In an otherwise unrelated thread currently running in CS, someone writes:
The person who wrote this is not, to my knowledge, a Tolkien fan (though I could easily be wrong; it’s not like I keep a list). Anyway, the bit I bolded struck me as odd. Gandalf strikes me as an inveterate manipulator, particuarly if you’ve read the LotR Appendices.
But that’s just me. Would you call Gandalf a manipulative dick? A master manipulator? Something else entirely? Why?
Well, not about THIS, anyway…
I’d say that Gandalf is a manipulative bastard, but a relatively benign one. He’s not manipulating to advance any personal agenda, but to assure a good outcome for all of the Free Peoples. And he can’t be TOO manipulative…Free Will is paramount in Tolkien’s universe.
Sure, and in addition to jayjay’s excellent point, it’s not like he’s hiding behind it. He took many significant personal risks during the whole ordeal, including personal combat with a Balrog.
Gandalf could have saved everyone a lot of grief if he just had the King of the Eagles fly Frodo over Mt. Doom and drop the ring in it.
:: lights cigarette, takes a long drag ::
You know, those are some nice islets of Langerhans you have there. Be a real shame if something happened to them.
:: ticks off mark on paper ::
That’s one.
Oh no, sir. I shall not be trapped by this pernicious and persistent nerd argument. Suffice to say that I disagree.
Also on Gandalf’s behalf, put yourself in his place. He was, as far as we know, the very last of the Istari who was actually doing his job with regard to fighting Sauron. The Blue Wizards had failed their task long ago. Saruman, the most powerful of the Istari, had betrayed the Free Peoples and sided with Sauron. Radagast was doing mushrooms somewhere in the ruins of Dol Guldur (I know, I know, tending the beasts and plants of Middle Earth could very well have been Radagast’s mission, given that he was chosen by Yavanna.)
All I’m saying is that Gandalf must have felt pretty freaking lonesome, trying to subtly marshal his forces wherever he could, especially given the fact that, even as a Maia, he was afraid of Sauron, and didn’t want the job to begin with. Then, of course, he was forbidden to try to match Sauron strength for strength.
So really, all he had was manipulation.
Mother Nature beat you to it, man…
Why not a catapult?
Well shit, Sauron, compared to Manwe Sulimo, was a pissant. Why didn’t the lord of the Valar just magic Sauron’s butt over for a spanking?
Because the last time that kind of thing happened, it drowned a third of Middle-Earth?
Hmm. I forgot you were a member of our august order of the Twinkie-deprived.
Ah well, There’s always your major calyx.
Also bear in mind that by the end of the Third Age, history had progressed past the point where the Ainur knew what was “meant” to happen. And even at earlier points in the Song, they never fully understood the nature of the Children, and especially men. Manwë, wanker though he was, was rightfully chary of intervening by power.
Yes, Gandalf was a manipulative bastard. That was his job. He spent all of the Third Age learning about Men, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Elves precisely so that he could manipulate them when the time came. It wasn’t because he loved Middle Earth, although he came to appreciate it. As jayjay pointed out, it wasn’t as if he was saying “let’s you and him fight.” He put himself at risk constantly. Hell, he died, and it wasn’t to protect himself. He could easily have escaped the Balrog; just toss Pippin to it to devour.
He was there to inspire. And inspiration is a form of manipulation, at least when you’re doing it on purpose, which he certainly was. He was there to shape events, which is certainly manipulation. Every leader manipulates people, sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly, but they all do it. It’s what defines them as leaders, the fact that they can get people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do. A good leader does this on behalf of the people he rules, and Gandalf certainly fits that category.
Of all the beings in Middle Earth, perhaps only Saruman knew as well or better what Sauron could do, and Saruman was so frightened that he joined lest he be Sauron’s victim (and in doing so, became his tool instead). The Elves were too apart from Men, and Aragorn, able as he was, simply couldn’t have done it alone. He was a remarkable man, but still just a man.
Ogre’s right. Gandalf manipulated because it was the primary tool he had, and because there just wasn’t anybody else to do the job.
Of course he was manipulative, as he himself would be the first to admit (though he’d probably prefer the word “inspiring”). Doesn’t make him a bastard.
Some of the greatest figures in history were bastards! Arthur, Herakles, Jesus, the list goes on and on.
See Sauron’s take on the whole thing here: Sauron’s blog (I am not an evil lighthouse.)
In that blog, Sauron has a few things to say about Manwë (aka “the dickless prick”) and Manwë’s overall inability to get things accomplished.
Also Sauron wasn’t too impressed with Melkor’s management of things by the end of the First Age.
Gandalf was perhaps the most faithful and successful of the agents of Iluvatar. I suspect Gandalf, while technically acting according to the will of the Valar, was in reality more guided by Eru’s inspiration than anything else. (No cites, based on personal correspondence with Olorin, Eru, and a chance encounter with Ingwë.)
I don’t know how true that was of Gandalf the Grey, but I think the Greater Perfesser writes in Letters someplace that it was Eru in particular who sent Gandalf back as the White. Certainly in the most crucial phase of the War of the Ring, he was acting as the All-Father’s agent, not the Valar’s.
Fine. Then just send Tulkas over to pick him up by the scruff of the neck. You know he’d love to do it.
Yes, manipulative, but no, not a bastard. Gandalf AKA Mithrandir AKA Tharkun AKA Stormcrow AKA Olorin did what he had to do to inspire, goad, nag, pester, rally, marshal and ultimately thus save the Free Peoples, carrying out the mission on which he had been sent all those long centuries before.
I am so tired fo this canard. Dammit, just because the Blue Wizards don’t appear in the narrative doesn’t mean they “failed” or anything. They went into the east and apparently were undermining Sauron there. We don’t know what they did or didn’t do.
You know, this entire thing just seems to me as if someone got confused and slipped in “Gandalf” for “Dumbledore”, more than anything else. Now, there was a manipulative sociopath, if ever there was one in fantasy lit.