Tidbits of Curiosity

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Urwen

I wonder how much strength do mortals have compared to Eldar? It takes a considerable amount of strength to be able to lift someone else high enough to chuck them over a cliff. (Or to steal their own weapon to stab them with for that matter.)

I think the key piece of evidence here is the duel of Fingolfin and Morgoth, where we are told:

Originally Posted by Silm

But at the last the King grew weary, and Morgoth bore down his shield upon him. Thrice he was crushed to his knees, and thrice arose again and bore up his broken shield and stricken helm. But the earth was all rent and pitted about him, and he stumbled and fell backward before the feet of Morgoth; and Morgoth set his left foot upon his neck, and the weight of it was like a fallen hill. Yet with his last and desperate stroke Fingolfin hewed the foot with Ringil, and the blood gashed forth black and smoking and filled the pits of Grond.

Fingolfin is able to fight on after being crushed under the full strength of Morgoth, and at least momentarily survives his neck being crushed by his weight. But how strong is Morgoth? Well, let's look back at a much earlier event:

Originally Posted by Silm

Then the Unlight of Ungoliant rose up even to the roots of the Trees, and Melkor sprang upon the mound; and with his black spear he smote each Tree to its core, wounded them deep, and their sap poured forth as it were their blood, and was spilled upon the ground.

How much force do you need to stab a tree to its heart? To ballpark this, I'm going to assume that the Two Trees were the size of the largest giant redwood, so ~30ft in diameter. That means Morgoth's spear has to punch 15 feet.

Let's say the Trees were of similar consistency to a shield. I'm saying this because it means I can use the fact that arrows seem to average just penetrating a shield, meaning I can say that a human-fired arrow would stick maybe an inch into a tree. (That sounds about right.)

Using this list, we find that a modern arrow imparts ~60 foot-pounds of at impact - it could push 60 lb through one foot. The arrow will penetrate an inch into the tree, meaning we'd need to be able to push 720 lb through that foot to actually penetrate a foot.

And Morgoth pushed his spear 15 times that far. That's right on 10,000 pounds.

Morgoth's minimum known attack strength is like having [url="https://cars.lovetoknow.com/List_of_Car_Weights"]3 medium-sized cars[url] piled on top of you, with their full weight resting on you (so 12 cars, if you're just under one wheel). It's a large elephant stepping directly on you with all four feet. It's the force of a car at 10mph not just hitting you and sending you flying, but crushing you directly against a wall. And Fingolfin survived it.

Arguably, he also lifted it, when he 'thrice arose again'. A super-strong human can apparently lift ~500 lb - Fingolfin operated at 20x that level. Even if we trim that down by arguing that he didn't necessarily push Morgoth straight back up, and that he was operating under extreme adrenaline conditions, we still have to assume something like 5x maximum human strength.

Beren only took down Curufin by knocking his horse over on top of him. Turin grabbed a sword from someone who wanted desperately not to hurt him. Dior probably had elven strength. Tuor is the only known mortal who went up against an elf in a fair fight and won.

hS