Do Balrogs Have Wings?

[Mister Underhill]

Actually I once again find your argument unconvincing: "wing: 6 : a part or feature usually projecting from and subordinate to the main or central part <the servants' wing of the mansion>".

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Fowlren

I can't grasp the difficulty in this. What part of the books are you people who think there are wings taking off of? Where are wings mentioned when Balrogs are mentioned other than in the LotR?

The point is that the description of the Balrog can be (and has been) interpreted by many readers as portraying a winged Balrog. Moreover a significant number of people (even those who are now non-wingers) seem to have imagined a winged Balrog when they first read the book. Most artists portray a winged Balrog. So I would answer your question with another question: Where does it state conclusively in any of Tolkien's works that Balrogs did not have wings?

As for references to Balrogs other than Durin's Bane, is there any particular reason to conclude that different Balrogs did not take slightly different physical forms?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

"Difficile est saturam non scribere" - Juvenal.

Actually I once again find your argument unconvincing: "wing: 6 : a part or feature usually projecting from and subordinate to the main or central part <the servants' wing of the mansion>".

So in actual fact, the shadow of Durin's Bane spread out like two vast subordinate architectural components, which suggests that Tolkien imagined it to look something like the Ashmolean Museum. No wonder the poor creature couldn't fly.

Like Estelyn, I've never really thought much about the balrog wings issue. I've always assumed that the reference to 'its wings' in The Bridge of Khazad-dûm is simply the result of a lapse in concentration. Thinking that the audience will understand that he's still talking about some amorphous shadowy projection, Tolkien then turns his wing simile into a metaphor, forgetting that ambiguity is the mother of contention. Without this slip I doubt that the passage in the appendices would have been read as anything but an example of Tolkien's fondness for the fast-disappearing use of 'fly' to mean 'flee' which Child pointed out earlier in the thread. In other words: no, Durin's Bane at least had only a threatening shadow which spread out like wings.

So much for my opinion, which is nothing new or original, nor particularly worth posting on its own. What I do have to relate is that tonight, in a fit of insanity, I decided to look at the earlier drafts of The Bridge of Khazad-dûm in The Treason of Isengard to see if they confirmed my theory. I expect that what follows has probably been said more than once before as well, but not, I think, in this thread.

Christopher Tolkien mentions three drafts prior to the published version. The earliest of these, 'A', has:

The creature made no reply, but standing up tall so that it loomed above the wizard it strode forward and smote him.

A pencilled annotation to this manuscript reads "Alter description of Balrog. It seemed to be of man's shape, but its form could not be plainly discerned. It felt larger than it looked."

The 'B' version has the Balrog stand facing Gandalf, but still makes no mention of wings. These enter the passage in the third draft, which has "...the Balrog halted facing him and the shadow about him reached out like great wings."

Christopher Tolkien notes that the 'him' here is Gandalf, since the Balrog is always referred to as 'it'. The contentious literal reference to 'its wings' enters the text in the final version only, and I think that the development of Tolkien's thinking is quite clear: the Balrog must somehow feel greater than it actually is; it does so through the use of shadow; the shadow spreads like wings. When writing the final version, Tolkien made an understandable mistake in thinking that it would be a really good idea to refer to this shadow directly as a set of wings, possibly because this identifies it as something which is definitely a part of the Balrog and under its control. That this was not one of his better ideas is borne out by the last fifty years of discussion.

Of course it's always possible that this is all an obscure joke at the expense of obsessive compulsives. Perhaps HoME XXXI will have something to say on the subject: "My father's earliest typescript of this passage has finally come to light beneath a floorboard at our old house in Northmoor Road. Beside the description of the Balrog as written in version 'C', he has written hastily in pencil: 'Make Balrog appear to have and not have wings. Cf. angels on pin-head. Keep them talking forever."

[Folwren]

My question is answered. I remain stead fast in my opinion of non-winged Balrogs.

There are more than one definition of 'wing' in the Webster Dictionary of the English Language. Look it up. Mister Underhill had the awesome idea of doing so without being told and giving you the 6th definition that explained the winged Prancing Pony.

I've said so before, and I'll say so again, with Tolkien being the writer and English major and teacher that he was, he wouldn't write one sentence in the LotR in which the Shadow is his subject and the Wing his adjective and intend for a Balrog to have wings. And if he did, than C.S. Lewis, who read all of his stuff and critiqued a lot of it (I don't know if he was his editor for the LotR) would have caught it likewise.

Don't have time to explain myself any more.

-Folwren

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Squatter

What I do have to relate is that tonight, in a fit of insanity, I decided to look at the earlier drafts of The Bridge of Khazad-dûm...

Welcome to the nuthouse, old boy. I'm sure we have a dank padded cell and a spare straitjacket which will accomodate you. It's funny, those passages in HoME VII -- you can sense the care with which CT dances around the wings issue without offering an opinion one way or the other.

Vis a vis the Pony's wings -- I give davem credit for not being that deliberately obtuse and for arguing, as Juvenal suggests, satirically; my reply was made in the same spirit.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I had much the same impression of HoME VII. It's obvious that CRT is aware of the argument, but he seems reluctant to commit himself. This is a wise policy, and one which I'd happily followed for fifteen years until last night. Of course, father and son may have had a secret pact never to tell anyone about the wings: a punishment for those telephone calls at three in the morning, perhaps.

Saucepan, you're absolutely right: I don't remember any direct statement from JRRT that Balrogs don't have wings. There's also no particular reason to assume that individuals don't differ, so even if we could prove that the Balrog of Moria was bereft of wings it still wouldn't close the issue. Therefore, wrong and illogical though I believe the artists to be, anyone is welcome to believe what they like on this subject. That is, of course, one of the ingredients of irresoluble debate.

[Mister Underhill]

Throwing in your lot with the no-wingers after such a cursory examination of the evidence, eh? In that case, we'll get you a room in the "special" wing (wing! -- oh, the irony!), extra medication, and a restricted diet to go with that straitjacket. Mind you don't mess up the newspaper if Sharkû will be reading it after you, and for your own good I advise you not to get into a comparison of Hobbit vs. LotR geography with davem. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

You know me, Underhill: post now, research later.

It will be good to have more time to draw pictures of Florence and listen to The Goldberg Variations. Perhaps, too, the audience will be captive enough to listen to my new theory: if one were to put all of Tolkien's writing from all sources into chronological order, take every twelfth word and write them as one continuous stream of letters, then take every twelfth letter of the sequence and translate the resultant words from their respective languages, it will give the sinister connection between the Cotton Library fire of 1731, this picture by Louis Wain, a freemason's headstone in Repton churchyard and the disappearance of the S.S. Waratah. The Medici popes and the Kennedy assassination might be involved too, but that depends on the size of the publisher's advance.