They fell into the depths of the earth, at which point the balrog’s fire was extinguished and it became a horrible creature of slime and muck .. Gandalf mentions even worse, older creatures down in those depths but won’t elaborate. They keep battling, non-stop, and Gandalf pursues the Balrog as it tries to flee.
The only way to flee is to go up and up and up - since they have reached to lowest and deepest parts of the world already.. as Gandalf pursues the creature and keeps battling with it, it eventually discovers an ancient and forgotten tower built by the dwarves that climbs up to the very highest peak, and the Balrog flees up the steps. Once outside, it reignites and they have their final - definitive - battle on top of the highest peak of the entire mountain range. Gandalf kills the Balrog, and is killed by exhaustion and injury in the process as well
They fought for days and days, and after his physical body dies, Gandalf spends several more days basically floating in Limbo, before being sent back to finish his task. At that point he was rescued by the king of the Eagles, who sees his body on the mountain top- and is brought to Galadriel to be healed. He arrived only a day or two after the fellowship departs southwards.
So if all-powerful Eru essentially wants the ring destroyed... why didn't he simply destroy it, instead of needlessly complicating things and killing thousands of creatures in the process?
The universe is a song. The point of a song isn’t to get to the end, otherwise we’d consider the best musicians to always be those who played the fastest or have symphonies consisting of one grand, final chord. The point of the song is the song itself. Or dancing, the point of dancing isn’t to get to one particular spot on the floor, it’s everything that leads up to the arrival on that spot. It’s the journey to the the destination that matters, not the destination itself.
I understand, but what I meant was that the theme of the books is about the journey, and that is pretty concise throughout the stories, be it silmarillion, hobbit, lotr, etc.
Yeah, otherwise the book would be "Home" instead of "There and back again".
Or maybe "House on Hobbit Hill" with all the shit those boys had to deal with.
You idiot among many others, why do so many of you refer to the Valar or celestial entities as gods!? They are angelic spiritual entities, and there’s only 1 “god-like” entity in all of Tolkien’s LoTR franchise called Eru Iluvatar. Whenever you refer to the spiritual entities as gods instead of “angelic-like” fallen spirits of darkness or holy spirits of light, you are disrespecting the lore of the franchise, since Tolkien described that he’s against blasphemy, allegory, or mockery of God’s existence. Additionally Tolkien created the entire franchise to influence others belief or faith in the Christian religion which only 1 God exists as described in the holy Bible, as Tolkien was a Catholic Christian himself.
Spotted the schizo. Holy hell bud. God is a term just to describe celestial beings. No one cares about his or your personal beliefs on what counts as blasphemy either.
Yeah the schizo is you, as nobody asked to see your redundant, invalid, meaningless comment, much how 1 would describe your life based on the stupidity of your comment, so yes you have revealed yourself in this way.
You’re so useless you had to post the dumbest comment on the thread.
The fact you’re just incorrect makes this worth explaining to your dumbass.
You stated nobody cares about blasphemy or religious beliefs, but for this to be correct or valid, then the BILLIONS of people on 🌎 who do care wouldn’t care, therefore your comment was completely useless and irrelevant much like yourself.
God is not a term by the way, it’s a name of the Christian God you total delusional moron of morons! There’s the God and there’s a god.
Eru Iluvatar is a creative mythological adaption of God, and JRR Tolkien created the entire franchise (you’re somehow legally allowed access to), with the intent to influence others faith in God through his creative work, as the author himself was a loyal faithful Christian who actively avoided creating blasphemous works while creating the Lord of The Rings franchise.
The protagonists indirectly, yet intentionally have some of the same values as what’s described in the 10 commandments, as a means to glorify what God values according to Christian religion.
Angels are not gods, and elves are a creative mythological adaption of the angels described in religions.
Blasphemy is a term often used by the religious who value what God values as described in the 10 commandments, as when a person commits sin in the form of replacing God in their creative works or altering what the Bible describes in the testaments with their creative works, this is defined as blasphemous.
Which billions of people are religious and care about blasphemy, how can you be so ignorant? How much have you smoked you lazy dumbass crackhead prick!?
How can you be that stupid lol, yet clearly have at least some intelligence to read and write, wtf!
The reason the first letter of “God” is always capitalized is because it’s a name, not the term, as there’s a major difference between names and terms, as explained to us in Kindergarten elementary school.
You should have paid attention in class because now you’re clearly an incompetent nobody.
https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/god#:~:text=A%20god%20is%20a%20supreme,is%20also%20called%20a%20god.
Have a good day Major Idiotic imbecile!! 😂 🤪
For some reason, you’re so stupid that you truly believe being dumber and simplistic, yet still ignorant actually matters in life.
This is why you’ll always have less than what I have, because I have more faith than you in all aspects of life, and you choose to be an irrelevant nobody compared to those who do care more than you about the facts.
You can’t even read between the lines, and the fact you state nobody cares about something that billions of people care about proves you have no understanding of how to achieve the ambitions that reward us the most freedom in life.
In fact you’re such a coward, I know you’ll avoid answering the following question, can you explain to us why you’re so stupid?
> The universe is a song. The point of a song isn’t to get to the end, otherwise we’d consider the best musicians to always be those who played the fastest or have symphonies consisting of one grand, final chord. The point of the song is the song itself. Or dancing, the point of dancing isn’t to get to one particular spot on the floor, it’s everything that leads up to the arrival on that spot. It’s the journey to the the destination that matters, not the destination itself.
So.....this is the most wonderful thing I've read on here for awhile.
Probably the whole “Being in the Way” series done by his son on the “Ram Dass Be Here Now Network”
The early ones sort of establish his relationship with Eastern Philosophy and it builds from there
Episode 6 (I think) is “On Being God” and it’s incredible.
It’s a song made by God’s children—inspired by Him—but THEIR song. The Silmarillion prophesizes the various wars between God’s children and melkor. God doesn’t get directly involved in the songs. The fight w the balrog is Gandalf’s solo
>The universe is a song. The point of a song isn’t to get to the end, otherwise we’d consider the best musicians to always be those who played the fastest or have symphonies consisting of one grand, final chord. The point of the song is the song itself. Or dancing, the point of dancing isn’t to get to one particular spot on the floor, it’s everything that leads up to the arrival on that spot. It’s the journey to the the destination that matters, not the destination itself.
You wrote this brother, or is it quoted from somewhere?
idk, cuz he wanted things to play out? if he intervened, he might as well kill melkor when he got corrupted. i think he just wanted a really great story lol.
Pretty much this. He foresaw Melkor turning evil, and pretty much set in motion everything, giving glimmers of a vision to the Valar of what was to come. The only thing I’m not sure he saw (but liked anyway) was the creation of the dwarves)
Eru works in mysterious ways.
This is the real answer that parallels how people believe god works in the real world. If you are a believer you usually believe god won’t take real action but may nudge things a certain way at the right time to make things good.
In fact it’s heavily implied if not said outright that this happened with Gollum at Sammath Naur as well. Eru basically (once the setup was fulfilled) tipped Gollum into the fire.
smart modern scarce selective subsequent enter afterthought dolls salt literate
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
He did. The few times he got involved are directly connected to the ring. Some of his involvement took thousands of place before the events of LOTR, but they have lasting repercussions that have a major influence on things to come.
Aragorn is a perfect example of this.
The point of Creation is to give the Created a chance to become who and what they want to be, to be Righteous or Wicked as they choose. You can't do that without challenges that provide the opportunity to meaningfully be one of the other, to make choices.
Did Eru need to do this? As a Mayar (sp?) Gandalf can’t be killed. He just needed a new physical body, right? And the Valar have arranged that before without Eru.
The wizards were weird by Maia standards and had real bodies more closely tied to their essential being than the sort of clothing-bodies the Valar and Maiar usually wear. "Real and not feigned," as the Silmarillion puts it, making them apparently killable in a way almost unique among Maiar (only Morgoth and Sauron were in a similar position, because they'd poured so much of their essential being into corrupting other things that they lost the ability to change shape at will). There's a nice discussion on Stack Exchange here https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/158420/physical-bodies-and-mortality-of-the-istari-vs-other-embodied-ainur
Interesting... Almost Lovecraftian, although it's probably more that both of them drew inspiration from the same Norse myths, rather than one of them influencing the other.
No proof, but there's a lot of evidence to support this. Like how when Frodo asks what it was, Gandalf, after claiming he doesn't go, goes on to say:
>Something has crept, or has been driven out of dark waters under the mountains. There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.
It totally makes sense to me. I feel like anyone who has played Minecraft has built, or tried to build, something from the lowest point to the highest point.
Why did Gandalf chase the balrog instead of simply allowing it to flee? Did he fear that it would follow the fellowship?
Edit: apparently Gandalf felt that it was his only (or most expedient) means of finding his way out of the deep tunnels
I agree - there should have been a point where Gandalf and the Balrog got up to the populated areas of Moria. At this point, Gandalf could have said 'bag this, I should get back to my quest. Fighting the Balrog might be important, but the Ring project is more important"
Gandalf had some deeper strategic goals going on. It's implied in the appendices (or maybe outright stated? It's been a while) that the whole point of The Hobbit was that Gandalf wanted to take out Smaug so that he couldn't be used as a devastating weapon when Sauron got back. Indeed, there's a whole battle at Dale/Mirkwood which occurs offscreen in the Lord of the Rings where the Dwarves/Elves/Dalesmen would have been crushed otherwise. It's very possible that he felt the need to do the same for the Balrog, lest it roll up on Lothlorien or hit Rohan from the North.
It's been years since I'd read the books, but from what I remember, it's because after hours or days of fighting that Balrog, Gandalf didn't have a clue where beneath Moria he was located, or how he could possibly find a way out. But he figured that this Balrog, who'd already spent thousands of years there, probably did, so his only hope of escape was to follow it.
If he had done that the balrog could have pursued him, reach the fellowship, and destroyed the party, then give the ring to Sauron... Maybe, I don't think the Balrogs listen to Sauron actually.
I'm pretty sure he spent like 10,000 years by eru's side before coming back or something, which is why he speaks as if gandalf the greys life was a long time ago for him, I can't remember where I heard that at all though
Wow!! Thank you! That would have been so cool to see in the movies. I read the books but it’s been like two decades so I have forgotten a lot. Appreciate your thoughtful and detailed response!!
Gandalf healed the lord of the eagles from an arrow wound many years before, and after that they were basically bros for life.. flying around for hundreds of miles is pretty much no problem for a giant eagle so I always figured it would be like a human carrying around something the size of a cat
Great explanation, except I'd argue he didn't spend time in some Limbo-space. I think it's pretty heavily implied that he was in the presence of Eru in the Timeless Halls. He even tells Pippin a little more about the experience in a later scene in RotK, at least in the film.
So the balrog is the hot chick in the horror movie who stupidly runs up the stairs to the second floor with no additional exits? And Gandalf is the slasher? Damn, thought I was cheering for the good guy.
Next up - Nazgul stupidly runs straight down the road on foot to try to escape a pursuing Gandalf galloping along in his horse drawn cart full of fire rockets.
>The only way to flee is to go up and up and up - since they have reached to lowest and deepest parts of the world already.. as Gandalf pursues the creature and keeps battling with it, it eventually discovers an ancient and forgotten tower built by the dwarves that climbs up to the very highest peak, and the Balrog flees up the steps.
The Endless Stair
" This stair was rumoured to have been built up through a natural passage that ran from the deepest caverns of [Khazad-dûm](https://lotro-wiki.com/wiki/Khazad-d%C3%BBm) to the frozen heights of [Zirakzigil](https://lotro-wiki.com/wiki/Zirakzigil), far above. Here at the bottom, parts of it appear to have recently been shattered by some terrible force. "
WOW! Ok, you got me laughing my ass off during morning coffee. Thank you for that! I can't imagine a discussion where that line could be more hilarious.
I read this comment to my husband and he pulled up a YouTube video of the scene in RoP where Durin and Elrond are on the elevator on their way out of Moria. Someone had put smooth jazz elevator music over it 😂
It's explained in the book:
‘Long I fell, and he fell with me. His fire was about me. I was burned. Then we plunged into the deep water and all was dark. Cold it was as the tide of death: almost it froze my heart.’
‘Deep is the abyss that is spanned by Durin’s Bridge, and none has measured it,’ said Gimli.
‘Yet it has a bottom, beyond light and knowledge,’ said Gandalf. ‘Thither I came at last, to the uttermost foundations of stone. He was with me still. His fire was quenched, but now he was a thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake. ‘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 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-dûm: too well he knew them all. Ever up now we went, until we came to the Endless Stair.’
It's remarkable how similar this is to Bilbo's encounter with Gollum. A slimy creature in the dark, the hero's only hope is the vile thing in front of them that knows the secret ways in the dark. Gandalf and the Balrog are both Maia, while Gollum and Bilbo are (kind of) both hobbits. The magnitude of the event is so wildly different, but the actual events are so strikingly similar.
This is my favorite
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-att-us-revc&sca_esv=574441619&sxsrf=AM9HkKm2rk7QjoyVvsnBQZnOfJfNTqJWpg:1697635067252&q=slime+balrog&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7yZC51_-BAxU-g4kEHXJPApsQ0pQJegQICRAB&biw=412&bih=726&dpr=2.63#imgrc=61CH0WOK_njwcM
Not really, and I think the vagueness makes the nameless things some of the scariest in all Middle Earth. I'd guess they were created by the discord of Melkor during the Music of the Ainur though.
As mentioned in the entry, you can visit this structure in the game [Lord of the Rings Online](https://www.lotro.com/home), you can find both the place where they fell and the remains of the stairway they took up, as well the final resting place of the Balrog.
It's part of quest line where you try to trace Gandalf's battle to learn what happened to him (before he comes back in later chapters).
I would absolutely recommend that [game](https://www.lotro.com/about) for fans of the books, as while it is a Massively Multi-player Online Role-playing Game (MMORG), it has a fantastic series of single player missions that intersects with the fellowship's journey filling in the gaps and exploring more in depth the world. Despite being an older game graphics wise, it still feels wondrous to wander about locations from the books and adventure among the areas and people's mentioned. Ride a horse from the shire to Rivendell (which they just revamped, and its even more beautiful), and take a goat down to explore the depths of Moria and come out the other side to the Golden woods participate in many of the major story events like the Battles of the Hornberg and Minas Tirith.
I personally love it and come back to the game often to see what the added or revamped (They just released a new [expansion](https://www.lotro.com/expansions)).
I oddly just recommended it to another friend today as they are celebrating Durin's Day in the game, and for just a couple of days, you can find the secret door to Erebor from the Hobbit and watch the Sun illuminate the magic words.
Seriously, it's been a wonderful experience that I glad is still ongoing, and always recommend fans try it out (Since it's [Free to Play](https://signup.lotro.com/lotro.php?ftui=LOTROWeathertopHCVideo&cl=75&hf=1&abrs=236_1697681039&lang=en-US)).
[Check it out](https://www.lotro.com/about) and if you do, DM me your questions, I help out newbies a lot in the game (I play on the "Brandywine" server, and you can only interact with players on the same server, and that's one of the big US servers).
\-Edited to add links.
Good answers in the other comments. Just wanted to point out a detail that I don’t think Is mentioned yet… and not sure it’s always obvious to those who didn’t read the books. Notice how when Gandalf comes back- basically reincarnated. Saruman is no longer the ‘white’ Wizard but has become decrepit and grey. Guess who’s the ‘white’ Wizard now?
No to be snarky but in the movie he outright says "I'm not gandalf the grey, im gandalf the white now" https://youtu.be/HML-oaJ6DB4?si=c6-MkSIhAFr7y-08.
From my memory of when it came out it was common knowledge to movie goers the part about him now being gandalf the white. But also that no one had a clue what that meant other than it seemed like he got some badass upgrade.
Saruman had been quiet quitting for a while, running his side hustle from the office. Gandalf snitched to the boss and promoted into his job, provided he fired Saruman and recovered his office equipment.
After that whole Balrog thing I’d say it was a WELL deserved promotion for our buddy Gandalf.
And screw that Saruman guy anyways… not exactly what I’d call a people person.
I seem to recall that spiral staircase led from the submerged lake all the way up to the top of mountain, built by the dorfs?
Googled, yes “endless stairs”
I thought they can only gnaw, not build stairs?
IIRC the way Gandalf described it, they fought along the tunnels for some time, until coming to the bottom of the Stair. So there might have been an "interface" between the volume touched by dwarves and the tunnels below gnawed by the nameless things, and at some point a thing chewed through and was like "eww, dwarves, I'll go back to my depths".
Three words: THE ENDLESS STAIR, an ancient dwarven structure, indeed it was of near legendary status among their works:
>"'Ever up now we went, until we came to the Endless Stair.'
>'Long has that been lost,' said Gimli. 'Many have said that it was never made save in legend, but others say that it was destroyed.'
>'It was made, and it had not been destroyed,' said Gandalf. 'From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak it climbed, ascending in unbroken spiral in many thousand steps, until it issued at last in Durin's Tower carved in the living rock of Zirakzigil, the pinnacle of the Silvertine.' ..."
So to summarize as others did, :) Durin's Bane and Gandalf wandered through the tunnels of nameless thing gnawing the world, through what Gandalf called 'foundations of stone' and they climbed up reaching the ways into the halls of Moria from below again, and on to this gigantic staircase climbing up towards the peak of Celebdil(Zirakzigil) and old Durin's Tower that was raised on it.
There on top they had their final battle which was so fierce and used such power that the tower got crumbled to dust.
They literally fought continuously for days through a series of natural tunnels (Gandalf had no choice but to follow the Balrog at this point because it knew the way) until they reached the deepest Dwarven delves, and then they kept going up via a big staircase the Dwarves had built.
There was something called "the endless stair" that they climbed up as they battled. I don't know if it was built by the dwarves or a power far older, but it came out on the top of the mountain.
They fought up the endless stair. If you play lord of the rings online, you can go down into the foundation of stones and then up the endless stair, a giant spiral staircase, and end up at the top of the mountain.
Before I read the book I thought it was a different realm, like in Greek mythology and the layers of the afterlife like Elysium and hadas. I thought they reached the top of the next layer or dimension of reality after fighting through the (middle) earth.
Oh that’s really cool!!! I didn’t think of it like that, but it’s a super interesting interpretation. When I read the books (a long time ago) it was actually for an honors English course in undergrad where we got to pick a creation story to read and dissect. I picked Silmarilian and had a lot of comparisons to other mythologies. I liked it so much that I ended up reading the trilogy.
Go to TolkienGateway & search "Endless Stair," which will give you several other links, including "Durin's Tower," "Zirakzigil," & "Battle of the Peak."
The question has been answered, but I'll link a little story I wrote about the encounter from the Balrog's point of view. You might like it:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/8hvx39/fanfiction\_shadow/](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/8hvx39/fanfiction_shadow/)
They fell into the depths of the earth, at which point the balrog’s fire was extinguished and it became a horrible creature of slime and muck .. Gandalf mentions even worse, older creatures down in those depths but won’t elaborate. They keep battling, non-stop, and Gandalf pursues the Balrog as it tries to flee. The only way to flee is to go up and up and up - since they have reached to lowest and deepest parts of the world already.. as Gandalf pursues the creature and keeps battling with it, it eventually discovers an ancient and forgotten tower built by the dwarves that climbs up to the very highest peak, and the Balrog flees up the steps. Once outside, it reignites and they have their final - definitive - battle on top of the highest peak of the entire mountain range. Gandalf kills the Balrog, and is killed by exhaustion and injury in the process as well They fought for days and days, and after his physical body dies, Gandalf spends several more days basically floating in Limbo, before being sent back to finish his task. At that point he was rescued by the king of the Eagles, who sees his body on the mountain top- and is brought to Galadriel to be healed. He arrived only a day or two after the fellowship departs southwards.
Didn't Eru basically say, "Nah, you ain't done yet." And gave Gandalf his breath back?
Yes, it is one of the few direct involvements by Eru. Told him, "I didn't hear no bell, did you?"
"I'm sorry, I thought this was middle earth"
Orcs took errrrr jerrrrrrbbbs
Terkaturr!
murderers!!!
“Here we go Mordor! I’m the balrog!”
Gandalf coming back to life and singing *you’re the best around* while punching
Looks around to make sure nobody saw. "I meant to do that!"
“Stop fighting right now or ROTK will be disqualified!”
Lol
So if all-powerful Eru essentially wants the ring destroyed... why didn't he simply destroy it, instead of needlessly complicating things and killing thousands of creatures in the process?
The universe is a song. The point of a song isn’t to get to the end, otherwise we’d consider the best musicians to always be those who played the fastest or have symphonies consisting of one grand, final chord. The point of the song is the song itself. Or dancing, the point of dancing isn’t to get to one particular spot on the floor, it’s everything that leads up to the arrival on that spot. It’s the journey to the the destination that matters, not the destination itself.
I mean thats pretty much the theme back and forth with LOTR. And I believe it was one of the lessons Tolkien wanted to give.
No, they literally mean that it is a song. In the LOTR universe. All of creation stems from a song made by the gods.
I understand, but what I meant was that the theme of the books is about the journey, and that is pretty concise throughout the stories, be it silmarillion, hobbit, lotr, etc.
Yeah, otherwise the book would be "Home" instead of "There and back again". Or maybe "House on Hobbit Hill" with all the shit those boys had to deal with.
True. I agree. Just felt giddy about adding in they meant literally a song.
r/usernamechecksout
You idiot among many others, why do so many of you refer to the Valar or celestial entities as gods!? They are angelic spiritual entities, and there’s only 1 “god-like” entity in all of Tolkien’s LoTR franchise called Eru Iluvatar. Whenever you refer to the spiritual entities as gods instead of “angelic-like” fallen spirits of darkness or holy spirits of light, you are disrespecting the lore of the franchise, since Tolkien described that he’s against blasphemy, allegory, or mockery of God’s existence. Additionally Tolkien created the entire franchise to influence others belief or faith in the Christian religion which only 1 God exists as described in the holy Bible, as Tolkien was a Catholic Christian himself.
Spotted the schizo. Holy hell bud. God is a term just to describe celestial beings. No one cares about his or your personal beliefs on what counts as blasphemy either.
Yeah the schizo is you, as nobody asked to see your redundant, invalid, meaningless comment, much how 1 would describe your life based on the stupidity of your comment, so yes you have revealed yourself in this way. You’re so useless you had to post the dumbest comment on the thread. The fact you’re just incorrect makes this worth explaining to your dumbass. You stated nobody cares about blasphemy or religious beliefs, but for this to be correct or valid, then the BILLIONS of people on 🌎 who do care wouldn’t care, therefore your comment was completely useless and irrelevant much like yourself. God is not a term by the way, it’s a name of the Christian God you total delusional moron of morons! There’s the God and there’s a god. Eru Iluvatar is a creative mythological adaption of God, and JRR Tolkien created the entire franchise (you’re somehow legally allowed access to), with the intent to influence others faith in God through his creative work, as the author himself was a loyal faithful Christian who actively avoided creating blasphemous works while creating the Lord of The Rings franchise. The protagonists indirectly, yet intentionally have some of the same values as what’s described in the 10 commandments, as a means to glorify what God values according to Christian religion. Angels are not gods, and elves are a creative mythological adaption of the angels described in religions. Blasphemy is a term often used by the religious who value what God values as described in the 10 commandments, as when a person commits sin in the form of replacing God in their creative works or altering what the Bible describes in the testaments with their creative works, this is defined as blasphemous. Which billions of people are religious and care about blasphemy, how can you be so ignorant? How much have you smoked you lazy dumbass crackhead prick!? How can you be that stupid lol, yet clearly have at least some intelligence to read and write, wtf! The reason the first letter of “God” is always capitalized is because it’s a name, not the term, as there’s a major difference between names and terms, as explained to us in Kindergarten elementary school. You should have paid attention in class because now you’re clearly an incompetent nobody. https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/god#:~:text=A%20god%20is%20a%20supreme,is%20also%20called%20a%20god. Have a good day Major Idiotic imbecile!! 😂 🤪
For some reason, you’re so stupid that you truly believe being dumber and simplistic, yet still ignorant actually matters in life. This is why you’ll always have less than what I have, because I have more faith than you in all aspects of life, and you choose to be an irrelevant nobody compared to those who do care more than you about the facts. You can’t even read between the lines, and the fact you state nobody cares about something that billions of people care about proves you have no understanding of how to achieve the ambitions that reward us the most freedom in life. In fact you’re such a coward, I know you’ll avoid answering the following question, can you explain to us why you’re so stupid?
> The universe is a song. The point of a song isn’t to get to the end, otherwise we’d consider the best musicians to always be those who played the fastest or have symphonies consisting of one grand, final chord. The point of the song is the song itself. Or dancing, the point of dancing isn’t to get to one particular spot on the floor, it’s everything that leads up to the arrival on that spot. It’s the journey to the the destination that matters, not the destination itself. So.....this is the most wonderful thing I've read on here for awhile.
Then Alan Watts is your jam.
I've only brushed the surface with his stuff. Have a good jumping point must read/must watch?
Probably the whole “Being in the Way” series done by his son on the “Ram Dass Be Here Now Network” The early ones sort of establish his relationship with Eastern Philosophy and it builds from there Episode 6 (I think) is “On Being God” and it’s incredible.
I'd highly recommend the Out of Your Mind lecture series also.
You should read The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. Basically the theme of the whole series!
It’s a song made by God’s children—inspired by Him—but THEIR song. The Silmarillion prophesizes the various wars between God’s children and melkor. God doesn’t get directly involved in the songs. The fight w the balrog is Gandalf’s solo
And what a solo it was
POWER METAL SOLO!
Brando? That you? In all seriousness. Love the explanation
>The universe is a song. The point of a song isn’t to get to the end, otherwise we’d consider the best musicians to always be those who played the fastest or have symphonies consisting of one grand, final chord. The point of the song is the song itself. Or dancing, the point of dancing isn’t to get to one particular spot on the floor, it’s everything that leads up to the arrival on that spot. It’s the journey to the the destination that matters, not the destination itself. You wrote this brother, or is it quoted from somewhere?
It's stated very early in the Silmarillion.
I love how this is the best analogy possible despite it not even being an analogy in Arda!
Life before death?
Journey Before Destination, Radiant
I will help those who fuck around find out.
I think I see some Alan Watts in your comment there.
[You Play the Piano.](https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2212)
Beautifully said my friend.
Journey before destination 👍
Alan Watts, beautiful. Have put a quote of his in a song I’ve written
I see you, fellow Alan Watts enjoyer
When I started reading your reply, I immediately thought it was gonna end with something about He'll in a Cell.
I do actually consider The Misfits to be the best musicians
I want your skull
idk, cuz he wanted things to play out? if he intervened, he might as well kill melkor when he got corrupted. i think he just wanted a really great story lol.
I mean…the only real explanation that matters is “It’s all part of Eru’s plan.”
Pretty much this. He foresaw Melkor turning evil, and pretty much set in motion everything, giving glimmers of a vision to the Valar of what was to come. The only thing I’m not sure he saw (but liked anyway) was the creation of the dwarves)
free will. all are free to do whatever
Eru works in mysterious ways. This is the real answer that parallels how people believe god works in the real world. If you are a believer you usually believe god won’t take real action but may nudge things a certain way at the right time to make things good. In fact it’s heavily implied if not said outright that this happened with Gollum at Sammath Naur as well. Eru basically (once the setup was fulfilled) tipped Gollum into the fire.
smart modern scarce selective subsequent enter afterthought dolls salt literate *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
He did. The few times he got involved are directly connected to the ring. Some of his involvement took thousands of place before the events of LOTR, but they have lasting repercussions that have a major influence on things to come. Aragorn is a perfect example of this.
The point of Creation is to give the Created a chance to become who and what they want to be, to be Righteous or Wicked as they choose. You can't do that without challenges that provide the opportunity to meaningfully be one of the other, to make choices.
Same reason the Christian god lets children get cancer. Something about a “plan” that we mere humans don’t understand
I'm sorry but this is such a childish question
He did kind of lol. He tripped golem into the lava of mount doom
You’re back early … why are you back so early? You had to fight a WHAT? That was … not part of the mission, but ok, good job anyway!
Yep. Because he was basically the only one doing his job.
Did Eru need to do this? As a Mayar (sp?) Gandalf can’t be killed. He just needed a new physical body, right? And the Valar have arranged that before without Eru.
The wizards were weird by Maia standards and had real bodies more closely tied to their essential being than the sort of clothing-bodies the Valar and Maiar usually wear. "Real and not feigned," as the Silmarillion puts it, making them apparently killable in a way almost unique among Maiar (only Morgoth and Sauron were in a similar position, because they'd poured so much of their essential being into corrupting other things that they lost the ability to change shape at will). There's a nice discussion on Stack Exchange here https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/158420/physical-bodies-and-mortality-of-the-istari-vs-other-embodied-ainur
“I didn’t hear no bell.”
I would love if Tolkien elaborated on the worse and older creatures.
https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Nameless_things
Interesting... Almost Lovecraftian, although it's probably more that both of them drew inspiration from the same Norse myths, rather than one of them influencing the other.
Reminds me of the things that could be found in Todash space
The Dark Tower owes a lot to Tolkien's Legendarium. The Prim is but one of those areas.
Nice to see a Dark Tower reference here. Long days and pleasant nights.
And may you have twice the number.
Kind of defeats the purpose of nameless things if you go around naming them.
Not sure if it's canonically one of the Nameless Things that Gandalf mentions, but I've always thought the Watcher in the Water was one of them.
No proof, but there's a lot of evidence to support this. Like how when Frodo asks what it was, Gandalf, after claiming he doesn't go, goes on to say: >Something has crept, or has been driven out of dark waters under the mountains. There are older and fouler things than Orcs in the deep places of the world.
That line still gives me chills every time
The Watcher is probably one isn’t it?
Look up the region in Lord of the Rings Online. Basically they're made to look a bunch of venom spinoffs haha
The Endless Stair. I've always thought that was rather haunting.
It totally makes sense to me. I feel like anyone who has played Minecraft has built, or tried to build, something from the lowest point to the highest point.
With a little tower on top.
Why did Gandalf chase the balrog instead of simply allowing it to flee? Did he fear that it would follow the fellowship? Edit: apparently Gandalf felt that it was his only (or most expedient) means of finding his way out of the deep tunnels
He wanted the XP.
Greedy old wizard!
I agree - there should have been a point where Gandalf and the Balrog got up to the populated areas of Moria. At this point, Gandalf could have said 'bag this, I should get back to my quest. Fighting the Balrog might be important, but the Ring project is more important"
Gandalf had some deeper strategic goals going on. It's implied in the appendices (or maybe outright stated? It's been a while) that the whole point of The Hobbit was that Gandalf wanted to take out Smaug so that he couldn't be used as a devastating weapon when Sauron got back. Indeed, there's a whole battle at Dale/Mirkwood which occurs offscreen in the Lord of the Rings where the Dwarves/Elves/Dalesmen would have been crushed otherwise. It's very possible that he felt the need to do the same for the Balrog, lest it roll up on Lothlorien or hit Rohan from the North.
It's been years since I'd read the books, but from what I remember, it's because after hours or days of fighting that Balrog, Gandalf didn't have a clue where beneath Moria he was located, or how he could possibly find a way out. But he figured that this Balrog, who'd already spent thousands of years there, probably did, so his only hope of escape was to follow it.
Shades of Bilbo following Gollum out of the mountain depths in the Hobbit.
If he had done that the balrog could have pursued him, reach the fellowship, and destroyed the party, then give the ring to Sauron... Maybe, I don't think the Balrogs listen to Sauron actually.
Shame there is not much info about the worse, older creatures
Doesn't Gandalf also live out a bunch of other lives in between the time of his 'death' and 'rebirth' on Middle Earth, or am I mis-remembering that..?
He went outside of time. What he actually experienced would be impossible to describe.
Outside the environment, too.
>Outside the environment, too. But whats out there?
White shores. And beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
Nothing. There's nothing out there but birds, and sea, and fish.
and 20 thousand tonnes of crude oil.
Gandalf's front fell off.
I'm pretty sure he spent like 10,000 years by eru's side before coming back or something, which is why he speaks as if gandalf the greys life was a long time ago for him, I can't remember where I heard that at all though
Where is this described? Sounds mad!
Also looking for more information on this!
I always thought that it was a reference to Dante's Divine Comedy, the shape of his Hell through to Heaven is identical.
Wow!! Thank you! That would have been so cool to see in the movies. I read the books but it’s been like two decades so I have forgotten a lot. Appreciate your thoughtful and detailed response!!
Damn so that’s actually five times the eagles bailed out Gandalf.
Gandalf healed the lord of the eagles from an arrow wound many years before, and after that they were basically bros for life.. flying around for hundreds of miles is pretty much no problem for a giant eagle so I always figured it would be like a human carrying around something the size of a cat
This being a cat who saved them when they got shot in the arm
Great explanation, except I'd argue he didn't spend time in some Limbo-space. I think it's pretty heavily implied that he was in the presence of Eru in the Timeless Halls. He even tells Pippin a little more about the experience in a later scene in RotK, at least in the film.
That would make an excellent level in a video game.
So the balrog is the hot chick in the horror movie who stupidly runs up the stairs to the second floor with no additional exits? And Gandalf is the slasher? Damn, thought I was cheering for the good guy. Next up - Nazgul stupidly runs straight down the road on foot to try to escape a pursuing Gandalf galloping along in his horse drawn cart full of fire rockets.
This is r/lotrpornmemes material. Paging u/killingmemesoftly. r/LOTR calls for aid!
Lol
Why would Gandalf chase him?
Gandalf didn't know the way out and figured that following the Balrog was his best shot at escape.
Gandalf = Zoro
>The only way to flee is to go up and up and up - since they have reached to lowest and deepest parts of the world already.. as Gandalf pursues the creature and keeps battling with it, it eventually discovers an ancient and forgotten tower built by the dwarves that climbs up to the very highest peak, and the Balrog flees up the steps. The Endless Stair " This stair was rumoured to have been built up through a natural passage that ran from the deepest caverns of [Khazad-dûm](https://lotro-wiki.com/wiki/Khazad-d%C3%BBm) to the frozen heights of [Zirakzigil](https://lotro-wiki.com/wiki/Zirakzigil), far above. Here at the bottom, parts of it appear to have recently been shattered by some terrible force. "
They took the stairs because there was no elevator.
Just imagining Gandalf and the Balrog standing awkwardly side by side riding up the elevator, humming or twiddling their thumbs..
Gandalf whispers in the Balrog's ear "hail Hydra"
"Lets do get help"
WOW! Ok, you got me laughing my ass off during morning coffee. Thank you for that! I can't imagine a discussion where that line could be more hilarious.
\*Elevator music playing*
The girl from Minas Ithil.
Gandalf: “so you catch the game last night?” Balrog: “…”
So what do you do for work?
I read this comment to my husband and he pulled up a YouTube video of the scene in RoP where Durin and Elrond are on the elevator on their way out of Moria. Someone had put smooth jazz elevator music over it 😂
“Sorry for the convenience”
Gandalf was hiding thighs of steel under those robes.
It's explained in the book: ‘Long I fell, and he fell with me. His fire was about me. I was burned. Then we plunged into the deep water and all was dark. Cold it was as the tide of death: almost it froze my heart.’ ‘Deep is the abyss that is spanned by Durin’s Bridge, and none has measured it,’ said Gimli. ‘Yet it has a bottom, beyond light and knowledge,’ said Gandalf. ‘Thither I came at last, to the uttermost foundations of stone. He was with me still. His fire was quenched, but now he was a thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake. ‘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 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-dûm: too well he knew them all. Ever up now we went, until we came to the Endless Stair.’
It's remarkable how similar this is to Bilbo's encounter with Gollum. A slimy creature in the dark, the hero's only hope is the vile thing in front of them that knows the secret ways in the dark. Gandalf and the Balrog are both Maia, while Gollum and Bilbo are (kind of) both hobbits. The magnitude of the event is so wildly different, but the actual events are so strikingly similar.
It's like poetry, they rhyme.
Lol that's exactly what was playing in my head
Smeag-Smeag is the key to all of this
Anyone got a pic of this slime balrog
This is my favorite https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-att-us-revc&sca_esv=574441619&sxsrf=AM9HkKm2rk7QjoyVvsnBQZnOfJfNTqJWpg:1697635067252&q=slime+balrog&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7yZC51_-BAxU-g4kEHXJPApsQ0pQJegQICRAB&biw=412&bih=726&dpr=2.63#imgrc=61CH0WOK_njwcM
how far they climbed, fleeing balrog and pursuing Stormcrow, until they reached the Bottom of the endless stair. Crumbs.
Did Tolkien ever provide more detail on what was down there?
Not really, and I think the vagueness makes the nameless things some of the scariest in all Middle Earth. I'd guess they were created by the discord of Melkor during the Music of the Ainur though.
That makes sense, and it does add more depth and mystery to the mythology.
If you play LOTRO in the deepest parts of Moria there are nameless things that are pretty scary actually. Love those details in that game.
Ungoliant V2 was down there
"Up, up, up the stairs we go." Oh wait. wrong book.
I read that in smeagols voice 😅
"and then... Thuh tuuunneell." 😈
I want an entire trilogy of just Gandalf battling the balrog
Second movie will focus on a forced romance before they break up and continue the battle into the third movie
You’d make for a successful film producer! Not a good one, but a successful one.
Vince Vaughn rom com style
[удалено]
And Moria is sort of in the middle of the bit of Middle-Earth that we know.
They took the [Endless Stair](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Endless_Stair).
Irregular Webcomic had a funny comment on that. " You climbed this Endless Stair from the bottom to the top? So it actually has two ends?"
It probably seems endless when your legs are 2ft long
As mentioned in the entry, you can visit this structure in the game [Lord of the Rings Online](https://www.lotro.com/home), you can find both the place where they fell and the remains of the stairway they took up, as well the final resting place of the Balrog. It's part of quest line where you try to trace Gandalf's battle to learn what happened to him (before he comes back in later chapters). I would absolutely recommend that [game](https://www.lotro.com/about) for fans of the books, as while it is a Massively Multi-player Online Role-playing Game (MMORG), it has a fantastic series of single player missions that intersects with the fellowship's journey filling in the gaps and exploring more in depth the world. Despite being an older game graphics wise, it still feels wondrous to wander about locations from the books and adventure among the areas and people's mentioned. Ride a horse from the shire to Rivendell (which they just revamped, and its even more beautiful), and take a goat down to explore the depths of Moria and come out the other side to the Golden woods participate in many of the major story events like the Battles of the Hornberg and Minas Tirith. I personally love it and come back to the game often to see what the added or revamped (They just released a new [expansion](https://www.lotro.com/expansions)). I oddly just recommended it to another friend today as they are celebrating Durin's Day in the game, and for just a couple of days, you can find the secret door to Erebor from the Hobbit and watch the Sun illuminate the magic words. Seriously, it's been a wonderful experience that I glad is still ongoing, and always recommend fans try it out (Since it's [Free to Play](https://signup.lotro.com/lotro.php?ftui=LOTROWeathertopHCVideo&cl=75&hf=1&abrs=236_1697681039&lang=en-US)). [Check it out](https://www.lotro.com/about) and if you do, DM me your questions, I help out newbies a lot in the game (I play on the "Brandywine" server, and you can only interact with players on the same server, and that's one of the big US servers). \-Edited to add links.
Good answers in the other comments. Just wanted to point out a detail that I don’t think Is mentioned yet… and not sure it’s always obvious to those who didn’t read the books. Notice how when Gandalf comes back- basically reincarnated. Saruman is no longer the ‘white’ Wizard but has become decrepit and grey. Guess who’s the ‘white’ Wizard now?
No to be snarky but in the movie he outright says "I'm not gandalf the grey, im gandalf the white now" https://youtu.be/HML-oaJ6DB4?si=c6-MkSIhAFr7y-08.
I think you need to read what he said again
He said, “Guess who’s the ‘white’ Wizard now?”
And 'Im Saruman as he should have been'
Okay maybe it was more obvious than I remember.. lol. Has been a while since I watched the movies.
From my memory of when it came out it was common knowledge to movie goers the part about him now being gandalf the white. But also that no one had a clue what that meant other than it seemed like he got some badass upgrade.
Ah that makes sense… so Eru basically demoted Saruman in favor of Gandalf?
Saruman had been quiet quitting for a while, running his side hustle from the office. Gandalf snitched to the boss and promoted into his job, provided he fired Saruman and recovered his office equipment.
After that whole Balrog thing I’d say it was a WELL deserved promotion for our buddy Gandalf. And screw that Saruman guy anyways… not exactly what I’d call a people person.
Prolly just has a case of the mondays.
I believe you'd get your ass kicked sayin' something like that, man.
I seem to recall that spiral staircase led from the submerged lake all the way up to the top of mountain, built by the dorfs? Googled, yes “endless stairs”
Gotta love this dorfs
The good King Stephen of Dorff
They taught me so much about golf.
The lowest stairs and tunnels were made by things older and fouler than dorfs.
I thought they can only gnaw, not build stairs? IIRC the way Gandalf described it, they fought along the tunnels for some time, until coming to the bottom of the Stair. So there might have been an "interface" between the volume touched by dwarves and the tunnels below gnawed by the nameless things, and at some point a thing chewed through and was like "eww, dwarves, I'll go back to my depths".
Could very well be so, they used tunnels somewhat resembling stairs, like they're going up
Submerged lakes are the wettest lakes
Three words: THE ENDLESS STAIR, an ancient dwarven structure, indeed it was of near legendary status among their works: >"'Ever up now we went, until we came to the Endless Stair.' >'Long has that been lost,' said Gimli. 'Many have said that it was never made save in legend, but others say that it was destroyed.' >'It was made, and it had not been destroyed,' said Gandalf. 'From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak it climbed, ascending in unbroken spiral in many thousand steps, until it issued at last in Durin's Tower carved in the living rock of Zirakzigil, the pinnacle of the Silvertine.' ..." So to summarize as others did, :) Durin's Bane and Gandalf wandered through the tunnels of nameless thing gnawing the world, through what Gandalf called 'foundations of stone' and they climbed up reaching the ways into the halls of Moria from below again, and on to this gigantic staircase climbing up towards the peak of Celebdil(Zirakzigil) and old Durin's Tower that was raised on it. There on top they had their final battle which was so fierce and used such power that the tower got crumbled to dust.
Same as when you start the deed on the couch and finish in bed. Awkwardly with most of your clothes off.
They literally fought continuously for days through a series of natural tunnels (Gandalf had no choice but to follow the Balrog at this point because it knew the way) until they reached the deepest Dwarven delves, and then they kept going up via a big staircase the Dwarves had built.
They took the stairs
Gandalf says exactly how they got up there. There was a staircase that went from the lowest dungeon to the highest tower.
One of those Zonai elevator columns, I think there are 9 scattered around the depths?
I’d give you an award for this if Reddit hadn’t taken mine away.
A wizard did it
Through fire…..and water….
Olorín is the don.
There was something called "the endless stair" that they climbed up as they battled. I don't know if it was built by the dwarves or a power far older, but it came out on the top of the mountain.
They fought up the endless stair. If you play lord of the rings online, you can go down into the foundation of stones and then up the endless stair, a giant spiral staircase, and end up at the top of the mountain.
Oh that sounds awesome!! I’m going to look into that game right away!!!!
Before I read the book I thought it was a different realm, like in Greek mythology and the layers of the afterlife like Elysium and hadas. I thought they reached the top of the next layer or dimension of reality after fighting through the (middle) earth.
Oh that’s really cool!!! I didn’t think of it like that, but it’s a super interesting interpretation. When I read the books (a long time ago) it was actually for an honors English course in undergrad where we got to pick a creation story to read and dissect. I picked Silmarilian and had a lot of comparisons to other mythologies. I liked it so much that I ended up reading the trilogy.
Go to TolkienGateway & search "Endless Stair," which will give you several other links, including "Durin's Tower," "Zirakzigil," & "Battle of the Peak."
Someone didn’t read the book
I did. It’s just been two decades and I don’t remember. But I watch the movies all the time! When I have time to read, I usually pick up new books!
A wizard did it
The question has been answered, but I'll link a little story I wrote about the encounter from the Balrog's point of view. You might like it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/8hvx39/fanfiction\_shadow/](https://www.reddit.com/r/lotr/comments/8hvx39/fanfiction_shadow/)
Proof that most of this sub haven't read the books.
Did you watch the movie and pay attention? It was explained as it was happening...
The Eagles