Sauron's Super Army?

[popo]

Tolkien novice here, but reading the Silmarillion yesterday and I came upon the line the OP was based upon:
"[Sauron] gathered again under his government all the evil things of the days of Morgoth that remained on earth or beneath it"

Do the lore experts here consider this the best evidence that Sauron held sway over Balrogs - espeically Durin's Bane? To me the quote seems an expicit yes!
However I've seen other threads here debating who's interest Durin's Bane would have acted under in FOTR, his own or Sauron's.

[Pervinca Took]

Welcome aboard, Popo.

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by popo

Tolkien novice here, but reading the Silmarillion yesterday and I came upon the line the OP was based upon:
"[Sauron] gathered again under his government all the evil things of the days of Morgoth that remained on earth or beneath it"

Do the lore experts here consider this the best evidence that Sauron held sway over Balrogs - espeically Durin's Bane? To me the quote seems an expicit yes!
However I've seen other threads here debating who's interest Durin's Bane would have acted under in FOTR, his own or Sauron's.

That seems pretty conclusive, doesn't it? I think on that evidence, I'd have to agree that both the dragons and the balrog(s, if there was more than one, which is probably unlikely) were under Sauron's sway - in the Second Age, at least. Given his multiple defeats at the close of the Second (I count three in the space of two generations), it seems likely that influence would have lessened or faded entirely in the Third Age.

In fact, we know it did, because Gandalf's fear in The Quest of Erebor (found in Unfinished Tales) was specifically that Smaug might join Sauron - not that he was already on his team.

An interesting question arises about Shelob and her kin - were they 'evil things of the days of Morgoth'? But Shelob definitely comes across never having been subordinate to Sauron, though she fears him. I think the explanation is that Ungoliant and her spawn stem from an older time - they're not an evil brought by Morgoth, unlike the orcs and even the balrogs.

Coming back to the balrog and the dragons... how strong must the Elves and Numenoreans have been?! We're explicitly told in the same passage as the quote you found that Sauron feared to pass the Ered Luin, and that his armies couldn't withstand the might of Numenor. But we also know that a single dragon was able to bring three great nations of the Third Age - Erebor, Dale, and the Woodland Realm - to their knees, destroying two and preventing the other from making a move against him.

I think the answer may lie in Lake-Town. I know that the River Running is a prime trade route, but who in their right mind sets up shop right under the eye of a dragon? Well... actually, until Thorin showed up, it worked pretty well for them, because Smaug didn't come out. He seems to have been quite content to sit in his mountain, cuddling his gold. Similarly, Durin's Bane never sets foot outside Moria, even though it could probably slaughter its way through most of Lorien if it chose.

The big players on Team Morgoth don't like to leave their holes much. Sauron is probably the most 'outgoing', and even he spends most of his time sitting in a tower somewhere. Come to think of it, when he starts moving around, bad things happen to him - he got shot by Beren in Dorthonion, beaten by Minastir in Lindon, sunk by Iluvatar in Numenor, and stabbed by Isildur on Dagorlad! Why risk that when you can just throw an army of orcs at the problem, or - if you're cunning enough - make yourself some undead sorcerers?

Accepting then that Durin's Bane and the dragons were under Sauron's 'government', that doesn't mean he could just send them wherever he wanted. Remember that Morgoth himself had trouble controlling Glaurung, who snuck off when he was half-grown, and later pretty much just decided not to go home. I'm sure the balrog said it would do something about those dwarves mucking about up above it... but, y'know, maybe later? Why not let them mine out all the mithril first, save us the bother...?

hS

[Eldy]

If Durin's Bane was under Sauron's control in the Second Age, then I'd think that Sauron would have ordered it to do something other than hibernate for 5000 years. In all seriousness, even if you don't think the Balrog was literally asleep for all that time, he was stuck underneath the most powerful Dwarf realm in northwest Middle-earth, one that Sauron was unable to force his way into during the War of the Elves and Sauron. There was no opportunity for them to be in contact since the Balrog had already gone to ground by the time Sauron started dipping his toes back into the Dark Lord game.

[Edit: I went back and double-checked Appendix A and it's pretty clear that the Balrog was asleep for most of its 5000 year disappearance, though it's left uncertain whether the Dwarves in T.A. 1980 were the ones who woke it, or if the Balrog had already been "awakened by the malice of Sauron" but remained trapped in "prison" beneath Khazad-dûm. Either way, it was out of commission during the much earlier time period that the "gathered under his government" quote refers to.]

I agree with Huinesoron's points about the evident limits of Sauron's control over evil creatures such as Smaug in the late Third Age. Note also that the Moria orcs served neither Sauron nor Saruman (cf. the chapter "The Uruk-hai"), which would be a weird setup if they were sharing the mines with a Balrog in the loyal service of Sauron.