Well, TOLKIEN did. It's just a matter of getting everyone to accept what he wrote, as far as I'm concerned! :)

THERE'S A SMILEY UP THERE, FOLKS!

If I had thought about this well in advance of my deadline, I might have tried to write the ultimate Balrog wings essay for Suite101, but that would be a difficult undertaking. You just can't force people to stop ignoring key passages, and building arguments around those key passages becomes wearying.

I believe there are people who will argue Balrogs have no wings simply because Michael Martinez insists that J.R.R. Tolkien says they do. Challenging Martinez, proving Martinez wrong (or worse) seems to be a lifetime obsession for some people.

But more importantly I think that many people who see the Balrogs without wings have done so for so long, and through so many bitter debates, that the Balrogs just don't feel right for them with wings. It's no longer really about what the book does or doesn't say. It's about how the story feels.

That is my impression. And all the arguments in the world, no matter how well-structured, will not change the minds of people who cannot accept the "feel" of winged Balrogs.

One question that I don't think has ever been asked, but which I believe is perfectly worthy of asking, is just whose Balrogs are those in The Silmarillion? The book clearly wasn't written by J.R.R. Tolkien, but it clearly wasn't written by Christopher so much as assembled from a mixture of his father's writings and his own (mostly the former, but how do you classify the sections where Christopher engaged in heavy editorial manipulation in the form of condensing and filtering the texts?).

I'm not sure, but I think I was the first person to bring in a Silmarillion reference when I was challenged to find a passage where the Balrogs actually flew. It's hard to remember that far back (we're talking two years ago) and, unfortunately, even if I had the desire to do the research, Deja.Com has taken down the news group archives from before May 1999.

But the Hithlum passage didn't make it unscathed into The Silamrillion and Christopher never explains why. On the other hand, people still like to counter the Hithlum passage with the Dagor Bragollach passage, but that section of the book is drawn from pre-LOTR material. When JRRT wrote there were Balrogs in Glaurung's train he most likely was thinking of the 1,000 mounted Balrogs (he in fact refers to them as 1,000 in number in a passage contemporary with the text, and the 1,000 was carried forward into the 1950s though Tolkien soon decided they probably numbered no more than 7).

So The Silmarillion presents us with a contradiction. I prefer to apply only LOTR-era and post-LOTR material to the Balrog of Moria. I don't believe there is any value to reaching farther back than that since Tolkien clearly changed the Balrogs in the 1940s (first altering their physical appearance and then completing their transition to corrupted Maiar).

It's not simply convenient that the post-LOTR material in The Silmarillion (or which should have gone into the book) confirms that the Balrogs flew. That's the intention of the author. He had given up totally on the old Balrog cavalry force and elevated them in nature and power, most likely because one big huge terrifying Balrog in Moria was more effective than the previous creatures which had died by the multitude in Gondolin.

The Balrog of Moria really exhibits considerable power: it uses a counter-spell to forestall Gandalf's efforts to block pursuit down the stairs; it survives the crushing fall of what had to be tons of rock that buried the Chamber of Mazarbul; it extricated itself from that mess; it possessed an aura which induced fear in people nearby; it produced a weird, glowing, HOT, metallic sword apparently out of nothing; it cloaked itself in darkness; it manipulated the darkness (or else kept its wings folded for a very long time); it increased its size when it stepped onto the bridge; it reacted nearly instantaneously when Gandalf dropped the bridge out from under it; it APPEARS to have slowed its fall (and Gandalf's) into the chasm (though this is by no means certain); it fought Gandalf for 11 days in a battle which included some pretty awesome displays of power.

The Balrogs of The Book of Lost Tales and the early "Quenta Silmarillion" published in The Lost Road and Other Writings don't exhibit these traits. This is a very radically different creature from the iron-armored thugs who mauled the Elves and Men in early stories.
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