[HerenIstarion]

Shade of Carn Dûm
Posts: 265


Excellent, Durelen [Orald's former screenname, -- H-I], I vote for your analogy!

I think I'll add some stuff of my own though:

Understanding he turned to subtlety in perverting to his own will all that he would use, until he became a liar without shame. He began with the desire of Light, but when he could not posses it for himslef alone, he descended through fire and wrath into a great burning, down into Darkness

You see the point? Any creature, howewer powerful it may have been in the beginning, not serving it's Creator but itself degenerates step by step and loses the power instead of accumulating it, as the creatures of the good will are always supported (even if they themselves may know it not) by higher power - Eru himself (remember Gandalf talking about that Frodo was meant to be a ring-bearer? Meant by whom?) That's why balrogs, spirits of the higher level (at least in power) are so often killed by elves, that's why Isildur is capable to cut off the finger off Sauron himself and so on. Morgoth was most powerful of the Valar, still he alone knew fear.

As for the corporeal Maiar - haven't you noticed that JRRT is always fighting fire with fire? - ring found by halfling (at least one who once have been a halfling) is re-found by another halfling and is carried on by the third one, and the weakness of that third (Frodo incapable of throwing the Ring in) is, if not intendedly, but actually, rectified by the first one - Gollum.

Sauron the Maia is opposed (generally, as their main task) by some other Maiar, and the Valar are only slightly meddling in the affair, and, on the contrary, having Morgoth still in the game, them are acting much more.

So is with the body - if you want to rule over the physical world, you must yourself be embodied. And, as Morgoth's main desire was to be a lord over other wills, and he was not able to control neither elves (their fëar going to Mandos) nor men (theirs leaving the circles of the world at all) after their death - i e in a spiritual world, he had to be embodied. And another general rule with JRRT - one pretending to be somebody, is becoming somebody (Bilbo as an example - starting to pretend being a bold and experienced burglar, just to become one in the end)

Wings re: having a physical body you are subject to physical laws and you got to have wings to fly, that's fact. Yet, heavier you are, stronger (physically) you must be to use your wings. To get your jet fly only twice faster, you have apply 8 times more power. (Just imagine how strong dragons must have been!). And a creature dying in a duel with a mere elf is not obviously so strong to lift its also obviously massive body into the air, wings or no wings. And if someone dares to say that Balrogs were always (poor thingies) in so narrow places that were not able to use their wings properly, there is another answer:

Then Thorondor bore up Glorfindel's body out of the abyss

the same abyss, mind you where:

both [Glorfindel and balrog - HI] fell to ruin in the

(both quotes from S77)

Was not an abyss a narrow place for a greatest of the eagles? Or was he a size of, say, chickenhawk and Glorfindel that of a chicken? Does anyone imply that Thorondor was mountainclimber in disguise who climbed down the abyss with a rope, put the rest of poor Glorfindel into some sort of bag and climbed back? they are wrong wrong wrong!

...but what they are really like, and what lies beyond them, only those can say who have climbed them.