[Zsinj]

I was wondering, why wasn't there any Balrogs or dragons fighting alongside Sauron's dark forces in the final battle of Return of the King? Were all the Balrogs and dragons slain by all the dragonslayers and the forces of light, or what?
Remember,as I said before, I'm not as brushed up on my Middle Earth history as I should be, so if this sounds like a stupid, obvious question then that's the reason why.

[Evil Agent]

It's not stupid at all! :)

I think, if memory serves, that the last living dragon was Smaug. I don't mean to spoilerize The Hobbit, if you haven't read it, but let's just say Smaug didn't make it to the LOTR times.

As for Balrogs, I think it's the same deal. I think the Balrog in Moria was most likely the last one in Middle Earth. After all, they were Morgoth's servants, not Sauron's.

[Zsinj]

Again, thanx for the info! :D
And don't worry, about spoiling the Hobbit for me, I read it quite a while back, in fact it was the second fantasy work I read after I read the LOTR Trilogy. And of course, the Hobbit was awesome and top-notch, as all of Tolkien's works are! :)
I thought Smaug kicked arse by the way! And I absolutely love the scene of him being slain by Bard the Bowman and his Black Arrow. Believe it or not, he's one of my favorite characters in the Hobbit/LOTR Saga.

[Evil Agent]

Yeah, Bard was pretty cool! The black arrow business and the bird or crow or whatever it was, that was great too. I heard rumours that the bird was supposed to be Gandalf, but I don't think this has ever been backed up with proof.

[Eurytus]

I think there were dragons remaining but where, what type and how many is not known. The reason for my belief is that the idea of melting the One Ring is discussed and it is stated that there remain no dragon in which the old fire is hot enough. Or something similar.
Now I took this statement to indicate that there were dragons remaining but not of the magnitude of old.

Also in the Hobbit, Thorin states (when confronted with Thror’s map) that he knows the geography around the Lonely Mtn well enough. He knows the withered heath where the dragons bred.
This would also indicate that there were several at least in existence at this time.

[snake0024]

Didn't it say somewhere that there were more dragons up in Forodwaith (sp?) and in eastern middle earth?

and as for the balrogs, I was under the impression that were more at the bottome of Moria... :rolleyes:

[Tomsk]

The dragons and Balrogs all scarpered after the War of Wrath at the end of the first age, some, like Durin's Bane (did he have another name? Was it even a he?) hid in mountains. I don't think there are any more in Moria.

There could be dragons and Balrogs in the east and south lands, far from the main area of Gondor/ Arnor/ Mordor, but these lands don't come into any of Tolkiens work. The other 2 Istari went east, and could have turned evil like Saruman, so who knows what they found and tried to rule over.

Thats another thing, I don't think many Balrogs would have followed Sauron, they were the same kind of being as him, but much less powerful.

[saintjon]

Yeah that's a good point. I got the impression that balrogs generally liked to hang out in deep dark places myself, so maybe if there weren't anymore in moria there might be in other dank old caves no one had the misfortune to blunder into.

[BeardofPants]

*BoP rushes in late as per usual*

Many Balrogs were more than likely destroyed after the Ainur came along and kicked Morgoth's butt back to kingdom come. The Balrog that came to reside in Moria is speculated to have come over after the war of wrath.

[Mordomin]

*BoP rushes in late as per usual*

Many Balrogs were more than likely destroyed after the Ainur came along and kicked Morgoth's butt back to kingdom come. The Balrog that came to reside in Moria is speculated to have come over after the war of wrath."Many more"? There were only ever, in Tolkien's words "three balrogs, or at most seven". If it was only three, then Gandalf slew the last one in Moria (two others having been destroyed at Gondolin).

What's been overlooked on this thread, IMO, is that dragons and balrogs were not servants of Sauron. So if any of either creature still existed by the time of the last battle, it does not necessarily follow that they would come forth and fight alongside the Dark Lord's army.