What do we know about Dol Guldur and the White Council?

The idea here is to gather up all our collective lore of what TOlkien actually said about the goings on surrounding the events to be portrayed in TH film. Specifically who was at Dol GUldur, what was going on there, when and who was involved.
I'll leave the field open for the moment for the Lore-masters to give us their wisdom before I add my own reading of it to the mix.

Well, what better way to start off then by looking at the text? Commence massive quote drop:

From The Hobbit

These are a few passages that I recalled and checked. I looked in a few other parts of the book as well, but I may well have missed some references.

Queer Lodgings wrote:Then they knew that Gandalf was going to leave them at the very edge of Mirkwood, and they were in despair. But nothing they could say would change his mind.

"Now we had this all out before, when we landed on the Carrock," he said. "It is no use arguing. I have, as I told you, some pressing business away south; and I am already late through bothering with you people. We may meet again before all is over, and then again of course we may not. That depends on your luck and on your courage and sense; and I am sending Mr. Baggins with you.

...

"Before you could go round it [Mirkwood] in the South you would get into the land of the Necromancer; and even you, Bilbo, won't need me to tell you tales of that black Sorcerer. I don't advise you to go anywhere near the places overlooked by his dark tower!"

Here we learn that Dol Guldur is indeed a tower (though it also had pits and dungeons, such as those Thrain was imprisoned him). Perhaps Sauron wanted to create something like the Barad-dur -- a little home away from home.

The Last Stage wrote:It was in this way that he [Bilbo] learned where Gandalf had been to; for he overheard the words of the wizard to Elrond. It appeared that Gandalf had been to a great council of the white wizards, masters of lore and good magic; and that they had at least driven the Necromancer from his dark hold in the south of Mirkwood.

"Ere long now," Gandalf was saying, "the Forest will grow somehwat more wholesome. The North will be freed from that horror for many long years, I hope. Yet I wish he were banished from the world!"

"It would be well indeed," said Elrond; "but I fear that will not come about in this age of the world, or for many after."

The implication of this exchange (to me) is that Elrond was not present at Dol Guldur during this operation since Gandalf had to explain what happened.

From The Lord of the Rings

I referred to the 50th Anniversary Edition index when checking LOTR and the Appendices, so I feel confident that these are all the relevant references within LOTR.

The Council of Elrond wrote:"Yet at last, as his [Sauron's] shadow grew, Saruman yielded, and the Council put forth its strength and drove the evil out of Mirkwood - and that was in the very year of the finding of the Ring: a strange chance, if chance it was.

"But we were too late, as Elrond foresaw. Sauron also had watched us, and had long prepared against our stroke, governing Mordor from afar through Minas Morgul, where his Nine servants dwelt, until all was ready. Then he gave way before us, but only feigned to flee, and soon after came to the Dark Tower and openly declared himself."

It's also worth noting that later in this chapter, Gandalf states that "It was by the devices of Saruman that we drove him [Sauron] from Dol Guldur. It might be that he has found some weapons that would drive back the Nine." The second sentence in that quote implies to me that "the devices of Saruman" refers also to weapons.

Lothlorien wrote:Frodo ... looked eastward [from the hill of Cerin Amroth] and saw all the of Lorien running down to the pale gleam of Anduin, the Great River. He lifted his eyes across the river and all the light went out, and he was back again in the world he knew. Beyond the river the land appeared flat and empty, formless and vague, until far away it rose again like a wall, dark and drear. The sun that lay on Lothlorien had no power to enlighten the shadow of that distant height.

"There lies the fastness of Southern Mirkwood," said Haldir. "It is clad in a forest of dark fir, where the trees strive one against another and their branches rot and wither. In the midst upon a stony height stands Dol Guldur, where long the hidden Enemy had this dwelling.

This is the most detailed physical description of the region surrounding Dol Guldur that I am aware of.

Shelob's Lair wrote:Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Duath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood. But none could rival her, Shelob the Great, last child of Ungoliant to trouble the unhappy world.

NB The spiders that appear in The Hobbit were also the descendants of Shelob. Based on this quote we can reasonably surmise that they were also present at Dol Guldur.

From the Appendices

Appendix A, III Durin's Folk wrote:In the late summer of that same year (2941) Gandalf had at lest prevailed upon saruman and the White Council to attack Dol Guldur, and Sauron retreated and went to Mordor, there to be secure, as he thought, from all his enemies.

Appendix B, the Tale of Years wrote:2941.... The White Council meets; Saruman agrees to an attack on Dol Guldur, since he now wishes to prevent Sauron from searching the River. Sauron having made his plans abandons Dol Guldur.

From The Silmarillion

Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age wrote:But ever the shadow in Mirkwood grew deeper, and to Dol Guldur evil things repaired out of all the dark places of the world; and they were united again under one will, and their malice was directed against the Elves and the survivors of Numenor. Therefore at last the Council was against summoned and the lore of the Rings was much debated; but Mithrandir spoke to the Council...

... To this Curunir now assented, desiring that Sauron should be thrust from Dol Guldur, which was nigh to the River [Anduin, where the Ring was lost], and should have leisure to search there no longer. Therefore, for the last time, he aided the Council , and they put forth their strength; and they assailed Dol Guldur, and drove Sauron from his hold, and Mirkwood for a brief time was made wholesome again.

But their stroke was too late. For the Dark Lord had foreseen it, and he had long prepared all his movements; and the Ulairi, his Nine Servants, had gone before him to make ready for his coming. Therefore his flight was but a feint, and he soon returned, and ere the Wise could prevent him he re-entered his kingdom in Mordor and reared once again the Dark Towers of Barad-dur.

This is probably the most complete description we're given, elaborating considerably on the snippents from the Appendices as well as Gandalf's description during the Council of Elrond. I think it's interesting that Sauron is stated to have sent the Nazgul before him, which suggests to me that they were elsewhere preparing his return to Mordor, and thus would not have been present at Dol Guldur.

On that note, it's worth pointing out something I am not entirely clear on. I think it is suggested that the White Council attempted military action against Sauron. However, Sauron is stated to have (pretended to) flee, so I'm not sure if there was any actual combat involved. It is possible that Sauron left behind some forces as a rearguard action, but I don't think the text states or even implies this.

From Unfinished Tales

Disaster of the Gladden Fields (footnote 12) wrote:Amon Lanc, "Naked Hill," was the highest point in the south-west corner of Greenwood, and was so called because no trees grew on its summit. In later days it was Dol Guldur, the first stronghold of Sauron after his awakening.

The Quest of Erebor (Extracts from the earlier version) wrote:"That [Gandalf's belief that direct action against Sauron was even more urgent than destroying Smaug] is why, to jump forward, I went off as soon as the expedition against Smaug was well started, and persuaded the Council to attack Dol Guldur first, before he attacked Lorien. We did, and Sauron fled. But he was always ahead of us in his plans.

There's a goldmine here -- Gandalf goes on to elaborate on his fears for Lorien and Rivendell. He states that he thought that if Sauron had not left Dol Guldur he could have destroyed Lorien and Rivendell, which would have made Frodo's quest impossible. We should note, however, that The Quest of Erebor was never published in Tolkien's lifetime and that this passage was from an even earlier version. It's still interesting in my opinion, though.

Good stuff indeed Eldo.
On the point of where the Nazgul were my money is they were not at Dol Guldur during this period, I base this on the the quote you give above; 'governing Mordor from afar through Minas Morgul, where his Nine servants dwelt, until all was ready.'

It will also be interesting if they retain Saruman's motivation for moving against Sauron- to prevent him searching for the Ring in the Anduin, something Saruman himself undertakes (he has some of Isildur's personnel belongings in Orthanc).

The 'devices of Saruman' is intriguing, (and gives PJ a hell of a lot of scope) if memory serves the thing used to blow the wall at Hems Deep is also described in LotR's as a 'device of Saruman' by Eomer.

all the DolGuldur stuff will be as large as everyone is making it out to be... really there is way too much other stuff like flashbacks and more solid already written material to base things off of. all the Dwarf and Goblin war stuff, The finding of Thrain in DolGuldur by Gandalf years before the ousting of the necromancer, as much as I hate it, Gollum leaving his hole in the misty mountains (about 10 years too early if they show it). the destruction of Dale and Erobor by Smaug. So much stuff they can show that I really believe DolGuldur will pretty much be finished by the end of movie 1 with a few scenes of the White Council discussing things about who the necromancer really was, a bit of him going to Mordor maybe and Saruman looking into a palantir showing him going over to the dark side so to speak.

yes I think you are probably right they will want the second film to be all about Smaug and the Battle of five Armies I suppose, so the Necromancer will have to be sorted out in the first film.

Sweet Eru, save us all...

I certainly hope that the Dol Guldur material is presented in passing, but I'm not sure. The first film has to get all the way to the edge of Mirkwood before Gandalf even gets to go south, much less have the White Council meet and decide to attack Dol Guldur. It could be that this is a very small part of the movie, but I suspect that they will have to have part of it happen in part 2 for time reasons, if nothing else. I hope I'm wrong, though, and that it's blink-and-you-miss-it (it won't be)!

I still have a hunch the two story threads will be bound together- success with the WC and success with Smaug will in some contrived way be interdependent and will therefore, sadly, last both films.

The white council stuff would have to at least be done before the BO5A. I am hoping that they don't try and tie Smaug to the necromancer since it was only a fear and nothing concrete as far as coming into reality at that point. I am also still holding on to the hope that the necromancer will have already fled to DolGuldur by the end of film one. While I do think there will be some WC stuff in film 2 I think it will (or hope it will) be brief in seperate parts of the second film

I'm rereading parts of the Hobbit, and I had a shuddering thought. There's a huge chunk of time where it's only Bilbo, Gandalf, and Beorn traveling back home. What if....

What if they go to Dol Guldur on the way BACK, and the whole battle is then? Gandalf's disappearance would be the white council... and therefore the battle would be the "bridge" between the Hobbit and LOTR, since supposedly it's being created like a prequel. Hence the name of the title, "There and Back Again."
It may be a stretch, but I think anything's possible with PJ.

Don't give them any ideas.

I do think that's only an outside chance, though. PJ has mixed and moved titles from the books as much as he has the rest of Tolkien's writing without much regard for the original context or meaning. I'm sure that he used "There and Back Again" as the subtitle for part two solely because it's the book's subtitle and part two includes the return journey. While Petty may be onto something and the climax of the Dol Guldur scenes might be juxtaposed with the Battle of the Five Armies, I don't think PJ would add that entire 'arc' after the Battle. It would be 'anti-climactic' for the same reason as he interpreted the Scouring of the Shire to be. While PJ is far from consistent in his reasoning about adaptation, I don't get the sense that he would add a second climax like that.

Well, the trailer put that idea to rest!!!! Half of it was OF Dol Guldur, and of Gandalf having a throw-down with Radagast

was it Radagast or Thrain? looked more like a dwarf to me but it was very murky.

The more I think and read about it the more I think it has to be Thrain. Gandalf is in Dol Guldur and it's implied that it's a flashback to when he found the map from Thrain. I hope he doesn't have to kill Thrain to get it, though....

You know, Eldo, I was having similar thoughts on another thread... I hope we're not agreeing on something...

It would certainly make for a nice change of pace for us.

On the matter of Dol Guldur, a number of people on TORn are speculating that Gandalf's infiltration of it will be moved forward to the same time as The Hobbit. However, I don't see how this would work unless the film begins with Gandalf there (perhaps as a prologue) before the Unexpected Party and perhaps even before the framing sequences. I think that a flashback is more likely, but I'm not too firm in that opinion.

I don't think it would be in a prologue, considering they have Old Bilbo and Frodo in the beginning. Having Gandalf infiltrating Dol Guldur and then flashing forward to Old Bilbo and then back again (hehe, there and back again ) would just be confusing. Maybe then they'd put it right after Bilbo starts telling the story again, but still, the continuity would be confusing