Mordor in The Lord of the Rings is considered one of the most terrible and dangerous places in all of Middle-earth. However, in the movies, you only get a small glimpse into a world that harbors many other dangers. One of the most dangerous places is probably Nan Dungortheb.
What is Nan Dungortheb? Ered Gorgoroth is a mountain range in the north of Beleriand. There lies the valley called Nan Dungortheb, which is also known as Dark Valley of Death
. In the Silmarillion, you learn more about this terrible place, which originated thousands of years before the events of the films.
Similar to Mordor, Nan Dungortheb is also a place of evil, yet it differs significantly from Mordor, primarily due to the source and nature of the malign forces.
The Rings of Power gives you more insights into the world of Middle-earth:
The source of evil is a powerful being
Why is Nan Dungortheb so dangerous? Mordor is a place where evil is organized and directed. A ruler decides on the actions of the minions. Nan Dungortheb is different. The place was created by the being Ungoliant, who fled before Morgoth’s Balrogs after being betrayed. Morgoth was one of the most malicious beings in Middle-earth.
The spider being Ungoliant bred countless horrific creatures there. The offspring infested and covered everything in Nan Dungortheb with their webs, completely blocking the valley from light.
No other beings live in Nan Dungortheb either. There were no camps or settlements of other creatures nearby, and Morgoth’s armies were said to have avoided the place as well. It is like a dark labyrinth, surrounded by silence but also by thousands of malignant creatures.
The spider beings in Nan Dungortheb are instinctively destructive. They do not act for a greater goal but solely out of hunger and malignant nature. Anyone who gets lost there will most likely die in a brutal manner and end up as food.
The man Beren was one of the two known individuals to manage to travel through Nan Dungortheb and survive. However, he seemed to be so traumatized by the experiences that he never spoke about the place and the experience within it. Nan Dungortheb is pure chaos and thus a place full of horror.
In the movies, you can only catch a small glimpse of the world of Middle-earth. Tolkien created a vast and complex world, filled with creatures and characters that had a significant influence. One of them is Tom Bombadil: A character in Lord of the Rings is so powerful and could have changed everything, yet he is absent in the films.
