# Top several strongest characters of ME-good guys



## Hisoka Morrow (Aug 17, 2020)

Logic settings: Valar>strongest dragon>normal dragons=strongest balrogs or majar(EX:Sauron+One Ring)>normal balrogs>dozens of Trolls. Nazgul's and Shelob combat records are too few, so they're excluded from the elements to be taken into account.

*No.1 Fingolfin*
Handicapping a Valar and making all balrogs as well as dragons flee like Fingolfin's grandsons are the best proof.

*No.2 Isuildur=Turin=Bard=Erandil=Feanor=Fingon=Glorfindel=Ecthelion*
1.
Isuildur screwed a Majar armed with super weapon bonus, and obviously without any tactical partner support, otherwise he needed not to use the Narsil's shards instead of retaking any intact stuff. Of course it's another matter if someone else were providing cover firepower support from distance.
2.
Turin and Bard both killed a Dragon in a single duel. And strictly speaking Bard had no tactical partner.
3.
Earandil killed the strongest Dragon with super weapon bonus
4.
Feanor and Fingon could take on the strongest Balrogs without tactical partner.
5.
Glorfindel killed a normal Balrog while there're refugees crippling him. Ecthelion killed bunches of Balrogs, including the strongest one, yet probably with multiple tactical support for the whole Gondolin was in a fully messy smash.

*No.9 Hurin=Fram*

1.
Hurin annihilated a full company of Trolls "only" in a stage of a battle.
2.
Fram killed a Dragon yet it's not sure how he did it.

All constructive comment are welcome to leave, and the controversial list will be posted later. ^^


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## Elthir (Aug 18, 2020)

Off topic alert: but as far as Balrog slayings, should we be using the very early _Fall of Gondolin _as a source here? The question of Balrog numbers momentarily aside, at one point, the Elf Rog and his folk _slaughtered_ Balrogs for instance, and after the story ends, this happens:

*"The early conception of Balrogs makes them less terrible, and certainly more destructible, than they afterwards became: they existed in "hundreds" (p. 170), and were slain by Tuor and the Gondothlim in large numbers: "thus five fell before Tuor's great axe Dramborleg, three before Ecthelion's sword, and two score were slain by the warriors of the king's house." *The Book of Lost Tales II, commentary by Christopher Tolkien, The Fall of Gondolin


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## Ealdwyn (Aug 18, 2020)

Hmmm. I find it difficult to describe the elves and men of the 1st age as 'good guys'. There's certainly no black and white in the 1st age.
Well, maybe there's black and many shades of grey, but certainly no white 😂

Speaking of bad-ass, all the guys mentioned above needed weapons to better their enemies. but Luthien incapacitated Sauron with a song and a dark cloak. That, my friends, is bad ass.


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## Hisoka Morrow (Aug 18, 2020)

Elthir said:


> *"The early conception of Balrogs makes them less terrible, and certainly more destructible, than they afterwards became: they existed in "hundreds" (p. 170), and were slain by Tuor and the Gondothlim in large numbers: "thus five fell before Tuor's great axe Dramborleg, three before Ecthelion's sword, and two score were slain by the warriors of the king's house." *The Book of Lost Tales II, commentary by Christopher Tolkien, The Fall of Gondolin


=O='''...OK...so...Balrogs got their 2.0 version...NVM...😅😅😅. Well...ehh...you know, this was from JRRT's son instead of himself...in addition, maybe the Gondolin's garrisons's got combined arms tactical support such as suppress firepower(serious).



Ealdwyn said:


> Hmmm. I find it difficult to describe the elves and men of the 1st age as 'good guys'. There's certainly no black and white in the 1st age.
> Well, maybe there's black and many shades of grey, but certainly no white 😂
> 
> Speaking of bad-ass, all the guys mentioned above needed weapons to better their enemies. but Luthien incapacitated Sauron with a song and a dark cloak. That, my friends, is bad ass.


A half-majar?She's a Cheater instead of bad-ass , XDDD. She used stuff like poisonous gas like Black Breathe XDDD.
Nah, after all, she only faint Sauron and still couldn't kill Sauron, right?😅😅😅


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## Elthir (Aug 18, 2020)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> Well...ehh...you know, this was from JRRT's son instead of himself...




True, but we also have a Tolkienian (marginal) note concerning Balrogs: "*There should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed." *And if Tuor killed 5, plus Ecthelion's count, plus two score (for example) . . . 

*On the other hand *

As I've posted elsewhere, despite this marginal note we don't see Tolkien revising all examples of numerous Balrogs (along with this note, he revised one instance in _The Annals of Aman_, essentially taking out the word "host" when referring to a host of Balrogs). 

But that question aside for now, at the time of Tolkien's updated _Fall of Gondolin_ (unfinished long prose version, *early* 1950s), JRRT still imagined Balrogs existing in great numbers (the marginal note, and the revision to AAM I described above, date to the *later* 1950s at least) . . .

. . . so, one does wonder (I do anyway) what the updated battle would have looked like
as far as Balrogs are concerned, _at least in this early 50s phase of writing_.


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## Hisoka Morrow (Aug 19, 2020)

Elthir said:


> True, but we also have a Tolkienian (marginal) note concerning Balrogs: "*There should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed." *And if Tuor killed 5, plus Ecthelion's count, plus two score (for example) . . .
> 
> *On the other hand *
> 
> ...


Hmm.............=''=...........so should Balrogs get excluded from the standards to measure these characters, just like Nazguls? Or should I divide these Balrogs into different standards according to the Age they exist?What do you think?🧐🧐🧐🧐🧐


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## Elthir (Aug 19, 2020)

Well, I guess it's up to you 

It's just that, given the nature of the evolving ideas here, the Balrog matter comes with arguable grey areas. I'm not sure . . . *without checking* . . . if it's even possible to tell if the marginal note 
[3 or 7 Balrogs *ever existing*, which should arguably include the war on Utumno] post-dates Tolkien's revisions to passages in which he did not revise large numbers of Balrogs.

And it's entirely possible that Tolkien never intended to mention an exact number of Balrogs _in the stories themselves_. In the revision to AAM for example, he basically eliminates "host" of Balrogs, but of course doesn't say how many Balrogs were actually there.

It makes me (also) wonder how an updated _Fall of Gondolin_ would have read, battle wise, if Tolkien had decided on 7 Balrogs ever existing (or 3!), considering that he must leave one for Moria!

In other words, I don't know


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## Hisoka Morrow (Aug 20, 2020)

Now here's the controversial list about why they can't enter it.
1. Eowyn and Boromir I
As I mentioned in advance, Nazguls can't be considered as a standards for their combat records are too few.
2. Earnur
He only has the record of bullet against cheap cannon folders.
3. Azaghâl?
He obviously only handicap a normal Dragon with both side got tactical support. Maybe he should be as tough as Fram. What do you guys think?
4. Maedhros and bunches of Noldor high command
Not sure they did fight off the Dragons or Balrogs in the 1st stage of Dagor Bragollach


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## Elthir (Aug 21, 2020)

I imagine that Glaurung feared Maedros personally and slithered _around_ Himring on purpose. 
And that the only three Balrogs that ever existed were busy elsewhere at this point.

Wow. If anything I've been a hindrance to this thread. But I am bouncing it back up the rungs of the "latest posts" ladder. So there's that.


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## Hisoka Morrow (Aug 24, 2020)

Elthir said:


> I imagine that Glaurung feared Maedros personally and slithered _around_ Himring on purpose.


Hmmm...you're right, as Morgoth's deployed Glaurung at Himring's front, it's possible Maedros has faced this big reptile in combat or not.



Elthir said:


> And that the only three Balrogs that ever existed were busy elsewhere at this point.


Oh, yes, it's not sure Morgoth sent these Balrogs to manage diversionary attack on Fingolfin's front.



Elthir said:


> Wow. If anything I've been a hindrance to this thread. But I am bouncing it back up the rungs of the "latest posts" ladder. So there's that.


It's OK, you just turn me on to write someone into my fanfic and destroy him😈😈😈XDDD


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## Elthir (Aug 24, 2020)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> Hmmm...you're right, as Morgoth's deployed Glaurung at Himring's front, it's possible Maedros has faced this big reptile in combat or not.




For myself, I don't imagine Maedros actually faced Glaurung here . . . at least not in a "Túrin sense" that is. But that's just my opinion of a relatively brief description of an event in which Glaurung was "near" Himring at this time.

Anyway, we are now spelling _Maedros_ the same, so there's that too


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## Hisoka Morrow (Aug 25, 2020)

Elthir said:


> Anyway, we are now spelling _Maedros_ the same, so there's that too


Oh...in fact, I just simply copy and phase your spelling XD


Elthir said:


> For myself, I don't imagine Maedros actually faced Glaurung here . . . at least not in a "Túrin sense" that is. But that's just my opinion of a relatively brief description of an event in which Glaurung was "near" Himring at this time.


Maybe they fought each other with combined arms-smash, after all,.. if Glaurung was "near" Himring...I'm not sure it's in his "firepower" range XDDDD
Maybe Maedros block the fire and operate arty crew to fire back XDDD, yeah, maybe it can be considered as a..."duel"XDD


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## earthfriend (May 24, 2021)

No Bombadil? Or what about Durin 1?


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## 1stvermont (May 24, 2021)

No specific order and off the top of my head

Feanor
Gandalf
Treebeard
Galadriel
Tom Bombadil
Fingolfin
Luthien
Beren
Melian
Aragorn
Glorfindel


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## Hisoka Morrow (May 24, 2021)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> ...Now here's the controversial list about why they can't enter it.
> 1. Eowyn and Boromir I
> As I mentioned in advance, Nazguls can't be considered as a standards for their combat records are too few.
> 2. Earnur
> ...


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## m4r35n357 (May 25, 2021)

Elthir said:


> It's just that, given the nature of the evolving ideas here, the Balrog matter comes with arguable grey areas. I'm not sure . . . *without checking* . . . if it's even possible to tell if the marginal note
> [3 or 7 Balrogs *ever existing*, which should arguably include the war on Utumno] post-dates Tolkien's revisions to passages in which he did not revise large numbers of Balrogs.
> 
> . . .
> ...


Also consider that the _War of Wrath_ lasted 50 years. Considering the orcs "perished like straw in a great fire" and "were swept like shrivelled leaves before a burning wind", "The balrogs were destroyed" implies that 3 or 4 balrogs plus a colossal number of mere cannon-fodder held up the Host of the West for 50 years?

I think some of the later bits of information like the lower number of balrogs need to be assessed in terms of how destructive they are to the legendarium as a whole, and we should not necessarily take the "latest private notes" from Tolkien too literally (since he never published them).


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## Elthir (May 25, 2021)

m4r35n357 said:


> I think some of the later bits of information like the lower number of balrogs need to be assessed in terms of how destructive they are to the legendarium as a whole, and we should not necessarily take the "latest private notes" from Tolkien too literally (since he never published them).



Yes we can never know what Tolkien would have published, but on the other paw, Tolkien never published any Silmarillion, which means Balrog references (and lots of other stuff) could be revised without undermining the internal sub-creation.

The Balrog reference you quoted from the constructed Silmarillion hails from the later 1930s _Quenta Silmarillion_, the end of which JRRT never truly updated despite some later cursory corrections (this is Christopher Tolkien's characterization).

In my opinion, and *if* one were to adopt the idea into one's personal Silmarillion that is, low Balrog numbers would not be that destructive to _Quenta Silmarillion_, nor, for another example, the late idea of Amros (Feanor's son) dying in the fires of Losgar.

And not that you said otherwise, but it's not a given that the reader would ultimately know the exact number. Tolkien's note is marginal, while the revision to the text lifts out an obvious reference to many Balrogs.

Christopher Tolkien followed this path for the constructed Silmarillion, though as we see, he left the reference to the War of Wrath basically as it stood, possibly because the reference is still vague as to numbers "ever existing" in-story.

🐾


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## m4r35n357 (May 25, 2021)

I have a personal bias in this, so here goes  I have reconstructed a pre-LotR "Silmarillion" from HoME books 4 & 5 and it is by far the most "complete" collection (and in my view has a more "authentic" feel, being made up of separately attributed texts) that it is possible to get. Of course it is just a "snapshot" of the legendarium, but in my head I am happy for it to sit (as AElfwine's "translation") next to Bilbo's "Red Book" version. This just adds to the atmosphere (for me!).

"Canon" and complete (for the time):

The Later Annals of Valinor
The Later Annals of Beleriand
Ainulindale
Ambarkanta
Lhammas

Not strictly "canon" for the time:

The reconstructed Quenta

I will probably post again on the basis of this  DO try this at home (no pun!) if you are interested!


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## Elthir (May 25, 2021)

Interesting m4r35n357!

But no Galadriel!?! 

*Gott im Himmel!

 *


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## m4r35n357 (May 25, 2021)

Elthir of course. Here I have to wave my hands and vaguely appeal to possible Elvish error, intrigue and even dishonesty (or a gross error by AElfwine), some of them were kinslayers after all  Galadriel was added to the Annals of Aman shortly after publication of LotR, as you clearly know (but even here, she quietly went AWOL quite early in the story!). If you restrict attention to the five "canon" sources I mentioned, you could even say she did nothing in the First Age to warrant inclusion in the Annals . . . ?

So no the "early" version is not perfect, but it is "complete" _as far as it goes_. That is the best I can do at the moment, and I still like it


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## Elthir (May 25, 2021)

I'll mentally add Galadriel.

So you're not using Qenta Noldorinwa as it stands? Or do I misread the QS part?


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## m4r35n357 (May 25, 2021)

The chapters on Beren & Luthien, Turin, Gondolin, Fall of Doriath and the start of Earendil are the only bits of Quenta taken from the QN (HoME 4). Everything else is QS (HoME 5). In fact the QN version of Gondolin is partially marked up in line with QS and the Later Annals of Beleriand, (ie changed to have Gondolin already existing before Unnumbered Tears)!


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## Elthir (May 25, 2021)

Ah. I see. But we have Galadriel in what I call QS1 (early 50s) . . . so maybe I still don't see?

Just wondering by the way. Not arguing about anything.

Wait. The QS1 part of your post is gone!


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## m4r35n357 (May 25, 2021)

You are right about Galadriel appearing in the early 50s; I mentioned the Annals of Aman which were about the same time as QS1. The point was that "my" Quenta (no Galadriel) is QS from HoME 5 filled in with bits of QN from HoME 4, _not_ QS1 or QS2 from HoME 10/11. Hope that is all cleared up now


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## Elthir (May 25, 2021)

Yep. Got it now!

Now add at least one sentence about Galadriel or I swear I'll finish all the chocolate cake in my fridge!


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## m4r35n357 (May 25, 2021)

Yeah I made a pigs ear of the explanation. I edited it, but decided another post would be a lot clearer.

Save the cake, I also have a "side version" that mentions her by name as the sister along with Finrod's (sic!) sons. That version also contains a "version" of the Fall of Numenor, and "Fingon sends his son Gilgalad to the havens" (one sentence from the Grey Annals).


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## Elthir (May 25, 2021)

You mean Gil-galad son of Arothir son of Angrod  

I'm eating this 🎂


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## m4r35n357 (May 26, 2021)

Since you did not claim him to be son of Felagund (with all the collateral damage that would cause), I will not begrudge you the cake


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## Elthir (May 26, 2021)

I assume you mean _Inglor_ Felagund  sorry I can't stop. I'm sugared-up on cake.

But we did bring up *Gil-galad* . . . maybe he can go on the list somewhere?


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## m4r35n357 (May 27, 2021)

Yes, Inglor the Faithful of course! I much prefer that name, one less Fin* to remember 

As to the topic, my votes go to Fingolfin, Luthien, Hurin and Turin.

[EDIT] Oh, and of course the Darwin Award goes to Feanor


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## Faramir of Gondor (Sep 7, 2021)

Of the Hobbits:
Bilbo
Merry
Pippin 
Sam
Frodo


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## Hisoka Morrow (Sep 14, 2021)

Meriadoc Brandybuck said:


> Of the Hobbits:
> Bilbo
> Merry
> Pippin
> ...


Oh, yes, I even forgot these horrible bad ass, some of them even could teach Shelob a lesson.


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