Why cut the whole hand?

[Manwe]

I've been thinking quite a lot about when Maedrohs was hanging in the tower wathever-it-name-was and Fingon came and rescued him by cutting his hand of. Isn't it enough to cut the thumb? I think that Maedrohs would be able to pull out his hnd then.

(Title spelling edited by moderator)

[ June 19, 2003: Message edited by: Estelyn Telcontar ]

[Inziladun]

Maedhros was bound by his wrist, tightly enough that his full weight was not sufficient to pull his hand through. Cutting off the thumb couldn't have made much difference.
Also, being that Fingon was sitting on a hovering eagle at the time, it would probably have been difficult to only hit the thumb without taking several fingers.

[ January 08, 2002: Message edited by: Inziladun ]

[Telchar]

Actually Thorondor only carried Fingon up to Maedhros - after that Fingon now climped on Maedhros, hanging from his sholders, still Maedhros arm held the presure. Then he (Fingon) pulled out his Swiss knife, extracted the little saw, and slowly sawed Maedhros hand off below the wrist - who by now - belivet it or not - was in very great pain. However, when Fingon had finished his task, both he and Maedhros suddenly experienced the delightful feeling of 'Free Fall' - This is where Thorondor, having greater wits than those mighty elflords, desided to take action - again! and carried them away to Hithlum.

Sorry for the irony! smilies/biggrin.gif

[Dréw]

Nice summary smilies/smile.gif

[Elrian]

Very nice indeed. So that's where swiss knives came from! smilies/wink.gif

[Manwe]

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Ok, this is a hand, now if you cut the thumb it will look like this:

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As you see if the thumb is cut of, you can probably pull out the hand.

[Inziladun]

I tried this with handcuffs. If this is your hand:

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Then cutting off the thumb would only give you:


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You'd still have that ridge of bone in the way, unless you just ripped out the base of the thumb too like tearing off a drumstick.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

What a delightfully gory discussion.
Actually, even cutting off the thumb as far as the wrist probably wouldn't make a hand fit through a sufficiently tight restraint: The hand's wider than the wrist on both sides, so as to accommodate all four fingers.

Mind you, I think Fingon was a little restricted by not having a set of surgical instruments to hand, so to speak. Bit difficult to do the fiddly stuff without a scalpel.

Perhaps somebody can remind me whether or not something was done to the cliff to stop it being eroded or chipped. Otherwise it's a job for a mason, not a surgeon. ;)

[Mister Underhill]

But Fingon could not release the hell-wrought bond upon his wrist, nor sever it, nor draw it from the stone. I guess we may reckon that Morgoth put a little mojo on the “band of steel” around Maedhros’s wrist for added insurance against escape. Don’t forget that there was probably quite a bit of swelling around that wrist from weeks (months?) of hanging around. Also note that Fingon apparently first sought to gain entry to Angband, assuming Maedhros would be inside, and thus neglected to bring his surgical kit as the Squatter has already mentioned.

[Elendur]

You are all forgetting that he had some trusty arrowheads with him. Precise enough and sharp enough to make fine cuts. And also, his sword was no turkey slicer. It could cut through bone in a jiffy.

But, as was said before, the hand trying to be cut off precisely was probably swollen. That just complicates things. And Melkors spell probably would stop his hand from being dragged through anyhow.

[Lindolirian]

i think that he merely cut it off with his sword being elf-wrought and all those swords were real spiffy and sharp so he wouldn't need a saw or arrow heads and it may have even been a dagger. By the way inzildun.... i hope you didn't really cut your thumb off for the hand cuff demonstration... smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Inziladun]

No, didn't quite get to that point. Just got the cuffs and put one on.
And in case anyone was curious, I do have a legitimate reason for having them. Just a tool of the trade. smilies/wink.gif

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Remember that Fingon was in a hurry, and in no position to debate whether to cut up the thumb, or a finger, or rip out the base of the thumb; he was unlawfully inside the most heavily fortified fortress in Middle-Earth. A hand without a thumb isn't much use anyway.

[Manwe]

You have a point there but I think if you just cut the thumb you could probably construct some kind of hook and place it where the thumb uesd to be and you can grip just fine. And to all of you that says that you can't pull out the hand after a neat thumb-cut, have you seen the X-files episode with the cancer-eating man? Ok, I'm not saying that X-files is realistic but there he get caught and they set cuffs on him. Then he tored of his thumb (ouch!) and escaped easy as pie. Of course then FBI don't have any nasty spells on their cuffs, but what ever. And by the way you got about 0.5 cm soft stuff on each side of the hand before you hit the bone. Ok, I admit it'll hurt a bit to tear it of out of a cuff, but he can keep his hand and probably heal just fine.

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: Manwe ]

[Mister Underhill]

I always pictured the band of steel to be a thick manacle that extended down the forearm as opposed to a slender policeman's handcuff. That is, I think it would be difficult to shove the thing down on the forearm in order to perform extended surgery on the thumb. Other considerations aside, I think a quick, clean whack to the wrist/upper forearm would be less painful than trying to carve the thumb out of its socket.

Inzila, I'm curious as to whether or not you're still holding to your vow to abstain from the movie. How's that going?

[Inziladun]

As of now I still haven't seen it, despite pressure from friends. I've been cheating somewhat and looking at the reaction threads though. I'll admit I'm somewhat curious, but still not really enthused.

[Elrian]

By just chopping the thumb off wouldn't work. It would have to have been cut down from between the thumb and forefinger all the way down to the wrist, then the manacle would have been in thew way of finishing it off.

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

Just studying my own wrist here, it actually becomes thinner after the hand, and then gets thicker again as you reach the forearm.
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||| Start of wrist
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If the manacle was tightly around 'Continuation of wrist (exagerated)' then cuting off the thumb might not make any difference.

Also, Maedhros was starved and bony by that stage, so there wouldn't have been all that much soft tissue in his hand and wrist, although the same amount of bone. So we can change 'Continuation of wrist (exagerated)' to just 'Continuation of wrist', in this case, because the soft tissue filling out 'continuation of wrist (exagerated)' largely wouldn't be there.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Aside from the other considerations, I think that Tolkien's sense of style played a part here. It's more mythic, heroic and impressive (ie simpler) just to cut off the entire hand with one sword-stroke than to take an arrowhead and start slicing pieces from the hand; besides causing poor Maedhros a great deal more pain, as Mister Underhill has pointed out.

[Gwaihir the Windlord]

I'd be willing to endure some pain in order to save some of the use of my hand.

[Yaish]

Dont forget that Meadhros was begging for death, not once but twice. Fingon was probably just a lot more worried about getting his friend out of there alive than if he would have a whole hand or not. Anyway he went on to be a more accomplished swordsman with the left anyway, so I guess it turned out 'all right'

[Manwe]

But you must addmit that it would be better if he was verry good with his left hand and good with his right rather than just have a left.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

But you must admit that it would be better if he was very good with his left hand and good with his right rather than just have a left.

True. It would also have been nice for Maedhros if he hadn't been put on that cliff in the first place, but Dark Lords will be Dark Lords. Losing a hand is still better than the fate he'd chosen for himself, which is probably how Morgoth would have preferred him to escape.

BTW I think that Maedhros got off lightly: Imagine if he'd been held up by a band round his thigh; or his neck; or some far more personal part of his anatomy. That really would be nasty.

[zifnab]

Well this doesnt answer any questions, but I came across this picure today and thought you might like a look.


URL=http://demon.unh.edu/images/tolkien/tn_silm/tn_silm_07.jpg]Maedhros's Rescue from Thangorodrim.[/URL]

[zifnab]

Maedhros's Rescue from Thangorodrim (http://demon.unh.edu/images/tolkien/tn_silm/tn_silm_07.jpg)

[Manwe]

If it was as in that picture it was a broad band. I've marked it with x in this picture and as you see cut the thumb and you're free.

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|||x Start of wrist
|| x Continuation of wrist(exagerated)
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||||x Start of Forearm

[Mhoram]

The things we analyze here...

[Gorin Icearms]

Ouch, a painful thread we have here. I was wondering why he didn't just cut the chain or whatever was attached to the manacles. In the Hobbit, Gandalf cuts the chains with little or no effort. Surely a great Elf such as Fingon could do that?

[Mhoram]

Read the Silmarilion, he couldn't.

[Airetalathwen]

It's very heroic to have your hand cut off, when you think about it. smilies/wink.gif I mean, he's are so caught up in the drama of this rescue that it never occured to Fingon to try to salvage his friend's hand.

Besides, he would not have been able to weild a sword without his thumb anyway, and would still have to use his left hand.

~Airetalathwen

[Manwe]

Oh, the old thumb-cutting thing again. Well, to the last reply, and I'm quite sure that I explained that, you could probably have a fixed metall-claw on the hand instead of thumb. Then I think you would be able to hold a sword just fine. I don't think you have to move your thumb so much when you're fighting with a sword.

[Amarinth]

yyrrggghhh! you guys are fantastically gross...this thread is totally for the hannibal lecter website! smilies/eek.gif NOW i'm thinking if hannibal were there, he could've just chomped off...yyrrgggghhh! this thread can ruin you!

btw, since someone mentioned arm-cutting being the more theatrical resolution to maedhros' hang-up, i was kind of reminded about another thread here about the originality of tolkien's works...perhaps he was trying to do a captain hook with maedhros?

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every man's life is a path to the truth -- hesse

[Airetalathwen]

Come on, being able to weild a sword with a little thumb hook?? Swords are heavy. And to weild them with skill you need your whole hand for minute balance changes and maximum grip, etc. I mean, he would be able to pick it up and stuff, but to weild it like the pros, I think he still would have to learn how to use his left hand.

Haha, Captain Maedhros!

~Airetalathwen

[Manwe]

Ok, I might have been a bit naive, he could probably not use his hand to fight with swords, but it's at least better to have a thumb-less hand rather than no hand.

[Ahanarion]

His hand might have been so tightly bound that it was deprived of oxygen so long it was dead. Who wants a dead hand with no thumb.

[Melephelwen]

I like your point Ahanarion!! smilies/biggrin.gif
And to the whole thread: why discuss it so deeply? Maedhros' hand was cut of, and we can't do anything about it... smilies/tongue.gif

[Dimaldaeon]

This could all depend on the type of manacle he was hanging from.If it was very thick and tight then cutting off the tumb wouldn't have done much good. If the manacle wasn't exceptionally tight then he could have done what Finn McCumhail did, swell his wrist. It's not very difficult and once he was hanging there he could let his wrist go back to normal and leg it. Of course some manacles had spikes digging into the prisioners wrist, in Morgoth's infinite cruelty I think he would have used this and in this case cutting off the hand and some of the forearm would have been necessary.

[Mister Underhill]

And to the whole thread: why discuss it so deeply? To which I reply: why not? This sort of thread is what the Downs are all about!

Now I wonder, when Azog beheaded Thrór, do you suppose his beard was also severed? I suppose it would depend (at least in part) on whether the stroke fell from the front or the back...

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: Mister Underhill ]

[The Silver-shod Muse]

lol Mister Underhill smilies/biggrin.gif!

Did anyone see that episode of the Simpsons where the fans are asking the lady that does the voice of Itchy and Scratchy those ridiculous questions and Fan #1 asks, "In episode #*** Itchy dismembers Scratchy and plays two different notes on the same rib-bone. Now, you don't expect us to believe that it was some sort of magic xylophone, do you?" And all the other obsessed fans laugh. It immediately recalled to me the obscenely complex and irrelevant queries so often posted by my fellow Wights here on the Downs.

Sorry if that was off-topic, but after reading the tenth or so explanation of how Maedhros' hand couldn've been severed to save the most hand, I couldn't help but chuckle.

Lovely diagrams, by the way. smilies/wink.gif

[Kuruharan]

I don't think that Thror's beard would have been severed unless there was something solid underneath it to prevent it from just getting pushed out of the way by the sword-stroke. Perhaps his head was cut off on a block with his beard moved out of the way. Although I imagine that it would be a big insult to a Dwarf to have his beard cut so Azog may have done that with the intent to insult.

Obsessive?! Who's obsessive!?! smilies/wink.gif smilies/biggrin.gif

Edit from a couple hours later: Duh! Stupid me was thinking of Nain when I first posted. Must learn to pay closer attention.
smilies/redface.gif

[ July 25, 2002: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]

[the guy who be short]

Now, Ive been studying my own hand. As countless people have said (well, i cant be bothered to count them) cutting off the thumb would not help. But if you cut off the thumb and forefinger too, you could slip your hand out.
But I doubt that Fingon had the time to think about all this stuff. It would have been way easier to just slice off the arm, as somebody else said. They were short on time, also as somebody else said. And, of course, it makes the story much more dramatic.

Hmmm... these old threads are really interesting.
And yes, we do discuss the most pointless things.

[Finwe]

Hold on a second! We're all acting as if Fingon had time to weigh the pros and cons of cutting off the entire hand or parts of the hand. Besides, I think Maedhros was in too much pain to care whether his hand was salvaged or not. All Fingon wanted to do was get his cousin out of there in one piece (mostly), and I think that sacrificing a hand is ok for that cause.

[Ardolon]

On the beard question.... Now, when the fatal stroke fell, Thror's head was pushed back, and to the left. Remember, that's back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Thus proving the fatal stroke must have come from in front of him, and to his right. In the direction of the greasy troll, not the Moria School Book Depository. And yes, it would have severed his beard. Wait....What assasination was I talking about? ....Yes, I know, I'm crazy.