# Talk:Battle of Helm's Deep

The term "Battle of Helm's Deep" comes from Peter Jackson's movies, it never appears in the book. This page should use the "Battle of the Hornburg" as the primary name and specify that the "Battle of Helm's Deep" is the name given in Peter Jackson's adaptation. See:
"‘A struggle somewhat grimmer for my part than the battle of the Hornburg,’ answered Aragorn. ‘I have looked in the Stone of Orthanc, my friends.’ (LotR, The Passing Of The Grey Company)
"March 3 - Theoden retreats to Helm’s Deep. Battle of the Hornburg begins. Ents complete the destruction of Isengard." (LotR, Appendix B)
There is also an entry for 'Battle of the Hornburg' in the book's index.
Kadaveri (talk) 02:51, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks for discussing. Firstly, you are certainly right about Tolkien's usages as cited. Secondly, you are probably right that the term is Jackson's, though it may well have been used by fans long before that. But those points do not necessarily mean that we should rename the article. We may observe that the chapter containing the battle is titled "Helm's Deep"; it may well be that Tolkien was here being deliberately obscure, as we know that he was intentionally ambiguous with chapter titles as with much else, but that does not negate the fact that readers come to the battle in a chapter called Helm's Deep, and only learn that the battle is elsewhere referred to as the Hornburg much later, if at all, and only in passing. Be that as it may, the fact is that readers of Tolkien, and readers of Wikipedia, are familiar with the title "Battle of Helm's Deep". Google returns some 35,700 hits for "Battle of the Hornburg, and some 214,000 for "Battle of Helm's Deep", while excluding the terms "film" and "movie" from the search still leaves some 117,000 for "Battle of Helm's Deep". In other words, per WP:COMMONNAME, the article is correctly named at the moment, as was noted in the discussion in the 2019–2020 thread above on this talk page. Since Jackson, of course, other things such as games have continued to use the name "Helm's Deep", so that name has steadily grown in usage. Even scholarly sources like Charles Oughton's "Roman Heroes at Helm's Deep?" cited in the article are now comfortable with that name. So, whatever book purists (and Tolkien himself) may think or have thought, the world now has chosen Helm over Hornburg, that's how it is. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:16, 21 February 2024 (UTC)