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Thursday, August 18, 2011

Balrog Cthulhu: The Mountains of Madness in Middle Earth

Balrog

Yep, I'm still on a Tolkien jag.  This Lovecraftian bit is from The Two Towers when Gandalf is explaining to Aragorn, et. al., what he did over Christmas Vacation:

"Thither I came at last to the uttermost foundations of stone.  [the Balrog] was with me still.  His fire was quenched but now he was a thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake.  We fought under the living earth, where time is not counted.  Ever he clutched me, and ever I hewed him till at last he fled into dark tunnels.  They were not hewed by Durin's folk, Gimli son of Gloin.  Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.  Even Sauron knows them not.  They are older than he.  Now I have walked there but I will bring no report to darken the light of day."

Cthulhu
Sure, JRR never mentions any tentacles, but c'mon!

4 comments:

  1. Never mentions tentacles? Are you sure? I missed the slime reference when I read LotR, so this actually raises the question: are the Watcher and the Balrog one and the same? Or, at least, the same kind of creature?

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  2. Holy crap that's right! I was thinking maybe Tolkien mistook the Balrog's tentacles for a "whip of many thongs"

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  3. Woah! That's actually quite amazing! :D Haven't thought of it this way!

    ___
    call Sri Lanka

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  4. Word. Lovecraft's spirit lives in phrases like "the world is gnawed by nameless things"

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