Their oath bound them in undeath. Once they fulfill their oath, they canât just choose to stick around. Theyâre a single-use consumable item.
Oh and even they canât just walk into Mordor, because Sauron casts Turn Undead as a 20th level Cleric.
The reason theyâre cursed is that they favoured Sauron during the final battle of the 2nd age. Thatâs why Isildur cursed them. So it stands to reason they have some issue standing directly against him.
Yep. At first I was agreeing here. Like, why didnât Aragorn specify defeating Sauron is the oath fulfillment? But then I realized that yeah, if they worked under Sauron once, its probably safe to say if they directly faced him at the gates he may have some sort of power over them. Too risky. Send away.
Bringing an army of ghosts to a necromancerâs gate might not be the smart move you think it isâŚ
At least in the movie they quite literally fought for Gondor. In the books, they just kill some corsairs far away from Minas Tirth.
They donât even kill them, they just scare them off their boats using âfear as a weaponâ.
This
The corsairs of umbar flee the boats, the party & rangers take the ships. The whole point of the fleet was to cut off the Dol Amroth reinforcements, which can then join the battle
At Pellenor, they just scare the enemy forces. Once theyâve fulfilled their oath, they are free.
Idle thought, not fully staffed: kinda turns the whole âyou cannot use the tools of the Enemy, as they are evil in and of themselves and will bring even the most noble lowâ vibe of the books on its head.
Or, at least, I seem to recall passages to the effect of fear being one of Sauronâs chief weapons. Could probably find a lit crit essay on this subject if I went digging.
Well if I remember correctly these corsairs were attacking the strategically important harbour that also housed all non combatants from Minas Tirth. The Harbour had a low garrison because they went to support Minas Tirith, so by scaring them off Aragon got access to their ships and saved the rearguard. Both strategically important in the context of the war
edit: grammar and fatfingered
Oh yeah, the books handle the greater war much more, but that would make for some confusion cinematography. It made a lot of sense, but itâs itâs also much less⌠Well, cinematic
In the books, I donât believe they kill anyone - or can. They basically just scare off the corsairs so the rest of gondors army can join the main battle. So ops point is kinda moot
E: I guess itâs a little ambiguous
Pale swords were drawn; but I know not whether their blades would still bite, for the Dead needed no longer any weapon but fear."
I donât think thatâs too ambiguous. I read it exactly the way you put it.
Basically âidk if their weapons work but it doesnât matter they donât need themâ so if they donât need the swords one would assume no-one is fighting them and just running like you said.
So Iâm just here to second you.
protests loudly in d&d
I mean, the least he couldâve aak. Those guys seemed to enjoy killing, so maybe they wouldâve liked killing more orcs.
They never specifically killed orks, thatâs movie stuff. They killed foreign corsairs near the river estuary and fulfilled their oath.
