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Lord of the Rings revisions

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Oh. I am sorry to hear that.

You can continue with the revision after you recover then.
 
Moonshadow137 said:
Anyway, it has been a good talk, and however we end up deciding to apply the changes, I guess we each made our points to the best of our opinions and understanding. That's actually what I like the most about the Legendarium, the way it's open to interpretation.
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Since there's not really been much other input on the Nigh-Valar debate, shall we compromise with "At Most"? It'd be a good half way in my opion.
 
Will Sauron benefit from the "At most" key though? It feels wrong to leave him out, and since it's "At most" I guess it wouldn't really scale to the elves who go around fighting him.
 
Moonshadow137 said:
Will Sauron benefit from the "At most" key though? It feels wrong to leave him out, and since it's "At most" I guess it wouldn't really scale to the elves who go around fighting him.
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I've personally been against adding him to the Nigh-Valar category for a time. In fact I'm personally in favour of reducing the list to 5.

But since you and Merchant seem to agree on him being in that tier, and I can see some of the reasoning behind it, I'll add him there for now since I don't really have too strong opinions on it, other than the possible contradictions it might cause.

He'll have four keys though, and only 2 of them will scale to "at most" (His First Age and his Second Age keys). His Last Alliance key and War of the Ring keys will not.
 
Fingolfin is kinda an issue though if we do this, since he explicitly scale to Morgoth, who should be above Sauron in the First Age. I guess a when "Enraged" aside works, but that's a big gap.

Perhaps I'll just put him at "Far Higher" when enraged, since he is still beaten within a few hits.
 
TheMerchant66 said:
I mentioned this a while back but Tolkien intended for the flat earth stuff to be an in-universe creation myth by the men of Númenor, later on Tolkien intended to make his lore "scientifically" accurate I mean that in the loosest terms, such as the Earth being round from the start.

I don't think that stuff was really fleshed out, though. I do know Arien still might have control of the Sun which is in this version exactly our Sun, so this might make Maia on the level of Arien at least star level.
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I don't have too much to comment on this yet (again, exam season means I can't contribute much beyond page changes and random looks into discussion threads) but I had some time to look at the cosmology areas of NOME, but Tolkien's notes do seem to mix science and mythology in this regard. For instance, the Elves differentiated between "wayward" stars and "far-stars" (fixed stars).

The former are "called companions of the Sun and though [of as] quite small heavenly bodies - derived from the Sun". These are the planets in our Solar System, with the book outright saying "Certain stars (no doubt those we call planets) and among them especially Venus...".

The Elves (before first becoming acquainted the Valar) are said to have "constructed a picture mytho-astronomical of the world" as their understanding of the universe, which the book says to be "in some respects far nearer to our recent knowledge and theory than might be expected..." with the High-elves in Valinor being "presumed, learnt far more the scientific truth (or what we now regard as the truth)." Moreover we have the stars and the moon being referred to as "light-giving" and the latter as "not a light-giver, but a reflector" by the Elves.

While there is clearly some elements of LOTR which are pure fantasy in regards to cosmology with evident contradictions arising that are not quite resolved (NOME itself points out Venus as being the same as the Star of Earendil, despite the latter being a ship) but it seems apparent that the universe itself is meant to be reflective of our own in areas which are not directly relevant, aka outside the solar system (which they have more details on, but I don't have the time to spare on that right now).
 
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Tyranno223 said:
I don't have too much to comment on this yet (again, exam season means I can't contribute much beyond page changes and random looks into discussion threads) but I had some time to look at the cosmology areas of NOME, but Tolkien's notes do seem to mix science and mythology in this regard. For instance, the Elves differentiated between "wayward" stars and "far-stars" (fixed stars).

The former are "called companions of the Sun and though [of as] quite small heavenly bodies - derived from the Sun". These are the planets in our Solar System, with the book outright saying "Certain stars (no doubt those we call planets) and among them especially Venus...".

The Elves (before first becoming acquainted the Valar) are said to have "constructed a picture mytho-astronomical of the world" as their understanding of the universe, which the book says to be "in some respects far nearer to our recent knowledge and theory than might be expected..." with the High-elves in Valinor being "presumed, learnt far more the scientific truth (or what we now regard as the truth)." Moreover we have the stars and the moon being referred to as "light-giving" and the latter as "not a light-giver, but a reflector" by the Elves.

While there is clearly some elements of LOTR which are pure fantasy in regards to cosmology with evident contradictions arising that are not quite resolved (NOME itself points out Venus as being the same as the Star of Earendil, despite the latter being a ship) but it seems apparent that the universe itself is meant to be reflective of our own in areas which are not directly relevant, aka outside the solar system (which they have more details on, but I don't have the time to spare on that right now).
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@Spinosaurus75DinosaurFan @Moonshadow137 @TheMerchant66
 
Hi guys! Regarding what has been discussed before, i have some points i want to shootout in this discussion, for a matter of fact i have read The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales last year, and i planning on read The Children of Hurin this year, so if i say something wrong feel free to correct me.

Before anything, I think we need to interpret the gaps utilizing similar events that happened throughout the story and trying to understand the message that Tolkien wanted to pass with that.



Ungoliant: The closest thing we have from an Eldritch being in the legendarium, Tolkien’s work states multiple times that evil doesn't come from creation, only corruption. Well, Ungoliant contradicts that, since we have no idea about her nature, her page mentions that she could be a Maiar, but I personally don't remember having read that.

The fact is, after having absorbed the light from the two trees she explicitly trapped Melkor, which was shortly before addressed thas the mightiest being in all Ea. The wiki page states that his occurred because Melkor was exhausted for hurting the two trees, but if someone should had been exhausted it was Ungoliant, after all she was the one how casted the spell that made both passed thought all Valinor security

So, how could a being like that be defeated by some Balrogs? Well I have a interpretacion that is because of her nature.

Being a creature of pure darkness Ungoliant's modus operandi was to "absorb all the light", due to fact the fact all light was opposite to her very nature, so anytime something related to it comes into play the big spider runs away, that is why she flee from the fight against the Balrogs.

In Melian case, like most Ainur she is associated with light, her could make stars shine like silver fire, we must remember that by the time of the event there wasn't yet the Girdle of Melian or even the sun and the moon, so i considered to be only natural for Ungoliant to ran away from the light of the only Ainur how was in Beleriand.

So my interpretation is that yes, Ungoliant got superior to Melkor, but she is weak against light, much like her childrens would later be.

For me the two keys in the profile can be maintained, maybe just changing the name to before and after consuming the trees of Valinor.



Dragons vs Balrogs: Regarding who were the strongest servant of Morgoth i tend to see that the Balrogs were overall superior, we look to the narrative we can find some clues regarding that:

  • Nature: Balrogs were explicitly said to be Maiar, beings that were tier 2 before entering Ea, of course its powers were vastly diminished from bounding to the physical world, but still they were still powerful spirits. In other hand Dragons were not primordial entities, they were created by Morgoth corrupting the world with his evil energy.

  • Defeated by…: Throughout all of the legendarium the only people who explicitly managed to defeat Balrogs were a Maiar and high tier Elves, on the other hand Dragons were killed 3 times throughout the story by humans.

Excepting Turim (Son of Hurin, which is stated to be “"the mightiest of warriors of mortal Men”) The other twos weren’t from a lineage that strong.

Of course, in the case of Bard he explored Smaug weakness (Just like we saw with Ungoliant). But nonetheless this is still a point to the fact that Dragons were creatures that could be defeated by weaker individuals, something we do not see with Balrogs.

  • War of Wrath Feat: The argument that the flying dragons pushed the army of Valinor back in the War of the Wrath needs to be interpreted by a tactical and moral perspective. Through the 42 years that the War of Wrath happened the Host of the Valar managed to defeat Orcs, Balrogs and any other opponent on Morgoth side, what was so different about the flying dragons? That the name suggests, the fly and range nature.

As we know, high tier elves could deal with almost all enemies…In melee combat. The dragons were new creatures for the good guys, and most of all, their attacks were ranged and from an unexpected angle. Of course, there were bows and arrows, but things get complicated even for the graceful elves when your target moves in an unexpected way and you still need to deal with the enemies on ground.​

Let’s remember, before Earendil brought the eagles there was only one Ainur who is stated to be participating in the battle, Eonwe. Some scholars assume that others could have joined the Host of Valar, but this is mostly speculative. Even among Ainur a flying ability is not 100% confirmed (There was even a discussion about that recently here).

But let's say that Eonwe could fly, most likely we would focus on Ancalagon, this would still let an unknown number of flying dragons attacking the Host of the West. And what is the mission of the Ainur, then to make the Vision of Iluvatar come true, something that would not happen if the elfs (And especially the humans) Died in that battle.

So most most likely, the retreat was for dealing with flying enemies that create a hole new front to the battle that could cost the life of many soldiers, rather the dragons being straightforward to the the level of the high elves or even of a Maiar

So in the end I believe balrogs were overall superior to dragons, but of course there were outliers like Ancalagon and possibly Glaurung.



What is Canon?: According to Tolkien Talk (The most famous portuguese speaking Youtube channel about Tolkien) Using information from books like The Story of Middle Earth it is okay as long as it doesn’t contradict what it is stated in The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and especially in LOTR.

The example they utilize is about Huan fur color, during The Silmarilion the color is never stated, but in an older version of Beren and Luthiem the color is stated to be gray, so that’s the “canonical color”.

The fact is: Utilizing these books for details like one character color is one thing, utilizing it for something so speculative like tiering characters is something completely different, even in the main books Tolkien tends to leave these things ambiguous, like when Gandalf the White said he could compete with Sauron.

So my suggestion is, this book can be used, but with high caution, would be great if we could always try to look at when it was written, overall the oldest versions of the book (Especially regarding The Silmarillion) Tend to differentiate a lot from the final version.
 
From a read I don't exactly disagree with stuff beyond semantics and caution. In particular, I personally agree with Balrogs being the overall strongest servants of Morgoth (minus some key individuals) but evidence exists for either side. It's not overall too important of a topic however, since we don't have a collective dragon page, and most dragonic individuals are clearly scaled to certain characters. I'll compile my thoughts on the individual dragons now that I'm done editing the pages of the Ainur (although I still want to check them over a few times, and we have abilities to cover at a later point). Ungoliant is something I'll give my thoughts on when I'm less exhausted.

The point about canon has been my policy so far, since Tolkien wrote a lot of notes. Stuff that meshes together, answers questions, and is the most recent has no reason not to be used. Likewise, stuff which is contradictory has no reason to be used.
 
Okay. That makes sense. I trust your judgement regarding what we should do here.
 
Regarding dragons, this post is gonna be pretty short since others have detailed this pretty well.

Glaurung
While you can argue otherwise, I'd personally put him above or around the level of the Balrogs.

He was bred by Morgoth to be the weapon to break the siege of Angband and was at the front of an army of Balrogs and orcs when the attack began. Furthermore, it's noteworthy that he was singled out as one of the main threats to the Union of Maedhros during their counterattack on Morgoth, whereas the Balrogs were seen as a collective one, with his personal might being emphasised.

"There came wolves, and wolfriders, and there came Balrogs, and dragons, and Glaurung father of dragons. The strength and terror of the Great Worm were now great indeed, and Elves and Men withered before him; and he came between the hosts of Maedhros and Fingon and swept them apart."

Ancalagon

Pretty simple case (especially since they're barely even mentioned) but Ancalagon was the mightiest dragon ever bred by Morgoth and thus scales above Glaurung by that fact alone. His power thus scales above a Balrog's might, but should be less than that of even a portion (albeit the majority portion) of Sauron's full might (as mentioned in the Fellowship).

Rather disappointingly this just puts his around Low 7-B to 6-C by upscaling, honestly expected more.

Smaug

Unfortunately Smaug doesn't really seem to scale to any notable being. Gandalf considers him to be a threat, but that doesn't necessarily mean a personal threat, and it's implied he's more concerned of what Sauron could do with him. Moreover he's not directly compared to any character (at least in terms of power). He should probably just scale to whatever personal feats he has, unless there's something I'm forgetting.
 
Regarding Glaurung (aka best villain in the Legendarium) I would suggest if we could add a tier in his profile to represent his young form, which was powerful enough to push a Noldor army, although quickly dismissed by Fingon and his mounted archers

Ancalagon it's a bit more complicated, he was considered the mightiest of the winged dragons, furthermore we could't compare him with Glaurung by this point (Although by the narrative of the Silmarilion tends to make Ancalagon like the final evolution of Morgoth's dragon experiment that dates back to Glaurung)

And of course there is Gandalf quote in The Fellowship of the Ring, the way that he cites Ancalagon really indicates that the big boy was the most powerful dragon

Not only that, Gandalf also cites that although the dragon's fire could't damage the One Ring they would probably melt the other rings of power, including the Three Rings of the elves made by Celebrimbor, maybe we could try to scale Smaug to that?
 
Dinamic8000 said:
Regarding Glaurung (aka best villain in the Legendarium) I would suggest if we could add a tier in his profile to represent his young form, which was powerful enough to push a Noldor army, although quickly dismissed by Fingon and his mounted archers

Ancalagon it's a bit more complicated, he was considered the mightiest of the winged dragons, furthermore we could't compare him with Glaurung by this point (Although by the narrative of the Silmarilion tends to make Ancalagon like the final evolution of Morgoth's dragon experiment that dates back to Glaurung)

And of course there is Gandalf quote in The Fellowship of the Ring, the way that he cites Ancalagon really indicates that the big boy was the most powerful dragon

Not only that, Gandalf also cites that although the dragon's fire could't damage the One Ring they would probably melt the other rings of power, including the Three Rings of the elves made by Celebrimbor, maybe we could try to scale Smaug to that?
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We could make a key for Young Glaurung, but I'm not sure how to rate him since we don't really have a rating for the average Noldor warrior of the first age.

Smaug probably could destroy the Rings of Power as you said, but the Three were unique even compared to the Seven and the Nine due to being made by Celebrimbor's hand alone, meaning it might not be wise to assume Gandalf was referring to them. That being said we don't have a rating for the Rings either (the Nazgul get their power from Sauron by the War of the Ring and the Seven are never seen being used).

I believe someone had a look at Smaug's feats earlier in the thread, I'll have a look later.
 
Courtesy of Moonshadow's earlier post

Smaug's shenanigans (calc here)
  1. Mountain shaking roar - 7-C, Town level.
  2. Tail swing - High 8-C, Large Building level.
  3. Smaug's death - barely Low 7-C, Small Town level.
I'm not sure if these were accepted however.
 
Thank you. You should preferably copy the entireties of the linked calculations (including the relevant images) to a blog post in our wiki, combined with providing a credits link to the original source and mentioning the original author, and then ask our calc group to evaluate it.

See here for further information:

vsbattles.com

Calculation Evaluations (New forum)

This thread is intended for users to link to new blog post calculations, to relay them to the community, and have them evaluated by the calculation group, without contacting the members individually. To evaluate important off-site calculations, preferably copy them to blog posts in this wiki...
vsbattles.com vsbattles.com
 
Antvasima said:
Thank you. You should preferably copy the entireties of the linked calculations (including the relevant images) to a blog post in our wiki, combined with providing a credits link to the original source and mentioning the original author, and then ask our calc group to evaluate it.

See here for further information:

vsbattles.com

Calculation Evaluations (New forum)

This thread is intended for users to link to new blog post calculations, to relay them to the community, and have them evaluated by the calculation group, without contacting the members individually. To evaluate important off-site calculations, preferably copy them to blog posts in this wiki...
vsbattles.com vsbattles.com
Click to expand...
Sure I'll try doing that later.
 
Tyranno223 said:
We could make a key for Young Glaurung, but I'm not sure how to rate him since we don't really have a rating for the average Noldor warrior of the first age.
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In the worst scenario i don't think that would be that a problem to just label it as Unknown, possibly xxx

This is just to follow the principle of always catalog all the tiers on a profile, considering this young Glaurung is explicitly said to be inferior to his prime one

Tyranno223 said:
Smaug probably could destroy the Rings of Power as you said, but the Three were unique even compared to the Seven and the Nine due to being made by Celebrimbor's hand alone, meaning it might not be wise to assume Gandalf was referring to them. That being said we don't have a rating for the Rings either (the Nazgul get their power from Sauron by the War of the Ring and the Seven are never seen being used).

I believe someone had a look at Smaug's feats earlier in the thread, I'll have a look later.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the better option it's to try to validate the old calcs then
 
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