Balrog Beasts?

Unfortunately I had never read any Tolkein befor "The Fellowship.." came into theatres. So I never really had my owm interpretations of what everyone would look like. However since that movie came out i've read The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion all twice.

But let's talk about balrogs......What did they really look like? What makes us think that these fire maias were so huge? In the book "The Fellowship.." Legolas sees the balrog as being in the shape of a man, yet greater. And I think I might recall a passage in the Sil about balrogs being of a man shape also. The quesiton is.....were balrogs big beastly creature like beings. Or were they rather in the shape of a man, yet greater? And for the record,,,,I really don't care whether they had wings or not, however, all of us that have any brains clearly know that they did.

[Lindolirian]

Check it out: Barrow Downs Balrog Theme

[Lindolirian]

Hey, I was just looking through some of the Forum links at the bottom of the page. Mental Pictures of a Balrog is a good one even though it's one our old forum. And I found one of my old posts from my first account. On the second page, it's got a Lindolir. Ha thats me. Wow, I don't remember thinking that Balrogs looked like birds...

[Orual]

I think one of the cool things that Tolkien did was that when he wanted some thing to be REALLY scary or ominous or creepy, with the exception of Minas Morgul, he didn't really describe it, leaving it to the reader's own imagination, which can create his or her worst nightmares much more efficiently and effectively. "Shadow and flame" doesn't really shape a solid monster in your mind, but it certainly does have the desired effect of evil.

In other words, I really had no firm image of the Balrog in my mind, but I knew it was scary. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

~*~Orual~*~

[Ardolon]

Ok, it says "LIKE wings" (Emphasis mine) Why the like, if it had actual wings? And Ecthelion killed his by sticking it in the chest with the spike on his helm....Ecthelion would have been tall, and it was a couple feet taller then Ecthelion.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

when i first read lotr i thought that balrogs head looked like an eagles head...but i wonder if PJ has made balrog a bit more hidious than it was in Tolkiens mind.if gandalf(great wizard!) almost falls fighting with his balrog how could a mortal man ever fought with a balrog successfully?!

[Ardolon]

None of them did, so far as I recall. Ecthelion, Lord of the Fountain, was an elven noble from Gondolin.

[Gorwingel]

I too saw the film before I read FOTR (kind of, but that is a long story) so when I read that part of the book I basically thought of it looking the same way as in the film. But I always assumed it would be firey and scary. The only thing that I thought differently about the Balrogs after reading the Sil was that I thought that they would be smaller than the one in the movie, because in there it talks about how they were part of Morgoth's troops, so I just thought they would be a little shorter. The one in the movie looks like it would be about 15 stories tall, but then I also don't think they would be the same height as the average elf.

[ June 21, 2003: Message edited by: Gorwingel ]

[Ardolon]

Yeah, the one in the film was waaaaaaaay to big. It walked around inside Moria, right? So it would have had to fit through doors. Most people, expecially dwarves, I'd guess, don't both with doors you could fit king kong through.

[the guy who be short]

Hmmm... I opened another thread on this before I knew about the search function! Sorry! [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]
Anyway, theres been lots of interesting discussion at my thread, so have a looksie anyway. here

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

what about evolution...
first balrogs were tiny but nowadays they are huge [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

[Finwe]

I don't think that there was much evolution in Middle-earth, especially with Morgoth's creatures. They were all bred, and inter-bred, according to his tastes. They weren't left to breed among themselves.

[obloquy]

They weren't left to breed among themselves.

Prove.

what about evolution...
first balrogs were tiny but nowadays they are huge

Balrog evolution isn't what you might expect. At the time of the writing of 'The Fall of Gondolin', balrogs were weaker soldiers, probably more akin to trolls than 'modern' balrogs. There were very many of them. Tolkien's physical conception of them no doubt changed as well, so that it is fairly impossible to use any of the balrogs from FoG to determine late-concept balrog appearance. When this old text (1918 or 1919, I believe) is reconciled with later ideas, all that is really left of balrogs at the Fall is the death of Gothmog by helmet spike, and the duel of Glorfindel and the unnamed balrog. Tolkien supposed that at most 7 balrogs (as they were later conceived) ever existed -- perhaps no more than 3. So, although the (limited) physical descriptions of the balrogs in the Fall do not necessarily conflict with any later ideas, it is probably wise not to form too much conjecture around them. Still, we may suppose that the stature given:

Then Glorfindel's left hand
sought a dirk, and this he thrust up that it pierced the Balrog's
belly nigh his own face (for that demon was double his stature)

...remains valid for Durin's Bane (our only late balrog) as it coincides with the description at the Bridge: "of man shape, yet greater."

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

well,i wasn't very serious with the evolution-thing [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
interesting facts though

[Helkahothion]

A big thumbs up from my side on that. It could be very well possible that the Balrog wsa that size and that he could roam around the mine. He was about same stature as the cave troll in the movie. Or are you claiming it was too big too? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

P.J. Might not have all things in one line, but he sure knew what he did with the descriptions. Don't you think he gave it some thought himself? He's not stupid. I saw the movie before I read lotr. I'm in a way glad I did, now I can picture all the things I like (I liked everything) so I'm kind of a spoiled reader. The Balrog was well done. The wings perfectly fitted the description. They looked like wings, but could might as well have been shadow, just like the book implies and BW has gestured in the Balrog bit on the downs mane page in the articles. So thumbs up [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Suilad,

Anuion

[the phantom]

He was about same stature as the cave troll in the movie. Or are you claiming it was too big too?

Well, I suppose the two are kind of comparable, but the balrog was definitely bigger than the troll in the movie.

And actually, I believe that the troll was much too big (and way too tough to kill) in the movie. It did make for a nice fight scene though.

[Finwe]

Well, killing a cave troll is never supposed to be a piece of cake! Unless you're Tulkas or Oromë! It should be difficult to do, and should take a long time.

[obloquy]

Why?

[the phantom]

Trolls shouldn't take that long to kill. They should take about as long as it takes Aragorn, Boromir, Pippin, or any other member of the fellowship to whip out their sword and stab them in the vitals.

I made this post on another thread about trolls (the thread was questioning how big and tough they were really supposed to be).

I think the movie troll was too large.

In order for Hurin to kill a bunch of trolls with his axe, their necks would have to be low enough for him to lop their heads off. (I'm assuming that's how he killed most of them because an axe blow to the body wouldn't necessarily kill a troll and the axe wouldn't go all the way through, it would get stuck in the troll, and while Hurin was trying to get it out all the other trolls would grab him)

The Silmarillion says that Hurin was not as tall as other members of his family (father, brother, son), but he was from a great house of men, so let's guestimate that he was 6'3". Also, in order to chop off a head, the axe from butt to blade needs to be as close to level as possible, cause if it's sticking up in the air the blade wouldn't cut very deep (tell me if you don't get what I mean and I'll explain it). So if Hurin were to stand on his tip-toes and hold his hands above his head and do a nice swing with the axe pointed up at no more than 30 degrees, the highest the neck could be would be a little less than 7 and 1/2 feet, meaning that the troll's total height would be anywhere from 9 to 9 and 1/2 feet.

In the movie the troll is definitely more than three feet taller than Aragorn. And remember, Aragorn is supposed to be tall, so he's probably at least 6'3" (probably more).

Therefore, the movie troll was OVERDONE!!!

(though it made for an awesome fight sequence!!!)

Anybody with a great blade and enough strength to stab (or swing in the case of an axe) is capable of killing a troll.

And that 9 to 9 1/2 feet is the max for those trolls. They could've been shorter. In LOTR, the trolls in that battle before the black gate were described as being...

Taller and broader than men, they were

It didn't say they were giants that took two mortal warriors, an elf warrior, a dwarf warrior, four hobbits, and a wizard to kill.

Remember, in LOTR Pippin killed a troll all by himself, and he's no Hurin.

Trolls are tougher to kill than orcs, but they're not that tough.

[ June 23, 2003: Message edited by: the phantom ]

[Finwe]

That's fairly true. But I guess that the reason they overdid the Troll in the movie was to give the Fellowship some time to act all brave. It would have been strange for them to be walking calmly along, then suddenly been confronted with a bunch of Orcs.

[Helkahothion]

Hello, you are talking about trolls, it was a cave troll.

Suilad,

Anuion

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

cave troll= a troll who lives in a cave [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]
no, seriously, how are they different from each other?
(and goooodbye the balrog-topic?)

[Rumil]

I wonder if the Balrog could alter its 'aspect' in the same way that Gandalf and Galadriel seem to have done?

Gandalf seems larger and more powerful during his argument with Bilbo, as does Galadriel when she's offered the ring. Perhaps this is a power of ringbearers and Maia to create the illusion of great size and cow the 'lesser' folk.

If that's right the Balrog could perhaps have normally been double elf height, but seemed larger to the hobbits.(I doubt it fooled Gandalf though).

[Helkahothion]

Yes, it was a fiery beast and when it raized himself I think what P.J. ment is to show delusion by the beast. You know, to show that it was more intelligent than just a whip and a sword. You have to keep in mind, P.J. has a weird taste of explaining things.

(Heloooo to the Balrog topic [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img])

Suilad,

Anuion