[Kuruharan]

…a Balrog with three bottoms.

More speculation. You can't say with certainty based on the text how the wings "must" function.

We can speculate on where the wings would need to be in comparison to the weapons that the Balrog used, specifically the whip. Using a whip well is not as easy as it looks and if the Balrog was lashing back over its shoulder it would necessarily be beating its own wings to shreds (please argue with me on this point). To avoid this it would need to be lashing to the side and down. I don’t have a problem with this. I think this would be the most effective way for the Balrog to use its whip because it was taller than its enemies. Slashing around in large circular motions would whack the largest area and the most enemies as possible. However, this means that the wings would need to be up and out of the way of these motions (unless, of course, the new argument is that the Balrog could not hurt itself with its own weapons). We are back to how this 80-100 foot wingspan could be folded and pass through doors that can be described as “the narrow opening of the door,” can be wedged by broken swords and splinters of wood, and only allows one orc through at a time.

The bottom line is that we can't draw any definitive conclusions about the sizes of various rooms, doorways, chambers, or wingspans, so arguments which claim that "the Balrog couldn't fit in there if it had wings" just don't hold water.

But we can (and have) made reasonable assumptions that tend to weigh heavily against massive wings.

I tend to place the greater value on instinctive reader reaction (my own in particular) than I do on cold logical analysis after the event.

Killjoy.

why use the word two...this implies that the shadow spread out from him in two directions. not in all directions why would they only go in two directions unless they were wings?

Because the expression “like one vast wing” would be exceedingly odd.