Moria bridge and gate

[CAB]

I have to think that this question has been asked before, but I didn't see any old threads about it so…

When the Ring-company was passing through Moria, why in the world didn't the Moria forces place a strong guard by the bridge and/or gate? In another thread, Alcuin recently used a good descriptive word for places such as these - chokepoints. Weren't the bridge and gate essentially perfect chokepoints in this situation? The single narrow bridge (as opposed to several, wider bridges) over the chasm was actually designed to be a chokepoint. (It was intended as a defense against outside attackers, but would have worked equally well against those who would try to escape Moria in a situation such as this.)

The Orcs obviously didn't intend to let the company escape. Frodo was speared and hit by an arrow, Sam was injured, and I believe Gandalf got an arrow through the hat.

So why didn't the Moria force choose to utilize the tremendous advantage they possessed at the bridge and gate and instead made the seemingly very poor decision to set the place on fire and confront the company at an obviously less crucial barrier?

I am hoping someone has a good "story internal" explanation. The story external answer seems pretty obvious.

[CAB]

Just after I posted this question, I came up with what could be a decent answer. Orcs don't appear to be particularly well disciplined. Possibly there were forces stationed at the bridge and gate (more than the pathetic few the company encountered at the gate), but they decided to get in on the "sport" of killing the company, and so, left their posts. Maybe someone has a better explanation?

[Olmer]

They simply did not give a flying pig about Sauron's affairs. For years they were keeping neutrality and were happy with such arrangement.
In my POV at the bridge location Gandalf and Co. encountered the guards permanently stationed over there, and the news about a bloodshed at the chamber of Mazarbul did not reach them yet, so they did not block the bridge. They just wanted the wandering in theirs domain intruders to be gone. That's it.

[Alcuin]

Sauron and The Balrog were independent and not “allies”, certainly not in the sense that Elrond and Galadriel and The Dúnedain were independent but allies. They certainly seemed to have known one another; Haldir told the Company that orcs had recently passed into Moria, presumably from Dol Guldur, “many days” before he met them. No doubt orcs inside Moria obeyed the Balrog; but all the orcs had been sent there by Sauron, and perhaps in that way he discovered the Balrog. (See entry for III 2480 in “Appendix B” of LotR: “…Sauron begins to people Moria with his creatures.”) The Balrog seems to be a little lazy: he isn’t really watching the “back door”, the West Gate: he’s left that to the Watcher in the Water. He really hasn’t placed a strong guard at the Great Gates: the orcs there seem to be rather more prepared to take unwary would-be intruders than to deal with folks trying to exit. They must have missed the morning briefing where the dangerous intruders were discussed; come to think of it, I seriously doubt that there were any morning briefings!

Think about this for a moment. No one entered from the West Gate: everyone came in (or went out) through the Great Gates in Dimrill Dale. There had been two major incursions into or near Moria in the past 350 years, both involving Dwarves. The first was the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, whose penultimate battle was fought in Dimrill Dale: Dain Ironfoot apparently saw the Balrog lurking the in the shadows beyond the Gate, and the rest of the Dwarven host decided to heed his advice and avoid the place. The second was Balin’s misadventure to try to recolonize Moria. In the first instance, the Balrog was ready to attack, but he declined himself to come out into Dimrill Dale, which is interesting in itself; in the second instance, it took the Balrog and the Orcs five long years to root out all the interlopers. I think we can say that

• The Balrog probably did not maintain a hierarchy of command among the orcs. The orcs had their own chieftains and such, but they were not regimented like the Isengarders or Mordor orcs. (Every ruler has his own style, and the Balrog seems to have been somewhat more laid back: for instance, he does not seem to have attempted to expand his realm beyond old Moria, and he spent the better part of two long Ages hiding under the Redhorn.)
• The Balrog probably did not know anything about the Ring. If he had, he should have been a lot more interested in getting hold of Frodo and his companions.
• The Balrog probably wasn’t expecting company. The orcs might have been sent from Dol Guldur to waylay any travelers on the east side of the Redhorn Pass, and that would probably have gotten the monster’s attention, so he was awake and alert; but coming through Moria? That must have been unexpected, at least for him; and it certainly was for everyone in the Company except Gandalf and Aragorn.

I think the Balrog was sloppy. He had some preparations left over from dealing with Balin and the colonists from Erebor; but he did not have a plan for dealing with invaders coming from the West. The Orcs were not “his”, though undoubtedly the ones living in Moria had, at worst, a divided loyalty to him, for what loyalty Orcs had for their masters (more like fear and loathing, I imagine: the Balrog was in proximity, and therefore to be feared – and obeyed). He had probably never dealt with an invasion from the western end of Moria; and it is likely that, whether he put the Watcher in the Water in place or Sauron did, the Watcher had been put there to prevent the colonists from Erebor from getting away, so it was only by ill chance that it noticed the Company trying to get in that way. (It reminds me of “Ed, the Vault Guard” on the old Jack Benny show in the 1940s and ’50s: “Is the war over?” “Yes, Ed, it is.” “What did they do with the Kaiser?” The Watcher was stuck there.) Once the orcs and the Balrog realized they had a problem inside Moria, they responded rather quickly; but strategy was not well-planned, and old defenses (like the fire across the fissure in the floor of the Second Hall) were used instead. Pickets and chokepoints were not well-manned; even if they were, orcs are notoriously ill-disciplined, and a report that the Balrog had been killed, injured, or crushed might well have distracted any pickets set to stop the invaders at the bridge.

Finally, cutting the Company off at the Bridge was exactly what the Balrog was attempting to do. He was very nearly successful. Did he wish he’d left a garrison at the bridge? Probably. But it was simply something he’d never had to deal with before. Did he sense that there was something very serious underway? Undoubtedly: there was another Maia in the group: Gandalf sensed him, and he sensed Gandalf. Did he sense the Ring? Maybe, although I seriously doubt that he realized what was passing though his little tyranny.

Unprepared, unrehearsed, unsuspecting: the whole affair was thrown together on the spur of the moment, and the Balrog was simply responding to an event he had not foreseen.

That’s my position. (Which makes it similar to Olmer’s.)

As for intruders like Aragorn, who said he had entered Moria before, they came through the Great Gates, and as he said, the memory was very evil.

[Noble Elf Lord]

Or then there just weren't any usable passages to the bridge. to Orcs.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Noble Elf Lord

Or then there just weren't any usable passages to the bridge. to Orcs.

Fair enough. They might well have been unable to get the message, “Guard the bridge,” to the proper place and the proper orc-band any faster than the Balrog could get there himself. Of course, that also means that the Balrog either didn’t assign guards to the bridge – CAB’s chokepoint – before he assaulted the Company, or else his instructions were ignored or disobeyed, which was, I imagine, a rather dangerous practice if you were an orc living in Moria.

I wonder how irritated he was to have been buried under the roof of the Chamber of Mazarbul? I can’t imagine that he was in a very good mood when he arrived…

[Valandil]

Or maybe... they were just guarding something ELSE... that they thought the Fellowship had come after.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Valandil

Or maybe... they were just guarding something ELSE... that they thought the Fellowship had come after.

That’s an interesting idea. Do you have anything ELSE in mind?

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

That’s an interesting idea. Do you have anything ELSE in mind?

No - just playing "devil's advocate". I actually thought your explanation was a pretty good one.

I think we could even add to it: they trapped and destroyed the last of the Dwarves there some years before. They probably just thought they'd do it again with this small band. And once the Fellowship got out of the trap, the Moria bunch had to scramble to figure out which way they might have taken.

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

Is it the consensus here that once the dwarves of Durin awoke the Balrog that he remained awake and for all intents and purposes ruled Moria and whatever orcs were there until his destruction by Gandalf?

It has always been my impression that the balrog slept pretty much whenever he could and only rose up to fend off invaders when disturbed. When it was just orcs around, I figured he let them be and manage their own affairs.

So was he awake since driving out Durin's folk? Or did he sleep in-between visits/invasions from the outside?

The reason this matters is because it touches on the question of whether the orcs were in some way regimented under his command or they just did as he commanded out of fear during his brief moments of waking.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by The Dread Pirate Roberts

Is it the consensus here that once the dwarves of Durin awoke the Balrog that he remained awake and for all intents and purposes ruled Moria and whatever orcs were there until his destruction by Gandalf?

It has always been my impression that the balrog slept pretty much whenever he could and only rose up to fend off invaders when disturbed. When it was just orcs around, I figured he let them be and manage their own affairs.

So was he awake since driving out Durin's folk? Or did he sleep in-between visits/invasions from the outside?

The reason this matters is because it touches on the question of whether the orcs were in some way regimented under his command or they just did as he commanded out of fear during his brief moments of waking.

I say yes.

My position at this point must be that the Balrog was lazy: he was not particularly vigorous unless he had to be. When the Dwarves first released him at the end of the second millennium of the Third Age, he seems to have been enraged, slew his enemies, and took the domain for himself; but even that might have been a necessity: the Dwarves did not know there was a balrog (with a little “b”) in Moria, and his extermination was so complete, no one else – like the White Council or his ancient enemies, the Elves – ever came to investigate and kill him. Later, he wouldn’t come out in the sunlight in Dimrill Dale; and he took an awfully long time to discover and expel Balin and his followers: the orcs must have known about them almost immediately.

Most of the orcs had originally come from Sauron: that we know from Appendix B. We also know from Haldir’s conversation with Frodo that orcs had recently passed up the Silverlode, headed toward Dimrill Dale and Moria: these, too, must have moved at the behest of Sauron. So I assert that the orcs were under Sauron’s control, at least until they entered Moria and had to deal with the resident tyrant. In addition to this, Saruman had posted orcs in Moria, because runners took the news of the fight at the bridge to Isengard before it reached Sauron in Mordor, according to Tolkien’s notes cited in Reader’s Companion. So the Balrog does not seem to have controlled all the orcs in his domain; moreover, they seem to have come and gone without his permission; and they certainly appear to have given their allegiance to other Powers.

That said, his response to the incursion of the Company was relatively quick: they were only there for about three days, they entered from the back door, and they were almost out when he found them.

So yes: I am in complete agreement with you, DPR.

[Gordis]

I agree with both of you, DPR and Alcuin.
The Balrog was a lazy one. When he arose in wrath and exterminated the Dwarves in Moria back in TA 1980 there was a great panic in Lorien - even Nimrodel's and Amroth's flight was caused by this fear. Yet the Balrog made no assault on Lorien, neither then nor later. I guess Sauron may have asked him to, but the Balrog refused.
Why bother?

Same with the Moria orcs. It was Sauron who was obsessed with ordering things around him: he even gave a personal number to every single orc in his army and kept the associated dossier, I guess. Add to this the strictest chain of command.

The Balrog, in contrast, may have yelled an order to the orcs now and then, crushed them when they were underfoot, but apart from that paid the vermin little heed. Even when they got the sound trashing from the Dwarves in the Dimrill Dale, he never came to the rescue.
When there was a serious problem in Moria itself, he dealt with it personally, again not relying on the orcs.

[Attalus]

I suspect that the Balrog regarded Sauron as an equal, just another rebel Maiar, and not someone he/she took orders from.

[Gordis]

It might indeed have been a she-Balrog with an old grudge against both Olorin and Sauron.

That's why she attacked Gandalf straight away, without exchanging some preliminary insults as males usually do.

And Sauron had likely hurt her tender feelings back in Angband, preferring Turingwethil....

[Noble Elf Lord]

Poor thing.

[Olmer]

Originally Posted by Attalus

I suspect that the Balrog regarded Sauron as an equal, just another rebel Maiar, and not someone he/she took orders from.

I think Attalusand DPR were right. Why everybody is so fast to accept an assumption that Barlog is in some kind of league with Sauron, or he is keeping orcs under his control? Give me a quote to prove it.
Barlog was not lazy. He just did not give a damn. In a whole time since he has been awakened, he clearly shows his neutrality through the whole history of events, has never ventured into any actions, never helped to anyone. He is, like a dark prototype of Tom Bombadil, took Moria as a place of his dwelling, played host for everybody, who is seeking a refuge, but taking nobody's side. And of course, he did not want to share his domain with anyone powerful, and especially with Sau. This is why Sau can't use Moria's tunnels for his military plans, otherwise Elrond's living wouldn't be so peaceful and cozy.

[Varnafindë]

Wasn't he (or she ) dozing again, until Pippin woke him up by that stone he dropped down the well?

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

Originally Posted by Varnafindë

Wasn't he (or she ) dozing again, until Pippin woke him up by that stone he dropped down the well?

That's what I've often thought. Or perhaps it was a combination of the stone drop and the presence of the rings and Gandalf that disturbed him.

[Butterbeer]

So..in summary.

Lazy, slothful, slack, proud, stubborn, a self-centred she-Balrog, with potential history of love interests / issues...

Liked a sleep, Had all his Best Orcs guarding his fiery teddy bear in an inner chamber... exceptional hearing..could hear a rock drop from miles away.. perhaps explaining her insomnia??

Hmmm.

Sounds like an Adolescent Balrog...

EMO Balrogs?

[Mari]

Or no one ever expected intruders to be able to escape the notion of the swarms of Orcs wandering the place and thus didn't have people stand guard at the bridge.
The whole organization seemed a bit haphazard to me.