How Shadow of Mordor Embodies the War on Terror

[Lurklen]

I really feel like this whole story fits better if you change Talion to one of the human kings who became the Nazgul. Think about it, at that time Sauron was totally taking over various human kingdoms and maybe he kills this guys family the guy finds one of the nine rings(maybe he kills one of the other wielders) goes on a quest for revenge. The whole time the ring is speaking to him guiding his choices as this spirit figure and granting him more wraith-like abilities, Talion spends the game killing the "allies" of Sauron based on the spirits advice while also killing off terrorizing and bending to his will the weaker orcs and creating his own army to fight against the dark lord. Hey presto, he gets to the final battle and finds that the spirit has been Sauron the whole time. He looks back on his actions and realizes that the whole time he'd been trying to fight against the dark lord he'd become more and more like him. Maybe even some of the enemies were actually men fighting against Sauron.

The game fits with the Tolkien view of morality(I.E. a wrong action for a good cause leads one further towards evil) and is a nice little comment on how morally ambiguous the actions of gamer's tend to be in games when in pursuit of their goals. Plus they don't have to create a whole bunch of stuff wholesale they can work with what Tolkien already left kind of vague (We know next to nothing about the men who became the ring wraiths) also it makes much more sense for Talion to get his powers this way instead of some really angry elf just happening to take over this guys body like two thousand years after he died.

 

[AvtrSpirit]

Very compelling read of the game. I don't think Tolkien would be shocked by this interpretation (having seen real darkness in his own time), but he would be very disappointed to find that his work is being used to promote ideas counter to his idealistic philosophy.

 

[mcc457]

1 Heart of Darkness
2 Apocalypse Now
3 Carve her name with pride
4 The Guns of Navarone
6 Force 10 from Navarone
7 Tobruk
8 Raid on Rommel
9 The Cockleshell Heroes
10 Heroes of Telemark
11 The secret army
12 Gunga Din
13 North West Frontier
14 Sea of Sand
15 Play Dirty
16 Above Us the Waves
17 Merrill's Marauders
18 Odette
19 The Man Who Never Was
20 The Pride and the Passion

These are not CT texts. The protagonists are not engaged in identifying, degrading and eventually rolling up terrorist networks. Often they are actually the network under attack. Clandestine networks are employed against the powerful, and though in SoM the power asymmetry is inverted (sort of) and the network barely clandestine, the process is still very much more WoT/CT than CI/Seven Pillars of Wisdom/Boys Own Adventures Commando Stories Omnibus.

I really don't think it's too late to switch Talion from an anomaly in Tolkein lore to a huge cautionary tale in the span of about a sequel.

Yes! But I can remember a similar optimism after the first Hobbit. erg

 

[icythepenguin]

Others have argued the first two points but its his last point that really falls flat for me.

Finally, we come to the element that most blatantly clashes with Tolkien's vision: the idea that you should ally with enemies for the greater good.

From the impression I get while reading LOTR, the Dwarves and Elves have a highly antagonistic relationship. They seem to only get along through necessity and a common enemy. Whereas the Humans seem to have a decent relationship with both the Dwarves and Elves. The Battle of the Five Armies in the Hobbit is a perfect example of this. The Elven army was waiting for Thorin and company to come out of the mountain when King Dain II arrived. The Dwarves and Elves nearly went to war with each other before the Goblins and Wargs showed up. Faced with the new threat, the Dwarves and Elves decided to work together to stop the greater evil. So Tolkien had two enemies allying to fight a greater enemy, or for the greater good.

As for allying with an enemy for the greater good being a newfangled War on Terror tactic he clearly forgot abou the Us and Britain allying with the Soviets to stop the Nazis. The West considered Stalin a bigger threat than Hitler before 1939 and refused his offer of an alliance so he made one with the Nazis. Only after being initially trounced by the Nazis did both sides finally come together for the greater good.

Same with Britain and Spain during the Napoleonic War. Initially enemies before Spain needed British help to retake their country.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend is an old military tactic. I know the Americans like to think they invented everything but the War on Terror is just old standard tactics with fancy new toys. Why do you think they study Sun Tzu and Von Clausewitz? Those tactics and strategies work even if the weapons are more advanced.

 

[Albino Boo]

1 Heart of Darkness
2 Apocalypse Now
3 Carve her name with pride
4 The Guns of Navarone
6 Force 10 from Navarone
7 Tobruk
8 Raid on Rommel
9 The Cockleshell Heroes
10 Heroes of Telemark
11 The secret army
12 Gunga Din
13 North West Frontier
14 Sea of Sand
15 Play Dirty
16 Above Us the Waves
17 Merrill's Marauders
18 Odette
19 The Man Who Never Was
20 The Pride and the Passion

These are not CT texts. The protagonists are not engaged in identifying, degrading and eventually rolling up terrorist networks. Often they are actually the network under attack. Clandestine networks are employed against the powerful, and though in SoM the power asymmetry is inverted (sort of) and the network barely clandestine, the process is still very much more WoT/CT than CI/Seven Pillars of Wisdom/Boys Own Adventures Commando Stories Omnibus.

I really don't think it's too late to switch Talion from an anomaly in Tolkein lore to a huge cautionary tale in the span of about a sequel.

Yes! But I can remember a similar optimism after the first Hobbit. erg

Please read the thread. I was replying to

The point of the article was discussing how the cultural portrayal of war has changed. Up until the war on terror, war was still portrayed in movies, games and books as a conventional war where soldiers face their opposite number on the battlefield, no spec ops or designated targets. Just raw bravado.

Could you explain to me, how in in counter terrorism you can portray a conventional war where soldiers face their opposite number on the battlefield? Also I think you will find that the Viet cong used guerrilla tactics.

 

[mcc457]

Please read the thread. I was replying to

The point of the article was discussing how the cultural portrayal of war has changed. Up until the war on terror, war was still portrayed in movies, games and books as a conventional war where soldiers face their opposite number on the battlefield, no spec ops or designated targets. Just raw bravado.

I apologize - certainly your list refutes the argument that only conventional warfare is presented in film and text. I would also agree that the tactics shown in SoM are not new. But the overall strategy and theme is, and it doesn't appear in our stories much at all.

The action in SoM struck me as too asymmetric and focused on assassination to parallel irregular warfare. Combined with the continual attrition and renewal of the enemy network this resonated with my perception of the current War on Terror. I can (sort of) imagine a "Sauron's Army" on the big board in a SOCOM conference room, being updated after each drone strike. An historical equivalent, even in organized crime or feudal wars of assassination? Not so much.

As for fiction, perhaps the film Munich? Some of the grittier cold war novels? Larteguy? Deighton?

Seriously, I think Shadow of Mordor is the best War on Terror sim since Whack-a-Mole.

But I'd really like it to be more Tolkien.

 

[Albino Boo]

I apologize - certainly your list refutes the argument that only conventional warfare is presented in film and text. I would also agree that the tactics shown in SoM are not new. But the overall strategy and theme is, and it doesn't appear in our stories much at all.

The action in SoM struck me as too asymmetric and focused on assassination to parallel irregular warfare. Combined with the continual attrition and renewal of the enemy network this resonated with my perception of the current War on Terror. I can (sort of) imagine a "Sauron's Army" on the big board in a SOCOM conference room, being updated after each drone strike. An historical equivalent, even in organized crime or feudal wars of assassination? Not so much.

As for fiction, perhaps the film Munich? Some of the grittier cold war novels? Larteguy? Deighton?

Seriously, I think Shadow of Mordor is the best War on Terror sim since Whack-a-Mole.

But I'd really like it to be more Tolkien.

Thank you for apologizing, to often in the stormy seas the escapist people will not admit when they are wrong. I must say the comment section for Critical Intel is much more civilised than certain other topics.


I agree is out of place from the Tolkien mythology. Even in the Silmarillion, the heros were more like that of the sagas and greek legends. Great but with personal character flaws they will destroy them in the end.

When talking historically hitting command and control networks was common place. The very origin of the English word Assassin comes from an 11th century muslim sect who projected power from the hilltop fortress by killing their enemies leaders. The code of conduct under which european wars operated under from the medieval period until the 20th century avoided largely this sort of behavior. The chivalric code meant the you took your knight opponents prisoner and not try to assaiante them. Its noticeable the parts of europe not ruled by feudal aristocracy assassinations were common place. Look at renaissance Italy, the most famous assassination perhaps being the Pazzi conspiracy. Even those parts became part of the Gentlemanly code of conduct in the 18th century and assassinations died back (sorry for the bad pun I couldn't resist it).

The first world war broke the gentlemanly code and total war became the priority. The media portrayals of WW2 are biased by the power of the American media. Both the British and Soviets went after command and control in occupied territory but because of the US later entry into the war the Americans had little involvement in that side of things. The old Hollywood story of no Americans involved means that aspect gets less coverage. However during the cold war both sides built special forces because of experience during WW2. Both sides expected large number of special forces attacks upon outbreak of war. The command bunkers were a high priority target. The threat of nuclear war has dimmed the portrayal of a conventional war and the actual forces arrayed. A lot of money was spent by both sides of radio direction finding equipment intended to find command posts and give them a hello from and artillery battery or two. Currently both Koreas maintain large numbers of special forces to hit each others command control assets.


Fundamentally targeted assassination is part of the post WW1 total war concept. The war on terror exposes it because its one of the few newsworthy items that comes from it. Its not headline news about a small skirmish that last 15 minutes and no one died. Drone strikes assume a disportionate importance because of the news cycle and the small scale of the war. Would an American air strike on a suspected Viet Cong regimental command post make the news in the 60s, personally I doubt it.

 

[mcc457]

A lot of good history stuff...

Thanks for this. Your history mostly gels with my understanding of things. But targeting of leadership to paralyze command (or just to harass) in conventional warfare seems pretty different to conducting an entire campaign working over the network - that seems much more prominent in revolutionary wars, crime wars, intrigues, dissident suppression, counter insurgency and counter terrorism (let's include political intrigues in crime wars). And Shadow of Mordor seems much more War on Terror circa 2001-2002 than anything else I can think of - tactically, strategically and thematically.

I think T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt would also be pretty close, but I don't feel it as much. This may be because of the subtle cues that link Shadow of Mordor to modern counter terrorism ("intel", etc.) but also because I associate Lawrence more with guerrilla/revolutionary strategies, and with being a bit of a bulls**t artist. I'm pretty sure every staff officer involved in Operation Enduring Freedom would have studied Seven Pillars of Wisdom - I should probably read it too - but I don't think the network centric aspects are as prominent as in the current War on Terror.

The counter insurgency in Vietnam was pretty different in terms of objectives (win the support, or at least the acquiescence of the population), strategy (deny freedom of movement, cut supply, draw out enemy forces, improve local forces) and tactics (patrols, checkpoints, bombardment). There were counter insurgency operations in Afghanistan, but these are peripheral to the War on Terror (and they've been pretty much abandoned in favour of counter terrorism, no?).

I pretty much agree with all of Rath's points and though his arguments and wording might be a bit reckless it is an essay, not a dissertation.

(Have to work on my own style and tone, too. Did you like "Boys Own Adventures Commando Stories Omnibus"? I was trying to be bold but reading it now it seems terribly rude.)

 

[Thebazilly]

About Talion having his cake and eating it. I really don't think it's too late to switch Talion from an anomaly in Tolkein lore to a huge cautionary tale in the span of about a sequel. Sure, he already got his revenge, which I was hoping they would dangle on a stick a little bit longer, but seeing as he's still in the game I'm hoping that allying himself to all these malevolent or self-serving characters is going to come back to bite him. Actually, having him lose everything and perhaps realize he hasn't even dented Sauron's army would be a really satisfying ending.

Then again, I feel like Shadow of Mordor's success was more of a happy accident than crafty writing/design. Oh well, looking forward to a sequel.

I haven't finished the game yet, but I've gotten the feeling throughout that Talion was being set up for a fall. Celebrimbor's motives are certainly questionable, and a nice guy doesn't tell you to brainwash an army of your enemies to your command. Talion slowly caves to more and more morally questionable activities as the game progresses.

From what people have been saying in the thread, it doesn't sound like that happens, which is disappointing. There were so many tiny pieces of foreshadowing to it, and it would have made the game fit more with Tolkien's ideology. You can't fight fire with fire in Tolkien's world. Talion compromising his morals would eventually lead to his downfall - his use of hatred and fear only makes the Dark Lord more powerful.