Do Balrogs Have Wings?

by Andrew Rilstone

Is Tolkien Actually Any Good?
Did Gandalf Torture Gollum?
Did Susan Go To Hell?
Who Wrote The Poems of C.S. Lewis?
Did C.S Lewis have a marriage of convenience?

Andrew Rilstone answers thirteen important questions about the lives and works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

Plus reviews and critiques of books, stage-shows and those god-awful movies

Every Inklings-related word that Andrew has published since 1999.

PLUS Never-before published material, including

* a detailed response to Planet Narnia
* thoughts on Jack's Life and Lenten Lands
* a new, definitive essay on the trillemma

Thirteen or so years in the making

About 300 pages

Around 100,000 words

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 17, 2012

Reviews

[Charles]

Balrogs – fiery creatures and servants of Morgoth Bauglir, the Dark Lord of Arda in the ancient days – have done great evils throughout the ages. But still, the question about their wings remains. If they had such of these will be answered in this essay. To fully understand the root of the seemingly endless discussion, we have to look into the renowned chapter “The Bridge of Khazad-Dum”, which is part of “The Fellowship of the Ring”. There it reads: “His [Gandalf’s] enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings.” This sentence makes it quite clear that the Demon doesn’t have true wings, though only a short passage later it reads: “It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, […] and its wings were spread from wall to wall.”, so these are unambiguous wings. But since this referring to the
aforementioned shadow shaped like wings, it probably just skips the shadowy part to don’t cause repetition in the flow of the narration.
Now the hall in which the fight between the two Maiar takes place is about fifty feet (or fifteen
meters) wide. Considering that Balrogs are “only” twice the size of an average man (at that time
accordingly, 180 centimetres), this would make it a four to one or even a five to one ratio from the
wings to the body, which would hardly be supportable by any living thing upon Arda, which in turn
supports the idea of some kind of winged-shaped shadow, fashioned by the Balrog.
And then there is the love of Balrogs for falling down into deep chasms. Of three slain Balrogs that
are mentioned, two were falling down into the abyss during their mortal combat while still being
alive, but yet couldn’t save them by flying up and returning to the earth above, which is yet another
sign for them having indeed no usable wings at all.
A thing that is often brought up by people is a line from the Appendices, which states: “Thus they
roused from sleep a thing of terror that, flying from Thangorodrim, had lain hidden at the foundations of the earth since the coming of the Host of the West: a Balrog of Morgoth.”, which could either mean that he literally flew through the skies, or rather that he fled from Thangorodrim – probably running, not flying, since this is the meaning that was used by Tolkien every single time to this point saying that something “flew”.
Talking about chronologies, at the point when Dúrin’s Bane fled into the depths of Moria, there was only one creature under the command of Morgoth, that actually fly, and this was Ancalagon the
Black. Now if all Balrogs could fly with their wings, then the breeding of winged dragons would surely have taken away a lesser amount of time since Morgoth would have long discovered the secret of flying.
I hope that I could make clear, why exactly Balrogs didn’t have physical wings, but only ones made
out of shadow, which Balrogs apparently could devise as they wished, but for no reason could use
them to actually traverse the skies above Arda.

-- What a friend of mine wrote, which I edited because because.

[Jerzy]

Heard about it via http://www.andrewrilstone.com/2007/08...