Durin's Bane

Durin's Bane was a Balrog of Morgoth that had fled the destruction of the War of Wrath to hide deep below the Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm.
Although its true name and particular history are unknown, this Balrog eventually became an important figure during the War of the Ring after being awakened by the Dwarves of Khazad-dûm and was named based on the slaying of Durin VI in TA 1980. It was not until the Fellowship of the Ring had passed through Moria and inadvertently reawakened the Balrog that it was finally slain in a great duel with the wizard Gandalf.
== Biography ==
=== Years of the Trees & the First Age ===
Durin's Bane was one of the Maiar spirits that existed before the world was created (of the same race as Gandalf and Saruman), who descended into Arda with the Valar. It was eventually seduced and corrupted by Melkor, becoming one of the Valaraukar and joining with the other Balrogs in Morgoth's service. The Balrog likely fought in many battles of the War of the Great Jewels, up to and including the War of Wrath. It somehow managed to survive Morgoth's defeat, fleeing east and taking refuge beneath the Misty Mountains.
=== Third Age ===
For more than five thousand years, the Balrog lay dormant at the roots of the Misty Mountains beneath the Dwarven kingdom of Khazad-dûm. It remained undisturbed throughout the Second Age and most of the Third Age, until the Dwarves awoke it in TA 1980 when they mined too deeply and too greedily in their search for mithril. It slew Durin VI that year, and his son Náin I attempted to destroy it a year later in TA 1981. He was also slain by the Balrog, after this the Dwarves of Durin's Folk abandoned their ancient home.
In TA 2799 after the Battle of Azanulbizar, Thráin II wished to re-enter Moria, but was stopped by Dáin Ironfoot, who alone had reached the threshold and saw the waiting Balrog.
In January of TA 3019, the Fellowship of the Ring traveled through Moria on their way to Mordor. There, they were attacked in the Chamber of Mazarbul by Orcs. The Fellowship fled through a side door, but when Gandalf, who was also a Maia, tried to place a "shutting spell" on the door to block the pursuit behind them, the Balrog entered the chamber on the other side and cast a counterspell. Gandalf spoke a word of command to stay the door, but the door shattered and the chamber collapsed.
The company fled with Gandalf, but the Orcs and the Balrog, taking a different route, caught up with them at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. At the Bridge, Legolas instantly recognized it as a Balrog, and Gimli recognized it as Durin's Bane. Gandalf, the only one capable of battling it, then commanded the rest of the Fellowship to flee across the bridge, where he then stood, blocking the Balrog's way. The demon's flames then seemed to die, but its shadow increased before attacking with its flaming sword, which melted into red-hot liquid metal when it met Gandalf's own sword, Glamdring. The Balrog then leapt onto the bridge, brandishing its whip, and in response Gandalf smote the Bridge before him with his staff. The staff broke asunder, a blinding sheet of white flame springing up, and the bridge cracked at the feet of the Balrog, who fell forward into the abyss. But as the Balrog fell, it lashed out with its whip, catching Gandalf and dragging him over the edge and into the darkness below.The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Ch. V: "The Bridge of Khazad-dûm"
After a long fall, the two crashed into a great subterranean lake, which Gandalf later said was as cold as the tide of death and almost froze his heart. The water quenched the Balrog's fire, reducing it to "a thing of slime, stronger than a strangling snake". Despite this relatively weak state, Durin's Bane renewed its attack on the wizard, and the two fought in the water, with the Balrog clutching at Gandalf to strangle him, and Gandalf hewing the Balrog with his sword, until finally the Balrog fled into ancient tunnels delved by nameless things. There, Gandalf pursued the creature up the Endless Stair and onto Durin's Tower, where Gandalf finally prevailed in the Battle of the Peak and slew the Balrog, casting it down from the peak of Zirakzigil and sending it crashing onto the mountain side.
The ultimate fate of Durin's Bane is not known, as only its physical form died, as with all Maiar when they were "killed," but what happened to the spirit of the Balrog was not revealed. It is also unknown if it was the last of its kind, or if there were other Balrogs who managed to escape the War of Wrath and remained hidden in long forgotten places.The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter V: "The White Rider"
== In adaptations ==
===Peter Jackson's film trilogy===
====The Fellowship of the Ring====
The Balrog is portrayed in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy as a giant, black creature covered in flame. Though J.R.R. Tolkien described it as being taller than a man, but not huge, Durin's Bane in the film is at least twenty feet tall. Rather than having a voice of any kind, its roar sounds similar to an erupting volcano, the vaporous presence of heat emanating as its breath. (This roar was simulated by pulling a cinder block across a plywood board, and then digitally shifting the pitch of the resulting sound.) Unlike previous adaptations, the goblins are terrified of the Balrog, and flee as it comes closer to the Fellowship. Its weapons, rather than physical in nature, are completely comprised of flame, taking the form of a sword first and a whip second. Its own flames are its key weapon of choice against Gandalf. Their duel progresses closely to how it does in the book: Gandalf shatters the Balrog's fiery sword (using a magical shield formed around himself in conjunction with Glamdring), and then strikes the bridge of Khazad-dûm, breaking it in half, and causing the Balrog to fall into the abyss. As the Balrog falls, its whip latches onto Gandalf's legs and drags him off of the bridge.
Aside from this, the Balrog had been briefly seen in a book owned by Saruman, beforehand, as the latter taunted Gandalf telepathically of the choice of the Fellowship taking the route of Moria, implying that Saruman was aware that it had awoken and brought woe to the Dwarves there.
====The Two Towers====
The Balrog appears in a few flashbacks in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The first shows the events following Gandalf's plunge into the abyss of Khazad-dûm: Gandalf hurtles down the chasm after the Balrog, recovering his sword Glamdring in mid-air and catching up to the Balrog. He and the Balrog attempt to kill each other as they continue to fall down the abyss, with Gandalf managing to land several blows on the Balrog while it makes constant attempts to strike at Gandalf with its fists and claws. They fall for a few minutes, until they at last crash violently into the subterranean lake, temporarily extinguishing the Balrog's flames. 
The second flashback shows Gandalf and the Balrog now dueling atop Mount Zirakzigil during a great storm, in which Gandalf manages to imbue his sword with electricity from a lightning strike and stabs the Balrog through the heart, mortally wounding it and causing it to fall from the peak and crash onto the mountain side, its flames extinguished. 
===Ralph Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings ===
The Balrog appears in Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings. It appears as a large humanoid with a lion's head and wings. Gandalf is the only one that seems to recognize it, and it does not appear until the Fellowship reaches the Bridge of Khazad-dûm.
===Video games===
In The Battle for Middle-earth and its sequel, Durin's Bane can be summoned for 25 spell power by the Goblins and Mordor factions.
In The Lord of the Rings Online, Durin's Bane appears during two Session Play encounters. A vision of him is also the boss of the Ost Dunhoth raid.
In The Lord of the Rings: Conquest Durin's Bane is resurrected by Sauron in Khazad-dûm; during the fourth mission of the evil campaign. As a boss-fight, the player gets the chance to play as Durin's Bane to kill Gimli.
In LEGO The Lord of the Rings: The Video Game Durin's Bane is shown in a cutscene during the Bridge Khazad-dûm fight. After the cutscene the players fight the Balrog as Gandalf while they tumble down the chasm. Later during the The Two Towers act, in the Taming of Sméagol mission, the players fight the Balrog on top of Mount Zirakzigil as a boss.
The Balrog of Moria appears in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I, during the confrontation on the bridge in Moria; attempts to fight him end in the player's demise, and only the collapse of the bridge can stop him. However, he can also be encountered earlier, if the player ventures into the Seventh Deep, the deepest, hidden section of Moria. There, the Fellowship can fight him, and succeed, resulting in temporarily driving him off.
A parody of the Balrog of Moria, "the balhog", appears in the adventure game Bored of the Rings, inspired by but not directly based on the "ballhog" from the parody book Bored of the Rings.
===The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power===
Durin's Bane appears very briefly in the seventh episode of The Rings of Power Season One, when Durin III lets a leaf given him by the Elves fall into a deep abyss newly discovered in the search for mithril. The leaf seems to awaken the Balrog, who roars ferociously.The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Season One, Ep. 7: "The Eye"
==Gallery==
File:Durinsbane.png|Durin's Bane
File:Gandalf vs. Durin's Bane.jpg|Gandalf vs. Durin's Bane
File:Durin's Bane.jpg|The terror of Moria
File:Balrog 8.jpg
File:How-to-draw-balrog,-lord-of-the-rings,-balrog-tutorial-drawing.jpg|Artist Drawing of Durin's Bane
File:Gandalf vs mutant balrog.jpg|Gandalf fighting "a thing of slime" in Ralph Bakshi film (1978)
File:Balroggg.jpg|Durin's Bane from The Battle for Middle-earth
File:Lego lotr balrog and gandalf.PNG|LEGO Durin's Bane
File:The Nameless Fear (Durin's Bane) - LOTR The Card Game.JPG|The Nameless Fear (Durin's Bane) in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Khazad-dûm expansion
File:Durin's Bane - LOTR The Card Game.JPG|Durin's Bane in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, Shadow and Flame adventure pack
File:Durin's Bane (2) - LOTR The Card Game.JPG|Durin's Bane in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, The Road Darkens expansion'
File:113358-j-r-r-tolkien-s-the-lord-of-the-rings-vol-i-amiga-front-cover.jpg|The Balrog of Moria, portrayed on the cover of the game "J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I".
==Translations==
Foreign Language 	Translated name
Afrikaans 	Durin se vloek
Albanian 	Mallkim ve Durinit
Armenian 	Դւրին ի Կործանում
Azerbaijani 	Durinın zəhrimar
Basque 	Durins madarikazio
Belarusian Cyrillic 	Дарына атрута
Bengali 	দুরুনের মরুতুল্য
Bulgarian Cyrillic 	Проклятието на Дурин
Catalan 	La Fatalitat de Durin
Cebuano 	Durin ni dangan
Croatian 	Propast Durinova
Czech 	Durinova Zhouba
Danish 	Durins bane
Dutch 	Durins vloek
Esperanto 	Plagon de Durino
Estonian 	Durini Hukk
Finnish 	Durinin turma
French 	Fléau de Durin
Galician 	Ruína de Durin
Georgian 	დურინის წყევლა
German 	Durins Fluch
Greek 	Ο όλεθρος του Ντούριν
Hebrew 	קללת דורין (Durin's Bane)
להבת אודון (Flame of Udún)
Hindi 	ड्यूरिन का अभिशाप
Hungarian 	Durin Veszte
Icelandic 	Baninn af Durin
Indonesian 	Kutukan Durin
Italian 	Flagello di Durin
Japanese 	ドゥリンの禍
Kannada 	ಡರಿನಸ್ ಬನೆ
Lithuanian 	Durino pražūtis
Malagasy 	Durin ny zava-doza
Malaysian 	Kutukan Durin ini ?
Marathi 	ड्यूरिनचा विष
Persian 	قاتل دورین
Polish 	Zguba Durina
Portuguese (Brazil) 	Ruína de Durin
Portugese (Portugal) 	Miséria de Durin
Punjabi 	ਡੁਰਿਨ ਬੈਨ
Romanian 	nenorocire lui Durin
Russian 	Погибель Дурина
Somalian 	Durin ee baanaha
Spanish (Spain and Latin America)	Daño de Durin
Turkish 	Durin'in Felaketi
Swedish 	Durins bane
Tamil 	டரின் இன் பேன்
Telugu 	డ్యూరిన్ బానే
Yiddish 	דורין ס סאַם
==References==
Category:Balrogs
Category:Servants of Morgoth
Category:Minor characters (The Lord of the Rings)
Category:The Fellowship of the Ring (film) characters
Category:The Two Towers (film) characters
Category:Deaths in battle
de:Durins Fluch
es:Daño de Durin
fr:Fléau de Durin
he:קללת דורין
it:Flagello di Durin
pl:Zguba Durina
pt-br:A Ruína de Durin
ru:Проклятье Дурина
tr:Durin'in Felaketi