Concerning Balrogs.

[Note: I wrote this piece to address a topic my brother and I had been tossing about as to the varying numbers of balrogs existing at one time or another in Tolkien's created universe. Some earlier sources had the numbers in the hundreds or more, which hardly makes sense given their immense power (as seen in the Fellowship's encounter with one in The Lord of the Rings). It does not attempt to describe balrogs in any way, much less opine on whether they have wings or any other subject outside the matter of their number. It also assumes of the reader at least a passing knowledge with the events of the First Age of Middle Earth, and thus I will not bother to explain or define many of the names or terms used. If this sort of essay does not interest you, feel free to explore other posts on the blog. I thought some readers, though, might find something of interest in here.]

IT seems that only in the very earliest conceptions of Tolkien's elvish history (the drafts accounted for in "The Lost Tales") were the balrogs (valaraukar) quite numerous, spilling forth in the hundreds or even "a thousand strong" in one telling. Thereafter (in Tolkien's mind) the number of such beings in existence steadily shrank, even as their power increased. Gothmog, the greatest of them all, was present from the beginning, and his stature eventually rose to equal that of Sauron's, if not exceed it in might and in his lord's favor (though one presumes not in cunning). Gothmog could even be considered the most accomplished of all The Enemy's servants, having slain three of the mightiest of all Elven lords - Fëanor, Fingon, and Ecthelion. When Tolkien had firmly decided the balrogs to be maiar of Melkor, he told his son Christopher in a letter than their number was "at least 3 but not more than 7." This seems decisive then, as he never retracted that statement in his lifetime. It was also said that a balrog may not be slain "except by one of equal stature," which is probably why Fëanor in all his might was slain by Gothmog in the Noldor's first clash with the forces of Morgoth upon their return/exile to Middle Earth. But there is some confusion still, because Glorfindel apparently fought with a balrog on a mountainside and "both perished," and likewise did Ecthelion of Gondolin slay Gothmog in single combat, though again he was also slain. So we have two Noldor (though two of the mightiest ever), slaying and being slain by balrogs, who were certainly of a "higher" order than any Noldo by birthright.

The only justification I can see for this is that Glorfindel and his balrog died not so much in the combat as from falling from the mountain's great height, and Ecthelion and Gothmog were drowned in the waters of the many fountains of Gondolin during the attack on that mightiest of all Noldorin cities. So it might be that Nature itself, in the spirit of its own guiding maiar, (Ossë in the case of the fountain (water) and perhaps even Curumo (Saruman) in the case of the mountain), aided in the destruction of these fell beings. For Ossë was a vassal of Ulmo, lord of waters, and Curumo (along with Sauron, ironically), were said to be vassals of Oromë, who rose mountains, "created" dwarves, and concerned himself with stone, ore, and smithing of all sorts. This is only my own idea and nowhere have I read it stated or suggested in the least, but it seems to resolve the apparent paradox of elves having slain maiar - even at the expense of their own lives. The fate of the other 5 balrogs can be explained by the War of Wrath at the end of First Age, when Manwë finally gets pissed off enough to get Eru Ilúvatar's approval to lead the Valar, their Maiar, and the unsullied and near-angelic host of Vanyar to go bodily to Middle Earth to destroy their old buddy Melkor and his minions once and for all.

This they did, casting Morgoth into the void "beyond the circles of the world," to await final judgment by Mandos at the end of time, and presumably killing or scattering all of his creations and allies as they leveled and rooted out Thangorodrim, Angband, and Utumno. It's hinted that a few balrogs escaped their wrath by burying themselves far abroad in the deepest bowels of the earth, though, and the Valar were probably content and wearied enough by their vanquishing of Morgoth to have just let them lie dormant (much to Durin's surprise thousands of years later). Orcs also obviously escaped complete annihilation, perhaps because they were originally corrupted elves and retained souls which could conceivably be turned back to the light, however unlikely it may seem. The same with corrupted men, who the Valar had no authority to judge or punish, their fate being the Gift (or Curse) of Men. Most curiously, though, at least one breeding pair of dragons escaped the Wrath, since Smaug obviously exists well into the Third Age, seemingly with no connection to Sauron the Necromancer, who showed little affinity for subcreation anyway like his master Morgoth, except when it came to rings of course. An oversight by either the Valar or by Tolkien? I've yet to hear a plausible explanation of that one.

Speaking of dragons (úruloki), they were stated in later drafts of both "The Fall of Gondolin" and at one other place in the Silmarillion (I believe in a description of Glaurung amidst the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, though I'd have to look) to be the mightiest of all of Morgoth's creations, very nearly equal to the balrogs (who were Eru's creations, remember, not Morgoth's) in their might. This seems to me to mean that Morgoth, lacking Eru's unique ability to actually create "life" (to Tolkien, that which possessed a soul), wrought instead terrible and menacing mockeries of living creatures in the shape of dragons (at first flightless, like Glaurung, then later winged), though they were thralls to his will and perhaps even controllable by him directly from afar. The fact they were accounted the near equal of balrogs is impressive, but as no statement is made about them being above being slain by "lesser" beings, it is therefore not inexplicable that Glaurung is worsted by Túrin, the almost unbelievably mighty Ancalagon by Eärendil (in the sickest battle of all), and much later Smaug by Bard's black arrow (in a feat of marksmanship that would make Martin Longbow of the Riftwar series proud). For all their might, dragons were not immortal beings and were thus fair game for anyone with big enough stones and crazy enough skillz to take them on.