[Thingol]

I don't want to get into a Balrog wing debate, but I seem to remember a post a while back citing dozens of instances of the phrase "passed over" being used on creatures that clearly could not fly. The fea of any creature is indestructible, and not bound by the physical world. So yes, the Balrogs in their original state were capable of "flight." All Maia are spirit creatures, but not all Maia incarnated themselves into a single body. Once a Maia incanates itself, like the Balrogs did, it loses much of its former powers. Unless the Balrogs, in their incarnated form, had wings that were more than just shadows, they would not have been able to fly. Tolkien explicity stated that the Balrogs had incarnated themselves into a single body and were incapble of changing it. Sauron on the other hand still retained the ability to shift forms. Elrian is correct, just because Sauron could not take on another fair form, does not necassarily mean that he could not take on multiple evil ones. It never explicitly states that he became trapped in the dark lord persona, after all he did regenerate a new form in the Third Age. Whether or not the wings actually were more than just shadows is a debate that will probably never end.

[ June 12, 2002: Message edited by: Thingol ]