It is not isolated: it is inside the Circle of Isengard, an ancient and formidable, though not very sophisticated stone fortress. I would only add some additional remarks to the existing excellent answers. This suggests that Tolkien conceived of Orthanc as definitely a practical fortress, in addition to having/being a tower.Īnd for another "towered fortress" interpretation of Orthanc, see this image from the book Realms of Fantasy. However, this version is still not as starkly vertical as most depictions of Orthanc (by Alan Lee, etc.) Tolkien provided another, less castle-like, version of the structure later on, An early concept drawing by Tolkien showed Orthanc as quite castle like: However, it is not clear from the descriptions of the structure whether there was a significant ground-level fortress attached to the pinnacle. Orthanc is certainly not a city-sized edifice like the Tower of Guard or the Dark Tower.
With regard to Orthanc, the full nature of the structure is less clear. The towers of Minas Anor/Tirith, Minas Ithil/Morgul, and Barad-dûr are certainly towers in the bolded sense they are city-sized fortresses with prominent towers at their centers. ( In this sense the name is sometimes extended to include the whole fortress or stronghold of which a "tower" in sense 1 was the original nucleus.) Such a structure used as a stronghold, fortress, or prison, or built primarily for purposes of defence.However, Tolkien uses the word tower fairly consistently in a secondary sense. With this meaning stretching back to Old English. A building lofty in proportion to the size of its base, either isolated, or forming part of a castle, church, or other edifice, or of the walls of a town,.The oldest and primary sense of the word is (per the Oxford English Dictionary), We ought to look carefully at how Tolkien used the word tower in The Lord of the Rings. Clearly Tolkien's choice of tower for these villains is very important, but it is not jumping out at me why. These towers are clearly not designed merely to protect their occupants and form a seat of power, for otherwise a dungeon or castle would serve better. Both towers are surrounded by mountains in the books (Saruman at least has a decent view in the films). Neither tower is part of a fortification, they are isolated, in the centre of their respective power's territory.Īre they to spy? Again, a tower that is designed to spy is typically built at the edge of a territory controlled by a power, or at the very least on high ground. Leaving aside Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul which have towers as part of their overall structure, there are two very important towers, sometimes called the titular towers of the second book of the trilogy, which are clearly symbolically very important, namely Orthanc and Barad-dûr (Saruman's and Sauron's places, respectively).īut why? Towers are designed to guard and to spy, and both towers seem poorly suited to these purposes.