D5GW contributor deichmans recently posted a “Mel Gibson xGW Primer” on his blog Wizards of Oz, and it reminded me of a quirky look I once took at another cinematic effort.

I originally posted this in the D5GW Contributors forum while contemplating a new entry for Dreaming 5GW; now I’ll put it here, with a few notes afterward.

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LOTR: 0GW-1GW

Fellowship starts out showing conflict only in the earlier generations of warfare. In Moria and then the final battle at the end, the combat is man-on-man:



And, Two Towers begins with the same generation, particularly as the Rohirrim scour the countryside for Uruk, and meet up with them just outside Fanghorn Forest:


LOTR: 2GW-3GW

However, Two Towers begins to show conflict in 2GW, with massed firepower, formations, and ultimately a no-man’s-zone between forces that know exactly where they are going to die:



Saruman’s plan would have worked — the unibomber is really an attempt to breach the line, or create a weakness in it — but the 3GW cavalry of Eomer, with its greater maneuverability, shreds the 2GW formation:


—causing the Uruk to flee in a panic, unable to compensate or comprehend what is happening:


Return of the King takes up the same generational shift, with 2GW amassed firepower, rigid lines and formations, etc. —


However, the 3GW Rohirrim charge again:


Only, this is Sauron, not Saruman; so there is another maneuverable 3GW force as backup:


Plus, there’s the highly maneuverable Nazghul to sweep in from the sky:


This superior maneuverability and strength threatens to win the day, until the King brings his much more maneuverable, much more powerful undead army. [Oops, no photo of this yet.]

We see the same sort of thing play out before the Black Gates, although the generation is a bit obscurred:


Although Nazghul and Eagles swoop in, they don’t have much of an effect. The ability to circle the King’s army seems to be an issue of maneuverability, although there are also lines drawn and each group knows where it is going to die; so I see this more as 2GW.

LOTR: 4GW

But the final generation is 4GW. The King has an ace up his sleeve: operatives who can go deep behind enemy lines without being detected — who even blend in with the host population, when necessary:


These are kinsmen, who will push through every obstacle, no matter how desolate their situation, in order to use the Enemy’s superior technology —


— against the enemy in an act of terrorism:


The terrorists’ secular leader is well pleased when he sees the effect —


and the terrorists’ spiritual leader sees the work of divine providence and is much pleased —


— and the terrorists’ kinsman is also well pleased:


This terrorist act has exactly the desired result: The enemy host has lost all faith in their ability to win the war, despite superior numbers and strength; they’ve lost their moral compass, and so they flee:


THE END

(Really, there’ll be a consideration of 5GW as well, but it will only be tangential to LOTR. Note: there could be GG implications in the final conflict, a blur of 3GW/4GW, except for one thing: the terrorists win through devastating the moral and morale sphere, not because the enemy host’s material support has been disrupted.)

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NOTES:

One of my fellow contributors suggested I change “terrorists” for the Hobbits to something else.  Obviously, I had 9/11 in mind when I wrote the above; and, why not?

Another of my fellow contributors said he’d go Hobbit GG on the post.

Including the use of cavalry here as an example of 3GW fighting may seem inappropriate given the historical use of cavalry for disrupting lines and so forth.  Indeed, in some ways, this metaphorical use (it’s a movie, for chrissake’s!) might point up the way technology itself is not the thing that determines the generation.  Suppose a world in which cavalry does not exist, say the New World of the Americas, and the introduction of cavalry by one side in fighting there:  the great disparity.  Ahem.  Although the orcs also may have used mounted warriors (Warg riders), they did not use these much at all in the major conflicts within the movie, or at a 3GW level.  The Nazghul and the oliphants provided a 3GW force for that side in the battle of the Pelennor Fields; thanks be to their allies more than the orcs.  When most of your forces are foot soldiers, your enemy’s heavy use of large numbers of mounted fighters provides superior maneuverability and the capability of greatly disrupting your formation; or else, much superior cavalry forces.  In fact, it was just such a consideration that prompted this look at LOTR, although I’d been thinking at first of the latest King Arthur and the knights’ attack on the foot soldiers of the Saxons in the last battle:  I wanted to consider how a 3GW force might defeat a 2GW force easily, but not a 4GW force.

What would be the 5GW fighting of LOTR?  I haven’t read the books, so I can’t draw on them.