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🐴 The Lord of the Rings: The ⚔️War of the Rohirrim

Came across this... (text is from the site... not mine)
If a Mumak was bigger than a typical elephant, and "typical" could be construed as the Asian elephant, then it was, in fact, very large and could indeed have carried "troops and platforms on its back."
Hannibal used the smaller sized ones.



 
It doesn't matter, as far as the Mumak discussion goes, but should be pointed out that it's unlikely that Hannibal, or anyone, ever used the Bush elephant in war. There's debate about whether he used the smaller Forest elephant, Laxodonta Cyclotis, or more likely, the even smaller North African elephant, Loxodonta africana pharaohensis.These stood around only 7 foot high at the shoulder. Ptolemy's elephants are recorded as being defeated by the larger Asian variety of Antiochus at the battle of Raphia in 217 BCE. The North African species went extinct by the 4th century CE, probably because they were very popular in the Roman Arena, which killed thousands.

That 19th century illustration is likely about as accurate to history as PJ is to Tolkien, so appropriate to the discussion, I guess. 😉
 
There is one incontrovertible fact: the bigger a critter gets, the less it can carry relative to its weight. There's a reason why going from a 5-ton elephant to a 20-ton Diplodocus to an 60-ton Brachiosaurus, the legs get more massive relative to the rest of the body. That old saw that volume and mass increase to the third power (cubed), while area, here relevant for bone and muscle and ... cross sections only increase to the second power (squared). Make something twice as large results in eight times the volume and mass, but only four times the area - body surface (causing heat problems) and bone, muscle, ... cross-section. Every bone and muscle has to deal with twice as much mass as in the half-sized critter. Or to put it another way, a 10-ton elephant needs bones and muscles relatively 1.26 times as thick as a 5-tonner (that's approximately the cube root of 2) to be as sturdy.
 
OK... let's look at some facts:

1) Below is a real modern day Asian elephant to human comparison. This is the starting point.
Look at the relative sizes in real life.



2) Tolkien: "...his kin [the mumak's] that still live in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty."
Ergo the mumak was larger than the pictured Asian elephant. The phrase "girth and majesty" coming from Tolkiens' pen, you can be certain he was NOT saying a Mumak was only perhaps 10% larger.

3) Olorgando's quoting the mass [volume] to surface area : "That old saw that volume and mass increase to the third power (cubed), while area, here relevant for bone and muscle and ... cross sections only increase to the second power (squared). Make something twice as large results in eight times the volume and mass, but only four times the area - body surface (causing heat problems) and bone, muscle, ... cross-section" etc
is irrelevant as I doubt that Tolkien bothered about such "bio-physics" anymore that he bothered about them with respect to Smaug's mass(volume) to surface area, which would have made Smaug's existence impossible.

4) related to (3) It's fantasy ! Tolkien can make them as large as he wants. Now, were they PJ Mumakil? I personally think not.
But again, I say, they were large enough to carry towers and several men on their backs.
 
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Deimos said:
1) Below is a real modern day Asian elephant to human comparison. This is the starting point.
Look at the relative sizes in real life.

View attachment 33078
Click to expand...
Now, now, you ol' wayward asteroid, you're trying to pass off that extinct Asian straight-tusker as a modern Asian elephant. Gotcha! 😁
 
Olorgando said:
Now, now, you ol' wayward asteroid, you're trying to pass off that extinct Asian straight-tusker as a modern Asian elephant. Gotcha! 😁
Click to expand...
Is it?... I read the article as presenting the Asian elephant as a modern day species of elephant, comparing it to the African [species] of elephant.
Ah, well, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. 🙁
But even if I used the wrong elephant, the mumak of "greater girth and majesty" than the smaller elephant still makes it large enough to carry a few men and a tower.
How big would that be? 10-15% bigger wouldn't even be worth mentioning.
The elephant in the first pic is no more than 8 feet high, maybe not quite that.
A 15% increase in height would make it about 9 feet; hardly a noticeable difference.
So (imo) half again as big would not be farfetched. Yet, admittedly, we don't know.
The miniature pictured well represents what a "tower" might be (and I readily concede it's not a "PJ tower")
Also my other assertion still holds; i.e., that the increasing volume/mass being a physiological impossibility is not a problem because it was never a problem for Tolkien.





 
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Thank you. That's actually a compilation of two of the faces from 2 separate images that have been released...
The full images are a bit more revealing. (All released images at this time are contained in the link above, as I understand it.)
 
Ent at Large said:
Thank you. That's actually a compilation of two of the faces from 2 separate images that have been released...
The full images are a bit more revealing. (All released images at this time are contained in the link above, as I understand it.)
Click to expand...
Oh sorry, you were quicker on the draw than I was.

I guess I am the hasty one. LOL.

CL
 
We won't tell.
 
Here's another snippet, related to the Sound Track:

SOUND ONLY: Stephen Gallagher’s soundtrack for The War of the Rohirrim

It’s not long until Warner Bros. Animation unveils its long-awaited second look at Kenji Kamiyama’s The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim at the 2024 Annecy Film Festival. The 90-minute presentation, hosted by Andy Serkis (Hunt for Gollum tie-in, anyone?), will feature the first 20...
www.theonering.net
 
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