Sub Specie Aeternitatis: timelordoftheblacktower: monalisawasdutch: Tumblr Of Thrones: The...

I love how two of the three “problems” with the Middle-earth map are not actually naturally occurring features of the land. The mountains surrounding Mordor were constructed that way by Sauron. The “hole” in Mirkwood is a bloody road made by the Elves. It actually isn’t even a hole, it’s a dotted line showing that there is a road there. This map just did it wrong. And OMG, more than one tributary comes down from a mountain range!? That NEVER happens anywhere in the real world!

But they are problems!

If Sauron had constructed Mordor, he probably would have made it circular, not square. Circles are the most efficient shape for a given circumference. If they were created from irradiated evil or whatever, again, circular because it has no preferential direction unlike squares. Do you really believe that he would actually bother to make the mountains a right angles to the compass directions?

It also doesn’t matter that the “bloody” road was made by elves. Would they also happen to make it perfectly align east-west? Would they make it so straight? Not even modern humans do that. And his rivers are unrealistically aligned.

So yeah, they look fake even from a, well someone with magic powers made it, point of view. Which is a lazy, horrible excuse in fantasy. I hate fantasy authors and apologists who say “magic did this/superhuman people made this” therefore it explains all the flaws and things they didn’t think of. Admit it, Tolkien was a terrible cartographer.