[Kuruharan]

I believe the two conflicting quotes that Obloquy was referring to are the one by Legolas and the one by Voronwe.

I thought those were probably the ones that he was referring to. However, if that is the case, there is a long digression that I will feel obligated to make, so I want to make sure before doing so. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] (Although if obloquy doesn't pipe up soon, I may go ahead and do it anyway.)

Ah, the cycle begins anew...
Obviously on the point of whether or not Balrogs and Dragons have relatively equal spirits there is never going to be agreement, because I believe that the spirits of Dragons were Maiar as well, and it's not likely that you'll be able to find a way to dissuade me on that point. It's just about as unlikely that I'll ever be able to convince you two that while the spirit of a Dragon may not have been quite equal to that of a Balrog, it was close enough to prevent the Balrog always having such a decided advantage. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Unlike the Dragon's Melkor could not have been physically destroyed unless his spirit could be conquered. Even if Fingolofin had stabbed Melkor 100 times, he still would not have killed him. The same seems to be true of the Balrogs.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this because spirits can't be destroyed by anyone but Iluvatar. Their bodies are a different matter altogether. As you yourself have pointed out, Balrog's bodies were killed.

Do as I say! Swords are no more use here. Go!...Over the bridge! Fly! This is a foe beyond any of you. I must hold the narrow way. Fly!

He might very well have said the same thing if a Dragon had come blazing across the Bridge. I don't think that you are fully appreciating the situation. The primary goal was not to kill the Balrog, it was to allow the Ringbearer to get out of there alive and continue the Quest.

In more general terms, if a Balrog had marched (possibly even flew) into Lake Town and started destroying the town, Bard could have shot the Balrog as full as a pin cushion with arrows and the Balrog still would not have died.

You do not know this. What if Legolas had been able to pull himself together and shoot the Balrog while it was distracted by Gandalf? He might have hit a weak spot in its armor for all we know. While I personally don't think that Balrogs had wings and thus would not be able to fly over Laketown reeking havoc, I think it might be possible to kill a Balrog by shooting it in the back or something while it was distracted by town baiting. They were not immune to weapons. Ecthelion apparently killed a Balrog with his helmet spike, why wouldn't swords and arrows hurt them? Gandalf said that he hewed the Balrog with his sword as if he thought that doing so would do some good.

Tolkien envisioned Balrogs as a kind of creature that had no match among the Free Peoples, more powerful than Elves, and virtually untouchable by Men.

Couple of things, Gothmog did not kill Hurin, in fact he seems not to have engaged him at all. He did kill Faenor and Fingon, but one time he had his whole bunch there together, and the other time he only downed Fingon after one of his cronies snuck up from behind and cast a thong of fire about Fingon. As far as we know Turin never met a Balrog, and he only managed to kill Glaurung by sneaking up underneath him while he was crossing a gorge. Glaurung had personally wasted thousands of Elves and Men before.

But all of this is really irrelevant to the discussion. What we are trying to decide is how well they would do against each other.

On the other hand Dragon's do not need to be defeated on a spiritual level to be killed.

I agree with this in a way, but totally disagree with the way that you are discounting their spiritual power. Dragons clearly had spiritual power in the way that they could ensnare people with their spell.
What I agree with is that you did not necessarily have to encounter them on that level to kill them. I rather doubt that in the heat of battle you had a great deal of time to be worrying about the spiritual power of your opponent. You are just trying to hack to pieces whatever happens to be in front of you.