We were watching LOTR the other night and my girlfriend asked me a question I have always been curious about myself. What race was Gandalf? He wasn't an elf, but was he a human? He seemed to talk about men as he were different than them. For that matter what was Sauron originally when he was the guy in the armor? Was he a real mortal or did he just take mortal form?
What was Gandalf?
- Thread starter The Boy Who Cried Worf
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Gandalf, like the other wizards (Saruman the White, Radagast the Brown, and the two Blue wizards who went to the east), was a Maiar. In Valinor, he was known as Olorin.
But what is a Maiar? To analogize to Christian mythology, a Maiar would be the rough equivalent to an angel.
But what is a Maiar? To analogize to Christian mythology, a Maiar would be the rough equivalent to an angel.
He was an Epic-Class Level 25 Wizard.
As for Sauron, he was never mortal, though he did sometimes appear "fair" to trick folk. The whole giant armor thing from the beginning of the movies doesn't tie in with the books, as from what I can remember, he'd already lost his ability to take physical form at that point.
He'd lost his ability to appear in "Fair" form, not physical. And he regained that pretty quickly after losing the ring.
Alright, this is good.
I've been wanting to ask this question for awhile now...
What was the significance of the change where Gandalf The Grey became Gandalf The White??
>White is better than Grey?
>Grey is Human, White is Physical Spirit?
Never having read the books, I've always been confused over this.
What was the significance of the other colors of wizards, and why didn't more of them show up to help out at some point?
I've been wanting to ask this question for awhile now...
What was the significance of the change where Gandalf The Grey became Gandalf The White??
>White is better than Grey?
>Grey is Human, White is Physical Spirit?
Never having read the books, I've always been confused over this.
What was the significance of the other colors of wizards, and why didn't more of them show up to help out at some point?
Thanks for the info guys.
Gandalf was a wino from Brooklyn named Jimmy Steinwitz who found a horse in Central Park. After passing through an extra-dimensional rift located around the universe-changing effects of Donald Trump's hair spray and toupee glue, he found himself in the Shire. Having accidentally sobered up, he quickly convinced the hobbits of this strange land that he was a wizard, primarily by flicking his Bic and launching a few of the bottle rockets he regularly carried in his bathrobe. One hobbit family, in particular, became so enamored of him that after aquiring (and sharing) the local pipe-smoked "weed" with them, he was able to convince them to go on bizarre quests, generation after generation, based solely on his baked hallucinations. Eventually he found himself in a position where he had to make a stand and defend several others from the attack of a horrible monster. Cleverly disguising his actions as heroic, he threw himself off a bridge rather than face up to his responsibilities. The local version of gods were so impressed, they revived him from an unplanned death and gave him the hottest ride in the land. From there, he was able to convince perfect strangers to kill themselves in futile manners. Fortunately, the "weed" held out. He retired a hero, although God knows why.
That is GOLD Mistral!
Thanks for the laughs!
I've now got a hankering to find my ancient copy of Harvard Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings".
That is GOLD Mistral!
Thanks for the laughs!
I've now got a hankering to find my ancient copy of Harvard Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings".
Glad you liked it. Loved "Bored". I was once asked "Who is Li Quan?" in the trek lit area(it was an ongoing thing)- they got WAY too serious so I had some fun.
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=73041&page=2&highlight=Quan
I'm pretty proud of this stream of consciousness thing. Keep reading-it gets weirder.
Basically the wizards (only 3 are named in the books) all were associated with a color. It was Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey and Radagast the Brown.
Saruman was most powerful and leader of the Wizard council. When he succumbed to the charms of Sauron or his own ambitions, he gave up the White clothing (and took up a many-hued robe). When Gandalf fights the Balrog, he ends up 'dying' in a sense and when he wakes up, he is almost reborn in a fashion. In the book, when he meets Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, he says that he doesn't remember many details about his past "Gandalf the Grey" life. By becoming Gandalf the White, he has now become the Chief Wizard and the Valar (the Gods mentioned above) have kinda given their seal of approval for him to lead the fight against the resurgent Sauron.
Saruman was most powerful and leader of the Wizard council. When he succumbed to the charms of Sauron or his own ambitions, he gave up the White clothing (and took up a many-hued robe). When Gandalf fights the Balrog, he ends up 'dying' in a sense and when he wakes up, he is almost reborn in a fashion. In the book, when he meets Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, he says that he doesn't remember many details about his past "Gandalf the Grey" life. By becoming Gandalf the White, he has now become the Chief Wizard and the Valar (the Gods mentioned above) have kinda given their seal of approval for him to lead the fight against the resurgent Sauron.
It is not really explained what the colors actually mean. There was Saruman the White, Gandalf the Grey, Radagast the Brown and two blue ones that went off on there own to the east. Saruman was considered the greatest of them (basicly he could create weapons of ware and stuff) and was voted the leader of the white council (Galadriel voted for Gandalf as the leader) and Cirdan had previsouly gave one of the 3 elven rings to gandalf since he sinced he was the wisest.
This link bears repeating in any LOTR mythology discussion, and so I will do so again. Don't click on it unless you have a while. 
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/
http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/
He took 1 level in Bard. Man, was that a mistake.
I am half convinced his spirit was mortal. Straying "out of thought and time" indicates he slipped the circle of the world and returned to the endless halls; had he just popped back to Mandos and respawned there, he would've just said he'd gone back west. Instead, Gandalf is downright secretive about his death. Certainly Aragorn would have comprehended the usual death and reincarnation of an immortal; he was, after all, friends with Glorfindel. So there was something "sacreder" about Gandalf's return.
Furthermore, Tolkien says that the Istari were commissioned by the "Powers," but Gandalf sent back by an "Authority." The only Authority over the Powers is Iluvatar, and his realm is outside Arda. So, Gandalf was enhanced outside Arda. And the only way to get out of Arda is to die.
The problem with figuring this out is that everything we have on Arda is a mishmash of the hobbit-authored Red Book, the supposedly hobbit-translated Quenta Silmarillion and its companion volumes, and a bunch of out-of-universe stuff that hadn't reached canonical form by the time Tolkien died. So there's numerous different imaginary languages written by mortals and immortals both in and out of universe all using words like "mortal" or "death" which mean completely different things to different writers and audiences. He might have been physically and spiritually mortal and immortal, all at the same time, or he might have been something else entirely.
For some reason I always thought since I was a kid that Gandalf and the other Wizards were essentially aliens who had arrived on Middle Earth to aide the races with their problems.
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