[Kuruharan]

*sigh* Even though I think it's getting to the point where we are talking around in circles and not getting anywhere I'll give it one more go.

Thingol:
This is an obvious statement looking back over the course of the discussion, but I'm going to make it anyway. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] I think that you are putting a bit too much emphasis on the spiritual over the physical.

Now before I continue, let me clarify so to make sure that I am not misunderstood. I don't mean to say that the spiritual is not important. In fact I agree that the spiritual is more important than the physical. However, I think you are overstating the importance of the spiritual. Let us take for instance the battle between Sam and Shelob. Yes, Tolkien spent much more time discussing the internal battle inside Sam than on the actual events. However, this is because what physically happened does not take much to describe. The internal struggle is much more complex and dramatic, and it requires much more description. Sam physically wounded Shelob's eyes. And it was not Sam who really wounded Shelob in the gut, all he did was hold the sword over her head. Shelob's brute physical strength trying to crush Sam drove the blade in. Then the light from the phial caused her intense physical pain. In a small aside, I can almost feel sympathy for Shelob in that condition because I have had a bright light shined in my eye after it's been damaged, the pain that causes is intense beyond words! But anyway, yes the spiritual is immensely important. In the case of Sam and Shelob, Sam's spirit caused the phial to burn brightly, which ultimately drove Shelob off. However, the point is that the enemy must still be physically defeated. Shelob would not have fled if Sam had not so severely damaged her person.

Back to Dragons and Balrogs, I still find it hard to believe that a Balrog would be able to spiritually cow a Dragon sufficiently to impair their fighting skills enough to have such a decided advantage. I still remain unconvinced that the spirit and terror of a Balrog was that much greater than a Dragon. The Balrogs do have an impressive record of victories, but as I said before, they normally did it in a group. Dragons would blast through entire armies by themselves. As you say, Balrogs were probably not designed for army busting, and Dragons probably were. However, if you set the two of them against each other (one on one), I just don't see the Balrog having an overwhealming advantage. The Balrog may (and I'm not necessarily conceding the point) have had a greater spirit of terror, but I think that even in this case the Dragon would have had sufficient spiritual strength to compensate, and that it had greater physical force to make up the difference.

What we probably have here is a push. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

littlemanpoet:
Just funnin' ya! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] I should have put some smile thingies in my post to make that clear. Anytime I'm talking about Balrog wings I'm usually only kidding. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]