Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerwen
I can't recall any indication they were anything like as high as Everest, and they weren't natural mountains, so maybe they wouldn't be all that stable.
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Actually, it is reputedly said in the History of Middle-Earth pt. IV, i.e. the Shaping of Middle-Earth (page 110, my Atlas of Middle-Earth says) that Thangorodrim (if they are indeed what is meant by the "towers", but I think they are, since they are referred to like that several times, I believe) were the highest peaks in Middle-Earth (even though above the gate the wall reached only 1000 ft, the mountains themselves were obviously a lot bigger). I would not have expected less from Morgoth anyway. But that's just a remark... anyway I think in the account of the battle we are indeed talking about a battle of epic dimensions, so the fall of Ancalagon is definitely emphasised in the account, but at the same time, I think it might be even real - I mean, not a hyperbole, but Balrogs and Sauron and Morgoth and whoever had all this syndrome of looking bigger than they seemed, and their might sort of overreached their envelope, so to say, and I am imagining Ancalagon's fall doing much more harm than it would be possible just physically... sort of, there being in any case something more than just the whatever 70 tons of meat...