[obloquy]

Originally Posted by blantyr

I would think the balrogs and dragons were given shapes intended for battle, to aid Morgoth in the domination Middle Earth and the defeat of his enemies. Other mythos feature succubi and other dark spirits whose 'magic' might be associated with sex. Tolkien for the most part seems to deal with love more than sex. I certainly wouldn't associate balrogs with either.

Am I misunderstanding here?

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I agree, blantyr. The shapes taken by the Balrogs appear to have been intended to give them a large amount of physical power, greater than that of the Children of Ilúvatar, as well as an aspect of terror. And my thought would be that the Balrogs had incarnate forms from the beginning of their service to Morgoth, not because it would have given Morgoth greater control over them (which I don't feel was necessary; he already had their allegiance), but because a corporeal form would have been required for a maximum effect on the physical world. If they were just disembodied spirits roaming around, I would think their value to Morgoth would be limited. Even as covert, invisible spies, the terror they projected, like the later Nazgûl, would probable have been perceptible. So a physical form would have been logical.

Inzil: Physical forms were certainly necessary for interacting with the physical realm, but as I explained, physical forms came in two varieties: "raiment" and full incarnation. Becoming the latter was a graduation from the former, essentially caused by overuse of the body.

blantyr: You are perhaps correct about the physical forms of dragons, because it is unclear what type of spirit inhabited those forms, and there is no indication that they were naturally discarnate beings. Their nature is somewhat mysterious. Not so with Balrogs. We know exactly what they were originally, and less exactly how they became Balrogs. Their spirits were identical in nature to those of Melkor and Sauron (ealar), though Melkor was vastly greater in original potency.

I had more speculation typed here that I decided to delete, but consider the following facts:

1) Melkor's rebellion and his corruption of Maiar to his service echo the Biblical account of angels becoming demons, and Biblical parallels in Tolkien are always worth noting
2) Biblical demons were angels corrupted by their sexual desire for human women
3) Melkor corrupted his Maiarin servants with unspecified "dark gifts"
4) all of his servants apparently became incarnate, as he did
5) the pleasures of the flesh were especially incarnating, particularly eating and begetting
6) one possible origin for Orcs was that they were bred from perverted Elven stock

Timeline issues? Maybe, it's been a long time since I looked at the sources.

I did allow for the possibility, in my previous post, that Melkor had directly incarnated the Balrogs all at once, but it is not likely that he even had the power to do this. If he did, why did he not forcibly incarnate all of his eala enemies? After all, an incarnate eala is subject to the needs and pains of the flesh, it is bound to one shape, its innate power is hampered, it may be physically detained, it is restricted to physical modes of travel, and death becomes final.

Inzil, you mentioned allegiance. It is with respect to this that incarnation's only plus is revealed, and it is not a benefit to the incarnated but rather to Melkor: defection would be much more difficult for a being that is afflicted with all of the limitations of flesh-and-blood. A Maia in its natural form would be much more difficult to control, so the incarnation of Melkor's Maiar was probably intended, even if he could not directly impose it upon them.