However, as long as don't know more, I would vote for balrogs having wings, whatever they are.

I just have to click on "review" under the first three questions, then reload rather than scroll down, rinse repeat, and my edit count goes up by 3 each time.

@tchrist Yes. If the wings are real, several events presented in LoTR and Quenta Silmarillion are nonsense. But if they are a figure of speech, several turns of phrase in LoTR are very poorly written.

@ΜετάEd It is extremely hard to be consistent over so many years.

@ΜετάEd Agree wholly. It’s conundratical.

There are other inconsistencies in Tolkien.

@RegDwightАΑA yay!

His vision of Balrogs evolved between first writing the Silmarillion and publishing the Lord of the Rings.

It is also conceivable that not all balrogs are alike, and that they can (quickly or slowly, somehow) change form.

@MattЭллен too bad the list was only 30 items long. Whyever that was.

@Cerberus As with any collection of records. For with what great matters would Emerson’s foolish hobgoblins otherwise busy themselves?

@RegDwightАΑA heh

@tchrist Nevertheless, he didn't have them flying in LoTR.

@tchrist Oh, yes, I remember how they were far more physical at first, in an earlier version of some story.

The words of a wise man’s mouth are gracious; but the lips of a fool will swallow him up.

Probably the destruction of Gondolin.

@ΜετάEd Certainly not.

Possibly.

maybe they can only fly downwards

It may be their flight in the Silmarillion was the flight of fugue.

Maybe they are flightless winged creatures.

There is an early version of the destruction of Gondolin, much older than the Hobbit, even, I believe.

Just as Frodo and company flew upon Gandalf’s command. Mighty indeed are the wizards of Middle-earth!

“Fly, you fools!”

lol

@KitFox Possible, but somehow this doesn't seem like Tolkien: things with wings should be able to fly!

dropkicks a hobbit for the goal

he was really shouting at the balrog

What people overlook is the Balrog's shadow. "[T]he shadow about it reached out like two vast wings".

but balrogs are too stupid to fly

@MattЭллен The Balrogs whose names are Legion.

@ΜετάEd Apparently, that has long been an issue of dispute. I mean, whether Balrogs have wings.

@ΜετάEd Hmm but that could mean anything...

I actually remember, the first time I read LotR, that I was very surprised that the balrog could be made to fall down.

@Cerberus It means the shadow had something winglike about it.

But...pardon me for asking...why does it matter really?

@KitFox Maybe they are related to the kiwi.

I expected it to be able to fly or hover upwards.

@ΜετάEd I was thinking penguins. Penguins are eviller than kiwi.

@ΜετάEd Wherefore, O simile, wouldst thou cheapen metaphor’s sublime power!

@ΜετάEd Yeah, exactly. So it doesn't say much about its body, if we may call it that.

@Cerberus Well that's the trouble with fantasy. Anything is possible; you don't know what the author will come up with next; when the author mentions wings it seems possible they might be functional. But it's clear from the passage they were wings of shadow.

@KitFox Matter in LotR? Because the balrog falls to its death, but why would that happen if it could fly?

The Balrog fell not to its death.

It ascended the Endless Stair to its death.

@MattЭллен Why would that happen if he were made of shadow, smoke, and fire?

@MattЭллен Right. I don't think there's any widespread credibility given to the point of view that Balrogs have functional wings.

@KitFox He's not.

"What it was could not be seen: it was like a great shadow, in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape, maybe, yet greater; and a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it."

@ΜετάEd Are balrogs flightless? Probably not.

@KitFox yes. I don't know. I've not actually read this bit, I've only seen the film.

@ΜετάEd Oh OK, thanks.

@ΜετάEd Or the shadows of the wings might be distinct from the wings themselves.

> It's a question, too, that divides Tolkien's more avid readers into two distinct camps - those who believe in Balrog wings, and those who deny their existence. - It's also a question that generates a lot of interest: we get more e-mail on this single topic than from any other article on the site.

@MattЭллен Encyclopedia of Arda takes the ridiculous position that either the wings of the Balrog are functional, physical appendages or they are a figure of speech. That sort of binary thinking is useless.

Well, even if he had working wings, could he have righted himself in order to fly if he were falling?

@MattЭллен All we know is that like thee and me, Balrogs were featherless bipeds. You’ll have to ask Diogenes whether his plucked chicken flew.

@Cerberus I am unaware of anything anywhere in Tolkien about shadows of Balrog wings. Wings of shadow, yes, but not shadows of wings. That's a completely different thing.

@ΜετάEd Perhaps so. I was just commenting on that passage you quoted, which could be interpreted as I said without more context. I don't remember the context to the letter.

@ΜετάEd Isn’t syntax wonderful?

@tchrist Well, I'm not the pheasant plucker

@Cerberus The shadow of the Balrog is described as a real thing that hides the Balrog, and that is mutable: reaches out like wings and then spreads from wall to wall.

@tchrist Don't don't fly well when they're falling into a large abyss either.

@Cerberus Of that, who can say? For we have no tale of them ever doing so while angelically unassailed.

However, you might look to the Fall of Gondolin for insight, when Glorfindel cast the Balrog down from a high place to its doom.

@ΜετάEd All right, in that sense, it's not a common "shadow". But it may still not be the same thing as the balrog's solid body: it appears to have such a solid body inside its cloud of fire and shadow, don't you think?

@Cerberus I absolutely agree.

And that is where Encyclopedia of Arda goes wrong. The wings are wings of shadow; real (not a figure of speech), but not solid.

@tchrist I don't get it: the balrog of Moria was unable to prevent itself from falling into the abyss when Gandalf broke the bridge, no? The Gondolon example is another good one. It may be influenced by his older, more man-like conception of balrogs, though.

@ΜετάEd I hold your position as well.

ah, the old balrog wings argument

well i remember the days when i whiled away my time in such pursuits

@JSBձոգչ offers contrition

It was not my desire to while away our time in such idle pursuits.

@ΜετάEd I think that is how I read it: the principle of charity demands that we reconcile all occurrences of balrogs with each other, and this seems the only way. And it is quite OK.

@JSBձոգչ There's no argument here. shhhhh Kit might hear you.

Damn it, make me talk right again!

personally, i prefer to think that balrogs have wings, but that they are too massive to actually fly

they keep the wings for the sake of awesome(tm)

@JSBձոգչ Like Smaug the Dumbledor?

english.stackexchange.com/q/6128/2303

@tchrist Yeah, this is not at all how I would picture a balrog. Too much like an ordinary demon, too little cloud.

I don't see why this is not constructive.

it's gen ref

@Robusto It’s a list question.

@Cerberus Well, yes, if we were doing textual exegesis. I happen to think there is little or no reconciliation required. The confusion comes when a person is confronted with wings of shadow, and then (because they're reading fantasy) imagines them to be functional.

@JSBձոգչ That seems to be Kit's position as well. But it just doesn't sound like Tolkien to me: wings are for flying!

It's a question about loan words from a particular other language.

but it's just asking for a list of them

@Cerberus Why would you expect anything created out of shadow to be useful for flying?

There flying Elwing came to him, / and flame was in the darkness lit; / more bright than light of diamond / the fire upon her carcanet.

@MattЭллен No. It just asks whether such words exist. A yes or no answers the question, and examples prove the contention. Read the question again. Where does it say "list"?

@ΜετάEd Well, okay. But it cannot be denied that some readers get the impression that these wings might serve for flying as well. At least my 11-y-o self thought this, even though he did not picture the balrog as a dragon or demon at all, but rather like a half-physical, half-cloud-like being.

@tchrist "Ulmo changed her into a great white bird"

@ΜετάEd Well, why not?

@ΜετάEd coughs — wraiths on wings! — cough — Gollum!

@ΜετάEd Aye.

@Robusto true. I sit corrected

So the question shouldn't have been closed, much less deleted.

it's not much of a question

@Cerberus Exactly. That is the kind of overreaction that people make to the notion of wings of shadow. It's fantasy, so it's easy to imagine that they might serve for flying. Probably Tolkien underestimated his readers' ability to suspend disbelief.

@ΜετάEd and Elwing from her fastness dim / then cast her in the waters wide, / but like a mew was swiftly borne, / uplifted o’er the roaring tide.

@MattЭллен That's not much of an excuse.

@tchrist Bilbo was also a bit overimaginative.

Oh great. It's been closed for four months but only now that I delete it people suddenly notice it.

@ΜετάEd i disagree with this as an approache to fantasy in general, and tolkeinian fantasy in particular. the fantasy strives to be cohesive, and there's no excuse for saying "it's fantasy, so who cares?"

@RegDwightАΑA People don't notice closings the way they notice deletions.

@Robusto that's not much of a rebuttal

@Robusto yes, deletions are harder to notice.

@MattЭллен That's still less of a comeback.

@RegDwightАΑA Deletions show up in your little rep dropdown. Closings don't.

@Robusto not in mine. :P

Well, you're "special" — we all know that.

Anyway. If we allow "has English borrowed any words from Japanese", we also must allow "has English borrowed any words from X", where X is any language ever, and the answer to all of them will be "yes".

@ΜετάEd I don't know: it is dangerous to use a metaphor that can possibly be taken literally.

@RegDwightАΑA Not true.

True for the purpose of the argument.

@Cerberus Danger was his middle name. I think it fell between Ronald and Ruel.

@RegDwightАΑA english hasn't borrowed any words from kuot. or piraha.

If anything, this is a question for ELL. Any native speaker will immediately think of "sushi", "kimono", and a dozen others.

@JSBձոգչ you know what I mean so stop.

@RegDwightАΑA That is like saying "I'm right, let's just drop it."

@ΜετάEd So its weapons were fire, darkness, and misconstrued metaphor?

@Robusto which you do every day. May I not?

No. We hold you to a higher standard. You are a mod. You are here to serve the community. I am not.

That's your mistake right there.

That's a sneaky edit but I'm not editing my response, it's even funnier that way.

I don't make mistakes, and you know it.

Exactly.

Which is why we are not discussing your mistake right now.

Or at any time.

Nothing sneaky about it. I didn't hide the fact that I edited.

Couldn't.

You tried. I saw.

I bet Robusto has wings-or-not too.

@RegDwightАΑA mithril

My edits are an open book. All may view them at any time.

@Cerberus Huh?

We were discussing whether or not balrogs had actual wings.

@Robusto Fallacy.

@Robusto you assume that people read books just because they're open. You forget that open books are still books.

@tchrist Which part?

@Robusto Please yourself.

@RegDwightАΑA I assume no such thing. Now you are putting words in my mouth.

@tchrist Always do.

@Cerberus Their wings are merely decorative. Otherwise the statues in hell would be neck-deep in balrog shit.

Nine upvotes and rising.

@Robusto Now you're introducing a new metaphor, no fair.

I feel like a changeling at the end of a bait-and-switch con.

You know, Reg, you are capable of arguing a point without deflection or creating a straw man argument to attack. I've seen it happen. But I guess you are feeling lazy today.

@tchrist Are they sharp, your pointy ears?

@Robusto I can put words in any other body part of yours if you so prefer.

@Cerberus Its chief weapons, yes.

Yes.

And a fanatical devotion to the Pope.

I know it has a flailing whip of sorts.

To the Pope, really?

@ΜετάEd and surprise

In which book is he?

Do you mean Sauron?

@JSBձոգչ I agree. And in fact I think anyone who concludes that Balrogs fly has done this.

@Cerberus It’s a cultural reference.

@Cerberus no, sauron is not the pope, nor vice versa

@JSBձոգչ Ok, noted.

There's no actual evidence that the Pope is Sauron, no.

@JSBձոգչ indeed. The pope is Emperor Palpatine

Still, we could start a whispering campaign ...

@MattЭллен Don’t be absurd! Stephen Fry is Pope.

The question is: are we trying to establish how Tolkien's thought process went when he was writing about balrogs, or are we trying to synthesise a completely consistent description of balrogs as if there were such a fantasy world?

If the former, I think inconsistency by Tolkien is a possibility not to be discarded.

@tchrist I think you misheard pompous ;)

@MattЭллен It’s your Argentine accent.

If the latter, some kind of wing-shaped, shadowy appendages-that-it-cannot-fly-with seem nice.

:D

If I were to create a universe, I think I would change a lot, but include the argument about the balrog's wings

In the fantasy world, I find wings that one cannot fly with to be jarring, not fitting with how the rest of this world works.

@MattЭллен Yes, it's nice.

@Cerberus I am answering some of the silly claims of people who say (i) that Balrogs are capable of flight or (ii) that the wings mentioned are purely figures of speech. I think it's pretty plain that Tolkien had neither in mind when he wrote about Balrogs.

It would be in ancient scriptures and there would be wars over it, but know one would know what a balrog was.

@Cerberus Certainly. In this case I don't think it's necessary to go there, but certainly I agree in principle.

@Cerberus You're pretty picky about the internal coherency of fantasy entertainment.

@Robusto he studies ancient Greek!

@RegDwightАΑA See? You make my point.

it's to be expected

@ΜετάEd Perhaps not necessary, but it would be high on my list.

@Cerberus Right, if you start with your first impression that they're real wings, sure, then it's jarring. When I read the passage, my impression is of a roughly man-sized creature, having a shadow about it which can take form.

@Robusto That's what Tolkien fans are like!

@MattЭллен And that makes him an arbiter of fantasy physics?

@Cerberus And if all Tolkien fans jumped in the North Sea, would you do so too?

@Robusto they wrote a lot of fantasy, it's bound to make one picky

@Robusto Since "arbiter", "of", "fantasy", and "physics" are all Greek words, yes.

@Robusto I am already there, d'oh.

lol

@Cerberus QED

I'm sitting at the bottom of it.

@Cerberus Say hi to Awkwardman Aquaman.

@RegDwightАΑA Not so. They may have Greek origins, but those are perfectly good English words.

Unlike "Robusto", say.

@ΜετάEd It is possible. But my impression from "like wings" was not that it has actual wings; only when it said simply "its wings" did actual wings force themselves upon my mind.

@RegDwightАΑA I presume you have a point of some kind?

@tchrist it happens. :P

@Robusto Hi.

@Cerberus There are creatures in real life that have wings but cannot fly. Ostriches, for example. So why cannot creatures in a fantasy world, like balrogs, have wings and yet not fly?

@Robusto That just doesn't seem like Tolkien to me.

@Cerberus Sure. "Its wings", in my mind, refers back to the shadow which has loomed up in the shape of wings; but, it's easy enough to think it refers to a previously unmentioned part of the Balrog's anatomy.

Not with physical wings, at least.

@Robusto I do, and you just agreed with it, despite its being utter nonsense.

Penguins.

@RegDwightАΑA Now you're just making shit up.

@ΜετάEd I do not find that step very smooth.

@Robusto There's nothing in Tolkien about Balrogs having tiny little wings. Wings of shadow, sure, but other than that, no.

@Robusto It's all in the transcript.

@ΜετάEd Tolkien isn't scripture; I believe he expected you to use your imagination.

You just said that "arbiter", "of", "fantasy", and "physics" are of Greek origin.

And, if I recall correctly, wings come up only in the context of the Balrog of Moria's shadow.

@Robusto Blasphemer!

@cornbreadninja @KitFox got there first.

@ΜετάEd 1.) When a shadow is "like wings", I just image it to be high and broad, but not exactly shaped like wings beyond that. What do you think?

Just remember there's no argument about it. She might get stern.

@RegDwightАΑA You don't know the difference between are and may?

@Robusto one is a month. The other isn't even a day.

I said they may be of Greek origin. Which is a true statement. I didn't say they are.

@ΜετάEd it happens.

Who are you to tell words what they may or may not do.

@Cerberus Well, it is at least perfectly clear that the shadow is mutable. The Balrog of Moria seems to spread it into a shape like wings, and that shape grows until it is as wide as the cave.

@RegDwightАΑA It is a question of which is to be master, that's all.

@Cerberus So in my imagination, the Balrog's shadow takes a shadowy form of wings.

@ΜετάEd How about if I say, "the smoke from the fire curled upwards, then sideways, like a pair of wings": would you be thinking of anything more specific than a T-like shape?

That is, the "wings" camp are wrong: they aren't appendages. And the "figure of speech" of camp are wrong: they aren't metaphor.

@Cerberus What Tolkien actually wrote, about its wings spreading across the cave, was so unlike a figure of speech that it more or less convinced you that there were real wings, didn't it?

@Robusto Ostriches evolved from an animal that used to fly. Balrogs were created directly by the God and chose a form of flame and shadow when they served Morgoth. They are not "flightless balrogs"

@ΜετάEd I don't think so: I would have expected something like "it extended wings of shadow" instead of "the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings", if it were more than a general metaphor; only when he wrote "its wings" did I think of actual wings (solid or no: no idea).

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 ah, but if they are, does that mean there is also the "lesser spotted balrog"?

@MattЭллен Blue-footed boobrogs

lol

Frankly though, considering the balrogs were of the same order as the wizards, they sure didn't seem very motivated to get out and do shit.

@Cerberus This is Tolkien's prose we're talking about, right? You seriously are proposing that in this one instance he would have to have written like Hemingway for you to take him literally?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 What the wizards were doing aboveground, the balrogs were doing underground.

"His shadowy wings of shadow spilled out around the cave like two great shadowy wings of shadow that had the shape of wings but the substance of shadows"

@ΜετάEd Well, 3 of the 5 wizards didn't amount to much. So perhaps it IS a good analogy.

@MattЭллен This.

rytins eezee

@ΜετάEd I just see no specific reason to take the "like wings" as more literal than a resembling shape—not actual wings. Although it is still possible that he meant it like that, it didn't seem obvious to me.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I say they are. I never see them flying around, only strutting their stuff.

@Robusto what I meant was, they're not flightless in the sense that ostriches are flightless, i.e. that you should have reason to think that they can fly, but they can't. They are flightless like a rock is flightless, i.e. you should have no reason to think that it can fly.

And, in the isolation of the sky, / At evening, casual flocks of pigeons balrogs make / Ambiguous undulations as they sink, / Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

— Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning, Director's cut

markdown doesn't work in multiline, alas

Alas! A lass.

A want greatly to be deplored.

@Cerberus Then what specific reason did you have to take "its wings" as referring to previously unmentioned bodily appendages, not the winglike shadow which was just mentioned?

You can't do markdown in multiline? Yuck.

@ΜετάEd It made me think the earlier passage somehow referred to functional wings instead of mere wing-shapes, because it wouldn't make sense to carry over the simile, so it had to be more than shape, hence function.

But it was jarring.

Because the first description really didn't seem to describe anything more than a similar shape.

@ΜετάEd Hiatus maxime deflendus.

Then it fell down, and I thought, "huh, I thought it had wings [so that it could fly]".

@Cerberus See I don't know why you jumped to functional wings. For me "its wings" simply refers to the wings of shadow of the earlier passage. There's no implication that they are anatomical.

Please make it stop.

abases himself

@ΜετάEd Not physical, no.

Not solid.

Hey, @Cerb, what does cinae (with a-e ligature, i.e., an ash) mean in Latin?

But wings of shadow can have wing-like functions.

@Cerberus wait. wings of shadow? How are those differnet than metaphorical wings of shadow?

@Robusto I don't know: it's not in the dictionary. It probably refers to Greek kinaidos, "wanton".

Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince; / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The former would probably have a function, for me, as a naïve reader.

@Cerberus That would make sense in context.

@Cerberus Well, you're not alone in thinking that the balrog had "actual" wings. But the writing is basically 1. simile for wings, 2, metaphor for wings.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 The latter would just describe the general shape of the shadow, i.e. the simile would be more specific than the shape described, as it is often with similia and metaphors.

3, profit

@tchrist I see you're trying on the new Fort-in-bras. Much more support for a dying prince's breasts.

@Robusto How is it used? As a plural noun or something?

(The ae should not denote plurality: it's just part of the Greek stem kinaid-, I believe.)

No, it's a lewd caricature scrawled on a wall, showing Julius Caesar and Servilia screwing, and it gives their names and the word Cinae.

Some abbreviations are used in these graffiti.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 And yet the distance between the two, and the different phrasing, don't seem to point to a continuation of the same exact thing to me.

@Robusto It could be an abbreviation, or a bastardization: graffiti was usually written in Vulgar Latin, which was not like literary Latin.

@Cerberus Well, of course it was vulgar. ^_^

@Cerberus Well, I would argue that you're interpreting your own interpretation wrong. If he had actual "wings of shadow", shadow is still not useful for flying, and thus they would be "wings" in shape only, and arguing about whether or not the balrog can shape its shadows is even more pointless than arguing about whether or not balrogs should be able to fly.

The writer may have been illiterate in Greek and barely able to write Latin.

@Robusto Both vulgar and Vulgar.

@Cerberus That would make sense. He was a man employed by a Jew from Greece named Timon.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I would not be surprised if wings of shadow could be used for flying.

@Robusto The writer was named Timon?

That sounds Greek.

like the character from the Lion King!

@Cerberus Timon is a character in this series.

@Cerberus I would. Well, I wouldn't in general, but it wouldn't fit in Tolkien. In Harry Potter, maybe. Some spell that has shadow wings for show, so you can tell you're flying or something.

@Cerberus Well it should. It calls to mind Shakespeare's Timon of Athens.

I mean the guy who wrote/scribbled the graffiti.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 I don't know, perhaps I would be. On the one hand I would expect Tolkien to require solid wings for flying; on the other, I would have expected him to contain the simile more strictly.

@Rob On second thought, I think kinaidos/cinaedus was a common word, and so I would think it was an abbreviation rather than a bastardization.

Ok next topic: what's worse than flightless balrogs in a story? Prophesy! One of my most hated tropes.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Agreed.

Very annoying.

The most annoying examples of prophesy are in the Sword of Truth series.

Even the main character goes through the series saying "fuck off! don't tell me any prophesies!"

The prophesy that Cerb and Mr S will agree, has come to pass!

The most annoying prophesies are in Herodotus—but they are annoying in a fun way, like the oracle given to Croesus.

@MattЭллен Then it has become an opisophesy, or something.

Or an anaphesy.

antipasta?

@Cerberus Right. In fact you were surprised when they weren't used for flying. Which, as I said earlier, is the problem with writing fantasy. Your readers are likely to be unsurprised by fantastic things.

@Cerberus opisophesy? I googled that and found nothing

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Maybe try palaeophesy.

> Showing results for palaeophis No results found for palaeophesy

@ΜετάEd True. I don't know what to think any more about the exact function of the shadowy wings or wingy shadows. In any case, they are not physical wings, and they cannot be used to fly.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Then I'm out of words.

??!? How is that possible?!

I know.

I trust that you still have plenty.

is a palaeophesy a prophesy that has already come to pass?

byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's what it was supposed to be.

@MattЭллен Byyyyyyyye!

@MattЭллен You! Shall! Not! Pass!

Commute!

@Cerberus But still meaning "wanton"?

@RegDwightАΑA I'm staying here.

@Robusto Yes, because that's the only word/root I can think of that resembles it.

I have no doubt that it means something like wanton in that drawing.

Like "male whore".

Catamite.

But a catamite wouldn't be depicted screwing a woman.

@Cerberus No, no, not wanton, you're thinking of that Chinese food.

Hmm what?

Wan-ton is some kind of Chinese food?

@Robusto No. Just a wanton man, I guess.

As opposed to a woman.

Because I don't think you would use something like cinaed- for women.

Not sure.