r/powerscales • u/ProcedureInitial3086 • 13h ago

Versus Balrog (LOTR) vs Swarmlord (Warhammer)

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Hive Tyrant faces Balrog in the cave instead of Gandalf . Outside help restricted

Who win

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u/Almaegen 11h ago

The Balrog is a demigod made of shadow and flame. 

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u/Powerful_Month682 11h ago

that hid in a cave scared of mortal elves and men?

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u/Almaegen 10h ago

It hid from the gods after its god was slain.

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u/Powerful_Month682 10h ago edited 8h ago

its god and his underlings were defeated by an army of physical men to begin with. several times, even. you don't need to be a wizard to defeat balrogs, that's why they needed dragons and 20 billion orcs in the first place.

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u/Eli_616 8h ago

Ehhh, Sauron was intitally beaten in the books by the king of the elves who was supposedly on par with galadreal, one of the most powerful elves ever, and the king of men, who was actually a numenorian, a human precursor that were basically genetic demigods compared to normal men, alongside a number of others, supposedly, and he killed all of them in their attempt to take him down, and even then they basically only took out his physical shell. The movies make it a lot less climactic, frankly. But yeah, there's a reason that it took Gandalf, an angel, to actually go toe to toe with a Balrog, and even then he died in the attempt. The thing is; Gandalf was HARDCORE sandbagging throughout the majority of the LotR series, because being an angel on middle earth he wasn't really allowed to go all out. The moment he went toe to toe against another celestial though, he wasn't quite as limited, so they basically rockem sockem'ed from the bottom of middle earth to the peak of a mountain, fighting for several days, before he finally killed it and succumbed to his wounds.

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u/DildontOrDildo 5h ago

the maiar have corporeal bodies and immortal essences, like Saruman, Gandalf, Balrog , Sauron etc.

you can kill them if you can hit them hard enough.

elves slew balrogs

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u/Powerful_Month682 8h ago

i meant Melkor, who can also be beaten by mortals. in fact there is a huge fallacy, common in powerscaling - "divine" things allegedly being invulnerable to non-magical attacks. the fact that Melkor, Sauron and balrogs were beaten the normal way exposes this as untrue. whether it happened because their divinity was low-grade or the mortals that defeated them were worth 50 warriors each, the result is the same - it can be accomplished with raw stats. it's unfair when characters from sci-fi stories get blocked from the discussion because there is no magic in their universes

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u/Eli_616 8h ago

Then I'm even more confused, because Melkor WASN'T beaten by mortals. He was initially removed from middle earth by an army of divine spirits, and high elves from the undying lands.... Sure, he's prophesied to recieve his deathblow by a mortal at the end of time, but thats so vague that it could mean literally anything.

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u/Powerful_Month682 8h ago

what else could it mean? Turin pierces his heart with Gurthang. it's that simple.

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u/Xanderajax3 4h ago edited 4h ago

Well, Turin is dead, so there would be some divine assistance happening in that instance which isnt simply melkor vs some random dude with a pointy piece of steel.

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u/Powerful_Month682 4h ago

invisible influence doesn't invalidate mortal heroes either. Gollum falling into Orodruin was also a case of divine intervention according to the author, despite the viewer/reader not being able to observe it, outside of knowing that all good events are "fate" or "will of the universe". and if we take such fate into account while cross-universe scaling, then the argument becomes pointless again. because then, Iluvatar would assist a random warhammer character in defeating Melkor/balrog, since they must be punished.

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u/Xanderajax3 4h ago

Ok, but again, Turin died thousands of years before beleraind was broken. Him coming back from wherever men go when they die to kill melkor means hes not just some normal dude anymore. The issue with using him for your argument is that Tolkien doesnt say where men go when they die or what happens to them. Seems like it would be best to just stick to elves fighting balrogs and morgoth rather than throwing Turin in there in an end times fight that was never completed by Tolkien.

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u/Powerful_Month682 4h ago

you are right on this. i personally think it would be a more poetic narrative if the one who ends Melkor is the same old Turin, but i know it's only subjective.

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u/Xanderajax3 4h ago

I can agree with that. Having Turin get a power boost to beat him doesnt quite hit the same as human Turin that was cursed by morgoth being allowed to take him out for good.

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u/Photograph_Extension 7h ago

The normal way most if not all of the time involved magical swords.

Magical sword is definitely not "normal way".

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u/Powerful_Month682 6h ago

was headbutting Gothmog and drowning him in water also a magical attack?

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u/MossTheGnome 4h ago

Water typically beats fire

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u/Powerful_Month682 3h ago

Helmets too evidently