Gandalf question. Huzaah!

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1

I read The Hobbit about two years ago, followed by Lord of the Rings. I haven’t read any of the supplemental material based on the earth that these books portray, and I have a question that might be answered within those stories…

Does Gandalf view the mortal bodies on Middle Earth (orcs, men, elves, dwarves, etc.) in a “Watcher”-like perspective during Lord of the Rings?
He seems passive at times when he could be more devastatingly aggressive, like he’s trying to determine whether a world where the nurturing bipeds are divided is worth aiding?

How mystical is he, anyway? Do I need to read up on this?

2

Yes, you need to read up on this. I think Gandalf seems extremely devoted to saving Middle Earth. He’s probably the one person who worked the hardest to stop Sauron, labouring nonstop for a thousand years to do so.

How “mystical” is he? I don’t really know what you mean, but he’s a maia, which is basically a demigod. How’s that for mystical?

3

IIRC, Gandalf is indeed some sort of entity just a step below a god. The Valar, who are the “men” who left in the First Age, established these wizards who were just below them in power, and the Valar themselves are indeed the gods.

I think the purpose of the wizards was to watch over the land as a sort of guardian, but it was imperative that they not directly take over, or succumb to the temptations of the flesh. I think the Forgotten Tales mentions this, the story of Gandalf’s brother wizard Radagast the Brown who is labelled “Radagast the Fool” and other such derogative names for having given himself over to the temptations of Men.

Those more conversant with Tolkien’s mythos will surely come along to place their addendums to this, but that’s the nuts and bolts of it. Gandalf had to keep his distance from the temporal powers of Middle-Earth lest he be corrupted by them and allow his power to decay. He’s a little more proactive than the “watcher” of the WOT books, Ishamael/Moridin, but shares the same limitation that he is aware of the greater picture and knows his own place amongst the world’s narrative is restricted.

4

He did such a good job of resisting a lot of temptations of the flesh, I guess we can overlook that little nicotine addiction . . .

5

Gandalf was a Maia (as were all the Wizards) sent to Middle-Earth by the Valar to inspire the Free Peoples to defeat Sauron. All of the Wizards were forbidden to directly intervene (thus the appearance of passivity and weakness), but were charged instead with advisory and inspirational goals. Saruman’s abandonment of these limits was his downfall, as the Valar then abandoned him, giving his former rank to Gandalf after the latter’s rebirth as the White. The Valar also rebuffed his desire to return to the Undying Lands through dissipating his spirit after his murder by Wormtongue.

6

Yep,

To be fair, though, Radagast was more centered around the birds and animals than men, and the Lost Tales version is not exactly official, IIRC. Two other Wizards, the Blue Istari, went east to weaken Sauron from the inside, and were not heard from in LotR. But perhaps they succeeded, anyway. Sauron theorectically had vast troop reserves in the ewast but we never saw them, and mayhap he could not draw upon them because of the Blue Wizard’s work…

7

Remember that the Maiar who became the wizards actually took on human bodies, and were subject to all the limitations of said bodies; hunger, thirst, fatigue, loneliness, etc. Their powers were limited, they were even constrained from using the powers they did still have unless certain conditions were met. Their memories were reduced. They were distractable, temptable, seduceable. (I don’t want to dwell on that last imagery real long)

This made them different from before. Previously, acting as Maiar they could assume bodies willy-nilly and change them like changing clothes. Now in many ways they were what they seemed to be: Human plus something more.

Gandalf literally died in his body as Gandalf the Grey. His spirit fled back to Mandos (I assume) but from there he was basically sent back on his original mission, just with a new body, more of his innate powers, and permission to use more of his powers at need. But he was still constrained to some extent.

But from the beginning, Gandalf was never meant to meet Sauron’s force with force of his own. His mission was to inspire the peoples of Middle-Earth to oppose Sauron. His great success was not so much assisting in the destruction of the ring, but in continually opposing Sauron, and stirring the hearts of others to oppose Sauron, even when such opposition seemed hopeless.

8

I have no idea who or what Valor or Mandos is. Are they true gods or something?

So Gandalf is a dove-tailing diplomat. I thought so. I remember a part in The Hobbit when he was tossing differently colored fireballs from a tree, defending his troop from wolves. It made me wonder why he never did so in LotR. I think that his reservation is a fantastic character quality.

9

I love being asked to summarize the Ainulindalë!

In the beginning, Eru Iluvatar sang the concept of the world into being. He was joined in this by the Ainur, his spirit servants. A number of the higher Ainur, the Valar, sang significant parts in the composition. One Vala, Melkor, grew jealous of sharing the beautiful thought of the world, and coveted it for himself, marring the Music as he did so. Eru sang a countertheme to repair the wounding of the world, shutting Melkor out of the Music.

There were three themes to the Music, and the Ainur helped with two of them, but Eru sang the last alone, and the Ainur were ignorant of the shape of that theme.

Then Eru spoke the words of Creation and the Music was made physical, and Arda, the world, was made. The Valar who played major parts in the Music entered Arda as guardians, followed by lesser spirits called Maiar. Melkor, as well, stole into Arda so that he could make his covetous thoughts real as well.

There were 14 Valar, 7 male and 7 female. The greatest were Manwë, and his mate Varda. The others were Ulmo, lord of the oceans, who has no mate; Nienna, Lady of Tears, who also dwells alone; Aulë the Smith and his mate Yavanna, protectress of Nature; Oromë of the Hunt and his mate Vána the Ever-Young; Mandos, Lord of the Dead, and his mate Vairë the Weaver; Lórien, Lord of Dreams, and his mate Estë, the Gentle; and the Warrior, Tulkas and his mate Nessa. Melkor, later known as Morgoth (“Black Enemy”), was once counted among the Valar, but was cut off from their company before the World was made.

10

Short answer: Eru (God) made the Ainur (the holy ones). Then the Ainur at Eru’s direction made the world. Some of the Ainur were naughty, and didn’t follow Eru’s blueprints for the world. Many Ainur then went into the world to help realize its actual creation (or screw with it). The mightiest Ainur who entered the world are called the Valar. Mandos is one of them. So was Morgoth, Sauron’s original boss. The lesser Ainur who entered into the world are the Maiar. Gandalf, Saruman, the Balrog, and Sauron are also Maiar.

Elves and Men are the Children of Eru. When Eru saw that things were getting mucked up in the making of the world, he threw them into the plans. How that will work out remains to be seen.

11

More than that. He wandered outside of Time and Space, whereas the Halls of Mandos are still within Time and Space.

An important point to realize about Gandalf: He was not by far the most powerful of the Maiar (that was probably Sauron), but he was the wisest. He knew that if he tried to go toe to toe with Sauron, he’d get a royal smackdown. Sauron was a great deal more powerful than the Balrog, and even there, Gandalf needed direct divine intervention. But he was easily wise enough to know that Sauron would give him a smackdown, and to avoid a direct confrontation. That’s why he’s always guiding, advising, and inspiring the other folks of Middle Earth, because that’s where his great strength lay.

12

Not necessarily. Although many people find the background stories of Middle-earth interesting, they were published after The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which were meant to be enjoyed and appreciated on their own. In fact, most of the material on Middle-earth (Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, History of Middle-Earth) consists of unfinished or abandoned works compiled and edited by JRRT’s son Christopher, and often contradicts itself. IMHO, only the books published during JRRT’s lifetime are “canon”.

Even so, the continuity between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is imperfect. The depictions of Wizards, Elves and Dwarves are noticeably different, generally being less serious and mystical. (Initially, Gollum was also a far different character than we now know him. His encounter with Bilbo in The Hobbit was drastically revised between the first and second editions to bring it in line with LotR.)

Partly this is because Tolkien conceived The Hobbit as a stand-alone children’s tale with no formal relation to his “legendarium”, a mythical history of the west – although some names and concepts from the latter found their way into the former. LotR began as a sequel to TH but grew into something else as the “mythology” of Middle-earth began to assert itself into the story so that in the end it became a “sequel” to the untold tale.

Within LotR, which Frodo writes is history “as seen by the Little People”, Gandalf and the other powerful beings are meant to be enigmas. None of the Hobbits fully understand his nature. Only fairly late in the tale, transformed by an encounter with the palantir, does it even occur to Pippin to wonder who or what Gandalf is, and these questions are never answered in the main narrative portion of the text. (Two paragraphs in Appendix B, under the heading “The Third Age”, give us a few vague morsels about “the Istari”.*) The focus throughout is on Frodo, Sam and the rest of the little people (okay, and some tall guys like Aragorn).

  • Tolkien once wrote, "I now wish that no appendices had been promised! For I think their appearance in truncated and compressed form will satisfy nobody; certainly not me; clearly from the (appalling mass of) letters I receive not those people who like that kind of thing – astonishingly many; while those who enjoy the book as an ‘heroic romance’ only, and find ‘unexplained vistas’ part of the literary effect, will neglect the appendices, very properly.

I am not now at all sure that the tendency to treat the whole thing as a kind of vast game is really good – certainly not for me who find that kind of thing only too fatally attractive. It is, I suppose, a tribute to the curious effect that a story has, when based on very elaborate and detailed workings, of geography, chronology, and language, that so many should clamour for sheer ‘information,’ or ‘lore.’"