The White Council

Re: Balrog of Moria

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: : After the war of Wrath at the end of the First Age: "The Balrogs were destroyed, save some few who went and hid themselves in caverns inaccessible at the roots of the earth ..." (The Silmarillion p. 251).

: Mmmm, now there's a thing. Tolkien says '...some few...' survived. So it wasn't just the one that the dwarves awoke in Moria. It was not two, of which the Moria Balrog would have been one of (and anyhow, that would have been a 'couple', not a few). Therefore it must have been at the very least three Balrogs that survived the War or Wrath.

: Since Tolkien seems to have decided on seven as being the sum total of Balrogs late in his life, I think we can assume that seven there were. Three survivors certainly seems to be a good number, since four survivors would have been '...most...'.

: Therefore we have the rather sticky problem of there being, potentially, another two Balrogs to be awoken, or simply wake up. Now we know that this did not happen before the War of the Ring, so if it were to happen it would have to happen after all the major good guys disappeared over the sea! D'OH!

: What would have happened if another Balrog was to have been 'uncovered'? Would there have been anything in Middle-earth to stop it? Certainly those over the sea would not have done anything so ME would have been left to fend for itself as is alluded to so often!

: Bit of a problem, eh!

: Cheers

: : Padster

Would that total of seven represent the number of Balrogs at the final battle of the War of Wrath? That means that it would have taken into account the two Balrogs who were destroyed during the sack of Gondolin.

If then there were only five Balrogs at Morgoth's Last Stand, then I could see just one or two of them escaping to hide.

As for more direct intervention by the Valar or their proxies in Middle-earth, I think that they defintely thought it best if the inhabitants of ME sorted things out for themselves but if things got really bad, and especially if one of their own was the cause, then they would worked to set things right. If the Istari had failed in their mission (and all but one of them pretty much did) then they would have come up with alternate solutions of increasing power until the problem was solved. They did, after all, have lordship over all of Arda and I don't think they would have sat back and watched the Second Children of Illuvatar subjugated and controlled by Sauron forever. That goes for Balrogs as well although they don't strike me as the type to go in for large scale domination. The Moria Balrog seemed fairly content to lord it over a bunch of trolls and orcs once the dwarves were ejected.