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Haunting Spirit
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<img src="http://www.barrowdowns.com/images/posticons/redeye.jpg" align=absmiddle> Re: Who knows their trolls?
Must... stop... troll thread..............
Ugh. Can't do it. Once more into the breach!
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Quote:<hr> Let's say 3-4 trolls a minute (I'm sure the rate was probably was higher...he was hackin' and stackin')... that's 15-20 minutes. Then they round him up and drag him off.<hr></blockquote>
Not so. Then he starts on the Orcs. JRRT doesn't give us any hard numbers here (We need to get a list of questions together and then hold a seance or something. Balrog wings and Olog-hai at the top of the list. We'll throw in that dot question while we're at it.), but he clearly kills more than a few. As I mentioned, some HoME versions say he slew "well nigh a hundred Orcs". Anyway, "Ever their numbers were renewed, until at last he fell buried beneath them." That's a few Orcs.
Also, I think your slayage rate is a bit optimistic, even for mighty Hurin. As an experiment, go outside and try splitting seventy pieces of defenseless firewood with an axe (with attendant battle cry each time) and see how long it takes you. Now imagine you're trying to split bloodthirsty beasts that are taller than Shaq with skin as hard as stone. Now try doing it after having already battled without any appreciable rest for at least 36 hours (I don't see a letup in the battle from the fifth day onward: "On the fifth day as night fell, and they were still far from Ered Wethrin, the Orcs surrounded the host of Hithlum, and they fought until day..." Fifth day all day and until around sunset on day six equals 36 hours). And that's all just as a warm up for the Orcs.
You're also forgetting to add time for the trip back to Angband from the Fens of Serech. I don't know how far it is across Ard-galen, but in "Of Beleriand and Its Realms", it says, "Before the gates of Angband filth and desolation spread southward for
many miles over the wide plain of Ard-galen." I don't think it was an easy jaunt of a few minutes. Plus, I don't know why Gothmog would hotfoot it back to Angband in time for sunset. I imagine him taking time to rub it in Hurin's face ("with mockery"
, maybe parading him in front of the hewn heads of his kinsmen, perhaps? Too much time to make it back to Angband for night on the sixth day.
And, check out this tantalizing bit, from "Of the Ruin of Doriath", spoken by Hurin outside the closed gates of Gondor:
<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> Hurin stood in despair before the silent cliffs of Echoriath, and the
westering sun, piercing the clouds, stained his white hair with red... 'Turgon, Turgon, remember the Fen of Serech! O Turgon, will you not hear in your hidden halls?' But there was no sound save the wind in the dry grasses. 'Even so they hissed in Serech
at the sunset,' he said; and as he spoke the sun went behind the Mountains of Shadow, and a darkness fell about him, and the wind ceased, and there was silence in the waste.
(Emphasis added)<hr></blockquote>
Notice the similarity in the language. "Westering sun", followed immediately by night falling. Don't these words from Hurin's own mouth prove that he was in the Fens when the sun went down on the sixth day, and not in Angband?
Finally, Mr. Wight, you've once again sidestepped my arguments concerning text in the LotR by ignoring them. What of the statements that old time trolls were sun-vulnerable?
Mr. Underhill collapsed upon the field of battle, spent. Blackness took him, and he knew no more...
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Edited by: <A HREF=http://www.barrowdowns.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_profile&u=00000005>Mister Underhill</A> at: 10/3/00 4:45:26 pm