(This has probably been answered before, but if so I couldn’t find it.)
After the events of LotR, the Balrog, “Durin’s Bane” was gone, slain by Gandalf. So did the dwarves come back, clear out the orcs and reestablish themselves there?
I vaguely remember a Durin VII or VIII reclaiming Khazad-dûm in the 4th age but I’m damned if I can remember where.
The website “Tolkien Gateway” says that they did. It cites “The Peoples of Middle-earth, ‘Of Dwarves and Men.’”
Different question: Why did the Balrog never leave Moria after it was awakened?
Going out the main gate would take him right into Lothlorien, yes?
Not exactly. The main gate (on the east side of the mountains) led into the Dimrill Dale, a valley which lay between the mountains and Lothlorien.
It’s probably not a great distance (this reference, which looks to be based on the work of mapmaker Karen Wynn Fonstad, suggests that it’s less than 20 miles), but there is some intervening real estate.
Acute agoraphobia?
Small doors.
The Balrog was a homebody.
Coming out of the depths took him right into Khazad-dum, and he laid waste to the pinnacle of dwarven civilization. Plus he went out of his way to tangle with someone whom he presumably recognized as a Maia. Would he really have been intimidated by the prospect of facing Galadriel and her long-haired stoner husband?
I actually thought about that, but he had to have gotten in there somehow.
The Balrog hid or “slept” for thousands of years under the mountains before the dwarves found him/it in TA1980. Then, for a thousand years after that, it seems to have been more or less left alone.
I guess from it’s point of view, it slew any who bothered it, and it must have seemed perfectly fine with staying in it’s lair until Morgoth returned.
Kept dithering over whether to wear its wings.
It needed a red bull?
Ed, the vacuum repair guy set the Balrog up in the sewers below Moria and told him that when he left he’d get his ass kicked so don’t leave. The Balrog, being a bit smarter than Walter White, of Breaking Bad, never left until he got to Durin’s Tower, and then promptly got his ass kicked.
Let’s not mix our fantasy worlds.
Actually, yeah, he probably would have been. In the first age, the Balrogs were largely destroyed in wars with the Elves. The Elves of the third age were much reduced from their ancestors in the first age, but I suspect the Balrog would still be pretty hesitant to tangle with them alone, and probably with good reason.
And while he was willing to tangle with Gandalf one-on-one, if he’d gotten out of Moria and started rampaging across the countryside, he’d have caught the attention of all the Maiar in Middle Earth. Including Saruman, who for most of the Balrog’s stay in Moria, was a good guy. If Gandalf alone was a close enough match for the Balrog that they both ended up dying (Gandalf got better), Gandalf and Saruman would probably wipe the floor with him.
Not stuck in human style bodies would have allowed Gandalf and Saruman to be more powerful. Their true power was cloaked. The balrogs gained extra power by being fire spirits fixed in the form Morgoth chose and put them in. The one Gandalf fought had his flame extinguished by the lake, lucky break for Gandalf. Gandalf really used that bridge to his advantage. And he was already tired. Gandalf and Saruman might have been able to beat the balrog in a fight ring in a fair fight, but maybe not. Saruman was not much of a close in fighter, having failed to kill Frodo and been done in by Grima.
If he had showed up outside Moria, would he have been bossed around by Sauron? Given that he originally got his marching orders from Morkoth, that would have chafed a bit. Better to sit under the mountain and be the god of all the orcs in the region. Plus, mithril.
The cable guy was supposed to show between 10 - 2. He’s still waiting.
They are sort of like Jessica and Roger Rabbit, aren’t they? 