Is THIS how you imagined the vampires?

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by davem

Sorry. When you said

I thought you meant We can't expect Morgoth's minions to fly about. Obviously We can't expect Morgoth's minions to fly about is your way of saying "We can't expect Morgoth's minions to include "the walking dead Nosferatu variety vampire"....

No, what I meant was Morgoth's minions couldn't bloody well go flying about looking like great pink canaries; they would necessarily have to go flying about in the form of a bat or some other loathsome apparition, in keeping with Tolkien's code of evil equaling dark/black/sinister.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

And I still incline towards the Vampire being able to take bat and humanoid form as why else would Thuringwethil's name mean 'woman of shadow'?

*shrugs* Again the enigmatic Professor Tolkien strikes. Sauron could take the form of a bat or a wolf, but I dont' think that suggests he was either a vampire or a wolf. I believe this is one of those thousands of instances in Middle-earth labeled 'open to conjecture'.

P.S. On further examination, one finds the trolls who fought Aragorn's forces at the Morannon bit the necks of their adversaries. This is perhaps more of a predatory means of killing as seen in other real world species (felines, for instance).