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.
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.