Weakest to solo the Valar (Tolkienverse)

[Surtur]

Out of curiosity what is hands down the best offensive feat of telepathy in LOTR?

Ok one slightly off topic question too, just rewatched the first movie: why doesn't Gandalf tell everyone there is a a demon in Moria? He obviously knew. He put it all on Frodo to decide where to go without giving the little guy all the necessary info. Is that Gandalf being a dick? Or did he think they wouldn't run into it? Or did he not want to tell Gimli every dwarf in Moria was dead? But then wait the Balrog didn't kill the dwarves the orcs/goblins did so that can't be it? Followup: They were already going under a mountain and then they fell even further but then it showed Gandalf fighting the thing..on top of a snowy mountain. Are there mountains somehow under mountains?

[Estrecca]

See, this is like saying that so-and-so who is the toughest in such-and-such universe and calls himself "invincible" can't get punched out by Superman (for example) since he's never been punched out before - never mind the fact that nobody has feats better than Batman in such-and-such universe.

False analogy.

The analogy would be valid if so-and-so of such-and-such universe hailed from a place in which punching out someone is a physical impossibility enforced by an entity of power far greater than Superman's.

Hence, nobody has crazy TP resistance in the Tolkien-verse, since they totally lack feats.

To which I answer that Tolkien says thee nay.

Though in "Arda Unmarred" openness is the normal state, every mind has, from its first making as an individual, the right to close; and it has absolute power to make this effective by will. Nothing can penetrate the barrier of Unwill (Note 3).
All these things, says Pengolodh, are true of all minds, from the Ainur in the presence of Eru, or the great Valar such as Manwe and Melkor, to the Maiar in Eä, and down to the least of the Mirröanwi. But different states bring in limitations, which are not fully controlled by the will.
[...]
In like manner, extortion of the secrets of a mind may seem to come from reading it by force in despite of its unwill, for the knowledge gained may at times appear to be as complete as any that could be obtained. Nonetheless it does not come from penetration of the barrier of unwill.
There is indeed no axan that the barrier should not be forced, for it is únat, a thing impossible to be or to be done, and the greater the force exerted, the greater the resistance of the unwill. But it is an axan universal that none shall directly by force or indirectly by fraud take from another what he has a right to hold and keep as his own.
Melkor repudiated all axani. He would also abolish (for himself) all únati if he could. Indeed in his beginning and the days of his great might the most ruinous of his violences came from his endeavour so to order Eä that there were no limits or obstacles to his will. But this he could not do. The únati remained, a perpetual reminder of the existence of Eru and His invincibility, a reminder also of the co-existence with himself of other beings (equal in descent if not in power) impregnable by force. From this proceeds his unceasing and unappeasable rage.
[...]
Note 3
"No mind can, however, be closed against Eru, either against His inspection or against His message. The latter it may not heed, but it cannot say it did not receive it".

From Osanwe-kenta: Enquiry into the Communication of Thought.

And this is what the canon has to say about the matter.

Want to say that this doesn't apply to Khazan, because that falls outside of Eru's jurisdiction? Well, that's not an argument I'd share (since the Unwill appears to be something related to the way Tolkienverse minds-souls are constructed), but that I can accept for the sake of discussion.

However, for a fight in Middle Earth, I am in the right, lack of specific feats be damned.

You can say that this is because a fundamental property of said verse prevents this kind of thing, but that's like arguing that, for example, Wally West can't speed-steal Captain America since a fundamental property of Marvel is that the f-ing speed force doesn't exist.

False analogy, again.

It is NOT a fundamental property of the Marvel universe that speed cannot be stolen through exotic extradimensional methods.

It IS a fundamental, stated property of the Tolkien universe that unwilling minds cannot in any way be forced by external minds, by power lesser than Eru's.

On top of that, the Barrier of Unwill is, at best, inconsistently applied. Witness the Witch King's attack - when pretty much everyone on the battlefield just can't move once he gets his will up and running, despite no explicit lightening of the barrier. But that's pretty much the best mind-domination feat in the stories, and it's LAUGHINGLY short of what Xavier, Cable, Nate Grey, Moondragon, et. al. could pull off, AND none of the Valar actually, you know, resisted it. I'm not saying that they couldn't, jsut that they never did.

Gollum was broken by pure torture, not by any kind of mind control or telepathy. Now, this could mean that Sauron couldn't crack him, but it could also mean that Sauron just didn't bother trying and left the action to his minions - something he consistently does unless he has no other choice in the matter throughout his entire history. He's a plotter, schemer and manipulator. Now, you could chalk that up to a mighty mind-twister being thwarted by the Barrier of Unwill, or you could just say that Sauron doesn't have any kind of powerful telepathy and that "the barrier of unwill" is just normal willpower being used against really crappy low-end telepathy. That's what the feats say, in any case.

Also, the Palentirs kind of explicitely bypass a mind's defenses. This let Sauron casually dominate Saruman, whose mind, at least, should be roughly on Sauron's level, given that Curumo was also a maiar peer of Sauron's before getting squeezed into an Istari body.

Sharpandpointies has mostly dealt with this matter on his own, disagreement with my position notwithstanding, but you are wrong in regards to the Witch King. The best telepathic feat in the Lord of the Rings is mentioned when Sauron realizes that Frodo is in the volcano.

And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the Power in Barad-dur was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung.
From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted, and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and despaired. For they were forgotten. The whole mind and purpose of the Power that wielded them was now bent with overwhelming force upon the Mountain. At his summons, wheeling with a rending cry, in a last desperate race there flew, faster than the winds, the Nazgul, the Ringwraiths, and with a storm of wings they hurtled southwards to Mount Doom.

As for the rules, I virulently disagree with the strictly-by-the-letter, in defiance of even common sense, interpretation that is being argued here. As I remember, Odin gets a pass in regards to resisting Flash speed steals on the somewhat vague basis of him having vast cosmic power. So why doesn't this get the same kind of relaxed interpretation, in the face of the very specific, very absolute statements written by Tolkien?

[Estrecca]

why doesn't Gandalf tell everyone there is a a demon in Moria?

He a) didn't know (book-wise) or b) hoped it had gone back to sleep.

Or did he not want to tell Gimli every dwarf in Moria was dead?

Moria was originally lost to the dwarves upwards of a thousand years pre-War of the Ring.

There was an attempt to resettle it by Balin, one of the members of Thorin Oakenshield's gang. For some time, all seemed to go well, but contact was lost after a few years.

Book-wise, the dwarves in Moria were assumed to be already dead, though there was no confirmation.

But then wait the Balrog didn't kill the dwarves the orcs/goblins did so that can't be it?

Goblins appear to have been in an alliance of sorts with the balrog. Though the specific status of the balrog in relation to Sauron is a big flat unknown.

Followup: They were already going under a mountain and then they fell even further but then it showed Gandalf fighting the thing..on top of a snowy mountain. Are there mountains somehow under mountains?

They fell to the bottom, had a running battle for a number of days, then took a giant stair that took them to the peak of the mountain where they battled a few more days, until the Balrog finally was taken down.

[Siriel]

You know, I really can't think of a reason for those giant stairs except that the dwarves totally hoped that some day someone would fight from the bottom to the top of the mountain.

[Surtur]

In the movies they seem to travel across country in mere days yet nobody checked on the dwarves for friggin years? I'm assuming it had to of been that long in the movies due to the state of the dead bodies.

Also I guess movie Gandalf is just a straight up a-hole for keeping his mouth closed. Sure it worked out for the better I guess, but I can't figure out a good reason he didn't say a thing. Nor why nobody in the Fellowship was even the tiniest bit curious why he'd want to avoid the mines so much. It's not like he was a known dwarf hater.

[Beadle]

As for the rules, I virulently disagree with the strictly-by-the-letter, in defiance of even common sense, interpretation that is being argued here. As I remember, Odin gets a pass in regards to resisting Flash speed steals on the somewhat vague basis of him having vast cosmic power. So why doesn't this get the same kind of relaxed interpretation, in the face of the very specific, very absolute statements written by Tolkien?

Because of the combination of two factors:

1) People of a comparable level within the DCU have been shown to shrug off the speed-steal in-canon.
2) Odin has repeatedly shrugged off various esoteric powers and effects, on a level comparable with the same guys who shrugged off the speed-steal in 1).

As for Tolkien's statement, we basically NEVER use narrative which is unsubstantiated by feats, even in the extreme case where it's narrative written by the creator and sole author of the source material. Feats, feats, and feats again.

(Edit: And you can't substantiate a no limits thing, hence we don't accept that fallacy.)

[big_adventure]

He didn't actually casually dominate Saruman. Saruman already had issues with greed, wanting to get more, etc. Going by the depiction, that could have been Sauron's route in, as well as fiddling around with one of the palantiri.

Oh, I agree, but it was the palantir that opened the door. Once opened, it was pretty trivial to manipulate Saruman given his avarice and ambition.

Additionally, Saruman-the-Istari isn't on the same level as Curumo-the-Maia. We can't assume his resistance to Sauron - mentally - would be the same.

I agree - I was just pointing out that his mind should be tougher than most ME-bound creatures - Gandalf certainly has some pretty good willpower feats, so I'd figure that Saruman, being an Istari and being more skilled than Gandalf would at least be near Gandalf's level.

And the Witch-king's thing had nothing to do with the Unwill business. It was fear, pure and simple, and the Barrier explicitly doesn't prevent the person from being frightened.

Your expertise on Tolkien vastly excedes my own - I always interpreted it as fear being inserted into the soldier's brains, more or less, via the WK's power, but I'll concede the point with precisely no argument. :-)

But you're correct about the business regarding the no-limit fallacy. By Rumbles Rules, that's the way it worked. There simply WASN'T anything on the level of the stuff seen in other universes in Lord of the Rings, with regards to telepathy.

And, sadly, that's me speaking as a huge fan of Tolkien's work.

Which brings me back to my original point - Xavier would at least have a quickdraw shot on the Valar, since they don't have any feats for resisting a guy who can weaponize billions of minds. Someone like Nate Grey would casually stomp them, since even losing the draw, they can't do anything to stop the mindrape.

On to others:
Thor probably takes them via ddump - they don't have unlimited ability to walk the planes (Melkor specifically couldn't get back from it except through the one door to where he was dumped, and he's the most or second-most "powerful" among the Valar, right?), so if he sticks them somewhere they can't get back from, the fight is over. He can also just teleport them into the heart of a sun or black hole or something, and his speed edge means he'll get the chance to do exactly that.

A lot of DC's lightspeed bricks could probably take them as well - they'll never hit Superman, for example, and even someone like Tulkas is going to eventually go down to a flurry of hundreds of thousands of class 100 strikes, right?

I like Tolkien as well, but his characters don't match up well with tons of comic characters - Tolkien just never dealt with things like high-end TP, superspeed, teleportation, ddumping, etc.

[Surtur]

Also if there is a barrier why was it lifted? Who lifted it?

even someone like Tulkas is going to eventually go down to a flurry of hundreds of thousands of class 100 strikes, right?

Well what is his best durability feat?

[Estrecca]

Well, whatever.

I've said my piece, know myself to be in the right (in regards to Tolkien's canon, if nothing else) and don't care to start a debate about rules, which will at best result in a great deal of irritation and annoyance.

So good night, good fun and see you in some other debate. No hard feelings from my side and I hope those I've argued against will feel the same.

*Estrecca exists stage left*

[Siriel]

Oh, I agree, but it was the palantir that opened the door. Once opened, it was pretty trivial to manipulate Saruman given his avarice and ambition.

I won't go into that Unwill business or whatever as I know nothing about such, but...there was no door opened. No mental compulsion or anything. Everything that Sauron did to Saruman and Denethor, he could have done just fine had he physically been in front of them. The Palantir served the role of a video conference, pretty much.

The most obvious proof of the utter absence of telepathy control in those cases is that...well, neither served him. Both were his enemies, Saruman intended to betray him and Denethor commited suicide because he thought that there was no way to win after Sauron went "Yo. Spying on me? Let me help you out; here are my millions of soldiers to your thousands.".

[big_adventure]

I won't go into that Unwill business or whatever as I know nothing about such, but...there was no door opened. No mental compulsion or anything. Everything that Sauron did to Saruman and Denethor, he could have done just fine had he physically been in front of them. The Palantir served the role of a video conference, pretty much.

The most obvious proof of the utter absence of telepathy control in those cases is that...well, neither served him. Both were his enemies, Saruman intended to betray him and Denethor commited suicide because he thought that there was no way to win after Sauron went "Yo. Spying on me? Let me help you out; here are my millions of soldiers to your thousands.".

Well, that's why I said "manipulate." Just having Saruman considering working for Sauron (and it was clearly a one-way command street, Sauron ordering an army and Darth Douchebag delivering it despite the steps taken calling down the rage of the Ents and thereby Saruman's downfall), a dude Saruman had sent packing when the latter was vastly weakened just 50 or so years before, would seem to give credence to manipulation over and above the just the little fireside chat level. Again, my whole point even mentioning it was to show that it really WASN'T any great feat of TP.