Would you rather be a Balrog or a 🐲Dragon?

[Ol'gaffer]

well just look at what was needed to kill the balrog!

a cardiac arrest after running up all those stairs!

 

[Khôr’nagan]

I would like to remind people that every time a Balrog was killed (one-on-one combat), the killer was himself also slain, and the killers were two Elven Lords and a Maia. Dragons, on the other hand, were slain in one-on-one combat four known times, three by Men and one by an Elf, and all of the dragon-slayers survived. Therefore apart from Eärendil alone, dragons were slain by beings which are less powerful than the beings that slew the Balrogs, and yet all the Men lived and the greater beings, i.e. Glorfindel, Ecthelion, and Gandalf, all died.

I wonder how a dragon might be killed by a Man and have the Man survive and how a Balrog might be slain by a Maia and have the Maia die in-so-doing, and still hold the notion the Balrogs are less powerful then Dragons. The Naugrim fought back Glaurung when all others fled, and yet not even the Naugrim dared to withstand the Balrog. And I not how in both occasions when an Elf killed a Balrog, the Elf killed his foe by causing them both to fall to their deaths, thereby implying that the only way an Elf could possibly hope to kill a Balrog was to do so in a suicidal attack that would surely end their life and hopefully the Balrog's as well, and it looks like they got lucky. And when a Maia fought a Balrog, they fought each other for Ten Days Straight. Ten days of fighting one another until finally they killed each other. And yet a Man, infinitesimally less powerful than a Maia, managed to Kill a Dragon after a very brief battle and himself live.

Now really, how could any reason explain the massive difference in the things necessary to kill a Balrog and the things necessary to kill a Dragon other than that Balrogs were more powerful? Other than an incredibly monstrous stroke of good luck which let Men kill a Dragon three times and live, I see no other explanation.

 

[Bucky]

Yeah, what 'Khor' said.......

Now, let me adress some of the inacurracies I've read throuout this thread.



If I were a balrog, and I lost my whip of flame somehow, would I be able to get a new one?

How would they lose it?
In the fire place?

I think that the fiery whip is either a spiritual extension, or that any whip you could put your hands on would be inherently fiery if you were a Balrog.

Someone said the whip's a 'gift from Melkor'. HUH?

As a Balrog is 'both shadow & FLAME', isn't it logical to assume the whip of flame is a mere extension of it's self?



-Dragons and Balrogs both are considered to be created by Melkor,

Balrogs are Maiar, offspring of the thought of Eru.

Dragons, some sort of life form perverted by Melkor because 'after his (Melkor's) rebellion, nothing new with life could he create' (paraphrase).
BUT, don't forget:

'Then suddenly he (Glaurung) spoke, by THE FELL SPIRIT that was in him'

Couple that with the ability to cast someone under a spell & there's more to a dragon than just a monster perhaps......


and therefore inherently evil. However, Tolkien says something interesting about the First War of the Ring (IE, the one you see on the Slopes of Mount Doom in LotR Fellowship movie):

In that battle there were no creatures in all of ME who were not in some way split between the two warring factions, except the Elves, who altogether rejected Sauron as evil. Now this means that Balrogs, Dragons, Trolls, Orcs, etc., in some way could have been considered against Sauron.

Well, there were no Balrogs or Dragons around then.
It's very clear that Balrogs were a perversion or physical manifestation of the darkened spirits of those Maiar 'who became most like him (Melkor) in their corruption.'

This means that freedom of choice must exist, and therefore you could chose to be good or peaceful.

For Balrogs, that choice was made long before. Once they were Balrogs, I think the choice was over.


I do think you raise a good point about 'all living things being divided that day' (The Last Alliance versus Sauron). I always assumed JRRT meant 'Free Living Peoples', i.e., Men, Dwarves & Elves. Are we to assume Orcs were fighting besides Elves & Dunedain against Sauron?



However, according to the calculations of many nerds,

Good point!

there should have been one Balrog remaining after the Moria Balrog was killed.

NO!!! 'MORE THAN ONE......

No calculations, just the statement, 'Some FEW that hid themselves in caverns inacessable...' Few is more than one, correct?
Uh, I guess that is a calculation.....

Which....

Makes me a nerd.



Yes dragons are bigger than Balrogs, though personally I do view the Valaraukar as being at least four times the size of a Man;

Four times?
Is there anything you base that on?
There's very little on Maia/Vala size while in physical form that I know of.
I recall someone who posted here once that Valar were about 20 feet & Maiar about 14 feet tall. I don't know where that came from, but it sounds reasonable to me.
The only thing I know of is in Letter #248 where JRRT states 'Sauron should be thought of as very terrible. The form he took was that of a man of more than human stature, BUT NOT GIGANTIC.'

Now, four times human size is certainly gigantic.
Is 14 feet? I guess that's even debateable.

However, it's somewhere, I believe, Maiar sizes & Valar sizes are all about the same, so Sauron & the Balrogs must have been close in size.

the movie did a great job size-wise, I thought.

I think it was a bit too big myself.
Gandalf looked like a flea on a dog while stabbing the balrog as they fell.
The Balrog was about 30 feet tall there I'd say.


, I think that a Balrog has more potential as they are not physical beings, or have no real physical form as such

I believe that is incorrect.
Read the description from TFOR:

'What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater'

Also, how does a 'spirit-form' have any weight in it to cause the cracked Bridge Of Khazad-Dum to collapse right under it?

Plus, Durin's Bane falls with Gandalf into water & it's flame is extinguished.....

What happens?
"It became a thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake"

There's a solid form there, without a doubt.




(IMO it was the innate power of Elves to phase between the Seen and Unseen which made it possible for some Balrogs to be killed in battle), and are Maiar, whereas dragons (though we know little of them) are physical, organic creatures with all the drags that come with it.

Yes, agreed, especially the 'Seen' & 'Unseen' part which most people seem to not get or ignore. VERY important IMHO. Fighting a Balrog, you are not engaging in combat on a strictly physical plane.

 

[Melian_the_Maya]

A Balrog for me, because they are creatures of darkness and of pure majesty. The dragon has flying, but is greedy, which is something I abject. The Balrog is a purely evil creature, with no mortal lasts. It is created only for distruction and it submits willingly to Morgoth, who, mind you, had quite a high respect/love for them. They saved their master's life, when Ungoliant tried to kill him, which is also a plus for them, even if their master had a questionable ideology.

 

[meneldor]

When the baddest of all bad guys who ever lived releases dragons as his last defense you know there tough. If Gandalf fought a balrog, why after all the years of Smaug didnt he deal with him himself. He was worried of what Sauron would do with Smaug and was trying to think of a way to be rid of him. Smaug wasnt even the worst of all dragons.

 

[Inderjit S]

What if a dragon and balrog mated?

 

[Ithrynluin]

Then we would all bear witness to the birth of an omni-potent, omniscient and omni-present being known to us by the moniker Inderjit. Yea, verily it would excel even Eru...