Where was the boiling oil?

21 January 2004

OK, now that my wife and I are the last geeks on this planet to have seen Return of the King, I have a question for the SCAdians and Tolkien fans in the audience.

Both The Two Towers and ROTK portray sieges of walled cities (Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith, respectively) where towers are used to get the orcs over the walls. Why didn’t the defenders of either city pour boiling oil on the attackers as soon as they reached the walls?

1. Oil is much more expensive in Middle-Earth than it was in medieval Europe
2. Everybody knows that orcs are fireproof
3. Those articles on siege warfare that I read in Dragon back in middle school cannot be trusted

• Later: Remodeling to serve you better
• Earlier: Third-rate electronic burglary