In the Lord of the Rings fandom there’s a persistent debate whether balrogs, or Durin’s Bane specifically, have wings. The text in Fellowship is ambiguous whether what it is describing are literal wings or something else wing-like.
In the Lord of the Rings fandom there’s a persistent debate whether balrogs, or Durin’s Bane specifically, have wings. The text in Fellowship is ambiguous whether what it is describing are literal wings or something else wing-like.
Never knew about this debate, but IMO the text is not ambiguous:
That’s very literal. Looking into the subject it seems that people think those are metaphorical wings, but I don’t see anything near that phrase that justifies thinking it’s metaphorical.
But also, at the end of the day, it’s a moot debate. Balrogs are Maiar, them having wings or not is as important as the color of the shoes of some other character, they’re spiritual beings that adopt some physical form, which they can change at will.
In that same passage we also get that “Gandalf flew down the stairs”. Literal, unambiguous evidence that Gandalfs have wings.
From Tolkien’s essay Ósanwë-kenta, included in Vinyar Tengwar #39:
Never in the legendarium do we see a balrog change its form, and this is probably why - they weren’t able to, and like their master, were trapped in their form of power and malice.
We also know that in early drafts of the legendarium, “Melko” specifically kidnapped eagles to experiment on because he was unable to replicate flight. That’s part of why the flying wyrms were so surprising and devastating when he finally unleashed them, but balrogs were created long before, and we can easily conclude that, therefore, they were not created with wings.
(Also, if Gandalf could fly, he wouldn’t have needed Gwaihir to rescue him from the pinnacle of Orthanc. Tolkien’s legendarium isn’t Dragon Ball Z.)
Gandalf is strong wizard, don’t need wings to fly when you’re magic.
there’s another shouting match in the comments about this already, and i’m of the opinion that he establishes the wings as a simile earlier with “shadows like wings”. so i agree that it’s not ambiguous but in the other direction.
Shadow like wings doesn’t mean he doesn’t also has wings. And if he had shadow wings before how does he spread them afterwards?. Also, Tolkien is not one to hold adjectives, if he had meant shadow wings he would probably have written shadow wings. I read that more like he had shadow wings and later opened his real wings.
In any case, like I said also, it’s mostly a moot discussion, might as well discuss the color of Frodo’s shoes in that scene.
it’s an interesting discussion for the sake of understanding how people read. like, when i read “shadows like wings”, i see a cloak of darkness surrounding the beast. and when those “wings” are spread “wall to wall” in an enormous cavern, i see the beast magically snuffing out all light.
theres one about urgoliants, the entity is very mysterious and powerful, but people are debating how this creature came to be in the lore, other than saying its a “spirit” tolkien dint do much lore writing on this.