Article: 187497 of rec.arts.books.tolkien Path: uchinews!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!newspeer.monmouth.com!ix.netcom.com!not-for-mail From: "O. Sharp" <<>> Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Re: The Great Debate: Balrog Slippers (was Re: Balrog Wings: Settled at Last!) Date: 29 Sep 1999 06:50:14 GMT Organization: "More Weight!" - Giles Corey, _The Crucible_ Lines: 94 Message-ID: <7sscr6$91t@dfw-ixnews19.ix.netcom.com> References: <37EE67AE.3E220DCD@erols.com> <7slrsf$p7j@dfw-ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: netcom14.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Wed Sep 29 1:50:14 AM CDT 1999 NNTP-Posting-User: ohh User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-19990517 ("Psychonaut") (UNIX) (SunOS/4.1.4 (sun4m)) Xref: uchinews rec.arts.books.tolkien:187497 Okay: _some_body has to respond to this. :) My profound apologies to everyone in the Universe, most especially the ingenious Mr. Jensen. Steuard Jensen opined: : Come now. You have to understand that the text is absolutely clear on : the existence of the bedroom-slippers on the Balrog. After all, we : read that after it leaped across the fissure of fire, "a black smoke : swirled in the air". Now, the Balrog is a creature of fire: no : intrinsic part of it would smoulder and produce such smoke because of : a few measly flames. Excuse me? The text doesn't say this. It does "roar up to greet [the Balrog]", implying an origin near the Balrog's feet, as you note later, but this is hardly dependent upon some non-existent Bakshi-designed bedroom slippers. I think you'll find the smoke was the "black foot-odours" of the Balrogs, documented in _BoLT II_ "The Fall of Gondolin" p. 176 hardback: "yet they lie about its feet and a vast steam arises... women became faint and men sweated to weariness beneath their mail..." Its effects are like the Black Breath of the Nazgul. Hardly evidence of fluffy bedroom slippers, which would in fact have served to inhibit it. : What, then, can we expect on the Balrog's feet? We know that it is : "of man-shape maybe, yet greater": whatever it's wearing must be : fairly big, but the sort of thing we would expect on a man. This hardly limits us to bedroom slippers. The Balrog's feet were unclad. If it had chosen to wear footwear, Red Wing shoes would have been the obvious choice. But the visibility of the black foot-odour is enough to demonstrate that the feet were bare. : Now, we : also know that it was surrounded by darkness, of its own choosing : ("...a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form"). : Why would a manlike being with at least some Maia powers surround : itself in shadow? After all, it's clear that the Balrog can light : _itself_ on fire if it wants to; there is no natural reason for it to : shun light, UNLESS it was asleep, and just woke up! (Wouldn't _you_ : wrap yourself in shadow if _you_ were dragged out of bed to deal with : tresspassers early in the morning? Who _knows_ what this thing's : sleep schedule was like: we know it occasionally liked to hibernate, : after all. The Fellowship's intrusion could have come weeks before it : had planned to wake up... and heaven help Pippin if his stone knocked : it awake!) This clearly explains why it was so upset with the : Fellowship, and how Gandalf was able to defeat it at all. The Balrog was just making a good entrance. To suggest that it was awakened by Pippin's dropping a stone _the previous day_ is unthinkable; in any case, JRRT _specifically_ wrote that Balrogs had NO problem with waking up hurriedly. _Silmarillion_ p. 81 hardback: "..._swiftly they arose_, and passing over Hithlum they came to Lammoth as a tempest of fire." Balrogs wake up fast. Your argument collapses of its own weight. : Incidentally, it's further confirmed when Gandalf mentions that the : Balrog became a "thing of slime" in the water: have you ever felt wet, : muddy, dirty, once-fluffy bedroom slippers? Horrid things, let me : tell you. No wonder Gandalf chose to "bring no report to darken the : light of day"! The true horror of Gandalf's predicament is now clear, : when he explains that his only hope to find the surface again was to : pursue his enemy, "clutching at his heel". Yuck! I refer you to _The Treason of Isengard_, p. 431 hardback. Quoting CJRT: "The form of Gandalf's story in TT is almost reached in the 'fair copy' manuscript... He tells that clutching at the Balrog's heel 'I set my teeth in it like a hunting hound, and tasted venom'..." Would Gandalf had tasted venom through a fluffy bedroom slipper? Indeed, would Gandalf - no matter how desperate his situation - _ever_ bite a fluffy bedroom slipper? Nowhere in the whole of the canon is Gandalf described as chewing on footwear. I see no reason to believe he would abruptly take up the habit during a desperate battle with a Balrog. : I would like to think that this will put the debate to rest, but I : know that there are always those who will refuse to accept the facts : and try to force their own interpretations on what Tolkien wrote. In : many cases, there is room for ambiguity, but here, I'm afraid, the : truth is clear. If this great debate has to open up again, then so be : it! Nope. No slippers. JRRT wrote no slippers. Get over it. Honestly, it's so obvious, I don't know what all this confusion is about. :) :) :) :) :) :) :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ohh -aaatt- netcom -daht- com Ahh, yes, I feel the great weight and responsi- bility of proper Tolkien understanding settling upon my shoulders like a great mantle. :)