Fireball Spell in Middle-earth?

[tkdco2]

I've heard the argument that magic in Middle-earth is generally subtle, and many D&D spells wouldn't fit in the setting. While that is true, there are exceptions. Gandalf doesn't often display his power in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. However, there are times he has used his magic in combat.



This passage is from The Hobbit, in the chapter “Out of the Frying-pan into the Fire”.

He gathered the huge pine-cones from the branches of his tree. Then he set one alight with bright blue fire, and threw it whizzing down among the circle of the wolves. It struck on on the back, and immediately his shaggy coat caught fire, and he was leaping to and fro yelping horribly. Then another came and another, one in blue flames, one in red, another in green, They burst on the ground in the middle of the circle and went off in coloured sparks and smoke.

This passage is from The Fellowship of the Ring, in the chapter “A Journey in the Dark”.

Stooping like a cloud, he lifted a burning branch and strode to meet the wolves. They gave back before him. High in the air he tossed the blazing brand. It flared with a sudden white radiance like lightning; and his voice rolled like thunder.



'Naur an edraith ammen! Naur dan i nguarhoth!' he cried.



There was a roar and a crackle, and the tree above him burst into a leaf and bloom of blinding flame. The fire leapt from treetop to treetop. The whole hill was crowned with dazzling light.

Are these examples proof that the Fireball spell exists in Middle-earth (albeit with different spell components), or would another spell be more appropriate?



Here's the scene in question from the first Hobbit movie:

[Deleted]

I believe in both these instances, the wizard is causing pre existing material to conflagrate rather than summoning a ball of fire from thin air. There's a spell in AD&D that closely matches the pine cone example and is cited in the controversial "Gandalf is only a fifth level Magic-User" article that makes the rounds when this topic comes up. The short answer IMO is that Gandalf does not use Fireball as we understand it, but he does know many spells and his Elven ring of fire gives him a particular affinity for that element.

[tombowings]

I enjoying running Middle Earth with fireballs, purple worms, and assassins. Because why not.

[Deleted]

Feb 6, 2021 12:47:07 GMT -6 tombowings said:

I enjoying running Middle Earth with fireballs, purple worms, and assassins. Because why not.

That's very First Age/Silmarillion period stuff and that would be a fantastic campaign since that's the Biblical level storytelling of the setting. Stuff like a flying Elven ship taking down a Kaiju sized black Dragon. Sure thing. Love that.

[Porphyre]

Gandalf's major displays of wizardry power in fact mostly happen off-scene, like his duel with Saruman, the fight in the Endless stair against the Balrog , or the night when he was assailed by the Nazgûl on Weathertop.

This last one left the top of the hill mostly scortched and the fireworks were visibles miles away in the night.
So yes, I guess it was FireBalls ...

[tkdco2]

I posted the same question in a Middle-earth forum. Someone suggested a Fire Bolt spell would be a better match. It is a fifth edition cantrip, so I'm not so familiar with it in D&D. It is a MERP spell, so I know that version.

The druid spell Fire Seeds, especially the second edition writeup, is another contender, especially in the movie version of The Hobbit.

The poster I mentioned earlier said that Gandalf's spell at Caradhras corresponded more closely to Wall of Fire than Fireball.

[cometaryorbit]

Gandalf does say at one point in FOTR (in the snow on Caradhras) "I cannot burn snow", so he clearly isn't conjuring fire 'from thin air'.

But the part with the "blazing brand" you quote does rather sound to me like Gandalf made the wood explode in some kind of deflagration, so I am not sure how different this is *in actual functionality* to a D&D fireball spell with a wooden brand rather than bat guano and sulfur as components.

The part with the pinecones from The Hobbit I always assumed to be the specific inspiration for the Fire Seeds spell, and was never clear why it was made a druid spell rather than wizard/M-U. (Although I think Middle-Earth Wizards really combine elements of D&D/AD&D wizards, druids, and bards -- besides being essentially angelic beings stuck in human form.)

[Deleted]

Feb 6, 2021 13:21:52 GMT -6 Porphyre said:

Gandalf's major displays of wizardry power in fact mostly happen off-scene, like his duel with Saruman, the fight in the Endless stair against the Balrog , or the night when he was assailed by the Nazgûl on Weathertop.

This last one left the top of the hill mostly scortched and the fireworks were visibles miles away in the night.
So yes, I guess it was FireBalls ...

It's possible that when he fought the Wraiths and Durin's Bane and nobody was around to see, he was free to unveil himself and fight with his full Maiar powers. He was given specific instruction by the Powers in the West to not do too many big, flashy things in front of people but to lead and inspire. If there's no people around and he's fighting for his life, he can probably go full Angel in short spurts. So, in these instances, I'm not picturing fireballs so much as a being literally wreathed in holy light and wielding a flaming sword. 

[Finarvyn]

I think that much of the "subtle magic" of Tolkien's world is based on the fact that everyday items (toys, fireworks, and so on) often have elements of magic associated with them. Clearly Gandalf's use of fire magic isn't that subtle, although as ampleframework noted, most of Gandalf's fire magic came by combusting stuff rather than making fire from scratch. Add into that the fact that Gandalf also wielded Narya (one of the Three; the ring of fire) so it's hard to say how much of Gandalf's fire magic came from him and how much from the ring.

If you are interested, I took my edition of Hobbit and LotR and made a list of Gandalf's spells. It's in a thread from 2010:
odd74.proboards.com/thread/5837/gandalfs-spells-middle-earth