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Keebler the Elf
Rivendell
Apr 7 2008, 5:08pm
Post #1 of 11
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"Valarated" Turin vs. Smaug
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OK. Turin has been given some new stuff by the Valar, Dwarves, and Elves. He has: a cloak of stealth from Ulmo, Fire-Resistant armor from the dwarves' finest craftsmen, and Light from the Trees of Ainur from the Queen of Doriath. Plus he still has Gurthang. Can he defeat Smaug now?
Arena conditions: Turin calls out Smaug from Under the Mountain, and shows himself to Smaug before the fight begins. Then he starts to use his new power against Smaug.
So NOW is he good enough? But a key point is, is that Padster is right that by himself, without powers or such, Turin cannot defeat Smaug's natural power.
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Greenleaf
Bree
Apr 8 2008, 3:28am
Post #2 of 11
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maybe if he had a shield like Perseus (correct mythical hero?) and only looked at Smaug through a shiny bronze shield so that Smaug's innate dragon power couldn't grasp him, I think he could. But I don't think that it would be Smaug's fire and such that would defeat a warrior like Turin. As in his first confrontation with Glaurung, it would be the dragons staring into the eyes technique, and weakening of the mind. But, say Turin fought Smaug just as a typical dragon, no eye to eye powers or whatever, one hit by Gurthang and I think Smaug would be eaten up. SAY Smaug did have eye to eye power, then maybe Turin's lizard helm could protect him!??!?!?!?!?! No, I think i just like Turin too much!
The Iron of Death
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Padster
Bree
Apr 8 2008, 8:57am
Post #3 of 11
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Let’s be clear about one thing. Turin is probably my favourite character from the First Age. I can’t stand it when people unnecessarily criticize him for his actions, when he was, after all, only human, and is therefore far from perfect, and they (the accusers) wouldn’t have done half as good in the same position.
For this fight, if I may, I’ll suggest some tweaks to the items of power he has. OK he has Gurthang, possibly the greatest weapon ever forged. He has his Dragon Helm, which as it was made by the dwarves and they were apt to making armour resistant to dragon fire. And let’s add a full set of dwarven armour, again resistant to dragon fire, just like his helm, and a great shield to take some of the blows that will rain down on him. And since Melian is his Foster-mum, she can lay an enchantment on him so his mind cannot be mastered by a dragon’s gaze (as Turin’s was by Glaurung at the fall of Nargothrond). No Cloak of Steath though, otherwise we are effectively recreating Turin’s attack on Glaurung, which we know worked.
So Turin is armed armoured to the teeth, immune to the dragon’s fire and gaze, which are the two main things that could screw Turin from a distance.
Smaug must have weighed as much as a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and that is around 7.5 metric tonnes (16,500lbs). Turin, at best with all his armour, weighed about 135kgs (around 300lbs – say 240lbs personally (he was a big lad!) and a further 60lbs of arms and armour (full armour, helm and shield does weight a lot!)).
I don’t think Gurthang could kill something as big as Smaug in a single hit, unless it was in the dragon’s weak spot. What are the chances of Turin being able to do that first blow? Fairly remote. So even assuming Turin lays a few telling hits on Smaug, and Gurthang cleaves Smaug’s scales like clay (which is not beyond the realms of possibility given Gurthang’s potency), Smaug is GOING to get a hit in eventually.
Do you know what would happen if a 7.5tonne beast hit a 135kg man with all its strength? The man would take flying lessons! That’s what.
Whilst Smaug may not be able to crack the armour, the shock of the blow and the impact of landing after flying 20(?), 50(?) or 100(?) feet would wind, if not knock Turin out. At which point Smaug jumps on Turin and devours him in one quick gulp.
I’m not saying it’s impossible for Turin, in these circumstances, to kill Smaug. I’m just saying the odds are against him, and it is HIGHLY unlikely. To put a number on it, I’d say Turin would win 1 in 20 of these combats.
Cheers
Padster
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Tolkien Forever
Gondor
Apr 8 2008, 1:48pm
Post #4 of 11
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and they (the accusers) wouldn’t have done half as good in the same position.
Not so.......
Not everybody is a pompous, arrogant, prideful control freak - granted, a great warrior, but one can't deny the other half.
Me thinks Tour, for example, or Beleg, perhaps even Hurin or Beren, would've done as well or better on Amon Hen, in Nargothrond & in Brethil.....
Then again, they probably wouldn't have been pushy enough to worm their way into a position of usurping the leadership from others either.
On topic, it's pointless for me to speculate on whether a man who snuck up on a wingless dragon & killed him with a perfect plan, but was put under a spell in a matter of seconds when confronting that same dragon head on could confront a great winged dragon head on & win.........
(This post was edited by Tolkien Forever on Apr 8 2008, 1:49pm)
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Padster
Bree
Apr 8 2008, 4:16pm
Post #5 of 11
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...the likes of Tuor, Beleg, Hurin or Beren. Nor do I mean the likes of Finrod, Galadriel, Hador, Galdor, etc. They are not his accusers anyway. I am speaking of people like me (but obviously not me as I think Turin is hard done by), i.e.: people who sit outside the story and judge the actions of those within the story.
Turin lost his father, mother and two sisters in a hopeless war, and being a warrior did what he knew best, he fought. Just like all the Eldar and the rest of the Edain did. He was betrayed, he accidently killed a friend, and he finally found out he had been sleeping with his lost sister who committed suicide.
Just what on EARTH do people expect of him?
I think Turin, and Hurin given his reaction to Thingol when he was released and his subsequent remorse, etc, is the most "human" of just about all the characters from the First Age. He did GOOD against insurmountable odds, and I say all power to him.
Cheers
Padster
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Keebler the Elf
Rivendell
Apr 8 2008, 4:23pm
Post #6 of 11
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Padster, what would Turin need to have so he could win???? Make a new battle, an then we'll decide what he has to do.
(This post was edited by Keebler the Elf on Apr 8 2008, 4:23pm)
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Tolkien Forever
Gondor
Apr 8 2008, 5:11pm
Post #7 of 11
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Turin lost his father, mother and two sisters in a hopeless war, and being a warrior did what he knew best, he fought. Just like all the Eldar and the rest of the Edain did. He was betrayed, he accidently killed a friend, and he finally found out he had been sleeping with his lost sister who committed suicide.
Just what on EARTH do people expect of him?
Most of what you talk about happened AFTER Turin had acted haughtilly & pompously (like his proud mother - big surprise).
He lost his father in the war, but he was already 'withdrawn' in personality by then, dominated by his mother in the absence of his father. He didn't accidently kill his friend Beleg or sleep with & lose his second sister until the end of his life......
......After he'd made all those mistakes that can be attributed to his pride & force of will to dominate others.
Of course I realize 'his accusers' would be us readers as nobody in The Silmarillion accuses him - well I guess Beleg, Melian, Thingol & Mabllung do, don't they?
And, yes Turin is the most human of the characters in The Silmarillion, but I think Beren is the only other character that comes into a level of that depth of detail, yet Beren is kinda 'holier than thou' in that story.
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One Ringer
Tol Eressea
Apr 8 2008, 11:24pm
Post #8 of 11
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Turin's only fighting a dream . . .
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. . . because Smaug still isn't around. They lived in completely different times. 
Ash nazg durbatulûk, Ash nazg gimbatul,
Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
My Upcoming Discussion Leads:
SCREENCAP OF THE DAY: Week of April 14th
THE TWO TOWERS READING DISCUSSION: The Uruk-Hai - April 21st-27th
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Padster
Bree
Apr 9 2008, 4:16pm
Post #9 of 11
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...a healthy dose of LUCK, or some advantage of surprise that would allow Turin to deliver a near mortal wound before being subject to a retaliatory strike, I don't think Turin could ever win a fair fight between the two of them. Smaug is simply TOO large, TOO strong, TOO armoured and TOO magical (although this one isn't evidenced) an opponent.
As an aside (but linked if you can bear with me) I am a keen RPGer and my favourite RPG is Chivalry & Sorcery. It's my favourite because it deals with the traditional RPG 'monsters' as people in their own right. There is a couple of great articles written by Ed Simbalist (one of the originators of C&S in the mid 70's) called 'Monsters are people too' and 'Designing Monsters', and he argues, quite rightly, that monsters are just like us with their own beliefs, goals, fear of death, etc, and their design and what they are capable of should be based firmly in the REAL world, in as much as it is possible to based 'magical' creatures in the real world. The articles are here:
http://www.britgamedesigns.co.uk/download/monpep.html
http://www.britgamedesigns.co.uk/download/desgnmon.html
Therefore orcs should not be some D&D'esque 6HP punch bag that go down if you sneeze on them, they fundamentally humans just with a different face. Trolls are frightful creatures to begin with, but capable of progression in life as much as humans, and dragons are, quite rightly, awesome beasts, capable of bashing almost ANYTHING on a one to one basis. And the GREAT benefit, for me, is that C&S is also, to my mind, one of the most realistic, if not THE most realistic RPG's on the market.
When I put my players up against 'monsters', the monsters are in it to live a long life. The 'monsters' are MY characters, and I don't throw them away willy-nilly. And when I put my players up against a dragon (a particularly infrequent event) they know that if they screw up they are going to die. Now I wouldn't say that any of the players I GM have characters that in anyway approach the heroic power that Turin represented, but even if they did, on their own, they are still a single small individual and in a fair fight, each one of them would get splattered more times than not if they tried it on with an Old (or older) dragon (C&S categorises dragons as Young, Adult, Old and Ancient - Smaug is Ancient and therefore ROCK 'ARD).
When they fight a dragon they do it as a team, for it is the only way they can hope to come out the other end with limited losses. Limited being severe injuries to, if not deaths of, one or two characters.
It simply is not sense to think that in a fair fight the bigger, stronger and more resilient opponent is going to lose to the weaker, smaller, softer opponent. Unless something quite EXTRAORDINARY happens. That 'something EXTRAORDINARY' could be that an author wants it to happen, or that the weaker one is your favourite.
Combats are decided by five key measurable factors:
- Skill
- Speed
- Size
- Strength
- Resilience
Probably in that order too. All other things being equal, the combatant better at one of the above is going to win. In a combat where one opponent is HUGELY greater than in at least three of the above, probably four, then the weaker opponent is going to lose.
[steps down, clears throat] Apologies, that was me getting of my soap-box.
Cheers
Padster
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Keebler the Elf
Rivendell
Apr 9 2008, 5:01pm
Post #10 of 11
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So lets squish the dragon vs. human fights
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Ok, so humans are no match for awake dragons. But I hear wizards are a little different, especially Maiar wizards. Right?
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