Sorta like how people say stuff like "Jesus on a pogo stick" or "Great Goddess on a stick" or "In the name of God's green Earth", but adjusted for fandoms. Also agents who originate in certain continua might have curses stylised like those expressions but more befitting their origin canon, or agents who spend a lot of time in those continua pick things up.

So it's not necessarily something quick and forceful like the one-word curses that we all know and love, but more of an expression of long-winded exasperation, when you're completely done and exhausted by the antics of the Sue but you can't kill her yet, so all you can say is "Oh, for the love of Scottish Dain Ironfoot" in an exasperated voice and clutch your forehead.

The idea of Melian being the ultimate source of the giant animals is appealing, though I can't think of any instance of the Doriathrim riding anything. And it doesn't need to conflict with my Dorwinion theory - after all, we know from the Lay of the Children of Hurin that the dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost traded with a wine-producing country of that name, though it appears to have been in a different location.

So, the timeline goes like this:

-Melian sets up shop in Middle-earth.
-To ward off the giant creatures bred by Morgoth before his captivity (eg Wargs), she starts producing large variants of local animals, including the Dorthonion Moose, the hogs of Brethil, and the goats of the Andram.
-Elsewhere in Beleriand, south of Taur-im-Duinath, a group of Nandor reach the coast. They establish the land of Dorwinion, 'the country of new land'.
-The dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost awake. They establish communications with their eastern kin.
-Eol the Dark Elf establishes trade and relations between the dwarves and the Doriathrim.
-For transportation, the dwarves purchase giant boars and goats from Doriath.
-The dwarves establish a trade route with Dorwinion, and make a lucrative profit selling their wine on to Doriath, and selling Doriathrim megabeasts to Dorwinion.
-Morgoth returns. The Girdle of Melian is laid. Trade mostly ceases with the dwarves (there is a war on, you know). Of course, the dwarves still trade cheerfully with Dorwinion, and get blind drunk on a regular basis.
-The dwarves use their megabeasts in battle, and strike an agreement with Dorwinion: the southern elves will breed and train the things, then sell them to the dwarves.
-In time, the War of Wrath comes about. Nogrod and Belegost are destroyed, and their remnants flee to Khazad-Dum. Doriath is lost. Dorwinion is flooded, and their population flees east, following in the footsteps of a certain Oropher and his son Thranduil.
-Dorwinion 2.0 is established on the Sea of Rhun. Since, unlike Oropher (late of Doriath, which does not like dwarves these days), they would be perfectly happy to pass through Khazad-Dum, they establish a new megabeast trade with the Longbeards. They also become friends with the elves of Lorien (long before Galadriel shows up, of course).
-Durin's Folk continue to trade with Dorwinion; when Khazad-Dum falls, the dwarves retreat towards their allies: first setting up shop in Erebor, then moving north to the Grey Mountains, then back to Erebor.
-With the dwarves so close, and using cavalry, Thranduil creates a cavalry of his own. Since horses aren't much use in the forest, he invites experts from Dorwinion up to breed him the giant moose he vaguely remembers from his childhood in Doriath.
-Erebor falls to Smaug. The dwarves are (to Thranduil's mind) a spent force in the Iron Hills. With cavalry now useless, Thranduil downsizes them - keeping just one moose for his own purposes.

Are the people of Dorwinion of the Third Age human or elven? Probably the former, by this point - but with a hint of elven blood like that of Dol Amroth, and several millennia of contact with the dwarves and their megabeasts to keep them looking weird to the rest of the world.

hS

I think Orli's contract consists mostly of looking around in an attempt to seem mysterious and wise, pulling faces in the background, and doing ridiculous stunts.

Speaking of ridiculous things, though, did anyone else think it was funny how the Elf-army spun around everyone who tried to walk through their ranks? I bet Wood-elf army training involves a lot of synchronised dance classes.

The movie was increasingly finding new ways to disappoint me, but that stone-jumping scene just killed it for me. Do they seriously expect the audience to accept that?

The sad part is that the answer is yes.

Remind me, why other than fan service were Legolas and a new elf thrown into The Hobbit?

As for the Moria falling staircase thing, that was Frodo and Aragorn, if memory serves.

"Bombur in a bouncing barrel!"

It's not a megafauna, but it's the only curse we've got from the second film, as far as I know. Plus... well, just check out the end of this video. Or all of it. But especially the bit starting at 3:23.

Phobos and I have a theory that Peter Jackson secretly wants to make video games instead of movies.

~Neshomeh

Though if whoever it was doesn't show up, I can probably try and come up with something. Ehm...

Well, I can offer any one of:

a) A short PPC story.

b) A short crossover meetup story which may or may not be 'shippy (and would rely on me knowing both fandoms in question)

c) A coat of arms for a character of the winner's choice.

hS

It's not as implausible for Dain to be on a War Pig (or a War Boar) since giant boars were a thing and could have resided near the Iron Hills, which were eastward of the Mountain (and thus where a lot of other giant animals resided).

However, where Thorin got the Battle Goats he, Fili, Kili, and Dwalin rode up the cliffs is still a mystery and an even more unexplainable one at that, so I submit that the curse to complete the triumvirate should be "Thorin on a goat!" Because it just sounds more ridiculous.

Dwarves are about 4 ft/122 cm tall, right? Domestic hogs, some of which are very shaggy, can be up to 6 ft/180 cm long and 770 lb/350 kg with tusks up to 9 inches long. That's while breeders are not trying to see how big they can go. The ideal commercial pig of today is slim and low fat, quick gaining, and as docile as possible.

Look at Google images of feral pigs in the US. They are all descended from domestic pigs, but are huge and shaggy. The biggest problem would be that the boars are for the most part viscious omnivores with massive sharp teeth.

How much bigger would one have to be for a dwarf to ride on it?

(Can't speak to the goats. I saw that part and nearly spit my pop corn out. I mean, maybe if they had shown a bunch of dwarves on them at the beginning of the battle, but those were like *hammer space goats!*)

...being dug up from the underground pastures of the Mountain suddenly made me think of the Ypurs for some reason.

Just the whole Middle-earth large animal breeding programme. Because why have an ordinary pig when you can have a WAR PIG. Or rather, the War Boar.

(Which, should I actually get around to writing more of the Sherlock/LotR crossover, should make the Hound of the Baskervilles preeeeetty interesting.)

Oh yeah, were those weird giant earthworm thingies also one of the hidden wonders of Middle-earth that I never got around to discovering? Because I don't recall that ever happening in the books. And if giant earthworm thingies existed, how come the Orcs didn't use them during the War of the Ring?