The Pits of Utumno

[William Cloud Hicklin]

-Umaiar. I think he had up to 100 balrogs during the Year of the Trees. It was said after Utumno were destroyed, many of his creatures went into hiding. So that implies that dozen balrogs survived the onslaught of the Valar.

There is a note somewhere in HME where Tolkien wrote that there were at most 8 Balrogs total.

[Galin]

The note reads 3 or at most 7 Balrogs ever existed, and accompanies a revision to the description concerning Utumno actually (Annals of Aman):


"It came to pass that at last the gates of Utumno were broken and its halls unroofed, and Melkor took refuge in the uttermost pit. Thence, seeing that all was lost (for that time), he sent forth on a sudden a host of Balrogs, the last of his servants that remained..."

Tolkien Revised "a host of Balrogs, the last of his servants that remained" to "his Balrogs, the last of his servants that remained faithful to him" -- Christopher Tolkien explaining: "In the margin my father wrote: "There should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed."

That's not the end of that story however, or not necessarily. But in any case, if we are going to go beyond the 1977 Silmarillion, the flood begins.

[Victariongreyjoy]

The balrogs are powerful servants, so I guess they took few losses during the leveling of Utumno. Maybe they were 7 but were reduced to 4.

[Galin]

I've proposed a theory that Tolkien never saw or commented on

Meaning this is wholly my idea, but why not have "many" Balrogs exist before the fall of Utumno, leaving seven, these seven to further dwindle at the Fall of Gondolin, War of Wrath, and one at the much later Moria encounter.

It seems a compromise of sorts to me, although again I've no idea if Tolkien ever contemplated this himself, or if he was going to note an exact number of Balrogs in the story itself. For example, revising "host" to "his" doesn't exactly reveal much in the way of numbers, even if externally we see that it represents a drastic reduction as far as the older references are concerned.

In my opinion, Christopher Tolkien's revisions to Quenta Silmarillion follow Tolkien's lead here, generally speaking, where he edited out lingering textual references to large numbers of Balrogs . . . as, despite the note just raised, for whatever reason, JRRT did not himself edit out every reference to large numbers.

Again that story doesn't end there even, but for now I'm goin to get ice cream.

[mhagain]

I'm very suspicious of the "everything must be a Maia" mindset.

Don't forget that the Maiar were members of the Ainur, they were the first-made, they existed before the universe, and they took part in the Music. The only real distinction between Valar and Maiar is that the Valar were just the most powerful of the Ainur who came into the world. Otherwise they are the very same class of being, and "Maiar" is not a separate taxonomic classification.

That's not the kind of thing that one should idly toss about whenever a convenient taxonomic classification for some other entity doesn't seem to exist. I personally find it easier to accept that there are other classes of spirit, created by the Music, and which meet this requirement.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Agree. In our haste to shove everything into a pigeonhole, we mustn't overlook that there are probably other cubbies Tolkien didn't see fit to tell us about, and other things that don't fit into any at all (Bombadil, the Nameless Things under Moria, Ungoliant)

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Agree. In our haste to shove everything into a pigeonhole, we mustn't overlook that there are probably other cubbies Tolkien didn't see fit to tell us about, and other things that don't fit into any at all (Bombadil, the Nameless Things under Moria, Ungoliant)

Exactly. The humorous thing about Bombadil is that Tolkien mentioned exactly what Bombadil was: "just an invention", "not an important person – to the narrative", even if "he represents something that I feel important, though I would not be prepared to analyse the feeling precisely. I would not, however, have left him in, if he did not have some kind of function." And in Letter #144 (to Naomi Mitchison), Tolkien wrote that he didn't think Tom was improved by philosophizing; he included the character "because I had already 'invented' him independently."

Yet folks have for decades wanted to put the Maia tag on ol' Tom, rather than just taking Tolkien at his word. When Bombadil mentions, "I am old, Eldest, that's what I am", he was -- having been invented well before Lord of the Rings was published.

Tom is an "enigma", and enigmas by their very nature are not decipherable. Or as Tolkien put it: "even in a mythical Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)."

But folks will argue themselves blue in the face, ignoring the author's obvious intention of not directly pigeon-holing Tom.