I believe the flying steeds of the Nazgul were more pteradactilic (sp?) or bat-like. They did not breathe fire or collect hoards of gold, or as far as we know, have scales. They do not appear to have been intelligent - they do not speak like Smaug, nor do they seem to have the dragon sense of vanity. But I suppose they could have been related if both were reptiles.

Smaug was a nasty piece of work, but he served his own purposes more or less. He did not serve Sauron, but was possibly allied with him.

The last dragon on ME? I hope so!

that's interesting...I never really thought of them as lizardy...where'd that quote come from, Grondy?

Welcome to the forum Sam.

Okay, if Sam wishes to believe it was a dragon, I won't interfere other than to say it would have had to have been a non-fire breathing type and a very young one at that, to have its will subjected. Sam's right about where the quote is from, it is from ROTK, Book 5, Chapter 6 entitled 'The Battle of the Pelennor Fields', just before it landed on Snowmane.


[Edited on 1/7/2002 by Grondmaster]

Smaug was not the last dragon, though he was the last of the great ones:

(The Shadow of the Past, FoTR)

It doesn't say how many there are, it just say they don't have that good ol' fire...

Grond: I´m not saying that Nazguls were riding on dragons or that "the Witch King" was riding with dragon...I just believe that there are some dragons alive somewhere...

And chikakat don´t worry...I´ve just finished reading LotR...and it was thrid time. I read it every year when I have vacation from school.

[Edited on 2/7/2002 by Sam]

Damn straight! Sam, I too am a full believer in the continued existence of dragon kind

Quote:

"...but there were Dragons in the wastes beyond..."

"...So the rumour of the wealth of Ereborspread abroad and reached the ears of the dragons, and at last Smaug the Golden, greatest of the dragons of his day, arose and without warning came against King Thror..."

So asuming that there were more than one dragon alive in Thror's time then due to there longevity, surely those others that are implied still exist somewhere.... Firedrakes, dragons and all!

But, if so why do they not come to the call of Sauron at the approach of war? hmmm!

Would they get gold, if they helped Sauron?...I don´t think so. Sauron don´t give any "presents" except for the Nazguls... ..maybe? Normally if a dragon had a big heap of gold, it just lies on it and sometimes get out for some food....am I right? If you can understand what I mean...

Yep, I think you're right there. They're too much like Sauron, and they could already do whatever they wanted to do, so why would they care? And did Sauron actually call for them? I must have missed that too then.

The early dragons were bred by Morgoth, and no doubt trained too. By the TA, if there were any dragons left, no doubt they had all gone pretty wild. Like chikakat said, they might not have been worth summoning if they were likely to kill as many orcs as they were elves.
In addition to this, the Withered Heath is a long way from Mordor. Sauron's reach was not limitless, particularly as he was concentating a lot of effort into finding his ring and also the three elven rings, plus still rebuilding Barad-dur. No doubt if the ring had not been destroyed, and the war had dragged on longer, he might well have gone looking for other powerful allies.

Sauron called for dragons' aid?

Aught else here may be hastily written and therefore incorrectly located, but bear with me:

in a trailer for Peter Jackson's Return of the King interpretation/movie I saw (or think I did) dragons flying overhead, and fighting. My hither question is, would there be a chance of this happening in Tolkien's world? Would the dragons fight in the second Great War? (The War of the Ring, which originally was Tolkien's preference for the title of RotK; the editors overruled him to name it Return of the King.)

Additionally, just imagine that dragons DID fight in the Great War (II)? Would they most likely be on the side of Sauron, of Aragorn and the forces of good, or for their own purposes? What is the chance of this happening? Why or why not? From whence would they come?

And, lastly, were fire-dragons (urulóki) still around in the Northwestern Middle-Earthern region; so if the dragons in RotK shot flames from their gapings maws of mouths, would it be 'politically incorrect?'

P.S. Today's totally random comment is... Mount Doom was a stratovolcano, and therefore had steep sides, erupted lava and cinders, and produced ash and deadly pyroclastic flow. So... Frodo and Sam were actually in more danger than they knew. Pyroclastic flow travels at about 300 mph; it's made up of compressed tephra and would kill the two Hobbits if Gwaihir hadn't gotten them first. :P

I read somewhere that when Gandalf faces off with the Witchking, it was going to be in the air mounted on Gwaihir vs the witchking on his fell beast. This is possibly what you saw in the trailer.

I looked up Smaug in this book about M-E and this is what it said
Smaug- Dragon of the ered Mithrin, the greatest dragon of his time. In 2770, hearing of the wealth of Erebor, Smaug destroyed Dale and drove the Dwarves away from the Kingdom under the mountain. For nearly two hundred years he gloried in his treasure, until in 2941, diturbed and angered by Thorin and Company, he attacked Esgaroth and was slain by Bard the Bowman.
In addition to the various honorifics bestowed on him by the frightened Bilbo, Smaug was known as Smaug the Golden.
I suppose that doesn't help much!!!!

Up until the mid-Third Age there were several large drakes living in the Grey Mountains (Ered Mithrin) and the Withered Heath to the North of the mountains. These drakes included Smaug and Scatha. At the time Dwarves were delving rich mines in these mountains, and they became the focus of several dragon's greed.

Scatha was eventually slain by Fram of Eotheod (who was later himself slain by Dwarves when he kept their gold). Smaug sought richer treasures to the south and sacked Erebor. The rest of course is history.

UT gives us some insight into the story behind the Hobbit, and from it you can see Gandalf actually manipulating Thorin and Co, and getting Bilbo involved as well to bring Hobbits into the action too. Reading this section, I actually saw Gandalf as quite a manipulative person, who was using Thorin and the Dwarves for his own purpose (all be it to remove Smaug from the North so that Sauron could not use him to attack the Northern realms).

Thanks for helping me clear that up!!! I'm still going through the process of understanding everything in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien!!! But if Smaug wasn't the last dragon you'd think they'd have a dragon in LOTR. I can just picture Saurumon ordering a big old dragon to fin frodo an destroy him!!!! But maybe I'm wrong because I don't know if it's possibly for Saurumon to do that! But he is the most powerful wizard i belive!!

He can controll those big scary orcs and humongous troll like creatures (like the ones that open the gate in LotR:TTT). But is that because he made most of them from the lava and he was kinda like their mother??? Well if saurumon can't control a dragon, could sauron possibly at the form he was in (just an eye)????

That's why I differentiated between Saruman in man guise, and Curunir the Maiar. The Maiar who became Istari were immediately weakened the moment they took on flesh. Saruman further weakened himself in a similar manner to how Morgoth had done, becoming more earthbound by disseminating his own power. By the end of the book he is little more than a spiteful old man, able to be slain by Grima Wormtongue. We do not see many of Galadriel's powers, but I'd not underestimate them. She did after all use them to pull down Dol Guldur.

Whoa, we don't even have a Character thread on Morgoth?

This is what I can say:
Morgoth, or the Black Enemy of the World, was a rogue Vala. He was also called Melkor, He Who Arises In Might, and Alkar, the Glorious. And he was Sauron's master. The Dark Power of the North. Ok, I don't think that really helped lol.

Okay my young Hobbit friend, a brief history of the world is needed here.

In the beginning there was Eru (also known as Iluvatar, or the One). He was the One true God equivalent to, well, God I suppose.

From his thought he created the Valar and Maiar, who were sort of demi-god type spirits. There were 15 Valar (who were similar to Greek/Norse type Gods) and Melkor (later called Morgoth) was the most powerful of them.

Together Eru, the Valar and Maiar made a great music, and from it the vision of the World was created from the Void. The Valar and Maiar then entered this vision and set about physically creating it. Melkor, however, rebelled against the other Valar and set about destroying everything they created. The Silmarillion covers this epic struggle.

Sauron was Morgoth's Lieutenant. He was only a Maiar, but one of the strongest of them. When Morgoth was finally defeated at the end of the First Age, and expelled to the Void, Sauron took over as the chief nasty. As by then the Valar had pretty much retired permenantly to the Undying Lands, that left Sauron as a pretty much undisputed champion bad guy.

To assist the good guys of Middle Earth, around SA1000, the Valar sent five Maiar back to Middle Earth in the form of old Men. These Istari included Gandalf, Saruman, Radagast and two Blue Wizards (Alatar and Pallando).

Other Maiar still living in Middle Earth incuded Tom Bombadil (although nowhere does it say that Tom is a Maiar, and other people have other theories on who he may be) and his wife Goldberry. The Balrog was also a Maiar corrupted by Melkor, and Shelob was the daughter of Ungoliant a great spider-demon/maiar. To protect the trees from the axes of Dwarves, Yavanna (the Valar of the forests) summoned Maiar spirits into certain trees and they became the ents. Likewise, Manwe (Valar of the skies) summoned spirits into the forms of the Giant Eagles. Most probably Melkor did the same thing to create the Dragons and his werewolves.

Hopefully, that will give you a bit of insight into what we are talking about.

First read LOTR and then the Silmarillion and all your questions will be answered, my dear friend.

I'm so sorry you guys have to deal with my stupidity!!! well I'm not going to finish the trilogy and after that the silmarillion for a long while now, virumor, but when I do I'll let ya know!! j/k But for the most part I understand about Morgoth so we can continue with our conversation!!