Was that the Balrog that killed Gandalf in the Rings of Power?

The first season of The Rings of Power is on the home stretch and the dominoes begin to fall, reminding even the most superficial viewer that all of this will eventually become the world of Lord of the Rings. The fantastic cities and societies we’ve seen this season will crumble into ruins over the next four seasons – some faster than others.

This week we saw exactly how the beautiful dwarven city of Khazad-dûm is about to transform into the dark and cursed ruin of Moria in the form of one of the most harrowing and iconic scenes in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. On the mantelpiece of Khazad-dûm is a weapon of Chekhov, and one way or another it will all end in a fire.

[Ed. note: This piece contains spoilers for The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power episode 7, “The Eye.”]

When Durin (son Durin) and his father Durin (father Durin) have a momentous quarrel, the dwarven monarch orders the mithril the prince discovered to be sealed – but not before he has usefully discarded Elrond’s corrupted leaf for demonstration. purposes down into the chamber. The camera follows the leaf’s gentle fall until it reaches the rocky ground and is rejuvenated by the mithril veins that criss-cross each surface.

Then the leaf is burned by a burst of flame from a familiar form: a Balrog.

The Balrog that killed Gandalf?

Yes, this is the Balrog that the Fellowship encountered in the ruins of Moria thousands of years later. In Tolkien’s books, it is the only Balrog known to have survived Morgoth’s defeat by fleeing east and hiding in the roots of the Misty Mountains until being discovered by the dwarves of Khazad-dûm thousands of years later .

As described in the attachment the return of the Kingthe dwarves of Khazad-dûm “startled this from their sleep […] had lain hidden from the foundations of the earth since the advent of the Host of the West, a Balrog of Morgoth. Durin was killed by it, and the year after Náin I his son; and then the glory of Moria passed away, and its inhabitants were destroyed or fled far away.”

Or as immortalized in the voice of Christopher Lee in Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring: “The dwarves dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dûm: shadow and flame.”

Is this the same Balrog you were talking about a few episodes ago?

Image: Amazon Studios

Returning to Episode 6, “Farewells,” King Gil-galad tells the tale of an elf warrior and a Balrog dueling on the Misty Mountains, a battle that accidentally spawned mithril deep beneath the earth. But there’s more than one Balrog, after all, and we haven’t been told one way or another if they’re the same being. The entire story is original too Rings of Powerso there’s no Tolkien lore to fall back on here either.

Wait… there’s more than one Balrog?

Image: New Line Cinema

Absolutely.

The Balrogs were Maia – like Gandalf and Saruman and Sauron himself – and at least some were among Morgoth’s oldest allies, having descended with him into the darkness when he first betrayed the Valar during the creation of the world. As Middle-earth became the battleground between Morgoth and the rest of the gods, these spirits took on a terrible form. “Their hearts were on fire,” she says The Silmarillion, “but they were shrouded in darkness, and terror went before them; they had flaming whips.”

Although small in number compared to an army, they were Morgoth’s most terrible servants. They were his generals, his honor guard, and his enforcers – essentially in the same capacity that the Black Riders served Sauron. There are only three stories of a Balrog being defeated in single combat, and in all cases, like Gandalf, the opposing hero was killed. Only two Balrogs have ever been distinguished from the others: Gothmog, their leader; and the unnamed Balrog, known only as “Durin’s Bane”.

So will we see it… curse everything?

Image: New Line Cinema

This is an interesting question! It certainly seems so Rings of Power hints at this, with the younger Durin swearing that when he is king he will mine the mithril and bring unprecedented prosperity to his people. But if Rings of Power If the Balrog wants to wake up soon, it would be a break with Tolkien’s canon.

The attachments of the return of the King state that the Balrog buried itself so well that the dwarves did not discover it until the Third Age, a time beyond the control of Rings of Power. The fall of Khazad-dûm took place during the reign of Durin VI, rather than Durin IV and Durin V of the series – and in Tolkien’s lore, Durins were usually non-successive dwarf rulers, much like the British monarchy.

But then again Rings of Power already takes events that have occurred in thousands of years of history and condenses them into a single human generation. And that means Durin’s Curse could really be a potential threat; a sword of Damocles dangling from a flaming whip over an entire dwarven civilization.