Hate to bust in here, but just one little thing:
Quote:
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The more interesting question to me is: how was he able to make them so powerful? You could argue that they were more powerful than Balrogs (Maiar!).
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Actually, that can't be made
. In Tolkien's earliest conception of the Balrogs
(BoLT), they were an entire race of their own, and he talks about 'armies' of Balrogs. And even in
BoLT it's remarked that the Dragons were Melkor's deadliest servants,
save the Balrogs. (If I remember correctly in BoLT Tolkien even played with the idea of Balrogs riding upon Dragons). Tolkien would later greatly change his thoughts about Balrogs, making them Maiar, more powerful, and setting the number of Balrogs that existed from 3 to 7. Dragons stayed relatively the same, so I don't think any case can be made for a dragon being more powerful than a Balrog.
Dragons seemed to be more effective and do more damage, probably because there were hundreds upon hundreds of them; where by Tolkien's latest thoughts only 7 Balrogs ever existed at the most (
HoMe X: Morgoth's Ring).