[Kuruharan]

Okay, it's later. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

First, most tanks have shorter range weapons to take care of particularly aggressive enemies that get underneath the range of their big gun. You're not helping yourself with that analogy.

I do have a theory for looking at the passage about Morgoth's spirit.

A few days ago Thingol said that it did not say in the books that Morgoth put any of his power into Balrogs. Now that I have had (a very little) time to check I find that he is right. However, I was able to find some other things that are kind of interesting. Essentially it boils down to the fact that everything has something of Morgoth's spirit in it. That is what is meant by the phrase Arda Marred. Everything has some "Morgoth Element" in it's make up. What does this have to do with Balrogs and Dragons you ask?

Well, in another example, Morgoth's words to Ungoliant were, "For with my power that I put into thee thy work accomplished. Ungoliant was as far as anyone can tell was also a Maiar, yet Morgoth put his power into her to increase her strength. I think it a reasonable assumption that he did the same thing with Balrogs and Dragons. He put his power into the World to ruin it, and he put his power into his servants to strengthen them and increase the ruin. Balrogs were definitely Maiar, but they were apparently weaker than Ungoliant. If Melkor strengthened a greater being like Ungoliant with a part of his spirit, would it not make sense for him to do so with Balrogs as well.

While it's not certain that Dragons had Maiar spirits inside of them, they certainly had something because he spoke, "by the evil spirit within him." Some will no doubt argue that this is Morgoth's spirit, but I think that some of it at least was the spirit of some other entity because Glaurung had a rather independent streak.

I'd like to go on a little longer but I'm out of time (again)...