Dragon's Flame, Magical?

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Lommy

I can't remember the exact quote about destroying the ring in a Dwarven forge (at least not in English ), but however it is phrased, it always sounded to me like Dwarves could make ordinary gold melt, but not the One Ring.

True - here's the passage (I think) you are referring to:

But there is no smith's forge in this Shire that could change it at all. Not even the anvils and furnaces of the Dwarves could do that. It is said that dragon-fire could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any dragon, not even Ancalagon the Black, who could have harmed the One Ring, the Ruling Ring, for that was made by Sauron himself.

This made me think about the fell spirit-thingy... I can't think about the dragons as "just creatures, just like the fell beasts" like Groin said. The thought of dragons being maiar-sort of creatures is much more intriguing, but as little reasonable. Gandalf's "for that was made by Sauron himself" indicates to Sauron being much more powerful than the dragons, so if Sauron is a maia, and if dragons indeed are somewhere close, then, well, Saorun must be just an uncommonly powerful maia, and the dragons weak. The former is certainly true, the latter I'm not so sure of.

Originally Posted by Legate

The Rings were not made as something that should resist dragon fire (like that you'd make an anti-dragon shelter from a pile of Rings or create for yourself a Ring-mail), their resistance to fire is a "side power".

Good point Didn't think about it that way...

EDIT: Oh good, x-ed with Legate... Just how popular is this thread, anyway?

[Aganzir]

Just to clarify:

Originally Posted by Letter #144

Dragons. They had not stopped; since they were active in far later times, close to our own. Have I said anything to suggest the final ending of dragons? If so it should be altered. The only passage I can think of is Vol. I p. 70: 'there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough'. But that implies, I think, that there are still dragons, if not of full primeval stature.

Originally Posted by Might

What about a heat resistant alloy?

How can that prevent the dwarves from dying? They would still die of the heat. Ha, unless their blood had a very high boiling point! When it comes to dwarves, nothing is impossible.

But how did the dragons themselves stand the heat? I would imagine Glaurung had quite a sore throat after burning some trees... I'm rather sure even Melkor couldn't make them as heat-resistant bodies as they needed. Even though they were 'lesser spirits', is there any evidence against the idea that they had 'chosen' their form themselves (though forced by Melkor)?

Originally Posted by Greenie

Gandalf's "for that was made by Sauron himself" indicates to Sauron being much more powerful than the dragons, so if Sauron is a maia, and if dragons indeed are somewhere close, then, well, Saorun must be just an uncommonly powerful maia, and the dragons weak.

Could Gandalf destroy the One Ring? Could a balrog, for instance, have done that? On the other hand, Melkor could destroy the Trees and the Lamps.
Sauron would not have risen to the rank he had, had he not been an exceptionally powerful maia. He was definitely more powerful than the dragons, and thus I find it totally credible that no dragon could have destroyed a ring with Sauron's powers in it.

To me, that's a sufficient answer to why dragons couldn't have melted the One Ring, but I'm still rather baffled about dwarven armours.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Aganzir

On the other hand, Melkor could destroy the Trees and the Lamps.

Just to clarify: the Lamps were probably destroyed by the combinated effort of Melkor's fallen-Maia hosts, and with the Trees, he needed the help of Ungoliant.

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Agan

But how did the dragons themselves stand the heat? I would imagine Glaurung had quite a sore throat after burning some trees... I'm rather sure even Melkor couldn't make them as heat-resistant bodies as they needed.

Come on, it's fiction, not science If we start looking for too scientific explanations, all we'll result with is most likely a headache. For me, it is enough to think that if a dragon's body can produce flame then it must be able to stand the heat. It's like... umm... well, like the poison a snake secretes doesn't harm the snake itself, because it has an immunity to it.

Do I make sense?

[skip spence]

Reading Tolkien I had a compelling vision af how Glaurung, the first dragon, was 'made'.

I imagine that on some high cliff up on Thangorodrim Morgoth and his Balrogs had a great reptile bound with heavy iron chains. There, under the dark, starless sky, they would chant a long and powerful spell, summoning a fire spirit of the kind that was corrupted by Melkor in ages past. By his crafts, Morgoth would then command the spirit to possess the struggling creature. When it had successfully done so, the reptile, now Glaurung the father of dragons, could feed on noldorin thralls growing ever larger and more cunning.

As for the dragon's fire beeing magical, I think it depends on what you mean by magical. A fire-breathing great lizard with a mind far more powerful than a man's is certainly a 'magical' creature, I would say. The fire itself is merely very hot, I imagine. I also think that the dwarven armours could withstand dragons fire to a certain degree, and from some distance. If a dragon blasted a dwarf from point blank range he would no doubt fry like a marshmallow.

[The Might]

A Little Green, as long as there is a book out there called "The Science of Middle-earth" I wouldn't be so hasty to discard the whole scientific explanation part. So no, to me you're not making that much sense.
Tolkien was no the kind of person to write stuff without thinking it at least a little bit through and everything there has a certain explanation.

Now to the dragon idea, the basic theory in pretty much all newer dragon works is that the fire is only created in their mouths through the mixture of two separate chemical substances. And this makes quite a lot sense. Anything that can be pierced by a sword isn't probably capable of taking that much heat. Thus, a dragon himself wouldn't really need to take that heat himself.

Aganzir, indeed good criticism. I had not really taken that into account. As I am not really an expert in material qualities I can't really say what would work, but if workers in foundaries have something like that it could be an idea.
Although I don't understand what you mean by "lesser spirits", in CoH they are "great spirits" implying Ainur.

And I also see no reason why they should not have been. After all Sauron was one of the most powerful Maiar and one of the best smiths. Their weakness is relative.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by The Might

A Little Green, as long as there is a book out there called "The Science of Middle-earth" I wouldn't be so hasty to discard the whole scientific explanation part. So no, to me you're not making that much sense.

Miggy, nothing against the scientific view, as you say, Tolkien tried to make everything even scientifically explainable if possible - however, there may be people who don't care whether there is a scientific explanation of things like dragon fire, which has its roots in folklore, and as Tolkien says in his essay On Fairy-Stories:

The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly (...) we may cause woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm. But in such "fantasy", as it is called, new form is made; Faerie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator.

It is a matter of view, no one takes you the right to try to find a scientific conclusion on this - but you need to have in your mind also that "dragons spit fire because Morgoth made them do that" (with no particular scientific explanation) is also an answer.

[The Might]

Indeed, I now realise I was quite hasty there myself.

Especially after finding this (I was actually looking for something to support my idea):

"But the land of Merlin and Arthur was better than these, and best of all the nameless North of Sigurd of the Volsungs, and the prince of all dragons. Such lands were pre-eminently desirable. I never imagined that the dragon was of the same order as the horse. And that was not solely because I saw horses daily, but never even the footprint of a worm. The dragon had the trade-mark Of Fairie written upon him. In whatever world he had his being it was an Other-world. Fantasy, the making or glimpsing of Other-worlds, was a profound desire. I desired dragons with a profound desire."

So seems that fantasy did play a great part in this.
Still, I am trying to find some explanations.

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by The Might

Now to the dragon idea, the basic theory in pretty much all newer dragon works is that the fire is only created in their mouths through the mixture of two separate chemical substances. And this makes quite a lot sense. Anything that can be pierced by a sword isn't probably capable of taking that much heat. Thus, a dragon himself wouldn't really need to take that heat himself.

Well, from Tolkiens description of dragons it's clear that their bodies were strong heat sources even while not breating fire. Smaug indeed seemed to glow steadily, like burning charcoal, bringing heat as well as light to his hall. Also, when Glaurung enters the river outside Nargothrond, the water boils, and vast steams and blinding vapours cover the area. If a dragons cools down, it seems to be unable to breath fire and is less potent, more resembling a great, slimy lizard.

In that movie with dragons in it "Reign of Fire", the fire was caused by a mix of chemicals as you described. I don't think Tolkien imagined his dragons to be anything like those creatures.

[Farael]

Originally Posted by skip spence

In that movie with dragons in it "Reign of Fire", the fire was caused by a mix of chemicals. I don't think Tolkien imagined his dragons to be anything like those creatures.

There was a documentary on the Discovery Channel where they made a (fake obviously) documentary about dragons, trying to make it look as realistic and plausible as possible. One of the things they said is that the dragons would scratch and eat certain rocks which then would be processed by bacteria in their stomach to produce Hydrogen gas. This would allow them to be lighter for flying and also to breathe fire.

Some combination of that idea and (other) chemical reactions could have explained the dragons fire breathing.

However, I think there is a misconception here. When Galadriel or the Elves say that there is no such thing as magic, they do so from within Middle Earth itself. However, the land of Middle Earth is magical on itself, there are gods walking around and actively interfering with the life of lesser beings, there are dragons and elves and dwarves and mithril and hobbits.... there are also swords that light up when a special kind of enemy is near, there are stones that allow you to spy on your neighbour and there are pieces of jewlery that will let you, if used properly, dominate all beings in existance. Oh, and little crystals that make elves go insane... and as a side-effect, shine with the essence of light itself

Surely there is something magical about that?

Even though Tolkien made a great effort to make sure that nothing on his tales could be answered by simply "it was magic" or "a wizard did it" it does not mean that everything can be explained by Real Life logic. To me, Middle-Earth has self-consistency but it does not mean that it has consistency with the Real World.

I think this is good enough for a new thread, but my point here is the folowing:

Dragon-fire it wasn't magic for Middle Earth. They were probably monsters inhabited by fell spirits of fire and made/corrupted through the craft and cunnign (not magic) of a god-like figure. However, for all real life intents and purposes, it was magic. Like we call magic the tricks of an entertainer at a party when we cannot explain it, but we call it a trick when it is told to us. However, we cannot explain "magic" in Middle Earth because the rules we take for granted here do not quite apply to Middle Earth.

[Groin Redbeard]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

Come on, it's fiction, not science If we start looking for too scientific explanations, all we'll result with is most likely a headache.

I think I just got one. I do believe that we are looking into this just a little too much. As Farael said there are certain things in Middle Earth which are undoubtedly magical, and I don't believe that everything that Tolkien created can be explained by science.

Originally Posted by Might

It seems that gold melts at 1064°C so that is pretty much what you would need to destroy the One Ring.

But there is more holding the One Ring together than just the obvious. Does it take the same amount of effort to destroy the other rings of power as it does the One Ring?