I’m rewatching the The Hobbit Part 2 and Gandalf says don’t enter the Mountain without me.
Now, Gandalf faced down the Balrog, but what would a Maiar on Smaug smackdown be like?
We don’t know. Movie or book version. We can extrapolate from his fight with the balrog that he has a good deal of resistance to scorching, but how much? We just don’t know. We also know that Gandalf possesses one of the three elvish rings of power, the one affiliated with fire. Does this mean he has some or much control of fire? We don’t know.
Yeah, I wondering if the elven ring not only gave him power “to kindle hearts”, but resistance to fire.
This is fanwank, but is Balrog or Dragon’s fire hotter?
Do we know how much of Gandalf’s “white light is force field” in the fight vs. the Balrog was Tolkien’s doing, and how much was Peter Jackson’s?
Were dragons & balrogs on the same level, all else being equal? Obviously a dragon the size of Ancalagon the Black is going to dish out a lot more hurt, but if Smaug is roughly Balrog-sized, would they be equally powerful, or did, say, Balrogs ride Dragons like Nazgul rode those… things?
My reading would be dragons are more powerful than Balrogs, but I could be mistaken.
When discussing beings like Gandalf, one must make a distinction between power and authority, as he’s limited a lot more by the latter than by the former. If he let loose entirely and used the full measure of his being, there are very few entities who could match him… but he doesn’t do that, because he’s not allowed to. Remember, we’re talking about a dude who literally pre-existed the World and took part in its creation.
All that said, he almost certainly would not have had the authority to use anywhere near enough power to defeat Smaug himself. His main role is to inspire, advise, and guide others. His plan for dealing with the dragon, in so far as he had one beyond “play it by ear and give Fate a chance to work”, was to hire a burglar for the expedition. His plan A would have been to recruit a Hero, but he didn’t know where (or even whether) any such could be found in that day and age. So it seems pretty likely that he didn’t anticipate fighting the dragon personally. Rather, he wanted to be there to offer advice, like he’d done for all the rest of the adventure.
We also know (I think) that the elves took off their three rings of power when they perceived what Sauron was up to with his one ring. Was Gandalf actually wearing his ring at this time, while the one ring was lost, and would he have risked using it (if he were allowed)?
What does he say at the bridge of Khazad Dum? “I am a servant of the secret fire, wielder of the flame of Anor.” Is one of those a reference to his ring?
[QUOTE=LOTR Wiki]
Gandalf may be referring here to Narya, the Ring of Fire. He is certainly the “wielder” of that ring, and therefore of that fire, but it seems highly unlikely that Gandalf would want to reveal his ownership of a Ring of Power—a matter of utmost secrecy—to one of his greatest enemies.
[/QUOTE]
The Secret Fire definitely isn’t his Ring: That’s Tolkien’s term for the Holy Spirit. Gandalf is warning the Balrog that he’s literally two steps below God Almighty. The “flame of Anor”, maybe.
See, this relates to my own theory of the Maia’s power (which has been poo’ed on the board)—Sauron was growing his power-so to speak during thousands of ages, while the Istari are limited to what they could learn as “old men” in the Third Age.
Sauron had no limitations on expanding his power, unlike the Istari, Smaug was a tool to use.
The white light force field thingy is Jackson’s visual interpretation of Gandalf’s power. The Elves considered a Balrog to be a more powerful bane than a dragon. “The most powerful Elf bane in Middle Earth save the Lord of Barad-dur himself.” Or something like that.
Had Sauron regained the One Ring all the work of the Three done during the time the One was lost would have been visible to Sauron and undone. Rivendell (Imladris) and Lothlorien were little pockets of beautifully preserved Elvishness that was by the end of the Third Age quite unnatural in the world. If Sauron had the one, those places would have been perverted into Sauron’s kind of uses.
I’ve understood “weilder of the flame of Anor” to be a reference to the ring and the “Secret Fire” to be the Holy Spirit.