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Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle
At the same time, a number of people have said that if they could find a letter or something like the one I imagine above, then the issue for them would be ‘settled’ – but why, for heavens’ sake? If, on the one hand, such questions don’t matter because the text is ambiguous or unclear (the reader can make up his or her mind), then why would the opinion of the author, expressed somewhere other than in the text, which he left ambiguous or unclear, be the only one worth anything (the reader is not allowed to make up his or her mind)?
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Another thing to point out is that this "letter", should such an unlikely thing ever be discovered, would date from a specific point in Tolkien's life, in this case the early/mid 50s, when the book was being published. Supposing that it DID say that Balrogs have no wings. All it would take would be ANOTHER letter or bit of writing, perhaps something from the early 60s, when Tolkien was struggling with the background of the orks, to get the whole debate going again. For example, if he said something like:
"The original orks must have been Ainur in origin, perhaps lesser Balrogs, later interbred with Men to produce the orks of the First and later Ages." And then Tolkien has a thought occur to him, and being Tolkien, he inscribes it on paper: "but what about wings?"
Conversely, what if conclusive proof was offered from the era of the
Book of Lost Tales stating that the Balrogs did NOT have wings? Would anyone take it as proof?
No, because of course he changed his mind by the time he wrote the
Lord of the Rings, etc, etc.
The only way this debate could ever have been settled is if Tolkien had lived long enough to authorize and edit a 3rd Edition of the book, in which little passages were inserted to clarify whether or not Balrogs had wings, whether Elves had pointy ears, and what colour Legolas' hair was, etc...