Stupid question here:

Good question. It likely had no idea what the ring was due to having hibernated since Morgoth's time.

I guess Gandalf just assumed it would be so territorial as to not want to here excuses for trespassing.

The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm.

'You cannot pass,' he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. 'I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.'

The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly onto the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm

Looks like Gandalf attempted to talk with it.

No he attempted to shout it down. That's not a civil conversation is it?

Or

Or

Guys

Or

Balrog is a mad as fuck demon of ancient evil, terror incarnate, and you cannot talk to such things?

Crazy idea, I know.

He's more or less old family of gandalf. Both being Maiar and all that.

>"But spooks or no spooks, they won't get in The Pony so easy."
>"No black man shall pass my doors, while I can stand on my legs."
Why was Tolkien so racist?

Still, he's mad as fuck terror incarnate. Hard to discuss things with.

>If you kill the Balrog, he wins

No, I think not. He's far too over-heated.

The way that is written, it seems a lot subtler and quieter than in the film. No loud music, no screaming, no roaring,
>The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew.
I never really noticed the difference before, I watched the films first. I think I prefer it this way.

Yeah that is a stupid question.

It's not a conversation. It's perfectly civil for a last-ditch negotiation to avoid combat.

A translation:

>"Ok, stop. I'm telling you what I am, and I know what you are too. This isn't a fight you can win. Just turn around and go home."

Angel meets demon. Angel says "let's not fight." Demon fights.

>This isn't a fight you can win.

Except, of course, that the Balrog stalemated Gandalf for like three days of combat, and at the end of it they mutually killed each other. So the Balrog probably could have outright won if things had gone just slightly differently.

A fair decent story could be made of the redemption of the Balrog.

He's been sitting at the bottom of a mountain for thousands of years in a futile attempt to hide his shame from God. He's associated with goblins and trolls because it's lonely down here and he has nobody else to talk to. Nobody else is as wretched as he.

Then comes along Gandalf. Good ol' Gandalf, its nice to see a familiar face from the good old days. Loneliness overcomes his fear, or maybe he just wanted tomdie, and he approaches his old associate. Asks if their is enough forgiveness for the things he has done, is there hope for redemption where he is now.

Gandalf agrees to let Balrog come with them but oh yes he is keeping a very close eye on him.

Balrog becomes more and more human looming as he spends time in the sun, talking to the hobbits who are to ignorant to know to fear him as the others do.

At the breaking of the fellowship Balrog, now almost mortal looking, takes Boromir's body to Minas Tirith. He isn't anywhere near as powerful as before by that point, little more than a man. Dies in the siege, buried in an unmarked grave and forgotten in a hundred years.

The Start of your post veers dangerously close to balrog/Gandalf shipping.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Maiar can't really die, can they?

I support it.

They were evenly matched. They fought to a stalemate and both died. "This isn't a fight you can win" was a reasonable thing to say, when trying to talk him into not fighting.

Sure, any fight can be won if it "goes differently." Maybe the general of the overwhelmingly stronger army laughs so hard he gets an aneurysm.

Presumably they can be either diminished to the point where they can do anything but watch. Unable to speak, unable to effect the world unable to look away or sleep or blink or die. Forever, like what happened to Sauron.

Or maybe they go to where the elves go and hang out with them in Valhalla until the world ends. I'd like to think that the Balrog would end up with the elves for no other reason than because him turning up in the Halls of Mandos might be funny

Not 100%

...

how many balrogs did ecthelion kill
didnt he basically headbutt one into a fountain?

didnt feanor also kill morgoths entire personal bodyguard composed entirely of balrogs?
first age was real shit

Who knows? I'd say no, but basically getting back to Aman is kinda diying already.

Amusingly enought this is explored in TOR adventure, in which there is an enslaved Maia.

If you accept the Fall of Gondolin as canon, Ecthelion kills 1, but the Balrog leader, Gothmog. (Not to be confused with the other Gothmog at the Pelennor Fields in RoTK)

Feanor charges ahead of his own army and is attacked by the Balrogs. There is no indication he defeats any of them.

They didn't have a bard in the party, did they?

I think Aragorn had 1 level in Bard. Considering he had levels in Paladin, Ranger and Cleric I think he just took a few levels in everything.

>He's a fallen language

wtf I Iove Tolkien now

>Or
>Not and

Elves have a pretty bad track record against Balrogs, just saying.

Are you misgendering the Balrog?

The Balrog has been victim of a systemic patriarchistic racism. It has too long been considered the gender of evil (a man); when in fact it consider itself non-gendered binary genderqueer.

You fucking piece of shit subhuman.

What went wrong in your life that you felt the need to make this post?

From the Balrog's perspective, it killed Gandalf, and Gandalf won anyway, what with coming back and all.

>It stepped forward slowly onto the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall; but still Gandalf could be seen, glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm

Tolkien really did have a mastery of language. The fact that his simile actually enhances, rather than distracts from, the situation puts him leagues above most of his imitators.

I can't wait for shadow of mordor 3 where the balrog will become a cute girl NPC!

she's a Balrog not your waifu

the Elven kings actually had a pretty good track record, but by the time of LotR there's pretty much no royalty left

Shadow of War ends with Sauron winning though. There's no future for the games.

Aragorn seems like a pure Ranger to me, just one that happens to have an extremely strong sense of duty and moral core. Not sure where you get Cleric from.

That does raise an interesting question. I know the main LotR books pretty well, but I only know a bit about the larger cosmology Tolkien built. Does he ever discuss whether Middle Earth has any sort of organized religion? It occurs to me that Gandalf is probably closer to a Cleric than a Wizard in D&D terms, but there's never any mention of priests or temples.

It destroyed the old dwarf kingdom relatively recently (as in well in the Third Age), if I'm not mistaken.

"Yeah I'd like to roll diplomacy to befriend the balrog."

Fuck you.

Stupid question here:

Couldn't the Balrog have also come back? As Balrog the White?

There is not a single Elven king who does anything but die when faced by a Bakrog. The only ones who do better are Ecthelion and Glorfindel, and neither are royalty.

and is also an oppressed hero, unrecognized for her role in Gandalf's revival and ultimate assistance of the mission.

The bit where he went from tent to tent after one of the battles healing people.

Gandalf came back because Eru said he needed to go back, so maybe not.

Fingolfin could have done it, the dude battled Morgoth to a standstill.

While true, remember that healing is also well within the capabilities of the Ranger class, especially since they know the herbs and whatnot like nobody else does.

Spooks as in People Dressed In Black that try to be scary, Black Man as in Men in Black.

The idea of a man dressed as upper class but in all black is not new.

Gandalf also represents fire, as all wizards represent an element (The Grey for ash, the Brown for earth, and the two Blues for sea and sky, plus Saruman the White for light).

To a creature partly composed of fire, Gandalf's statement is either a direct command, challenge, or statement of fact. And his words did indeed seem to kill the fire, although the Balrog still charged anyway because of its dark nature. But Gandalf was right, that Balrog didn't pass.

It was also a battle of wills. Like at the door. Gandalf put a spell on the door to stay shut, Balrog wants it open. Whose will is greater? The divine will of Gandalf or the strength of the Balrog. To solve this the door explodes.

At the bridge Gandalf tells the Balrog that it will not pass. Balrog steps forward. The two unstopable forces collide, one stepping forward and one pushing back. The universe solves this by collapsing the bridge.

We are all here for our own reasons.

Chu sayin', faggot?

>What went wrong in your life that you felt the need to make this post?

For some reason, a number of /pol/tards think that by acting like abrasively one-dimensional libtards, they're going to trick us into becoming redpilled or whatever, as we recoil from the strawman libtards.

They don't seem to understand that their acts are painfully transparent.

Expansion pack for shadow of War, then.

I've met these cretins in real life, though I admit not often. If you have not then I envy you

In all honesty, it sounds a lot like a Dragon Break, though it's the material world solving the conflict rather than any magical fuckery happening.

fingolfin is elven kratos

It seemed pretty clear the Balrog completely overwhelmed Gandalf back in the chamber, though maybe that was because he wasn't expecting to confront such a powerful being. Gandalf had the edge in the final fight though because he literally is given plot armor by the Valar.

youtube.com/watch?v=3aB6CPyO0Ww

That is literally why the Ranger has healing spells, you know. They had Cleric spells when they first got published, then Druid spells after the Druid was a thing, and then even when they got their own nature-themed spell list in 3E they still had Cure Light Wounds.

Incidentally, Aragorn is also why the Ranger could explicitly use crystal balls (of clairvoyance/clairaudience etc.). The entire class is just one big wank over Aragorn by some guy who wrote in to... The Dragon, I think? It definitely wasn't Dragon Magazine yet, but I don't remember if it snuck into the last issues of The Strategic Review.

Not enough waifus to warrant an expansion

I am astonished and thoroughly amused by the RPG.net invasion. Really.

Years ago it would have been good fun, taken as a meme. It would have been good laugh. You would have understand that it is a tongue-in-cheek stupidity making fun of the retards SJW, and then you would have laugh. No bad, no politics, just good fun.

Has Veeky Forums really gone so wrong it is triggered by good fun? Well, well. Things have changed, for sure.

>It definitely wasn't Dragon Magazine yet, but I don't remember if it snuck into the last issues of The Strategic Review.

It was the second issue of The Strategic Review. Their bonus to killing giants (which later morphed into the favored enemy feature) suggests they may have some inspiration from Jack the Giant Killer too.

"Giants" just means everything from Goblin/Kobold to Giant in the monster list. It's basically just there to make Aragorn good at killing Orcs.

if melkor was still around it could, without him its fucked though