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Post by berkley on Mar 5, 2024 22:02:39 GMT -5
Smaug was much smaller, but is still from a dreadful lineage; he's probably much more powerful than any balrog.I got curious about this in a "who's stronger, Hulk or The Thing?" kind of way and started to dig around on the internet looking for an official answer. Apparently J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Book of Lost Tales Part II, "yet of all are they [dragons] the most powerful, save it be the Balrogs only." So, apparently Balrogs have the edge on Dragons in terms of power.
Did Tolkien ever go into more detail about the nature and origins of the Balrogs in any of those posthumously published books, I wonder?
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Post by sunofdarkchild on Mar 6, 2024 2:05:34 GMT -5
While in general I'd support the idea of Balrogs being more powerful than dragons, I find it near impossible to believe any Balrog could be anywhere near as powerful as Ancalagon the Black.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Mar 6, 2024 7:02:27 GMT -5
Smaug was much smaller, but is still from a dreadful lineage; he's probably much more powerful than any balrog.I got curious about this in a "who's stronger, Hulk or The Thing?" kind of way and started to dig around on the internet looking for an official answer. Apparently J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Book of Lost Tales Part II, "yet of all are they [dragons] the most powerful, save it be the Balrogs only." So, apparently Balrogs have the edge on Dragons in terms of power. That's interesting; thanks for the heads up! As berkley observed, we probably must make a difference between physical and mystical aspects of the creatures considered. Glaurung on his own caused as much damage than an army of balrogs, but he was killed by a sword stroke: likewise Smaug who was shot by an arrow. Since the balrogs are twisted Maiar, I would expect them to be on par with a Gandalf or a Saruman, who are both formidable in their own way but can be stopped like any mortal if taken unawares. As mentioned above, both Ares and Aphrodite were sent packing by Diomedes and Sauron was almost killed by a dog; the absolute power level of an individual is no guarantee of success on the battlefield!
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Post by berkley on Mar 7, 2024 0:21:32 GMT -5
I got curious about this in a "who's stronger, Hulk or The Thing?" kind of way and started to dig around on the internet looking for an official answer. Apparently J.R.R. Tolkien wrote in The Book of Lost Tales Part II, "yet of all are they [dragons] the most powerful, save it be the Balrogs only." So, apparently Balrogs have the edge on Dragons in terms of power. That's interesting; thanks for the heads up! As berkley observed, we probably must make a difference between physical and mystical aspects of the creatures considered. Glaurung on his own caused as much damage than an army of balrogs, but he was killed by a sword stroke: likewise Smaug who was shot by an arrow. Since the balrogs are twisted Maiar, I would expect them to be on par with a Gandalf or a Saruman, who are both formidable in their own way but can be stopped like any mortal if taken unawares. As mentioned above, both Ares and Aphrodite were sent packing by Diomedes and Sauron was almost killed by a dog; the absolute power level of an individual is no guarantee of success on the battlefield!
That's one reason it was IMO one of the few outright errors in judgement in the moves to show Sauron in battle in a flashback scene: yes, it's straight from Tolkien but it's something that's hard to translate into visual terms in a convincing or compelling way. For me the whole scene ended up feeling ridiculous, with Sauron knocking over masses of soldiers in a Warner Brothers cartoon-like manner.
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Apr 24, 2024 0:19:55 GMT -5
Neil Gaiman will be delivering this year's Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature at Pembroke College, Oxford, on June 12th. For those in the UK contingent who might be interested, more info including ticket info can be found here-M
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