was this guy always living under the mountains? how did he get there?

>how did he get there?
the eagles

The dwarves in their endless greed dug too deep, unleashing a primordial evil buried beneath the earth

>>81234990

He hid there after his master was defeated

>>81235245

That doesn't make any fucking sense, how did the guy ate if he was beneath earth all this time?

>>81234990
>It came to pass that in the middle of the Third Age Durin was again its king, being the sixth of that name. The power of Sauron, servant of Morgoth, was then again growing in the world, though the Shadow in the Forest that looked towards Moria was not yet known for what it was. All evil things were stirring. The Dwarves delved deep at that time, seeking beneath Barazinbar for mithril, the metal beyond price that was becoming yearly ever harder to win. Thus they roused from sleep a thing of terror that, flying from Thangorodrim, had lain hidden at the foundations of the earth since the coming of the Host of the West: a Balrog of Morgoth. Durin was slain by it, and the year after Náin I, his son; and then the glory of Moria passed, and its people were destroyed or fled far away.

>>81234990

Nigga just wanted to sleep. Dwarves are dicks.

>>81235311
fucking pussy Balrog running away from the Valar and leaving his boss to get outcasted into the void, i bet he didn't even come to his help when he was getting cucked by the Ungoliant

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>>81235291
I don't think Balrogs have to eat. They're corrupted primordial spirits.

>>81235432
Tolkien developing his lore from "Balrogs are very strong vidya minibosses that exist in the hundreds and can be taken 1 on 1 by Hero Elves" to "there were always very few Balrogs, like fewer than 10 and they were these dark terrifying monstrosities made of flames" honestly made the Moria part so much better. It would've been "oh shit a Barlog" instead of "HOLY FUCKING SHIT A BALROG HOW WHAT AAAA"

>>81234990
There's just too many plotholes.

>>81235291
dirt cookies

>>81235437
bullshit
corrupted primordial spirits don't even exist

>>81234990
Didnt morgoth have an army of Balrog? This one was just one of the survivors that hid beneath the earth

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>>81235593
>fewer than ten

lol no

There were hundreds to thousands of balrogs, they were undying Maiar spirits like Sauron.

daily reminder that when gandalf fought him underground they ventured so deep that they encountered things even balrog was afraid of

>>81235785
Do you have a quote from the book?

>>81235732
Please do not fucking try and correct someone when you yourself are fucking wrong. With the change of Balrogs to Maiar came a drastic reduction of their numbers. Tolkien wrote a note (from Morgoth's Ring) that "there should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed."

>>81234990
Imagine how fucking bored he must have felt.

>>81235732
>There were hundreds to thousands of balrogs, they were undying Maiar spirits like Sauron.

Lol no. There were exactly seven if I'm not mistaken.

Not the person you posted but Tolkien revised his legendarium and the backstory for the main books several times. The Silmarillion is only a compendium of it, it wasn't finished by the professor itself, and there is mention of his changing the number of balrogs in one of his letters if I'm not mistaken. I'll look for it and post it if I find it.

He's like a big cat, looking for somewhere cosy to nap.

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>>81235865

wrong

there's no way to date that "note" (as if notes on the sides of works are even canon)

Every narrative produced by Tolkien, besides a single undated note in the margin of a text, points to dozens, hundreds, or thousands of Balrogs

>>81234990
He was hiding from the mythril tax collectors.

>As the legendarium became more formidable and internally consistent, and the Balrogs more terrible, this number was much reduced. In the end Tolkien stated that there were probably "at most" seven Balrogs:

>"In the margin my father wrote: 'There should not be supposed more than say 3 or at most 7 ever existed.'"
>― Morgoth's Ring, Section 2 (AAm*): note 50

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Balrogs

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>>81235955
Years after LotR was published he was still referencing there being thousands of Balrogs

>"There came wolves, and wolfriders, and there came Balrogs a thousand, and there came worms and drakes, and Glaurung, Father of Dragons."
WotJ, The Grey Annals - Year 472 ~230

http://tolkien.slimy.com/essays/TAB2.html

>>81235816
>'We fought far under the living earth, where time is not counted. Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him, till at last he fled into dark tunnels. They were not made by Durin's folk, Gimli son of Glóin. Far, far below the deepest delving of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even Sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day. In that despair my enemy was my only hope, and I pursued him, clutching at his heel.

(not him) It's not really that the Balrog was afraid, but rather that Gandalf decided the other things were even more evil/alien to him, so it was preferable to cling onto the Balrog and hope that it would take him to safety than stay to fight them.

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>>81236131
>undated note in the margin of a text

not canon

>>81236053
Yes you fucking idiot, that's the entire point. Tolkien first had the idea of large numbers of Balrogs, which decreased to only 7 or less. The note is definitely after most of those mentions, and fucks who say "hurr durr we don't know when he wrote that versus the sections of Annals of Aman that say more even though clearly reducing the number is a revision" is a fucking troll.

But you're already a troll with your reference to "canon" which if you're going to be specific would only be works Tolkien himself published which say nothing about the number of Balrogs at all so fucking last post you get you fucking worthless shitposter.

>>81235816
not that guy but the only quote I know is
"far, far below the deepest delvings of the dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things. Even sauron knows them not. They are older than he. Now I have walked there, but I will bring no report to darken the light of day. In that despair my enemy was my only hope, and I pursued him, clutching at his heel. Thus he brought me back at last to the secret ways of khazad-dum: too well he knew them all."

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>>81236213
>>81236270
neat

Remember Bakshi Balrog?

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>>81236226
>Tolkien first had the idea of large numbers of Balrogs, which decreased to only 7 or less
>I know what Tolkien was thinking based on an undated note in the margin of a text

el oh el

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>>81236137

Pretty tiny spider tbqh there, bud

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>>81236354

>>81234990
No, like all ainurs, he came to Arda to help build it and realize the vision. Eventually, Melkor, the Valar of fire, decided to ruin everything and oppose the other Valar. Most of his people joined him in rebellion (his people being the Maiar of fire) and became the "balrogs", or valaraukar in quenya. I don't remember what it means. There is at least one known Maiar of Melkor who didn't rebel and it is Arien. She was charged with carrying the sun through the sky.

Now, was he always under the mountains? No. Like all other balrogs, he probably joined Melkor at Utumno when he was first building it. This was a fortress in the very far north east (not on your canon third age map), and there Melkor bred all sorts of beasts by twisting the animals Yavanna was bringing into creation. It is also there that he brought the elves he captured and turned them into orcs. This was incredibly long ago, and eventually the Valar came and wrecked his fortress. It was spiralling very deep into the earth, and in the vast cavern networks many of the horrors he had bred escaped. The Watcher in the Water, the giant squid who attacks the fellowship at Moria's door, may have been born in Utumno. That was never confirmed though, to the best of my knowledge.

Then, when the Valar destroyed Utumno, they captured Melkor and brought him to Valinor where he would be imprisonned for many centuries before being allowed parole. A few years before the Siege of Utumno, Melkor had built another fortress in secret, the fortress of Angband, up north as well, but way further to the west. When Utumno fell, Sauron and the balrogs went and hid there for a while.

Now, eventually Melkor was released and coexisted peacefully with the Valar in Valinor for a while, but eventually he made treason again and destroyed the trees and well, story short he came back to Middle-Earth, and since he had Angband ready for him he made his stronghold there.

cont.

So is there an underground civilization full of old gods in middle earth?

>>81235643
Well neither do eagles

>>81236442
Then, now come the time of the First Age, and fast forward through that, eventually Angband was destroyed in a similar fashion as Utumno had been millenias before. This time, Melkor was banished in the void, only to return in the prophetized Dagor Dagorath, the battle of the end times. During that siege, many balrogs were defeated, but those who survived escaped in the deep cavern networks under Angband. Eventually, one balrog came to be near Moria (it is quite a trek between Angband and the Misty Mountains, so this means Middle-Earth bowels are basically swiss cheese). Moria is quite an old settlement, it already existed before Angband downfall, but it wasn't as deep to reach the lower caverns. The dwarves wanted more and more mithril, and eventually they broke an entry for the balrog (and other unknown things) to come in.

>>81235324
>REE FUCKING WAGIES I WAS COMFY

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>>81236423
>ron perlman with butterfly wings

>>81236539
Is that why it's called Middle-Earth? Is the core of the fucking planet full of gods?

>>81236543
nice

>>81236378
Somebody post the big guy one.

>>81235291
Did you not see Gandalfand the thing fall through the entire earth and then through some clouds into china or whatever?