Do Balrogs Have Wings?

[Mister Underhill]

But it's fairly clear that Balrogs were incarnated and thus bound to physical laws. Is there suspicion that the physics of flight in Middle-earth may differ from those in the modern world?

I don't know. Has anyone ever done any calculations on what Smaug's wingspan would need to be? What are the physics of Legolas being able to walk on top of snow? I feel comfortable discarding these suppositions about Balrogs, especially when they proceed from such little starting information. How tall, exactly, is a Balrog? What does it weigh? What anatomical device allows it to exude flame and shadow? You can't start doing math on completely conjectural figures and convince anyone who has any kind of a textual commitment to the wings debate.

The rebuttal to this line of reasoning that I have seen points to the definition of "chasm" which is described as "narrow."

Hmm... just glanced over the passage -- the bridge is "narrow", but I don't see the adjective applied to the chasm. If I've missed it, I'm sure you'll provide the cite.

Besides, I think it's the walls of the Hall that the wings are spread to, not the sides of the chasm, however big it is (we don't know). There's no textual evidence here at all as far as I can see, and not even enough of a basis for logical supposition or inference.

[obloquy]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

I don't know. Has anyone ever done any calculations on what Smaug's wingspan would need to be? What are the physics of Legolas being able to walk on top of snow? I feel comfortable discarding these suppositions about Balrogs, especially when they proceed from such little starting information. How tall, exactly, is a Balrog? What does it weigh? What anatomical device allows it to exude flame and shadow? You can't start doing math on completely conjectural figures and convince anyone who has any kind of a textual commitment to the wings debate.

Well I think most of us just assumed that Tolkien's imaginary history of our earth conforms to the same laws of nature. That Smaug was appropriately proportioned for flight is evidenced by the fact that he flew. The actual calculations don't really matter, unless someone challenges the logistics of him being X big, thus having Y wingspan, and still fitting into Z cavern. The same goes for his fire-breath: we assume there was some physiological mechanic that allowed for it, from the gland that shoots the flammable substance, to its ignition, to the fire-resistant flesh that must have coated his snout. The Balrog's flame and shadow may have been something different, something related to the eala's fiery nature. The math and biology of these things doesn't come into question, however, since reasonable assumptions can be made about them without creating conflicts.

Besides, I think it's the walls of the Hall that the wings are spread to, not the sides of the chasm, however big it is (we don't know). There's no textual evidence here at all as far as I can see, and not even enough of a basis for logical supposition or inference.

If there's a tiny little bridge across the gap I think it's reasonable to suppose that the gap, too, stretches from wall to wall. Otherwise there'd be less perilous ways to cross near the walls. If the bridge spans a 50-foot chasm, and if a chasm is, in fact, defined as "narrow," then the width of the room would necessarily be greater than 50 feet, and therefore so would the Balrog's literal wingspan. Such a wingspan would be unwieldy for a being that could fit through the man-sized doorways and halls of Moria. But I didn't mean to imply that the text called the gap "narrow," only that I once read an article that cited a dictionary entry qualifying chasms as such.

[Mister Underhill]

The math and biology of these things doesn't come into question, however, since reasonable assumptions can be made about them without creating conflicts.

I guess my point is that you can't make a convincing argument that the Balrog couldn't enter such and such a room when you don't know:

• Anything about the Balrog's anatomy except that he's in shouting distance of man-height (and has wings ).
• The size of the door.
• The size of the room.

You can make stuff up until the cows come home, but the only thing we know for sure is that the bridge span across the chasm is about 50 feet long.

I'm a bit confused on your extrapolation about the chasm, the bridge, etc. The Balrog stands at the foot of a bridge. The bridge reaches 50 feet to the far side of the chasm. Given that its wings spread "from wall to wall" perpendicular to the bridge, how can we infer anything about its wingspan from this information?

[obloquy]

The idea is that if the bridge spans 50 feet, and a chasm is by definition "narrow" (longer than it is across), then the chasm must be more than 50 feet long and thus the room is more than 50 feet wide. If the Balrog's wings were literal, then they literally stretched the entire width of the room ("width" being the space that is perpendicular to the bridge's span), making his wingspan greater than 50 feet.

[Mister Underhill]

I guess I just don't get (1) how you deduce that the chasm is narrow one way or another or (2) even if it is, how this affects the question at hand. I've done up a little thumbnail sketch and attached it to show where I'm coming from.

[obloquy]

Yeah, I dunno. The article supposed that the room's dimensions were the opposite of how you've presented them. I can't remember if it offered any argument to support the position. Maybe someone else read it and remembers.

Anyway, I've been in the no wings camp for a while based on my impressions of Balrogs as a whole, but I can't deny that Tolkien most probably envisioned the Balrog scene with literal wings. It's definitely how I imagined it when I first read LotR.

[Kuruharan]

My computer has gone all wonky and is in a bed at a computer hospital so I don't have time to answer in detail at the moment, but there is one thing I'd like to say...

let me demonstrate take a piece of paper fold in in half its still pretty big fold it though four times when expanded same space when retracted smaller

The Balrog just can't fold its wings in half. If it folds the wings it has to do so up and away from its arms in order to give its arms enough room to move about and flail with that whip. That means the wings must go up when folded.