Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (non)canon

[ThorinsNemesis]

Here I want to mention some interesting things about the game Middle-earth :Shadow of Mordor that I recently finished; I would also like to hear people's opinions about them. Here they are:
1.  In the first cutscene, when Galadriel talks about Mordor and the Rangers of the Black Gate, Mount Doom is show dormant (because of Sauron's absence), surrounded by grass and trees, with the emty lava pools now filled with water. And even when Sauron is back in Mordor, Udun is still a bit green/brown, while greenery thrives in Nurn. On the whole, Mordor is depicted before Sauron's return as a green land where nature has had a chance to return. Does anyone (except me  ) find the depiction of the rocky Sea of Nurnen, the grassy Mount Doom and the brownish, ruin-filled Udun lore accurate?
2. I noticed the Black Gate is actually not in black metal, but built with white/yellow stone, in a bit Gondorian style. Why is that (I could not find any reference on the net why it looks that way) ?
3. Can anyone tell me which one of the rivers flowing into the Sea of Nurnen is the river Gurthrant mentioned in the game lore, and where is the Ered Glamhoth? Or, better show them on a map  ?
3.  Did anyone else notice that when picking a certain artifact in Nurnen Talion mentions that the rivers in Nurn reach out of Mordor through Ephel Duath, and that the Tribesmen of Nurn can get to Minas Ithil that way. First, I think the Tribesmen, although not mentioned in Tolkien's works, sound as if it was possible for people to settle by the Sea of Nurnen; but can someone check if some of Nurnen's tributaries really allow passage through Ephel Duath? And, does anyone else except me think that maybe Minas Ithil still not being Morgul is a reference to the Hobbit movies, as in them the Nazgul return with Sauron to Mordor?
I know many things in the game are non-canon,  these are just my thoughts and I want to hear others' opinions on them 

[Adamin]

Before I read your post: Does it contain any spoilers for the Bright Lord DLC? I haven't played it yet, so I don't want to read anything about it.

If it's only about the core game though, I'd be happy to join the conversation.

[ThorinsNemesis]

Don't worry, it's only for the core game, and I haven't played the Bright Lord dlc yet, too 

[Adamin]

Alright then.

1. What do you mean with lore accurate? If it is accurate, given the time frame of the game, or as an overall picture of Mordor?
For the time being I think it's not a bad depiction. The earth near a volcano might as well be very rich in nutrients and therefore thriving. ^^ Especially Nurn might always have been green, even during Saurons dominion over Mordor. It was after all one of the main food sources in Mordor.

2. Since the Black Gate was originally build be Gondorians/ Dunedain to keep the bad things inside Mordor, the architectual similarities do make sense. ^^
Also I'm not shure if it's inconsistent to the movies, since we've mainly seen the front side in the movies, while the game mainly shows the back side.

3. Gurthrant and Ered Glamhoth seem to be names out of the game, but they can be located (more or less). According to the games Wiki the Ered Glamoth lies to the east of the Ephel Dúath, so it must be the eastern border of Mordor that isn't drawn on Tolkiens Maps. The same Wiki also states that enemy fleets could run up the Gurthrant from the south. So Gurthrant is probably the southern river that flows into Nurnen.

btw this is the most extensice map of Middle-earth I know of. If there is some information to a place, it is marked on this map.

4. Check the map and you'll see that there is a river from Nurnen through the Ephel Dúath. I don't remember the backstory of the tribesmen completely, but weren't they supposed to be decendants of gondorian/ umbarian refugees? If so then they either used the river passage, or just fled from the gondorian guards.

[Estel]

1. Nurn is still in the 3rd Age described as "breadbasket" of Mordor, as it was likely also in the years before.
Never underestimate the positive impact from waters (Here: See of Nurn) on the surroundings

Also I think Sauron's malice and the industrialisation of Mordor in times of armament after his return to Mordor had a bad impact on the landscape, especially the effect from an active volcano like Mount Doom. Nevertheless nature finds ways to fight, so it's possible that still after the return nature in the northern part of Mordor (Cirith Gorgor, Mount Doom) still could hold its position for a while -> no immediate effect on the landscape. Also the landscape had 2.500 years afters Sauron's defeat in the War of the Last Alliance to recover from malice, enough time to become a green land again ^^

To sum it up, yes, I think the description of Mordor is lore accurate.

2.
After Sauron's defeat the Men of Gondor occupied Mordor to prohibit a return of the DarkLord. In this case they built fortresses and towers to control the accesses to Mordor, for example Durthang, Cirith Ungol and also the Towers from Narchost and Carchost ("Towers of the Teeth").
Here the developers interpreted that also the Black Gate was built by the Men of Gondor, so it has a Gondorian style in the game.

3.
n/a

4. Sauron returned to Mordor in 1942 TA, the Nazgul conquered Minas Ithil in 2002 TA after a siege of two years.
So in the time of Shadow of Mordor Minas Morgul ist still in Gondorian occupation.

One of the Nurnen tributaries Ends in Ephel Duath, the river Poros has it's source in the mountains. But there is no end-to-end passage on a river through Ephel Duath.

Sry for my bad english, got a lack of time and vocabulary^^

[ThorinsNemesis]

About the Ered Glamhoth, I think I found it: http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/merp/images/c/c2/Eredglamhoth.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130521085745Ok. Ok, I'm confused: the Middle-earth Role Playing wiki states this is the Gurthrant river http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130521085913/merp/images/thumb/3/3c/Gurthrant.jpg/500px-Gurthrant.jpg , and that the river that flows from the south is named Culduin; the LOTR wiki also states it's named Culduin, but in other places the southern river is named Nargil; so which one of the Nurnen tributaries is Gurthrant really? (by the way, if the Southern river is named Gurthrant in the game, then it would make sence for the tribesmen to have come from the pass that this particular river originates from: http://www.isleyunruh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Nargil-Pass.jpg )

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

1. I also think the region around Mount Doom could be quite green, for the same reasons Adamin pointed out. It leads to the question whether powerful beings like Sauron are able to manipulate the earth and the weather or if it's just the industrialization they come up with . Galadriel for example seems to have a similar power, since Lorien under her presence is quite different to the surrounding area.


Adamin: Do you have a higher resolution version of your map? It's quite small and I can't see anything really

[ThorinsNemesis]

^^Elendils Cousin, this is a high-resolution version of the map posted: http://hugo1900.pagesperso-orange.fr/MAP-OF-MIDDLE-EARTH-VERSION-7.jpg

[Elendils Cousin 3. Grades]

Thanks, much appreciated

[hoho96]

About the gate;
I remember doing some digging and putting up a theory 
There's no doubt the Black Gate was first made by Sauron when he first raised the Barad Dur. After the Last Alliance, Gondor set up a watch on Mordor and built many forts and watchtowers. However, in an attempt to close Mordor completely, Gondor is said to modify and reconstruct the Black Gate so that it opens to the inside and closed from the outside (basically shutting what's in Mordor inside).
We know that Gondor usually built with white stones, so it's not that far fetched that when they rebuilt the Black Gate, they used their normal methods.
Now, when Sauron returned to Mordor and claimed/reclaimed all fortifications and towers around it, he surely enough rebuilt the Black Gate again to be even more impenetrable than before, And I believe that's the final black-steel-ish look that we saw in the WOTR.

[ThorinsNemesis]

Wow, thanks for the theory, hoho96 - it does make sence now why the Gate was white-ish in Shadow of Mordor   
I still cannot find which of the four rivers that flowed into the Sea of nurnen was the Gurthrant though, at least in the game  Any theories?
Also, how do you guys find the look of Celebrimbor in Shadow of Mordor? I mean, as he was not described in any Tolkien book, he could have looked like that, right?

[Adamin]

The LOTR wiki often contains information from different sources, like old rpgs, so I would always look for cross-reference on other pages, like tolkiengateway, or the thains book. Do they have any sources on the rivers in Mordor?

Btw: You can see many huge metal plates lying around at the black gate in the game. So it looks like the orcs and slaves are just now working on upgrading the Black Gate. ^^

[ThorinsNemesis]

I did check these sites, but there the Nurnen tributaries are unnamed (I may have missed their names though, so anyone can recheck).

[ThorinsNemesis]

I got no luck with searching for this:
In Barad Nurn's lore it mentions it was built to deter invading fleets travelling up the Gurthrant river from the south. Now, I can accept the Southwestern tributary is Gurthrant, as I also found it on an interactive map of Mordor, but how can ships traverse this (or any) Nurnen river, as:
- it had its source in the Ephel Duath, near Nan Ungol, and, to my knowing, does not go past it;
Is there something I am missing? Does this river (or the southern tributary) go past the Ephel Duath, ensuring at least a ground pass? Or is there some way ships could've travelled from Umbar through the Ephel Duath and into Nurnen?