Balrog and servants of Sauron

[samrohan]

I have looked through the topics and cannot find any topics based on this precisely. If there is one, please point me in the right direction.

I read in another topic that 'Sauron had no intention to awake the Balrog in the mines of Moria'.

To this quote I have a few comments:

As Sauron seemingly had no power over the Balrog for this creature is too old and too powerful for that, I have wondered why it sides the orcs and trolls and goes after the Nine towards the Bridge.

If I remember rightly, Gandalf says something along the lines of the Drums have awoken the Balrog. If I was awoken by drums and I had the power of the Balrog, I think I would not go after the Nine but crush a bit of Orc as the culprits for weaking me up.

Another idea is as the Balrog is apparently taking the side of the orcs, how do they communicate? Who is in charge in the Mines of Moria, does Sauron have another lieutenant in charge of his troups there?
These orcs and trolls are obviously not without command, but no mention is made of it. They may well have a few sergeant of the type of Shagrat and Gorbag but that would be clearly insufficient to control such a mass of brainless truants...

It also has always puzzled me that so many orcs could be found so far from Mordor as they would have had to cross Rohan and other friendly areas. Little troups could sneak through but surely not large legions which seem to inhabite Moria.

A silly question which comes to my mind is:

How do the orcs in the now deserted Moria survive? They obviously do not trade. Orcs need to eat, how did these cope? SUrely not Lembas...

[Gil Galad]

All good point's but as for all the goblins getting there, remember goblins hate the sun so i doubt very many of them would have crossed through Rohan.

[the phantom]

It also has always puzzled me that so many orcs could be found so far from Mordor as they would have had to cross Rohan and other friendly areas.

The orcs didn't have to come from Mordor. There's a mountain called Gundabad (sp? don't have my book handy) that is located near the northern end of the Misty Mountains and for quite a while it was sort of an orc capitol city. There've been orcs in that part of ME for quite a while and they can replenish their own population without sending out orders for more uglies from the Mordor orc factory.

How do the orcs in the now deserted Moria survive?

Well, they probably fished in the deep pools (remember that the Goblin King in The Hobbit enjoyed fish from Gollum's pool). And also I would be surprised if there wasn't a little cannibalism going on amongst the orcs.

[Leyrana Silumiel]

As Sauron seemingly had no power over the Balrog for this creature is too old and too powerful for that, I have wondered why it sides the orcs and trolls and goes after the Nine towards the Bridge.

It's my esteemed opinion (yeah, right) that the Balrog wasn't necessarily siding with the goblins / orcs. Yes, it goes after the Nine, but when it appeared (both in the book and the movie), the goblins ran away (if I'm remembering correctly) because they were frightened of it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, please...

[Findegil]

You should read the book again. The Orks do not run away when the Balrog does approach the hall. They go aside to let him pass. They do approach after him and the work of the trolls to get the orcs across the fire was continued during the approach of the Balrog.

That does mean the Balrog did at least cooperat with the orcs. And the Appendix said that the orcs were send to Moria by Sauron. So at least the Balrog and Sauron did tolerat each other and for me it is likly that they cooperated.

Respectfully
Findegil

[samrohan]

Nice comments.

Any ideas about how Sauron kept control over the Orcs in Moria, if at all?

[SamwiseGamgee]

As Sauron seemingly had no power over the Balrog for this creature is too old and too powerful for that

This isn't necessarily true. Although both Sauron and the balrog are Maiar, Sauron is described as 'the greatest' (Valaquenta Of The Enemies.)
Also, Gothmog, High-Captain of the Balrogs was below Sauron under Morgoth, so there is no reason to suppose that Sauron could not command a balrog.
In Appendix A III, it says:

The Dwarves delved deep...Thus they roused from sleep... a Balrog of Morgoth.

But also, in the footnotes:

it may well be it had already been awakened by the malice of Sauron.

So, it seems like there's no conclusive proof in the text- this is perhaps a bit of a 'do balrogs have wings?' or 'is Gothmog in RotK a Nazgul?', but it's interesting to speculate nonetheless.
I think that if Sauron could awake the Balrog conciously then he would. He could command it, and even if the fellowship had not passed through Moria, Durin's Bane would have been a valuable ally. And if it was not in fact awoken by Sauron we know that he would have been aware of it. In Appendix B the Balrog is said to have reappeared in the year 1980 of the Third Age. It is said that: 'Sauron begins to people Moria with his creatures' in the year 2480 of the Third Age. So we can speculate that even if Sauron did not intentionally awaken the Balrog, he certainly began an attempted 'recruitment' 50 years later.

[the phantom]

'Sauron begins to people Moria with his creatures' in the year 2480 of the Third Age

Yes, it is definitely useful to mention that the year was 2480 because that is important to samrohan's questions.

In 2480 Sauron was at Dol Guldur, not Mordor, so if he was literally sending forces (from right where he was) to Moria then his creatures certainly did not have to pass through Rohan or Gondor (since they would already be well to the north of them).

The entire entry for 2480 (actually, for c. 2480) reads-

Orcs begin to make secret strongholds in the Misty Mountains so as to bar all the passes into Eriador. Sauron begins to people Moria with his creatures.

It's not clear to me where exactly the orcs are coming from. All we know is that Sauron wanted them in Moria. He could've sent them from his base of operations or simply sent orders to orcs in the mountains further north to move down to Moria.

And also, the orcs we see in Lord of the Rings might not have much of a connection with the Orcs that were ordered to populate Moria around 2480. A vast majority of the orcs in the Misty Mountains were wiped out of existence during the War of the Dwarves and the Orcs (which began in 2793).

From App A-

they assailed and sacked one by one all the strongholds of the Orcs that they could find from Gundabad to the Gladden...they hunted for Azog in every den under mountain...all the orcs that fled before them were gathered in Moria

Considering that the orcs gathered in Moria, that the final battle was fought outside the doors of Moria, and that the dwarves won the day, I can't imagine that very many orcs were left in Moria after that.

And since there is no other mention (that I can remember) of Sauron sending masses of orcs to Moria we can probably assume that the "legions" that were in Moria when the Fellowship passed through were simply a result of orcs migrating there from other parts of the Misty Mountains and that the orcs were likely reproducing fairly quickly.

[Osse]

It just seems to me here, in this post that many people are assuming that Sauron controls all the orcs in ME.. that they are his servants. This is NOT the case; Morgoth bred them, Sauron continues to breed them but not all orcs are around on errands of the dark-lord... they had their own colonies, their own cities... they have their own lives, especiially when Sauron was diminished. The survivors of the Last Alliance would have fled, and like gollum would of searched for somewhere dark and safe to continue their nasty lives. Gundabad had been an orc stronghold for years, and the orcs of moria were certainly not under direct orders from Sauron. The misty mountains in general were a haven for orcs and goblins, and their tunnel cities were littered all the way up and down the range. Remember that part of the force that Sauron sends to rohan is made up of the northern goblins... he sends envoys calling them all to arms, promises plunder and they all flock to him... hoping to get back with loot and plunder to their strongholds once they've had some fun. Remember the conversation between the orc captains up on cirith ungol, speaking of "getting a few good lads together and starting over once this is all finished."

Sauron didnt say; "You orcs... go retake moria... you orcs go plague the passes."
They were already there... it was good for him to have these obstacles to plague his northern enemies.

In closing; perhaps initially these orcs were sent to these places... but after about 30 years they'd be pretty self suffient, with their own chieftans etc. they would have thought themselves independent; nothing to do with morder, somehting they'd escaped.


Regards to all, every man and his dog.

Osse

[Silmiel of Imladris]

Quick question since we are talking Balrogs and no it is NOT the 'wing' question. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] When Sauron was destroyed what happened to the Balrogs that were left? Did they lose power of did they keep on living and running a muck?

[the phantom]

they'd be pretty self suffient, with their own chieftans etc. they would have thought themselves independent

Very true, Osse. Azog (the Orc King) certainly sounded independent in his message to the dwarves after branding his name on Thror-

But if his family wish to know who is now king here, the name is written on his face. I wrote it! I killed him! I am the master!

And also you said-

Sauron didnt say; "You orcs... go retake moria... you orcs go plague the passes."
They were already there

This was my conclusion as well. Note that the entry for 2480 makes the statement that the orcs "begin to make secret strongholds" in a seperate sentence than (and before) it says "Sauron begins to people Moria". The two could be entirely unrelated except by date. Maybe the orcs just happenned to be expanding at the same time that Sauron is messing with Moria. Moria and the passes are not the same exact thing after all though they are in the same general geographic region.

[Noxomanus]

I think the Balrog may have been attracted by the power of the Ring and that is why it goes after the Fellowship and didn't blame the noise on the Orcs.

Also,the Maia nature of Gandalf might be telling. It seems Gandalf could sense Sauron as a Maia instead of a Nazgul in Dol Guldur and the Balrog might have had similar powers.

[Leyrana Silumiel]

You should read the book again. The Orks do not run away when the Balrog does approach the hall. They go aside to let him pass. They do approach after him and the work of the trolls to get the orcs across the fire was continued during the approach of the Balrog.

Oops. My mistake. I think Peter Jackson's take on it is starting to blend with the books (which is one of the reasons why I try to refrain from watching the movie too much). If you recall, the bloody orcs / goblins ran from the Balrog in FOTR (the movie), and I think that's where I got it from.

And I'm actually working on re-reading LOTR again for my thesis; however, I haven't gotten that far in the story yet (I'm at the part where the hobbits are about to go into the Old Forest and are looking for the path).

Thanks for the correction, Findegil!