Quote:
Originally Posted by R.R.J Tolkien
Thanks for the correction. However just a couple months out with no major revisions and none done to the balrog he saw as constant with his sillmarillion. (...) At this point why do you suppose Tolkien had the view there were only 7 ever? The sillmarillion had many and they are referred to in the letter. They were maia in his mind at this point.
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I don't suppose it at that point, but what I mean is, Tolkien did make a notable change between writing the Balrog-Gandalf encounter and answering this letter, and it changes nothing with respect to explaining that Durin's Bane is a creature from the First Age...
... thus in 1958 or later, the same remains true (or easily can): the conception shifts in Tolkien's mind regarding both works, and with each shift the Balrogs remain consistent.
In other other words: Durin's bane was not a Maia when Tolkien wrote the encounter, same as the other Balrogs in QS > then "DB" was a Maia, so also the Balrogs in QS, at the time this letter was answered. Still consistent.
Then in the later 1950s Tolkien (possibly) begins to question if Maia status is problematic in any way with respect to great numbers in the Elder Days. Too powerful? Or whatever other reason (I still tend to lean toward "too powerful", but as I say, just my opinion so far)...
... so,
if so, DB's battle with GS (G. Stormcrow) can remain as written, as arguably, there's nothing necessarily inconsistent about this with respect to Tolkien's question. And if original numbers are to be revised, Tolkien never gets to a full revision of everything in QS however, as we know is true
in general, in any case.
So possibly, we get less Balrogs at about the same time when we get Orc-formed Maiar thrown into Morgoth's mix.