User talk:Singe

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Singe, welcome!

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Guns in Middle-earth[edit source]

Alright, so this sounds goofy at first, but there a several hints that Saruman uses machines and maybe even gunpowderor some other explosive (no, not from the movie). But the really big hint is when Bilbo in the hobbit mentions a loud sound being reminiscent of "guns". Here the decided upon "cannon scale" has the Hobbit at less cannon than other works, but still, does that indicate that Tolkien supposed Saruman-style-magics to include incendiary chemicals and to be wide-spread enough that knowledge of them had reached the Shire well before the birth of Frodo? Singe 22:39, 26 January 2008 (EST)

I've gone ahead and moved this discussion to your talk page as the Forum is generally reserved for wiki-only discussions, usually ones global in nature that don't belong on a single article's talk page. We felt there were enough Tolkien forums already in existence. But to answer your question, no I don't believe there is enough evidence to support the theory that guns were available in Middle-earth as if they were, the battles would have been quite different. This isn't the first time Tolkien has described things outside of the legendarium, such as his hint of trains in The Hobbit: "like the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel". --Hyarion 01:17, 27 January 2008 (EST)
Tolkien also scrapped any idea of Morgoth using machines to send his Orcs over the mountains to attack Gondolin. Don't forget that the Hobbit has an omniscient pov. He told it to his children, so the similes had to be understandable to children. He mentioned a football somewhere too; does that means Hobbits played football/rugby? -- Ederchil 05:10, 27 January 2008 (EST)