Do Balrogs Have Wings?

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Do Balrogs Have Wings? by Michael Martinez

I'm sold.

While I respect Mr. Martinez on a great number of Tolkien-related questions, and I agree with him on most, the Balrog debate is not one of them.

Quite frankly, Mr. Martinez does exactly what this and every other Balrog-related thread in every Tolkien-related forum across the web has done, and like just about every other fan, he has joined one or the other respective camps.

His is that of the wingers. Mine is that of the non-wingers. Each have their arsenal of evidence and it depends, with almost every piece, on the reader's perceived intention of the original author's mind.

There are times that I think we have gone so far into the minds of the characters and their world, that we think we have gone into the mind of Tolkien himself. We haven't, exactly, of course, but it is still a game that we play.

Did Balrogs have wings?

Of course not. It says so right there in the Lord of the Rings. If you read it the RIGHT way...