorians? The riders? Please. But that's more of a take from a subjective opinion. They seem like a fine people, but Tolkien wanted more about heros and villains, and with his views anyone not a hero was a villain, on purpose or on accident.

The history of Dunland sounds like the history of the Balkans

Sounds a lot like a lawyer for a cannibal serial killer talking about how his father got drunk on friday nights and smacked him.

Subbed

They were both victims and villains. Too small and insignificant to be meaningful in slightly greater scheme, held grievances towards both Gondor and Rohan. This caused them to take well-known choices - which were wrong, bot from moral and political point of view.

all villains are victims of their own hubris

'' Celts ''

#DunlandisFunland.

Do you still play LOTRO

.....the raw end of the stick they were given from Numenor, things never improved much.

All good as long as the Dunlendings weren't the same as warhammer's Norscans in Tarriff's videos: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hd6fjMaG2MrdhGg.html

You can be both.

The Dunlendings were Finland of WWII, allying with Nazi Germany against the USSR. Not because they were Nazis, but because their very survival as a nation made it necessary. Does being allied to those with dodgy motives undermine your ethics? Sure does. But I think you're also a week bit dismissive of how poverty and oppression, especially many, many generations of it, can warp people's conception, or prioritisation, of right and wrong. I think another aspect is interesting in this and that's Tolkien's apparent susceptibility to the Halo Effect. Throughout his writing (and this is a generalisation) there's a sense that good looking = good. The morally worthy, especially the nobility, are usually beautiful, while those who fall short of that tend to have been on the end of a sound beating with ugly stick.

Villainous Victims.

The fate of the Dunlendings is sort of an analog for the fate of the indigenous peoples of the Americas - Yeah, they "lost the struggle" as it were against the European/American expansion into their lands, but they were definitely not the fictional "Noble Savage" as portrayed in some modern literature an myth. As a teenager I was quite interested in tales of the American frontier. At one point I remember reading a book of short histories of the Indian Wars. One story in particular I wish I'd never read was about an American Army officer who was captured sometime in the early 1800's by an Iroquois war party. His own small band of soldiers had been killed during an ambush and he was the only survivor. The story was related by a French trapper who was friendly to the Iroquois in that area, but had no love for the Americans or British. Long story short, the Iroquois braves decided to burn the American alive. When the trapper told the officer that his fate was to be burned, he stated that he "would attempt to bear it bravely", but the trapper told him that it would be nowhere near a quick death, as the Iroquois truly enjoyed the spectacle of burning their captives slowly on a bed of coals where they would tie a man's hands behind his back and then rope him by his neck to a pole, but leave his feet and legs free. Then they'd watch him dance as he'd slowly roast to death over coals with just enough rope to allow him to put part of his body out of the intense heat, but not all of it. This led to a man "favoring" various parts of his body as the rest of him roasted in various places until the thousands of twists and turns to obtain some relief had finally caused every part of the man's surface to become charred, with the exception of his face and head; at which point the Iroquois would shove him to the ground and heap hot coals on his head to finish the deed. The "fun" was to see how long they could keep a man alive during this ordeal. The trapper related that it took this particular officer a day and a half to finally expire. I still have trouble grasping this level of evil. The knowledge that the native peoples of the Americas had been dealing out this sort of treatment to their rivals long before Europeans appeared on the scene has since destroyed any naive ideas of the "Noble Indigenous Peoples" B.S. you might hear from supremely ignorant people in our modern era.

The Dunlendings weren't one people or culture. They had diverse tribes and subcultures.

Why can't they be both?

No offense but why do you say that the Dunlendings 'believed' they had faced injustices? You wouldn't say the native Americans 'believed' their lands had been stolen and their culture marginalized, would you

The mountain clans from the Vale of Arryn are a rip off

Saruman: What if dunlendings were called 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴lendings and instead of fighting with rohirrim they bred with orcs 👅👅👅

Unpopular belief but Saruman wasn’t evil! He just was a voice for the down trodden and misplaced. You could also argue that he only made the Uruk-hai ( which weren’t orcs, so I believe had a high IQ and reasoning) but Saruman only made them as a means to a end. So I wholeheartedly believe that Saruman is the hero that middle earth needed and didn’t want. Again this is a unpopular opinion.

Why wouldn't they side with orcs over "fellow men"? Their fellow men stole their lands and oppressed them, the orcs did not.

The Dunlendings were no more evil than the Numernorians. And I would say less evil actually. You have to believe that Gondor had a legal right to give land that the Dunlendings lived on for centuries to the Rhorirrm. So in nearly all cases the Rhorirrm were far more the aggressors. I would say even fighting alongside Orcs against the Rhorirrm is justifiable, and the only real crime is the tryanny of the Hobbits a people who had never harmed them. In that light they became the very colonizers that they hated.

I had a feeling that Dunlendings had a similar history like North American Natives.

Dunlendings are good in their own way and hopefully get to see them in RoP show

You saying Universe doesnt mean anything.

The Dunlendings are akin to the Indigenous peoples abused and exploited by Imperial Colonisers. Tolkien was a British Imperialist so, he ALWAYS saw the various Indigenous peoples of the Empire as "Savage" and "Barbaric". Take South Asia as an example. Burmese, Indians, Thais, etc had had complex civilizations for centuries and Millenia. Along came the British with their guns and their cannons and their insatiable greed for other people's wealth and resources. Can you wonder when large numbers of South Asians supported the Japanese in World War 2? If the South Asians had slaughtered as many British as the numbers of South Asians slaughtered by the Empire, not a single Briton would be able to survive a visit to South Asia for a Millennium. The Dunlendings were repeatedly exploited by the Numenorians both before and after the destruction of Numenor. What gave Elendil and Isildur the right to establish kingdoms in Middle Earth? What gave them the Right to Rule over Middle Earth? Weaponry and Power? How,in that way were they any different to Sauron and his allies?! And what gave Gondor the right to give the Dunlending's home lands to the Rohirrim? How are they any different to the actions of the Witch King in Angmar?! And imagine it was your land and home the British/Numenorians had invaded and seized. Wouldn't you do EVERYTHING you could to recover your home from the Brutal and Vicious Invader?!!!

dunlendings are how Tolkien viewed the many people who were conquered by the British Empire:poor,primitive and misguided people who were fighting the 'good guys'(The British).Tolkien is English after all,the same people who invaded and oppressed the natives wherever they went,which he drew parallels with the Numenoreans. Except,he also makes such claims as the Numenoreans(his version of the British) being the greatest the race of man has ever been.It's honestly sad how many just ignores that the invaded has lost so much and aren't just fighting the 'good' guys becuz they are bad.Very 1-sided!

There are elements of imperialist and colonialist apology in lotr. I'm sure it's just an artifact of the time and conceptions under which it was written. The Dunlendings and the various treatment of Ghan buri Ghan's people are examples.

So basically Dunlendings were Palestinians.

Dunlanding history in one sentence: Then things got worse.