The Night King vs. The Balrog

[Sharpandpointies]

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 ?

Fall of Gondolin is not canon.

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.

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: It's flatly stated in Tolkien's notes on the matter, and borne up by Lord of the Rings and the final Silmarillion.

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

Fall of Gondolin is not canon.

I'm just going to repeat that for fun, because honestly, I love bringing it up as well - Glorfindel going all Michael Strogoff on a Balrog is a hilariously awesome scene, as is Ecthelion using his giant spiked helmet to impale Gothmog after it busts both his arms.

Buuuut...non-canon. ^_^

Ugh, I missed that in the general sprawl of the posts. Gandalf straight up from the Two Towers describes the fight. We are told what happens. That's not second hand info in good faith, that's "the guy who was one half of that fight narrates what happened for us." The things you are trying to compare are not super comparable. It would require one of the Children themselves who was around at the time noting all the stuff you're talking about. Which, if that's what happens, hey, nevermind me, but otherwise, not the same thing.

The fight is also noted in the appendices in the timeline, and said timeline and vague description dovetails nicely with what Gandalf says (starts January 15, 3019 for those interested). It does not, for example, say 'Gandalf kills the Balrog in an hour-long fight, then takes a breather for a week while making up a great story to tell everyone.' ^_^

...it also notes that Gandalf fought the Balrog -- including stair-running time, presumably without breaks -- for TEN DAYS.

[big_adventure]

To reply to the earlier critique: I'm not arguing against anything Pen says there. I just don't think that it helps in this Rumble. The NK no-sells GoT dragon fire, and that stuff is pretty impressive. Doesn't prep, doesn't shield, just ignores it. This includes the obvious physical aspect to such dragon fire.

He's also pretty fast, and has the ability to chuck dragon-one-shotting spears with pinpoint accuracy over long range. It seems to me that the fight starts, NK puts a spear through Balrog's eye, game over. I could be mistaken - again, the Balrog has pretty limited defined feats. It's possible that it just can't be hurt by the NK.

[The Arbiter]

To reply to the earlier critique: I'm not arguing against anything Pen says there. I just don't think that it helps in this Rumble. The NK no-sells GoT dragon fire, and that stuff is pretty impressive. Doesn't prep, doesn't shield, just ignores it. This includes the obvious physical aspect to such dragon fire.

He's also pretty fast, and has the ability to chuck dragon-one-shotting spears with pinpoint accuracy over long range. It seems to me that the fight starts, NK puts a spear through Balrog's eye, game over. I could be mistaken - again, the Balrog has pretty limited defined feats. It's possible that it just can't be hurt by the NK.

So, just to be clear, you are totally fine with them creating a storm as an unintended side effect of their struggles and the energy they are tossing about?

[big_adventure]

So, just to be clear, you are totally fine with them creating a storm as an unintended side effect of their struggles and the energy they are tossing about?

Eh, they created something that people would have seen as a storm if anyone saw it. What level of disturbance that was is very vague. It ignores whether this is on top of a mountain that often has storms, etc.

I'm speaking in the context of this fight: I don't see that giving it a win against the NK.

[Sharpandpointies]

Eh, they created something that people would have seen as a storm if anyone saw it. What level of disturbance that was is very vague. It ignores whether this is on top of a mountain that often has storms, etc.

Dude, this is seriously coming off as low-balling.

"Those that looked up from afar thought that the mountain was crowned with storm. Thunder they heard, and lightning, they said, smote upon Celebdil, and leaped back broken into tongues of fire."

Emphasis mine.

[Pendaran]

Eh, they created something that people would have seen as a storm if anyone saw it. What level of disturbance that was is very vague. It ignores whether this is on top of a mountain that often has storms, etc.

I'm speaking in the context of this fight: I don't see that giving it a win against the NK.

Beaten to it, but again, you seem to be trying to talk down this sequence whenever you get space to do so. It's not that vague. The text is right there for you. The context of it is clear. "Maybe the mountain often had storms" is verging on magical tiger keep away rock thinking. Nothing supports you trying to whittle away at this performance by saying something like that.

[big_adventure]

OK, to AGAIN try to refocus on the actual rumble at hand:

What about that makes you think that the Balrog can beat the NK? Because it seems to me that the NK's damage is high enough to take it, the NK has better range game and the NK is effectively invulnerable to the Balrog's element of choice AND physically resistant to greater physical force than we see the Balrog dish based on clear-as-day on-screen feats.

So we can argue the semantics of the Balrog's fight with Gandalf. I, above this, absolutely said that your description was better than mine. If you want me to say I was lowballing it - OK, it could easily be interpreted as me lowballing it. I apologize profusely for my lack of clarity. What I was really going for is trying to apply that feat to this fight.

And, going back to the Rumble, nothing that we can even logically INFER about that feat is scratching the Night King's paint, based on his clear, on-screen, not interpreted or described feats. He stands there and ignores intensive dragon fire from dragons that explode stone castles with said fire relatively instantly.

He has a weakness to Valryian steel that the Balrog has absolutely no way to exploit. He may or may not have a similar weakness to obsidian, again, that the Balrog cannot exploit and it's not sure that it's a weakness for the NK anyway. Obviously Superman would paste him: I'm not going for any no-limits silliness. But the Balrog isn't faster, isn't stronger, isn't tougher, has a worse range game... I'm not seeing a win, based on feats we have for Durin's Bane.

[Pendaran]

I don't really care about or have any interest in the fight at hand. My issue here was taking a performance that showed a considerable amount of power involved by any reasonable standard and repeatedly talking about it as though it did not, trying, after this was pointed out on several parts to again do so with things like "well maybe the mountain had a lot of storms". That's not semantics. That's a variety of disingenuous takes on a thing that happened in a pretty clear context.

You want to walk all that back? Hey great.

I had a side interest in a guy trying to do with the Night King what you were trying to do with the Balrog and pointing that out besides (and a side D&D tangent), but that was the extent of it.

[Sharpandpointies]

I will flat-out state I know between jack and squat about the Night-King, having enjoyed interest in neither book nor TV series.

I'm just here for clarity. ^_^

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Fall of Gondolin is not canon.

Missed this, but yea. I know it's not canon, but all the same it's great. Arguably one of my favorites from Tolkien.

Fall of Gondolin is not canon.

I'm just going to repeat that for fun, because honestly, I love bringing it up as well - Glorfindel going all Michael Strogoff on a Balrog is a hilariously awesome scene, as is Ecthelion using his giant spiked helmet to impale Gothmog after it busts both his arms.

Buuuut...non-canon. ^_^

Exactly.

An Elf goes full Dwarf (headbutt !) to murder the Lord of the Balrog by knocking them both into the Fountain of the King. It's almost as fantastic as Pendaran's retelling of how Earendil atop his badass van, used his laser forehead to save the land.

The fight is also noted in the appendices in the timeline, and said timeline and vague description dovetails nicely with what Gandalf says (starts January 15, 3019 for those interested). It does not, for example, say 'Gandalf kills the Balrog in an hour-long fight, then takes a breather for a week while making up a great story to tell everyone.' ^_^

...it also notes that Gandalf fought the Balrog -- including stair-running time, presumably without breaks -- for TEN DAYS.

Yea, the movie fight might have the better visuals (arguable), but in the book it's more of a titanic struggle between evenly matched/stationed peers on different sides of the aisle.

[Pendaran]

It's almost as fantastic as Pendaran's retelling of how Earendil atop his badass van, used his laser forehead to save the land.

Hey.

Hey.

That's absolutely canonically how that happened and anyone who says otherwise is lying ;p

[k von doom]

He's also pretty fast, and has the ability to chuck dragon-one-shotting spears with pinpoint accuracy over long range. It seems to me that the fight starts, NK puts a spear through Balrog's eye, game over. I could be mistaken - again, the Balrog has pretty limited defined feats. It's possible that it just can't be hurt by the NK.

Does the Night King have pinpoint accuracy though? He killed Viserion with one spear throw yes, but how many more spears did he throw to try and kill Drogon (never mind the fact was Dragon was visibly closer than Viserion)? I'd say Euron has greater accuracy as he speared Rhaegal twice, from a moving vessel no less, lol. (This is not a serious post)

[Sharpandpointies]

Missed this, but yea. I know it's not canon, but all the same it's great. Arguably one of my favorites from Tolkien.

Hey, I love it. No question, there.

People HAVE tried to use it as canon, is all, when it's blatantly not. Hence, me popping in here to note.

An Elf goes full Dwarf (headbutt !) to murder the Lord of the Balrog by knocking them both into the Fountain of the King. It's almost as fantastic as Pendaran's retelling of how Earendil atop his badass van, used his laser forehead to save the land.

The Silmaril SDF-1 Main Reflex Cannon is always a fun image, yes.

[big_adventure]

Does the Night King have pinpoint accuracy though? He killed Viserion with one spear throw yes, but how many more spears did he throw to try and kill Drogon (never mind the fact was Dragon was visibly closer than Viserion)? I'd say Euron has greater accuracy as he speared Rhaegal twice, from a moving vessel no less, lol. (This is not a serious post)

It's really too bad that they never made a seventh season of GoT, right? I mean, just leaving it all open and in the air like that. Ballsy.