The Battle of Pelennor Fields (Kid-Safe Edition)

(For those of you who don’t remember, this is really a continuation of last year’s project: The Battle of Helm’s Deep )

(Due to popular request, this version is cleaned up for the kids.)

What I Did Over THIS Christmas Break:My brothers, sister, myself and some of our friends built a scale model of Minas Tirith during the Battle of Pelennor Fields from the novel, The Return of the King, by J.R.R. Tolkien.

(All of these images are clickable if you can’t see the whole thing)

Behold, the White City of Minas Tirith is under siege by one of the largest, and certainly the tastiest army ever to walk Middle Earth. For two days the evil host, under the brutal licorice fist of the Witch King of Angmar has bombarded the ancient city with stone and fire.

Amazing how much those stones look like green marshmallows, eh? Here you can see some of the city’s garrison trying to clear the south east gate of the second ring of debris. If only they had arms. Coincidentally, you can also see the exquisite craftsmanship of the ancient men of the West (which would actually be myself and my little brother Danny). Apparently there was a HUGE licorice all-sorts boom at the beginning of the Second Age.

Now as we climb the walls into the interior rings the rocky central precipice juts out over the city like a tangy ship rudder.

The streets are almost completely deserted, of course. Because war is very scary. Even for Gummy Bears. Even the meticulously paved ramps and individually placed windows are empty. I use the words meticulously and individually so that you can get an idea of just how much a pain building this was. Meticulously. Individually.

Ah, here we have the sole gardens of the city outside of the Houses of Healing. The fact that I knew these were the sole gardens in the city and that I took the time to put them in made me the focus of a bout of fifteen minutes of pointed laughter. But isn’t it worth it? Don’t those gardens look awesome? They’ve got marshmallow plants, which are about thirty times cooler than real plants.

This is the Tower of Ecthelion. If a candy tower could be measured in units of pimpness, this candy tower would be off the charts. And if that wasn’t awesome enough, in front you can clearly see the White Tree of Gondor, which I made out of white chocolate pretzels. Give me my Nobel Prize now, thankyouverymuch.

Tolkien made a real point of mentioning how there was this “Kingly Head” statue right above the gate to the citadel. So we made a real point out of biting the head off of a Gummy Bear and sticking it there.

But enough about the city, there’s a battle going on! Let’s take a look:

At this point, the Riders of Rohan have already arrived and they’ve completely owned the Orc forces. It’s hard to see here, but they’re riding on majestic Gummy Frog mounts and are doing heinous battle with the Mumakil Elephant warriors.

Now, on this side of the battle field you can see Aragorn’s forces streaming off the stolen Corsairs and doing battle with Sauron’s evil sweetness. Also, you can see that the main gate of Minas Tirith has been breached by Grond, the giant battering ram, and now the men of the city are sallying forth to join in on the wholesale butt-whooping. Let’s take a closer look at all of these.

First, here you can see the dead Lord of the Nazgul and his crazy bird like black licorice rope mount. He’s already killed Theoden and beaten the sweet out of Merry and Eowyn. I’d say this scene is kind of sad if it weren’t for the sheer awesomeness of that black dragon type thing. I mean, really.

Just like last year, the Riders of Rohan have come to the rescue. For the sake of simplicity we made all the good guys yellow and White Gummy Bears and the Bad Guys Red, Orange, Green and Black. This is in no way any kind of remark on culturally preconceived notions of morality and how it relates to skin color. Except for Green people. They are lazy thieves.

Now this kind of sucks. The Riders of Rohan, right after saving the day, AGAIN, have to fight gigantic Elephants. My older brother was in charge of this part of production, and I think we can all agree he knocked it out of the park. Circus Peanut bodies on top of gum drop legs, licorice nib trunks, chocolate pretzels for the men of Harad to stand on and shoot from. How on earth could any sugar-based army stand up against such crazy power?

This is Grond. Yes, Tolkien named EVERYTHING even battering rams. I know you can see that it’s pretty awesome just from this picture alone. However, what you can’t see is that our Grond actually swings back and forth. On LICORICE ROPES. Props to my friend Brian for putting that one together.

This is the final detail shot, because it’s the coolest. Aragorn’s army is just pouring off of those stolen Corsairs like really fast molasses (which is like light speed for candy). With their arrival the tide of the battle turns and the evil, though tasty army, is destroyed to a gum drop.

Soon after a miniature gummy hobbit named Frodo succeeds in casting the One Ring Pop of Power into the molten chocolate fondue of Mount Doom and then peace, prosperity and pizelles returned to Middle Earth. Or something like that.

Hope you guys enjoy this as much as we enjoyed making it.

I’d like to thank my brothers, Dan and Jon. My little sister, Katie. My other little sister, Lis. My buddies, Brian and Brendan, and my best friend, Sunshine. Without them this would have never been made.

Happy (Belated) Holidays!

PS: I also took a video.