Middle-earth Mysteries - Amon Hen

In this episode of Middle-earth Mysteries, we look at the hills of Amon Hen and Amon Lhaw, the sites of the Seat of Seeing and the Seat of Hearing. When were these seats built, what was their purpose, and were they truly magical in nature?

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[skatemetrix]

Hmm... This has parallels to Morgoth forcing Hurin to see and hear all that Morgoth could, or Manwe and Varda standing together on Taneiquetil and seeing and hearing much further by combining their abilities.

[SNWWRNNG]

Frodo seeing so many things for many miles around him and Sauron almost noticing Frodo so far from Mordor makes the seat magical in my view.

The One Ring doesn't work like this in any other place.

[agbarugo]

This may be an unpopular opinion but I like the way Tolkien's worldbuilding makes us unsure if a thing is magical or not...but there are also multiple ways in which a thing can be magical in nature.

[jeffbranch]

This puts me in mind of Lookout Mountain on the Tennessee/Georgia border at Chattanooga. On a clear day (i.e. October) you can see parts of 7 states from a point at Rock City. Lookout Mountain was used during the Civil War to control the entire area around Chattanooga.

[steveblunden]

That Aragorn went up Amon Hen hoping to see something suggests he knew something about its legend.

[TheMarcHicks]

Whilst Aragorn doesn't see anything on Amon Hen, the way he talks about the seat to others clearly suggests that he *expected* to see things in a manner similar to what Frodo saw.

[yorktown]

I am reminded of Galadriel's comment to Sam: "For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy." It's not just that Tolkien's system of magic is ill-defined, he also seems to have different groups use the term for a wildly different phenomena from one another. The gifts that Galadriel gives to Sam seem to resemble the tools of modern scientific agriculture, tinkering with the soil chemistry. The "art" that the Numenorian exiles bring to Middle-Earth appear to be similar to modern engineering & construction, reinforced concrete that resists all but the strongest forces. Saruman employs a version of gunpowder to breach the walls at Helm's Deep, not too different than Gandalf's playful fireworks. Even the Dwarves and their desire to mine Mithril seems to be something like a titanium alloy, an expensive to extract rare element with wonderful physical properties.

What I'm getting at is that, for the purposes of the story, Amon Hen, Amon Lhaw, the Tindrock, indeed the entire Lake of Nen Hithoel and the lands surrounding it (including the megalithic statues of the Argonath) all seem to be infused with enchantment. Whether by the arts of the Elves (who have their own history in the area) or the lost skill of Westernesse, or even the hallowing of Manwe (look at what that did for the Silmarils!), there is clearly more going on than any of the characters fully understand.

[kennethalmgren]

I like the thought of Aragorn not seeing anything bc of Sauron's gase is there making everything darker then usual. And the "building absurdly large towers wherever they went" got me 😂😂

[istari]

Some suggestions:
1) Where exactly is Utumno located?
2) What happened to the surviving Men of Beleriand who did not go to Númenor?
3) What was the history of the Avari and the eastern Dwarven clans with Morgoth and/or Sauron?

[markstott]

Great timing. Ti's chill and enjoy time. 😊❤😊

[ecth]

I have a potential middle earth mystery, it’s a question of why the Numenorians constructed the Tower of Orthanc where they did, let alone put a Palantir in it.

Of course Isengard’s existence itself makes perfect sense, acting as the northern anchor of the defense of the Gap of Rohan, but the tower itself is so specific in its traits, possessing a construction that the Ents can barely harm and that Minas Tirith’s first wall is also described as possessing. And Helm’s Deep doesn’t seem to be constructed in a similar fashion.

Placing a Palantir there is also strange to me, it’s much farther away from the other 3 Gondor stones, and it doesn’t seem that they needed it to spy on or communicate with Arnor. This is all just laying out why I think it could serve as a decent mystery

[matthewcouvillion]

Favorite channel fr, I finished your war in middle earth series yesterday, thanks for the vids keep making them!

[cowboystormchaser]

So basically Frodo was mixing different drugs by wearing the One Ring while also sitting on a (possibly magical) seeing chair.

[sageofcaledor]

Excellent video. You gave a lot of good theories that make sense to me. It would not be surprising that area was blessed in some way.

[chesterbless]

The fact that not one, but two characters immediately notice Frodo suggests the seats are magical. The One Ring could probably enhanced their power though.

[theDoctorwitTardis]

That closing thought was wholesome bro :´)
Topic suggestion: What would the world be like if Beleriand survived Dagor Dagorath?

[theleakyprophet]

It's probably a focal point, like those echo spots.

[thephenome]

I really like the theory about Manwe blessing the hills and Tol Brandir. While on the surface it's nothing special that some hills near the border of Gondor had scouting positions set up, and that a rocky spire at the edge of a massive waterfall with a strong current all around has never been reached, the special names and memory that lives on well beyond the actual presence of Numenorians or Gondorians make me think that there has to be something magical behind it all.

[thedarkmasterthedarkmaster]

Speaking of mysteries there's always those things like were-worms, Badger-folk, Kirinki, Pards and the Fastitocalons you could talk about. Stuff at the margins, really obscure creatures

[danielkorladis]

I think Tolkien deliberately didn't explain some magical things to preserve the feeling of mystery and, well, magic to it.

We don't know exactly how the one ring works, or how various other magics work. We also don't know how exactly the one ring would interact with other magical items or places.

Amon Hen is a magical location in my view because the one ring doesn't act like that anywhere else that I can remember.

There are a few explanations I can think of here for Frodo's visions. One is that certain places are more of a focal point where the world and otherworld connect.

Another is that the one ring acted as a sort of signal booster. The area IS magical and perhaps in an earlier area the strength of the magic was enough to grant visions like these just from the location alone but due the subsequent decline of magic generally in Middle Earth, only the presence of something like a ring of power or the one ring will boost the magic back up to the level where the person on top of Amon Hen will have visions of far off places.