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noWizardme
Gondolin
Mon, 1:15pm
Post #1 of 7
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2319 Days free of 'Balrog wings' incidents!*
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In fact it has been so long that maybe some newer forum members would like some background?
The LOTR passage in which the Balrog appears on the Bridge of Kazad-dum is exciting (and so probably first-time readers go at speed). It's vivid (so that whatever the impression is from that first reading, it lodges firmly in the reader's mind). But it turns out that there's a point on which it is ambiguous.
And this led to a group of fans who thought balrogs had wings, and a second group who were puzzled how anyone could have got this impression. In the early 2000s, people asking 'do balrogs have wings' were everywhere online. I'm not sure but I think it might have become part of a driniking game played by forum members then, in which overly-frequently-answered questions were greeted with people posting " *glug*" (would anyone like to reminisce about that game, and say whether balrogs were included?). Later, I remember the question still coming up from time to time, and the lovely forum member Elizabeth politely explaining each time that it was a popular question, and why it had no definitive answer.
But now, not so much?
I want to ask and ponder about why that question used to come up so much, why it doesn't now - or not here, at least! For anyone wanting to know how come the answer is ambiguous, I can think of no finer reference than this post, originally 2003, by Reverend (a titan of this community at that time and someone who I feel sorry I didn't overlap with.)
But why did people get so exited about it, and why doesn't it continue? I don't know, but have some hypotheses:
- It's possible that the debate rages on, but nowadays on sites and apps I don't use. In that case it would be a change in the prominence of this board, or the types of users it attracts. Or perhaps the rate at whcih new forum members are arriving (then and now): folks who don't know about balrog's wings already...
- Was it a feature of the sudden growth of the Internet just before then? People meeting and being puzzed by the ideas of other fans for the first time? In the pre Internet days, you just read the book. If you had friends who liked it too, you discussed it with them. But I think my experience of the pre-internet era was common enough: Tolkien fandom existed from the late 1950s (I later discovered) but I had no access to it. Even if you discovered it, it likely meant travel to physical moots and meetings, or sending some stamped, self-addressed envelopes and a cheque of to someone who would send out 'Roneo'd' or 'Gestetner'd' copies of fanzines or newsletters, probably in luridly-coloured ink. (The machine we had at school offered vermillion, purple, or a bright green.). Or maybe no fanzines or newlsetters would come back, if the Editor got busy, or got in trouble for using the office photocopier; or had one of those fearsome but incomprehensible squabbles that I'm sure affected fandoms even then, and gave up the editing job. And interntational postage rates would have prevented me in England getting someting from America (or vice versa) Anyway, the idea here is that in the early 2000s, with the rapid expansion of teh Internet, there could have been many fans who had always assumed that balrogs {had metaphorical wings/had literal, physical wings} and were confused to be encountering for the first time others who had always assumed the opposite. That was my situation - the ambiguity in the text had never occurred to me until I was on this forum.
- Was it the film? PJ's ROTK appeared in 2000, including a balrog with wings (or at least wing bones). Was it that point at which come fans who'd read the balrog as wingless went Huh? or It's an outrage! and this is what started it as a subject for posts?
- Or, has the contoversy died down now because the PJ films have in effect settled it? That is, is it that whatever Tolkien intended (if he intended any settled thing - refer to Reverend's post) the film is what people mostly have in their heads these days. In that case, just like if ask peoeple to imagine Frankenstein's monster, a lot of people imagine him as played by Boris Karloff (bolt through neck etc.). But I'm told that is not how Mary Shelley described him.
Whichever it is, I think the balrog is a useful example of how there can be multiple interpretations of the text, just as valid as each other. And how someone can not even realise there's another way of looking at things unti you meet someone who thinks differently.
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* Last discussed, I think, in this thread from February 2019 Which, mathematical whizzes may well notice is not 2319 days ago. TBH I was thinking more "2319!!"
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
(This post was edited by noWizardme on Mon, 1:19pm)
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Tue, 2:51pm
Post #2 of 7
(149 views)
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I can't resist. Some of you know what's coming.
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Old and tired as it (he?) is, here you go. 
The Balrog has lost his identity;
He's searching for self-esteem.
He knows he a sort of entity,
And can make most people scream--
But he's losing his body-image,
And seems to be gaining weight,
For he used to be able to leave the ground,
Till they started this darn debate!
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Silvered-glass
Nargothrond
Tue, 3:16pm
Post #3 of 7
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I have been meaning for a while now to post a Reading Room thread about Balrog wings that draws on some HoME material that I never saw mentioned in the wing discussions back in the day. However with multiple projects it's hard to get anything finished and the Balrog wings one is low in the priority list.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Tue, 4:31pm
Post #4 of 7
(140 views)
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That's still a goodun.
While writing that post, an image came to me of Open Night At The Folk Club. They normally have someone lined up to get it started but then you can get to a point where everyone everyone looks at each other. So, as I am now imagining it "Come on Jerry," they say "what about that Tolkien song you used to do?"
And he's a team player so he gets to the front and is handed a guitar before it dawns on him that he hasn't practiced it since...that last time.
Ah. Oh well;
The nicer members of the folk club quickly understand the predicament and sing along lustily, watching the guitarist closely as it's likely the tempo will slow up or the piece come to a complete halt if there's a tricky chord change.
If you're singing along, it is aceptable to put a finger in one ear.
It is not considered polite to put fingers in both ears.
And the song goes like this, to a not-so-old Scottish tune
Balrog of Fire
Are there wings on your body
Or not?
Please note, I require
Definitive answers
O Balrog of Fire
At this point, Sorcha is sighted returning from the loo, so the assembly breaks into sufficiently rapturous applause that the song can be regarded as over, and we can have some fiddle music next. Phew. Someone buy Jerry a pint in case he's sorry not to have been able to do the other 27 verses. But I think he's relieved really.
But I find (as per the same composer in an earlier band):
When I find myself with wings of balrogs
Great Ennui* comes over me
Singing words of wisdom
"Let it be!"
---
*Great Ennui is the equivalent of Eru in a further fantasy world that Tolkien started, but it made him feel tired and too bored to continue. I think the plan was that Great Ennui is a sloth that stands atop at least four elephants...
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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noWizardme
Gondolin
Tue, 5:15pm
Post #5 of 7
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Or maybe quantum mechanics can help...
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There was once a man (E. Schrödinger)
Who said "this wings thing's a humdinger!"
"Treat it just like my cat
And you'll soon find out that
We can give up this lark -- let's have dinner!"
~~~~~~
"I am not made for querulous pests." Frodo 'Spooner' Baggins.
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CuriousG
Gondolin
Tue, 7:39pm
Post #6 of 7
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I'd like to order some wingless wings, please
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I do remember feeling passionately about the wings issue once upon a time, and I think it's for the reason you describe: that passage is exciting and vivid, and shrouded in myth and mystery for a first-time reader who has no idea what Gandalf is saying, only that it sounds epic.
First, you've got this background "music" in your head as the pursuit in this big, dark, seemingly cursed underground city is nearing its climax (even a new reader can feel the build toward *something*):
Even as he spoke they heard again the pursuing drum-beat: Doom, doom, doom. Then Gandalf:
‘I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow!
Even "Shadow" isn't clear when you're new: Mordor, land of Shadow, or something else related to this mysterious Secret Fire and flame of Anor? And is Udûn that little spot in Mordor on the map, or some place worse? And what is a "whip of flame" like in real life: is it like a whip that's burning, or literal flame, and how do you keep the fire going? OK, sure, it's magic, but still...It's a challenge to understand the specifics of this scene, but as a reader, you really want to.
So your mind is filled with questions, excitement, the thrill of victory when the Balrog falls, and the agony of defeat when Gandalf falls, and you feel really, really invested in this scene. So yeah, it matters emotionally rather than rationally if it has fly-worthy wings, not because of aerodynamic science, but because you feel so sucked into the story and the aftermath. I really don't care anymore what people say in the wings/no wings debate, but I used to be as triggered by it as provocative statements like "Frodo is obviously the real villain of LOTR," etc.
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Lissuin
Doriath
1:19am
Post #7 of 7
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Not a Balrog's wings post exactly, noWiz,
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although your link did lead to "The Mull of Kintyre" by Wings (as you very well knew.  )
TORn is making me nostalgic as heck today. My great-great grandmother was a MacAlister who left Kintyre for Boston, Massachusetts in the mid-1800's. I listened to Mr McCartney sing his beautiful, mournful song, got all teary thinking about a young woman alone taking a ship across the sea carrying a folk tune in her thoughts. Then I googled the song, which I had never heard (Wikipedia says it wasn't a hit in the US then, silly us), and saw it was only written in 1977. Whatever, I think she must have thought of those faraway sea cliffs for the rest of her life. Though I've never been, I did get close in Ayr, Glasgow, the Trossachs and Loch Lomond. Somehow I missed the Balrog version being sung in any of the pubs I frequented there. 
Back to topic: I think of the Balrog as a very hidden-depths-of-Scotland sort of beastie. Now that ROP is filming there, perhaps we can finally get a nature doco out of it that can settle the big question once and for all!
Your Great Ennui was actually a moody teenager, and it could have been any one of us.
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