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Elves and Maiar Scaling Revisions

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NaturalDestroyer

NaturalDestroyer

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I'm a tad confused about the scaling issues between the strongest Maiar and Elves on the LotR pages here. Here I've compiled a body of evidence suggesting that they're more equal than generally assumed as well as closer to the Valar in power. If accepted, this would result in serious upgrades for currently vaguely defined "likely higher" characters like Sauron, Carcharoth, Gothmog and anyone who scales to them.

  1. High-tier Elf fighting Valar. Fingolfin vs Morgoth.
  2. Feanor "saw through the semblance of Melkor and pierced the cloaks of his mind, perceiving there the lust for the Silmarils." That's a feat of an elf overcoming Melkor's telepathic shields. Morgoth's Ring page 97. He created the Silmarils, which burned Morgoth's avatar and amped Carcharoth to the point where he could pass through the Girdle of Melian (Silmarillion 218).
  3. Feanor is superior to Fingolfin physically. "For F├½anor was made the mightiest in all parts of body and mind: in valour, in endurance, in beauty, in understanding, in skill, in strength and subtlety alike: of all the Children of Il├║vatar, and a bright flame was in him."― The Silmarillio, Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor
  4. Statement that some of the Maiar are nearly as powerful as the Valar. "And the Valar drew unto them many companions, some less, some well nigh as great as themselves, and they laboured together in the ordering of the Earth." The Silmarillion, Page 11.
  5. Luthien, a half-Elf half-Maia, was magically strong enough to destroy Sauron's fortress (Silmarillion 207) and put Morgoth to sleep (213-214).
  6. "[Elwe Singollo] was a great lord and noble, tallest in stature of all the Children of Illuvatar, and like unto a lord of Maiar." Morgoth's Ring Page 86. This one is less concrete because it could just be a literary device comparing the two, but it might also be a direct power thing. He did marry Melian, after all, so she must have regarded him as somewhat equal to her. Page 173 says that "Great power Melian lent to Thingol her spouse, who was in himself great among the Eldar." She was clearly superior, as a Maia, to one of the greatest of the First Age elves. Page 54 of the Silmarillion states that among all the people of Lorien there were none "more skilled in songs of enchantment." This can obviously be taken to mean literal enchantments. Melian was strong enough to counteract the Sleep of Yavanna over the country of Beleriand (Silmarillion Page 100).
  7. Thorondor wounds Morgoth, indicating comparability to Fingolfin. (Silmarillion, Page 180)
  8. Felagund was one of the strongest Noldor and one of the High Kings. He put up a good fight against Sauron magically but was ultimately defeated in a duel of sorcery (Silmarillion Page 202)
  9. Gothmog, one of Morgoth's most powerful Maia servants, dealt the finishing blow to Feanor (Silmarillion Page 13). It took many Balrogs to get Feanor to the point where that could bring him down, but it shows that they are definitely comparable. Keep in mind that Feanor was superior to Fingolfin and could have thus wounded Crippled Morgoth.
  10. Having multiple Balrogs be comparable to a weakened Morgoth is further supported by their defeating Ungoliant, who was on the verge of overpowering Morgoth (Silmarillion 86-87).
 
Well, you can ask him again in that case, but he hasn't visited the wiki for over a week, so I don't know if he will respond.
 
Well, Tolkien's world is extremely incosnistent, given that universal embodiments of fundamental concepts are still somewhat possible to fight for various powerful elves and mortal creatures. As such, I am very uncomfortable about messing with the scaling too much without considerable knowledgeable staff and member input.
 
Yes. That may be due to all of the problems that we have had with revisions of this franchise previously.

In addition, Azathoth is missing, and I don't know what has happened with him.
 
Can you summarise which characters that would be affected by this, what they should be upgraded to, and how this would affect the structure of consistency between the profiles?
 
Top-tier Maiar; such as Sauron and Gothmog scaling to Feanor who is 4-A, likely 3-B.
 
Okay. The problem, as usual, is that their humanoid manifestations do not seem to display anywhere near that degree of power when present on Arda, but I suppose that it seems to make sense, especially if MasterOfArda agrees.

I would still prefer a confirmation from Azathoth though.
 
I completely understand the difficulties. Hopefully Azathoth is doing all right.

Steven is correct in the scaling changes. They would also apply to Thorondor (the leader of Manwe's servants, wounded Morgoth) and Ancalagon (who fought Thorondor and Silmaril-empowered Earendil). For Maiar like Gandalf and Saruman in their true forms it would be more "possibly" with the scaling
 
Okay, and this would not mess up the consistency of the statistics?
 
I suppose it would not.

I mean, Legolas could never ever hurt Gandalf, even in his best day. Most of the fights in LOTR are simply between the big ones, if you got me.
 
To summarize (typed this up on a Google Doc, not sure why it copied bold):

4-A from Fingolfin and Feanor solidly scales to all high-tier Elves and Maiar, including Sauron, Melian, Gothmog, Luthien, Thingol, and Felagund. Varda also used the light of Telperion for 4-A to 3-B feats of creating the visible stars, which provides a power level for the Silmarils. This scales (conservative 4-A) to Ancalagon and Carcharoth. Anyone who scales to these (like Thorondor, who presumably fought Ancalagon and directly wounded Morgoth) also receives 4-A. Arien, Eonwe, Ilmare, Osse, and Tilion are high-tier Maiar.

Galadriel, Elrond, and the Istari should be possibly 4-A. They somewhat scale to weakened Sauron, and in Unfinished Tales Gandalf the Grey actually defeated the Necromancer before the events of the Hobbit occurred. Gandalf the White should be equal to weakened Sauron by telepathically stalemating him in The Two Towers. Generic Balrogs (comparable to Istari) should also receive this rating. Gil-Galad and Glorfindel should as well, for scaling to One Ring Sauron and Balrogs respectively.

Glaurung should stay Unknown, but scale to the possibly 4-A Balrogs instead of 6-B. He was only ever injured by magic First Age dwarf weapons designed specifically to kill him and by Gurthang, which is a sword strong enough to kill Morgoth in the Dagor Dagorath.

The Nazgul are extremely difficult to scale, as the Witch-king is portrayed as being nearly as strong as Gandalf in one moment but is killed by Eowyn and Merry (admittedly with an enchanted Westernesse dagger) the next. I think that placing the Nazgul at "Unknown" would be the most responsible decision, given their severe inconsistencies.
 
Well, I suppose that seems fine, with the exception that all of the characters would scale to 9-B or 9-A according to some portrayals, and 4-A in others.
 
On the other hand, we tend to rate feats of creating multiple stars as High 4-C rather than 4-A nowadays.

Btw: I fixed the bolded text.
 
4-A should still be a valid scaling for injuring Morgoth, however, as well as Tolkien's statement that the strongest Maiar were nearly as powerful as the Valar.

And thanks
 
Maybe you, The Archdemon, and MasterOfArda can help each other out? It is very important that you maintain a proper editing structure and grammar though, as I do not have the time to clean up your edits.
 
I was an English major. I'll make sure you don't have to worry about the little things like that--you've got enough on your plate.

Can you unlock the pages? I have a couple hours free to edit them
 
I approved of 4-A Maiar, not of this specific scaling system. I will elaborate later, but Osse, Arien, and Tilion scale to no one, while the Istari, Elrond, Balrogs, and Galadriel scale to full Maiar.
 
"4-A from Fingolfin and Feanor solidly scales to all high-tier Elves and Maiar, including Sauron, Melian, Gothmog, Luthien, Thingol, and Felagund. Varda also used the light of Telperion for 4-A to 3-B feats of creating the visible stars, which provides a power level for the Silmarils. This scales (conservative 4-A) to Ancalagon and Carcharoth. Anyone who scales to these (like Thorondor, who presumably fought Ancalagon and directly wounded Morgoth) also receives 4-A. Arien, Eonwe, Ilmare, Osse, and Tilion are high-tier Maiar."

4-A should be "At least 4-A, likely 3-B." Additionally, I don't get Arien, Osse and Tilion. Let me elaborate: Galadriel is second to Feanor, scaling to Fingolfin. Ancalagon and Carcharoth scale to the Silmirals. Saurons scales toe Carcharoth. Melien resisted Sauron, Gothmog, and all other of Morgoth's lieutenants. Gothmog is fought Feanor. The Balrogs assisted Gothmog and drove off Ungoliant. Throndor wounded Morgoth. Eonwe is the greatest of the Maiar. But there is nothing about Arien, Tilion, or Osse. I think Arien should get just Unknown. Tilion should be just Unknow as well. Osse also scales to no one so he sould be "Unknow. At least 6-B, likely far higher."

"Galadriel, Elrond, and the Istari should be possibly 4-A. They somewhat scale to weakened Sauron, and in Unfinished Tales Gandalf the Grey actually defeated the Necromancer before the events of the Hobbit occurred. Gandalf the White should be equal to weakened Sauron by telepathically stalemating him in The Two Towers. Generic Balrogs (comparable to Istari) should also receive this rating. Gil-Galad and Glorfindel should as well, for scaling to One Ring Sauron and Balrogs respectively."

4-A should be "At least 4-A, likely 3-B."Galadriel scales to Fingolfin. Balrogs scale to Ungoliant. Istari scale to Galadriel (As members of the White Council) and Balrogs.

"Glaurung should stay Unknown, but scale to the possibly 4-A Balrogs instead of 6-B. He was only ever injured by magic First Age dwarf weapons designed specifically to kill him and by Gurthang, which is a sword strong enough to kill Morgoth in the Dagor Dagorath."

If he scales to Morgoth he should be "At least 4-A, likely 3-B."

"The Nazgul are extremely difficult to scale, as the Witch-king is portrayed as being nearly as strong as Gandalf in one moment but is killed by Eowyn and Merry (admittedly with an enchanted Westernesse dagger) the next. I think that placing the Nazgul at "Unknown" would be the most responsible decision, given their severe inconsistencies."

I agree.
 
So, essentially, the only changes you wish to make are increasing the 4-A non-Maiar scalings to "At least 4-A, likely 3-B?" Not that I'm complaining. I just stuck with the 4-A to be conservative. Multi-galaxy Gandalf the White and Sauron seems...too much.

I mentioned Glaurung because we really don't know if he scales to Morgoth. Personally, I doubt he does, and we know for certain he was at least weaker than Ancalagon. The Gurthang comment was to show that Glaurung in particular could be anywhere in the scaling, since Gurthang has never failed to kill an opponent (even a Vala). It's more of a feat for Gurthang than anything else.

Other than that, it seems we agree on pretty much everything else. Any further thoughts?
 
Unknown for Glaurung seems fine. Multi-galaxy Gandalf and Balrogs still seems iffy, though, since they would only scale to the weaker side of Crippled Morgoth to begin with, who was still as strong as full power One Ring Sauron. They're almost certainly 4-A though.
 
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