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GreenhillFox
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Post Evaporating wolf bodies!?
on: November 25, 2018 04:05
When the full light of the morning came no signs of the wolves were to be found, and they looked in vain for the bodies of the dead. No trace of the fight remained but the charred trees and the arrows of Legolas lying on the hill-top. All were undamaged save one of which only the point was left.
‘It is as I feared,’ said Gandalf. ‘These were no ordinary wolves hunting for food in the wilderness. Let us eat quickly and go!’


The end of this wolf attack on the Fellowship seems at odds with everything else that was told about them elsewhere in JRRT's writings - or am I wrong? It looks absurd to me how dead wolf bodies disappeared overnight.

[Edited on 11/25/2018 by GreenhillFox]

[Edited on 11/25/2018 by GreenhillFox]
'There’s something mighty queer behind this.'
tarcolan
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on: November 25, 2018 08:38
Tidy wolves?
Lord_Sauron
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on: November 25, 2018 10:02
Even better ghost wolves
Gandolorin
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on: November 26, 2018 05:56
Well, they certainly can't be the same kind of wargs as from The Hobbit! Beorn brought back the warg's pelt from his nightly reconnaisance to check Gandalf's story. Image

Maybe wraith wolves? Sauron did capture all of Celebrimbor & Co.'s rings besides the Elven Great Rings. That would also settle the question on whether these other rings conferred invisibility to their bearers: not while they were alive, but after dying? But then someone should have stumbled over an invisible wolf carcass. Or did the wolf-wraiths dissolve (like the WK?) after being killed? Shouldn't then at least some rings have been found by the fellowship? Or would the rings also dissovle? - nah, too many inconsistencies (and where would wolves wear a ring, anyway?). Image

Looks like a bona-fide anchronism or incongruity. Image
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tarcolan
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on: November 26, 2018 06:24
It's not an anachronism as such. It's a bit incongruous or may meant to be just.... spooky. Wooooo!
GreenhillFox
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on: November 27, 2018 01:42
too many inconsistencies


I quite agree with you Gandolorin. It's absurd.
I don't know what JRRT had been smoking, when he wrote those lines.

may meant to be just.... spooky. Wooooo!


Tarcolan, thaaaaat must be "it"! Now it's clear... !!!

'There’s something mighty queer behind this.'
Elthir
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on: November 27, 2018 05:16
Since these aren't normal wolves they are not supposed to be consistent with normal wolves.

Yep, I wrote that

For me the vanishing bodies add an air of mystery and peril at this point in the story -- regular wolves are not unexpected here, but what were these? I doubt Frodo or anyone of the good guys ever knew for certain, in any case.

My total guess is that maybe some of Sauron's "wolves" were created to leave no trace, imbued with spirits so "fired up" that they disintegrated their wolf-bodies when killed . . . that is, when forcibly ejected from their physical houses upon death (Hot-necromancy?).


Or not!

In any case I like my mysterious wolves, or my wolves mysterious,

especially the unregular sort.
tarcolan
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on: November 27, 2018 09:17
There's not much mention of wargs in LOTR, in fact this could be the only incident. Tolkien seems to use wolves and wargs interchangeably. These were probably Saruman's wolves. Or wargs. As they were intelligent perhaps they held a funeral?
Lord_Sauron
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on: November 27, 2018 11:51
These wolves may have been were wolves. Someone on another site asked the same question. I don't know if it's correct but here is a link

https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/28405/what-were-the-wolves-that-attacked-the-fellowship-of-the-ring
Gandolorin
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on: November 28, 2018 05:09
Hmmm. Gandalf addresses the first "great dark wolf-shape" as "Hound of Sauron" ... whatever that's worth. And he gives one of the most overt display of his "magic" powers in the entire book. Sets the whole knot (formed like a crown on the hill-top) of trees the Fellowship were sheltering in ablaze. The "wolves", too? They would have to have been totally consumed by the fire ... which the trees are not, at least stumps are left. Externally: I think JRRT was having a go at a scene with an unusual amount of magic and mystery about it, but decided to keep it even in revision.

As to werewolves, at least what I know about "werewolf canon" is that they are skin-changing humans - like Beorn is a were-bear. But if killed, they revert to their human form. Fits badly.

The "full light of morning" that GreenhillFox mentioned makes me immediately think of Vampires (pace "Daywalker" Wesley Snipes - and a couple of others - in the "Blade" film trilogy). Well, there was a bit of bat stuff in Beren and Lúthien, but I don't think JRRT was much into Dracula & Co. as templates for his stories. The only thing that comes to my mind that is consistent with M-e would somehow be wolf-wraiths, about which I joked above. However and by whomever created / deformed; but then JRRT did not explain everything he wrote about either, at least not in LoTR the book. And even the Sil and HoME do not nearly "explain" everything. I hope that keeps things mysterious enough for Elthir's liking!
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tarcolan
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on: November 28, 2018 08:59
I'll take Aragorn's advice on this one; "Where the warg howls, there the orc prowls."
Gandolorin
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on: November 28, 2018 12:11
tarcolan said:I'll take Aragorn's advice on this one; "Where the warg howls, there the orc prowls."

I wonder if Sam took that one into his collection of sayings, which seems to quite large at any rate. I could imagine him getting some queer looks from the other Hobbits of the Shire if he threw that one into a chat at The Ivy Bush or The Green Dragon.
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Lord_Sauron
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on: November 28, 2018 12:12
Tidy orcs then that clean up afterwards
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