Could Balrogs Fly

[Feanor...]

What powers did the creatures of the enemy have? Did balrogs have wings? Were dragons poisonous. Post your thoughts about these and other vile creatures of Tolkein's creation here.

[Nar]

Hello, Feanor, welcome to the Downs, enjoy being dead!
Balrogs did not have wings, rather, they had wing-shaped cloaks of darkness.
They could fly; however, they preferred not to.
This and many other things are told of in The Tale of Bartleby the Balrog.

[Birdland]

Welcome Feanor!

Yes, Balrogs could fly. But only if you fling them.

[Nufaciel]

ROTFL!!! Fling many Balrogs lately, Birdland? Must have hurt, with all the fire!

Welcome to the downs, Feanor...

[Lindolirian]

hahaha good one Birdland.

[Losthuniel]

lol! flinging balrogs...ohh, can ya picture it? " nobody tosses a balrog!" that really off on a tangent. dont mind me.

[Gimli Son Of Gloin]

Welcome Feanor...

Could balrogs really fly?

[piosenniel]

Sure, Balrogs have 'wings', of a sort - of shadow. More it seems to frighten by enlarging their appearance.

Do they fly? They don't appear to - the one in Moria falls and doesn't advantage himself. And there are other descriptions of balrogs falling to their deaths.

Could they fly? Apparently only in a downward direction.

[Rosa_Baggins]

Yeah in the movie u could seethe wings(i think) and when he fell wouldnt u think he could just fly to safety??......hmmm oh well.

[piosenniel]

The wings were definitely evident in the movie, and in most drawings also that I've seen of balrogs. But the wings are all smoke and shadow and not usable.

[GreatWarg]

Interesting debate. True, if Balrogs could fly, why don't they fly to safety? And dragon's blood is poisenous -- in Unfinished Tales, Turin was poisened as he tried to pull out his sword from the body of Mablung, a dragon.

[GreatWarg]

What I meant is that Balrogs probably couldn't fly. As someone once told me "They were probably just for decoration."

[Kuruharan]

Just because it had wings in the movie does not make it canon.

Same thing goes with pictures, unless they were drawn by the man himself.

Too bad he never drew a picture of a Balrog. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[stone of vision]

Funny how that topic is intriguing us... [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Well, what is described like a wing, couldn't it be something else wing-like such as his dark power aura, a shadow wrapping his shape etc...?
I don't think a Balrog could fly otherwise he wouldn't have walked during his battle against gandalf.
I even tend to consider "the decoration thing ", great ward told us, very plausible;
as if these peculiar wings were not made to fly but for intimidation look!

Maybe they have some mysterious other functions (defensive?, attack?, we are not aware of...? [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

[Rosa_Baggins]

The Balrog prob didnt have wings its just people draw him/her(well u never know do you)
with it because it looks pretty and evil at the same time [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] if you know what i mean.

[piosenniel]

Tolkien didn't do an artistic illustration of a balrog, but he did do one with words:

This a quote from just before the Balrog steps onto the bridge and Gandalf has not yet forbidden him to cross -

His enemy reached the bridge. . . His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings . . .

ROTK - The Bridge of Khazad-Dhum

And this is just after he has first forbidden the Balrog to cross and it begins to advance -

The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die,but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, ans suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall.

ROTK - The bridge of Khazad-Dhum.

Once the bridge breaks,the Balrog was not able to use his wings of shadow -

With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down, and vanished.

ROTK - The Bridge of Khazad-Dhum

[Kuruharan]

[Begin nitpick]

Shouldn't that be FOTR rather than ROTK? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[End nitpick]

[piosenniel]

Responding to nitpick -- Of course it should!!! I just wanted to see who was awake!!!

[stone of vision]

Lol! I am! ( awake of course!) [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Nevfeniel]

Some ask, "If a balrog had wings, how could it fall down the chasm?"
But I ask, "If a balrog fell down a chasm, how could it have wings?"
Someone please tell me if that doesn't make any sense.

[Elrian]

The chasm wasn't wide enough for the Balrog to be able to take flight or fly in, neither were the caverns of Moria. It says in FotR that the wings spanned from wall to wall. In the Silmarillion it says of the Balrogs when they were called to aid Morgoth fend off Ungoliant when they returned from Valinor and the destruction of the trees:

And the arose and passed over Hithlum.

[Naaramare]

Oh, look, it's the neverending Balrog-wing debate! Knew there had to be one of these in here somewhere . . . there's one everywhere else . . .

If the Balrog of FotR did have wings, it wouldn't have mattered; as stated above, there wasn't enough room in the place for it to have used them properly, particularly once it started falling down into the chasm. Whether you accept the movie as cannon or not, it does a good job of the visuals there; watch it again and try to picture the creature actually flapping those wings and hitting the sides of the cavern, doing itself absolutely no good.

In addition, the wings probably wouldn't be big *enough* to support the Balrog's body in flight *anyway*. They do, however, have a great deal of use in open-space fighting (if you know how to use them) and do have a more imposing effect. After all, they were servants of Morgoth, who liked terror.

[Heen-1]

can you please give me more info about The Tale of Bartleby the Balrog?

ive never heard of it...

If the wings spread from wall to wall in the cavern [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] , how big did Tolkien say the body was? [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

[Kuruharan]

Aye, there's the rub.

Care to start up yet another argument about Balrog size? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Anyone...?

[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: Kuruharan ]

[Daniel Telcontar]

Maybe you would expect the balrog in Moria to have wings, because the stairway breaks when the fellowship runs down it, but still the balrog follows them. So either he took a secret passage, he jumped a long way or he flew.
But if balrogs do have wings, why didn't the ones Ecthelion and Glorfindel destroy fly away. Both of them fell to their death, outdoor. Why couldn't they fly away?

[stone of vision]

*sigh* what a pity we can't interview the self-interested! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Tarthang]

And so the great Balrog Debate continues once again. I'll agree with Birdland, they can fly when flung. Personally, I never attend a Balrog fling without wearing my protective suit (the kind worn around hazardous chemicals, which protects from both flame and caustic substances--I had it specially designed with wings to impress any cute Balrog chicks ).

Seriously though this Balrog topic has been beat worse than any dead horse. The question of any of Morgoth's servant's being venomous/poisonous is pretty good--I'll have to think about it a while (other than Orcs using a fouled weapon). [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

[Nar]

Heen-1, so kind of you to ask! You haven't heard the tale of Bartleby the Balrog because I haven't written it yet, it was a bad joke on an old story-- never mind. Birdie's joke was better & more accurate. Bartleby was a clerk who one day sat down, stopped working, & eventually died because, as he explained to his employer, he 'preferred not to.' I read it in school, I think it's by Melville. It struck me as a good explanation for Balrogs having vast wings but never flying even when dropped from a great height.

There was something Balrog-like in that clerk's life-denying monomania. What would you do if Morgoth was your boss? Wouldn't shirking on the job be the noble choice?

[Feanor...]

Very interesting, I like what is being said about how if the balrog had wings it would be impossible to fly inside of Moria. However think for a moment.

I don't think a Balrog could fly otherwise he wouldn't have walked during his battle against gandalf.

Consider the fact that Gandalf was in the form of a teeny 2 footed humanoid that couldn't fly. The balrog has seen that Gandalf is pretty effective in blocking his spells and vice versa (i.e. the bridge of Khazad Dum and the great doorway) and his only weapons are a big sword and a flaming whip. Even if the balrog could fly I would say it would be pretty dumb to just fly around while there's an enemy on the ground that you can only engage in close combat who you need to get rid of.

why didn't the ones Ecthelion and Glorfindel destroy fly away. Both of them fell to their death, outdoor. Why couldn't they fly away?

With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward, and its shadow plunged down, and vanished.

the one in Moria falls and doesn't advantage himself. And there are other descriptions of balrogs falling to their deaths.

I'm not sure any of you have ever seen this sight but this would explain your questions. Say a bird, a pidgion for example is flying along when suddenly a hunting falcon, like a lightning bolt hits it from behind and the pidgion defeated, overwhelmed and completely disabled plummets to the ground below. If I asked you right there "now why couldn't the pidgeon have used it's wings to save it's self and fly away" you would laugh and call me crazy! the thing is in all those instanses where the balrogs fell to their deaths they were already overwhelmed and to weak to do anything else other than to face thier already inevitable deaths. And considering the situation on the bridge of Khazad Dum, there had been a power play there, and when Gandalf prevailed he only did so by breaking his staff and the bridge consider that the balrog would have also been exerting alot of power and the sudden snapping of that power would have put him into shock (Thus the great cry). I still haven't heard anything that would completly convince me to either side but I just wanted to clear out some messed up arguments (no offense).

I wonder if dragons had a poisonous bites.

I wonder what other powers the Nazgul had besides those described in LOTR.

Tell me what you think. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] And yes I'm glad to be here, thanx for the warm welcome. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

[Birdland]

Hey, I think we're on to something here. Balrogs may have been like albatrosses, which need a cliff face or a long slope in order to launch themselves into flight.

Now, if the Balrog had been more on the order of a hummingbird, then, when Gandalf broke the bridge, he would have just hovered in midair.

But then, if the Balrog HAD been like a hummingbird, then Gandalf probably would not have bothered to break the bridge in the first place.

[Jessica Jade]

I don't think that Balrogs really had wings. Everyone has their own interpretations of it, but i believe that the "wings" are just shadows. "Wings" might ahve been a metaphor. Nowhere in the Sil does a Balrog fly. I thnk it says in the Sil somewhere though, that Balrogs are Maiar-which means they can take any shape they want to right? Ack, I'll have to go find the passage. Maybe it's in Lost/Unfinished tales somewhere that I haven't read.

As for dragons, they don't need poisonous bites. They don't have to get close to someone to kill them, all they have to do is blow and engulf their adversary in flames. The flames are much easier than biting, don't you think? Besides, their so big that it'd be kind of hard for them to bite. [img]smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Tho in the Sil it does state that when Morgoth was being seized by Ungoliant the Balrogs heard his cry and "flew" to his aid. Now, Tolkien does at times mention 'flight' to imply 'fleeing', but it sure does make one think

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

May I point out that penguins, ostriches, emus, and probably some others that I can't think of at the moment, all have wings but can't fly? I'm sitting here having a disturbing mental image of an ostrich-shaped balrog... Sometimes a big imagination isn't a good thing.

Fea