Board Thread:Suggestions forum/@comment-28852094-20160720050444/@comment-28153737-20160721162728

Madman198237 wrote: Guys, the Mumak referred to in the quote that keeps appearing is a singular noun, right? Capitalized as though to be a proper noun. Read it carefully.

"To his astonishment and terror, and lasting delight, Sam saw a vast shape crash out of the trees and come careering down the slope. Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to him, a grey-clad moving hill. Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes, but the Mûmak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are but memories of his girth and majesty. On he came, straight towards the watchers, and then swerved aside in the nick of time, passing only a few yards away, rocking the ground beneath their feet: his great legs like trees, enormous sail-like ears spread out, long snout upraised like a huge serpent about to strike. his small red eyes raging. His upturned hornlike tusks were bound with bands of gold and dripped with blood. His trappings of scarlet and gold flapped about him in wild tatters. The ruins of what seemed a very war-tower lay upon his heaving back, smashed in his furious passage through the woods; and high upon his neck still desperately clung a tiny figure-the body of a mighty warrior, a giant among the Swertings."

This implies that the Mumak (Singular proper noun) is the largest of his kind at the time. This leads me to say that Mumak and elephants should be separate breeds of creature. Elephants following today's smaller (Never thought you'd apply that word to a full-grown African elephant, did you?) variety, and larger (Not movie-size, but a few feet taller and a little broader) Mumakil, such as the descendants (Kin, technically) of the huge Mumak, with six tusks or whatever.

Another point: this Easterling is called "a tiny figure", from a Hobbit's point of view. A Hobbit would more likely exaggerate the size of the Easterling than to diminish it. Clearly, this isn't an elephant of average height.

Other than that, back to the suggestion: Most of these are assuredly planned or unnecessary. We'll have to wait and see what comes later, but this suggestion needs more detail for serious consideration. Umm...

They Mumakil were the beasts of the Haradrim. The Easterlings were from Rhun, the Haradrim from the south.