I find myself drawn to this thread now for some reason or another. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]
I do agree Kuruharan on Howe's renderings of Balrogs: they are spirits of fire and cloaked in shadow, not giant rottweiler's with bat wings. What we have here is a Tolkien creation, and in his land Men of old were in excess of 8' and an Elf like Thingol would probably have been over 9' since he was the tallest of all the Children of Ilùvatar. So I don't think a 20' Balrog is out of the picture.
Gandalf was not 5'6" but one of the tallest member of the fellowship, making him more than 6', taller than Boromir, taller than Legolas and possibly taller than Aragorn(I don't remember exactly how it is stated).
Continuing on with the Tolkien Cosmos. It is widely known that many beings(Gandalf, Aragorn, Tuor) often seemed to grow in stature. This along with any ability to actually grow, there could very well have been some small ability, a Balrog could go from a height of 20 feet to 30 feet. Anything larger and we begin to see some major problems.
[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: Durelen ]
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