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Originally Posted by davem
Unless I'm misunderstanding the original post, there seems to be an assumption that the physical forms of Gandalf & the Balrog (or The Witch King for that matter) are of the same nature. I don't think this can simply be assumed - Gandalf has a physical body not unlike that of the Children - it ages for one thing. The 'physicality' of the Balrog is of a different order - 'shadow & flame'. Obviously the Balrog has some degree of physicality - it can hold things, fall down chasms etc, but it doesn't seem to be an 'Incarnate' in the same sense as a Human or Elf. The Witch King is physically invisible (in the natural world at least) so his hroa is also fundamentally different to that of other incarnates.
Oh, & Shelob isn't a 'big fat spider' she is 'an evil thing in spider form' - which probably supports your argument in a way....
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I don't think the Balrog's hroa is different than Gandalf's. We don't have any text saying that Balrogs were incarnate, but there are good arguments for the case. The most compelling is the fact that those Balrogs who were slain in the First Age (Gothmog and Glorfindel's Bane, at the very least) never resurface to cause more trouble, and Gandalf's slaying of Durin's Bane appears to be quite final. Had these Maiar been merely clothed--embodied but less than incarnate--they would have been capable of taking a new shape when they were "slain." The Balrog's "shadow and flame" does not indicate that he is more ephemeral in hroa than Gandalf, only that he exerts his power in a visible display. It's something Gandalf would be capable of doing if he chose to disobey the guidelines for his mission. For example, that lightning and ice on the peak was surely Gandalf's doing and not the Balrog's, both being antithetical to the Balrog's spiritual nature.
You're right to draw distinctions between simply "clothed" spirits and incarnate ones, and the topic of the Balrogs is open to debate. After all, if they were less than incarnate then there's no need to wonder if they had wings: they could have had them when they chose to. It just seems more likely that Balrogs, like their master and Sauron, had become permanently incarnated. Aiwendil also recently reminded me that the incarnation of the Balrogs is not a fact made explicit by Tolkien, and he's right, but here's part of my response to him:
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Additionally we recognize the affinity Tolkien's mythos have with biblical stories of the corruption of angels to the service of the devil. In those stories the angels were corrupted not just by affiliating themselves with Satan, but by indulging in activities that were reserved for true incarnates, particularly sex relations. While this is not evidence in itself, Tolkien makes the specific point that an eala could become bound to its hroa by habitual indulgence in such activities (he specifies eating and begetting offspring), and it seems unreasonable to presume that these corrupted Maiar (who were said to be corrupted by dark gifts, if I remember correctly) would have abstained more assiduously than their masters.
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Invisibility also does not indicate a fundamentally different hroa. Bilbo and Frodo both became invisible for a time and were yet never changed from their incarnate nature. The invisibility of the Ringwraiths may be different than that conferred by The One Ring, but still the Ringwraiths are not disembodied fear. They are Men by nature, so the destruction of the hroa results in death. Sauron obviously did something really twisted with them, but there's no indication that they ever died (and thus are not necromantic); they appear simply to have
faded into their LotR state, meaning that they are still merely Men.