8.6 KiB
[FF] Morgoth unwittingly grants Hurin a cognitive upgrade
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Author: u/VanPeer The shard made me do it*
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Score: 31
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Created: 2018-09-03T02:54:07
Post:
Comments:
u/Nepene [+5] (20 hours later)
I'm not especially sold on this. Pure intellect isn't a reliable tool to make scientific deductions about the world, you need experiments.
Plus, it doesn't account for some fairly well known setting elements- the elves can make magical armor and swords, and there's a super metal called mithril.
And Morgoth personally was a continent shattering being.
“the Valar endeavoured ever, in despite of Melkor, to rule the Earth and to prepare it for the coming of the Firstborn; and they built lands, and Melkor destroyed them; valleys they delved and Melkor raised them up; mountains they carved and Melkor threw them down; seas they hallowed and Melkor spilled them; and naught might come to peace or lasting growth, for as surely as the Valar began a labour so would Melkor undo it or corrupt it."
And even when weakened, he was hitting with explosive level force.
"Therefore Morgoth... issued forth clad in black armour; and he stood before the King like a tower, iron-crowned, and his vast shield, sable unblazoned, cast a shadow over him like a stormcloud […] Then Morgoth hurled aloft Grond, the Hammer of the Underworld, and swung it down like a bolt of thunder. But Fingolfin sprang aside, and Grond rent a mighty pit in the earth.”
In a world with magic it's important to note the existence of magic. Heavy weapons may well defeat them, but they have a reason to rely on melee combat. They are pumped.
u/sparrafluffs [+3] (21 hours later)
Its mentioned: overweening pride and arrogance, in conflict with reason. Which is why huldin lives, and the valar are not victorious.
u/Nepene [+3] (21 hours later)
They have reasons to be prideful- they're superhumans with immense power. He may with enough tech be able to overcome that, but it's a fairly major setting element that you can make magic swords which perform much better than steel. The Valar are good at forging stuff.
u/VanPeer [+1] The shard made me do it (22 hours later)
Good points. Hurin’s accurate guesses are a bit of a leap, I concede. Regarding your other points though, the eleves and the Valar may have superior metallurgical craft, but Rational!Hurin is the first to build hypothesis based on what he observes as opposed to relying on lore. And while the Valar and Maia are magical, there is precious little magic portrayed by Tolkien in actual battle between orcs vs. humans and elves. Whether this is because the range of Morgoth’s magic is limited or there’s some prime directive imposed by the Valar, I do not know. My familiarity with Middle Earth lore is not a lot, so please forgive any inconsistencies.
u/Nepene [+5] (23 hours later)
Rational!Hurin is just magically knowing how science works- he's not doing observational experiments. Logically deducing what we know to be accurate facts isn't observational.
If he was just relying on observations he might go "I know that the swords of the orcs are crap, and the swords of the elves are awesome. They must either have some special method to produce them, or some superior source of iron. Therefore, we can raid and capture a settlement to test out which!"
Gandalf and Morgoth make extensive use of magic in the fights. For example, Gandalf.
Just at that moment all the lights in the cavern went out, and the great fire went off poof! into a tower of blue glowing smoke, right up to the roof, that scattered piercing white sparks all among the goblins.
The yells and yammering, croaking, jibbering and jabbering; howls, growls and curses; shrieking and skriking, that followed were beyond description. Several hundred wild cats and wolves being roasted slowly alive together would not have compared with it. The sparks were burning holes in the goblins, and the smoke that now fell from the roof made the air too thick for even their eyes to see through. Soon they were falling over one another and rolling in heaps on the floor, biting and kicking and fighting as if they had all gone mad.
Gandalf using a fireball to kill a mob of goblins.
"Then suddenly Morgoth sent forth great rivers of flame that... poured over all the plain; and the Mountains of Iron belched forth fires of many poisonous hues, and the fume of them stank... and was deadly. Thus Ard-galen... became a burned and desolate waste... and it was called Anfauglith, the Gasping Dust. Many charred bones had there their roofless grave; for many of the Noldor perished... who were caught by the running flame... The heights of Dorthonion and Ered Wethrin held back the fiery torrents, but their woods upon the slopes that looked towards Angband were all kindled, and the smoke wrought confusion among the defenders. Thus began the fourth of the great battles, Dagor Bragollach, the Battle of Sudden Flame."
Morgoth summoning a river of flame to destroy an army.
In the gloom they heard the hiss of Wormtongue's voice: 'Did I not counsel you, lord, to forbid his staff? That fool, Hama, has betrayed us!' There was a flash as if lightning had cloven the roof. Then all was silent. Wormtongue sprawled on his face.
Gandalf using a force push on Wormtongue.
there he made a mighty gate. But above this gate, and behind it even to the mountains, he piled the thunderous towers of Thangorodrim, that were made of the ash and slag of his subterranean furnaces, and the vast refuse of his tunnellings. They were black and desolate and exceedingly lofty
Morgoth summoning a group of volcanoes to protect his fortress.
Lore wise- elves can forge magical items with super properties, and may have local magic powers. Humans can have more mild versions, like Aragorn's ability to make super healing herbs. Maia can generally wreck a hundred or so feet of stuff pretty easily. Valar can wreck and produce hills and mountains and continents.
Stronger magical items generally work by investing some of your innate magic in an item (like the one ring) making it super powerful. Morgoth was much reduced in power, because he invested so much energy into middle earth mind controlling people and making monsters, but still at a Maia level of power by the end.
u/earnestadmission [+6] Singular "they" user (a day later)
Rational!Hurin is just magically knowing how science works- he's not doing observational experiments. Logically deducing what we know to be accurate facts isn't observational.
I don’t think that I agree. He’s been given the observational suite of the lead designer of the universe. It isn’t outrageous to think that these observations (which include long-distance high fidelity astronomical data) provide the relevant information, especially when paired with insight from a mortal that lives within creation.
Consider also that there’s a specific experiment conducted: the existence of pitchblend is posited and then investigated.
u/Nepene [+3] (a day later)
Theoretically, the story could have run that way- the Valar have access to vast cosmic power, they could have woefully underused senses that he decided to exploit.
I remember Sador my house servant who carved intricate wood toys for my son. Ingenious constructs that could be pulled apart and rebuilt into other shapes. So many shapes from building blocks, held taut like a bowstring, just waiting for their bindings to be cut to release the spring. Might not all substances use the same trick? All transient shapes from the same set of invisibly tiny elemental blocks, just waiting for a spark to sever their binding energies and unleash the fires within.
But in actuality, he deduced it because his son had experiments with toys. That is, canonically, how he worked out the existence of atoms.
Uranium is a rare element that is only found at specific mines. Even if he somehow deduced its existence, mining at a random mine wouldn't produce it.
If he wanted to rationally find it after somehow deducing it, I'd suggest using Morgoth senses and statistical analysis for areas with higher rates of cancer deaths.
u/Ironsight [+3] (49 minutes later)
Love it!
u/VanPeer [+1] The shard made me do it (22 hours later)
:-)