Sheer speculation Chronos. The Balrogs were originally fire spirits under the Maia Arien.
To this day even - Elves refer to Sun as ‘She’
I do too. 
Same thing with not using the ‘the’ article.
The chief weapon of the Nazgul is Fear. Fear…and Surprise. Are TWO of the chief weapons of the Nazgul: Fear, and Surprise, and an Almost Fanatical Devotion to the Pope. Are THREE of the chief weapons…
Sorry, couldn’t resist. 
To Bryan Ekers - I have a feeling the FOTR would have braved all those obstacles; they were on a Mission from Gandalf snicker. But, tell the hobbitses that they’ll have to traipse through the Land of No Breakfasts and they’d almost certainly run screaming back to their larders in The Shire.
My What if:
What if one were to swallow the One Ring? Would that be the same as wearing it? Maybe not, as we see that Gollum bit Frodo’s finger off, but perhaps it needed some digesting to get worked in to his system.
Why would Sauron choose such a shape that could easily fall off/be cut from his finger? Why not the One Tooth? Or the One Tongue Ring? Or the One Collar…
Um, my reading indicates that the great Numenorean lords, except for a few, were all bad guys. I don’t think that implies that they were good, but that they were powerful and wealthy to start with, and became more so.
Did I miss something?
that post was directed to partly_warmer’s post:
From The Silmarillion, paperback edition, page 358:
So it would seem that some of the Nazgul were good men, or at least not evil men, before they took the rings…
-David
Joe_Cool, I’m reflecting passages like this from “The Silmarillion” “This was the beginning of that people that in the Grey-elven speech are called the Dunedain: the Numenoreans, Kings among Men.” (p. 261) Later on they seemed to get involved in bad stuff “And they said among themselves: 'Why do the Lords of the West sit there in peace unending, while we must die and go we know not whither…?” (p. 264)
Tsk, tsk. These upstart men. Excuse me, I need to go check the temperature on my cyro-suspended grandmother…
I have to weigh in with a strong no. As others have mentioned, Gandalf didn’t sense the true nature of the ring. And the balrog certainly didn’t shadow the fellowship throughout Moria. I think that the balrog was exercised about the battle at the doorway with Gandalf and was foolishly pursuing the matter. Remember at the bridge, Gandalf warns the balrog, and the balrog stops and hesitates for just a moment. And if the balrog got the ring, it would have been very powerful for a while, but Sauron would have curried favor until the time was ripe, and then enslaved the balrog. Sauron was Morgoth’s second in command, but the balrog was almost equal in stature and hadn’t suffered the many defeats over the millenium that Sauron had, so it may have been almost equal in power.
I dunno… by that time in Middle Earth, the Balrog may very well have been the only Balrog left, which would imply that it had personally suffered its share of defeat and decline.
Where is Morgoth, anyway? What happened to the “blown away” spirits of Sauron and Saruman?
Not exactly a “what if?” but I’ve heard that they were/are floating mindlessly about in outer space, but am unsure of where that idea came about.
-David
Morgoth was “shut behind the wall of night”–i.e., the Valar threw him outside of the bounds of Time and Space, and there ain’t no way he’s coming back until the world ends.
Sauron and Saruman, being Maia, cannot be totally destroyed. But they invested so much of their native power into their physical forms–which were destroyed–that what’s left of them know is really pathetic. I believe Tolkien says that Sauron would be reduced to nothing more than a “spirit of malice” in the wilderness should the ring be destroyed. I think we can assume the same of Saruman. They’re just scary shadows now, that frighten kids and maybe make people lose their keys, or something.
partly_warmer:
I read it also, and unless I’m remembering wrong, by the time of the forging of the rings, hadn’t Numenor already fallen into pride and greed? I seem to recall that that was when they were raiding the shores and demanding tribute from the less advanced peoples. So when I read that they were great kings of Numenorean descent, that’s what I think of.
The Dunedain didn’t exist until after Numenor was destroyed and Elendil escaped with his sons. Does the text imply that the rings weren’t given out to men until much later? Or is my time scale off?
Oh, those sons-of-bitches!
If Saruman had devoted so much of his power into a physical form, doesn’t that mean that Gandalf must have done the same?
It wasn’t so much that Saruman had devoted so much of his power to his physical form, as that when his form was destroyed, and his spirit attempted to return to the West, the West rejected him, and thus he existed with the limits placed upon him (and those were much greater than before because of the act of Gandalf casting him out of the order.) and no form to express said powers through. In other words, if all he had left was the power of his voice, its hard to use it without a mouth.
You could well be right. I’m not very clear on the overall coordination of non-LOTR events. There were some issues, like those pertaining to the Nazgul, which I marked in my books long ago (certainly in recorded memory, though :D), and so was able to bring them to mind fairly quickly.
Also, I feel a little shy about ascribing labels of “good” and “evil” to kings on account of asking for tribute, or even for being greedy. I wish my cousin would return “The Tolkien Letters”, for the reason I’m beginning to wonder, after this thread, at what point Tolkien converted to Catholicism, because these rather, er, black-and-white brushes condemning people for normal human faults is not IMHO, a very Catholic or religious stance.
Untrue. The Edain were the first three houses of men who entered Beleriand during the first age and allied themselves with the Eldar. The house of Beor, The house of Hador, and the house of Haleth. Dunedain was just the term used in middle-earth for the descendants of these houses (ie the numenoreans) after the downfall. As a people they go back quite far.
Exactly my point. They weren’t called The Dunedain before the downfall - They were called Numenoreans. So if they’re called Dunedain, it’s after the downfall of Numenor.
partly_warmer:
They weren’t evil for asking for tribute. They were called evil because they no longer came as teachers but as lords. They had previously come to middle earth bringing gifts and knowledge, but then rather than helping their cousins to develop, they eventually gained pride, a lust for power, and a will to dominate them. Whether that is a “normal human fault” or not doesn’t change the fact that it’s not good.
Hmm. Probably closer to the mark with Saruman. I would say that he and the other wizards were sent by the Valar in intentionally weak and limited bodies. Gandalf’s body was broken, and after he naturally returned to the West, he was sent back to Middle Earth with greater powers and knowledge–including the authority fo the Valar to strip Saruman, who was already there in a limited state, down to “mere” human status. Then Saruman’s body was broken, and the West told him to get lost. I’m guessing that the inherent strictures they placed on the Istari (no doubt to keep another Sauron from happening, as much as to keep the wizards from fighting the humans’ and elves’ battles for them) made it impossible for Saruman to reform as Sauron did after his first downfall.
Quoth I am Spartacus:
I’m not so sure… Gandalf certainly had his suspicions about the Ring, right from the very start. But Gandalf is not the sort to act hastily, and he didn’t want to put the hobbits under any risk if he could avoid it. I very strongly suspect that, had he possession and use of the Ring, he would have figured it out pretty quickly.
Now consider the Balrog. Perhaps it sensed… something… about Frodo. Is it willing to kill Frodo to find out what it is? Sure, of course, that’s what it would be doing anyway. So, suppose it kills off the Fellowship, and finds that Frodo is carrying this ring on a chain around his neck. It’ll maybe come to the conclusion that it’s important, and maybe try it on. Or maybe put it to various tests, to determine what it is. One of the flaws of the movie is that it makes the Balrog look like a stupid brute, but it isn’t. It’s easily more cunning and intelligent than any mortal. It would figure it out.
And once the 'Rog got the Ring, Sauron would be paying tribute, whether he liked it or not.
My question:
If a being of equal power to Sauron (Unlikely but work with me here) would he end up far more powerful than the BIG EYE ever was since he (or she) still had all of his own power plus that witch was given to the ring?
Tough call. One would think so. In any event, even an exceptional mortal, like Aragorn, Boromir, or Denethor, would probably have done just as much damage to Middle-Earth as Sauron or a ring-wearing Balrog. That little extra native power would just be overkill. Everyone in LotR maintained that if Sauron regained the ring, all hope for Middle-Earth was lost, period–there was no one strong enough to withstand him anymore. Ditto, but more so, if someone more powerful got it. Kind of like having a 10-Kiloton nuke vs. a 50-megaton nuke dropped on your house. Not much difference.