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Re: Bye Bye Balrogs
Tar Elenion:
On the number "two". In
FG a diversion is created by Gothmog when<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> ... a number made for the folk of the Hammer and gave before them, but the greater company rushing upon the flank contrived to get to their backs, higher upon the coils of the drakes and nearer to the gates, so that Rog might not win back save with great slaughter among his folk.<hr></blockquote>If we assume seven Balrogs maximum, then six only are alive at this time, so the smaller part of the company really
must equal "two" or "one", and "one" seems to me very improbable.
I was attempting to keep the number down to seven in total without actually saying so, or specifying any exact numbers and in this sentence lost the ability to do so.
Most posters who earlier considered the matter, including myself, felt that it would probably be impossible to actually reduce the Balrogs to seven (except by deleting large portions of the battle sequences in the fall of Gondolin), but that at least we might remove the specific indications of a large number of Balrogs. My attempt was however to do
whatever was necessary to truly go all the way down to a maximum of seven Balrogs, on the principle that I might as well try the extreme first, if only to prove that it cannot be satisfactorily done.
Too my surprise, I found that we
can use seven Balrogs. Therefore perhaps we should drop the game of being vague about the actual number being "seven at most" and include that phrase when Balrogs first appear in the revised
Silmarillion.
But if we decide not to actually use the note in the text, then the number in this passage should be vague. Unfortunately English understandibly seems not to contain a word of a kind that can be used here to mean vaguely any quantity and which would also be felt right if the actual number turned out to be two. In my idiolect, at any rate,
a number imeans a number somewhat above "a couple" or "a trio",
few means "five-ish",
several means "sevenish",
some must be more than "two" to feel right in this context, and so forth... "Two" of anything is too easily observable as that exact quantity to allow for substitution of a vaguer term in general use.
Aiwendil:
I agree totally that making Balrogs more powerful was likely one of the reasons JRRT reduced their numbers.
And having fewer active in the wars and in the fall of Gondolin makes it easier to understand how the Elves were able to resist.
Yet if that note had not come down to us, the problem of Balrog's varying in power would not have seemed horribly bothersome, perhaps would not have been noticed by many.
The Balrog of Moria, managed to destroy an entire dwarf kingdom. Or did he? We don't know to what extent he did so alone, and to what extent he gathered a force of Orks and trolls. The story of the fall of Moria is never told. Smaug the dragon, without help, alone destroyed the kingdom of the Lonely Mountain, but it was also a smaller kingdom.
Is a Balrog more powerful than a dragon?
According to one passage in
BoLT 2 Balrogs are as powerful or more powerful, as given in chapter II, "Turambar and the Foalóke":<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> ****Now those drakes and worms are the evillest creatures that Melko has made, and the most uncouth, yet of all are they the most powerful, save it be the Balrogs only.<hr></blockquote>Yet we are told of the death of only one dragon in
FG and the possible fatal wounding of another, while many more Balrogs are slain. Perhaps this is explicable because these dragons are new, improved versions of metal and pure fire, more powerful than any before? Possibly also the power of armored dragons to resist attack was greater than that of Balrogs (or most Balrogs), though Balrogs might have had great offensive capibilities.
Smaug, as a winged dragon, one of the last kinds created by Morgoth, might have been more powerful than most of the dragons of the First Age.
(This is all unanswerable speculation of course!)
Though it is not actually said, I get the impression that the Great Worms bred, and Smaug and other dragons came from that brood. As Thórin remarks in his story of Smaug's devastation, it was<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> ... the usual unhappy story, it was only too common in those days.<hr></blockquote>This links with the note under TA 2570 in Appendix B:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> About this time Dragons reappear in the far North and begin to afflict the Dwarves.<hr></blockquote>Where are these other dragons? Slain, probably, as the years went by. And if dragons are slain, then why not Balrogs?
It also seems to me that the slaying of so many Balrogs at
FG is partly because of the suicide mentality of many of the defenders: expecting to die, knowing they are going to die, they fearlessly make any effort to take their enemies with them. Ecthelion's suicide grip on Gothmog is an example.
Of course, I am rationalizing, but probably only as we all would do if a version of
FG with its many Balrog slayings had been included by Christopher Tolkien in
The Silmarillion, or if that note simply did not exist. We would live not unhappily with the thousand Balrogs.
Gandalf rightly warns the party to fly. There is no use in staying, and the Balrog, like a dragon, is far more powerful than any of the party. That does not mean that he might not have been slain, as Bard slew Smaug, or Éowyn and Merry slew the Witch-king, or Glorfindel unexpectedly slew his Balrog in a single duel rather than in the press of battle where odd chances are more likely, where perhaps twenty Balrogs were slain by Elves, but hundreds of Elves may have been slain by single Balrogs. Gandalf's remarks may owe more to realizing that this being is Durin's Bane, and having encountered the counter-spell that this creature cast against Gandalf's shutting-spell, than to it being a Balrog. That Legolas "wailed" is perhaps more convincing of the power of any Balrog. But might he not also have wailed if a dragon appeared?
But the note exists, and it
can be used, and should be if acceptable changes can be made.
My changes in
FG were designed to be minimal, yet I feel, naturally, that it would be better not to be so daring if possible. Then in another mood, I also feel that perhaps changing those three Balrogs driven off by Ecthelion to one is a necessary improvement, even though it would involve yet more changing of the original text, which is not perhaps
necessary.
Where does one stop on the slippery slope of making minimal emendations and writing fan fiction? I don't really like reducing the party of Balrogs with bows and slings to one Balrog with a bow, however much I like the effect of the tale that is produced. Should I have made them two, one with bow and one with sling, and then had one slain? That would be more difficult to accomplish.
Perhaps another version should be attempted, by myself, or someone else, also trying to keeping the number strictly to seven or less, but purposely making it as different as possible from the version I produced.
If very different versions are possible, then to some extent we are writing fan fiction to fill in Tolkien's gaps. I think in some moods my Balrog work is
very close to the fan fiction line, closer than I am comfortable with. But perhaps still not unexceptable.
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