Kill Sauron with the Ring?
Jay F.

Emil B., I liked your comments. A serious dose of patience and prudence is needed among us Tolkien fans.

One comment, though. You mention the elves as being among those powerful enough to use the Ring to "…kill Sauron dead." Impossible. There was NO ONE in Middle Earth powerful enough to use the Ring to end Sauron. At most, an individual of power might throw Sauron down from his place of power and undo the works of his hands. But, as long as the Ring remained, Sauron would exist as a spirit of malice that would, in time, gather itself and take form once again to vie for the mastery of the Ring. (The reason being that Sauron, in the forging of the Ring, imparted himself into it, thus giving it such dreadful power and binding his fate to that of the ring.)

AND, I want to know what you read to make you view balrogs as "big scardey-cats." I haven't come across it yet.