According to a recent Rings of Power leak from Fellowship of Fans, Tolkien readers should expect to see a Balrog at some point in the Amazon show’s first season. In fact, the outlet claims that a Balrog does appear during the battle that is glimpsed very briefly in the first trailer for The Rings of Power.
Most Lord of the Rings fans will probably be happy to hear that there may be Balrogs in The Rings of Power, though it’s worth noting that no one knows for sure how accurate this leak is right now.
If there are Balrogs in The Rings of Power, it’ll be interesting to see how visually similar they end up being to the one seen in director Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring. That film’s depiction of Durin’s Bane has defined how many fans imagine Balrogs in their minds. The Amazon show has the chance to either give them more of what they’ve already seen or offer a new interpretation of the iconic Tolkien monster.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until The Rings of Power’s September premiere to find out which route Amazon has chosen to take with its Balrogs — assuming there actually are any in the series.
The Balrogs were created by Middle-earth’s first Dark Lord, Morgoth. The powerful, demonic entities were among the most powerful of Morgoth’s servants and particularly active throughout the First Age of Middle-earth. They participated in several of Morgoth’s most notable military efforts. They were also major forces to be reckoned with throughout the War of Wrath, the catastrophic conflict that marked the end of the First Age and resulted in Morgoth’s imprisonment and exile.
Most of Morgoth’s Balrogs were said to have been destroyed or defeated by the time the War of Wrath had come to an end. Durin’s Bane is one of the few known to have survived the conflict and is the only Balrog who reemerged after Morgoth’s defeat. Therefore, if The Rings of Power shows a battle scene featuring a Balrog, that means the series will include a sequence set during the First Age of Middle-earth.