Help me get Jackson's imagery out of my head

[farinal]

I've been listening to the radio adaptation the BBC did back in the 80s. It's really good and very faithful to the spirit of the book. I'm pretty sure you can find recordings of it on Youtube. Gimli doesn't have a Scottish accent in it!

I really love this adaptation. I bring it with me everywhere, on the plane, on my phone, while walking, while sleeping. I absolutely love this. Recommend to everyone.

[Rich H]

I'm also trying to purge Jackson's imagery from my head, and I find that the Ralph Bakshi movie helps a lot and gets the "feel" of Middle earth much more correct, although even that has problems.

It's interesting isn't it? I personally think the Bakshi film gets a lot of things right with a lot more characters than Jackson's work does especially some key scenes such as Frodo's stand at Weathertop and the ford, Pippin and Merry joining him on his journey, Strider's introduction, etc. There's some wonderfully crazy stuff too though - my personal favourite is Saruman's cameo as a member of Wizzard.

As a little aside for UK readers, Galadriel in the Bakshi film is voiced by the lovely Annette Crosbie. Which for those in the know also played Victor Meldrew's long suffering wife from "One Foot in the Grave". Makes me chuckle every time I watch the scenes with her in Lorien.

[Rocmistro]

Rich:

I think maybe I didn't articulate very well. I like the Bakshi interpretation of LotR better than Jackson's. There are a couple things worng; for example his Balrog design is all wrong...cumbersome, slow....kind lion/hyena faced thing. While I like how Galadriel sounded, I didn't like the way they drew her as a blonde beauty queen. Celeborn is even worse...they both lack a fey appearance.

Gimli is GREAT though, I love his tired/weary voice. I like the "dark" feel of Middle-Earth that he portrays; everything is all dark and gloomy and broken.

[Stormcrow]

"Fey?" Tolkien's elves look more or less the same as men. MAYBE they have "leaf-shaped" ears. They don't get the ailments of men. Otherwise they're the same.

Bakshi got Boromir and Saruman ("Arrowman"?!) all wrong, and Aragorn not very right, but there was much that was good, too.

[zedturtle]

As for Balrogs and wings, two out of three attested Balrog deaths involve being thrown off of a high place. If Balrogs do have wings, they're obviously not functional.

[Rocmistro]

Zed, so it seems you are a non-winger.

Gandalf says that he "threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place..."

Isn't it more likely that "threw down my enemy" is Tolkien's purple prose for "I killed my enemy" and not "I picked up the Balrog and conducted a military style overhead press, ala WWE, and then literally threw him off the mountain"

If that's true, (and I think it's a very defensible interpretation), then the Balrog "falling" would have happened because he was already dead....or possibly just unconscious, or at least too weak to fly.

All of that notwithstanding, it could just also be that Balrog's wings were not there for true "flight" and rather gliding, or even no flight at all; and as such perhaps their presence is sympbolic vis a vis fallen angels, Lucifer and all that. (as has been noted many times, the Catholic influence).

I'm not familiar with the other testimony by which the Balrog "falls" to his death. I suspect there might be a similar chain of events involved.

Anyway, I'm not necessarily convinced Balrogs do or don't have wings. I'm just surprised by the mental gymnastics one has to invoke in order to get a non-winged Balrog, when it seems that Billy d'Occam truly applies here. (Specifically, when and where in the text one invokes literalist interpretations vs. metaphor).

[Stormcrow]

No mental gymnastics necessary, only an understanding of simile and metaphor.

"His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings."

It's the SHADOW that reaches out, not wings. It reaches out LIKE two vast wings, but it's NOT wings, it's shadow.

"It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall;"

This is a metaphor continuing the simile used previously. "Its wings" is used as a metaphor for the shadow that reaches out like two vast wings, but which is still shadow, not actual wings.

As for falling balrogs:

The balrog of Moria falls into the abyss with Gandalf.

"I threw down my enemy, and he fell from the high place and broke the mountain-side where he smote it in his ruin."

Since the balrog "fell from the high place" after Gandalf "threw down" his enemy, and since he made a crater where he landed, it's clear this is not a metaphor for killing; the balrog literally fell. Whether the balrog was alive when it was thrown is unclear; I have always believed it was the fall that killed it, since there is no mention of death or success prior to that sentence.

In The Silmarillion, in "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin," there was a balrog in the pass of Cirith Thoronath, with a "dreadful fall" on one side. Glorfindel fought it, and "both fell to ruin in the abyss."

Furthermore, no balrog is ever described in The Silmarillion as flying, which you'd think they would do a lot when fighting with Morgoth's armies. Nope, it's not until he releases the winged dragons in the War of Wrath that he has any kind of air force, and this takes the host of the Valar by surprise. It's not until Eärendil shows up with Thorondor and his birds that the dragons are taken care of.

TLDR: Balrogs don't have wings. Fer realz.

[Rocmistro]

So, just to be clear, I don't have a problem perse with someone coming to the conclusion that Balrogs really don't have wings. I'm more interested in the examination of the argument, than the end result itself.

The most common refrain I hear is that the second passage is a continuation of the first. I don't understand the certainty behind that argument. Saying a thing has a shadow reaching out like 2 vast wings doesn't preclude it from having 2 vast wings; especially if the very essence of that thing is shadow in the first place! Put another way, why is anyone so certain that the second line is simply a continuation of the previous line's simile?

My preference, and I think the more consistant way to read something is to assume it's literal until it's shown that it isn't.

So in the first instance, the Balrog's shadow was like 2 vast wings. Ok, key word, "like" indicates simile.
In the second, the Balrog's wings were stretched from wall to wall. No language here triggers the presence of simile or metaphor. It is what it is, without any cues to the reader to interpret it otherwise. And then of course there are the other suggestions of a winged form throughout the Silmarillion.

So we have:
-a 1st account simile of wings (Frodo is describing, via the Red Book of Westmarch what he saw happen to Gandalf)
-followed by a 1st account literal description of wings (Again, Frodo is essentially speaking)
-a bunch of narrative (ie, Silmarillion) which is written in a different style, using much verbiage suggestive of a winged form.

It is, of course, important to note, that Winged does not necessarily imply the ability to fly. This is particuarly noteworthy, consistant, and logical, given Tolkien's Catholic worldview, and the fall from grace archetype. This also does not preclude the possibility that an otherwise flying Balrog was prevented from doing so because of:
-death
-injury
-weariness of battle
-cramped quarters; insufficient lift or range of motion
-an Elven or Maia hero on their back hacking them apart with ancient magical weapons. (if it is true that Balrogs are more man-sized, and not the Jacksonian behemoths we see on screen, then the weight of a first age Elven hero would have prevented them from flying)

The above suggestions are not just far-grasping conjurations; all of the scenarios in which Balrogs are described as falling contain more than enough ambiguity and context to support 1 or more of the above factors.

Another thing worth noting is that; if you are, in fact, made of shadow, and your "wings reach out about you like 2 great shadows", do you not, in fact, have wings? I realize that's a kind of dorky sophistry, but so is the kind of overly scrutinization of Tolkien's work. The simplest explanation is the thing had wings, was made of shadow, and Tolkien was trying to be vague and imprecise in order to incurease the mystery, dread and "fear of the unknown" that the Balrog was meant to invoke.

[Glorelendil]

"It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly it drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall;"

This is a metaphor continuing the simile used previously. "Its wings" is used as a metaphor for the shadow that reaches out like two vast wings, but which is still shadow, not actual wings.

I'm not committed to one interpretation or the other, but on its own there is nothing to suggest the above quote is metaphor. It certainly reads as literal. I think it would be more fair to say that it can be read as metaphor, and given the absence of any flying balrogs if one prefers the wingless interpretation I suppose you would have to call it metaphor, but I wonder if Tolkien meant it as such.

Ostriches can't fly either, after all.

What are other examples in LoTR of metaphor (not simile)? I don't think of it as a device he used frequently.

[Stormcrow]

Put another way, why is anyone so certain that the second line is simply a continuation of the previous line's simile?

Because the balrog's description is actually quite clear, and nowhere else does it say it has wings. But just previously we were told its shadow was LIKE wings, reaching out. It reached out from wall to wall.

Here's everything we know about what the balrog looked like:

• It is predominantly shadow. ("It was like a great shadow")
• It's probably man-shaped, but larger than a man. ("in the middle of which was a dark form, of man-shape maybe, yet greater")
• It emits feelings of power and terror. ("a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it")
• Light fades in its presence. ("It came to the edge of the fire and the light faded as if a cloud had bent over it.")
• It is capable of jumping over a wide fissure. Notice that it does not fly over it. ("Then with a rush it leaped across the fissure.")
• It can draw fire around itself. ("The flames roared up to greet it, and wreathed about it")
• It has a mane (which is presumably where Bakshi got the lion-head). ("Its streaming mane kindled, and blazed behind it.")
• It carries a sword and a whip. ("In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire; in its left it held a whip of many thongs.")
• Its sword is flaming, or at least is reddened and wreathed by the fire around it. ("In its right hand was a blade like a stabbing tongue of fire" "From out of the shadow a red sword leaped flaming.
• It can run. ("The dark figure streaming with fire raced toward them.")
• Its shadow can grow in size. ("and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings" "but the darkness grew")
• That size can be quite large. ("and its wings were spread from wall to wall")
• It can breathe fire. ("Fire came from its nostrils.")
• It has an internal fire. ("The fire in it seemed to die"; notice "seemed to")
• The balrog has feet. ("Right at the Balrog's feet it broke")
• The balrog is capable of vocalizing. ("With a terrible cry the Balrog fell forward")
• Water quenches its fire. ("His fire was quenched")
• The balrog is strong. ("stronger than a strangling snake")
• The balrog can burst into flame on its own. ("he burst into new flame")

My preference, and I think the more consistant way to read something is to assume it's literal until it's shown that it isn't.

You must miss out on a lot of meaning, then. Anyway I HAVE shown you that; you just don't accept it.

So in the first instance, the Balrog's shadow was like 2 vast wings. Ok, key word, "like" indicates simile.
In the second, the Balrog's wings were stretched from wall to wall. No language here triggers the presence of simile or metaphor.

But that's exactly what metaphor is: use of one word to mean another without making it an explicit comparison. As soon as you have a "trigger," it's a simile, not a metaphor.

And then of course there are the other suggestions of a winged form throughout the Silmarillion.

-a bunch of narrative (ie, Silmarillion) which is written in a different style, using much verbiage suggestive of a winged form.

You said this twice. I am completely unaware of any such suggestions. Care to quote some?

Another thing worth noting is that; if you are, in fact, made of shadow,

The balrog is not made of shadow; it is surrounded by it. Its man-like (maybe) form is visible inside the shadow.

and your "wings reach out about you like 2 great shadows", do you not, in fact, have wings? I realize that's a kind of dorky sophistry,

Well, yeah, it kinda is. The "balrogs have wings" argument is about the balrog having physical, actual wings.

but so is the kind of overly scrutinization of Tolkien's work.

A close, careful reading is not over-scrutinizing.

The simplest explanation is the thing had wings, was made of shadow, and Tolkien was trying to be vague and imprecise in order to incurease the mystery, dread and "fear of the unknown" that the Balrog was meant to invoke.

The simplest explanation is that the thing did not have wings, and that its growing shadow was LIKE two wings in the way they reached from wall to wall. Just as Tolkien says.