Sauron vs Voldemort

[Ditto]

Did it occur to y'all that Gil-galad might not have used offensive magic because he didn't have any to speak of? 'Most Powerful Elf' is a great title (who wouldn't want an MPE trophy on the mantle?), but it's not really well-defined here. Also, IIRC, the battle took place at the foot of Mount Doom, where all other magicks are apparently abjured. That's hardly solid evidence for 'Gil-galad decided to try something different because it was better'.

Sauron has been killed by brute force and not magic? I suppose I'll have to go around detailing the handful of things that have actually had the *chance* to be exposed to such magic and then shrugged them off to make a comparison. That said, we haven't seen Sauron deflect spells in anyway. Saying 'every time has been brute force' is like saying "The last two times I made a sandwich, it was with chunky peanut butter." God forbid I use smooth next time! (Not only because it is different and untried, but also because smooth peanut butter is for wimps.)

EE - However much it might make sense for royalty to carry a magic blade, she doesn't. If it was magic, Tolkienn would've been pretty clear about that, wouldn't he? Every other weapon descended from antiquity has been detailed quite thoroughly through his series. No, WT's suggestion that the barrow blade broke his Mage Armor is far more likely. (Likely, not certain.)

The source I cited stating "The Nazgul are extendedly alive." cannot be interpreted as "The Nazgul are undead." That's what WT's quote was for. It said they were undead, see? Further, the Witch-King has a body. Clearly. Is this an issue to anyone else? He picks things up, moves around, stabs things, gets stabbed - physical. He's *invisible* and basically only observable because of the swanky black duds he wears, but he's very much corporeal. Why would a ghost need to ride around on a horse?

HP still does not have undead. The zombies in the lake were not undead, they were Inferi - puppet corpses. Still dead, just animated. Ghosts are a very different thing than they are in D&D or LOTR, and have no bearing whatsoever on the material plane. Dementors are not undead, they are Dark creatures. There's a whole section in the Lexicon on Dark creatures - they're basically made of Evil Nastiness incarnate, just like Peeves is made of Chaotic Mischief incarnate. They are quite explicit in the series that no man can be brought back from the dead - even via undeath.

[WhiteKnight777]

Here's my two cents on how the Nazgul work. I personally believe that they've transcended (or perhaps a better term is side-stepped) their mortality. They no longer exist as true living creatures. They don't die, they don't seem to require food, rest, shelter, etc. Without the power of the One Ring, their spirits would lose the ability to manifest much in the material plane. They can certainly choose to manifest as material beings (what exactly their bodies are made out of we don't know, it's certainly not normal flesh.) Just like the Valar and the Maia can clothe themselves in flesh, however, the Nazgul are not dependent on their bodies for their existence. This is plainly obvious; it's stated fairly clearly that they lost their physical substance after the flood at Rivendell, yet they returned to Mordor and reformed their physical shape.

Now, as to the issue of being affected by magic: This really depends on exactly how AK kills people. The problem is, there seems to be no definitive source for this, so it's a rather tricky question to answer. But, for the sake of argument, let's say AK does work on the Nazgul. AK would destroy their physical form, but Tolkien's writing suggests that it doesn't take all that long for the Nazgul to reform after being destroyed (Gandalf's conversation with Frodo after the Ford seems to indicate that the Nazgul had already returned to Mordor and reformed themselves). If nothing else, the Nazgul can simply pick off Voldemort's lesser wizards, until he has no supporters left. Also, don't forget that the Witch-King is a powerful sorcerer. His knowledge of magic is not inconsequential.

Also, I think it's a mistake to think that any war between Voldemort and Sauron would result in a direct physical confrontation. Sauron's not big on personal combat. His war would be waged with an army. And to be honest, that's something Voldemort is going to have a hard time countering. Even assuming he was at the very peak of his power, I doubt his forces could hold a candle to Sauron's. A couple hundred, even a couple of thousand wizards with giants and werewolves and what have you, versus tens of thousands of orcs, along with trolls, evil men, southrons, Mumaks, easterlings, Corsairs of Umbar.... Not to mention a few dark Numenorians, and, of course, the Nazgul.... Oh, and besides that, Sauron's a past master of corruption. He'd have most of Voldemort's forces stabbing him in the back during the fray.

[EvilElitest]

Did it occur to y'all that Gil-galad might not have used offensive magic because he didn't have any to speak of? 'Most Powerful Elf' is a great title (who wouldn't want an MPE trophy on the mantle?), but it's not really well-defined here. Also, IIRC, the battle took place at the foot of Mount Doom, where all other magicks are apparently abjured. That's hardly solid evidence for 'Gil-galad decided to try something different because it was better'.

He is explicitly stated to be one of the most powerful beings in Middle Earth, and he is a directy decentent of the high king of the elves, who is an incritible powerful race of elves. And i'm pretty sure they call him a caster.

Sauron has been killed by brute force and not magic? I suppose I'll have to go around detailing the handful of things

Accually he was killed by two of the most powerful magic weapons in the entire world, wielded by three of the worlds most powerful warriors, backed by an army of extremly powerful magic humans and elves. And he loses one the ring, that contains 99% of his magic is cut off.

that have actually had the *chance* to be exposed to such magic and then shrugged them off to make a comparison. That said, we haven't seen Sauron deflect spells in anyway.

Incorrect, in the Simerlian he deflects direct attacks from the Valar (gods) themselves.

Saying 'every time has been brute force' is like saying "The last two times I made a sandwich, it was with chunky peanut butter." God forbid I use smooth next time! (Not only because it is different and untried, but also because smooth peanut butter is for wimps.)

We known that Saruon is the most powerful Malar and the Malar are extremly powerful spell casters.

EE - However much it might make sense for royalty to carry a magic blade, she doesn't.

Every other noble character does.

If it was magic, Tolkienn would've been pretty clear about that, wouldn't he? Every other weapon descended from antiquity has been detailed quite thoroughly through his series. No, WT's suggestion that the barrow blade broke his Mage Armor is far more likely. (Likely, not certain.)

Ok lets look at this logically. The WK has not body. He can only be harmed by magic weapons, that is specifically stated. Thus for Eowyn to kill him, as she does, her sword must be enchanted. And so, logically, she must have an magic blade. Now Merry stabbed him in the leg, and so that is not what killed him, it was Eowyn who finished him. Now if his Mage armor was dispelled, then he would only want to be hit by a single blade in his life, this is illogical, and strange.

The source I cited stating "The Nazgul are extendedly alive." cannot be interpreted as "The Nazgul are undead." That's what WT's quote was for. It said they were undead, see?

I was the one arguing that he was undead, like Wraiths tend to be

Further, the Witch-King has a body. Clearly. Is this an issue to anyone else? He picks things up, moves around, stabs things, gets stabbed - physical. He's *invisible* and basically only observable because of the swanky black duds he wears, but he's very much corporeal. Why would a ghost need to ride around on a horse?

No, when he dies he said he has no body. He has a void instead of a body, a lacks of a body, were a body should be, he has an emptiness that acts as his body, but in the spirit world (can only be entered via the ring and others powers such as that,. His body does not exist, he has something that connects him to the mortal plane, his spirt moves the robes and holds the sword and rides the horse, but he lack a body, only enchanted weapons can piece his emptyness and harm his soul.

HP still does not have undead. The zombies in the lake were not undead, they were Inferi - puppet corpses. Still dead, just animated.

I think that is undead

Ghosts are a very different thing than they are in D&D or LOTR, and have no bearing whatsoever on the material plane.

But LOTR isn't D&D, the ghosts in HP are much like the dead men of dunharrow. Oh and by the by, they still were undead.

Dementors are not undead, they are Dark creatures. There's a whole section in the Lexicon on Dark creatures - they're basically made of Evil Nastiness incarnate, just like Peeves is made of Chaotic Mischief incarnate. They are quite explicit in the series that no man can be brought back from the dead - even via undeath.

Please prove this.
from,
EE

[turkishproverb]

That would have been badass. What Sauron actually did was to convince pretty much the entire nation to whom he surrendered to wage war against the Gods they had been praying to for millenia before. I think this qualifies as super badass.

So does sauron get a little nonmagical crown now?

[Ditto]

EE: Dark creatures check it out. The Lexicon doesn't even have an entry discussing the Undead. It's not an important facet of the Potterverse, if it exists at all. I know it you was you who said Nazgul are undead, but you didn't cite something like WT did to back it up. Inferi are quite explicitly not re-alive. Harry asks about that, and is assured that they are merely animated by a wizard, like puppets. They do specifically prescribed tasks, the same as an animated suit of armor would. Ghosts are not relevant to this discussion, and in any event exist on about the same level as wizard portraits - both a different kind of imprint of the original wizard's life.

I'm glad Gil-Galad was descended from powerful people. You said you're "Pretty sure" they call him a caster. That's the important part - did they call him a caster or not? And in the (unlikely) event that they did, what can he do? And and AND, did any of that come into play at all during the Last War?

Sauron deflects a Valar-beam? That's interesting. I wonder why no one's brought that up before. Did the Valar use magic, or were they too cool for that, too?

All the other heroes had magic weapons and stories that went on and on about them. Eowyn pointedly did not. According to WT's conjecture, Merry's blow severed the mojo keeping his physical form separate from the material plane, giving Eowyn or any other chucklehead license to cut him good. (And have their weapon shatter and get mighty sick from the Witch-King's Black Breath and death throes, but anyone can stab him nonetheless.)

You're still talking about the Witch-King being a spirit-only and moving something that happens to be exactly the size and shape of him around the material plane through dint of willpower... can you *please* cite something on this? Everything I'm seeing indicates that he's an Invisible. Super. *Man.* Who will most definitely poof and reform in due course, so long as he is not separated from his ring and the One Ring is around to fuel them. But still a very, very, very old... man.

Voldemort, like Sauron, need not resort to physical confrontation with the army. He can toss out (yes, again) Fiendfyre and let it romp, or let some homemade Ents or Rock Golems or rampaging charmed oliphaunts do the work. Just because HP has offensive spells doesn't mean it's the only way to fight.

[EvilElitest]

EE: Dark creatures check it out. The Lexicon doesn't even have an entry discussing the Undead.

Is this cannon? If so, then Dementors arn't undead (though ghosts still are) but can they be hurt phyically, or by AK is the question

It's not an important facet of the Potterverse, if it exists at all. I know it you was you who said Nazgul are undead, but you didn't cite something like WT did to back it up.

My copy of LOTRs is not on me, so finding quotes might be a little hard, i'm relying on my amazing memory.

Inferi are quite explicitly not re-alive. Harry asks about that, and is assured that they are merely animated by a wizard, like puppets. They do specifically prescribed tasks, the same as an animated suit or armor would.

I'll just take your word on this, can they be killed

Ghosts are not relevant to this discussion, and in any event exist on about the same level as wizard portraits - both a different kind of imprint of the original wizard's life.

I'm pretty sure they are relevent to the discussion, because they are undead creatures in the HP universe. So they are in fact, central.

I'm glad Gil-Galad was descended from powerful people. You said you're "Pretty sure" they call him a caster. That's the important part - did they call him a caster or not? And in the (unlikely) event that they did, what can he do? And and AND, did any of that come into play at all during the Last War?

I know that Gil-Galad has a magical spear, and that his army had a lot of elf magic. I know he has been around sense the first age, and that his father and all their fathers were extremly powerful spell casters, he is also the high king and greater than Elrond and Gladreail, so i imagine he would be pretty powerful

Sauron deflects a Valar-beam? That's interesting. I wonder why no one's brought that up before. Did the Valar use magic, or were they too cool for that, too?

When Sauron took over the island of the Nunamorains, and planned his invasion of the Valar, they sent clouds in the shapes of great birds that shot down fire and lighting from the sky, that would have destroyed the entire island. Sauron deflected all of them and comes out unhurt, and protects his fleet until they land on the island.

All the other heroes had magic weapons and stories that went on and on about them. Eowyn pointedly did not. According to WT's conjecture, Merry's blow severed the mojo keeping his physical form separate from the material plane, giving Eowyn or any other chucklehead license to cut him good. (And have their weapon shatter and get mighty sick from the Witch-King's Black Breath and death throes, but anyone can stab him nonetheless.)

I find this rather unlikly

You're still talking about the Witch-King being a spirit-only and moving something that happens to be exactly the size and shape of him around the material plane through dint of willpower... can you *please* cite something on this?

Read in fellowship of the ring, and look up the wraith's descriptions. And read Return of the king when WK dies. Eve

Everything I'm seeing indicates that he's an Invisible. Super. *Man.* Who will most definitely poof and reform in due course, so long as he is not separated from his ring and the One Ring is around to fuel them. But still a very, very, very old... man.

Then he would have to be invisible, incorpral, and souless, and captle of living dispite having his body destroyed. So it is pretty much the same point.

Voldemort, like Sauron, need not resort to physical confrontation with the army. He can toss out (yes, again) Fiendfyre and let it romp, or let some homemade Ents or Rock Golems or rampaging charmed oliphaunts do the work. Just because HP has offensive spells doesn't mean it's the only way to fight.

Good point, but lets look at Voldemort's numbers. At best a thousand wizards, 500 giants, a scattering of dragons, about ten thousand dementors, a small army of lesser monsters, a basalic, a big snake and himself. Not that much compared to nine un-killerable wraiths, a few millions orcs, tens of thousands of evil men, Mumikil, Trolls, Dragons, and dark magics.
from,
EE

[multilis]

Warning: the following knowledge is dangerous, I strongly suggest you all pretend not to believe it, or your lives will be in danger.

The main power in LOTR was not Sauron but an alliance of 12 Great Rings which worked together to dispose of the One Ring. (Gandalf The Many Colors slips in chapter 2 of LOTR to reveal the nature of the Great Rings plural, including the one he was wearing). The Rings looked after themselves, they used mind control and worse to rewrite history and fool people into believing they lost their power.

Similarly in HP it was not Voldemort but the Great Wand that was really the great powwwww

[Skjaldbakka]

Gandalf The Many Colors

Gandalf never became the many colors. That was Saruman. Gandalf took his place as the White Wizard. Saruman of Many Colors was a corruption.


Also, 12 great rings? 3 elven rings + 7 dwarven rings + 9 human rings

This is in no way 12.

I have read all the material written about the LotR, and there are not 12 great rings.

[Ossian]

well, Sauron's forces were never that vast. 10.000 orcs and almost as meny outhrons attacked Minas Tirith, merely a vanguard, a testing blow. Three times as many poured out of the black gate, emptying Mordor (well, that's a bold statement, but let's say that MOST of the Mordor host was outside the Black Gate). So this makes for an army of 40.000, plus a few thousand southrons, eaterlings and variags, no mumakils (they were not mentioned in the book at least) and wolves, bats, orcs, more orcs, trolls, some more orcs, wolves and wolf riding orcs, still less than a few hundred all inclusive. No dragons under his command or Middle Earth would have been sc***d for good. In fact, dragons had sworn loyalty to their creatir Morgoth. When he was expelled to the void, they considered themselves free to pillage, loot, burn and take 300 years long naps on their hoards. Probably, the few remaining dragons of the north thought of Sauron as a bit lame, and were not dying to serve him at all.

Still, the way I see Sauron's invulnerability to most attacks can be explained with a parallelism. Pardon the audacity, but iut works well for me.
I am assuming some of you are familiar with Evangelion's Angels and EVA units. When Angels attack, we seem to witness a big contradiction. First angel is hit square on the face by neautron bombs N2, basically a tactical nuke. Destroyed at 80%, he immediately starts regenerating. I know NGE is full of contradictions, but how comes a nuke merely scorches the surface of a rather weak angel (compared to the ones thatcome next) and an EVA can STAB the guy and kill him good? It's because "supernatural" come sinto play.

What makes you capable of killing or wounding the guy is your partially existing in a different layer of reality, the presence in your blood of some of the "old magic" of the erath, when time was young and energy could flow into things smoothly, it's your primordial connection to the divine light that enables you to overcome, slice, break, tear apart, ignore the AT field and wound the target beyond repair.

Sort of how Gatsu is eventually able to perceive spirits, elfs, trolls and ogres in the Berserk series. By bearing the sacrificial mark, hanging out in the realm between day and night, killing and touching and struggling with spirtual beings (some partially, like trolls, some other totally, like ghosts), "shifted" him a bit closer to the sea-strand like reality, where worlds merge and blur into each other.

Back to S. Vs Vol. , I'd draw the same parallelism. Even if Voldemort has somehow trascended the natural bonds that apply to humans, and is more there than here, he's still basically a Mr. Tom White former hogwarts student. He kight be able to touch, see, resist Sauron somehow, perhaps even worry him and prompt him to quickly disposing of Vold. (as the Dark lord is well know to take NO chances), but not to kill him.

Magic works differently in Middle Earth, and is connected to blood, heritage and ascendancy. Gil Galad wasn't a spellcaster per se, but he had the blood of the mightiest elves in his veins, his spear Aiglos was downright enchanted and almost sentient, he was MEANT to be able to injure Sauron, and the same goes for the supernoble dunedains present that day, Elrond and basically the one Noldor/Vanyar elf of Middle Earth other than Galadriel: Glorfindel, a possible reincarnation of the might Glorfindel of Gondolin, a BALROG-SLAYER ( scary...) . Vold. has no such assets.
Imagine all of the above with Sauron wearing his Ring. Ah...I'm sure even Gandalf could try an Arvada Kavada (after all, it's not like Vold's servants are the best magicians ever, and still they use it) if he thought it would work.

Point is, just like you can't beat evil with evil, strength with violence and ignorance with censore, you can't use an evil curse to destroy the personification of Evil. If brute strength was the solution, as explained at the council of Elrond, they'd have dispatched a couple of 100th level elven lords to sneak into mordor and assassinate Sauron.

Violence and aggression is NEVER the key against the Dark Lord, just like killing Palpatine in anger would have simply made him come back stronger and more wicked than ever, while turning the killer to the Dark Side.

O.

[Skjaldbakka]

40,000 troops isn't vast? We are talking a medieval style army, here.

[Ossian]

40,000 troops isn't vast? We are talking a medieval style army, here.

On the contrary, it's HUGE. Just saying that it does not count millions or even hundreds of thousands of units. 40.000 or even a 100.000 might have been puny compared to the Angband host that faced the Valars, but for the gondorians to handle was still impossibly big and nearly unbeatable (in fact, victory wasn't even an option for them, and they knew it). They outnumbered the gondorians 4 to 1 or worse, and featured scary guys like 12 foot tall trolls covered with iron plates + the 9 Ulairi...scary I say. Real scary.

O.

[Ditto]

I have no familiarity whatsoever with Evangellion, but if you want old magic in your blood then Voldemort has that, too. There’s a whole speech about it during his reincarnation speech in HP4 ::shrug:: In LOTR, having noble bloodlines gives you the destiny branch of magic, which means you can wield *melee weapons* to great effect. That’s nice and all, but it still doesn’t tell us anything about HP magic. No parallelism on that count.

You can’t beat evil with evil? You mean bad guys never have civil wars? Killing the Emperor would make you evil-y, but it wouldn’t make the Emperor stronger. That’s why he’s dead, see? In ROTJ he was taunting Luke, because he knew that Luke was no match for him. Attacking him in anger would have been sufficient to move him down the dark path. It’s like the earlier part about the Ring’s corruption – if you use its power to full effect and offensive potential, then you’re doomed to become evil yourself. That’s not a problem for Voldemort.

Yes, dark creatures are canon – that’s why they talk about certain creatures in DADA instead of CoMC. Everything on HPL is canon, except where marked as such – it’s ‘just’ an encyclopedia. Inferi cannot be killed, they can be hacked to pieces or wrapped up or disenchanted, but all you’re doing is cutting the strings. How are HP ghosts relevant to this discussion in any way? Again, even if they did matter, they cannot affect the physical world in any way.

Your amazing memory, sadly, is not evidence, and has been wrong in several places thus far. (See also: Inferi) Eowyn DOES NOT have a magic sword. Let it go! Gil-galad DOES have a magic sword; that does not make him a caster. And you say his progenitors were. What does that mean? Can you define ‘powerful caster’?

“Sauron deflects a Valar beam” is different from “Sauron fights off magic bird shapes” is different from “Sauron set up a protective ward over his camp”, in increasing order of likeliness.

Read ROTK when WK dies.

Dies, you say?

Then he would have to be invisible, incorpral, and souless, and captle of living dispite having his body destroyed. So it is pretty much the same point.

I have no idea what you just said, but if it’s the same point as the one I’m making, then the Witch-King is a body. That’s called agreeing with me…

The numbers are largely immaterial when you aren’t actually fighting hand-to-hand. A couple hundred thousand of squishy infantrymen with pointy sticks aren’t a threat to the guy sitting over the next hill when all the wizards’ offense is trouncing around your camp.

12 Rings? I echo the ‘WTF?’

[multilis]

Gandalf never became the many colors. That was Saruman. Gandalf took his place as the White Wizard. Saruman of Many Colors was a corruption.


Also, 12 great rings? 3 elven rings + 7 dwarven rings + 9 human rings

This is in no way 12.

I have read all the material written about the LotR, and there are not 12 great rings.

I must write quickly, they may find me again...

12 great rings = 3 elven rings + 9 human rings, rings needed bearers/slaves to do their work.

The rings rewrote history, Saruman the Pure was never corrupted, it was Gandalf who dabbled both in white and black magic to be known as the Grey. Gandalf was never really a prisoner of Saruman... if he was, then how come he still had his staff after he "escaped"? Wizards can't just make new staffs, that is shown when Gandalf demands Saruman surrender his staff as surrender terms, and when Saruman refuses, Gandalf uses Black Mind Control Magic (that he learned from his buddy Balrog) to force Saruman to destroy his own staff.

But we shouldn't really blame Gandalf, he by that time was a slave of the Great Ring he carried.

No one actually saw Gandalf hurt a Balrog, Gandalf battle Nazgul at weathertop, etc, it was all a ruse. The Nazgul did not try hard to take the One Ring from Frodo at weathertop, because they wanted him to destroy it, while they put on a show to keep Sauron fooled.

In fact the Nazgul leader owed his life to the elves (under secret orders from the elvish Ring Wraiths), you KNOW how in LOTR appendix his army was defeated and he was alone facing elves and human army and elvish horses are faster than Nazgul horses, yet... the elves let him escape giving a silly "prophesy" as an excuse. (Which BTW was one of the real causes for the later distrust of elves by men)

What you don't know is the sad end not mentioned in LOTR, Frodo and co are thrown into the ocean to die, then the Elvish and Nazgul ringslaves meet again to divide up the world. That history is only preserved in the White Book (written by Saruman the Brave, Grima the Wise and Bob the Blue).

[Greebo]

You know, that explains so much...

So what happened to Gimli when he went into the west with Legolas?

[multilis]

You know, that explains so much...

So what happened to Gimli when he went into the west with Legolas?

Legolas belonged to the tribe of elves that was not corrupted by the Great Rings. Gimli of course earlier had a scandalous affair with a certain elvish queen, and he thought she had gone west so he was trying to follow.

It is assumed they made it to the west and were accepted as Gimli's help destroying the One Ring outweighed his being seduced by the queen, and neither knew about the conspiracy of the 12.

[EvilElitest]

well, Sauron's forces were never that vast.

Yes, yes they were

10.000 orcs and almost as meny outhrons attacked Minas Tirith, merely a vanguard, a testing blow.

I thought is was 300,000 orcs, 10,000 haradarim, 20,000 easterlings, 50 great ships full of the Pirates of Umber, a few thousand (around 5,000) variags, and deep harad, an unknown number of half trolls, goblins men, troll men, and orc men (what they are i'm not really sure), another 10,000 men of Rhun, and an unknown number of trolls, but admittedly a lot, complete with catipults, seige towers, and ladders. Plus the Nazgul and Grond. And yes, he had lots of mumakil, check the Return of the king on that chapter, they mention them quite a few times, as well as the "great beasts" that pull the ram. Sauron also mentions that he has plenty of bats, wolves, Wargs, wolf/warg riders, and Uruk-hai at his command at that battle as well, so yeah. Oh, and a few thousand Olak-hai trolls. Other human forces Sauron controls include the wain riders and the blacoth.

Three times as many poured out of the black gate, emptying Mordor (well, that's a bold statement, but let's say that MOST of the Mordor host was outside the Black Gate). So this makes for an army of 40.000, plus a few thousand southrons, eaterlings and variags, no mumakils (they were not mentioned in the book at least) and wolves, bats, orcs, more orcs, trolls, some more orcs, wolves and wolf riding orcs, still less than a few hundred all inclusive.

At hte black gate they had an estimate of about 500,thousand orcs I belive, a few thousand Olag-hai, a few thousand (maybe only ten) evil men, as most have been defeated in the last battle. He had a "hoard" of trolls, so maybe evil 10,000 of them, along with even more wolves, bats, and fell beasts, and a vast army of Uruk-hai If we are using the movie as a reference, then his forces are even more vast. He gets to include hoards of Goblins, new speices of trolls and Saruman's Uruks. And that isn't even counting card and video games

No dragons under his command or Middle Earth would have been sc***d for good. In fact, dragons had sworn loyalty to their creatir Morgoth. When he was expelled to the void, they considered themselves free to pillage, loot, burn and take 300 years long naps on their hoards. Probably, the few remaining dragons of the north thought of Sauron as a bit lame, and were not dying to serve him at all.

What is this based on, some dragons help Sauron fight the dwarves, so at least few serve him, and Sauron was the second in command to Morgoth, so they could very well work for him. On that note, the Balrog of Moria would have good reason as well, as we known the northern goblins/orcs/hobgoblins serve him to at least some extent, they aid him in his attack of the Lonely mountain during the war of the ring

Still, the way I see Sauron's invulnerability to most attacks can be explained with a parallelism. Pardon the audacity, but iut works well for me.
I am assuming some of you are familiar with Evangelion's Angels and EVA units. When Angels attack, we seem to witness a big contradiction. First angel is hit square on the face by neautron bombs N2, basically a tactical nuke. Destroyed at 80%, he immediately starts regenerating. I know NGE is full of contradictions, but how comes a nuke merely scorches the surface of a rather weak angel (compared to the ones thatcome next) and an EVA can STAB the guy and kill him good? It's because "supernatural" come sinto play

.
Possible, but speculation

What makes you capable of killing or wounding the guy is your partially existing in a different layer of reality, the presence in your blood of some of the "old magic" of the erath, when time was young and energy could flow into things smoothly, it's your primordial connection to the divine light that enables you to overcome, slice, break, tear apart, ignore the AT field and wound the target beyond repair.

Ok, but that would still require Mr. V to obtain an incritible powerful magical weapon and hit him with it.

Sort of how Gatsu is eventually able to perceive spirits, elfs, trolls and ogres in the Berserk series. By bearing the sacrificial mark, hanging out in the realm between day and night, killing and touching and struggling with spirtual beings (some partially, like trolls, some other totally, like ghosts), "shifted" him a bit closer to the sea-strand like reality, where worlds merge and blur into each other.

???, who

Back to S. Vs Vol. , I'd draw the same parallelism. Even if Voldemort has somehow trascended the natural bonds that apply to humans, and is more there than here, he's still basically a Mr. Tom White former hogwarts student. He kight be able to touch, see, resist Sauron somehow, perhaps even worry him and prompt him to quickly disposing of Vold. (as the Dark lord is well know to take NO chances), but not to kill him.

So Voldy has to obtain magic weapon, get to Suaron, hit sauron with magic weapon, then try to destroy all his minions before he comes back.

Magic works differently in Middle Earth, and is connected to blood, heritage and ascendancy. Gil Galad wasn't a spellcaster per se, but he had the blood of the mightiest elves in his veins, his spear Aiglos was downright enchanted and almost sentient, he was MEANT to be able to injure Sauron, and the same goes for the supernoble dunedains present that day, Elrond and basically the one Noldor/Vanyar elf of Middle Earth other than Galadriel: Glorfindel, a possible reincarnation of the might Glorfindel of Gondolin, a BALROG-SLAYER ( scary...) . Vold. has no such assets.
Imagine all of the above with Sauron wearing his Ring. Ah...I'm sure even Gandalf could try an Arvada Kavada (after all, it's not like Vold's servants are the best magicians ever, and still they use it) if he thought it would work.

I'm a little confused here.

Point is, just like you can't beat evil with evil, strength with violence and ignorance with censore, you can't use an evil curse to destroy the personification of Evil. If brute strength was the solution, as explained at the council of Elrond, they'd have dispatched a couple of 100th level elven lords to sneak into mordor and assassinate Sauron.

We do known however that evil fights evil in Middle earth a lot

Violence and aggression is NEVER the key against the Dark Lord, just like killing Palpatine in anger would have simply made him come back stronger and more wicked than ever, while turning the killer to the Dark Side.

That is a good point.

Yes, dark creatures are canon – that’s why they talk about certain creatures in DADA instead of CoMC. Everything on HPL is canon, except where marked as such – it’s ‘just’ an encyclopedia. Inferi cannot be killed, they can be hacked to pieces or wrapped up or disenchanted, but all you’re doing is cutting the strings. How are HP ghosts relevant to this discussion in any way? Again, even if they did matter, they cannot affect the physical world in any way.

1. But is that website cannon, if so then dementors are undead.
2. HP ghost are undead, thus their are undead in HP. Logiclly, if their are undead things in HP, then then we known that some spells might not effect undead the same they do the living. So if AK works on Ghosts, then it should work on the nazgul. If Ak doesn't work on ghost, same effect.
3. I thought they could talk to people, and pick stuff up. I know Peeves can effect the phyical world

Your amazing memory, sadly, is not evidence, and has been wrong in several places thus far. (See also: Inferi)

1. Show me
2. I reley on the fact some people have the book on their person, which i do not, and they can provide page numbers to counter anything i say wrong
3. Inferi is a very simple mistake, walking corspes, zombies, you can so see were one could be mistaked

Eowyn DOES NOT have a magic sword. Let it go!

Then explain logically, how she could have hurt the Witch king when Tolkien specificlly states that no normal weapon can hurt him.

Gil-galad DOES have a magic sword; that does not make him a caster. And you say his progenitors were. What does that mean? Can you define ‘powerful caster’?

1. Techeniclly, it is a magical glaive
2. All elves from that line were powerful in magic, Simerlian
3. He also had one of the elven rings when he fought Sauron
4.Every other spell caster in his heritage were just so ungodly badass in combat (able to duel morgoth and last a while ect), so at least the abilty to avoid Saruon's magic and badass fighting skills. Weren't enough but...

“Sauron deflects a Valar beam” is different from “Sauron fights off magic bird shapes” is different from “Sauron set up a protective ward over his camp”, in increasing order of likeliness.

When magic bird shoots Valar beams at his island, and the book points out Saruon standing on top of the temple of Morgoth and blocking every single one of their attacks, plus a big storm, that is blocking magic beam

Dies, you say?

WK is killed by Merry and Eowyn, due to magical weapons and the furfillment of his prophacy. I don't know if he is permently dies, but it is a far greater death than "normal" nazgul death, so it apperently very much upset the other nazgul and Sauron.
.

I have no idea what you just said, but if it’s the same point as the one I’m making, then the Witch-King is a body. That’s called agreeing with me…

He has a void that acts a body, but if you think he has a body, it is a body in the same sense of a HP ghost.

The numbers are largely immaterial when you aren’t actually fighting hand-to-hand. A couple hundred thousand of squishy infantrymen with pointy sticks aren’t a threat to the guy sitting over the next hill when all the wizards’ offense is trouncing around your camp.

In the time it take to say the AK spell, you could already be filled with arrows. Lots of arrows. And if you have to cast this thing constently just to keep the orcs off of you, you can't have time to plan or re-group

12 Rings? I echo the ‘WTF

Yeah, there were three for elves, seven for dwarves, nine for men, one for evil, what 12?

from,
EE

[Greebo]

Then explain logically, how she could have hurt the Witch king when Tolkien specificlly states that no normal weapon can hurt him.

Merry stabbed the Witch King with *his* magical blade, which, as per the book, penetrated and broke the spells of protection that surrounded him.

And he does have a body. It is visible to Frodo when he wears the ring at Weathertop. He's a wraith, not a ghost.

[SmartAlec]

Then explain logically, how she could have hurt the Witch king when Tolkien specificlly states that no normal weapon can hurt him.

There's a few theories on that.

1) Eowyn could kill the Witch-King because she was prophecied to do so. Therefore, the magic of destiny gave her the 'power' to do it.

2) Merry's sword weakened the spells keeping the Witch-King together, and Eowyn finished him off.

Either way, stop thinking in terms of DnD and hit points and damage resistance and stuff. LotR predates all that 'Undead/magical creatures are damage resistant' stuff. Eowyn shoves a sword through his face. No-one's getting up from that.

[EvilElitest]

Merry stabbed the Witch King with *his* magical blade, which, as per the book, penetrated and broke the spells of protection that surrounded him.

And he does have a body. It is visible to Frodo when he wears the ring at Weathertop. He's a wraith, not a ghost.

1. After getting stabbed with one magic weapon, anything can hurt him. Logically, that means aragorn could have stabbed him, and let the WK would just be normal until some woman stabbed him.
2. If he had an invisible body, then when he died his body would still be their, but they comment on how his robes are "empty" and their is nothing inside even after he dies.
3. Their is nothing under his hood and cloak, and even after merry stabbed him their was nothing there
from,
EE
edit

There's a few theories on that.

1) Eowyn could kill the Witch-King because she was prophecied to do so. Therefore, the magic of destiny gave her the 'power' to do it.

2) Merry's sword weakened the spells keeping the Witch-King together, and Eowyn finished him off.

Either way, stop thinking in terms of DnD and hit points and damage resistance and stuff. LotR predates all that 'Undead/magical creatures are damage resistant' stuff. Eowyn shoves a sword through his face. No-one's getting up from that

.
1. Any girl techiniclly speaking was phrihyicied to kill him, so that means any girl could have hurt him, but the book mentions that only a magical blade could
2. Then if Merry stabbed him and Eowyn didn't finish him off, he could just walk around and get instintly killed by any women who hit him with a meat cleaver?
3. I'm not thinking in D&D terms, i thinking logicaly. If he is undead, then AK might not work on him. If magical weapons are the only thing that hurts him, then she logically would be using one (her dad had one, its name started with an H, maybe she used that one.
from,
EE

[Ditto]

EE - Once again, your incredible memory is pulling absurdly large and ridiculously specific numbers without actual evidence. Before claiming the point dispelled, please direct us to somewhere that your numbers can be verified. Do you even know what 500,000 people in one place looks like?

Why don't you think a wand qualifies as a powerfully magic weapon? (Why hit a guy with fortified magic metal when you can hit him with *magic*?!)

The website is canon, yes. Along with TLC and Mugglenet, HPL is the premiere HP website. There's no opinion or speculation involved, it's documentation of all of JKR's work. Trust it. And how does "HPL is true" translate to "Dementors are undead"? There is no such mention of the word 'undead' in the Dementor entry or the entire bestiary.

As is cited above, the Nazgul are not ghosts. Ghosts are the spirits - souls, even - of people who died. The Nazgul do not have souls, and have never died, and have been stabbed. Therefore, not ghosts. Also, ghosts CANNOT touch things. Nazgul can. When they are killed, the body discorporates. Sauron does that same trick. Just because you have a body doesn't mean it has to stick around... that's poor reasoning.

I'm not sure what phrihyicied means, but your analysis that any woman with a meat cleaver may well be accurate. I like the logic WT and SmartAlec have suggested - that Merry broke the Witch-King's enchantment, and Eowyn's blood is what gave her the destiny-brand of magic enough to stab him. Her royal lineage has a righteous aura, or however you'd like to imagine it. Unless her weapon is called magic, it's not magic. I'll entertain that argument when you present evidence supporting that repeatedly unqualified statement.

We've also been over this before about the archers: 1) Voldemort will not be using AK, a single-target spell, against an army. 2) If he really felt like it, he would not stand still waving his arms and saying "Look! Shoot me! Over here!" IF you had an arrow nocked and knew exactly where he would be appearing, then an arrow is quite probably faster than a curse. But that's not the case. Apparently, Sauron has a special corps of archers devoted to shooting anything that moves in the corner of their eye scattered throughout the entire army. Hell, with the amount of people apparently involved, one can only assume that his ENTIRE army is set up to do nothing but hold their bows at full draw 24/7 in case a wizard appears. And in the end, Voldemort is just going to cast Fiendfyre from out of sight and let the rolling firestorm fall upon them without having once been in sight. (Oh! Right! Voldemort can be invisible, too!)

[Greebo]

Lets get something straight about the Witch King.

The prophecy, by Glorfindel, was that he would "not fall by the hand of man".

That's a prophecy, not a spell. It conveys nothing about protections based on gender.

Merry's magical blade pierced his enchantments, making him vulnerable. THAT was his downfall - his Achilles heel. Eowyn's blade was simply handy to strike the final blow.

[Dryken]

Captain Picard could wipe both of them out. The question is how?

[Rutee]

EE - Once again, your incredible memory is pulling absurdly large and ridiculously specific numbers without actual evidence. Before claiming the point dispelled, please direct us to somewhere that your numbers can be verified. Do you even know what 500,000 people in one place looks like?

Roughly twice the US' entire standing army, if I'm not mistaken.

But then, Sauron has pretty much *An entire subsection of the continent* drafted. Obviously it doesn't have the population density of say, New England, or Britain, but we're talking *THE ENTIRE POPULACE*of an enormous subsection of land

I /really/ don't find the numbers too implausible, in those terms.

[EvilElitest]

EE - Once again, your incredible memory is pulling absurdly large and ridiculously specific numbers without actual evidence.

As you haven't provided a single quote from the books, then stop calling me black mr. pot.

Before claiming the point dispelled, please direct us to somewhere that your numbers can be verified. Do you even know what 500,000 people in one place looks like?

I'm relying on the movies for that one, LOTR weapons and warfare claim 500,000 orcs as the black gate, 300,000 at Pelonor fields. As i lack the books themselves and i am acting on the tolkien beatary, that claim is backed.
And i'd imagine 500,000 dudes would be a hoard of people about five miles long and wide, your point?

Why don't you think a wand qualifies as a powerfully magic weapon? (Why hit a guy with fortified magic metal when you can hit him with *magic*?!)

The weapons in question were created for the sole purpose of defating creatures of evil, and as such, yes they are powerful magical weapons. A wand may work, but bear in mind Sauron is one of the most powerful casters in the world, and so magic is doubtful. Bear in mind, the WK is adimited to being close if not passing Gandalf in magic, and could only be killed by magic blade, i don't think that Sauron couldn't have that power.

The website is canon, yes. Along with TLC and Mugglenet, HPL is the premiere HP website. There's no opinion or speculation involved, it's documentation of all of JKR's work. Trust it.

And how does "HPL is true" translate to "Dementors are undead"? There is no such mention of the word 'undead' in the Dementor entry or the entire bestiary.

Read my words please, because i've already admitted twice after seeing that link that Dementors were not undead. twice, so what you just can't catch on?

As is cited above, the Nazgul are not ghosts. Ghosts are the spirits - souls, even - of people who died. The Nazgul do not have souls, and have never died, and have been stabbed.

1. What source is this? The only ghosts in LOTRs are the Dead men of Dunharrow, who can touch people. How are wraiths different.

Therefore, not ghosts. Also, ghosts CANNOT touch things. Nazgul can. When they are killed, the body discorporates. Sauron does that same trick. Just because you have a body doesn't mean it has to stick around... that's poor reasoning.

1. The nazgul's "Bodies" were destroyed at the River, so they have been killed, they just reform.
2. Were are their bodies? They are only seen in the spirt world, hence they would only have bodies in the same sense ghost would.

I'm not sure what phrihyicied means, but your analysis that any woman with a meat cleaver may well be accurate. I like the logic WT and SmartAlec have suggested - that Merry broke the Witch-King's enchantment, and Eowyn's blood is what gave her the destiny-brand of magic enough to stab him.

But Eowyn herself was not predestined, she was just a women. And bear this in mind, the WK killed the last king of Gonder in a single combat duel, and he would very well have a magical sword (every other royal character other than Borimer and Faramer have them) and the WK was partaken in many magical battles. Consider the fact that people even bothered the create magic anti wraith blades, it is likely he had been stabbed by a magical blade at least once. That would mean he was valuable for the rest of his existence to any women. Considering the fact that Eowyn would have a perfectly good reason to have a magical sword (her father and brother both had them, hell she could have just used her dads) it makes sense, if a women with a magical weapon stabbs him, he dies, possibly for ever.

Her royal lineage has a righteous aura, or however you'd like to imagine it. Unless her weapon is called magic, it's not magic. I'll entertain that argument when you present evidence supporting that repeatedly unqualified statement.

Yet again, you havn't produced any effidence to the countary, so yeah
Also, the prophey says "No living Man may kill me" with me being WK. And so it has nothing to do with royal lineage, it has to to do with being a women

We've also been over this before about the archers: 1) Voldemort will not be using AK, a single-target spell, against an army.

You haven't really discussed Mr. V's tatic at all.

2) If he really felt like it, he would not stand still waving his arms and saying "Look! Shoot me! Over here!" IF you had an arrow nocked and knew exactly where he would be appearing, then an arrow is quite probably faster than a curse. But that's not the case. Apparently, Sauron has a special corps of archers devoted to shooting anything that moves in the corner of their eye scattered throughout the entire army. Hell, with the amount of people apparently involved, one can only assume that his ENTIRE army is set up to do nothing but hold their bows at full draw 24/7 in case a wizard appears. And in the end, Voldemort is just going to cast Fiendfyre from out of sight and let the rolling firestorm fall upon them without having once been in sight. (Oh! Right! Voldemort can be invisible, too!)

More people, more chances of making mistakes. THe nazguls are very good shots, Sauron has a massive amount of orc and human archers, a few spell casters (the nazgul, the mouth of Sauron, the black Nunimorens, ect) and enough melee guys that the death eaters can only affort to make one mistake. And as anyone who's read the fifth book knows, if it is one thing the death eaters are good at, it is making mistakes.
from,
EE


Edit- about the Eowyn thing, it could be that the spell was something he could recast, so a normal women couldn't even hurt him without breaking the spell/having a magical blade first.

Roughly twice the US' entire standing army, if I'm not mistaken.

But then, Sauron has pretty much *An entire subsection of the continent* drafted. Obviously it doesn't have the population density of say, New England, or Britain, but we're talking *THE ENTIRE POPULACE*of an enormous subsection of land

I /really/ don't find the numbers too implausible, in those terms.

Lets figure this out.
Sauron control Harad/South Harad/the lands of the Black Nudamorans., a vast country that is about twice the size of mordor
He controls the east, which is of unkown size, but at least the size of Gondor, he control Rhun, a small nation about 1/4 the size of gondor (in the books), and the land of the Varagis, around the same size, as well as Umber, a City State with a massive fleet. All of these have huge human composed armies,whole nations. He also control Morgal, and roughly half of Gondor's land, and Mordor, a massive country in itself. Now orcs breed much faster than humans and grow up much faster, plus he also has other orc tribes in the northern mountains, and maybe Ubtomio, (is it still around?) as well as 3/4 of Mirkwood, and the undead of the Barrow lands, and the trolls in the trollshaws. He also has control/influence over Isagard, and through that, the Wild men of dundland.

[Rutee]

You haven't really discussed Mr. V's tatic at all.

He's done it tons. "Lolz Fiendfyre". apparently from Invisibility (When did Sauron start doing /that/? I admit to not bothering with the last 2 books, but that'd certainly be new). Because Sauron has no casters or anything that can possibly be done to stop magical sentient fire. Food for Fiendfyre Thought:
Casting it and not decimating his OWN troops requires the mages to be on the front lines.

You (Ditto) never addressed that Voldemort has no concept of how to wage war on an Army scale, because he /hasn't/. Any battle in the HP-verse has been a limitted skirmish, especially by LotR numbers. There's no evidence to my knowledge that he has /any/ understanding of tactics (Obviously he knows Strategy, but does he know how to direct his forces at all?).

Do we know if Voldemort's forces wouldn't have their morale break at seeing such an enormous force? I imagine that some are only there because they think they can win, with Voldemort. Will they still think so when there's 5 times, or more, their force sitting there?

[Ossian]

Too bad I don't have my English copy here. Anyway, the army from gondor was around 7000. 6000 infantry and 1000 cavalry (chapter IX and X (the black gate opens)). They find it ridiculous that the whole army they can marshal is merely a vanguard compared to what Gondor used to have in the good old days. They lose some on the way to mordor (afraid of battle, some men leave the army and move instead to retake Cair Andros). Again in the Black Gate opens, the 6000-6500 left have to face forces "10 times greater, perhaps more". That makes 60-80000 maximum, including orcs, esterlings, variags and so on.
500, or even 300.000 is enough to conquer a nation the size of Italy, not just Minas Tirith. It's Xerses descending upon Greece. The whole "subcontinent fraction" drafted did not contain as many people probably.

Actual figures are somewhere else , when they argue that the battle of Pelennor was just a "little test" made by the Dark Lord. I'll try to find them. The men of Rhun are the esterlings, and not a different population, and some races were invented altogether for the Middle Earth Roleplay System, so they couldn't possibly be there.

What is this based on, some dragons help Sauron fight the dwarves, so at least few serve him, and Sauron was the second in command to Morgoth, so they could very well work for him. On that note, the Balrog of Moria would have good reason as well, as we known the northern goblins/orcs/hobgoblins serve him to at least some extent, they aid him in his attack of the Lonely mountain during the war of the ring

Ah , I believe otherwise. No mention of dragons save Smaug is made in the late third age, and if any of them still lives, they certainly do not serve Sauron. Dragons, as powerful and as selfish as they were, felt they were at last free to do according to their will after Morgoth's fall, and the gap in power between the 2, despite Sauron's great strength, is the same between Bruce Lee and Goku Super Sayan IV...
Smaug was a threat, that luckily Gandalf had the foresighjt to deal with 80 years in advance, or at the Battle of Dale, Dain wouldn't have stopped the second host that was launched by the forces of evil, and upon returning to Minas Tirith, they might have al found a lot of smoking ruins. Besides, a living dragon in Sauron's service would have been mentioned at some stage, which did not happen. Possibly, but only possibly, with the Ring of power. But then again, Sauron had the ring for many centuries of the 2nd Age, and didn't manage to call dragons to his help.

O.

[WalkingTarget]

Just a quick post with some troop numbers.

This post has put a lot of thought into the question of army sizes by using descriptions from the text. The conservative estimates for Sauron's armies are 30,000-36,000 at Minas Tirith and 61,000-65,000 at the Black Gate (which agrees with Ossian's estimate).

[WhiteKnight777]

Stuff.

...

Ya know what, I'm not even going to touch this one.

500, or even 300.000 is enough to conquer a nation the size of Italy, not just Minas Tirith. It's Xerses descending upon Greece. The whole "subcontinent fraction" drafted did not contain as many people probably.

It's probably worth pointing out here that Xerxes' army was about 2,700,000 according to Herodotus (That's including cavalry and naval forces, I believe. And not counting what we would now call "support personnel.)

He's done it tons. "Lolz Fiendfyre". apparently from Invisibility (When did Sauron start doing /that/? I admit to not bothering with the last 2 books, but that'd certainly be new). Because Sauron has no casters or anything that can possibly be done to stop magical sentient fire. Food for Fiendfyre Thought:
Casting it and not decimating his OWN troops requires the mages to be on the front lines.

You (Ditto) never addressed that Voldemort has no concept of how to wage war on an Army scale, because he /hasn't/. Any battle in the HP-verse has been a limitted skirmish, especially by LotR numbers. There's no evidence to my knowledge that he has /any/ understanding of tactics (Obviously he knows Strategy, but does he know how to direct his forces at all?).

Do we know if Voldemort's forces wouldn't have their morale break at seeing such an enormous force? I imagine that some are only there because they think they can win, with Voldemort. Will they still think so when there's 5 times, or more, their force sitting there?

Good points. Also, let us note that Sauron's got thousands upon thousands of years of experience in warfare, deception, sabotage, etc. And plenty of his own methods of indirect attack... besides the aformentioned sabotage, assassination, and treachery, he's obviously quite potent at weather manipulation. There's no reason for him to ever engage Voldemort in direct conflict. The Nazgul can butcher his followers in their sleep, his orcs and other forces can harry them and wear them down... and let's face it, Sauron probably has enough troops that he can just keep throwing meat at Voldemort until his followers are exhausted and they can't even raise their wands anymore.

[EvilElitest]

He's done it tons. "Lolz Fiendfyre". apparently from Invisibility (When did Sauron start doing /that/? I admit to not bothering with the last 2 books, but that'd certainly be new).

Sorry, not a fool proof tatic, i'm still in the talking numbers stage. His tatic relys to much on luke

Because Sauron has no casters or anything that can possibly be done to stop magical sentient fire. Food for Fiendfyre Thought:
Casting it and not decimating his OWN troops requires the mages to be on the front lines.

1. Good point with the mages
2. Sauron does have casters, other than the witch king, he has the Black Nudimorons, who are discribed as powerful casters, such as the Mouth of Sauron. And don't forget Saurman. And i don't know if there are any orc casters/shamans, don't think so but...
Oh he also has the phantoms of the dead marshes on his side,

You (Ditto) never addressed that Voldemort has no concept of how to wage war on an Army scale, because he /hasn't/. Any battle in the HP-verse has been a limitted skirmish, especially by LotR numbers. There's no evidence to my knowledge that he has /any/ understanding of tactics (Obviously he knows Strategy, but does he know how to direct his forces at all?).

Come to think of it, Voldemort's greatest skill is commanding a limited number of troops very well and using fear in a wonderfully effective manner, not moral and troop command. Snape and Lucus seems well suited for it though, but belitirix and wormtail seems to insane/pathetic.

Do we know if Voldemort's forces wouldn't have their morale break at seeing such an enormous force? I imagine that some are only there because they think they can win, with Voldemort. Will they still think so when there's 5 times, or more, their force sitting there?

The dementors, giants, and lesser dark creatures/animated corpses/controlled wizards won't, plus his most loyal death eaters, but we already known that he lacks loyal followers. (true, most of his most loyal ones were killed pior to his return to power.

Too bad I don't have my English copy here. Anyway, the army from gondor was around 7000. 6000 infantry and 1000 cavalry (chapter IX and X (the black gate opens)).

This is however, only a fraction of the good guy forces, Gandalf admits that they must ahve a number of soilders to threaten (distract by dieing heroiclly) the black gate, while having Minis Tirith held by more men than before. So the combined army of good might be a full 50,000 tops (but that is counting pretty much everybody is the southern half of middle earth

They find it ridiculous that the whole army they can marshal is merely a vanguard compared to what Gondor used to have in the good old days. They lose some on the way to mordor (afraid of battle, some men leave the army and move instead to retake Cair Andros).

They start with 7,000 and have 6500 by the end plus the main characters.

Again in the Black Gate opens, the 6000-6500 left have to face forces "10 times greater, perhaps more". That makes 60-80000 maximum, including orcs, esterlings, variags and so on.

And that wasn't morder's full force, he had more at the Dark Tower, Cithil Ungal, Harad, Umber, the East, Rhun, his mountains ect.

500, or even 300.000 is enough to conquer a nation the size of Italy, not just Minas Tirith. It's Xerses descending upon Greece. The whole "subcontinent fraction" drafted did not contain as many people probably.

And Xerses was using human numbers, Sauron can use much more.

Actual figures are somewhere else , when they argue that the battle of Pelennor was just a "little test" made by the Dark Lord. I'll try to find them. The men of Rhun are the esterlings, and not a different population, and some races were invented altogether for the Middle Earth Roleplay System, so they couldn't possibly be there.

1. yes Pellenor was just a test with the Van guard
2. Rhun is a kindom in the east, there are many other easterling tribes, teh men of Rhun are short with curved blades while the "easterlings" are short dwarf like with axes. And the wain riders/balcloth and mentioned to serve sauron, though not in those battles.
3. What roleplaying game? What new races? I'm confused.

Ah , I believe otherwise. No mention of dragons save Smaug is made in the late third age, and if any of them still lives, they certainly do not serve Sauron. Dragons, as powerful and as selfish as they were, felt they were at last free to do according to their will after Morgoth's fall, and the gap in power between the 2, despite Sauron's great strength, is the same between Bruce Lee and Goku Super Sayan IV...

Re-read the hobbit, they do mention other Dragons, they live in the Withered Hearth (don't forget Scatha the worm). Smaug at least was serving Sauron indirectly, and a few dragons agreed to attack the dwarfs, out of love of obtaining cold if nothing else.
Morgoth had more in raw power, but Sauron was more cunning by the end of the war, because morgoth went mad

Smaug was a threat, that luckily Gandalf had the foresighjt to deal with 80 years in advance, or at the Battle of Dale, Dain wouldn't have stopped the second host that was launched by the forces of evil, and upon returning to Minas Tirith, they might have al found a lot of smoking ruins. Besides, a living dragon in Sauron's service would have been mentioned at some stage, which did not happen. Possibly, but only possibly, with the Ring of power. But then again, Sauron had the ring for many centuries of the 2nd Age, and didn't manage to call dragons to his help.

Dragons seems to be self serving mercenaries, though they did wreck the dwarf kindoms to Sauron's benifit, though i don't recall if they did this on their own, but i know that necromancer helped a tad bit. SO they might serve him out of greed.
True if the play Battle for middle earth two, then yes there is a dragon, but we aren't counting that are we?
Just a quick post with some troop numbers.

This post has put a lot of thought into the question of army sizes by using descriptions from the text. The conservative estimates for Sauron's armies are 30,000-36,000 at Minas Tirith and 61,000-65,000 at the Black Gate (which agrees with Ossian's estimate).

According to the movie, it is 300,000 orcs at pelenor fields, and 500,000 for Black Gate




from,
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[WhiteKnight777]

Morgoth had more in raw power, but Sauron was more cunning by the end of the war, because morgoth went mad

Let's see... I'm going to be evil and paraphrase from memory here... but I believe it was the Silmarillion that noted that Sauron was "Only less powerful than Morgoth because he served another." Tolkien's language is, of course, likely more flowery than what I'm using here. It's also worth noting that Morgoth's power diminished because he spent it controlling so many minions. That's also where a lot of Sauron's power goes during Lord of the Rings, and it's why, after the fall of Barad-Dur, his orcs and trolls scatter. The more evil creatures of middle earth require and expenditure of will on the part of their owner to keep them in fighting spirit, or at least that's what Tolkien implies.

And Xerses was using human numbers, Sauron can use much more.

Read my earlier comment.

i know that necromancer helped a tad bit. SO they might serve him out of greed.

You're aware the Sauron is/was the Necromancer, right?