The Night King vs. The Balrog

[The Arbiter]

Arena. Live action versions.

Bonus: Book Balrog.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Dark Fire should pretty much avail him, the Flame of Udûn.

EDIT: Also, which book version of Balrogs are we talking about Fall of Gondolin, or the 'retconned' ones. As their power level varied, IIRC. Or are we talking Durin's Bane specifically ?

[The Arbiter]

Dark Fire should pretty much avail him, the Flame of Udûn.

EDIT: Also, which book version of Balrogs are we talking about Fall of Gondolin, or the 'retconned' ones. As their power level varied, IIRC. Or are we talking Durin's Bane specifically ?

.......yes.

Edit: Totally bamboozled tbh. I know very VERY little about anything beyond the main lotr trilogy of books/movies. Feel free to discuss whichever you'd like!

[Pendaran]

Honestly, given Durin's Bane, I don't think there's a lot of mileage in trying to bring up the earliest take on the Balrogs for anything, Tolkien clearly ended up settling on that they were the whole fewer in number corrupted Maiar deal.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Honestly, given Durin's Bane, I don't think there's a lot of mileage in trying to bring up the earliest take on the Balrogs for anything, Tolkien clearly ended up settling on that they were the whole fewer in number corrupted Maiar deal.

That's fair enough, but I love bringing up the Fall of Gondolin whenever I can.

Which, ahem, you should definitely the Silmarilion Arby. It makes absolutely no sense, and will leave you more confused than satisfied; but it's great ... and has things like a crazed werewolf biting off a dude's arm, a dragon being killed by an elf with a laser forehead and crushing mountains, and a giant spider woman slapping the crap out of Melkor so bad he summons his Valkyries (the Balrogs).

[MichaelC]

The books are really vague on the Balrogs, right down to their appearance. I always pictured more of a fallen angel type of creature, with shadows and fire instead of the halo of light angels usually get. But the description is so vague that you can make a case for anything from what I described to the thing in the movies.

[The Dork Knight]

Arena. Live action versions.

Bonus: Book Balrog.

Night King for both, arguably. Certainly movie version.

[Tomzilla]

Night King was basking in Drogon's flames and was strong enough to hurl an icy javelin across a respectable distance. Coupled with his esoteric powers and abilities, I'd say he has the advantage.

[big_adventure]

Movie version:

I don't see the Balrog surviving the death ice javelin any better than a dragon did.

And the fire is going to be totally useless against him, based on what dragon fire does in GoT versus what the Durin's Bane's fire does in LotR.

Book version:

If we are talking Durin's Bane, well, it fought and fell really far and long with Gandalf. There was some lightning flashing about. It died. I guess it's a better showing than the movie version, but, for all that we have that description above, it's not like we have a blow by blow retelling of the scuffle, and it's not like Gandalf has any other physical combat feats to compare to. So... I don't know. The fire should still be totally useless. And I don't know how it's going to handle the NK's javelins. If it can take shots from those, it might well be a very, very long fight, in which we find out the NK's limits.

[Pendaran]

If we are talking Durin's Bane, well, it fought and fell really far and long with Gandalf. There was some lightning flashing about. It died.

That's a remarkably understated way of putting that.

[The Arbiter]

That's a remarkably understated way of putting that.

What's the full story?