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Lord of the Rings Discussion Thread

Is there any explanation in the first lotr movie how uruks are made? Like somekind of ooze. What was that?
 
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LOTR revisions are kinda slow since there's very few people pushing them forward. Only the stats are really being done, and even then it's only really for the Ainur (although lately some abilities have been pushed).

On my side, I've gotten some infinite speed justifications that need to be applied when I'm not busy, and Immeasurable speed was accepted for the Ainur in "Prior to entering Eä" key (and also Eru). A solid Low 1-C rating for the Ainur in their origin also has two staff support.

I have some revisions I plan to push when I'm free.
  • The Valar (and highest Maiar) need their "Within the confines of Eä" key to be revised. Either a downgrade to 3-B (with maybe some being possibly 3-A) or an upgrade to either a "possibly" or solid High 3-A rating (there's statements of an infinite universe).
  • I would like to assess their MFTL+ rating a bit, maybe add some justifications to it or remove it.
  • Assess the value of scaling certain Maiar characters to certain tiers. Arien and Tilion steer the sun and moon, and it's likely this remains true for these celestial bodies even after the LOTR universe becomes more akin to our own. (LOTR is meant to be a mythical past to the real world, and the celestial bodies are all the same as ours. The sun and moon would have to eventually become like our own due to this). Otherwise, a Maia known as Uinen is said to have her hair span all the water on the surface of the planet (a planet which is meant to be a past version of Earth), which could do with a calc.
  • Elven scaling needs to be done. Right now, they're still in the tiers prior to the revisions.
  • Imgur links need to be sorted out.
  • Gandalf, Aragorn, and Sauron have an awkward scaling issue.
    • Gandalf the White is unable to be harmed by Anduril
    • Anduril is the reforged weapon that harmed a Sauron stronger than Gandalf the White
    • Anduril has multiple statements of it being Narsil reforged, with none of them implying the blade became weaker (it's arguably stronger, as Noldorin craftsmen repaired it, meaning it has both Dwarvish and High-Elvish craft in it).
    • This means Gandalf>Anduril>Sauron>Gandalf.

Besides that, the non-High Elven or Ainur tiers need sorting out, Gimli scales to a movie feat for instance, with all the other members of the Fellowship scaling to Gimli.

Abilities are a whole other mess. For instance, souls in Middle-Earth are guaranteed by Eru (or are unable to be destroyed by even him) meaning they are unable to be touched by a Low 1-C being with Soul Manipulation. The Fear Manipulation of evil Ainur is so potent, they can chase souls out of bodies. Ainur created the underlying concepts that gave the universe structure (but Eru gave the universe life, so that needs to be assessed). Etc

There's a ton of stuff.
 
Gasper said:
Is there any explanation in the first lotr movie how uruks are made? Like somekind of ooze. What was that?
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In the movie, they're a hybrid of men and goblin-men. According to Tolkien Gateway, it's a reference to an early description from Tolkien, where orcs "worm their way out of the ground like maggots".
 
We have a Low 1-C cosmology.

A 2-A kinda multiverse is a mentioned in Tolkien's Letters, but it's less a multiverse, and more Tolkien considering every story to be its own world (kinda) that exists on the same level. Authors are sub-creators that exist above that to the point of R>F and the Ainur are also called sub-creators. Eru is above them all as the Omnipotent creator (with Tolkien putting himself below Eru, who he equates to God. Mind you, Tolkien is not considered a genuine character in the verse, he only matters for cosmology).

If you ignore that, Eru is R>F for holding the entire Low 2-C framework of Eä as mere thought, with the Ainur in their origin scaling to him for being seen as genuine and mighty beings by him (and for shaking his entire realm, which would be Low 1-C. There's a even a moment where his level of existence is called the "Primary Reality" vs the LOTR as a "Secondary Reality").
 
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Tyranno223 said:
We have a Low 1-C cosmology.

A 2-A kinda multiverse is a mentioned in Tolkien's Letters, but it's less a multiverse, and more Tolkien considering every story to be its own world (kinda) that exists on the same level). Authors are sub-creators that exist above that to the point of R>F and the Ainur are also called sub-creators. Eru is above them all as the Omnipotent creator (with Tolkien putting himself below Eru, who he equates to God. Mind you, Tolkien is not considered a genuine character in the verse, he only matters for cosmology).

If you ignore that, Eru is R>F for holding the entire Low 2-C framework of Eä as mere thought, with the Ainur in their origin scaling to him for being seen as genuine and mighty beings by him (and for shaking his entire realm, which would be Low 1-C. There's a even a moment where his level of existence is called the "Primary Reality" vs the LOTR as a "Secondary Reality").
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Interesting.

Isn't there one statement of there being multiple 'worlds' or something?

So the "secondary reality" can potentially be 2-C.
 
Gasper said:
Interesting.

Isn't there one statement of there being multiple 'worlds' or something?

So the "secondary reality" can potentially be 2-C.
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There is, but I'll need to check both its usability (it's in Morgoth's Ring, and only the most recent parts of that can be used. Notes written by Tolkien just a bit before his death), and the context, as it may have referred to literal planets.
 
Tyranno223 said:
There is, but I'll need to check both its usability (it's in Morgoth's Ring, and only the most recent parts of that can be used. Notes written by Tolkien just a bit before his death), and the context, as it may have referred to literal planets.
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I see.
 
Looking back on all this, I really should work on a short cosmology blog once stats are all done. This is just a basic look at stuff.
  • Arda is meant to be a past version of Earth. Late 2nd Age onwards, it should be 5-B. 2nd Age and prior is more difficult to assess
  • Eä = Observable universe according to Tolkien's notes on stars, planets, etc. Thus, minimum 3-A. Non unique stars and stuff all match real life counterparts. Sun and Moon will eventually become the same as our own, so they might at most scale to their irl counterparts (or above depending on evidence).
    • Universe is described as limitless or measureless twice, but one of these descriptions is from a "problematic text" (according to Christopher Tolkien) which partly uses an abandoned narrative. The other is directly from Tolkien's letters, describing "limitless extensions in time and space."
    • Maybe High 3-A?
  • Time and space extend limitlessly (although there will be an end of sorts when the universe... ends) = Low 2-C Universe.
  • Eru holds the universe as thought and resides in a higher realm known as the "primary reality" with the universe as a "secondary reality". Low 1-C Timeless Halls.
Then there's the awkward kinda multiverse thing that comes from Tolkien's beliefs on God. All stories are "sub-creation" of sub-creators (like himself) that pay " tribute to the infinity of His potential variety". According to Tolkien, "there is not one but many, indeed potentially innumerable ones – that declared the channels known (in such a finite comer as we have any inkling of) to have been used, are the only possible ones, or efficacious, or possibly acceptable to and by Him!"

God = Eru is a big part of Tolkien, and it's Eru is fundamentally treated as God within Tolkien's medium, and not something separate from his beliefs. But there's the awkwardness of how much we treat Tolkien's beliefs as relevant to the cosmology itself. Luckily, characters either scale above or do not scale to the following stuff, but might as well note it for fun.
  • 2-B or 2-A "multiverse" of fictional stories. I favour 2-A due to the language, he specifies what we know is a "finite" corner of our understanding of God's potential infinity of stories (LOTR is one).
  • Sub-Creators are Low 1-C due to R>F. They are quite literally authors. Tolkien is one example, but the Ainur are interestingly also called sub-creators.
  • God is Omnipotent from the perspective of sub-creators as the only "creator". There is no seeming R>F difference though. Stuff like the "Primary" and "Secondary" Reality divide relate to Eru and the LOTR universe. Comparisons of thought are also between Eru and LOTR.
 
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Tyranno223 said:
Yep, but he was also back to his original might then (within Eä) so he'd be back to tier 3 if the Dagor Dagorath wasn't abandoned.
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Was that a normal sized sun he destroyed?

Also, i think valar and maiar are missing alot of abilities.
 
Gasper said:
Was that a normal sized sun he destroyed?

Also, i think valar and maiar are missing alot of abilities.
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Well he would destroy the sun and moon and their respective guardians.

LOTR is meant to become like the irl Earth overtime, so maybe? It's kinda hard to say 100%. Of course, if you ascribe to the idea Arien is one of the chief Maiar, it's at most a tier 3 feat for defeating a Maia who rivals a Vala in might.

Yes. I mentioned that abilities is something that needs a lot of work above.
 
So there is like multiple low 1-C realms, right?
Also, isn't there a void that is outside even timeless halls or am i wrong on that?
 
The Void exists outside the Timeless Halls, but it isn't presented as something higher than it. Melkor explores it just fine on his own. References to voids can also mean space at times, so there's that to consider.

There's only one solid Low 1-C realm from what I've explored. The "primary reality" of Eru, aka the Timeless Halls. If you include the weirder parts of the cosmology you get from adding Tolkien's views on God and sub-creation, I suppose there may be two (depending on whether "God" is considered to live in the same place that authors/sub-creators are).
 
Tyranno223 said:
The Void exists outside the Timeless Halls, but it isn't presented as something higher than it. Melkor explores it just fine on his own. References to voids can also mean space at times, so there's that to consider.

There's only one solid Low 1-C realm from what I've explored. The "primary reality" of Eru, aka the Timeless Halls. If you include the weirder parts of the cosmology you get from adding Tolkien's views on God and sub-creation, I suppose there may be two (depending on whether "God" is considered to live in the same place that authors/sub-creators are).
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Isn't there like multiple timeless halls?
 
Not that I'm aware of, although Bilbo also calls Manwä and Varda's halls the "Timeless Halls", it's probably just artistic flair for his song.
 
I mean, dosen't the word "timeless halls" already hint that there are potentially multiple of them?
 
No, the usage of halls in the plural does not necessarily mean multiple of the same thing.

The Halls of Mandos are a singular abode, there is only one. The halls are part of the abode, and the Timeless Halls would be much the same. One realm, multiple "halls".
 
The Halls of Mandos are nothing more than Mandos' personal realm where spirits wait after death. The Timeless Halls are the truly ascendant realm of Illuvatar and are far above the Halls of Mandos.
 
Personally I thought Tolkien saying that about there being "multiple stories being tribute to Eru" was just a poetic way of saying we can all interpret God differently but I can see why one would interpret it the multiverse way.

Whatever happened to the Ossë calc?
 
TheMerchant66 said:
Personally I thought Tolkien saying that about there being "multiple stories being tribute to Eru" was just a poetic way of saying we can all interpret God differently but I can see why one would interpret it the multiverse way.
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Tolkien writes about God and Eru in a way that really correlates the two. His letters pretty much makes it clear that he views Eru as God in the story, rather than just a wholly fictional representation. It's one of the those Christian interpretations of writing where every act of creation, or rather sub-creation (like writing) acts as a tribute to God's overall creation. Each story is a fictional universe in and of itself.

That results in the weird kinda multiverse, but not really thing. Luckily, we don't need to delve to deeply into that because he gets into Tier 1 without that, and because no one but he would even scale to that.

TheMerchant66 said:
Whatever happened to the Ossë calc?
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Experiment mentioned they would do it but I'm not sure if they still are.
 
NaturalDestroyer said:
Just curious. On this site, who is accepted as scaling to First and Second-Age Sauron?
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  1. Luthien and Huan manage to defeat Sauron in the First Age, although the scaling might be a bit iffy since Sauron was debilitated (Luthien made him fatigued and blind with a "spell") but they should at least downscale somewhat.
  2. Morgoth, even at his weakest, should be above Sauron in the First Age.
  3. Finrod might scale, depending on how we take the "song battle".
Personally speaking though, I haven't compiled how we should treat First Age Elves and Men, as there's a lot of potential tier inflations you can get. "At most 3-A" Finrod is a bit off for example, when he was nearly slain by orcs in the Dagor Bragollach.

No one really scales to Second Age Sauron from memory. He's never personally defeated in that age, with even his defeat by Númenor was a purely military defeat, with Tolkien emphasizing the difference in his letters.

Last Alliance Sauron was weakened, so he is a non-factor. Elendil and Gil-Galad scale to him however.
 
Gotcha. As far as the movie version of Sauron goes, do we know why holding all of Mordor together is only rated as a supporting feat for 7-B?
 
TheMerchant66 said:
That's why I'm iffy on Ainur on Arda still being universal, First age heroes can give em a good scrap.
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Personally speaking, I only advocated for the Valar as solidly universal, with Eönwë + Ilmarë as being at most universal.

The Valar have no statements of being weakened in the First and early Second Ages (and even statements of being weakened make it iffy on whether it's due to Eru's laws or actual weakening) while the Greater Maiar are repeatedly said to be comparable to the Valar.

But the thing is, it's hard to discern who the Greater Maiar are beyond those two (who luckily happen to have no anti-feats or scaling issues), so I'm iffy on having other Maiar up there, besides maybe Ossë and Sauron (but he causes issues as we know).

I'll bring the topic up again in revisions once we have the Ossë and Uinen calc done.
 
I'm also looking into the validity of maybe having Arien and Tilion scale to star and moon tiers respectively, but that will probably be an "at most" as usual. Tilion is interesting, as you could have him be used as justification for upgrading the Balrogs if you get that accepted.

So far it seems... oddly suggestible.
 
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Tyranno223 said:
Personally speaking, I only advocated for the Valar as solidly universal, with Eönwë + Ilmarë as being at most universal.

The Valar have no statements of being weakened in the First and early Second Ages (and even statements of being weakened make it iffy on whether it's due to Eru's laws or actual weakening) while the Greater Maiar are repeatedly said to be comparable to the Valar.

But the thing is, it's hard to discern who the Greater Maiar are beyond those two (who luckily happen to have no anti-feats or scaling issues), so I'm iffy on having other Maiar up there, besides maybe Ossë and Sauron (but he causes issues as we know).

I'll bring the topic up again in revisions once we have the Ossë and Uinen calc done.
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I kinda like the idea of using the Greater Maia tier such as Eönwë making them only Universal, but still not too clean. Weakened Morgoth is still implied to be the same tier as the strongest Maia and even when he fought Fingolfin was still the strongest Vala. I actually prefer the published Silmarillion in this regard since Morgoth just gets clapped by Eönwë while if we use the idea he and Eönwë had a close fight the tiering becomed very messy I think.

There is that Tolkien statement that says once the World is taken shape they become iirc less involved, I suppose that's the best justification. They hold way more back once Reality becomes established to be akin to RL.

In the Published Silmarillion the Sun and Moon are tiny and the Sun can actually sink in the ocean, as for the Round earth cosmology I've read the Arien/Morgoth story and in it she is the Guardiam of the Sun and iirc Morgoth wanted her to "give up" her guardianship of the Sun to him. She said no and after he assaulted her, the Suna corruption made the earths orbit no longer perfect and all that. So that something to look into
 
TheMerchant66 said:
I kinda like the idea of using the Greater Maia tier such as Eönwë making them only Universal, but still not too clean. Weakened Morgoth is still implied to be the same tier as the strongest Maia and even when he fought Fingolfin was still the strongest Vala. I actually prefer the published Silmarillion in this regard since Morgoth just gets clapped by Eönwë while if we use the idea he and Eönwë had a close fight the tiering becomed very messy I think.
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That's fair. Although Morgoth kept getting weaker over the entire Silmarillion, so it's not an issue that Eönwë can go from around Morgoth's tier to way above him.

TheMerchant66 said:
There is that Tolkien statement that says once the World is taken shape they become iirc less involved, I suppose that's the best justification. They hold way more back once Reality becomes established to be akin to RL.
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Yeah, that's the thing I was thinking of. There was also something about the past becoming more concrete somehow making them less able to change the future, as Eru does... stuff.

Although we don't need a key for the Valar past the First Age, as they don't really do anything.

Eru gets a lot of interesting abilities from Tolkien's notes.

TheMerchant66 said:
In the Published Silmarillion the Sun and Moon are tiny and the Sun can actually sink in the ocean, as for the Round earth cosmology I've read the Arien/Morgoth story and in it she is the Guardiam of the Sun and iirc Morgoth wanted her to "give up" her guardianship of the Sun to him. She said no and after he assaulted her, the Suna corruption made the earths orbit no longer perfect and all that. So that something to look into
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The Sun and Moon are quite interesting. Their exact size in never 100% mentioned per say, and the whole flat earth cosmology makes it so them "sinking" below the ocean could be taken as them going under the flat earth and then rising on the other side, rather than going through the ocean. Also explains why the sun doesn't evaporate the ocean when it does so.

A lot of the sun and moon's examples weirdly correlate with their real counterparts, and they're never actually stated to be changed with the changing of the world from flat to round. Only Valinor, Numenor, and related stuff is outright said to be changed. We have eclipses explained by Tilion being a bad pilot, the sun gives light while the moon reflects it (and star ligh), etc.

Although we have stuff like the moon being burned by the sun that one time which keeps it from being 1 to 1. Not to mention the fruit stuff.
 
It's possible the flat earth is massive, the Outer seas that encircle the landmasses are huge, but not much evidence to go by from that. The Sun and Moon are also on ships made by the Elvesz so I think that may debunk any potential size increases.
 
TheMerchant66 said:
It's possible the flat earth is massive, the Outer seas that encircle the landmasses are huge, but not much evidence to go by from that. The Sun and Moon are also on ships made by the Elvesz so I think that may debunk any potential size increases.
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They are on vessels, but the specific type of vessel isn't specified too well. They're very likely not boats though, as the moon is said to he held on an "island" of unknown size.

It also helps the Arien turns herself into "a naked flame" while steering the vessel, correlating with how the Sun is often seen as a ball of flame (though we know it's plasma).

For the record, I don't think they would ever get a solid rating from this, but a "possibly" or "at most" rating.
 
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