LOTR Plot Hole? 6,000 Rohirrim in the 3rd movie.. where were they at Helm's Deep

All of the Rohirrim weren't at the Golden Hall.

They had to come from all across the country. Traveling kind of took some time back then. They didn't have fast travel in the realm.

There aren't plot holes to the story. More like overuse of deus ex machina.

Theoden had cast them out. News travels slowly as well in middle earth.

He cast 2000 of them out. The rest were all in their home villages chilling because they didn't know really what was going on. That's why Theoden sat around for 3 days at the entrance to the path of the dead. He was sending out messengers to all these towns summoning them to his army.

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The movies are not, seeing as how the elves had time to get there and all.

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Well there some minor time constraints when dealing with movies

I don't know how much of a plot hole that is. The elves were sent to renew the friendship between man and elf. I'm thinking they were sent to go down to Gondor. They would have taken the same waterway to the Falls and then headed overland the rest of the way. By that time, Sauraman would have been invading and the elves probably changed objectives and decided to help out the Rohirrin.

Muster the Rohirrim.

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If I remember in the books, they had to travel a shortcut to get to Gondor and had to make a deal with some hill people or something to get through.

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Yeah. It's been awhile since I read RotK but the deal was pretty funny. It was like "yeah, we promise to stop killing y'all and taking your land and stuff."

I think in the books, they did get up to 12,000. And I did the calculations. There were either 200,000 or 600,000 bad guys. And there was no deus ex machina ghost army to win the battle for them.

Well said.

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Yeah but in the book wasn't it some other army instead that helped them out

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I don't think so. Aragon traveled to the South of Gondor on the ships and picked up some more soldiers but it wasn't a huge army.

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Also, I know it takes time for them to get their men together but didn't it take Gandalf 3 days to get Eomer and get him to Helm's Deep. Surely they could've sent our some riders to the other towns and cities in Rohan.

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I imagine it is a somewhat similar to the books. There are battles being fought all over Rohan at the time. When Gandalf finds the large group of soldiers, they're already fighting the enemy. He tells them to drop what they're doing and leave. He also sends contingents to go fight at other places in Rohan where there is fighting to help them but takes most of them to Helm's Deep. In the books, they make note of many soldiers who were fighting were separated and leaderless and just wandering around the countryside. It is all a disorganized mess. That's why Theoden feels so guilty in the 3rd movie. He should have gathered all the soldiers earlier but didn't.

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I guess it's really just how it is portrayed in the movie. At Helm's Deep they made it seem like Rohan's last stand, if they fall Rohan is dead. Then in the 3rd movie suddenly their military force is massive.

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If most of the leadership of a country is wiped out, it's pretty hard to put up serious resistance. Everything would have been delayed even more.