Lord of the Rings revision

[Antvasima]

@Azathoth Thanks.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@Azathoth Thanks.

I have asked a few.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

 

[Jucaslucas]

Weren't the stars created by Varda? Like, before the trees?

And I already in other topics that the sun in LOTR world might not be that big. The earth was flat at the time, and it's explicity said that it's the sun that moves around earth, not the contrary.

 

[Aparajita]

Because all the stars come from the trees. The Wells harvest the dew from the trees. They also exist on a higher plane of reality.

This.

No, the Stars were created by Varda *from the Dew*

 

[Goodyfresh]

So the tier of the Trees' energy might be debatable, but yes I see what everyone is saying, the energy contained in the well/collected dew is at-least-universal since all the stars in the universe were created from the dew. Therefore I suppose Ungoliant must have been 3-A to 2-C, at least, after drinking the Well, and that means that yes, the Balrogs defeating her was simply a case of major PIS.

I'm interested to see what the Calc Members have to say about the High End vs. Low End for Morgoth's Scream.

Here's a question. Is it possible to calculate just how much energy it would take, at-minimum, to hit the ground with enough force to fracture it down to the mantle and cause lava to well-up? We could assume the planet's crust is as thick, at that point (at Morgoth's fortress at Angband), as the average-thickness of our own Earth's crust in inland areas. Becuase that seems like a feat that is totally calculable, although I myself would not know how to go about doing the calc.

 

[Alakabamm]

Hmm, I don't quite get the high end of that feat actually...it uses a Mercalli intensity of 4-5 but that is not justified because the prior quote was in reference to the cry's effects in the country itself, not in that far off location it reached. An earthquake several megatons strong may still be felt that far away. So I would say low end for now.

 

[Antvasima]

So, several LotR characters might have to be downgraded to "At least Small City level"?

 

[Alakabamm]

Yea, at least the ones scaled from this feat

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. If you get some other calculation group members to agree, you can go ahead with the downgrade, if you wish.

 

[Jucaslucas]

Well, about the lava feat, I'm pretty sure Morgoth and Fingolfin were fighting near a volcanic region.

 

[DontTalk]

Hmm... the calculation does it a bit different from how I would have done it to this point.

The 1/10000 thing is mentioned in the article, but the relation between magnitude and impact energy used for the calculation is M=0.67log10E - 5.87. That would give the Magnitude of 7.8, which results in a seismic wave energy (using typical formula) of 3.162278e+16 (for the low end). So a bit higher than his.

Hmm... That is once again a foundation question (sadly it is even relevant in this case).

@Alakabamm : What do you think is the more reliable approach? The article mentiones that the "seismic efficiency" can actually vary between 1/1000 and 1/100,000, with 1/10,000 being the most common, so maybe avoiding going over it in calculation is better? (The result I get through directly converting from magnitude lies within the 1/1000 - 1/100,000 range, just not on the average).

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you for the input. If it turns out to be necessary, would you be willing to redo the calculation?

 

[DontTalk]

If we decide on generally using the other method I have absolutely no problem with redoing the calc.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Thanks for the help.

 

[Goodyfresh]

Well, about the lava feat, I'm pretty sure Morgoth and Fingolfin were fighting near a volcanic region.

Near one, but not right on top of one, so I guess it's hard to say just how thick the crust was at that point.

@DontTalk and any other calc-members getting involved, thanks for your hard work

 

[Antvasima]

What do you think Alakabamm?

 

[DontTalk]

So here is the recalc. I remembered that Kkapoios has used that method in his earthquake calcs in the past, so as long as nothing much speaks against this method I would just stay with it to keep consistent with the past results.

 

[Alakabamm]

I think that the method DT uses is fine, it is basically the method used by NF for most things + it is much better than some of the assumptions he was using.

 

[Goodyfresh]

So here is the recalc. I remembered that Kkapoios has used that method in his earthquake calcs in the past, so as long as nothing much speaks against this method I would just stay with it to keep consistent with the past results.

Wow, the scream is only city-level? That is quite surprising. Then perhaps the tiering of the top LOTR characters like Morgoth (pure physical), Fingolfin, and Feanor is way off, huh?

And what about Galadriel who is listed as Low 7-B? Does that mean she's much closer to the top-tiers than we thought, or does that mean that her tiering is inaccurate as well?

Edit: But then, what about the evidence putting the likes of Gothmog and Sauron at High 7-A? Obviously Morgoth has to be stronger than them. I guess what's really happening then is that the scream doesn't exhibit his true physical destructive might.

 

[Antvasima]

Thank you to DontTalk for the help.

Does anybody want to help out by rescaling the Lord of the Rings characters accordingly?

Edit:

What evidence of High 7-A do you mean Goodyfresh? If this is true, I suppose that you are correct in that a mere scream is not a good gauge of power, and we rather have to scale them from Sauron and Gothmog instead.

 

[Goodyfresh]

Sauron's mere existence holds together all of Barad Dur, a mountain-sized fortress, while simultaneously controlling as need-be all the orc, troll, etc. armies of Mordor through his magic, as well as wielding other magic powers, all at once. This is while in his significantly-weakened, disembodied giant-eye form. His form in earlier ages, when he still had his body and all his powers, should have been even stronger.

Moreover, simply by dividing quite small portions of his power into lesser Rings, he was able to create the Nazgul, seven tier 7-C (with the Witch King possibly at 7-A by scaling from Gandalf) minions.

When he died due to the Ring being cast into Mount Doom, the side-effects were massive; all the armies of Mordor fell into mental disorder except the wicked humans, Mount Doom itself underwent a massive eruption, the Nazgul's rings lost all their power and they died, and the entire fortress of Barad Dur and the mountain it was built into collapsed. Because all of these things, every last one, were simultaneously being held-together and controlled by Sauron's magic.

The figure for the Balrogs and Gothmog is supposedly due to a nice calc done a while back for the average second-by-second level of destruction-of-landmass in Beleriand during the War of Wrath, which came out to the equivalent of 53 kilotons of TNT worth of destruction being wreaked upon the landscape every single second for decades. Based on this and the fact that the top-tiers were not always battling, larger-scale battles were more sporadic, etc., combined with statements that would indicate high mountain-level power for figures like Sauron, people have deduced High Mountain Level power for the strongest among the Maiar. Gothmog is considered such.

 

[Antvasima]

Hmm. I suppose that this may make sense, although it is a bit speculative for my tastes.

Do you have a link to the calculation that you mention?

 

[Goodyfresh]

It's right in the attack-potency section of Gothmog's page.

And yeah honestly it's a bit speculative for me too, at least the one concerning Gothmog. Although the fact that Sauron's existence was holding together a mountain-sized fortress while simultaneously literally powering seven Tier 7-C to 7-A soldiers, that does seem fairly legit. It's not an actual attack-potency feat in and of itself, but it very clearly shows the level of the magic power he wields, even in his weakened and limited state without the Ring.

 

[Antvasima]

Hmm. I would prefer to get more input from the community about this.

 

[Goodyfresh]

Hmm. I would prefer to get more input from the community about this.

So would I.

The thing that makes it kind of difficult to tier Tolkien's characters from the Silmarillion for our purposes is that he was far more concerned with depicting the broader history and the motivations of characters, and the structure of the cosmos in a mythical sense, than with depicting the details of specific fights between characters. I could give tons of examples of fights described in the Silmarillion between truly mighty individuals, who were definitely at a high level in terms of destructive-power and durability, but where no actual concrete feats are give. One can see a great deal of that issue even in the Lord of the Rings.

 

[Antvasima]

I have re-highlighted this thread for more input.

 

[Goodyfresh]

Hm. . .anybody?

 

[Goodyfresh]

At the very least for now, Antvasima, should we downgrade Fingolfin's tier to match or be below Morgoth's? That, at least, seems certain. So Fingolfin should be at 7-A (below Morgoth) or High 7-A (same tier). Which do you think? It can't be questioned that he's below Morgoth considering how their fight went.

 

[Antvasima]

"At least 7-A" seems reasonable.

 

[Antvasima]

However, you can leave messages at the walls of the staff members, asking them for input here, if you wish.

 

[DontTalk]

Hmm... a difficult topic.

The problem of the 42 years feat is that we don't know the particular incidents. 53.87 kilotons sounds impressive given that it in practice was not released all the time. Then again multiple beings were involved and more importantly we don't know the specific scenarios.

Generally there is a risk that powers were involved that are not usually present for any of the characters like certain magical artefacts, weapons or power sources.


The holding a fortress together thing is impressive. Then again one has to note that destroying a pillar is enough to make a house fall in, or in other words the ability to sustain stability of a structure isn't equal to the ability to destroy it or create it.

Then again given gandalfs and sarumans 7-A rankings scaling from them should not be any problem for sauron IMO.

So "at least 7-A" would be the most solid ranking for him IMO.

I can not say how that relates to other characters mentioned, given that I don't know the verse outside the films.

 

[Goodyfresh]

Hmm... a difficult topic.
The problem of the 42 years feat is that we don't know the particular incidents. 53.87 kilotons sounds impressive given that it in practice was not released all the time. Then again multiple beings were involved and more importantly we don't know the specific scenarios.

Generally there is a risk that powers were involved that are not usually present for any of the characters like certain magical artefacts, weapons or power sources.


The holding a fortress together thing is impressive. Then again one has to note that destroying a pillar is enough to make a house fall in, or in other words the ability to sustain stability of a structure isn't equal to the ability to destroy it or create it.

Then again given gandalfs and sarumans 7-A rankings scaling from them should not be any problem for sauron IMO.

So "at least 7-A" would be the most solid ranking for him IMO.

I can not say how that relates to other characters mentioned, given that I don't know the verse outside the films.

Hmmm well about Sauron, if we accept the 7-A figure for Gandalf and Saruman, than Sauron being High 7-A is pretty much a given considering that he is expressly stated to dwarf them in power among the Maiar. As in, Gandalf and Saruman are just above-average powerful Maiar, but Sauron is one of the mightiest of all the Ainur outside the Valar themselves. If they're 7-A, he has to be a tier higher for sure.

Ah, you don't know the verse outside the films. Then yeah. You should read the LOTR books and maybe check out the Silmarillion sometime (the latter might not be your cup of tea though).

So the question remains; how do we know that powerful First Age characters like Gothmog were high-mountain-level? For that matter, how do we know for certain that, say, Gandalf is Mountain Level? Any takers?

"At least 7-A" seems reasonable.

Alright then, edited Fingolfin's AP and Durability for now.

To think, that Elves of the First Age could possibly be as strong as, say, Monkey D. Luffy. Haha. Kind of makes Legolas seem pathetic by comparison.

 

[Goodyfresh]

So it seems like in the end this didn't really go anywhere.

What should be done, Antvasima? It seems to me there are some major overall problems with the site's tiering of characters from the First Age in the Silmarillion, but I'm not sure where to begin in terms of resolving those problems considering there aren't really good calcs to go on. . . .

 

[Antvasima]

Well, I am afraid that I also do not know what I can further do about this. I do not have the necessary know-how, and there does not seem to be sufficient input.

 

[Goodyfresh]

Yeah. I guess most people don't care about universes from pure literature nearly as much as they do about verses from comics or TV *sighs* I must be weird/extra-nerdy, haha.

At least we did something about the issue of Fingolfin's tier being too high. But I really wish we could get more input from folks on whether we should consider Feanor or Fingolfin stronger (personally I still go with Feanor on that).

Personally I do not doubt that the characters are 7-A to High 7-A, though. Consider that Gandalf, when he was still The Grey, "split the mountanside" (much more extensively than in the film, or so it's implied) by defeating the Balrog, placing him easily at the next tier below mountain-level, 7-B. We also know that Gandalf the White dwarfs his former self in power, and is a match for Saruman who Aragorn (one of the most knowledgable folks in the Third Age) clearly believed could "bring down [a] mountain." Thus placing Gandalf the White and Saruman at 7-A, meaning stronger Maiar like Sauron and Gothmog should be at least High 7-A.

Question is, does this mean that Morgoth (purely physical) should actually be a good deal higher than that, perhaps 6-C? It's. . .hard to say. I'm inclined to just say "at least High 7-A" at this point for him.

Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is the actual size of the cosmos (the question being is it really what we would consider universal) which would drastically affect the tiering of beings like Iluvatar, the Valar (with magic, true selves, etc.) and Ungoliant after drinking from the Well of Varda.

 

[Antvasima]

Destroying a small mountain can be calculated as just 7-C. It takes destroying a very large mountain to qualify for 7-A. Hence, why the scaling from books without size estimations can be very difficult.

 

[Jucaslucas]

I always though that Gandalf just splitted a part of the moutain.

Anyway, each of those other issues can create a ton of arguments by themselves, so I think it's better to create a different topic for each, so there won't be a lot people disscussing diferent problems in the same thread.

 

[Jucaslucas]

Although, does it make any difference if Feanor is stronger than Fingolfin or vice versa? Wouldn't their tiers still be the same?

 

[Aparajita]

.
Perhaps the biggest issue, though, is the actual size of the cosmos (the question being is it really what we would consider universal) which would drastically affect the tiering of beings like Iluvatar, the Valar (with magic, true selves, etc.) and Ungoliant after drinking from the Well of Varda.

I remember somewhere in the LotR about every star being it's own galaxy or something similar, i'll have to recheck it. We know that there are at least 2 universes in LotR: The Prime and Behind the Doors of Night. We can safely assume that Eru or Melkor created the parallel dimension behind the Doors of Night.