This was always my favorite battle until the conflict at Pelennor Fields, and is still my second-favorite Tolkien-made battle. Does anyone else have any opinions about the Battle of the Five Armies?
Its an interesting battle. One of a kind with all those species fighting eachother. Although I would not say its one of my favourite I did not expect such a dramatic ending at the end of The Hobbit.
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Utúlie'n aurë! Aiya Eldalië ar Atanatári, utúlie'n aurë! Auta i lómë! Aurë entuluva!
me neither, the book was pretty calm, except some battles from time to time I though that after some negociations peache would be reached between the dwarves and the elves and all would go home...but no...
I loved the battle of five armies. Athough, I do have one question.
The first four armies were; elves, men, dwarves, and orcs. but was the fifth army the eagles or the wolves. Please don't think of me as an idiot this has just been buging my for a while.
"So began a battle that none had expected; and it was called the Battle of Five Armies, and it was very terrible. Upon one side were the Goblins and the wild Wolves, and upon the other were Elves and Men and Dwarves." The Hobbit 17 The Clouds Burst
Tolkien is once again very clear, the armies of the Wargs and of the Orcs on one side, fighting against the Dwarves of the Company, and those led by Dain, the Elves of Thranduil, and lastly the Men of Esgaroth.
Eagles, are not counted as an army, for reasons on which I could only speculate. Perhaps they were too few in numbers, perhaps because they entered the battle only towards the end. Beorn is probably also not a member of any of the armies, beeing just like the eagles someone that enters the battle after its beginning, and fights on the side of the good guys.
And Bilbo himself, is also probably not member of any of the armies, considering that a hobbit army can't only have 1 soldier.
Also, that was one huge army of orcs and wargs that the; dwarves, men, elves, eagles, Beorn, Gandalf, and Bilbo (if he counts) bairly won. There most of been tens of thousands of them.
On one side we have over 500 dwarves of the Iron Hills, over 1000 elves of the Woodland Realm, 13 dwarves of Erebor, an unknown number of men of Lake-town and Eagles, and Beorn. On the other an unknown but large number of orcs, wargs and Mirkwood vampire bats, outnumbering the opposing force.
All we know is that the good armies were strong enough to almost completely destroy their enemies, as we are told in the end.
lol, I just downloaded it it is indeed a nice book, though some maps that were to big are in 2 pieces on 2 pages but it is ok I personally like the book, it is nice and it gives nice illustrations to help one better understand the story
get what? the book? yeah, I personally think the book is very well done, and very objectively. Not very much fantasy in the book, just clear, objective data from the books used to create very veridic images that help you understand what happened in ME and in Beleriand better.
