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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Khisanth the Ancient" data-source="post: 7696801" data-attributes="member: 11368">Yep.True. Morgoth lost power by dissipating it into Arda at large, but Sauron didn't (I believe it says in Morgoth's Ring that Sauron was actually stronger than Morgoth had been at the end of the First Age, since Sauron hadn't diminished himself), so the Balrogs likely didn't either. But they became vulnerable, as you say.(As did Sauron by putting his power into the Ring.)That's what I had thought, but I didn't post that because I couldn't remember for sure whether it was direct divine intervention from Iluvatar or 'merely' Manwe.I wonder what would have happened to Gandalf otherwise? He's still one of the Ainur and wouldn't "leave the world" permanently - that's the Gift/Doom of Men. Maybe he would have stuck around in Valinor as a disembodied spirit (maybe in the Halls of Mandos like the Elvish dead, or in Lorien's gardens of spirits)?Granted.See, I don't think that would have worked. I think they would have been only puppets - even Aule and Melkor couldn't create independent life, and Glaurung and Smaug have personalities.  They don't seem to be 'bits of a hivemind'. I believe one of the HOME books (maybe Morgoth's Ring) has a note of Tolkien's where he considered that idea and rejected it - specifically because they're said to reproduce (one of the LOTR eagles is a descendant of Thorondor).</blockquote>