Split Personality?

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by davem

Hurin was the greatest (human) hero of the First Age - which surely makes it entirely possible that he could kill 70 trolls - in fact, the killing of 70 trolls would be exactly the kind of thing that would beget, & confirm, such a reputation. Anyway, He killed 70 trolls because Tolkien says he did. Or do you have evidence to the contrary?

Tsk, tsk!

Davem, you cannot argue from the authority of Tolkien, when Tolkien's right to authority is being called into question. That simply won't do.

There are ways to argue how this may have been possible for Húrin--some more spectacular and others not. First of all, trolls are not necessarily particularly fast-moving, and Húrin would have the advantage there. Secondly, he may have been better armoured. Thirdly, given the size of the trolls, it may have been impossible for more than three or four to get close to him at the same time, so he wouldn't have been fighting off seventy SIMULTANEOUSLY. Fourthly, we don't have exact details about terrain and where the bodies of his kinsmen and former enemies fell. Those trolls are big guys, you kill a couple and you've got some decent cover.

Certainly a spectacular feat, but not necessarily an impossible one. I would say that killing seventy orks would have been a greater feat, provided one had the strength and knowledge of how to properly kill trolls, which it would seem inductively that Húrin had.

Now, whether or not one finds Húrin's feat worthy of automatic belief or not is another matter--this may be rather subjective. Personally, I think that Davem is getting close to an important issue in saying that Húrin was the "greatest hero of the First Age". The manner in which the Silmarillion is presented affects the way it is received. The remoteness of the events written about, and their presentation as legends rather than the more immediate view of the Lord of the Rings can lead to easier acceptance and belief, or so I have found.

Originally Posted by davem

Many ancient battles were lost by superior forces to numerically inferior ones. And I think you're forgetting the morale destroying effect of the killing of Angmar. The point is the forces of Mordor went in expecting a walkover & found themselves being hit from all sides by forces they were not expecting. Add to that the death of the Witch King & consequent loss of a controlling hand, & its entirely likely that they would start to panic, become confused & go to pieces. At that point it would have become a walkover for an organised force under the command of experienced leaders like Aragorn, Eomer & Imrahil.

I would also add that we are not given much comparative literature regarding the training, discipline, and equipment of the forces--though what we are given would indicate that the armies of the West had, in general, higher quality soldiers. Certainly, the soldiers of Gondor, particularly those of Minas Tirith and Dol Amroth, with the legacy of Númenor, have reason to be thought as having the superior arms and armour--certainly we are told that the enemies of the West did not have comparable cavalry. With regards to discipline, the West similarly has the upper hand after the fall of the Witchking, since Sauron's armies are held together primarily through fear, and the removal of the Witchking is the removal of central order.

Of course, that merely speaks as to whether the Battle of the Pelennor is plausible. I think it is quite clear that it is. The matter under discussion here is immediate believeability. Like Davem, I had absolutely no trouble reading about the battle and the victory by the smaller force, since apart from numbers it seemed apparent to me that they had advantages in many other respects.