* * Revised Fall of Gondolin pt.4 -- >end [the remaining sections] * * - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Aiwendil · 10-08-2003, 07:21 AM

You do raise a good point, Olorin_TLA. I don't think we had given any real thought to the implications of "Late Writings" specifically to the battle of Glorfindel and the Balrog.

While the change does have an air of importance about it, I agree with Maedhros - it's hard to know what to do with it. In fact, it's hard to tell whether it was an actual substantial change or merely a change of phrasing. Is a "Demon" different from a "Balrog"? And if so, which is the more powerful and which the more generic? For Glorfindel's deed was supposed to be extremely heroic, and was put on par with Ecthelion's slaying of Gothmog.

We've already played around, as Maedhros says, with making Balrogs into Boldogs and such things, and nothich satisfactory has ever come out of it. There's simply not enough evidence for doing something like that.

But the question that does have some interest is this: ought we to change "Balrog" to "Demon" in the Glorfindel passage? It's easy to dismiss the possibility, but note that making such a change in no way ties us to any particular interpretation of the change found in "Late Writings". That is, regardless of why Tolkien changed Balrog > Demon, he did change it. And on the surface, following that change would amount to nothing more than changing Balrog > Demon in one passage.

The trouble with this is that it causes problems of cohesion for the Lost Tales text, as it creates a (probably) artificial distinction between the Balrogs mentioned earlier and the one that Glorfindel fought. It may well be that Tolkien would have changed Balrog > Demon throughout, but if we were to do so, we would be interpreting the note, and I think that any such interpretation is extremely dubious.

So after thinking this through, I come back to my original feeling: keep the Balrog as it is.

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10-08-2003, 07:21 AM	#1
Aiwendil Late Istar Join Date: Mar 2001 Posts: 2,224	You do raise a good point, Olorin_TLA. I don't think we had given any real thought to the implications of "Late Writings" specifically to the battle of Glorfindel and the Balrog. While the change does have an air of importance about it, I agree with Maedhros - it's hard to know what to do with it. In fact, it's hard to tell whether it was an actual substantial change or merely a change of phrasing. Is a "Demon" different from a "Balrog"? And if so, which is the more powerful and which the more generic? For Glorfindel's deed was supposed to be extremely heroic, and was put on par with Ecthelion's slaying of Gothmog. We've already played around, as Maedhros says, with making Balrogs into Boldogs and such things, and nothich satisfactory has ever come out of it. There's simply not enough evidence for doing something like that. But the question that does have some interest is this: ought we to change "Balrog" to "Demon" in the Glorfindel passage? It's easy to dismiss the possibility, but note that making such a change in no way ties us to any particular interpretation of the change found in "Late Writings". That is, regardless of why Tolkien changed Balrog > Demon, he did change it. And on the surface, following that change would amount to nothing more than changing Balrog > Demon in one passage. The trouble with this is that it causes problems of cohesion for the Lost Tales text, as it creates a (probably) artificial distinction between the Balrogs mentioned earlier and the one that Glorfindel fought. It may well be that Tolkien would have changed Balrog > Demon throughout, but if we were to do so, we would be interpreting the note, and I think that any such interpretation is extremely dubious. So after thinking this through, I come back to my original feeling: keep the Balrog as it is.