Re: Balrogs Author: Steuard Jensen Email: sjensen -aaatt- hmc -daht- edu Date: 1998/09/15 Forums: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.fan.tolkien ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Quoth Michael Martinez <<>>: > The problem with the "might be right" issues that the TEXTS only > point one way. There is nothing in the texts which suggest the > Balrogs were wingless, where the texts do say they had them. So, I > can see that the other side wants Balrogs not to have wings, but I > don't see how they *might* be right. I've said this before, but I think it deserves saying again here. I don't believe that _Tolkien_ was consistent in his thoughts on Balrog wings. More on how this might be smoothed over at the end of the message. I believe that the phrasing of the "winged speed" passage, while not absolutely unambiguous, strongly indicates that Balrogs have wings. (The combination of "winged", "over", and "tempest" in a single place finally convinced me, despite my reluctance.) Yes, all of these words can be easily interpreted in ways that do not involve literal wings, but having all three together makes the literal interpretation the most likely, to my mind. Also, it cannot be denied that wings or no wings, there's a lot of "wingish" imagery associated with Balrogs in general. On the other hand, I am quite convinced that the description of the Balrog in Moria involves _only_ non-corporeal "wings" of shadow (and hence not the sort of thing that would allow one to fly). I simply cannot bring myself to believe that Tolkien would have been so careless in his use of language as to use the phrase "the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings" two short paragraphs before "its wings were spread from wall to wall" without the "wings" referring to the same thing. I have given more detailed discussion of this point in earlier incarnations of this thread, but this is the crux of the argument. While it is possible that Tolkien did indeed mean for these passages to be taken seperately (which must be Michael's assertion when he states that "the texts do say [Balrogs] had [wings]" in relation to this passage), it is AT LEAST as valid to assert that Tolkien intended the second passage to be read in light of the first. As an example of the importance of context, consider this text: "Billy flew out of school like a hawk intent on its prey. When he flew into his house minutes later, he voraciously devoured the cookies his mother had made for him." It is clearly _not_ valid to assert that Billy could fly based only on the phrase "When he flew into his house". While this doesn't prove that this was Tolkien's intention in the Balrog's case, it DOES prove that the in-context, "wings-as-metaphor" assertion is a very valid way of reading the text. As I firmly believe it to be the reading that Tolkien intended, I believe that this passage very strongly indicates that Balrogs do not have wings in any usual sense of the word. Of course, this flatly contradicts my reading of the "winged speed" passage, as I noted from the start. My current preferred interpretation of this is as follows: Balrogs in the First Age probably had wings. However, realizing that a spirit of fire would be awfully easy for the Valar to find in the air or on the ground, the Balrog of Moria decided to hide out underground. While hibernating, playing solitaire, eating Dwarves, and whatever else it did down there, it probably had very few uses for those wings, which would be more of a hinderance than anything else. Being an Ainu, even if a low-grade one, it was able to slowly modify its physical form, reducing its wings from their former flight-capable state to an ominous, shadowy, rather wing-shaped cloud. That sort of thing would be both more manageable and more useful underground than actual flappy wings. (The shadow probably remained winglike in shape because the Balrog was still somewhat bound to its habitual form, as discussed in the latest issue of Vinyar Tengwar.) Of course, when the bridge broke, it would not have had the years or centuries required to fully remanifest the wings to the point of flight. (I would think that it would have done so if it could have, as Gandalf wasn't going anywhere but the rest of the Fellowship was about to get away.) At any rate, that's the best explanatory story that I've been able to construct to date. I won't say that it's "right", but it's the best fit to the seemingly contradictory passages that I've been able to work out. What is _does_ show is that the pro-wings and anti-wings sides can actually co-exist, if both are willing to concede a few reasonable points. Three cheers for compromise! Steuard Jensen