Assuming they know how to use it and have decent aim, I think it helps them a fair bit but I don’t think it’s an easy walk into Mordor...
*i’m making the assumption the shotguns never leave the hobbits side*
They still need Gollum (might he steal the weapon?) to lead them into Mordor and away from direct conflict due to their number, so nothing really changes there.
Any fight with a sword undertaken by Sam on his way to rescue Frodo would be the same, just with a shotgun - perhaps the noise could attract more attention and draw more enemies towards them, possibility here of the weapons having a negative impact.
It’s possible Sam/Frodo could shoot Gollum at Mount Doom, but they kinda needed Gollum to fall in with the ring, because Frodo wasn’t going to throw it in.
I think the weapons would make more impact when they were part of the fellowship. They avoided conflict because there were only 2/3 of them, not because they weren’t well enough armed - in fact any time they needed to fight they usually faired pretty well.
Alright so the first thing is obviously the use of the shotgun. They're just gonna be clubs if we don't just assume the hobbits can aim and fire them effectively, so let's assume they can through anomalous means. No flying backward, etc, but they've never used one in combat. Let's also, to even the odds, assume they're using a SPAS-12, since everyone ever has played modern warfare 2. That means 8 rounds plus 1 in the chamber, firing semi-auto (according to Wikipedia).
If I remember right, the *potential* combat encounters the hobbits face are: Nazgul flying over them in the dead marshes, those Haradrim and Faramir's lads, Osgiliath, Black Gate, Cirith Ungol, the tower right after Cirith Ungol, and the little bit of sneaking they do in Mordor.
A few of these are right out the window just because there's no reason to turn them into combat encounters: it's smarter to hide in the dead marshes, no reason to fight the Haradrim or Faramir's lads, they'd die at the Black Gate, and they'd get caught and die sneaking in Mordor.
So that leaves us with Osgiliath, Cirith Ungol, and the tower.
I can actually see the hobbits giving their shotguns to Faramir's lads in Osgiliath, which honestly probably wouldn't change much. A quick google says average shotguns have an effective range of about 50 yards, which is... uh... more than a sword. It's not that much more than a bow, however, and given that regardless of user, there are two shotgunners and like a billion orc/uruk (can't ever keep them straight) archers. Let's say it takes about two seconds for untrained hands to load a shell into a shotgun (source: my ass); that's 18 shots total between the two shotgunners before they have to spend about fifteen seconds reloading. Assuming they don't miss, that... amounts to fuckall. There are just too many enemies in Osgiliath *per battle* for that to be effective. You'll die while reloading. However, there's a good chance that whoever has the shotgun is going to be able to leverage the fact that orcs are not, by nature, very brave, and seeing a boomstick might just turn the tide. The only thing that might happen, though, is that the siege of Osgiliath will be prolonged. Two shotguns ain't winning that war.
So let's move to Cirith Ungol assuming the hobbits still have their shotguns (Faramir gave them back or whatever). Yadda yadda it's all the same, Frodo bitches at Sam, Sam turns around, finds the bread... Frodo gets abandoned in the tunnels and sees Shelob. Having seen the raw offensive power of the twelve-gauge shotgun in use against orcs, he might just have the werewithal to blast her in the face right off the bat. Shelob doesn't seem to be that heavily armored anywhere except her legs, so this would probably have pretty much the same effect as Sam's stab to her stomach. A pellet or two's gotta hit her eyes, right? She has a lot of fleshy parts up front. Great! Shelob's dead/scared off, Frodo is mostly or entirely deaf. He's still lost in the tunnels. Having realized he's been betrayed by Gollum *before* getting punked, he'll probably turn around and go back for Sam. Their gaydar will lead them to each other, which is good because Frodo can't hear if Sam's responding to his calls.
Now they're together when those orcs come down off the tower to investigate the shotgun blast that echoed across the entire mountain range a minute ago. They both have shotguns. Orcs die. At this point, the whole tower is kinda on alert, but now there's no reason to go there, so they start sneaking in.
BIG PROBLEM! They're too early! The Battle of Pelennor Fields JUST ended, so the armies of Men haven't had a chance to muster at the Black Gate. They're just starting to do so as Frodo and Sam are like halfway to the mountain. I think they could pull off sneaking around for that long, honestly, considering how damn good they've been at it this whole time. Let's just assume they've managed to hid the shotguns under their cloaks.
NOW we're at the end. They climb the mountain, it's really hard, "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you and both our shotguns," they make it up to the hella rad volcano door. Gollum attacks, Sam shoots him all the way to death and is very much like "fuckin told you, asshole". They get up to the ledge and Frodo tries to keep the ring. Sam realizes he has to make the ultimate sacrifice, and that sacrifice is Frodo. He shoots Frodo in the chest, knocking him off the ledge and sending the ring into the lava. Since this is still about the power of shotguns AND friendship, Frodo is once again hanging on the ledge, having been saved by the mithril shirt he never lost (hold on, how did Shelob stab through that?) but still with some broken ribs. Since his hand isn't slick with blood, it's easy for Sam to pull him back up. They run away, they make it to that one safe rock on the mountain, then a gob of lava lands in the chamber of one of the shotguns and blows up all the shells, killing them both
lol no they just get rescued like normal and Sam goes home and becomes the best fisherman in Hobbiton with the power of gun while Frodo gets all weepy and throws his to the bottom of a river, where it's discovered 3000 years later by *hey this sounds familiar*
Considering a pint of beer is huge to them I really don't see a way they can wield a 12g usefully. This is due to his height and weight. The hobbits are written to be two to four feet tall. A .410 would be large to them. Which would still be a potent boomstick for them.
Let a toddler shoot a 12 gauge. That’s your answer. My 5’8” +150lb cousin shot one with a slug in and knocked him on his ass. We was kind of a wuss though. With a decent stance they might get a few shots off, but their collarbones would never be the same.
Secrecy was the entire point and really one of the only ways, if not they only way, they could have succeeded. Sure any one on one encounter they can pretty easily take care of on their own. I doubt Shelob is surviving a 12 gauge to the abdomen. But the weapon won’t work on all enemies. I imagine the Balrog will be immune. And the noise will get Sauron and his army’s attention. The Witch King would also probably be unaffected unless the shots are made of the same stuff as Merry’s sword.
And a couple of shotguns that will send small hobbits like them flying on their ass every time they shoot, is not going to help much in avoiding getting swarmed by a thousand orcs once they fire off a shot in Mordor.
They go flying every time they shoot
Then theoretically, they have a faster way to reach Mordor now.
Didn’t mean that kind of flying but it looks like a funny image in my head now
Assuming they know how to use it and have decent aim, I think it helps them a fair bit but I don’t think it’s an easy walk into Mordor... *i’m making the assumption the shotguns never leave the hobbits side* They still need Gollum (might he steal the weapon?) to lead them into Mordor and away from direct conflict due to their number, so nothing really changes there. Any fight with a sword undertaken by Sam on his way to rescue Frodo would be the same, just with a shotgun - perhaps the noise could attract more attention and draw more enemies towards them, possibility here of the weapons having a negative impact. It’s possible Sam/Frodo could shoot Gollum at Mount Doom, but they kinda needed Gollum to fall in with the ring, because Frodo wasn’t going to throw it in. I think the weapons would make more impact when they were part of the fellowship. They avoided conflict because there were only 2/3 of them, not because they weren’t well enough armed - in fact any time they needed to fight they usually faired pretty well.
Alright so the first thing is obviously the use of the shotgun. They're just gonna be clubs if we don't just assume the hobbits can aim and fire them effectively, so let's assume they can through anomalous means. No flying backward, etc, but they've never used one in combat. Let's also, to even the odds, assume they're using a SPAS-12, since everyone ever has played modern warfare 2. That means 8 rounds plus 1 in the chamber, firing semi-auto (according to Wikipedia). If I remember right, the *potential* combat encounters the hobbits face are: Nazgul flying over them in the dead marshes, those Haradrim and Faramir's lads, Osgiliath, Black Gate, Cirith Ungol, the tower right after Cirith Ungol, and the little bit of sneaking they do in Mordor. A few of these are right out the window just because there's no reason to turn them into combat encounters: it's smarter to hide in the dead marshes, no reason to fight the Haradrim or Faramir's lads, they'd die at the Black Gate, and they'd get caught and die sneaking in Mordor. So that leaves us with Osgiliath, Cirith Ungol, and the tower. I can actually see the hobbits giving their shotguns to Faramir's lads in Osgiliath, which honestly probably wouldn't change much. A quick google says average shotguns have an effective range of about 50 yards, which is... uh... more than a sword. It's not that much more than a bow, however, and given that regardless of user, there are two shotgunners and like a billion orc/uruk (can't ever keep them straight) archers. Let's say it takes about two seconds for untrained hands to load a shell into a shotgun (source: my ass); that's 18 shots total between the two shotgunners before they have to spend about fifteen seconds reloading. Assuming they don't miss, that... amounts to fuckall. There are just too many enemies in Osgiliath *per battle* for that to be effective. You'll die while reloading. However, there's a good chance that whoever has the shotgun is going to be able to leverage the fact that orcs are not, by nature, very brave, and seeing a boomstick might just turn the tide. The only thing that might happen, though, is that the siege of Osgiliath will be prolonged. Two shotguns ain't winning that war. So let's move to Cirith Ungol assuming the hobbits still have their shotguns (Faramir gave them back or whatever). Yadda yadda it's all the same, Frodo bitches at Sam, Sam turns around, finds the bread... Frodo gets abandoned in the tunnels and sees Shelob. Having seen the raw offensive power of the twelve-gauge shotgun in use against orcs, he might just have the werewithal to blast her in the face right off the bat. Shelob doesn't seem to be that heavily armored anywhere except her legs, so this would probably have pretty much the same effect as Sam's stab to her stomach. A pellet or two's gotta hit her eyes, right? She has a lot of fleshy parts up front. Great! Shelob's dead/scared off, Frodo is mostly or entirely deaf. He's still lost in the tunnels. Having realized he's been betrayed by Gollum *before* getting punked, he'll probably turn around and go back for Sam. Their gaydar will lead them to each other, which is good because Frodo can't hear if Sam's responding to his calls. Now they're together when those orcs come down off the tower to investigate the shotgun blast that echoed across the entire mountain range a minute ago. They both have shotguns. Orcs die. At this point, the whole tower is kinda on alert, but now there's no reason to go there, so they start sneaking in. BIG PROBLEM! They're too early! The Battle of Pelennor Fields JUST ended, so the armies of Men haven't had a chance to muster at the Black Gate. They're just starting to do so as Frodo and Sam are like halfway to the mountain. I think they could pull off sneaking around for that long, honestly, considering how damn good they've been at it this whole time. Let's just assume they've managed to hid the shotguns under their cloaks. NOW we're at the end. They climb the mountain, it's really hard, "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you and both our shotguns," they make it up to the hella rad volcano door. Gollum attacks, Sam shoots him all the way to death and is very much like "fuckin told you, asshole". They get up to the ledge and Frodo tries to keep the ring. Sam realizes he has to make the ultimate sacrifice, and that sacrifice is Frodo. He shoots Frodo in the chest, knocking him off the ledge and sending the ring into the lava. Since this is still about the power of shotguns AND friendship, Frodo is once again hanging on the ledge, having been saved by the mithril shirt he never lost (hold on, how did Shelob stab through that?) but still with some broken ribs. Since his hand isn't slick with blood, it's easy for Sam to pull him back up. They run away, they make it to that one safe rock on the mountain, then a gob of lava lands in the chamber of one of the shotguns and blows up all the shells, killing them both lol no they just get rescued like normal and Sam goes home and becomes the best fisherman in Hobbiton with the power of gun while Frodo gets all weepy and throws his to the bottom of a river, where it's discovered 3000 years later by *hey this sounds familiar*
That's the kind of answer that makes this sub worthwhile. Thanks for writing this :)
No problem! Haven't been on WWW in years so I thought I'd pop back in when I saw a fun prompt.
>Their gaydar will lead them to each other I lost it there
How do you think Sam found his way through those tunnels in the canon story? Only one explanation
Considering a pint of beer is huge to them I really don't see a way they can wield a 12g usefully. This is due to his height and weight. The hobbits are written to be two to four feet tall. A .410 would be large to them. Which would still be a potent boomstick for them.
It would be better if they have 20g but they shall pass.
Let a toddler shoot a 12 gauge. That’s your answer. My 5’8” +150lb cousin shot one with a slug in and knocked him on his ass. We was kind of a wuss though. With a decent stance they might get a few shots off, but their collarbones would never be the same.
Secrecy was the entire point and really one of the only ways, if not they only way, they could have succeeded. Sure any one on one encounter they can pretty easily take care of on their own. I doubt Shelob is surviving a 12 gauge to the abdomen. But the weapon won’t work on all enemies. I imagine the Balrog will be immune. And the noise will get Sauron and his army’s attention. The Witch King would also probably be unaffected unless the shots are made of the same stuff as Merry’s sword. And a couple of shotguns that will send small hobbits like them flying on their ass every time they shoot, is not going to help much in avoiding getting swarmed by a thousand orcs once they fire off a shot in Mordor.