GROND

Sidenote, looking this up just now is how I found out the Battle of Pelennor Fields took place on my birthday.

GROND

Fun fact: the siege engine Grond was named for Morgoth’s mace which he used in the first age to smite Fingolfin, the younger half brother of Fëanor (the crafter of the Silmarils), during 1 on 1 combat. In that battle, Fingolfin’s final act of defiance to the first Dark Lord was to stab his foot, leaving Morgoth with a limp for the rest of his time on Arda. Interestingly, Morgoth never recovered from this injury, whereas he is stated to have recovered from other injuries to his physical form such as the attack of Thorondor the eagle as Fingolfin laid dying, and the betrayal of Ungoliant after the ruining of the two trees of Valinor. This is also the only time mentioned in Tolkien’s writings when a Vala was injured by a child of Ilúvatar.

GROND

Just wrapping up the Eye of the Duck podcast’s retrospective on Return of the King, and one of the hosts brought up a fun hypothetical. According to him, the fire that is in Grond’s mouth is actually taken from Mt. Doom and kept alight for the whole journey. Which bears the question, could Grond destroy the Ring?

[Obviously not, I know, but good fodder for pedantry]

My favorite part about grond is how it can launch 90kg payloads over… oh wait, I’m thinking about the superior siege weapon