Talk:War of Wrath

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Revision as of 20:34, 13 October 2007 by 24.36.78.71 (talk)

Question about numbers given in "war of the wrath"

Strengths: Morgoth--Hundreds of thousands or millions

           Valar--millions?

If Fingolfin came with approx. 5000 or so (which seems a reasonable number) and his host was greater than Feanor's, and the majority of the Noldor came back to Middle-Earth. How many would've been left in Valinor? Perhaps a few thousand? It is implied that the Noldor outnumbered the Vanyar, so there would then have to be less than approx. ten thousand Vanyar. Since it is stated rather clearly that Elves were not in the habit of having large numbers of children, (Feanor and his wife having seven children in six childbirths is a rare exception.) How would a few thousand Noldor left in Valinor and several thousand (maybe?) Vanyar multiply in only five-hundred years into "millions?"

If 2500 Noldor remained and there were 7500 Vanyar total, that leaves 10 000 total.

Approx. half would be female, but probably not all female Elves would wed and have children. If they had approx. 2.4-2.7 children on average each, how many children would each generation add? Elves being immortal would probably not have children in the same manner as Men, so five hundred years might allow for, what, five to seven generations of Elves? Even with these very rough numbers, it seems that it would take far longer for Elves to number anywhere near the "millions" given. Unless, of course, the original numbers for Fingolfin's and Feanor's hosts are way off--though they seem reasonable based on the only actual numbers quoted, that being Turgon's army of ten-thousand at the Nirnaeth.