My Life As A Historian: Real Horrors Don't Compete With Fiction

New Sabaton History. Enjoy.

Did you notice the apocalyptic landscape this campaign created? Did you notice the absolute terror of death-by-drowning in the soldiers? Sound familiar? It should.

Now you see where Tolkien--who was a young man fighting in the war--got the Dead Marshes in particular, and Mordor more generally, from. The Marshes look just like that blasted wasteland in the Sabaton video, and the faces of the dead are those drowned soldiers.

That combat veteran status also comes to strengthen him elsewhere, as when he depicts warfare he doesn't flinch from giving it the gravitas required even if he shunned putting attention on needless gore and reveling in violence. He shows the stress of combat, and the struggles of command, because he was there and witnessed it--experienced it--first-hand.

The real horror of life makes fictional ones pale, even the most cosmic of them, and this is one of the most horrific in Western and world history. Don't discount history.