Do Balrogs Have Wings?

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

As artists, and movie-makers are interested in selling their product, so they want to go for the 'coolest' looking pictures for their audience to make more money...and when you do that you often lose the accuracy.

I agree, to an extent. But I don't think that it is solely down to Tolkien artists and the film-makers. I believe that, for some people (and certainly for me), the same kind of thing occurs as a spontaneous reaction to the text, regardless of the proper, technical, logical interpretation of the words used.

I watched the first LotR film before I came across the Downs and before I was even aware that there was a debate over whether Balrogs had wings. At the time, I was struck (as with many of the film's other images) by how close Jackson's Balrog was to my own impression of the creature. When I first joined the Downs, I was actually rather surprised that there should even be any argument over the issue. To me, it went without saying that Balrogs were winged.