June 12, 2002

The Whole Balrog Thing...
Richard P.

OK, firstly, I kind of feel that the suggestions that my theories on the Balrog are entering the reals of fanfic vaugely insulting, as in so far as I'm aware all of my theories are backed up by references from Tolkien's books and letters. But never mind that, you have your opinion I have mine.

I just want to clear one thing up... this matter of the usage of the word intelligence. Now, when I use this word I am not talking abbout the Balrogs ability to reason or plan or chose between bad and good.
I agree, the Balrog has all of these characteristics, and more.
But what the Balrog lacks, I feel, is a motivation to do things for itself. We know that it is massively powerfull, we know that it can mastermind huge Battles (just look at the Battle of Unnumbered Tears), we know its capable of taking out Noldor such as Feanor, Fingolfin and Glorfindel, and we know its even capable of taking on other Maia. Personally I think that the Balrog would even give Sauron a fright when Sauron is without his Ring.
Yet, with all this, the Balrog is content to sit for many thousands of years in Moria, and do next to nothing. (Maybe, like me, he found that sleep is the cure to boredom ;) ).
To me this shows a lack of motivation, and that lack of motivation has to be indicative of a lack of some kind of "intelligence".

Now, OK, I know that the Balrog is a Maia spirit... but its also a Maia spirit massively corrupted by Morgoth. And Morgoth liked to be able to control his minions. Think of the way he controlled his armies (from the Sil. and Letters for those of you who think I'm making this up ;) ). Through the force of his will. And every time he created or corrupted a new spirit some of his 'force' passed into it, the better to control it... this is how he became more and more weak. Because he could not create, only copy, twist and infuse bodies with corrupted spirits and his own malice.
Balrogs didn't just happen, Morgoth spawned them, and part of him is in them too, and perhaps this is what is blocking their free will, so that they only did what HE wanted... imagine someone else controling a Balrog, or one thinking for itself... not what Morgoth wanted.

Next.... did Sauron even know that the Balrog was in Moria... maybe, maybe not... even Gandalf was undecided on the matter, when asked whether he thought the Balrog was in league with Sauron. He gave an answer similar to that that comes out of most of these debates... 'either he doesn't know, or he does know, and can't utilise the Balrog anyway... so leaves it to guard/ward off people from Moria, just by its presence'.

Finally, would the Balrog use the Ring? I don't think so. For starters, if you want to use your 'heirarchy of power'; you would have (generalising a bit) Morgoth, Sauron, Balrogs etc. etc.
If you put them in this heirachy then, for me (especially in Tolkien's world), the ones below obey the ones above, without question. The only one who doesn't go completly aimless after Morgoth's removal is Sauron, who sets up his own empire, utilising most of Morgoth's creations, the Balrogs just go and hide. This shows again that if the Balrogs have no instructions, they do nothing... if they had that "motivational" intelligence they would have set up empires too.
So then, it seems likely that if Sauron became aware of the Balrog with the Ring, he could use all his force to command the Balrog to bring him the Ring, and the Balrog would obey. I like to think of the Balrog as Tolkien's Luca Brasi of the Godfather, the muscle, the offensive brains (if you've read the Godfather book), the guy you give the extremly dangerous critical missions to, and you know he'll succeed. Yet these type of characters are almost entirely subservient to their masters will. It was inconcievable that Luca Brasi would betray the Don; and it seems equally incocievable to me that the Balrog would diobey whoever the ultimate evil was at the time... especially seeing as Sauron is just continuing Morgoth's plan to dominate as much of the world as possible.
And if the Balrog did wear the Ring, so what? So far can anyone give me a clear referenced quote that says that the Balrog ever tried to set up his own empire, because that is what the Ring is for. Its not for ultimate destruction, its for the domination of all other wills, the subversion of people; and to my knowledge the Balrog has never shown the slightest interest in doing that, so I fail to see how it would comprehend using the Ring, except to destroy everything it could, but personally I think that only Morgoth has the power to unmake and completely destroy things, so that the Ring in the Balrogs hands would probably be useless.