The fate of slain Balrogs and other spirits

This is a lore account to shed light on the inept states which befell slain spirits, including Sauron and the original Dark Lord Morgoth, and the reasons why.

Summary/TL;DR: spirits slain in the material world risked to end up infirm. Their inherent power would diminish from being long incarnated, from repeated reincarnations, and from being wasted on evil deeds.

Each time slain their concentrated essence or power dispersed. Finally they became impotent: powerless to reassemble, to incarnate, and perhaps even to think - states which in practice were equal to death.

The creation myths tell how before anything else existed there was Eru, the One. The first thing that Eru created were the Ainur, angelic spirits of diverse minds and powers. Eru created Eä, the physical universe, and many Ainur entered into Eä to create its stars and planets (art by enanoakd).

Finally they shaped Arda, that is Earth, for Elves and Men to come. Elves and Men need both soul and body to be complete, but that was not the case for Ainur spirits who created physical bodies at will.

To affect and shape the materia of Eä the Ainur took corporeal shape and hue. For to be incarnate grants them "power over the substance of Arda" (The Silmarillion; III; XXII, art by Alexandra Zhukova).

Therefore the shape of Ainur "comes of their knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself; and they need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being" (Silmarillion; I, art by Marco Bartolini).

While they would often walk unclothed and invisible, when incarnated they could appear as fauna or flora but mostly took humanoid forms. Their shapes were usually fair but could be dreadful in majesty.

This was the case both for the Great among the Ainur who are known as the Valar (which Men often mistaken for gods), and for the rest of that angelic kindred who are known as the Maiar.

The mightiest of all the Ainur was in his origin Melkor, but pride led him into evil and he lost his place among the Valar. Melkor became the first Dark Lord, best known as Morgoth (art by Dymond Starr).

Melkor long contended with the Valar for dominion over Earth but "he was not alone. For of the Maiar many were drawn to his splendour in the days of his greatness, and remained in that allegiance down into his darkness; and others he corrupted afterwards to his service with lies and treacherous gifts" (Silmarillion; II). These were hence sometimes called demons (art by fraeuleinwunder).

"Melkor had corrupted many spirits - some great, as Sauron, or less so, as Balrogs. The least could have been primitive (and much more powerful and perilous) Orcs" (The History of Middle-earth 10; V; VIII). These demons incarnated as Orcs are known as Boldogs (art by Nick Keller).

About the dreaded Boldogs we go on to read (art by Tom Loback):

"Those whose business it was to direct the Orcs often took Orkish shapes, though they were greater and more terrible. Thus it was that the histories speak of Great Orcs or Orc-captains who were not slain, and who reappeared in battle through years far longer than the span of the lives of Men."

Slain incarnated Ainur could return because actual destruction of an incorporeal spirit, what we would usually call "death none can deal to any of the race of the Valar, neither can any, save Eru only, remove them from Eä, the World that is, be they willing or unwilling" (HoME 10; I; II; §1100, art by John Pitre).

Ainur reincarnation is best known from Sauron. He first lost his body in the ruin of the island Númenor near the end of the Second Age;

"But Sauron was not of mortal flesh, and though he was robbed now of that shape in which he had wrought so great an evil, so that he could never again appear fair to the eyes of Men, yet his spirit arose out of the deep and passed as a shadow and a black wind over the sea... to Mordor that was his home. There he took up again his great Ring in Barad-dûr, and dwelt there, dark and silent, until he wrought himself a new guise, an image of malice and hatred made visible;"

– Silmarillion; IV (art by DanikYaroslavTomyn)

The Second Age ended a century later when Sauron was broken in battle against Elendil and Gil-galad. Isildur went over and cut off his finger with the One Ring (Silmarillion; V, art by Denis Gordeev):

"Then Sauron was for that time vanquished, and he forsook his body, and his spirit fled far away and hid in waste places; and he took no visible shape again for many long years."

A millenium into the Third Age he came from the East to Mirkwood. There "he took up his abode in the south of the forest, and slowly he grew and took shape there again; in a dark hill he made his dwelling..."

"After the battle with Gilgalad and Elendil, Sauron took a long while to re-build, longer than he had done after the Downfall of Numenor (I suppose because each building-up used up some of the inherent energy of the spirit, which might be called the 'will' or the effective link between the indestructible mind and being and the realization of its imagination)" (Letter 200).

To create the Ruling Ring in the middle of the Second Age Sauron had let a great part of his power pass into it. This had the unforseen advantage that it kept this part of his power concentrated in the world - whether he possessed the Ring or not - and so ensured his return.

If worn the One Ring enhanced his inherent power but for reincarnation it mattered not if he had the Ring in his posession. Even "if he did not wear it, that power existed and was in 'rapport' with himself: he was not 'diminished'" without it (Letter 131).

So yes, the Dark Lord had a body during The Lord of the Rings. Gollum met Sauron in Mordor, and when Frodo told that Isildur once cut off a finger he got the reply "`Yes, He has only four on the Black Hand, but they are enough,' said Gollum shuddering" (The Two Tower; IV; III, art by Alan Lee).

Note: the line "He can not yet take physical form, but his spirit has lost none of its potency." about Sauron by Saruman in Peter Jackson's film is not from the books.

However the concentrated power had the corresponding weakness that "if the One Ring was actually unmade, annihilated, then its power would be dissolved, Sauron's own being would be diminished to vanishing point, and he would be reduced to a shadow, a mere memory of malicious will" (ibid).

Embodied Ainur spending their power grew "more and more earthbound, unable to return to spirit-state (even demon-form), until released by death (killing), and they would dwindle in force. When released they would, of course, like Sauron, be 'damned': i.e. reduced to impotence, infinitely recessive: still hating but unable more and more to make it effective physically..." (HoME 10; V; VIII, art by Firat Solhan).

If we turn to the far mightier Melkor, or Morgoth, the First Age ended with his defeat to the host of the Valar. His body was mutilated and he was thrust into the Timeless Void (art by Renato Domingos).

For millenia before that point Morgoth spent power to corrupt and control other spirits and living creatures. Even more, in order to take control over the continent he infused his essence into its materia; his "vast power was disseminated. The whole of 'Middle-earth' was Morgoth's Ring..." (HoME 10; V; VII; ii).

"Melkor alone of the Great [Valar] became at last bound to a bodily form; but that was because of the use that he made of this in his purpose to become Lord of the Incarnate, and of the great evils that he did in the visible body. Also he had dissipated his native powers in the control of his agents and servants, so that he became in the end, in himself and without their support, a weakened thing, consumed by hate and unable to restore himself from the state into which he had fallen."

– The Nature of Middle-earth; II; VIII with my bracket (art by Elena Kukanova)

"Even his visible form he could no longer master, so that its hideousness could not any longer be masked, and it showed forth the evil of his mind. So it was also with even some of his greatest servants, as in these later days we see: they became wedded to the forms of their evil deeds, and if these bodies were taken from them or destroyed, they were nullified, until they had rebuilt a semblance of their former habitations, with which they could continue the evil courses in which they had become fixed."

– Ibid (art by Frédéric Bennett)

This had ramifications after his defeat (HoME 10; V; VII; iii, art by SpentaMainyu):

"In any case, in seeking to absorb or rather to infiltrate himself throughout 'matter', what was then left of him was no longer powerful enough to reclothe itself. (It would now remain fixed in the desire to do so: there was no 'repentance' or possibility of it: Melkor had abandoned for ever all 'spiritual' ambitions, and existed almost solely as a desire to possess and dominate matter, and Arda in particular.) At least it could not yet reclothe itself."

"Melkor was not Sauron. We speak of him being 'weakened, shrunken, reduced' but this is in comparison with the great Valar. He had been a being of immense potency and life. The Elves certainly held and taught that fear or 'spirits' may grow of their own life (independently of the body), even as they may be hurt and healed, be diminished and renewed. The dark spirit of Melkor's 'remainder' might be expected, therefore, eventually and after long ages to increase again, even (as some held) to draw back into itself some of its formerly dissipated power. It would do this (even if Sauron could not) because of its relative greatness."

– Ibid (art by Guillem H. Pongiluppi)

Though Melkor had essence left in the world it was too scattered or in lack of sufficient willpower to restore him on Earth at the end of the First Age.

But, for the curious, in a far distance future the essence will finally bring Morgoth back for a last war that will be his real defeat. Then the current Earth will be destroyed and a new Earth will be made free from his corruptive essence (art by John Howe).

Spirits could renew on the condition that "they do not sink below a certain level" (HoME 10; V; VII; Note 11). On this and the final fall of Sauron JRR wrote (art by Angus McBride):

"Thus Sauron was said to have fallen below the point of ever recovering, though he had previously recovered. What is probably meant is that a 'wicked' spirit becomes fixed in a certain desire or ambition, and if it cannot repent then this desire becomes virtually its whole being. But the desire may be wholly beyond the weakness it has fallen to, and it will then be unable to withdraw its attention from the unobtainable desire, even to attend to itself. It will then remain for ever in impotent desire or memory of desire."

This transformation from will and physical agency into something powerless is portrayed twice in the LotR. The first follows the destruction of the Ring:

"And as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent: for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell."

– The Return of the King; VI; IV (art by Ted Nasmith)

The second is Saruman, for the Wizards were Maiar embodied as old men. Saruman met his end in the Shire, being stabbed by his servant Gríma Wormtingue:

"To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing."

– RotK, VI; VIII (art by Joan Wyatt)

On a related note, when Gandalf fought the Balrog in Moria they both fell atop a mountain. It is safe to assume that the Balrog was rendered impotent - but what about Gandalf? All he told in the book about his experience after he was slain was one, figurative line (The Two Towers; III; V, art by John Howe):

"Then darkness took me; and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell."

That and the lettter below seems to me as Tolkien suggested that Gandalf was in a powerless, though not mindless, state. Perhaps he would been able to restore himself if given more time, or his importence was a result of having been incarnated in a single body for two millenia? At any rate he was saved and returned by Eru to take the place of the traitor Saruman (Letter 156):

"Gandalf really 'died', and was changed... Gandalf sacrificed himself, was accepted, and enhanced, and returned.... Of course he remains similar in personality and idiosyncrasy, but both his wisdom and power are much greater."

Some related accounts (art by Jacek Kopalski):

Morgoth's Ring https://imgur.com/gallery/evRdAfA

Did Sauron need the One Ring for victory? https://imgur.com/gallery/hxl0kvh

Gandalf from Grey to White https://imgur.com/gallery/Oi68JW1

Mortals in the Immortal Lands west of the sea https://imgur.com/gallery/C6GSVN7

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Index: character bios https://imgur.com/gallery/axV2mPF

Index: folks, animals, items, etc https://imgur.com/gallery/AQK9pJL