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Follow-up question to Why couldn't the dwarves beat/kill the Balrog?

From the answers to that question, the dwarves apparently couldn't kill the Balrog because the Balrog is very powerful, so powerful that by the Third Age very few people could actually beat it one-on-one. But that's one-on-one. There's no rule that the dwarves have to fight the Balrog one-on-one. Why couldn't the dwarves assemble a legion of crossbowmen and kill the Balrog 1000-on-1?

A first guess is that the Balrog is impervious to weapons, but this implies the Balrog is vulnerable to swords, and by extension arrows. Another possibility is that the Balrog travels with a retinue of Orcs that makes it 1000-on-1000, but since the Balrog leads from the front (it confronted the Fellowship personally) the dwarves could still presumably kill it with ranged weapons - if not with arrows (because it's out of range), then with ballista bolts or something.

Allure
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    This question seems to suffer from an idea introduced by D&D, and that is that any being has a finite ability to absorb damage. There is no evidence that the dwarves can hurt the Balrog at all and a million times zero is still zero. – DavidW May 30 '23 at 03:47
  • @DavidW if the Balrog is vulnerable to weapons, why would the dwarves not be able to hurt the Balrog? – Allure May 30 '23 at 03:49
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    Evidence that the Balrog is vulnerable to weapons? (Note that you're pointing to a movie scene, and even it doesn't say that Balrog is vulnerable to a sword, just that the Balrog can be fought with a sword wielded by a Maia.) – DavidW May 30 '23 at 03:53
  • @DavidW see answers to https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/217287/why-did-gandalf-use-a-sword-against-the-balrog. I do not point to the movie scene, I point to the answers which specifically say things like But there is not really anything indicating that balrogs couldn't be wounded by ordinary weapons, except for the quote by Gandalf saying "swords are no more use here". – Allure May 30 '23 at 04:01
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    I fail to see why this is a duplicate and there's no explanation above either, so voting to reopen. – Allure May 30 '23 at 05:12
  • This question seems a little bit like: Sure, one person can't fire a rifle and hit the moon, but maybe if everyone in the world all fires a rifle at the moon they can disturb its orbit. – Todd Wilcox May 30 '23 at 05:52
  • Even if numbers make a difference in killing Balrogs, I think the number of dwarves in Khazad Dum was somewhat limited. – Eike Pierstorff May 30 '23 at 08:33
  • Regarding killability, Gothmog was killed by a weapon wielded by Ecthelion, so it is not a flawed assumption "introduced by D&D" that they are killable. – Yorik May 30 '23 at 16:03
  • Agree with @Allure, this is clearly not a duplicate, since the question itself distinguishes the supposed duplicate. In general, closing questions that old timers consider impure kills a community – Andomar Jun 01 '23 at 07:44
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    I can't see how this question is sufficiently different from the linked dupe to vote to reopen. The questions are essentially the same: an answer to this question would immediately apply to the linked Q, so imo they are dupes. – fez Jun 01 '23 at 08:17
  • @DavidW While I absolutely support your answer that we shouldn't carry on RPG assumptions to other fantasy products, I'd say that it's well established in the canon legendarium that swords can damage, and even destroy, the physical embodiments of the maiar. Both Sauron and Melkor were hurt by swords (and fangs) and received permanent wounds or even lost their bodies. They didn't die, since they can't die, but they can certainly be beaten by nonmagical means. – Rekesoft Jun 06 '23 at 14:55
  • @Rekesoft This is getting pretty deep into an off-topic discussion, but I could make the argument that the damage apparently done to Maiar or Valar (e.g. Melkor) by swords is actually a function of the fëa of the person fighting them. That is, the damage is at least partially spiritual in nature, and can only be inflicted by someone of sufficiently great spiritual might. Thus Glamdring alone, though it be wielded by Thorin II, would be useless against the Balrog, while Gandalf (or someone comparable, like Eärendil) could fight it, albeit less effectively, with a rock. – DavidW Jun 06 '23 at 15:14
  • @DavidW It is certainly offtopic, and it will probably be deleted, but while I admit your speculation is as good as any, I wouldn't like it that way. One thing I loved as a child reading LOTR was that it seemed quite "democratic": men, and even hobbits, could damage vastly more powerful entities than them just with strength, courage and some luck. I don't know what Tolkien thought about it, but I wouldn't like to discover he thought in that racist/classist way: "no, you can't hurt this being, you're just not worthy enough". – Rekesoft Jun 07 '23 at 07:48

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Very little is known of how the first fighting between the balrog and the dwarves of Moria went. In fact, it appears that the only information may be what is given in Appendix B ("The Tale of Years") of The Lord of the Rings:

1980 ... A balrog appears in Moria and slays Durin VI.
1981 Náin I slain. The Dwarves flee from Moria....

Clearly, there was not one single battle in which Durin's Bane earned his name by killing the king and driving the other dwarves away. The dwarves remained, presumably struggling with the balrog, for at least a matter of months, until they lost another king. Only after that did Thráin the Old lead them away from Khazad-dûm. However, what went on during this period of conflict was never revealed, and we do not know what tactics were used by either side in the conflict.

We do get one further glimpse of the balrog's power of the dwarves, almost nine hundred years later, however. According to Appendix A, at the Battle of Azanulbizar:

Up the steps after him leaped a Dwarf with a red axe. It was Dáin Ironfoot, Náin’s son. Right before the doors he caught Azog, and there he slew him, and hewed off his head. That was held a great feat, for Dáin was then only a stripling in the reckoning of the Dwarves. But long life and many battles lay before him, until old but unbowed he fell at last in the War of the Ring. Yet hardy and full of wrath as he was, it is said that when he came down from the Gate he looked grey in the face, as one who has felt great fear.

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Then Thráin turned to Dáin, and said: ‘But surely my own kin will not desert me?’ ‘No,’ said Dáin. ‘You are the father of our Folk, and we have bled for you, and will again. But we will not enter Khazad-dûm. You will not enter Khazad-dûm. Only I have looked through the shadow of the Gate. Beyond the shadow it waits for you still: Durin’s Bane. The world must change and some other power than ours must come before Durin’s Folk walk again in Moria.’

So even Dáin Ironfoot, one of the greatest dwarf warriors and kings of the Third Age, was so terrified by the mere presence of the balrog inside Moria that he could not enter, and it seems that he knew that no other dwarves would be able to enter either—at least, not at that time. When the Company meet Durin's Bane, the witness that

a power and terror seemed to be in it and to go before it,

and it seems that was an exceedingly powerful weapon in itself.

Buzz
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