Are balrogs stronger than 🐲dragons due to magical abilities?

Squint-eyed Southerner · Jul 7, 2022

There's something in Letter 200. I'm too lazy to type it all out, so will make do with a screenshot:

I hope that's readable.

Gothmog · Jul 7, 2022

d4rk3lf said:
But how you explain, YOU were not been able to reincarnate when Ecthelion jumped on you, and you fell with him?
It was in the First Age, pretty early, during the siege of Gondolin.

Awesome, and thanks.
Looking forward to it.

I wrote this 3 hours ago but it did not post for some reason so some of it is covered in the letter that Squint-eyed Southerner kindly found and posted

This is the very question we are debating. How much damage is done when a long-used body is destroyed and what type of body could then be created by the weakened Maia (if any).

I have already mentioned a theory that was put forward by others that weakened Maiar such as the Balrogs who were killed becoming the stronger, long-lived orcs that seem to be in the stories.

It is also possible that while Maiar cannot actually die, the amount of damage done could be enough to prevent reincarnation and therefore they would be simply a spirit roaming Arda.

Elbereth Vala Varda · Jul 7, 2022

Gothmog said:
I wrote this 3 hours ago but it did not post for some reason so some of it is covered in the letter that Squint-eyed Southerner kindly found and posted

This is the very question we are debating. How much damage is done when a long-used body is destroyed and what type of body could then be created by the weakened Maia (if any).

I have already mentioned a theory that was put forward by others that weakened Maiar such as the Balrogs who were killed becoming the stronger, long-lived orcs that seem to be in the stories.

It is also possible that while Maiar cannot actually die, the amount of damage done could be enough to prevent reincarnation and therefore they would be simply a spirit roaming Arda.

Your explanation of a spiritual world, (or was it you?) seemed highly plausible to me, however I need to read that letter now, so that I don't speak without knowledge.

Gothmog · Jul 7, 2022

Elbereth Vala Varda said:
Your explanation of a spiritual world, (or was it you?) seemed highly plausible to me, however I need to read that letter now, so that I don't speak without knowledge.

I believe the explanation was in a couple of posts mainly from Squint-eyed Southerner and myself.

Elbereth Vala Varda · Jul 7, 2022

Gothmog said:
I believe the explanation was in a couple of posts mainly from Squint-eyed Southerner and myself.

Thanks! I see that now. It was a great explanation from you both.

Starbrow · Jul 7, 2022

In The Nature of Middle-Earth, p. 209-210, Tolkien writes about the use of a body, hroar, by the Valar and Maiar. I won't quote it all, but I think this is relevant to the discussion.
"...if a "spirit" uses a hroa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds in increasingly difficult to operate without the hroa. The things that are most binding are those that in the Incarnate have to do with the life of the hroa itself, its sustenance and its propagation. Thus eating and drinking are binding...Most binding is begetting or conceiving."

I think the ability to destroy a balrog would partly depend on how much it had used its hroa before its body was killed.

d4rk3lf · Jul 7, 2022

Good quote, and it confirms what Gothmog said.

Elbereth Vala Varda · Jul 8, 2022

Starbrow said:
In The Nature of Middle-Earth, p. 209-210, Tolkien writes about the use of a body, hroar, by the Valar and Maiar. I won't quote it all, but I think this is relevant to the discussion.
"...if a "spirit" uses a hroa for the furtherance of its personal purposes, or (still more) for the enjoyment of bodily faculties, it finds in increasingly difficult to operate without the hroa. The things that are most binding are those that in the Incarnate have to do with the life of the hroa itself, its sustenance and its propagation. Thus eating and drinking are binding...Most binding is begetting or conceiving."

I think the ability to destroy a balrog would partly depend on how much it had used its hroa before its body was killed.

It confirms what Gothmog said indeed, but I trust it far more now, obviously because Tolkien wrote it.

Aldarion · Jul 8, 2022

Turin_Turambar said:
https://thetolkien.forum/threads/a-balrog-vs-a-dragon.5496/page-5
In this regard, only 6 people including me said that dragons are stronger. According to about 18 people, balrogs are stronger. The length of the balrogs is between 3 and 4 meters. However, the glaurung, the father of dragons, was about 100 meters long. other dragons too are much larger in size than the average balrog. for example;

why do you think the balrogs are stronger despite the size difference? Please don't say that balrogs have magical powers, because dragons have magical powers too. Remember the glaurung's spell on Nienor.

That depends on which balrogs. If we go with "horde of Balrogs" and "one Edain can slaughter 70 of them", then dragons are definitely stronger. But if we assume that Balrogs are Maiar, and go with "only seven balrogs" idea, then Balrogs might be stronger.

Gothmog · Jul 8, 2022

Aldarion said:
That depends on which balrogs. If we go with "horde of Balrogs" and "one Edain can slaughter 70 of them", then dragons are definitely stronger. But if we assume that Balrogs are Maiar, and go with "only seven balrogs" idea, then Balrogs might be stronger.

I think that we can trust the words of Legolas to Galadriel in this matter:

'It was a Balrog of Morgoth,' said Legolas; `of all elf-banes the most deadly, save the One who sits in the Dark Tower.'

The weaker Balrogs that came in hoards would not have had that effect on him. So I think that the less numerous but more powerful Maiar as Balrogs is the case.

d4rk3lf · Jul 8, 2022

Definitely.
Only the earliest version of Silmarillion had thousands of Balrogs, but later Tolkien decided that they should be much less, and much more powerful with his famous quote: "No less then 3, no more then 7".

I think we can all consider the later version as canon.

Turin_Turambar · Jul 11, 2022

Elbereth Vala Varda said:
Balrogs, being Maiar are extremely powerful and have great power that they draw from Melkor, their Vala. That is why I think that Balrogs have more power than Dragons. Dragons are created with power, and they have power, yes, but not as great as that of who created them.

Since Balrogs are Maiar, I assume, like every other Maia, they draw power from their Valie or Vala, and because of that, they are able to have strength as though they are one of the Valar, and knowledge, and wisdom, and guidance. Dragons live and fight off of their own energy and power, while Balrogs draw from the much bigger force of their leader; Melkor, I believe.

The size does not matter, the power does. If a Balrog is able to harness and draw from Melkor more power than a Dragon, then that Balrog is more powerful, regardless of it's stature or size.

Again-- this is mostly speculation from me, but I am quite sure this is how Maiar work.

How Melkor created dragons is unknown. Maybe he created it from the Maia race. Size matters. Because the bigger you have, the stronger you are. For example, how can a 4 meter tall gothmog harm an ancalagona whose wingspan covers the sun?

Are balrogs stronger than 🐲dragons due to magical abilities?

Squint-eyed Southerner

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Gothmog

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Elbereth Vala Varda

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Gothmog

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Are balrogs stronger than 🐲dragons due to magical abilities?

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