Bye Bye Balrogs - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

***Mister Underhill*** · 01-24-2002, 08:23 PM

I went ahead and deleted the other topic so we wouldn't end up with split discussion threads.

My small contribution, re: troll lore. As far as I was ever able to tell, CRRT is responsible for the insertion of the trolls into Húrin's slaughter, or at least he never published any version by JRRT in HoME which included trolls. The fact that it's the 77's sole troll reference is puzzling and leads me to conclude that it was probably a misguided editorial addition by CRT. Additionally, I think there is considerable doubt as to whether there are any pre-Third Age day-walking trolls.

As a side note, obloquy has come up with a Balrog theory that would support the "3" note in the Books forum, here, which Aiwendil has already seen and probed a bit. I don't know its implications, but it may stand inclusion for the sake of completeness. It struck me on first pass as the first reasonable explanation of the the number "3" that I've seen so far.

My two cents for a straw poll: I lean towards the options that cut the Balrog numbers way down per the "3 or 7" note.

01-24-2002, 08:23 PM	#28
*Mister Underhill* Dread Horseman Join Date: Sep 2000 Location: Behind you! Posts: 2,744	I went ahead and deleted the other topic so we wouldn't end up with split discussion threads. My small contribution, re: troll lore. As far as I was ever able to tell, CRRT is responsible for the insertion of the trolls into Húrin's slaughter, or at least he never published any version by JRRT in HoME which included trolls. The fact that it's the 77's sole troll reference is puzzling and leads me to conclude that it was probably a misguided editorial addition by CRT. Additionally, I think there is considerable doubt as to whether there are any pre-Third Age day-walking trolls. As a side note, obloquy has come up with a Balrog theory that would support the "3" note in the Books forum, here, which Aiwendil has already seen and probed a bit. I don't know its implications, but it may stand inclusion for the sake of completeness. It struck me on first pass as the first reasonable explanation of the the number "3" that I've seen so far. My two cents for a straw poll: I lean towards the options that cut the Balrog numbers way down per the "3 or 7" note.