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In the role-playing game supplement, Moria: Through the Doors of Durin, there is a section on the Balrog of Moria which makes some curious statements about Balrogs in general:

The Balrogs were tools of Morgoth, and obeyed his will in all things. They had, it seems, little in the way of desire or ambition of their own.

It is possible that the Balrog has no will of its own, for it existed to serve Morgoth, and now it is only animated by blind, reactive hate - it will strike back at those who trespass in its domain, but has no impetus beyond that.

The game this is for Free League's edition of The One Ring, is generally pretty well researched as regards the lore, but of course it chooses to add its own spin and creativity where it's necessary to help the game.

I'd not come across this conception of Balrogs as essentially empty vessels of Morgoth before, and I was just wondering whether it has any basis in canon, or in the long history of Tolkien changing his mind about how things worked in Middle-earth.

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    Gandalf at least seemed to think the Balrog of Moria is perceptive enough to understand monologuing ("The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn" etc.), else his speech would be a bit wasted on an empty vessel.
    – Eike Pierstorff
    Commented Sep 12 at 9:11
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    Balrogs are Maiar. They chose to server Morgoth, and there's no reason to believe Morgoth needed to "modify" them. I would charitably suggest that the supplement is acting as an unreliable narrator, presenting a mistaken in-universe belief about the Balrogs.
    – chepner
    Commented Sep 12 at 11:31
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    @Bob Tway Why is it surprising that the Balrog did not answer? It's only in mediocre fiction that Bad Guys get into a discussion when they could be winning a battle. (I suspect that Gandalf's speech was mainly for the Fellowship's sake.) Also, there's no hint that I can recall that Balrogs were ever very chatty.
    – Mark Olson
    Commented Sep 12 at 12:58
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    After running a search for "Balrog" on the Silmarillion, they might have a point based on that text at least - Balrogs are not stupid or senseless (Gothmog is a warlord and strategizer, and enjoys battle and mocking conquered enemies) but they don't seem to do anything for their own motives. Also they do not talk at all.
    – Eike Pierstorff
    Commented Sep 12 at 14:15
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    On the other hand, nature of the Silmarillion being what it is, that does not necessarily mean anything. Plenty of unrecorded dialogue over the many years it summarizes.
    – suchiuomizu
    Commented Sep 12 at 17:25

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There seems to be no basis in Tolkien's writings, except for the fact that Morgoth wished to dominate and and control Arda, or to poison whatever he could not dominate; and that the balrogs had voluntarily thrown in their lot with the Great Enemy. Tolkien's conception of the balrogs—their sizes, numbers, and power levels—changed substantially over the years, only really becoming relatively fixed in the process of writing The Fellowship of the Ring. But, so far as I know, he never had anything to say about the inner lives of the balrogs (including their attitudes toward their services to Morgoth).

However, there is the caveat I mentioned above. The fact that they were powerful beings, drawn from among the Ainur, who served Morgoth willingly, knowing his general goals, suggests that for some of them and to some extent, they actually wished to be his thralls. There is no indication of balrogs ever having been disloyal to Morgoth the way Ungoliant was after the Darkening of Valinor (when the balrogs in fact drove Ungoliant away), but that does not make them empty shells without free will. In fact, it seems that there was no way that the balrogs, who like all the free peoples, had been granted the Flame Imperishable, could have given up the associated free will even if they wished to. They could not have made themselves into the mindless automatons that the Dwarves were before Eru gave them life.

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    Nit: Ungoliant was not Shelob, but Shelob's granny.
    – Mark Olson
    Commented Oct 2 at 11:36
  • @MarkOlson Whoops! Fixed. But Ungoliant was Shelob's mother, not grandmother.
    – Buzz
    Commented Oct 2 at 11:59
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    Nit squared: "Child of Ungoliant" can mean "descendent" as well. E.g., in Narnia all humans are sons and daughters of Eve.
    – Mark Olson
    Commented Oct 2 at 12:03
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    @MarkOlson That metaphorical sense works for the Biblical "sons of Anak," but not for Shelob, since she is described as the last child of Ungoliant left to trouble the world, even though Shelob has plenty of living descendants of her own, especially in Mirkwood.
    – Buzz
    Commented Oct 2 at 14:22

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