Quote:
Originally Posted by popo
Tolkien novice here, but reading the Silmarillion yesterday and I came upon the line the OP was based upon:
"[Sauron] gathered again under his government all the evil things of the days of Morgoth that remained on earth or beneath it"
Do the lore experts here consider this the best evidence that Sauron held sway over Balrogs - espeically Durin's Bane? To me the quote seems an expicit yes!
However I've seen other threads here debating who's interest Durin's Bane would have acted under in FOTR, his own or Sauron's.
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That seems pretty conclusive, doesn't it? I think on that evidence, I'd have to agree that both the dragons and the balrog(s, if there was more than one, which is probably unlikely) were under Sauron's sway - in the Second Age, at least. Given his multiple defeats at the close of the Second (I count three in the space of two generations), it seems likely that influence would have lessened or faded entirely in the Third Age.
In fact, we know it did, because Gandalf's fear in
The Quest of Erebor (found in
Unfinished Tales) was specifically that Smaug might join Sauron - not that he was already on his team.
An interesting question arises about Shelob and her kin - were they 'evil things of the days of Morgoth'? But Shelob definitely comes across never having been subordinate to Sauron, though she fears him. I think the explanation is that Ungoliant and her spawn stem from an older time - they're not an evil brought by Morgoth, unlike the orcs and even the balrogs.
Coming back to the balrog and the dragons... how strong must the Elves and Numenoreans have been?! We're explicitly told in the same passage as the quote you found that Sauron feared to pass the Ered Luin, and that his armies couldn't withstand the might of Numenor. But we also know that a single dragon was able to bring three great nations of the Third Age - Erebor, Dale, and the Woodland Realm - to their knees, destroying two and preventing the other from making a move against him.
I think the answer may lie in Lake-Town. I know that the River Running is a prime trade route, but who in their right mind sets up shop right under the eye of a dragon? Well... actually, until Thorin showed up, it worked pretty well for them, because Smaug didn't come out. He seems to have been quite content to sit in his mountain, cuddling his gold. Similarly, Durin's Bane never sets foot outside Moria, even though it could probably slaughter its way through most of Lorien if it chose.
The big players on Team Morgoth don't like to leave their holes much. Sauron is probably the most 'outgoing', and even he spends most of his time sitting in a tower somewhere. Come to think of it, when he starts moving around, bad things happen to him - he got shot by Beren in Dorthonion, beaten by Minastir in Lindon, sunk by Iluvatar in Numenor, and stabbed by Isildur on Dagorlad! Why risk that when you can just throw an army of orcs at the problem, or - if you're cunning enough - make yourself some undead sorcerers?
Accepting then that Durin's Bane and the dragons were under Sauron's 'government', that doesn't mean he could just send them wherever he wanted. Remember that Morgoth himself had trouble controlling Glaurung, who snuck off when he was half-grown, and later pretty much just decided not to go home. I'm sure the balrog
said it would do something about those dwarves mucking about up above it... but, y'know, maybe later? Why not let them mine out all the mithril first, save us the bother...?
hS