The Hobbit

[Mikey]

Ancalagon the Black was the greatest dragon of the first age, he was so vast he blocked out the sun and when he was finally struck down after driving back the whole host of the Valar he smashed the Iron Mountains surrounding Morgoths fortress. Glaurang may have been the first, but he was by no means the strongest.

Fair enough, though I could as easily say that while Glaurung drove before him like dust the sons Feanor and Finwe, Ancalagon was defeated by one half-elf in a flying barge. Glaurung, OTOH, was only finally killed by a man who the Valar themselves will be required to resurrect for his help in the Dagor Dagorath. Either way, though, the point is that later winged dragons pale in comparison to either one of them - if the Dwarves of Belegost were able to defeat Glaurung in battle, my point that they would have been a huge asset against later dragons is a fair one.

If you house catches fire and no one comes to help your whole house will burn down. If it catches fire and firefighters come quick enough so only your Kitchen is gutted and some smoke damage to your lounge I would say that is a sucess.

Who knows how bad things might have been with out the blues. The East might have formed into a strong and stable alliance that could have totally wiped out the west. They might have launched more assults than just the two major ones. Maybe Harad would of been a bigger and more united force than what we see. Considering the rather lack luster job the three wizards in the west did in stopping Angmar, protecting the line of Numenor, guarding against the Balrog and the dragons. The Blue wizards might have done a hell of a lot. We cant really know for sure. The one thing we do know for 100% is they didnt fall to evil like Saruman did otherwise we would have undoubtedly seen them in the war as powerful leaders of Mordor. Whick considering they lived in the east is a very impressive thing.

There is unfortunately no way to know what became of the Blue Wizards, or what effect they did in fact have. We can say for sure that they weren't 100% successful; did they prevent a greater alliance of Easterlings than what actually happened? We can't tell. The Easterling forces allied with Mordor in the TA seems to have been similar in effect and proportion to those allied with Morgoth during the Nirnaeth; which of course occurred well before any Istari were at work in the Beleriand or Eriador. Based on what we know, it's easiest to pretend that there were only three Istari.

Do we know two clans of Dwarves fell into darkness? I cant recall reading that but it has been about 5 years since I read the complete works. I do remember it being said the Dwarves were almost impossible to sway to evil due to their nature.

Maybe not. I could have sworn I recalled that from somewhere, but I can't find the reference and may have just been thinking of the more xenophobic clans of the East.

I doubt the Dark elves of the East did much in open opposition to Sauron. But they may have helped the peaceful development of the men there. Lending spiritual aid if you will.

Any such "spiritual aid" or developmental assistance would necessarily have had to occur before the emigration of the Edain to Beleriand, and thus before the power of Angband. In any event, it's even written that the Laiquendi - even though they lived in Beleriand - and the Nandor did nothing, and even the coming of Galadriel to the Nandor did little to change that.

[Teaos]

Maybe not. I could have sworn I recalled that from somewhere, but I can't find the reference and may have just been thinking of the more xenophobic clans of the East.

We never saw the Dwarves fighting for Sauron but maybe they maid him tribute? Especially the ones driven into a gold madness by the rings, they wouldnt care who paid them so long as they got paid. So they may have out fitted Saurons fighting forces.

As it stands the only Three clans we ever hear of are Durins folks the long beards and the red beards/broad beards who were mostly in the blue mountains and the ones who fought in the first age.

The other 4 clans apparently were in the east. Although it is suggested that they had dealings in the iron hills and in the war of the Dwarves and Orcs before the Hobbit that all 7 clans were joined. Although this implied by "all the dwarves power was gathered over several years" so it might just be the 3 clans we hear of and not the other 4.

[Mikey]

The ones involved in the literature are the Dwarves of Nogrod and Belegost (Broadbeams and Firebeards) and the Longbeards/Durin's Folk of Moria, Erebor, and the Iron Hills, excluding of course the petty-dwarves. Like you said, the other four clans were in the East, though it ids extremely unclear what is meant by the "folk of the other Fathers" coming to aid the Longbeards in the Orc/Dwarf war. It could mean all seven clans, or it could mean just the survivors of the Dwarves of Beleriand who later stayed in the Ered Luin.

[Mikey]

BTW, folks - I might be able to help clear up some of the confusion about Moria and which orcs were in which mountains when.

First, there is no difference between goblins and orcs. "Goblin" was used in The Hobbit due to its slightly more juvenile tone, while "orc" was used in LOTR, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth, etc. Tolkien himself preferred the spelling "ork," because as a linguist he was concerned that the desriptive form "orcish" could be read with a soft "c" and he wanted clear that, as in Sindarin, "c" always represented a hard phoneme.

Anyway, Moria - the Sindarin name for the Dwarf city named Kazad-Dum - was a great center of the Longbeards clan, a.k.a. Durin's Folk because it was the only place to mine mithril and because of the friendship and traffic it had with the Noldorin area of Eregion (Hollin.) Eregion is where Celembribor crafted the Rings of Power, with the help of a disguised Sauron; sometime later, Celembribor was taken and tortured into revealing the whereabouts of the Nine and the Seven - then killed when he wouldn't give up the Three. His body was hung from a pole and used as the army banner when Sauron's forces destroyed Eregion. The dwarves sealed the gate of Moria, and that was that.

Until, of course, something woke up inside Moria. That something was a Balrog that became known only as Durin's Bane (the latest ruler of Moria being a Durin - the Dwarves had a habit of reusing names for children who were similar to their namesakes, unlike the Elves who were immortal and would be inconvenienced by reused names.) Balrogs being a type of Maiar, and thus an order of magnitude more powerful than any typical second Child of Iluvatar, that scene finished with the score Balrog 1, Dwarves 0. The surviving Dwarves removed to Erebor, the Lonely Mountain.

Thorin Oakenshield's grand-dad Thror, much later, decided to see what the state of things in Moria was like. He took one friend a/o servant with him. While the servant Nar waited outside the eastern gates, Thror came back... at least his head did, with the name "Azog" carved into the forehead. Azog was the Pale Goblin, the king of the orcs which had taken over Moria since the Balrog drove out the Dwarves.

The Dwarves were understandably upset about this. Thus, Thrain II (Thorin's dad) began the war against the Orcs in which other clans of Dwarves (except the Ironfists) came to help out of respect for Durin's Folk and outrage over the treatment of Thror's body. This war culminated in the Battle of Azanulbizar. In this battle Thorin got his nickname - after losing his shield, he cut a limb from a tree and used it in his left hand, thus "Oakenshield." The leader of the fighting was Thrain's nephew Nain, whose neck was broken by Azog. Dain, Nain's son and only 32 (young for a Dwarf,) beheaded Azog which act began the rout of the orcs and ended the war.

Only too bad for the Dwarves, because they still couldn't retake Moria - Durin's Bane still lived under it. So, they satisfied themselves with burning their dead (unusual for Dwarves, but necessary given the circumstances - saying someone was "a burned dwarf" after that meant that he died as an honored veteran of Azanulbizar,) watching their revenge complete, and going home.

Meanwhile, Azog had a rugrat of his own. Bolg removed to the northern parts of the Misty Mountains and ruled over a less central goblin kingdom. Wait for it... here's the intersection... this Bolg was the one into whose orcs Bilbo, Thorin, and company ran in the events of The Hobbit and who was killed by Beorn in the Battle of the Five Armies.

The journal and inscriptions in Moria in LOTR refer to the fact that some years later, Balin decided to take a force of Dwarves and try his hand at retaking Khazad-Dum. Balrog, trolls, and orcs still around = bad luck for Balin.

[Teaos]

Pretty much a perfect summation of events.

The Dwarves cleaned out 90% of the Orcs from the Misty mountain that had been a blight on the area for years.

They did bounce backa bit in the following years though.

The Dwarves were understandably upset about this. Thus, Thrain II (Thorin's dad) began the war against the Orcs in which other clans of Dwarves (except the Ironfists) came to help out of respect for Durin's Folk and outrage over the treatment of Thror's body. This war culminated in the Battle of Azanulbizar. In this battle Thorin got his nickname - after losing his shield, he cut a limb from a tree and used it in his left hand, thus "Oakenshield." The leader of the fighting was Thrain's nephew Nain, whose neck was broken by Azog. Dain, Nain's son and only 32 (young for a Dwarf,) beheaded Azog which act began the rout of the orcs and ended the war.

Where does it say everyone apart from the Ironfists?

Also its worth pointing out that Durins Folk the Long Beards wanted to retake Moria but the other 6 clans didnt want to saying honor was claimed with the death of AZOG. That Moria was the LongBeards problem not theirs.

[Mikey]

Where does it say everyone apart from the Ironfists?

Assumption of mine, there being hints of a grudge in the distant past between the Longbeards and the Ironfists, and Dwarves not giving up grudges too easily.

Also its worth pointing out that Durins Folk the Long Beards wanted to retake Moria but the other 6 clans didnt want to saying honor was claimed with the death of AZOG. That Moria was the LongBeards problem not theirs.

Very true. The other clans came to help to redress the insult to Dawrf-kind, while Moria itself didn't hold any sentimental significance for them as it did for the Longbeards. Interesting, though, that they weren't more interested if Moria truly was the only source of mithril in Middle-Earth.

[Jim]

Thanks Mikey, but... not it really doesn't explain Gimli's reaction in the movie...

[Mikey]

Thanks Mikey, but... not it really doesn't explain Gimli's reaction in the movie...

Reaction to what? To Moria itself? Well, to him Moria was an heirloom of his people - probably almost a mystical idea, infused with folklore, legendary history, and awe. Imagine an Orthodox Jew living in a world without air travel, suddenly finding himself through various travels standing in front of the remains of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Reaction to Balin's notes? That can be explained by a) the fact that he found the record of the death (not to mention the corpse) of his first cousin (once removed.) Such family relations were highly valued by the Dwarves. Not to mention b) the failure of Balin's expedition meant a failure to reclaim the heirloom and ancestral home of Moria as described above.

I think that if any part of Gimli's reaction was shock that the orcs were still present, it was due to either a forced optimism that Balin was successful or a false notion that the orcs never repopulated after the Battle of Azanulbizar.

*EDIT* On some further thought, what you saw as shock might not be surprise so much as outrage... Gimli might have had an idea that orcs still held Moria, but was still moved when confronted with the actual sight of orcs roaming the halls. Imagine the Orthodox Jew in my example above, finally finding the ruins of the Temple only to find a bunch of vagrants slaughtering hogs on the altar.

[Jim]

From the film I took that Gimli expected to be greated by the dwarves and treated to grant feast etc etc etc. he seems to be speaking in "this is what is going to happen" not in terms of "this is how it used to be" And I took his reaction to the opening of the door and seeing the dead dwarves as actual surprise that the place was not up and running.

[Mikey]

From the film I took that Gimli expected to be greated by the dwarves and treated to grant feast etc etc etc. he seems to be speaking in "this is what is going to happen" not in terms of "this is how it used to be" And I took his reaction to the opening of the door and seeing the dead dwarves as actual surprise that the place was not up and running.

I guess if he truly believed that Balin was successful in reestablishing Moria, he would have expected to be greeted so. I'd find it odd that he'd expect a thriving Dwarven community there without hearing one word from Balin's group, though.

[Teaos]

In the movie he expected the Dwarves to be there to great them. In the books he wasnt, he was more worried since they hadnt heard from them in a few years.

[Jim]

In the movie he expected the Dwarves to be there to great them. In the books he wasnt, he was more worried since they hadnt heard from them in a few years.

That explains it more... just some latitude taken by Jackson for the movie version... add a little more to the Gimli character ("love" for and anger over the loss of his kin)