High Elves and the Balrogs

[William Cloud Hicklin]

So if the Balrogs were less powerful, would that mean Gothmog was less powerful than Durin's Bane?

No, because Gothmog simply became a 'later' Balrog over the course of Tolkien's life: he appears in the Narn i Chin Hurin (mid-1950's) by name, as High-Captain of Angband and the slayer of Fingon. It's probably fair to say that Tolkien's view of Balrogs' puissance generally was modified by the might he gave Gandalf's foe.


I'ts not the case that there were "seven Balrogs at a time." There were seven, period. They didn't get replaced. Two were killed at Gondolin; during the War odf Wrath "wellnigh all" of them were destroyed, "save some few" who hid themselves deep underground. That particular line in the Silm. actually predates the Lord of the Rings, when there were hordes of the buggers. In any event, it's clear that the Dwarves 'awoke' the Balrog of Moria, so it and any possible other survivors of the Elder Days were presumably in some sort of hibernation, or trapped, or otherwise not in play.

Besides, why would any Balrog serve Sauron? There's no suggestion the one we know about did- it seemed content to spend over a thousand years lurking in Moria and not exerting itself.