Work Text:
So, in the council of war, everybody is in favor of sallying forth out of the city before the plain gets too hot, except Maeglin and Salgant. Options: take everyone in one big group, or take everyone and split everybody up.
These are terrible ideas. These are TERRIBLE IDEAS!!! Salgant is condemned as cowardly for preferring "to do battle from an impregnable fortress than to risk hard blows upon the field," except that is literally what fortifications are FOR. Turgon has made quite a lot of preparations, remember! Classically, the defenders have the advantage! You have to starve them out if you can't break down their walls. Turgon built Gondolin on top of Amon Gwareth, and moreover, he can (and does) REMOVE the stairs leading up to the gates! This is AWESOME.
The Gondolithrim, except Salgant personally, are all very pointedly infantry. Gothmog has cavalry (wolf-riders), fire-drakes (look up grass fires trust me that shit is FAST), and mechanical tanks/troop transports. They can encircle and outrun the Gondolithrim in an open chase, which is what any sally from the city would turn into. Fuckin massacre. So, trying to hold the city is actually the wisest course of action! Using Idril's secret tunnel sooner and in a more organized fashion would have been ideal, but ensuring a watch on Maeglin to prevent him from signaling to Gothmog would probably have been difficult, considering the lack of proof etc.
Onward to the battle itself. Sidenote: I love how Tolkien doesn't forget that friendly fire happens, and specifically notes that those waves of arrows did not magically discriminate. There's a lot of smoke, heavy fighting, and they're getting pushed back. Presumably this is also when Gothmog sends troops around the side to the Great Market to ambush Glorfindel, since they're said to be fighting "for hours."
(Note that we see no mention of heavy siege equipment like trebuchets and catapults on Morgoth's side! It's fiery arrows and slings that the Balrogs use to start fires in the city. I take that to mean that Morgoth's siege weapons CAN'T REACH. They can't go up the makeshift snake-ramp, and they can't reach the city without an increase in height.)
Much is made of Salgant going home 'to quake in his bed,' but I wish to note that Tuor ALSO goes home, WITH his troops, to check on his loved ones and arrange a guard for them. And, moreover, Maeglin had told Salgant to delay Tuor and get him into the heat of the fighting. (And trusted implicitly that he would, also!) How is it that Tuor knew to bring all of his men with him to oppose the Mole, rather than just sending a guard to Idril? It is a mystery. We may never know. Myyyystery.
You really have to feel for the Mole-folk here; they don't know what's going on, or why Maeglin is dragging Idril and Earendil somewhere. They won't help him do it, because that doesn't seem right, but they ARE loyal to Maeglin, and undoubtedly mistrust Tuor, and so when the Wing comes upon them, they fight for Maeglin despite his being weird right now. (They also may not all SEE him try to kill Earendil. Visibility is poor, after all.)
(Now, about the Harp and its deployment - it seems important to remember that the rear of the city, where the Lesser Market is, has been SET ON FIRE. If Salgant doesn't know the gates have gone down (there would be the sound of it, but not necessarily the sight - remember that he's on the other side of the Place of the Gods, and thus on the other side of a hill), he may still think they're in a siege situation at this point. Defending supplies is therefore a VITAL endeavor, because that's what sieges hinge on. Also, again, leaving the city on fire is not a super great idea just in general. It seems very plausible to me that the Harp, therefore, has been engaged in fire-fighting. (The Lesser Market is also suspiciously near Tuor's house, just saying.)
Ilfiniol, our narrator, DOES NOT KNOW what is going on in the back of the city: he says "The story tells that [...] Salgant concealed [Turgon's] bidding," but, remembering the city is on FIRE, it seems more plausible that the messengers couldn't make it through. (Also, if he's quaking in his bed, how is he recieving these messengers? The logistics here do not seem to work.) By the time the Harp DOES make it to reinforce the Flower, they are leaderless! Salgant and the other Houses MUST have had a chain of command, I just cannot imagine otherwise. So what happened to them? I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that whatever the Harp was doing in the Lesser Market, it was dangerous enough that their leadership got killed.
So having been pushed back, Rog makes a SPECTACULAR rally with the Hammer, and they make it all the way back to the northern gate. I have never before seen anyone comment on this, but I am gonna criticize Rog, because then they KEEP GOING. The Hammer is a big House, and they're very strong, and they ALL FRICKIN DIE because they let themselves get lured out and surrounded. This was bad. This was very bad.
(Side note: I would murder for an AU where Rog and the Hammer don't go ACROSS the iron snake-tanks. They go INSIDE one of them, and they capture it, and they figure out how it works. If anybody could have, aside from Maeglin himself, it would have been these guys. How awesome would that have been?)
Because of Rog's being drawn out, then, the Gondolithrim LOSE all that ground that Rog had gained them, and then lose ADDITIONAL ground, plus Penlod, a lot of his Houses, and a lot of the walls, plus a lot of the Swallow and the Arch. Probably this is about the time Egalmoth starts running around in the south of the city, rescuing what people he can.
The orcs have now gotten to the Place of the Well (Folkwell), which is not good. I don't think the Road of Arches that connects to the King's Square is very long at all. Gothmog pauses to take stock, more or less, and sends messengers to get the breach in the wall widened so that the Balrogs can bring in their really heavy hitters. Then, sweet glorious ambush: the Fountain comes up! In fucking STYLE, no less! I mean seriously Ecthelion, damn.
THIS is when Tuor and the Wing finally make it back from his house, and they come up and reinforce the Fountain. Once again, they force the orcs back to the gate, just in time for Gothmog's wall-breakers to show up. Awkward. So, they lose a BIG chunk of the western wall, and then come the actual "beings made of fire that Balrogs ride." So they get driven back again, this time from the western breach, and it's not great, because Gothmog DOES solidify his grip on the northern half of the city, and some of his troops start loafing around taking prisoners and shit.
Tuor and a wounded Ecthelion go back to the Place of the Well (aka Folkwell), this time from the north. Galdor's been pushed back there, and is holding the western entry. They retreat back from the Folkwell, back to the Palace Square. I wonder if the "western wall" that was breached might not be more precisely the northwestern wall, because Tuor and Ecthelion retreat through the north entrance of the Folkwell, not the west, where Galdor is. Also, the entrance from the Road of Arches, that they retreat through, is explicitly northwest of the King's Square.
This is when Glorfindel and company arrive at the Palace Square from the east, where they have been having a real bad time. They get reinforced by what's left of the leaderless Harp, coming up from the south, and the Harp, just like the Hammer, overextend back into the square and get eaten by the fire-serpent there.
I do wonder what's going on in the WEST of the city. We hear from Voronwe that Idril and her guard are trying to help people, and Egalmoth is probably running around with whoever he can gather up, but there's been a major offensive in the east of the city, in the Great Market. It seems odd that there's no equivalent push from the northwest to the south. Is this where the Harp and what's left of the Mole went? My map says that the Way of Running Waters connects to the Way of Pomps, so it would be plausible for them to look like they came from the south, when more precisely they'd been at the southwest. Also, I can find no mention of the King's Way at all! That is a major road, y'all! Nobody's using it for anything? Really??
So now everybody's in the King's Square, taking stock of their forces and barricading all the entrances except the southernmost. This is from whence Egalmoth and what's left of the Harp show! It says that Egalmoth gathered up a lot of people, and that they were in fact fighting their way around, so that also contradicts the idea that the Harp was lazing around sitting on their butts in the Lesser Market.
It seems pretty clear at this point that the city is not going to make it; this seems like a good time for Tuor to let the king know that there's an escape route and to get people started along it. OK. Moving on. The barriers are not going to last forever, and indeed they don't, because firedrakes are a thing that apparently happen. This one comes from the north, and presses Tuor and Egalmoth to the center of the King's Square. It's possible that Gothmog is riding this dragon, because it's him that overpowers Tuor. Ecthelion then Does The Thing, and once again deals an excellent psychological blow to the forces of Morgoth. This appears to be a theme, Ecthelion! Please keep your dying to a minimum in the future.
Then the House of the King comes down, and Turgon with them. Damn you and your historical counting methods, Tolkien!!!!! What IS "two score?" ...oh. Uh. It's, uh. It's twenty. So, forty? FORTY?????? FORTY?!?!?!?!?! AND THEN A FIREDRAKE? THE ONLY ONE OF WHICH DIES IN THE ENTIRE BATTLE????????????
Okay. Deep breaths. The firedrake trick doesn't seem liable to work twice, because it fully extinguishes the fountain, and the whole square is full of scalding fog, and there's some more friendly fire, and the survivors gather in the center of the square, under the trees, and NOW they finally acknowledge that perhaps the city is done for.
And Turgon has A Moment. I won't hold your speculations long, but the House of the King is probably the largest part of the surviving forces, and definitely the freshest, and the fact that they all stayed in the King's Square, holding the enemy's attention, and pretty much all died, rather than fighting the rearguard with Glorfindel and Tuor, seems very wasteful. But it's very clear that Turgon is not in his right mind here. I do wish someone had been like, "My king, you can execute me for laying hands on you afterward, but frankly we need the King's House with us for the retreat, so you have to come because they won't leave you."
Anyway. I think Tuor could have mentioned the escape route sooner -- if nothing else, it could have completely restructured the places that became strategically important to hold! But, you know, he did bring it up, and they retreat, leaving the king's house.
I'm having a few left/right dichotomy moments here. The maps say that the Palace is at the southeast corner of the King's Square, so if Tuor's retreat is being assaulted from the rear and the left, because the palace is on his right, then his left flank would be the WEST of the city, not the east?????? Someone please clear this up, I'm dying. Is this a misprint?
Anyway, so they pull a fighting retreat, and take advantage of the King's guard and their last stand, and the fall of Turgon's tower, to escape the largest part of the invading forces. Interesting that we see no mention of ANY Balrogs elsewhere in the city while they're making their way through the tunnel. Are they all in the King's Square?
So, they do escape into the hidden way, however treacherous the way. Tuor wants them to go for the Cristhorn, and suddenly NOW people remember that the wolves and dragons can probably outrun them. :P Idril makes a good argument against the Way of Escape - but doesn't mention that Maeglin tried to kill her and Earendil, and had become a traitor? That might be relevant? Anyway.
And fog in the plain, where it had never been before! INTERESTING. And linked to the death of the King's fountain, it says? Yeah, I think I know the hand of Ulmo when I see it. Just saying. And they go into the foothills, and are ambushed, because of course Melkor has the forces to set them literally around the entire valley, Gondolin being A LITTLE IMPORTANT in the scheme of things. Deus ex machina the SECOND, in the person of Thorndor! I think Tuor should have mentioned his hopes that the Eagles would give them what reinforcement they could.
OK, in Glorfindel's honor, I feel I should point out that in this version, he WAS helmeted! It was that his hair came out from under his helmet, and that was what the Balrog caught onto. I also note that, despite the elven hardiness, here it is said that the survivors were "vexed by sore flies, for it was autumn still, and agues and fevers fared among them." So apparently by a special effort of Melkor's, sickness CAN take elves. Good to know.
Aight, so, there we have it. Trying to hold the city: not as stupid as it looks! Ilfiniol: not omniscient! Probably got rejected from the Harp for a bad audition! The western/southern half of the city: a mystery!