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Where Was Gondor When the Westfold Fell?
Part of a series on Lord Of The Rings. [View Related Entries]
About
“Where Was Gondor When the Westfold Fell?” is a famous quote from the 2002 film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. In the 2020s, the quote began seeing use out of context in object labeling memes and photoshops.
Origin
In the film, the kingdom of Rohan, led by King Théoden (Bernard Hill), is preparing to defend Helm’s Deep against the invading orc army. Aragon (Viggo Mortensen) implores Théoden to call for assistance in defending the fortress and recommends asking the kingdom of Gondor for help. Théoden snaps back with the rhetorical question “Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell?”, implying that Gondor doesn’t care about Rohan’s defense.
Aragon: "Send out riders, my lord! You must call for aid."
Théoden: "And who will come? Elves? Dwarves? We are not as lucky in our friends as you. The old alliances are dead."
Aragon: "Gondor will answer."
Théoden: "Gondor!? Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell? Where was Gondor when our enemies closed in around us? Where was Gon-- hmph. No, my lord Aragon. We are alone."
Spread
The quote began becoming a popular reference in Lord Of The Rings meme hubs such as Reddit's /r/lotrmemes in the late 2010s. On August 30th, 2019, Redditor Wackylew posted an example showing Theoden rolling up his window, gaining over 3,800 points[1] (shown below, left). The meme continued to appear in various photoshops over the following years. On January 13th, 2021, Redditor ukselta04[2] posted an object labeling example over a scene from Pirates of the Caribbean, gaining over 20,000 points (shown below, right).
A common thread of the memes involved inserting "Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell?" into various pre-existing titles. For example, on December 9th, 2020, Redditor Diapertorium[3] inserted it into the film title Dude, Where's My Car?, gaining over 5,300 points (shown below, left). On August 9th, 2021, Twitter user @lukeisamazing[4] posted an example using the line in the title Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego?, gaining over 940 retweets and 6,300 likes (shown below, right).
Various Examples
Search interest
External References
[1] Reddit – Where were you…
[2] Reddit – Where was Gondor when the Westfold fell?
[3] Reddit – Where was Gondor when the westfold fell
[4] Twitter – @lukeisamazing
