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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tsyr" data-source="post: 48502" data-attributes="member: 354">Sorry Gary, but I don't even see that we have "estabalished" that gunpowder works. We have established that some wizards, at least Gandalf and possibly the others, are able to recreate the effects of gunpowder. I note again, the wizard Gandalf was able to create the fireworks.The fireworks themselves, despite the comedic insertation of a pair of pesky pintsize punks lighting one off, never in the book were given any leve of scientific detail at all. They are barely even described physicly (the fireworks themselves, not the effects). And we know that Gandalf was a pyromaniac of the highest and mightiest order. It seems perfectly logical that he could create them through magic... indeed, the dragon (both in the movie and in the book), as well as the butterfly firework (in the book and I think in the movie, I don't recall), and the tree and sailying ship fireworks (only in the book I'm fairly sure) all seem to be as much a creation of magic as science... they are well above even what you see today at the massive Fourth of July display in Boston, or at Mouse Land, or what not. The tree we might be able to do (Fairly sure we could, if we put our minds to it), possibly the butterfly (which may have been meant in a somewhat more metaphorical sense in the book), but neither the dragon nor the sailing ship seem even within our abilities if we put our mind to it... they seem to defy physics. Tolkien used the term fireworks because that would be a term familiar to his readers, and one that would bring vivid displays to life. And because, really, that is what you had... displays of fire in the sky... but saying that because they were called fireworks they must be fireworks as we understand them is a risky path to tread indeed.Eh, my three copper anyhow. (Inflation, you know?)</blockquote>

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