Board Thread:Lore/@comment-97.125.181.26-20150621121221/@comment-26360929-20150621151030

That was part of Tolkien's attempt to make them more fearsome, I guess. You have to keep in mind that in the earlier drafts, there were thousands of Balrogs and they were slain by the dozen. Then, Tolkien changed his mind and began reducing their numbers dramatically, along with making them more powerful and harder to kill.