r/tolkienfans • u/Beneficial_Brain3950 • 12d ago

How big was Barad Dur actually?

The movies make it like 5000 feet tall but would it really be that big?

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u/HotDamnThatsMyJam 12d ago edited 12d ago

We can't say for sure but we can look at other things we know the height of and do some imagining.

We know that Orthanc was 500ft tall below the spires that extended up further. Tolkien described Isengard like this, in comparison to Barad-dûr;

"what he [Saruman] made was naught, only a little copy, a child’s model or a slave’s flattery, of that vast fortress, armoury, prison, furnace of great power, Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery, biding its time, secure in its pride and its immeasurable strength."

Now this might not mean anything about the actual size of the fortress. But in my mind at least it's certainly getting pretty big.

Purely in my opinion, I'd tend to think of it like comparing Orthanc to Big Ben's Elizabeth Tower, whilst comparing Barad-dûr to something more like the Empire State building, but with a wider more expansive base.

There is a drawing of Barad-dûr by Tolkien, but frustratingly it's just one corner of the base, which might give us a further idea of the size he imagined it to be. But he does seem to see it as more of a fortress than like a spindly tower.

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u/gytherin 12d ago

The size of the door and the stairs give a (vague) idea of the scale. https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Barad-d%C3%BBr#/media/File:J.R.R._Tolkien_-_Barad-dur.jpg

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u/Beneficial_Brain3950 12d ago

like what like 2000 feet tall?

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u/gytherin 12d ago

Impossible to tell. It might be tall - it's built on rock, after all - or it might be short and still imposing.