... he manifested into Balrogs, as Lieutenants in his war on Middle-Earth. They wielded incredible powers of fire, darkness & destruction. On a side note, Sauran is also one of Melkor's Maiar.

Gandalf is a powerful Maiar who was sent to Middle-Earth, but Tolkien leaves his affiliation as a bit of a mystery. There are clues to which Valar he serves though, especially in his famous encounter with the Balrog when he mentions being wielder of the flame of Anor. As the author of the article stated, Anor is elvish for the Sun. In many of Gandalf's magical encounters his staff emits a blindingly bright light. Which Valar brough the Sun into existence, along with all of the other stars in the universe? That would be Varda, Queen of the Valar. Therefore, my theory is that Gandalf is one of Varda's Maiar. So if Gandalf wields the power of the stars, i.e. thermo-nuclear energy, and he states to the Balrog "You cannot ", it isn't a challenge but a straight up fact. His power is usually limited by his Valar when providing assistance to people of Middle-Earth because they do not like to interfere directly in their affairs. However, when the battle is with one of their own its gloves off, and Gandalf isn't one you should pick a fight with.

Thanks for this article! I love that more people are digging deeper into LotRs, especially since we are starting to see back story content in the theaters and streaming media that covers this history (Thanks Amazon!). There is so much more that Tolkien wrote that explains the universe where Middle-Earth resides. All of this content remained unpublished until after his death, when his son took all of his previous writings and stories and had them published under a singular title called The Silmarillion. This book reads like a historical narration, and there are definitive explanations for all that is addressed in this article.

Who (or what) are Gandalf and the Balrog, is a good place to start. Well, Eru Ilúvatar (God in the Tolkien Universe) is the only way to explain that. Before time existed (or anything for that matter), Ilúvatar willed powerful immortal spiritual beings into existence called the Valar. He showed them a theme of creation and tasked them to sing it into existence. He sent the Secret Fire from out of the void to burn at the heart Eä (The Universe) which manifested all matter. The 14 Valar each were responsible for different elements of creation, and they each had their Maiar (immortal spiritual beings of the same order as the Valar but of less degree) who were their servants and helpers in their song of creation.

Melkor (who the elves call Morgoth) was the most powerful of the Valar. From the very beginning, he had his own thoughts on Ilúvatar's theme of creation which diverged with the rest of the Valar, and his song sewed chaos and discord into all the other Valar's works. It is noteworthy that Ilúvatar never stepped in to stop him. This seems to reflect Tolkien's ideas of universal balance... light/dark, growth/decay, chaos/harmony, good/evil, etc. When the song was finished and the Universe created, and Arda (the planet Earth) was formed, Melkor worked with his Maiar to sabotage the wonders of creation on earth. Some of his more powerful Maia