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What Happens to Talion's Body?
- One of the lines of an Uruk that killed you once suggests that his friends won't believe Talion came back to life and fought him again, so he's going to prove it by showing them Talion's severed head again. Does that mean an Uruk that killed you about dozens of times just has a collection of Talion's heads (and presumably other body parts) just lying around in their trophy pile?
- Probably, yes. The exact mechanics of Talions' ressurections are kept vague, but it seems Celebrimbor can go ahead and reforge him a new body. That, or Talion burns away and reforms whole once more in the towers, so the collection is there one day gone the next.
Calling a Troll a Smeerp
- Where are all the Trolls and Wargs? It seems weird that the developers took their time to create Graugs and Caragors when their equivalents already exist in the Middle-Earth canon.
- "Graug" is not the full name of the creature in the game. When they are first introduced, and in the encyclopedia, they are called "Olog Graug". Olog is the Elvish word for "troll", and graug is the elvish word for "powerful, hostile, terrible". Graugs are not a new creature, they are literally trolls, just a particular breed of troll.
- For Caragors, the devs wanted to make something deadlier than Warg, and had advantages like claws for climbing. Justified in-universe by Torvin the hunter where he said it took him a much, much longer time to learn the ways of the Caragor. No clue for the Graug.
- It has been explained that the Caragors have driven out or made extinct, any other competing predators, thus no wargs where you see caragors. No excuse for trolls though. Talion might just not be in the area trolls are found it.
- The entry for Graugs say Sauron plans to use them to breed sun-resistant hill trolls. That's why you don't see Trolls: Mordor is still too sunny for them, until mount Doom covers its sky with ash. It's the same reason all the Orcs in the game are Uruks, (Notice how Talion has to tell his son these aren't regular orcs, but Uruks), you don't see the regular orcs yet because it's also too sunny for them to venture out of the mountains.
- And it's implied he succeeded, given the "Attack Trolls" seen in Mordors armies in Return of the King - significantly taller and tougher than the Cave Troll, with leathery skin similar to a Graugs.
- Building on the points above, Wargs and Trolls aren't native to Mordors countryside. Remember the game takes place a mere few weeks after Sauron returns, and he's got a lot of work to do - work which includes recruiting "evil" wildlife from across Middle Earth to his cause, as well as cultivating superior breeds to standard monsters (see the response above). Its implied by the time of LOTR, Caragors and Graugs have been hunted or exploited to extinction, probably because they couldn't be tamed or used by the Dark Lord.
- I was thinking the question more from the developer than lore standpoint. It's easy to make up extra lore, but I don't see much point when there's already matching creatures available in the original story.
- We have to take into account that more than a hundred people worked on this, and it may have been a point to decide if it was better to stick into the original lore or introduce new canon. Personally, I prefer new. I can simply view wargs and trolls in the movies or revisit the books to rely on personal imagination while being able to appreciate the fearsome graugs or the sabre-tooth-esque Caragors. On another note, the wargs in the original trilogy look more like hyenas while the ones in The Hobbit look more like wolves. Oh and wraiths are less green here.
How did Talion know Gollum was a Hobbit?
- Most people west of the Anduin don't know anything about Halflings - and if they do think they're simply myth. Furthermore, even Frodo - a Hobbit himself - was shocked to learn that Gollum had once been a Stoor.
- To be fair, having never seen a Halfling, Talion could have thought that Gollum was a typical example of their race. He could have just figured that a diminutive creature that is no orc or dwarf matches the fairy tales he had heard.
- Talion knows Hobbits given he was a fan of pipeweed according to the sequel and Frodo learned he was a stoor before seeing him, he was just shocked the cannibalistic creature from Bilbo's tale was a hobbit but had he seen him he'll probably figured it out.
Ending Questions
- End Game question: Is Sauron the Black Hand? Our wiki seems convinced he is, yet when you kill him, Celebrimbor says the black hand is now dead, yet Sauron lives... Also, why would the Black Hand cutting his own throat take Celebrimbor from you? Why would Celebrimbor merging with the black hand cause Sauron to appear? Why would Sauron pretend to be his own lackey?]].
- Well, as far as I can tell, in order... [[spoiler:Maybe, maybe not. It's ambiguous. The Black Hand cutting his own throat is repeating the same ritual he used to summon Celebrimbor the first time - maybe the sheer proximity was enough to make it impossible to resist? Celebrimbor merging with the Black Hand would be a bonding of Sauron and Celebrimbor's spirits, and according to a one-off line by Celebrimbor, Sauron could use the power of the Ring OR the Ring-maker to re-manifest in his physical form. And Sauron being his own lackey is actually a common strategy of very-famous higher ups who want to keep direct tabs on their subordinates without them knowing that he himself is staring right at them. Considering the orcs believe him to be nearly-deific, I'd say he wanted to see how they really thought of him as well as getting the chance to punish them for their failures himself.
- But the Orcs are as afraid of Sauron as they are the Black Hand (And the codex shows that some know they are the same person.) So becoming the Black Hand to keep tabs on his subbordinates is a terrible idea. It'd work if he turned into a regular orc. Not a guy known to be Sauron's loyal second in command. Also, the ritual seen in the opening Didn't work. We are told Celebrimbor decided to possess Talion. He wasn't compelled or summoned into doing it. It was all him. So why would Sauron doing the same ritual now compel Celebrimbor into a different host?
- Just because Celebrimbor chose to possess Talion doesn't mean he had the option of not possessing anyone at all. The ritual was clearly meant to summon and bind Celebrimbor and it does in fact work. The Black Hand says something along the lines of "come to me, Ring-maker" as he cuts the throats of Talion and his family, expecting to draw Celebrimbor into himself. It seems to me the ritual compelled Celebrimbor to become bound to someone, and while he was unable to resist that he was at least able to choose a different target than Sauron/Black Hand expected. The 'choice' Celebrimbor had was either this random human ranger or being absorbed/enslaved by Sauron. When the Black Hand repeats the ritual at the end of the game, there is no other target for Celebrimbor to go into.
- I would assume that the Black Hand is a human sorcerer who has been possessed by the spirit of Sauron and is being used as his host. Sauron, according to canon, is no longer able to take any form other than the great and terrible Dark Lord. The Black Hand is both a vessel as well as a disguise.
- That would make some sense. Since Celebrimbor mentions that Sauron stuck as an "eye" is what would happen IF Talion won. It makes sense that Sauron could be possessing a dude in the hopes to use Celebrimbor to return to physical form and not become a big flaming eye forever.
- That actually makes a lot of sense if you're following the movies' canon.
Gollum and Elven things
- Don't Elven-made things hurt Gollum? I remember in The Two Towers he screamed in pain when Frodo and Sam tried to bind him with their Elven rope. But he handles Elven artifacts with no problem in this game. What am I missing?
- I don't think it was necessarily that he's hurt by Elven-made things - he simply had a rope wrapped tight around his neck, and dragged around by it. Even Elven-made, that's gotta cause major friction to the skin, thus the 'burn' sensation.
- It definitely was because it was Elvish rope. It specifically states that Sam didn't tie it tightly, that it was around his ankle, and that he wasn't being dragged. He also gags on lembas which everyone else thinks tastes great.
- I didn't think it actually physically burned him- more like he was being dramatic. Like how a toddler screams that their jacket is choking them when they don't want you to put it on.
- Maybe it's because of who these particular artifacts belonged to? Considering Celebrimbor was shown in flashbacks to have succumbed to the Ring, and at the very least heavily implied in the main game and the end of the Bright Lord DLC to still be pretty messed up in the head from it, perhaps his taint extended to his artifacts somehow, thus enabling Gollum to handle them a bit more easily?
Talion at the end
- First the guy's going "It was YOUR doing! I should have died with my family!" and at the end of the game, "finally, I can die", then when he's finally killed the Black Hand and the Hither Shore starts calling him to finally leave Arda, and yet when all is concluded he... decides to stay on and try to fight Sauron by crafting his own ring of power? Was he possessed or corrupted by Sauron at the end or something?
- We don't know for sure, but I for one doubt it. All he wanted at first was revenge while he was immortal, but he wanted to die as soon as his revenge was over. However, knowing that he's the only one that can stop further evil, he has a reason to continue fighting. I can't speak for the plot and how it works, but personally, it's pretty weak.
- He says it at the end, straight up. Sure, he wants to be with his family, but he's also seen the impact that Sauron and his forces have on the world, and how it's affecting the people. He can either go to his family (the selfish action to him) or do whatever he can to fight Sauron and prevent the Uruks from killing countless people (the selfless action to him). YMMV on whether this is heroism or corruption at work, sure, but that's at least the surface reason for it.
- There's a simpler explanation; Talion's motivations have changed. At first he's as we heard, that he wants to die, and at first only goes about the business of killing the Black Hand to break the curse. Yet over the course of the game he starts talking about losing sight of his family's memories, along with stops talking about wanting to join them in death, or break the curse, or any of those things- just going about the business of killing the Black Hand, raising that orc-army, and all the things the Wraith is also fighting to do. And then by the end, he's changed his mind, saying there's more work for them to do, with the Wraith agreeing despite his own potential to rejoin his family at last. The real question is; who's doing was this? Talion's, via free will or corruption... or the Wraith, the elf who was corrupted to take the One Ring and use it against Sauron, and aims to finish the job when he's put inside Talion? On the surface, it indeed sounds selfless, but the implications aren't in that favor...
- As of the second game, it certainly seems to be Celebrimbor's influence that turns Talion away from death and towards fighting Sauron. Once they make the new ring, he doesn't even need to be around anymore to drive Talion. He fights Sauron to the point of being corrupted and turned into a Nazgul himself, before finally dying with the destruction of the One Ring.
Where are Sauron's OTHER officers?
- So, is there any particular reason why with all the havoc that Talion and the Wraith cause, between going on rampages across Mordor and brainwashing entire battalions of Uruk-hai, we never once see even a hint of the Ringwraiths for most of the game? Sure, they're probably all in Minas Morgul, but that's still not too far from Udun or the Sea of Nurn. And then there's the Mouth of Sauron. Where is he exactly? You'd think that he'd fit right in with the Theme Naming of the three Black Captains, and he would've been active around the same time, since Barad-Dur was being rebuilt at that point. At least War in the North had the excuse of all the action taking place far away from all the "major" villains to rely on a Canon Foreigner as the Big Bad, so what's the deal with this game? Why bother with a Big Bad Ensemble of mostly Canon Foreigner villains when you have ten (eleven, if you count Shelob) other villains from the actual books to use as bosses?
- Besides the fact that they all have to be alive for the main series? Presumably, the Ringwraiths are on other tasks, or Sauron underestimates Talion as a threat to the point that Sauron figured he could handle it himself rather than calling back his lieutenants. Not to mention that fighting nine boss-level enemies at the same time (which would probably happen, since most times we see the Nazgul work as a team) would be less than fair for the player.
- Still, you'd think that they'd at least get The Cameo or something, like with Saruman.
- The Ringwraiths are looking for the One Ring at this time while this is really just busy-work for Sauron's lesser lieutenants until Celebrimbor is involved. Then Sauron uses his Meat Puppet to handle things personally.
- Some of the collectables actually reference The Hobbit, and one specifically says they are recuperrating due to their defeat by the council at Dol Guldur, as far as I can tell this game takes place maybe only just after the events of the Hobbit. so they are hurt like Sauron is.
How Ambushes Work
- I've been puzzled about the Ambushes undergone with captains. So a group of Uruks led by the target captain are attacked by another group of Uruks. They fight for a bit, and then the other Captain shows up with his own Uruks. Assuming that the ambusher is a branded captain, why don't the first group of attacking Uruks appear to be branded like the ambusher's group? Did the Branded captain just tip off some other Uruks with false information, or does there just happen to be a bunch of random Uruks attacking the target at that particular moment?
- Well, a event happened in a let play I watched (tear of grace's) were he saw two unbranded captains were bodyguards to his branded warchief. He summoned him, prepare to fight the bodyguards and they turned up supposing branded. So he let them go and ran in one again, who was now back to normal. This give me the idea that the brand domination subordinates of the owner while close, but the effect wear off quickly when out of it. thus the vanguard are unaffected by the time they get to the ambush, but the domination turn back on once the captain arrived.
Another Ring War(SPOILERS)
- So the ending states that Talion is making another ring, and thats what So W is going to be about, but, how does this fit into the timeline? we have established it takes place after the Hobbit but before Lo T Rs, I mean thats 50 years, and apparently nobody mentioned it, Celebrimbor is in the simalirion, only in passing, this whole Bright Lord v Dark Lord would have been big news, hell apparently Saruman of all people knew of Celebrimbor being around as a wraith. regardless, this is a big thing to go unmentioned (but Doomed by Canon anyway). how will they sort it?
- Something to keep in mind, alllll of these games are taking place in mordor, not only does no one go in or out unless your an orc or with Saruman that means the same thing with information. The orcs arent about to share with the riders of rohan information about internal politics in mordor, nor is anyone out side of mordor going to ask. So for all we know the only reason the books went they way they did, was because not only was Saruman attacking the realms of man but he was dealing with an internal civil war and the good guys never knew.
Orc Immunities
- So what exactly is Sauron feeding his orcs that allows roughly 10% of his forces to outright No-Sell a sword or an arrow to the face? Most of them aren't even wearing that much armour. And if Sauron can breed orcs that are invulnerable to most attacks, why isn't he giving those powers to his entire army?
- The accepted reasoning is that some Uruks are just very strong. Stronger than men and possibly even Elves. Shadow of War takes it a step further by outright saying that Sauron is empowering some of his Captains.
On Orc grog
- What is Orc grog made of, and how is it super flammable that it can cause fiery explosions?
- Almost certainly some type of oil or gasoline. Since it's treated as a strong drink for Orcs, it's very likely lethal to humans.
- Doesn't explain why it's flammable, but one ingredient appears, if you listen to the Enemy Chatter when they're idle, blood. Something like "it's the blood that makes it so good."
