One Thing That I Think Tolkien Did Wrong and Jackson Did Right

[Boromir88]

Sorry, TheAzn, I'm not sure I'm following your recent post. I mean, unless you can please explain the phsyics necessary for how a greater height = greater horizontal distance of the trajectory's endpoint?

I don't see why the Mordor lines could not have been parked out of range, while their own catapults were lobbing in lighter projectiles.

Originally Posted by G55

As for the palantir, it can kill one person when falling from a height. Big deal, when you have many thousand orcs running at you.

The Orthanc stone wasn't, but some of the palantiri were quite large...we're talking about multiple people being necessary to transport them. In fact...I think a palantir-wrecking ball would be quite effective and more useful than their spying advantage.

[Bêthberry]

Welcome to the Downs, TheAzn.

Your thread is obviously intriguing enough that many have replied and you should be quite pleased with that, even if it is hard to catch up.

I have to say, though, that your thread title certainly seems to wave a red flag at many of us and for that reason I shall be on my best behaviour and not reply.

You've made quite a successful entrance.

[Rumil]

As TheAzn says,

an equally powerful stone thrower in an elevated position could shoot further than one at ground level. However, this increase in range can never be more than half the range on the flat, assuming everything is shot at the most efficient 45 degree angle.

Reconstructed medieval designs for trebuchets can shoot a heavy projectile out to about 300 metres, while with modern materials and improvements trebuchets have been designed that can throw a pumpkin 620 metres.

The question remains as to why Sauron's catapults outranged Denethor's. Of course nobody knows the answer, but a possibilities suggests themselves. First of all the obvious conclusion is that Sauron's catapults were just more powerful, but why could't or didn't Minas Tirith make similarly powerful machines?

First, Sauron was a Maia originally of Aule! If anyone knew how to build a war machine, it was Sauron. Maybe Gondor's machines were just not as technically advanced?

Secondly, the medieval trebuchets were very big, typically they were transported in bits to a siege and constructed on site. It may just be that there wasn't sufficient space on Minas Tirith's ramparts and towers to build a huge enough example to outrange Sauron's.

Thirdly, the Gondorians seem to have considered the main use of catapults as battering down walls and were confident that their walls were un-batterable. So it might have made sense to them to build more smaller 'antipersonnel' catapults to take a toll of any force attempting to scale the walls or use siege towers etc. This of course leaves them open to counter-battery fire. But remember they didn't have Sauron's enormous resources, so may have had to settle for a less than ideal artillery arm.

[Aragrax]

Most of the salient points (Sauron's forces did take massive losses but their driving will and sheer numbers made up for it; available materials might have been lacking in Minas Tirith to gear up any more; catapults might not have been available in large numbers or farther up the walls, etc) have already been covered, but two more clear factors in JRRT's favor should be noted:

1) He specifically stated in The Hobbit of orcs (here under the aegis of "goblins"):

"They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones. . . Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well. . . It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosives always delighted them"

Score one for JRRT giving the Mordor forces a very clear tech advantage in the war machine dep't, regardless of foreknowledge of MT's catapults. That foreknowledge, incidentally, might have been good intel, whether magically gained, or simply via spies; Gondor showed no lack of corruptable characters on the mundane side, and Denethor was using the Palantir, likely giving Sauron a glimpse in.

2) The fell beasts were not usable for overflies of the city, as they were not really armored. They would fall to archers easily. Given the importance of his wraiths, Sauron would not risk them to destroy a few paltry catapults.

[Ozban]

First, do not take my post too seriously. I'm rather... hmm... well let's say used for lack of other words. Do not let me spoil this debate, though there's something I must add.

Secondly, the medieval trebuchets were very big, typically they were transported in bits to a siege and constructed on site. It may just be that there wasn't sufficient space on Minas Tirith's ramparts and towers to build a huge enough example to outrange Sauron's.

2) The fell beasts were not usable for overflies of the city, as they were not really armored. They would fall to archers easily. Given the importance of his wraiths, Sauron would not risk them to destroy a few paltry catapults.

Well, these two would be of most importance, from my point of view.

Third would be... a man.

In my lifetime (Which ain't long) I have told a story of cities conquered, or fought for, countless times (let Leggy stand as my witness), (yeah I'm zealous RPG; <DnD> player, but that matters not). Constructing scene with hundreds of thousands involved, you just do not not care about neccesities of physics. Mass. velocity, friction, does that really matter in Middle-Earth? I think it might be the same case with JRRT. He told us about the time, when The World changed. Cataclysm, and no less. Apocalypse, told perhaps by another point of view... But shedding The veil just leads us to another Age. Does it not? And what matters then? Physics? Thought? Conviction? Belief?

Ozban

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Ozban

Constructing scene with hundreds of thousands involved, you just do not not care about neccesities of physics. Mass. velocity, friction, does that really matter in Middle-Earth? I think it might be the same case with JRRT. He told us about the time, when The World changed. Cataclysm, and no less. Apocalypse, told perhaps by another point of view... But shedding The veil just leads us to another Age. Does it not? And what matters then? Physics? Thought? Conviction? Belief?

From Letter 210:

The Lord of the Rings may be a ‘fairy-story’, but it takes place in the Northern hemisphere of this earth: miles are miles, days are days, and weather is weather.

From John D. Rateliff, The History of the Hobbit, The Fifth Phase, Timelines and Itinerary, vi. The Wandering Moon, note 2:

Tolkien of course was not alone in creating this shift: Joyce’s Ulysses, where both of the major characters’ actions can be followed hour-by-hour and street-by-street through a single day on a Dublin city map, pioneered this mode in the realistic novel a decade and a half before Tolkien began work on his magnum opus.

But Rateliff exaggerates. In medieval times Wolfram von Eschenbach in his Parzival is obviously working from a conceptual map of places, exact times, and genealogies and in the immense Prose Lancelot large sections are consistent with one another down to counts of days and agreement with what the current weekday names must be in sections hundreds of pages apart.

See Morgoth’s Ring (HoME X), edited by Christopher Tolkien, Part 5 Myths Transformed. Tolkien’s earlier fantasy writing had contained much that could be just put down a pure fancy, not realistic at all. Accordingly Tolkien must now consider that the tales told in the Silmarillion and the Akallabêth are traditions passed down among Men and mingled with inventions of their own. As Tolkien writes:

The High Eldar living and being tutored by the demiurgic beings must have known, or at least their writers and loremasters must have known, the ‘truth’ (according to their measure of understanding). What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions (especially personalized, and centred upon actors, such as Fëanor) handed on by Men in Núnenor and later in Middle-earrth (Arnor and Gondor); but already far back — from the first association of the Dúnedain and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand — blended and confused with their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.

In short, in intent, The Lord of the Rings does not contain anything intentionally not congruent with what is known today of physics, mass, velocity, and friction.

[TheAzn]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Welcome to the Downs, TheAzn.

Your thread is obviously intriguing enough that many have replied and you should be quite pleased with that, even if it is hard to catch up.

I have to say, though, that your thread title certainly seems to wave a red flag at many of us and for that reason I shall be on my best behaviour and not reply.

You've made quite a successful entrance.

Hey Bethberry. Thank you for your warm welcoming. I apologize for my short reply.

[TheAzn]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Sorry, TheAzn, I'm not sure I'm following your recent post.

Hey Boromir88. I do not think that my new argument should be hard to understand. To gain clarity, please read the posts titled:
My Grand Refutation to the General Counter-Arguments Made Against Me / My Grand Refutation to the General Counter-Arguments Made Against Me(Cont'd) / My Grand Refutation to the General Counter-Arguments Made Against Me (FINISH)