How strong are Balrogs in a practical sense? Would it take an army to slay one? A dozen men?

>I'm wondering how interesting of a POV character they would make. If they're unlikable juggernauts than that would get boring pretty fast, at least from a suspense stand point.
In the Sillymaroonlion, elves slay balrogs by the dozen.

They are Maiar of Melkor in the same way Gandalf and Radagast were Maiar of the Valar. so sort of angelic power levels.

> Sillymaroonlion, elves slay balrogs by the dozen.

You conveniently forgot that it happened in a confrontation so great that it fucked up even the maps completely and ended the First Age..

>Would it take an army

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About 1/12th of a Hurin would be enough to kill one Balrog.

As illustrated by Gandalf and a Barlog fighting to a draw, it can be inferred that they are a little less than an unhampered Maiar, as Gandalf was somewhat limited by his transmutation. This is, of course, assuming that the barlog of Moria was typical.
As far as how many humans it would take to kill, that's harder to answer. Could a normal human harm it at all, assuming no numenor hacks? It's feasible that a barlog might be able to face any number of men, unless they were armed with something special to fight it.

Actually, they don't. You're thinking of the Fall of Gondolin, which contains a bunch of other stuff that gets retconned. Balrogs are also far less menacing than they would be in later works in that.

Honestly, could Gandalf even beat one on a plain field? All big spells he has ever done in the movies are either shining lights or breaking rocks.

Gandalf in the Hobbit seems to be vulnerable to a bunch of goblins stabbing him. If you assume that the Balrog is of a similar stature in both overall power and the "form" of the power, they're probably vulnerable to a dozen or so men, yes; at least in the sense of bodily destruction. Remember, corrupted or no, they're still Ainur, so just destroying their body probably won't kill them, you need someone who can project into the Unseen to finish them off entirely, although the example of Sauron in the second age demonstrates that losing a body does fuck them up.

Given how Maia work in general, I suspect they aren't as purely physically dangerous as say, a dragon, and the Balrog of Moria is probably more dangerous as an evil leader than he is of just running up to you and hitting you with a sword or whip.

No, melkor had no maiar. They were maiar of fire who were swayed by the morgoth's lies, much like how sauron was a maiar of Aule.

"Fire" isn't an Vala that a Maia could serve user. And the Vala most associated with fire is....... Melkor.

they are weak ass bitches whenever Tolkhack needs them to die to some heroic motherfucker, or super dangerous threats when he needs some convoluted chase scene.

They can be whatever the writer wants them to be, and if a Maia has to fight one to the death, it doesn't mean an Elf with a Pointy Hat can't throw him into a well.

He also uses telekinesis to throw Sarumon around.

Magic in LOTR manifests less obviously.

Right, but calling them maiar of melkor is implying they were made for him by eru. Maiar I'm service of melkor would be more apt.

LOTR magic is true names and destiny-warping; not muh mana bullets. The FX might not be as flashy, but the metaphysical power level is way higher.

You can't finish off a maia. Their spirits are indestructible. The balrogs, like Sauron and many other evil ainur, have invested far too much of their power into their corporeal forms, so once they are disembodied they loose the power to influence the physical world. But still exist, and will continue to until the end.

He did beat one on a plain battlefield. They fought on the mountaintop for like three days or something.

It's worth noting that balrogs know magic as well. When they're fleeing through Moria, Gandalf hastily attempts to cast a spell to lock a door behind them, and the balrog's counterspell kicks his ass. So they're not just fiery hulking brutes.

Well, there was this one guy, he killed a Balrog by accident.

Seriously, see, there was this chest with all three Silmarils in it, and this guy, who was supposed to watch the chest, he dropped his sandwich, and when he bent to pick it up, his polearm caught one of the chest's handles, and then he was trying to get the chest back without letting go of his halberd, and the chest was whacking incoming opponents left and right, knocking them off the high ridge he was on, and some of them started an avalanche that buried most of the Balrog's minions.

And then the Balrog flew up to get him (we won't discuss whether it used wings to fly, or simply its inherent magical power) and as it handed, he dropped his weapon and clutched his face and covered his eyes. And the chest fell and broke open and the Silmarils bounced out, glowing so bright that the Balrog was momentarily blinded.

And then the Balrog stepped on one of the Silmarils as it rolled under his foot, and he fell down and hit his head and died.

Anyway, that's how one of the Silmarils got lost.

Could a balrog kill a bear?

But Sarumon used telekinesis to throw him around even more.
Seriously, how could the same guy who fought a balrog for three whole days and killed it, lose an old-man fight and get imprisoned on top of a tower?

Adrenaline.

He just wasnt that excited by Sarumon. The Balrog though, he really got his juices flowing.

>Right, but calling them maiar of melkor is implying they were made for him by eru. Maiar I'm service of melkor would be more apt.

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux,
is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I've recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux.
Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component
of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell
utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX.

Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day,
without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU
which is widely used today is often called "Linux", and many of its users are
not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project.

There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a
part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system
that allocates the machine's resources to the other programs that you run.
The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself;
it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is
normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system
is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called "Linux"
distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.

Not a chance

They kill Sauron in battle, I believe. It was after the hobbits melted the ring, but still.

Feanor fought several at once and possibly killed some but it is never actually mentioned. That said I'm pretty sure feanor could slap Sauron up and down the coast of Middle Earth with his dick

I think he's referring to the Elves attacking with the aid of the Valar into Angband and vanquishing Morgoth.

No no, it was Morgoth screaming in pain that spooked off Ungoliant.

and a tax reform

how big is the bear

Unbearably large.

O shit. Not a chance in hell then.

Maybe a bearably large one. Maybe.

What if it stepped on an anti-tank mine?

Who would be the ‘Gandalf’ figure to Gandalf himself on an adventure?

As in Gandalf is mega powerful and wise to the jolly hop-along hobbit kiddies making them look real small-fry. Is there anyone powerful enough to make Gandalf look like a clueless well meaning but bumbling puppy?

Any given Vala when it comes to power. On the other hand they (or at least some of them) seem to not think too well, the maiar often seem to be smarter than their patron valar.

...

the valar are too detached to be completely logical. imagine being nigh (emphases on nigh) omnipotent, how the fuck would that skew your outlook on the world?

I just chuckle at the idea of Gandalf being so super cool to the hobbits and middle earth then Zoom out and he’s just as bumbling and ‘small-folk’-esq as the hobbits seem to him to the higher ups that look down at him.

Good thing it's a bear and not a tank, then.
And before you get cheeky, anti-personnel mines won't work either, because bears are neither people, nor employed.

but would it work on a Balrog ? we already established they're employed by Melkor (or Morgoth?)

Nah. You might be able to get away with Anti-Pit Fiend mines, but there's some contention about that.
At least Balrogs don't know to be aware of them, unlike their less-prominently named cousins.

What about a big bucket of water over a massive door that's slightly ajar?

Didn't Morgoth screaming attract all the balrogs who then proceeded to chase the Ungoliant with blazing whips ?

If the door is ajar the balrog could just see the bucket on top through the glass. Even then he'd probably be made suspicious by there being a jar in a doorway to begin with.

I thought anti-Pitfiend Mines were illegal?

Well, technically they are, but nobody but the dumbest paladin, a Modron, or Judge Dredd is going to honor an anti-devil weapons ban passed by devils.

What if he got 2 surprise rounds?

Cite?

Or Ecthelion

You mean the lost tales. In the sil there are only a handful balrog. And exactly two die before the end of the first age. Each time killing their slayer.

This. Without some kind of spiritual power and destiny of their own, I doubt if a human could even harm a Balrog, regardless of numbers. Modern weapons, maybe, except that a Balrog could simply re-form itself after a while.

Destiny is a powerful force in Tolkien. If a Balrog ran unchecked in a post-elven world, the Valar or Illuvatar would arrange to have a counter ready.

They were maiar of aule before joining morgoth.

Gandalf literally throws fireballs in LotR.

This is true but ALL the ainur were created directly by Illuvatar. The lesser ones glommed on to the following of the "big brother/sister" that best fit their own natures. So Aule's following originally included Saruman and Sauron, but he didn't directly create or father either of them. He just had them as his followers, and then both eventually switched allegiances to Morgoth.

Say that without your giant tree skank doing all the heavy lifting in your fight, faggot

Not him, but there is no indication whatsoever of that being the case.

The hobbit, actually. The most direct offensive magic Gandalf does in LoTR proper is shooting some sort of beam of light at the Nazgul in RoTK.

>movies

There's no telekinesis in the books. Saruman holds Gandalf hostage without it coming to blows (Gandalf couldn't win, and Saruman still hoped to turn him... and if he'd gotten the Ring, he would have succeeded!).

Then later at the ruins of Isengard, Gandalf gives orders to Saruman, who is clearly compelled to obey but which doesn't seem telekinetic.

Magic in LotR is subtle. There's flashy spells, sure, but mostly things get done via direct changes to Destiny.

>Tolkhack
Oh no, the GRRM Shill user has returned from his dark banishment.
Get your gondor tax plan defenses ready, men.

To wit, in Fellowship, he does battle against the entire host of Ringwraiths at Weathertop alone and fends them off for an entire night, calling enough fire and lightning to drive them back.

How many taxes would Gondor have to levy to dispatch a Balrog threat?

There's nothing quite like an incredibly well-timed copypasta. Bravo, user.

There's no indication of discrete "fireballs", and no mention that he does anything more flashy than making the light to support Legolas that he does against those wolves when they turn south to Moria. The entire narration of the "battle" is seen at a ridiculous distance by the narrating characters who only have the vaguest idea of what happened, and thus we also only have a vague idea.

Furthermore, at least according to the statements he gives to Frodo once they're in Rivendell, he doesn't drive them back, he was in a very tight strait and just managed to hold out until daybreak, at which point he flees, hoping to draw some of them off.

>at least according to the statements he gives to Frodo once they're in Rivendell, he doesn't drive them back, he was in a very tight strait and just managed to hold out until daybreak, at which point he flees
You quote part of it, but you decide to not quote the part where he directly describes what he did.
You are trying to argue about fireballs when I mentioned no such thing.

I'm on your side of the argument, but admit that on an anonymous board it's hard to know it's not you who said "Gandalf literally throws fireballs in LotR"

I started with a response to post , which says

>Gandalf literally throws fireballs in LotR.

And I'll quote it in full. ae-lib.org.ua/texts-c/tolkien__the_lord_of_the_rings_1__en.htm

>As Frodo lay, tired but unable to close his eyes, it seemed to him that far away there came a light in the eastern sky: it flashed and faded many times. It was not the dawn, for that was still some hours off.

>‘What is the light?' he said to Strider, who had risen, and was standing, gazing ahead into the night.

>'I do not know,' Strider answered. 'It is too distant to make out. It is like lightning that leaps up from the hill-tops.'

>Frodo lay down again, but for a long while he could still see the white flashes, and against them the tall dark figure of Strider, standing silent and watchful. At last he passed into uneasy sleep.

That's all that we get to see directly, from book 1 chapter 11.

Then, in The Council of Elrond

>'I galloped to Weathertop like a gale, and I reached it before sundown on my second day from Bree-and they were there before me. They drew away from me, for they felt the coming of my anger and they dared not face it while the Sun was in the sky. But they closed round at night, and I was besieged on the hill-top, in the old ring of Amon Sûl. I was hard put to it indeed: such light and flame cannot have been seen on Weathertop since the war-beacons of old.
1/2

>`At sunrise I escaped and fled towards the north. I could not hope to do more. It was impossible to find you, Frodo, in the wilderness, and it would have been folly to try with all the Nine at my heels. So I had to trust to Aragorn. But I hoped to draw some of them off, and yet reach Rivendell ahead of you and send out help. Four Riders did indeed follow me, but they turned back after a while and made for the Ford, it seems. That helped a little, for there were only five, not nine, when your camp was attacked.

That's all we get. You'll note that Gandalf compares what he did to ligthing beacons, not attacking someone. If you're not arguing in favor of throwing fireballs, which I honestly had thought you were, I'm not sure how this affects your position, because I"m not even clear what that position is.

True. In those days the Elves were more powerful, being freshly from Valinor. And Feanor was undoubtedly the most powerful Elf. Remember that Finrod managed to hold off Sauron in a direct duel of magic (for a short time).

Keep in mind that by the time of LotR, Sauron's power was greatly diminished as well. He'd poured most of his power into the Ring, which was lost, and what's left suffered two terrible blows when his body was killed (in the Fall of Numenor and then when Elendil and Gil Galad killed him in the battle of the Last Alliance).

So the Sauron that got bitch-slapped by Luthien was far more powerful than anything Gandalf had to face. But the power level in general was much higher then.

You also have the time that Beren beats up his werewolf form, and he's just an "ordinary" (by first age standards) human hero.

Gandalf was well regarded by the Valar. They requested him by name, even though he didn't want the job and had arrived late to the meeting. Saruman was eager to lead the mission.

The thing about the Valar is, they live on a totally different scale. The whole world (potentially, the universe) is their responsibility, and the entire span of history, of which they already know a lot. So a Vala does something that seems stupid, and what we don't realize is that their foreknowledge or divine pronouncements or global big picture concerns are what drove them to do as they did.

They simply have a ton of priorities to balance, far beyond what's immediately obvious to someone limited in their perceptions and experience.

Or his precog warns him. Remember, balrogs love a scrap but ultimately they're divine beings of magic.

Silmarillion had more. In Lost Tales, Christopher Tolkien explained that his father had waffled about the number of Balrogs, sometimes as few as seven, and sometimes whole armies. And yeah there was an inverse ninja law effect going on.

Was that Beren? I thought it was Huan

It's not just scale. Recall how Manwe is fooled about Morgoth's flight following the destruction of the two trees by as simple a strategem of "He fled south when I thought he'd flee north". Aule is completely unable to realize that he can't create actual intelligent life and doesn't seem to realize that before Illuvatar "adopts" them, they're only animated because Aule is animating them., and has to do so continually. Ulmo can't even conceive of alterations to his core element of water until Melkor uses his core elements of heat and cold to alter it.

The impression I get is that they fall very badly into that mental trap of "If I've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail". They're mostly restricted to a couple of creative aspects, and they try to use whatever their individual one is for everything, regardless of whether it's a good idea or not.

Meh, for a Tolkien thread? You could post that link pretty much every time. The whole point of Middle Earth threads is either bitching about the movie or being persnickety about details of the setting... which Tolkien was as well!

No, it's Beren, from the latest Beren and Luthien publication, the most recent version of the Lay of Lethian before JRR died. Starting from line 331:

Danger he sought and death pursued,
and thus escaped the doom he wooed,
and deeds of breathless daring wrought
alone, of which the rumour brought
new hope to many a broken man.
They whispered 'Beren', and began
in secret swords to whet, and soft
by shrouded hearths at evening oft
songs they would sing of Beren's bow,
of Dagmor his sword: how he would go
silent to camps and slay the chief,
or trapped in his hiding past belief
would slip away and under night
by mist or moon, or by the light
of open day would come again.
Of hunters hunted, slayers slain
they sang, of Gorgol the Butcher hewn
of ambush in Ladros, fire in Drun,
of thirty in one battle dead,
of wolves that yelped like curs and fled,
yea, Sauron himself with wound in hand.
Thus one alone filled all that land
with fear and death for Morgoth's folk;
his comrades were the beech and oak
who failed him not, and wary things
with fur and fell and feathered wings
that silent wander, or dwell alone
in hill and wild and waste of stone
watched o'er his ways, his faithful friends.

Good post. Tolkien no doubt did that intentionally. Gandalf was always eager to minimize his own powers, especially when other mortals were present.

To my knowledge, he never threw a "fireball"-- the closest he ever got were explosive pine cones, which even MacGyver managed to do.

Gandalf clearly has attack spells, but it's equally clear that (at least against the Ringwraiths), his spells can at best frighten them and cause pain rather than genuine injury or destruction.

That was Huan, the Hound of the Valar. With help from Melian. Beren was still in prison at this point. When a werewolf was going to kill him, Finrod died wrestling the thing to death to save Beren. Werewolves are never defined but don't appear to be ainur.

I would also point out that explicit magic in Tolkien seems to become more powerful inversely to the number of reliable witnesses around. Consider Gandalf's throwdowns with the Balrog. An exchange of one lock and unlock spell with the Baalrog (also just around the corner) seems to exhaust him, but then he manages to go for DAYS fighting him in some all out spirit form battle that crushes the side of a mountain.

>That was Huan, the Hound of the Valar.
No, it was Beren, before he even meets Luthien. See , where I quoted the passage.

OK I'm about to agree with you, but first I'm going to refute your individual examples. Bear with me....

>Recall how Manwe is fooled about Morgoth's flight following the destruction of the two trees by as simple a strategem of "He fled south when I thought he'd flee north".

Manwe was also defeated by the power of Ungoliant's darkness in the wake of her absorping the Trees' power, AND on top of that Morgoth has cunning and magical power to match and maybe exceed Manwe.

>Aule is completely unable to realize that he can't create actual intelligent life and doesn't seem to realize that before Illuvatar "adopts" them, they're only animated because Aule is animating them., and has to do so continually.

Aule did know! Remember that he'd animated the Dwarves, but when commanded by Manwe to destroy them as blasphemous, he lifts his hammer to do so... and is surprised when they cower in fear. The surprise was because they were only animated and shouldn't have done that. That's when Aule, Manwe, and the rest realize that the Dwarves had been favored by Illuvatar with the Flame Imperishable and now had independent existences.

>Ulmo can't even conceive of alterations to his core element of water until Melkor uses his core elements of heat and cold to alter it.

This is prior to their entry into the physical universe at all, in fact only moments after it being revealed that the universe even existed and that their domains were any more than elements of a song they'd been taught. The nature of the universe and its laws had just been created, and we have no idea what design space of options existed prior to that.

The nature of water is only obvious to you and I because it's a done deal.

>They're mostly restricted to a couple of creative aspects, and they try to use whatever their individual one is for everything, regardless of whether it's a good idea or not.

Agreed. Their jobs are to advance their part in the Music, so they're kind of limited in that sense.

Yes, absolutely.

Thanks for the quotes-- I hadn't read those before. Though it seems to refer to Sauron being wounded prior to Beren arriving at Doriath and meeting Luthien for the first time. That WOULD be a big change, because it would mean that Sauron revealing Beren wouldn't just have wanted a bounty from Morgoth, but would have a personal grudge to settle.

>nature itself cannot beat it without some undead fuck

Yeah, this stuff happens when he's still an outlaw in Dorthonion. And yes, Sauron is likely to hold a grudge. But seriously, you should check out the Beren and Luthien book. It's really more about the evolution of the tale overr the years than trying to create a definitive version a la The Children of Hurin, but it's quite fascinating to go into the poetic understructure that the Silmarillion is supposed to be a condensed form of.

Also, Beren himself has a much larger role; if you've only read the Quenta Silmarillion, you can easily come away with the conclusion that Beren is just some pretty boy who hangs around while his girlfriend and her magical friends do all the real work. WIth more detail you see more of what Beren does, and it makes the romance much more viable to see him heroic in his own right.

Only if they have named characters.

>Melkor uses his core elements of heat and cold
I thought Melkor was just extremes in general

>Also, Beren himself has a much larger role; if you've only read the Quenta Silmarillion, you can easily come away with the conclusion that Beren is just some pretty boy who hangs around while his girlfriend and her magical friends do all the real work. WIth more detail you see more of what Beren does, and it makes the romance much more viable to see him heroic in his own right.

I will. I had that complaint about Beren already, so I'm glad that Tolkien realized the problem and was trying to fix it.

His domain seems to be perversions and violations of natural law. Since he can't create stuff, he instead takes things that exist and changes them into forms and mixtures that are forbidden by Illuvatar.

Tolkien once wrote that Sauron was much more successful than Morgoth because he was less ambitious in his goals. Sauron wanted to conquer middle earth and rule it politically, and nearly succeeded. Morgoth tried to seize control of the laws of nature themselves, not just physical dominion over lands and people, and was only partially successful. However, due to that, a little bit of Morgoth's essence is in all things and concepts.

I would argue that the problem is more of an editing one on Christopher's part than a writing one on JRR's part. The Silmarillion as we have it is a condensed prose form of a zillion different poems that JRR wrote. Most of those poems do have Beren doing heroic things, (Admittedly, the sauron bit was a late addition, but he does other things too, from running a one man war in Dorthonion, to crossing Ered Gorgoroth, to more stuff on the hopeless mission to Angband, etc.) Christopher seems primarily focused on the story of the silmarils themselves, so anything that isn't directly related to either those or the major battles between the elves and Morgoth tends to get largely cut. Since Beren isn't really around for those, having lived between Dagor Bragollach and Nirneath Arnoediad, a lot of his stuff gets cut.

test

Friendly reminder that Feanor did NOTHING wrong.

Very much this, they aren't exactly "independent agents". Remember, these are the rulers of the Choir who had no desire to make"their own music" but to sing the chords they were given. they are custodians, keepers or incredible power with no real will to use that power outside of their mandate. That's why Melkor was both willing and able to do the things he wanted to do and also why his attempts at creation were never blessed with sanction from above

Godzilla suddenly appears in Middle-earth and starts stomping around as a neutral force of nature.

What happens?

Hey! How'd you find out the plot for Shadow of Mordor 3?