Balrogs DO have wings!!!

[piosenniel]

As I was searching the internet for some piece of Tolkien info, I ran across this reference concerning Balrog's and Wings. It is by the author Michael Martinez. I have not looked into the exact references for his assumptions, but I thought I would share them:

Do Balrogs have wings? Do Balrogs fly?

No questions seem to incite greater fear in online Tolkien fandom than these two, because the Great Balrog Wings debate began innocently enough in late 1997 and has raged ever since, each time someone just discovers a new discussion group, or they work up their courage to ask the question again and again. Why the great fear? Because few people ever give in and change their minds. And those who do change their minds may do so more than once. The Balrog Wings debate has led to a great deal of name-calling and casting of slurs. It all becomes very childish too quickly.

And, unfortunately, recent efforts to portray the debate in a "fair" and non-judgmental way have been spectacular failures because the third-parties don't present all the facts. It is difficult to condense a discussion which roars over 2 or 3 weeks before dying down to a concise summary. It is difficult to be sure of which points are proven and which are discarded. The Great Metaphor and Simile debate arose out of the Great Balrog Wings debate, and if nothing else provided much evidence that people cannot agree on anything. Many who had stood firmly together on the wings issue fell to bickering over what constituted metaphor and simile, and how they are normally used, and how they should be used, and how J.R.R. Tolkien used them.

This page is concerned only with the original questions. Did Balrogs have wings? Did Balrogs fly? And the answers are...

Yes, Balrogs had wings...from about 1940 onward.

Yes, Balrogs flew...from at least 1940 onward, maybe from 1948 onward, or possibly from 1952 or thereabouts onward.

The Origins of Balrogs
Tolkien used the word "Balrog" to describe a terrifying type of warrior he invented for THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, the first story of which was written in 1916/1917. This was "The Fall of Gondolin". There were hundreds or even thousands of them. In some battle descriptions Tolkien wrote about 1,000 Balrogs riding across the field (they were a cavalry force).

THE BOOK OF LOST TALES was Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, and he abandoned the project in 1925, about the time he decided to create a wholly new mythology which reused the themes and many characters from THE BOOK OF LOST TALES. So this new mythology, which he called the "Silmarillion", was a very primitive version of the collection of stories Christopher published as THE SILMARILLION in 1977, but it wasn't directly related.

The "Silmarillion" mythology retained the Balrogs, and in the 1930s Tolkien rewrote it, producing the fullest version of "Quenta Silmarillion" that he would ever write. Christopher actually used some portions of this text for the book, and that unfortunately has contributed to the confusion many people experience about Balrogs.

A New Balrog Emerges
When Tolkien began work on THE LORD OF THE RINGS he really wanted to get his "Silmarillion" published (now conceived of as THE SILMARILLION, but still only very little in concept like the final book). He had no real inclination to write any more books about hobbits, but as he got rolling on the new hobbit story the idea of marrying the world of the hobbits to the world of the "Silmarillion" appealed to him, and he believed it would eventually help him publish THE SILMARILLION.

So Tolkien began creating what we today know as Middle-earth (it did not exist before then, and Tolkien had only rarely used the name "Middle-earth" in the 1930s, and it does not appear in any published text from before the 1930s). As part of that world he needed a series of perils that Frodo and his companions would encounter, and one of them was set in the ancient mines of Moria, which THE HOBBIT had established was now abandoned and in the possession of Orcs (or had been).

The peril in Moria started out as something other than a Balrog (Tolkien wasn't sure of what it should be at first), and when he decided it SHOULD be a Balrog he became dissatisfied with the way he had portrayed Balrogs in the past. Tolkien had already begun the process of transforming the Balrogs into fallen Maiar but this decision would not be put into written form until 1948. Nonetheless, he changed the physical description of the Balrog in Moria and altered its abilities substantially from those assigned to the Balrogs of earlier (now abandoned) stories.

This Balrog had wings, and was capable of exercising great power, and was nearly invincible. The Balrog detected Gandalf's spell as he tried to block the exit from the Chamber of Mazarbul, and the Balrog itself began a counter-spell, according to Gandalf. So the wizard used a Word of Command to break the down, and the result was a partial cave-in which buried the Chamber of Mazarbul and apparently the Balrog with it.

The Balrog survived the cave-in and rejoined its army, which converged with the Company of the Ring in the Second Hall of Khazad-dum by an alternate route. There the Balrog revealed itself fully, and the darkness with which it cloaked itself expanded. The wings were either shielded by the darkness or formed by the Balrog on the spot or else the darkness (or part of the darkness) was reshaped by the Balrog to take on the form of wings (and thus BECAME wings).

Objections to Balrog Wings
Here is where many people make their first mistake. They argue that since Tolkien introduces the wings with a simile, saying, "the shadow around it reached out LIKE two vast wings", the wings cannot be real. But the argument is flawed, because Tolkien also introduces the darkness (the "shadow") with a simile as well: "what it was could not be seen: it was LIKE a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe yet greater". If Tolkien's use of the word "like" here means that there were no wings, then it follows that there was no shadow, and if there was no shadow then it could not possibly have "reached out like two vast wings".

So, in order for there to be a shadow there must be wings, because later on Tolkien writes "it stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall." The Company of the Ring clearly saw the wings by this point, and what Tolkien was doing with the two similes (and other parts of the passage) was providing a transition from vagueness to clarity. Nothing more.

Objections to Flying Balrogs
People then ask, "Why didn't the Balrog fly over Gandalf if it could fly?"

The answer is that the author gives no indication that the Balrog wanted to do anything other than attack Gandalf. It never once tries to go after Frodo and the Ring. Many people assume it wanted the Ring, but there is no basis for making such an assumption. The closest indication we have that anything other than Sauron and Saruman might have been actively pursuing the Ring is when the Watcher in the Water grabs Frodo. But there is no obvious connection between the Watcher and the Balrog.

And if the Balrog COULD have flown with those big cavern-spanning wings, how was it to do so inside the Second Hall of Khazad-dum anyway? There were two rows of HUGE carven pillars, reaching from floor to ceiling, marching down the center of the hall. The Balrog could not have flown toward the Company of the Ring with those wings fully extended.

Then people ask, "Well, why didn't it try to save itself when it fell into the chasm?"

The answer here begins with another question: "Why should we assume it would want to save itself?" The Balrog had just crawled out from under tons of rock which would have killed Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, and all the rest of the Company. What, exactly, did it have to fear? Why should it have tried to "save" itself when the author has just shown the reader that Balrogs don't die so easily?

Furthermore, the first thing the Balrog does is lash out at Gandalf and drag him downward. Clearly its foremost thought is to continue the attack on Gandalf. Even if there were room in the chasm for the Balrog to fly out, why should it drag Gandalf down with it if it intends to get out of the chasm anyway? Why not just "save" itself and let him fall with the bridge? Because Tolkien didn't write it that way. Obviously he envisioned the Balrog as an active creature, not a reactive one.

Gandalf's description of the battle with the Balrog also makes it clear that they fought all the way down, and that they fell for a long time. So the Balrog was at the very least encumbered with Gandalf and more likely was actively trying to burn him to death (Gandalf does say he was burned).

And then we have to turn to the question of why it took so long for them to reach the water. Some people have argued that it was a LONG way down. Maybe, but if Tolkien knew anything about the rate of falling bodies (and he probably did), then he would understand that Gandalf's words wouldn't make any sense if the wizard and the Balrog really fell at a normal speed.

So it seems apparent that their rate of descent was slowed, probably by the Balrog, but clearly these were both beings of great power who, if they wished to, could move through the universe at will. Their existence and ability to affect the universe did not depend on their physical bodies (although it has been noted that late in his life Tolkien decided many of the fallen Maiar probably became trapped in their bodies due to engaging in biological activities).

Hence, there is little reason to ask why the Balrog didn't fly out of the chasm. It obviously had other things on its mind, and the battle Gandalf describes is not the kind of battle that any normal flesh-and-blood creature would be expected to survive (and he himself was not a normal flesh-and-blood creature). The battle lasted for 11 days, and it culminated with the clash of powers on the mountaintop.

Could a Flying Balrog Save Itself?
There one more objection is raised: "Why didn't the Balrog save itself when it fell from the mountainside?" The answer is that dead and dying Balrogs, like dead and dying dragons, don't fly. When Earendil cast Ancalagon from the sky the dragon was finished and it smote Thangorodrim in its ruin just as the Balrog of Moria smote the mountainside in ITS ruin. And when Bard's arrow pierced Smaug's breast, the great dragon fell from the sky and hit the ruins of Laketown in HIS ruin.

Gandalf threw down his enemy. That expression is one of Tolkien's pseudo-archaisms, and clearly refers to Gandalf's vanquishing the Balrog. It was either too physically exhausted after having been whacked on with an Elvish sword and blasted with lightning bolts for 11 days or it was dead or in the process of dying when it took that fall off the cliff. If the Balrog could have acted to save itself at all by that point, it would at least have taken Gandalf with it, if not actually turn the tables on him. How many times during their 11 days together did either Gandalf or the Balrog NEARLY kill his opponent? Tolkien doesn't say. He leaves it to the reader to imagine how terrible the battle must have been. But he makes it clear that Gandalf won because the Balrog could no longer attack him.

But Can Balrogs Really Fly?
Then we turn to the question of whether Balrogs really CAN fly. The short answer is that they were Maiar and that Maiar can whatever they please. The long answer is that Tolkien DOES provide one example of flying Balrogs, and that is when they flew over Hithlum to rescue Morgoth from Ungoliant.

Here many people raise objections by dissecting a single sentence and taking specific phrases out of context. "winged speed", they say, can be used as a metaphor. Yes, it can, but there is no indication in the text that Tolkien used it so. "Arose", they say, can refer to the act of flying up into the sky or simply climbing out of an underground abode, and the Balrogs were indeed underground when they heard Morgoth scream. Yes, that is so. But there is no indication in the text that this is what Tolkien meant to imply without also implying flight.

"Passed over" doesn't necessarily mean flight, either, they say. Fingolfin's horse passed over the plain of Anfauglith after the Dagor Bragollach, and the horse obviously was not flying. True, but "passed over" must be given a context to have any meaning.

What J.R.R. Tolkien actually wrote was "swiftly they arose, and they passed with winged speed over Hithlum, they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire." Unfortunately, only part of this text was used by Christopher Tolkien in THE SILMARILLION. What he wrote "and now swiftly they arose, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire."

Here is a link to the entire article:

Wings?