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Re: Many Many Balrogs
To Bobwehadababyitsaboy:
You posted:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> You would be wise to think about this quote of all Balrogs as Maiar more carefully. I have already advised that Orc origins and Balrog origins are inescapably linked [when one changes, so does the other---always did] from beginning to end of the text history.<hr></blockquote>
I advise you that Orc origins and Balrog origins are not inescapably linked.
I can also play the game of making unsupported statements.<img src=smile.gif ALT="
">
I will say that only once is a change in their origins linked, when Tolkien decided that Morgoth could not actually create life, or wanted to make this more clear, JRRT then introduced Orcs has probably perversions of Elves and Balrogs as spirits who followed Morgoth. Before they were both made by Morgoth, no particular details being given except once in "The Fall of Gondolin" where it is first suggested "that certain of the Noldoli were twisted to the evil of Melko and mingled among these Orcs, for all that race were bred by Melko of the subterranean heats and slime." Later Tolkien included Men as also part of Orc ancestry.
You posted:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> I notice you also seem to be confused as to what a fea is defined as. Incarnation isn't a quantity that identifies it. Nor is it with Ealar. They can be either incarnate or not.<hr></blockquote>I don't think I am confused. In my remark on Eagles I should have said originally incarnate spirits except for a doubt as to whether
fëa are not also
originally discarnate, and sent by Eru into a body.
Originally also has its faults.
In
Morgoth's Ring, "Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth", towards the end in smaller type is a glossary of terms including:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr>
fëa**'spirit': the particular 'spirit' belonging to and 'housed' in any one
hröa of the Incarnates. It corresponds, more or less, to 'soul'; and to 'mind', when any attempt is made to distinguish between mentality, and the mental processes of the Incarnates, conditioned and limited by the co-operation of the physical organs of the
hröa.<hr></blockquote>The definition continues but actually does not even mention the possibility of a
fëa being discarnate or 'houseless', though of course JRRT makes much of that elsewhere. I did not intend to indicate that a
fëa cannot be "houseless".
For
ëalar there is only one definition, that in
Morgoth's Ring, "The Later
Quenta Silmarillion (1),
Commentary on Chapter 3, 'Of the Coming of the Elves':<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> These were the (
ëalar) spirits who first adhered to hin in the days of his splendour, and became most like him in his corruption: there hearts were of fire, but they were cloaked in darkness, and terror went before them; they had whips of flame. Balrogs they were named by the Noldor in later days.
...
There is a footnote to the word
ëalar in this passage:
'spirit' (not incarnate, which was
fëa, S[indarin]
fae).
ëala 'being'.<hr></blockquote>There is no other mention anywhere of
ëala, pl.
ëalar. Since it is here defined as 'not incarnate' I purposely and with notice speculated diffidently that if an
ëala became permanently incarnate it
might then have become a
fëa. Strict adherence to this, the only definition we have, would actually
demand that meaning. But I think that to be pressing the note too hard, especially since the particular mention of
fëa also suggests, though does not definitely state, that it is an opposite term to
ëala, which in turn suggests that if a
fëa can become discarnate then an
ëala can perhaps become incarnate.
In the
Ósanwe-Kenta occurs:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> Pengolodh also cites the opinion that if a "spirit" (that is, one of those not embodied by creation) uses a
hröa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds it increasingly difficult to operate without the
hröa.<hr></blockquote>I tend to
think that "spirit" in this sentence means
ëala, and that
ëala might be better defined as something like "spirit, but one of those not embodied by creation".
But I can't
prove either definition is the correct one from this single passage. Safest is perhaps to use
eala only for a spirit that was not embodied by creation and is not embodied at the time we are speaking of it? Safer and more scholarly is not to use a technical term at all when its exact meaning is not ascertainable.
You posted<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> As for other Ealar, you might want to examine The Watchers of Cirith Ungol, Pukel-men [see The Faithful Stone], and Trolls, unless you think that ‘primitive human types’ refers to Apes who turn to stone. But then, Elves would have defined Trolls as Orcs too, so you won't get ahead there much---or will you?<hr></blockquote>I have examined these areas many times.
On 'Primitive human types', the full passage is in
Morgoth's Ring (HoME 10), "Myths Transformed", IX:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> ****Since Melkor could not 'create' an independent species, but had immense powers of corruption and distortion of those that came into his power, it is probable that these
Orks had a mixed origin. Most of them plainly (and biologically) were corruptions of Elves (and probably later also of Men). But always among them (as special servants and spies of Melkor, and as leaders) there must have been numerous corrupted minor spirits who assumed similar bodily shapes. (These would exhibit terrifying and demonic characters.)
****The Elves would have classed the creatures called 'trolls' (in
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings) as Orcs*** in character and origin*** but they were larger and slower. It would seem evident that they were corruptions of primitive human types.[/blockquote]
Within the legendarium "primitive" should simply mean "early". But "human types" is odd. Three very differing types of human beings appear in the legendarium and one can therefore suspect others exist that don't appear. The three types are:
***1. Normal Men, for want of a better term.
***2. Drúedain.
***3. Hobbits.
Hobbits seem to be more differentiated: Treebeard was willing to add them as a fifth element of the Free Peoples, though he almost certainly also knew about Drúedain. But he may not have been very knowledgeable about that kind of classification.
The reasons for the differences between these three kinds nowhere appear in any of Tolkien's published writing.
I could make a case that Hobbits were a cross between "Normal Men" and Petty-dwarves, but it would only be intellectual exercise. I don't believe that Tolkien thought that.
It does not appear that any of these three were
necessarily more primitive than the other within the legendarium. Hobbits were unknown in the old stories, they came along later, but the oldest stories are almost entirely concerned with the traditions of the Eldar and then the general history of Beleriand for the First Age and such other rational creatures as came to dwell in Beleriand. For the Second Age there is almost nothing but a small amount of surviving literature from Númenor, mostly about Númenor.
In his later work Tolkien often thinks outside the legendarium, considering the
Silmarillion and related stories as Númenorean legends and not altogether accurate. The Sun was actually coeval with the earth and so forth. In this context "primitive human types" might include various hominids. The word "human" doesn't allow us to go back as far as apes.
Another posibility is that JRRT actually means primitive human types of Orks, that is early forms of creatures bred from his first experimentations with humans. A difficulty with this is in the previous paragraph some Orks were only "probably" later corrupted from Men. How can it be "evident" that trolls derive from something that is only probable, not definite? This may be putting too much pressure on exact meaning and logic in a "quickly written" note.
In the quoted passage most Orks are corruptions of Elves,
probably some of Men, and also there are among them (the Orks) spirits incarnate in Ork forms. (Such as Boldog, I assume.)
For "trolls" on the contrary, Tolkien claims they are the same in character and origin but "it would seem evident that they are corruptions of primitive human types." But what does Tolkien mean by "seem evident"? What is the evidence? Does he mean their size, larger than Orks, indicates such an origin, or their appearance compared to Orks proper, which he never really gives us? Tolkien knew much more than we do and what was evident to him may not be to us.
If I were to try and combine this with other statements on trolls, I would say that Morgoth corrupted certain "primitive human types" (whatever that means exactly) into counterparts of the Ents, increasing their strength, making them rock hard like Ents. But sunlight turned them to stone, unlike Ents who were rock hard but had no problem with sunlight. And these trolls had little intelligence. Hence in Appendix F of LR:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> In their beginning far back in the twilight of the Elder Days, there were creatures of dull and lumpish nature and had no more language than beasts. But Sauron had made use of them, teaching them what little they could learn and increasing their wits with wic<hr></blockquote><hr></blockquote>Whether Tolkien would have agreed with such a combination of these disparate passages is questionable.
Of course in "Myths Transformed", VIII, Tolkien questions that Eru would provide
fëar for such creatures as Orcs. This actually provides a nice solution to the problem of how Eru could allow an entire kind of creature to be corrupted. Individual Elves and Men would be corrupted by Morgoth and bred to produce creatures to his liking, but their offspring would be beasts without spirits. Eventually these beasts can by training and breeding again learn to speak and to operate at a higher level, but they remain soulless beasts.
But there is no evidence that Tolkien envisioned this solution.
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To Onewhitetree:
Yes, Tolkien made many casual errors here and there.
Unfortunately it is often impossible to tell where Tolkien nodded and where he intended something that is difficult to fathom.
Attempting to reconcile some of these into a coherent structure may be possible. But if the discrepencies are true errors then the resulting structure that reconciles them would, however successful, not be what Tolkien intended.
How can one judge this?
Partly it depends on how many gyrations of assumption and special interpretation of particular passages must be made to support a theory that reconciles an apparent contradiction.
And whether the result seems absurd or not.
At the moment I think the theory of two kinds of Balrogs requires far too much assumption and special interpretation compared to the theory that Tolkien changed his mind about the number of Balrogs.
That the arguments given so far fail does not indicate, of course, that other arguments might not succeed.
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To HerenIstarion:
I am not sure of the point of your note on
Glamhoth. Tolkien indicates it as a synonym for Orks in several places, and, as you point out, it
might have other uses. And ....
In "The Etymologies" two separate stems are given:
ÓROK- for "orc, goblin" and
RUK- for 'demon'.
In "Quendi and Eldar", Appendix D, only
RUK- survives as the main stem. (Whether stems are given in form CVC or CVCV doesn't matter.) Sindarin
orch derives from *
urkó or *
urká with affection from the final vowel opening the initial
u to
o, hence when the final vowel was lost and
k changed to
ch finally after
r, we got
orch.
This is a good example of why one can't use etymology to determine meaning.
The following is explained clearly in the article.
Orch was applied in Sindarin as the particular name of the kind of creature Tolkien calls "orc" or "goblin" in English, but in Quenya of course this did not happen because the there were no such beings in Valinor. So Q
urko remains "vague in meaning, referring to anything that caused fear to the Elves, any dubious shape or shadow, or prowling creature".
Upon the return of the Noldor to Beleriand they recognized that their word
urko corresponded to the more general S [/i]urug[/i] in meaning, but used it in any case for
orch 'orc, goblin'. But they also coined a particular new form
orco as an adaptation of S
orch for the precise meaning when required.
For the same people having unrelated names in different languages see Q
Elda and S
Edhel, both the common term for Elf in their respective languages and generally equivalent. But
Elda was not held to properly include the Avari, while
Edhel did so. Q
Elda was an adjectival form meaning "connected with the stars" while S
Edhil comes from
*edeló 'one who goes, traveller, migrant'. The Q cognate of
Edhil was
Eldo considered only an archaic variant of
Elda. The S cognate of
Elda was
ell- "only use in the m. and f. forms
Ellon,
Elleth elf-man, elf-woman; the class plural
El(d)rim; and final
-el, pl.
-il, in some old compounds".
Here then are two words of different origin that have come to have almost the same meaning as far as naming the same people.
So oddly enough, Q
Elda which was held to exclude the Avari derives from a word which included all Elves, while S
Edhel which original meant only those who went on the journey has been expanded in meaning to include those that did not. This is what Tolkien claims, not my interpretation.
Using etymology alone for meaning is dangerous.
Nice only a few hundred years back meant 'foolish'.
Corn means primary 'grain' in British English (primarily 'wheat' in England and 'oats' in Scotland), but in North American English speech it means
maize and nothing but that, often to the shock of a North American who has been mis-reading works written by British authors, or has assumed that cobs of corn are found in the Bible because of the KJV appearence of
corn in the story of Joseph.
Tolkien's languages are full of such purposeful constructions in their invented history so the meaning must be determined mainly be context and JRRT's definitions, not by etymology. Etymology helps on occasion, often very much so, but the context is primary. As it is in decyphering unkown words in any real language.
From LR, Appendix F:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr>
Hobbit was the name usually applied by the Shire-folk to all their kind. Men called them
Halflings and the Elves [/i]Periannath[/i]. The origin of the word
hobbit was by most forgotten. It seems, however, to have been at first a name given to the Harfoots by the Fallohides and Stoors, and to be a worn-down form of a word prserved more fully in Rohan:
holbytla 'hole-builder'.<hr></blockquote>Would it be now proper to say that any peoples dwelling in underground tunnels can be called
hobbits, as say Men living in caves, or Orcs, or even animals such as foxes? Of course not. Would it be proper to say that actually only the Harfoots are real
hobbits? Of course not.
Hobbit came to mean what Men called
halfling (a name those who were named halflings did not particularly like) and that was now its meaning regardless of what it once may have meant.
Hobbits who live above ground and don't build holes are still
Hobbits.
Of course Gandalf is a little more precise when speaking of Gollum:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> I guess they were of hobbit-kind; akin to the fathers of the fathers of the Stoors, ....<hr></blockquote>The precision is because in some ways it is anachronistic to call Gollum a hobbit, just as it would be anachronistic to refer to 6th century mainland Jutes as English, because some of their relatives had bcome English. From
Unfinished Tales, "The Hunt for the Ring":<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> Gollum would not know the term 'Hobbit', which was local and not a universal Westron word.<hr></blockquote>You can't use the etymological meaning of names applied to kinds of peoples to prove much of anything as to whether they are identical or different.
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To Aiwendil:
In my normal, very sceptical way, I would just add that we don't know when or by whom
Valaruako/
Balrog was coined or its original meaning.
It might have originally meant any great demonic being, and later become restricted to the firey creatures with whips and claws that Tolkien calls Balrogs in his legendarium, or might have been such from the first.
We don't know when the word originated. A proto-form *
Balaraukó might have existed before or been created during the Great Journey and produced descendants in both Quenya and Sindarin with the same meaning.
The name might have been, as you suggest, coined by the Noldor and then adapted into Sindarin, or perhaps only half translated, as with some of the names Tolkien discusses in the back matter to "The Shibboleth of Fëanor".
It might have been of Sindarin coinage:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> And ere long the evil creatures came even to Beleriand, over passes in the mountains, or up from the south through the dark forests. Wolves there were, or creatures that walk in wolf-shapes, and other fell beings of shadow;<hr></blockquote>. The Noldor would then have adapted it to Quenya.
We don't know what exact meaning it would have had in Sindarin. In "The Etymoglogies"
BAL- means "power" and there are a number of Noldorin (which in the later legendarium would be Sindarin) forms, eg.
Bala and
Balano for
Vala and
Ballannor for Q
Valinor.
But later JRRT appears to have removed these forms. From
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, letter 347, written in 1972:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr>
Orbelain is certainly a case of 'phonological' translation (of which the Noldor were quite capable), since
Valanya (adj.) must be from older *
Balania which would > S. *
Belain, but no such form existed in S.<hr></blockquote>An alternate Sindarin name for the Day of the Valar, the Day of the Powers, was
Rodyn which might be the word used in Sindarin for the Valar, or might be a form derived therefrom.
So did the element
bal- even exist in later Sindarin, except in old names such as the Island of
Balar? In the "Etymologies" we have two different stems,
BAL- 'power' and
ÑGWAL- 'torment' which both by normal change would be
bal- in Sindarin. If both survived they might have coalesced to mean 'powerful and tormenting'. Or one may have disappeared in Sindarin, or both. The collision of these forms may be why Tolkien later decided that the
Valar would no longer be the
Belain in Sindarin.
Another question is whether the Noldor at a late date would use the stem
Val- in a construction describing such horrible demons. In "Quendi and Eldar",
Notes on the language of the Valar, Pengolodh explains:<blockquote>
Quote:<hr> Thus we see that
vala is no longer used of any power or authority less than that of the Valar themselves. One may say
A¯ vala Manwe! "may Manwe order it!"; or
Valar valuvar "the will of the Valar be done";<hr></blockquote>This might suggest that the form
Valarauko was of old coinage, from before the stem
val- became so restricted in Quenya useage. That a story of the destruction of Balrogs by Manwë just previous to the Morgoth's capture was remembered might also indicate that the word was of old origin.
I present this only as speculation, with the probably vain hope that someone might be able to shed some more light on this very unimportant matter or point out anything I might have missed.
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