One of the things I find fascinating about the “The Lord of the Rings” series by J.R.R Tolkien is how my appreciation of these books has evolved over the last thirty-five years. From a quick description, it’s easy to dismiss these books as the stuff of adolescent fantasy, and it’s true that many devout Tolkien readers discover, devour, and then, for the most part, discard these books during their teenage years. But some do not, and continue to read the back-story for the main action: the terse but meaty appendices of the “The Return of the King”, the torturous Silmarillion, and, for the truly hardcore, the endless volumes of Tolkien’s notes.
It’s clear that Tolkien spent a lot of time thinking carefully about the world he wrote about, including going to the trouble of tracing the conflicts narrated by the “The Lord of the Rings” all the way back to the creation of the world itself and the initial schism between the god and the devil of that world. The result is rich, interesting and unpredictable, unlike the current generation of adventure books and movies, which can generally have their characters and plots (complete with a surprise twist at the end) adequately described in a tweet. In Tolkien’s world, it’s not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys, in part because the definitions of good and bad are somewhat fluid and depend on perspective, and because the characters themselves change over time in complicated ways and for non-trivial reasons. In Middle Earth, as in the Christian tradition, it’s important to remember that the most dangerous of the bad guys are the ones who used to be angels.
One of the most memorable, unexpected, and dramatic moments in “The Lord of the Rings” is the revelation of the Balrog and the ensuing duel between Gandalf and the Balrog. Here’s the way it looks upon a quick read of the book: Gandalf is a wizard (whatever that is) and a somewhat mysterious figure. Nobody knows much about his past, except that he seems to know a great deal about many things, and his opinions are pretty damned well considered. The general populace think that he’s a clownish figure with an extraordinary gift for building fireworks of astonishing beauty and complexity, but the wise and powerful seek his counsel on matters of great importance.
Gandalf has offered to guide a group of travelers (whose quest is the central story of the books, but is not important here) and, as result of a complex concatenation of circumstances, is leading them on a short-cut through the underground kingdom of Moria, as a way to get out of the weather. Moria has been abandoned for generations, after a series of attacks by orcs (the foot-soldier bad guys of this world) killed or drove away all of its inhabitants. There was a half-hearted attempt to re-establish the kingdom of Moria in recent years, but it was apparently unsuccessful due to a continued orc presence. No news has been heard from Moria in a generation. There is some scuttlebutt that it seems hard to believe that orcs could be organized enough to have overthrown such a prosperous and powerful kingdom, but nothing definite. In any case, Gandalf claims to have traversed the city before, and believes he can lead the party through the city, avoiding any orcs that might be lurking within.
But things do not turn out as planned. The party attracts attention to itself, and the orcs are soon on their trail. Fleeing, they attempt to wedge one of the main doors shut behind them to cut off the pursuit. Gandalf remains behind and tries to place a spell to seal the door, but his attempt is interrupted. Something enters the chamber on the other side of the door, and it knows about spells too. Gandalf has never felt a challenge like this. They fight over the door, and it explodes in a brilliant flash of light. Gandalf is thrown clear, and the roof of the chamber behind the door collapses, utterly sealing the passage behind the party. But there are other passages. They’ve bought some time but the orcs are still in pursuit. They run for it.
Finally only one barrier remains between them and escaping Moria; a narrow bridge designed to be the last defense of the city, because it can only be crossed in single file. The orcs are near, but the door is nearer. If it is day outside, the orcs will not pursue them and they may escape. But it will not be so simple. Something is coming up behind the orcs, and the orcs part to let it pass. One of the party–not Gandalf–identifies it. It is a Balrog. Although what that means is left unsaid, two well-established badasses in the group are scared witless at the news, so it’s clear that a Balrog is not a welcome sight.
When “The New Yorker” reviewed the first movie, I believe the reviewer criticized the movie for not casting Samuel L. Jackson as a member of the party, because, as the reviewer described it, there isn’t anyone else who could do proper justice to the observation that the Balrog is one mean motherfucker.
Gandalf sends everyone across the bridge before him. The Balrog approaches at a dead run: an enormous figure, veiled in darkness, wreathed in living flame, wielding a flaming sword in one hand and a whip of fire in the other. Gandalf waits in the center of the bridge for the Balrog, staff in one hand, naked sword in the other. Beneath the bridge is an abyss whose depth has never been measured.
But before the Balrog reaches the bridge, Gandalf challenges him, with a challenge that makes little sense to the reader or to anyone listening, except the Balrog, and the Balrog hesitates. The Balrog is given pause, but it is only momentary. The Balrog leaps onto the bridge, swinging its sword. Gandalf blocks with his sword and the Balrog’s sword shatters into a shower of molten fragments, and the Balrog stumbles back. Enraged, it leaps onto the bridge, whip whistling. Gandalf uses his staff to break the bridge beneath the feet of the unrushing Balrog, and it plunges into the abyss, but as it falls it swings its whip, which catches Gandalf around the legs, and drags him into the abyss as well. The rest of the bridge collapses a moment later; Gandalf probably wasn’t going to walk away from this, with or without being dragged down by the Balrog.
This is pretty powerful stuff for a nerdy teenager with an appetite for escapist fantasy.
But it raises questions.
First and most obviously, there’s the question of why Gandalf would choose such an awkward place to make his defense. He seemed able to deal nearly effortlessly with the Balrog’s sword; why couldn’t he have handled his whip? Well, breaking the bridge did effectively end the pursuit. But Gandalf could have broken the bridge without stopping to wait for the Balrog. The Balrog would have found another way across, or had his army of orcs construct one, if necessary, and they might have had to have faced it again, but they could have faced it in a more favorable circumstance and with assistance.
More interestingly, who or what is a Balrog? Nobody seems to be able to give a straight answer to this one. The wisest of the wise, when told of the manner of Gandalf’s death, describe the Balrog as the deadliest bane in the world, save the devil of Middle Earth himself. But that’s not really much of an answer, except to reiterate that he’s one bad motherfucker.
And finally, who is Gandalf, and what did the words of his challenge mean? Why did the Balrog hesitate? If a Balrog is really all that, what did Gandalf say that made him pause, and then make him fight?
What was Tolkien, a mild-mannered, middle-aged linguist, trying to say when he originally penned this tale as part of a letter to his son, away fighting in the war?
I think I know now.
But in order to explain, I must first explain more about the history of Middle Earth. This is a complicated subject, made none too simple by the fact that Tolkien changed his mind about a number of important details over time. I’m sure some Tolkien scholar will say that I have the basic details right, but some nuance incorrect, while some other Tolkien scholar will say that I’ve got everything wrong except the unimportant stuff. Tolkien scholars, after all, are just like any other kind of scholar.
I will describe the creation story of Tolkien’s world in vaguely Christian terminology in order to avoid having to drag in a lot of unnecessary jargon. In the beginning, a benevolent god created the universe and a group of lesser divine beings (angels, if you will). Everything was harmonious for a time, but the most powerful of the angels, Melkor, kept stirring up trouble. Eventually Melkor took on a Lucifer-like role, but he is tolerated far longer and much greater compassion than Lucifer. God created the world that contains Middle Earth as a playground for his angels and then withdrew. Melkor and his adherents, for lack of anything else to do, attempted to conquer the world.
Melkor’s generals and most powerful servants in this war were the Balrogs: a handful of fallen angels of unfathomable power and intelligence; and generally bad motherfuckers that Christianity’s Samael and Puriel would call brothers. They are demons of fire and darkness, able to take many forms, but always terrible to behold. Their most potent weapon is terror itself; few beings can simply withstand their presence. They are the generals of the most powerful army the world will ever know, but they do not lead from the rear–they are always in the vanguard. From the age of heroes, there are many legends of battles against Balrogs, and none of them have a happy ending. To fight a Balrog is to die. The two greatest warriors of the age were each able to kill a Balrog, but only at the cost their own lives.
But powerful as they were, Melkor and his servants were eventually defeated, thanks to help from the unfallen angels, and Melkor was dragged away and imprisoned. Many of his servants escaped capture, however, and hid in various places. Melkor was renamed Morgoth, which roughly translates to “Dickhead to who spoiled this world for the rest of us” and another age passed. Morgoth was released at the end of the age, and although he was still powerful, he was no longer able to assume any pleasing shape, so that his attempts to deceive the peoples of the world would not succeed. Nevertheless, he was soon back to his old tricks, gathering the scattered remnants of his servants and building his dreadful kingdom. The world was partitioned to confine the war to the area away from the dwellings of the divine and the faithful. War raged in the world for hundreds of years, until Morgoth’s adversaries were finally able to successfully plead their case to the various good divinities (who had generally been not entirely pleased with the behavior of either side of the war). The resulting battle between the divinities and their minions altered the face of the world, so great was its violence. At the end, Morgoth’s servants, such as the Balrogs, were hunted down and destroyed, and Morgoth himself was cast into the outer darkness, from which there is no return.
And there was peace, or nearly so, for an age. But the hunt, it appeared, had not been entirely successful. The occasional dragon was known to have survived, and orcs and trolls quickly repopulated their hidden places. Oh, and as it turns out, one Balrog escaped by hiding in the deep foundations of stone beneath the earth. It may be worth mentioning that at this moment, the tale of the tape has this last remaining Balrog as the single most powerful entity remaining in the world.
Sauron, one of Melkor’s lieutenants, who had appeared convincingly to have repented after the defeat of Morgoth, eventually slipped back into his bad habits. Sauron built his own kingdom and attempted to conquer Middle Earth (the section of the world that had been divided from the rest), but he was handily defeated and deposed without any need for divine intervention.
But the divine, although not intervening, were not disinterested. They knew that Sauron, being a fallen angel, could not be easily destroyed, and they knew that his army was not the real source of his strength. And so they were afraid that he would rise again, and they were correct. Eventually Sauron rose again, and in a much more dangerous and cunning form. He was defeated again, but it was a very close battle, and it was even clearer to wise observers that Sauron was becoming ever more powerful even as his enemies weakened, and their last victory was Pyrrhic; they had spent the greater part of their innate strength attempting to defeat him, but all they had really accomplished was to disrupt and disorganize his armies and delay his plans. The source of his power and the strength of his allies and servants were not destroyed.
And thus the divine decided to level the playing field a bit. They sent to Middle Earth a small number of wizards, including Gandalf. The wizards never explain who they are or from where they came, but it’s obvious that there’s something a little different about them because they came from the west over the sea, and nobody comes from the west any more, not after the last great war, when god rendered that part of the world inaccessible except to the elves. They appear as men, but they do not appear to age. They wander from place to place, and are recognized as wise by the wise, but they do not seek power (with one notable exception, who is corrupted and becomes one of the most dangerous foes in the story, seeking to replace Sauron himself). They influence but do not control.
But when it can’t be hidden any longer, it is revealed that Gandalf is one of the agents of the divine himself. He’s an angel of equal rank to a Balrog. And he’s carrying the Flame of Arnor, an ancient and magical weapon created to fight the servants of Morgoth. Everyone knew Gandalf had an awesome sword (it’s pretty hard to hide something like that, in a world where swords see frequent use), but almost nobody knew what sword it was. And finally, although nobody (including the reader) has any clue about this ahead of the time (although Gandalf’s awesome fireworks were a bit of a hint), Gandalf also possesses the Ring of Fire, a repository of unmeasured power constructed before the arrival of the wizards as a counter to Sauron’s power and given to Gandalf by one of the few who recognized him for what he is.
So the Balrog and Gandalf know that it’s going to be a good dust-up, and the Balrog knows that this is a fight it could easily lose.
But it’s been five thousand years since the Balrog has been tested. Five thousand years since he marched at the head of an army that made angels tremble. Five thousand years since its brothers were slain and his master was removed from the world. Thousands of years of hiding, and then emerging to take over an underground kingdom populated with puny mortals who hardly put up a fight. Hundreds of years of having nobody but terrified Orcs to talk to, and listening about how that suck-up sniveling bureaucrat Sauron is now the biggest, baddest badass in the world. This is a Balrog who knew Sauron back when.
This is a Balrog who thought to himself–“I’m getting old, my career is going nowhere, nearly everyone I care about is dead, I’ve been passed over for promotion, nobody reads my books, and I’m stuck in a windowless interior office. Fuck all this. You want to fight? It’s on. I’d rather die fighting than put up with this bullshit. Bring it!” This is what middle age looks to an obscure philologist who has been working for ten years on a book he doubts he’ll ever finish, while his younger peers get money for nothing and chicks for free.
I’m pretty sure Dylan Thomas was thinking about this Balrog when he wrote “Do not go gentle into that good night”; the line “rage, rage against the dying of the light” distills the point perfectly. Balrogs don’t go gentle into anything, but they still need something to rage against, and a challenge from an angel is wonderful goad. At last, an adversary worthy of the word.
Now in case you’re wondering, you can’t kill a Balrog merely by throwing it into an abyss a mile deep. But of course, as anyone who as has seen the movie will tell you, you can’t kill Gandalf that easily either. The battle continues for ten days, and destroys a lot of real estate and scenery, before they kill each other, thus leaving the Balrog’s no-loss streak intact, albeit with an asterix (because Gandalf is given a new body and sent back into the world to continue his task, while the Balrog apparently is not).
It all looks a lot better in the movie, as you can imagine, but it makes absolutely no sense… I will always feel disappointment that Peter Jackson made the Balrog look so big, clumsy and stupid, like the illegitimate offspring of Godzilla and a dragon. But if he’d made it merely large and crafty–a demonic wizard–it would have taken so much more explaining.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcuDMoSOOrs
