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Shrinking something down to 77 Silm length, things like mechanical dragons had to go, whether he still conceived of them existing or not.
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I disagree. In the Quenta Noldorinwa Tolkien wrote:
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. . . and of these, dragons of many and dire shapes were new devised for the taking of the city.
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Would it really have been that much harder for him to mention metallic monsters? He could have done it in one sentence or less. In FoG it takes only one sentence:
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From the greatness of his wealth of metals and his powers of fire he bid him make beasts like snakes and dragons of irrestible might that should overcreep the Encircling Hills and lap that plain and its fair city in flame and death.
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He could have written the
Q30 like this:
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Morgoth was ready, and he loosed upon Gondolin his Orcs and his Balrogs and his serpents, of which dragons of iron and flame and of many and dire shapes were new devised for the taking of the city.
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But of course there's nothing like that. I think that mechanical dragons are a big enough detail that he would have mentioned them, even in the compressed
Q30 account.