Subject: One thing that worried me in writing.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-04-19 14:43:00 UTC
I was kinda worried that, in describing the Biggest Cameo Ever, I may have gotten into Purple Prose territory.
I wanted to emphasize just how bleeding big he was, but the only description of mind-boggling size that I know of is the reveal of Shruikan in the last Eragon book. And the Biggest Cameo Ever is way, way bigger than Shruikan.
And, uh... if the theory is that 'Smaug is sexy because Cumberbatch', why the bizarre and explicit statement that his voice had changed? Surely that's the last thing you'd want?
I still disagree about Ancalagon's size, but you probably knew that. The largest known creature in the 'final' version of Middle-earth is... probably Smaug, actually. He and Glaurung were about the same size as each other. Ungoliant might have outscaled them, but only after she gorged herself on the Trees. Morgoth was tall, but not ludicrously oversized. Durin's Bane was about ten feet tall. Ents are no taller than trees, Carcharoth was huge but nowhere near that scale... the Eagles are big enough to carry people on their backs, I suppose.
What I'm getting at is, you're claiming that Ancalagon is some fifty times the length of Morgoth's next-largest creature (Smaug); since dragons are three-dimensional, that's - sweet burning stars - over 100,000 times the volume (and therefore mass). I, uh... really can't accept that as feasible.
"But it's magic--" No, it's not. Flying creatures in Middle-earth fly using wings, not fairy dust. They have mass appropriate to their bodies. A mile-long dragon would way hundreds or thousands of tonnes. He'd need wings the size of Doriath to get airborne - and muscles woven with mithril. (Which latter is actually plausible: I can see him as a mithril-cored nuclear-powered flier. But still not a mile long.)
hS, applying logic to fantasy universes since 2001
We all see fantasy worlds in our own way. I like the idea of Ancalagon being made of mithril, though.
I felt slightly sacrilegious using a movie detail (the glowing chest preceding fiery doom), but that was one aspect of Film!Smaug's appearance that I liked. And I made note of one more thing regarding Ancalagon's breath; Gandalf said that his breath couldn't melt the One Ring. Gandalf chose this particular dragon to measure the One Ring's indestructibility, so I imagine that literally nothing else could withstand the big guy's breath.
Thus the Stu disintegration.
... other than size. ;) And it's very clear that Ancalagon was Morgoth's superweapon - hottest breath, and flight. In fact, here's a worrying thought: Ancalagon was only sent out at the last minute. Er... what was Morgoth waiting for, exactly?
And then I remember that Glaurung's first outing was when he was half-grown, after which Morgoth held him in for another two hundred years. So... was Ancalagon held back because he wasn't ready? Did Morgoth only eventually send him out in desperation?
And if that's the case - what in Arda was he for??? There were no enemies left in Middle-earth who could possibly stand up to... heck, even to another Glaurung. Gondolin fell to crawling dragons; Doriath would have too, if it hadn't gone another way. What do you build a mountain-destroying flying dragon for?
Which really is another way of asking 'who was Morgoth's real enemy?'. And the answer to that is both terrifying, and a possible justification for Ancalagon being gigantic:
Ancalagon was made to tear down the Mountains of Valinor. He was intended to cross the Sea and rend the Pelori to rubble to let Morgoth's armies cross. And his ultimate goal was to bring down Taniquetil itself.
A Vala's reach should exceed his grasp; else what's a dragon for?
hS
WE ARE DOOMED! *runs around flailing like C3PO*
I'm afraid my Arda knowledge is limited to Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, and the biggest nastiest monsters of the Silmarillion.
All I know about Valinor is that an awful lot of Elves went there, and they sailed west to get there.
Everything up to the introduction of Ungoliant in two handy illustrated PDFs: History of Middle Earth (Chibi Version).
Later events (up to Melkor's return to Middle Earth, so far) available elsewhere on that site, which is usually updated Monday and Thursdays.
In the beginning, Eru Iluvatar ('the One') created the Ainur ('angels' or 'gods'). The Ainur sang Arda into existence in a massive choir; Melkor is the one who chucked out the sheet music and decided to sing heavy metal instead, and got a bunch of others to join in with him.
The Ainur went down to Arda and became the Valar ('gods') and Maiar ('angels' - Gandalf is one of these). Melkor was a Vala, as was Elbereth (mentioned in various Elven songs). They set about building mountains and planting trees on the mainland (Middle-earth), but Melkor's mucking about with the song - or Melkor's acts of vandalism, the distinction is pretty murky - kept making things go wrong.
After a few disasters, the Ainur picked up and moved to a western continent (Aman, or colloquially 'Valinor'). They left Melkor behind to be evil by himself. They made the famous Two Trees to give light to Valinor - there was no sun or moon in those days. The highest of the Valar lived on Mount Taniquetil, the tallest mountain in the world.
Some time later, the Elves were born - in Middle-earth, where Melkor was busy being evil. The Valar asked them to come to Valinor; some said no and stayed behind, some said yes and went to Valinor, some said yes but gave up on the walk over. At the same time, the Valar waged war on Melkor and dragged him back to Valinor in chains.
Fast-forward. Melkor serves his sentence and is set free in Valinor. He meets up with Ungoliant the giant spider in the mountains, and together they murder the Two Trees. They then run away, and Melkor returns to his old fortress.
Along the way, Melkor killed a king of the Elves, and stole the Silmarils (jewels which contain the now-last light of the Trees). The prince who made the Silmarils (Feanor) decided that Wasn't On, and dragged his tribe into a chase after Melkor - who Feanor renamed Morgoth. They reached Middle-earth some time after him, and set up shop there for a few hundred years waging a fairly unsuccessful war.
Meanwhile, the Valar made the sun and moon to light the world, which Melkor didn't like too much. Melkor didn't like many things, but his main dislikes were:
1/ The Valar, who had taken him prisoner.
2/ Elves, who were the reason the Valar took him prisoner.
Baaaasically everything he did was to get back at one of those two.
So yes - Valinor is kind of 'Heaven on Earth'; it's where the gods live, and Melkor wants to get them.
hS
I also cleaned up a few errors I noticed in the mission itself.
Is the Biggest Cameo Ever (because who he is might be mission spoilers) deserving of an article on the Wiki?
Between this and your last mission, all I have to say is: Why would a Tolkienverse Sue want to bang a freaking dragon?!
I mean, I GET that The Frumious Banderdict Cumbersnatch(TM) is popular enough that everyone wants a piece of him (and I've seen enough posts on Tumblr to verify it), but why not just bang Sherlock or something?
...Okay, that was a dumb question. ^^;
And I will be upfront when I say that I honestly didn't like Smaug's characterization in the actual movie. I liked how he looked, sure, but any adaptation of the Hobbit that botches his famous boast won't do me any favors. But no matter how badly the adaptations messed up his personality, one thing is clear. SMAUG. IS. NOT. BANG-ABLE! His armor is like tenfold shields, his teeth are swords, his claws are spears, the shock of his tail is a thunderbolt, his wings are a hurricane, and his breath death! WHY, for the love of Eru, would he NEED a humanoid form in light of all of that?! He is the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities, and he friggin' reduced Dale to cinders! There is NO way he'll ever want or need a human consort. Period.
So... yeah. Nice job in both cases. The first mission was handled fairly well, what with the agents being quite efficient in the cleanup job, but this was even better. Especially the ending with Ancalagon and Gabby taking his picture. XD
Lastly, a proofreading thing:
Gabby looked at her partner, pity on her face.
IDK, this just sounds a tad... awkward to me. I'd use "an expression of pity on her face" instead.
I know it's not technically relevant to anything Tolkienverse, but in D&D, dragons do have shapeshifting abilities, and there's a half-dragon template that you can apply to literally anything. It's something of a running gag among players that dragons are bigger horndogs than the Greek gods - Zeus may have turned into a swan, but he never romanced a Gelatinous Cube.
Now, D&D copies a lot of surface details from Tolkien, ranging from little things, like elves trancing instead of sleeping, to basically the entirety of the halfling race, which were actually called hobbits until the Tolkien estate threatened to sue. Now, these similarities don't run particularly deep, and certainly don't apply to dragons, but badfic writers are unlikely to realize the difference.
I was kinda worried that, in describing the Biggest Cameo Ever, I may have gotten into Purple Prose territory.
I wanted to emphasize just how bleeding big he was, but the only description of mind-boggling size that I know of is the reveal of Shruikan in the last Eragon book. And the Biggest Cameo Ever is way, way bigger than Shruikan.
I reread the scene, and it doesn’t look purple to me, considering the nature of what’s described there.
But since you drew my attention to it, I realized that "as black as oil" doesn’t really work. There are all sorts of oil, like olive oil, rapeseed oil or soy bean oil, and even the oil I put into the engine of my car, although based on petroleum, isn’t black. Also, oil makes me think of the multicolor refraction effect of a thin oil film spread on water. I’m aware that you thought of crude oil in its native state, but you may want to find something more definitely black. Coal? Pitch? Tar? A starless night? I’m not a Silmarillion expert – was the long night still literally starless when the Valar and Maiar arrived on Arda? "A starless night" may be a bit too purple if it isn’t a cheeky reference.
HG
Less is more and all that. We all know that if pity is on someone's face, they've got an expression. Elaborating that pity is an expression becomes redundant.