Nonetheless, I was addressing both issues which had been raised. Response is still an option.

: : Gandalf says he threw down his enemy, which means he
: : vanquished him, killed him. It doesn't mean the Balrog was
: : merely tossed from the mountain top. This is the same Balrog
: : that, when caught off guard by Gandalf's breaking of the
: : bridge, fell and still managed to lash out with its whip and
: : drag Gandalf with it.

: You interpret it to mean that Gandalf killed him. I interpret
: it as the fall which killed him. Regarding the Balrog's
: whip, who is to say that he still had it at the time he reached
: Durin's Tower?

Nowhere does Tolkien ever use the phrase "in his ruin" to speak of a viable, living creature. They may not be dead when they hit, but "ruin" clearly denotes a declining state. Tolkien was apparently using the word to denote the act of falling (the original and very archaic sense of the word) or the state of being destroyed. "In his ruin he smote the mountainside" either means "in his fall he smote the mountainside" or "in his death (or destruction) he smote the mountainside".

Tolkien uses the exact same langauges for Ancalagon, Smaug, and the Balrog of Moria. It would take some very clever research and logic to show that he was using the phrase differently for the Balrog from the dragons.

And since when does a Balrog need a whip to clutch someone? What happened to its hands and arms?

: : Only a dead or dying Balrog is NOT going to take Gandalf with
: : it when he tosses it off a mountaintop.

: There is nothing to say that Gandalf physically threw the
: Balrog off the mountain - perhaps he created a rockslide or
: some other form of attack which did not require physical
: contact.

Gandalf says he threw down his enemy. He somehow vanquished the Balrog physically. He still possessed Glamdring and may have used lightning to slay the Balrog (SOMEONE was using it, apparently). The Balrog suffered severe physical harm before it fell from the mountainside. Considering that it had endured Gandalf's continuous hewing with an Elven sword while they fell through the chasm and ran up the Endless Stair days before, it seems incredible to suppose that a healthy, unharmed Balrog simply fell from the mountainside just for the convenient sake of proving it didn't have wings or couldn't fly.

: : Earendil also threw down Ancalagon. Are we to suppose that
: : Earendil was a man of such strength that he could throw a
: : viable dragon -- the largest and most powerful of its kind --
: : from his ship in the sky with sufficient force to overcome
: : its ability to fly so that it was killed when it hit the
: : mountains below?

: Earendil did not "throw down" Ancalagon; he killed him. From
: The Silmarillion:

: '... Before the rising of the sun Earendil SLEW Ancalagon the
: Black, the mightiest of the dragon-host, and cast him from the
: sky; and he fell upon the towers of Thangorodrim, and they were
: broken in his ruin.'

Excuse me. Earendil cast him from the sky. Are we to suppose that Earendil was a man of such strength that he could throw a viable dragon -- the largest and most powerful of its kind -- from his ship in the sky with sufficient force to overcome its ability to fly so that it was killed when it hit the mountains below?

: : That's too much to accept, and I will not accept it, in
: : either case. Dead and dying Balrogs, like dead and dying
: : dragons, do not fly. That is the simplest explanation and
: : there is no evidence to indicate that Tolkien was depicting
: : anything more complicated.

: It is not the simplest explaination, it is your opinion (which
: you are entitled to). IMO, the simplest explaination is that
: Balrogs did not have wings.

No, it's the simplest explanation IN FACT. There are no assumptions, no contrived arguments, no citations from rejected texts required to support it. Just the simple explanation based on what the relevant text says. Produce a simpler one if you feel it's not a matter of fact. That should be easy enough to do if I'm only expressing an opinion.

: : : It is physically impossible to use a cloak as a parachute
: : : (or even as a glider). If such were the case, the Greeks
: : : would have been gliding since the days of Archimedes.
: :
: : It is physically impossible for anything to breathe fire of
: : its own accord. It is physically impossible for a man to
: : live 2000 years. These things are taken for granted in
: : Middle-earth. The point above is that Tolkien didn't write
: : the passage the way your question implies he should have in
: : order to prove a point. He wrote the passage to provide a
: : brief account of a battle which lasted for days.

: Mythological dragons have frequently been credited with the
: ability to breath fire (or poison in some cases);

[snip]

Please stick to EITHER the physical possibilities/impossibilities OR the mythological possibilities/impossibilities. They are not interchangeable.

: : : Regarding the lake, I will have to reread the passage, but
: : : for the purpose of discussion it is irrelevant - water is
: : : water.

: : Water IS water, but you're insisting there was a lakeshore
: : for the Balrog to land on (and implying it should have been
: : able to ignore Gandalf enough to maneuver itself around, even
: : though he was hacking at it with Glamdring all the way down).

: Well, I'm not insisting he landed in a lake. However, rivers
: have banks, and unless this particular river was infinitely
: wide, I think the Balrog could have made for one bank or the
: other.

Rivers also run through underground channels WITHOUT banks. I know this for a fact: I've been on an underground river (and they appear in plenty of old literature to which Tolkien had access even if he had never been on one himself). There is no basis for assuming that there were or were not banks, unless one doesn't know enough about underground rivers to understand that they cut their ways through rock and clay and only develop banks if the water flow is diminished.

: And yes, I am implying that if the Balrog was capable of
: flight, he could have disengaged himself from Gandalf,
: especially if the wizard was on the defensive.

You're assuming he WOULD have disengaged from Gandalf. There is nothing in the text which supports such an assumption. The Balrog attacked Gandalf, after all.

This is the problem with all the "Balrogs have no wings/cannot fly" arguments. They rely on unwarranted assumptions. The text is plain and clear, and eventually most no-wingers get around to conceding that, yes, the text makes sense if you DON'T make assumptions or rewrite the story.

And that's the crux of the issue. Since it makes sense without the assumptions and rewrites, obviously the author has made his point: the Balrog of Moria had wings.

: : : : You're disregarding the fact that the Balrog had lashed
: : : : at out Gandalf with its whip so as to drag him after it,
: : : : and that Gandalf fought with the Balrog on the way down.

: : : It could have simply been a desperation move - i.e., if I'm
: : : going down, you're going with me...

: : Yes, and it's just as likely the Balrog tricked Gandalf into
: : destroying the bridge precisely so that it could drag him
: : down into the chasm and thus get him away from the Company of
: : the Ring.

: I find this hard to believe, but I suppose its possible the
: Balrogs were more cunning than I give them credit for...

I find it hard to believe that the Balrog should have suddenly flown out of the chasm just to prove it had wings which enabled it to fly.

: ...However, it was the Ring which the Balrog sought, so if he
: was going to abduct anyone, it should have been Frodo.

Nowhere in any text does J.R.R. Tolkien ever state or imply that the Balrog was after either Frodo or the Ring.

And, even if it WERE, how do you propose it should have gotten around the wizard who had just dropped tons of rock on its head? I'm pretty sure that IGNORING Gandalf would have been a very stupid error. Either way, the Balrog had to deal with the little old man on the bridge.

And regardless of what contrived "what if" scenarios people might dream up (and I'm sure we could get some doozies if we all put our heads together), that's simply not the way the story is written. The Balrog makes no move toward Frodo at any point in the story. It does go after Gandalf.

[snip]

: : Balloons do not fall at the same rate as rocks.

: Which is why I said "unless acted upon by an outside force"
: In the case of a balloon, the force is atmospheric (wind)
: resistance, or the balloon contains a lighter-than-air gas...

Air is not an outside force. It's a medium. Atmospheric resistance is not a force (and it's not a wind, either -- a wind is the movement of air, not the movement of an object through air).

: However, neither Gandalf nor the Balrog were balloons. Short
: of some kind of braking mechanism, they would fall at the same
: rate. Simple Newtonian physics.

Wrong. You KNOW that Gandalf was a man. You don't know what the Balrog was, or what it was capable of. You're assuming for the sake of convenience that the Balrog HAD to fall as fast as Gandalf, AND that the Balrog could NOT have slowed its rate of descent by any means. Both assumptions are completely unsupported by the text.

: : There are other aspects to physics which one must allow for,
: : such as the presence of an atmosphere. Hence one cannot
: : conclude that Gandalf and the Balrog fell at any particular
: : rate of speed. We have too little information on the matter.

: I think it goes without saying that Middle-earth had an
: atmosphere and gravitational attraction similar to that of our
: world. Gandalf and the Balrog fell at the same rate.

What SHOULD go without saying is that Middle-earth included creatures which didn't abide by our laws of nature...such as men who lived incredibly long lives, dragons which breathed fire, Balrogs which lived underground for thousands of years and survived having tons of rock fall on them, etc.

: : : : (This all sounds so familiar....)

: : : The Encyclopedia of Arda has a rather long and unbiased
: : : discussion concerning the subject of Balrog wings...

: : I have long and unbiased discussions concerning the subject
: : of Balrog wings (I assume nothing, I have no personal agenda,
: : I accept the story as told without revising it).

: You believe that Balrogs had wings. That in itself makes you
: biased - just as I am biased toward the opposite opinion.

No, I ACCEPT that Balrogs had wings. After all, J.R.R. Tolkien says they did, and they are HIS creations. I'm not trying to construct arguments which contradict the texts or imply that the texts could mean one thing for one reader and another thing for another reader.

I didn't have to do anything more than read the book to see that Balrogs have wings. I don't have to do anything more than cite J.R.R. Tolkien to SHOW that they have wings. I do have to invoke fact and logic to show why the no-wings arguments don't work. That goes well beyond merely citing Tolkien. He didn't anticipate all these efforts to show he was wrong, so he didn't leave behind any arguments proving that his Balrogs did indeed have wings or that they SHOULD have wings simply because he SAID they did.

: : The Encyclopedia of Arda, on the other hand, sets out to
: : strongly imply (and thus prove) there are no wings and uses,
: : as all other failed no-wings arguments, the illogic that the
: : word "like" means there weren't real wings there.

: I disagree, but the article is there for anyone to read and
: form their own opinion.

Disagree all you wish, but they have butchered the arguments I posted to the news groups, so I know damn good and well they are an unreliable source of information on the issue. Believe me, I know when someone is doctoring my words. It's been done often enough that it always leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

If the issue were really as ambiguous as they say it is, then they could have safely posted the ENTIRE explanation of why Balrogs have wings rather than just a few parts of it so as to make it look weak and uncertain. That is simply uncalled for.

: : They fail to take into consideration (as do many "no
: : wingers") the fact that their argument, if it were valid,
: : would mean there was no shadow because it, too, is introduced
: : with the word "wings".

: I did not get that impression from the article.

Perhaps that's because they simply don't deal with the issue at all.

: : Furthermore, they make the same misapplication of "metaphor"
: : that other people have. They are clearly relying upon the
: : disproven arguments which have been posted to the news groups
: : to make their case.

: I don't recall anyone ever definitively proving or disproving
: whether or not Balrogs have wings.

[raises hand]

I've done it many times. All you have to do is quote J.R.R. Tolkien. It doesn't require anything else. Balrogs have wings.

: Nor have I ever seen the common arguments for wingless Balrogs
: disproven (at least not to my satisfaction).

[raises hand]

All you have to do is show up the flaws in the arguments (as I have done here again).

: : And the fact they completely misrepresent the argument in
: : favor of wings in order to shoot it down reveals just how
: : biased they actually are.

: I do not believe that they misrepresented anything. However,
: as I said, the article is available for anyone to read and form
: their own opinions.

Like I said: they have butchered the arguments I posted to the news groups (and elsewhere). I know damn good and well they have misrepresented the issue. In fact, I even sent them email about the arguments once. A lot of good THAT did.

: : I do not link to the Encyclopedia of Arda because it's a
: : highly untrustworthy work. It's simply not a credible source
: : of information, and their apparently deliberate
: : bastardization of well-documented discussions does neither
: : them nor Tolkien fandom any credit.

: That is not my impression of the Encyclopedia.

Your impression of the Encyclopedia may differ from the facts, but I have nothing to gain by maliciously attacking the site. It's simply not a credible source of information.

I post links to many sites which don't advocate the same views I hold. What makes them more credible than the Encyclopedia of Arda is the integrity they possess and the respect with which they treat the material. Even Eugene Hargrove's arguments about Bomabdil have far more credibility than the Encyclopedia of Arda, and I could certainly shoot down any attempt to prove what Bombadil was by quoting Tolkien (he said Bombadil was an intentional enigma -- there is no way to prove he was ANYTHING).

: If it has a fault, it is that it often provides far too little
: information on a given topic. Of course it is a work in
: progress, so that may change in the future.

It's chief fault is its unreliability as a source of information. One might as well use a David Day book for information on Tolkien's world. My apologies to anyone who feels personally insulted for liking either David Day or the Encyclopedia of Arda, but until they rectify their obvious flaws they will never have any merit in my book and I won't link to them. I'd rather send people to worthwhile sites.

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