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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ColonelHardisson" data-source="post: 50112" data-attributes="member: 363">What's being missed is that Gandalf is a wizard, and deals with wizardly things. Let's assume some of his fireworks ability was not magical. Even if he used gunpowder, it was tantamount to magic - something that Hobbits and Men seemed to have shied away from in the books (remember how the Rohirrim dreaded Lorien?). The Elves didn't seem to go in for flashy magic, so would have not really had much use for it (hey, they did a lot of strange things).The point is that Gandalf knew about gunpowder and how to make it. But to Men and Hobbits, gunpowder would have been as arcane and mysterious - and dangerous - as magic. We didn't see Gandalf sharing the secrets of, say, the Palantir, so why would he (and other wizards) necessarily have shared the secret of gunpowder? Even if he were willing to share the info, few would have wanted it.And the point about factories - the ones we know of from the books were masterminded by Saruman, and Sauron if one makes the assumption that there were factories in Mordor. Just more examples of wizardry at work.My point, ultimately, is that gunpowder and other industrial advances in the books were not invented by amateur inventors; they were the work of wizards. That's why they weren't that widespread in Middle Earth. It struck me that the discussion was bypassing this important point.</blockquote>