I Apparently Live in Mordor

 At least, I do according to Rings on Prime. 

Trying to figure out distances in the Rings on Prime's maps is almost as bad as trying to figure out distances in my books. (Oh believe me, I know, but my excuse is I was a teenager when I planned them and I didn't have tens of millions of dollars to hire expert cartographers!) But according to Microsoft Copilot, and yes, that is the best source I have for this:

The distance between Ostirith and Mount Doom in Middle-earth varies depending on the map used, but it’s roughly 100 miles or 160 kilometers. The Tower of Ostirith, perched high on a cliff, overlooks the settlements of Tirharad and Hordern¹². Mount Doom, also known as Orodruin, stands alone in the Plateau of Gorgoroth, rising about 4500 feet with its base approximately 3000 feet tall³. So, while the eruption of Mount Doom would indeed be powerful, the Southlands should be well within a survivable distance from it. Remember, though, this is all in the magical realm of fantasy! 🌋🔥¹.

So, 100 miles? It was 100 miles from that water-started pyroclastic flow to the Elven watchtower?

According to Rings on Prime, water kickstarted a pyroclastic flow from Mount Doom that devastated the entirety of Mordor, including the watchtower a hundred miles away and other lands even further, and that explained why the land was ruined for thousands of years. This is the point--the pyroclastic flow from Mount Doom is supposed to be so strong that it blocks out the sun so the orcs can walk around without being burned by the sun. 

I know very little science, but I know this is silly because of where I live. 

My apartment is about 120 miles driving distance and 44 years away from Mt. St. Helens. So, according to the show's logic, I should be living in Mordor in an ecosystem the orcs would be happy with. 

I don't. Because that's not how volcanoes work. 

By the way, I have heard tell (although I can't find a written source to corroborate) that St. Helens was a vent for multiple volcanoes all around the Ring of Fire, and that it relieved pressure of multiple volcanoes. Therefore, one would think its eruption more powerful than the eruption of a single volcano that isn't part of a range. 

Also by the way, I remember hearing from a very young age that the truly dangerous part of a volcanic eruption like St. Helens was not the pyroclastic flow, although that was deadly, but rather the mudflow, when all the glaciers on the mountain suddenly melted and the water mingled with ash and dirt to slide down the mountain at incredible speeds and sweep away anyone and anything in its path. Like, I remember, in first grade, the teacher reading to us a picturebook about St. Helens during reading time, and someone asking if all of this one guy's sixteen cats died in the mudflow.

Look, I realize this is shoddy reference work, but that's because I'm referencing the lore and legend of my home. My mom and grandparents lived in Washington during the eruptions. Mom scraped a bunch of St. Helens ash off of her car in a peanut butter jar, and I think she still has it somewhere. I have three figurines carved out of St. Helens rock sitting on my shelf. I don't remember a single year in elementary school when I didn't have at least one lesson about St. Helens. In sixth grade, the much-hyped overnight field trip was visiting St. Helens. I remember, with vivid clarity, my fifth grade teacher telling how when the mountain erupted, she filled her bathtub with water to make sure she had fresh water, sat holding her child wondering if she was going to watch her family die horrible deaths, and then hearing God promising His strength to her if it came to that. 

And now I live in places where they all lived, in green, flourishing, beautiful lands that look more like the Shire than like Mordor. So I don't have to have a degree in science to know how stupid this is. 

This was St. Helens in 2018, a few months before I went to China. 

In the books, Mount Doom was not a natural volcano; instead, its eruptions were directly connected to what Sauron was doing. But if you had the misfortune of watching Rings on Prime, you may have noticed that Mount Doom went off because some water spilled onto the magma which caused a pyroclastic flow--meaning that they tried to make this make sense with science (by the way, read that entire article, because that headline is not what the scientist said! He describes exactly what kind of eruption happens, and nowhere does he mention a pyroclastic flow!). 

And before you (and by "you", I don't mean my average reader, I mean whoever at Amazon may be reading my blog) say that the water only started the volcano but Sauron's power can continue the volcano, maybe, but the point of the volcano in Rings on Prime was to create a new homeland for the orcs--a place they can call their own and not have to worry about the sun. That kind of implies the characters thought the water on the magma would continue an eruption for the foreseeable future, doesn't it? 

It feels weird to write this post because of how limited my scientific knowledge of volcanoes truly is. But in the end, none of my favorite reviewers mentioned Mt. St. Helens compared to Mount Doom, so I decided it was worth the post.