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Nordor
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Post Gandalf's Restoration
on: December 05, 2015 09:56
Did Gandalf's ring of power have any role in his restoration after his combat with the balrog? The power that the elven rings gave was preservation. Would it have saved him or was it the intervention of the Valar?
Gandolorin
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on: December 06, 2015 03:26
The decision to send him back to Middle-earth may have gone beyond the Valar to Eru, as I vaguely remember. Especially his becoming Gandalf the White, replacing the treasonous Saruman, and giving him power to judge Saruman and expel him from the order of the Istari, which he did not have before. And also the power to withstand, or rather do far more than just withstand, the Nazgûl. Here, Peter Jackson again showed utter incomprehension in his scene of Gandalf vs. the Witch-king in Minas Tirith in RoTK the movie. In the book, the WK leaves because he is irritated by the horns of Rohan before any real confrontation takes place. Had the confrontation taken place, Gandalf would have crushed the WK, and since Gandalf is a Maia, the prophecy about WK's being immune to destruction by a man would not have been contradicted.
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Evil~Shieldmaiden
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on: December 06, 2015 04:31
To answer your question as to whether or not the ring, Narya, had anything to do with Gandalf's restoration.

The quick answer is no. As far as I'm aware the only ones who can restore and individual are the Valar and Eru himself. And, based on Book III - Chapter V - The White Rider:
"Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not name.

"Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task if done."
I would tend to agree with Gando that it was Eru who returned Gandalf to Middle-earth to continue serving in the War of the Ring.

Gando also notes that Gandalf the White became Saruman and this is confirmed by a quote from the same chapter.
"Indeed I am Saruman, one might say, Saruman as he should have been ....."


[Edited on 12/06/2015 by Evil~Shieldmaiden]
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Elthir
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on: December 07, 2015 03:01
Tolkien's opinion appears to be that it was Eru who restored Gandalf.

"[...] He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or govenors; but Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure. 'Naked I was sent back- for a brief time, until my task is done'. Sent back by whom, and whence? Not by the 'gods' whose business is only with this embodied world and its time; for he passed 'out of thought and time'. Naked is alas! unclear. It was meant just literally, 'unclothed like a child' (not disincarnate), and so ready to receive the white robes of the highest. Galadriel's power is not divine, and his healing in Lorien is meant to be no more than physical healing and refreshment."

JRRT, draft letter 156


Interestingly, in the same letter Tolkien noted...

"Gandalf really "died", and was changed, for that seems to me the only real cheating, to represent anything that can be called death as making no difference. "I am G. the white, who has returned from death". Probably he should have said to Wormtongue: "I have not passed through death (not fire and flood) to bandy words with a crooked serving-man."


... as in the first edition (first three printings) Gandalf says: "I have not passed through fire and flood to bandy crooked words with a serving man" The King of the Golden Hall

But in the fourth printing (1956) Tolkien revised (compare to his letter) "fire and flood" to "fire and death..."
Gandolorin
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on: December 07, 2015 05:51
My opinion remains that Gandalf as the White was not only more powerful than as the Grey, he was also more powerful than Saruman had been as the White. With perhaps one restriction: he was allowed to use his greater power only against those foes who were in themselves too powerful for a human (perhaps excluding Aragorn) and most Elves (excluding Galadriel, Elrond, Glorfindel, Celeborn (?), ...) to face - primarily the Nazgûl.

Even as Gandalf the Grey, he held off all of The Nine at Weathertop, though it was a close call. When Gandalf rode out from Minas Tirith as the White to save Faramir in Return of The King chapter IV "The Siege Of Gondor",

"But now the dark swooping shadows were aware of the newcomer. One wheeled towards him; but it seemed to Pippin that he raised his hand, and from it a shaft of white light stabbed upwards. The Nazgûl gave a long wailing cry and swerved away; and with that the four others wavered, and then rising in swift spirals they passed away eastward vanishing into the lowering cloud above; and down on the Pelennor it seemed for a while less dark."

Now I realize one could ask "why didn't Gandalf just shoot down and destroy these five Nazgûl right then and there (using his shaft of white light kind of like anti-aircraft fire)?" This get us in to "rationalizing-loose-ends-territory" that we encounter so often. Maybe even against The Nine (formerly human and therefore Children of Eru) he was "only" allowed to use his power defensively. But what I believe to be absolutely clear is that except for Sauron, Gandalf the White had no one left to fear in Middle-earth.

In The Two Towers chapter V "The White Rider" Gimli says:
"But you speak of him [Treebeard] as if he was a friend. I thought Fangorn war dangerous."
"Dangerous!" cried Gandalf. "And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord. ..."

This is why I snarl at Peter Jackson's treatment of the confrontation between the Witch-King and Gandalf the White in the Movie: WK was not even vaguely a match of GtW by this time!

[Edited on 12/07/2015 by Gandolorin]
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