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Old 08-27-2020, 08:24 AM   #4
William Cloud Hicklin
Loremaster of Annúminas
 
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Join Date: Oct 2006
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William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
The books tell us that the Dwarves "awakened from sleep" the Balrog of Moria, circa TA 1980, so clearly not a Second Age option.

Smaug could not have been born in the First Age except at the very very end, since the winged dragons only appeared then; rather more to the point he said himself that he was "young" at the time he destroyed Erebor, so I doubt seriously he was around in SA 3200. Of course, there were other dragons, so for all we know Sauron did command some (or not; dragons are hardly team players).

The Numenorean forces were UNBELIEVABLY powerful; so much so that Ar-Pharazon could actually believe he could fight the Gods and win. Think about it: in the War of the Ring, Sauron's minion the Witch-king could drive his orcs in suicidal frenzy, bridging rivers and trenches with their own heaps of slain..... but when the Numenoreans landed even Sauron himself, with the Great Ring, couldn't prevent his Orcs from simply running away at the sight of them.

Imagine the Roman army being confronted by the D-Day invasion force.......
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.
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