Talk:Fell beast (Middle-earth)

message: I don't remember anything specific in the book refering to them having either. Is there a source other than the bird/pteresaur debate? Because if they are meant to be pterasaur-like its possible that they would have either.
:Return of the King:  "Suddenly the great beast beat its hideous wings, and the wind of them was foul. Again it leaped into the air, and then swiftly fell down upon Éowyn, shrieking, striking with beak and claw." 2606:6000:61CF:3400:8929:EAE1:5A38:549E (talk) 08:05, 8 January 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Teeth vs. Beak 

message: I corrected the Return of the King portion here. Book Five, page 115 (Houghton Mifflin "collector's edition" ) states Snowmane was killed by a "dart", which clearly could not have been launched by the fell beast itself. It is also stated on page 163 that the forces of the West saw "all the Nazgûl gathered together, hovering above the Towers of the Teeth like vultures." They were therefore on flying mounts, certainly fell beasts, and there's no guesswork at all about what they were riding on the last race to Mount Doom. TCC (talk) (contribs) 05:41, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Books section 

message: I know "Fell beast" or "Fellbeast" is all over the internet, but Tolkien would have choked to see "fell" used as a proper noun.  It is an adjective.  He might just as easily referred to the creatures as "horrid beasts" or "ghastly beasts"--  would it then sound right to you to use "Horridbeast" as a proper name?  Tolkien uses "fell" many times in LOTR, refering to the Nazgul's winged steeds, to the "fell meats" Sauron nursed them on, to "fell voices" in the air, to "fell creatures" before the walls of Minas Tirith, and even to the "fell-handed" Rohirrim.  In "The Homecoming of Beorthnoth," one of the two main characters refers to "fell things" that are about.  The professor's not around anymore, but I'd wager all I've got that he would have been exasperated by "fellbeasts" and their proponents. It's an adjective, not a noun!!!! 
Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I think I'll go look up a few favorite passages in LOTR so that I can read about the Nazgul lord mounting his "Blackhorse," Sam leading Bill, his "Poorpony," and Theoden riding into battle on "Swiftsnowmane." 169.253.4.21 (talk) 21:15, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I completely agree with these two editors. The use of the term "fell beast" is nothing short of silly. Why don't we call it a "terrifying fell beast" if we're into descriptors or what about simply "beast" or "unnamed beast." The creature in question was never named in the books, was never named in any adaptations (to my knowledge), and it's pretty clear that giving it the name "fell beast" demonstrates nothing more than inexperience with the English language. I can't think of a good way to rename this article, so I'm suggesting that we merge it. Please see Talk:Nazgûl#Merge. -Thibbs (talk) 22:40, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:   Use of Term "Fell Beast" 

message: Tried a little something to place a bat wing and a pterodactyl wing right near each other for comparison with a single caption. I basically ripped off the code that was generated from a <gallery> tag and tweaked it. I suppose it looks OK, and hopefully it won't break in some future release of MediaWiki. TCC (talk) (contribs) 06:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture experiment 

message: The other day it occurred to me that the mythological creatures most resembling the general description of Tolkien's winged creatures/fell beasts were wyverns. It's true that wyverns were originally considered a form of dragon (but now are considered separate from dragons which now always have 4 legs with 2 wings), but as Tolkien must have had a good knowledge of English mythology, I have to wonder if wyverns hadn't influenced his thoughts on fell beasts even a little. After all Wyverns are supposed to be large reptilian creatures with two wings (dragon-like or bat-like) and two legs and are supposed to have long tails. According to the wyvern article, the rest of the appearance could vary, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched to imagine that some wyverns were described as having beaks and possibly not being able to breathe fire. Of course, this is all speculation and will remain so unless Christopher Tolkien finds some notes by his father on the fell beasts being wyverns. Shame J.R.R. Tolkien isn't around so the question could be asked directly.72.27.92.79 19:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: JRRT came right out and said they were related to the "new mythology" of dinosaurs, while at the same time he didn't identify them as any one in particular. TCC (talk) (contribs) 22:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Did JRRT say that the fell beasts were solely related to the "new mythology" of palentology or that the "new mythology" contributed (even if greatly) to development of the creature in his work? There is a difference. If he based it solely off paleontology (unlikely considering his background) then one does have to admit that the results are astonishingly similar to the description of wyverns. However, given that Tolkien did have knowledge of mythology (and his knowledge of mythology was probably greater than his knowledge of paleontology) then it is at least likely that knowledge of wyverns (grouped in with the knowledge of dragons, elves, etc.) would have had some influence (even if minute) upon his development of the winged steeds of the Nazgul.72.27.92.79 00:57, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He said it "owes something to the new mythology" or something along those lines. The idea is that it was roughly based on what he called a "pterodactyl", but not corresponding to any real animal. He never said a thing about wyverns that I recall, and I would guess they weren't much on his radar. I know of no legends about them; they appear primarily as heraldic animals. Modern post-Tolkien fantasy has done somewhat more with them, which may lend the impression that they were more significant in medieval legend than they really were. But don't be so sure you know what he'd be aware of based on his "background". If you go by that, you'd never guess in a million years who one of his favorite modern authors was. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Wyverns and Fell Beasts

message: :Image:Fellbeast.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:02, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Fellbeast.jpg

message: Should I leave the categories here or not, as it is now a redirect page? Darth Newdar (talk) 17:54, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not a member of WikiProject Middle Earth so I may be wrong about this, but all things considered a merged article is no longer really an article in its own right. This page is a redirect so it's meaningless to have class and importance tags given to it. The merged-to article should provide adequate class and importance ratings for this material now. I'll change the top and add a merge-from tag to the new parent article. For the history books, though, this had been ranked a B-class and was recognized as of mid-importance. -Thibbs (talk) 20:54, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Categories