A Question of Gandalf for the future.

Marhaus

Marhaus

New Member
I'm currently doing my yearly reread of the Lord of the Rings and moving at a dangerously blistering pace. During this read-through I was thinking of Gandalf being killed by the Balrog and was wondering; firstly, do Balrogs have wings? ;) and secondly when Gandalf returns to middle earth does he have to sail a ship from Valinor then trek across the whole of Eriador, over the Misty Mountains, and then south to meet with the remainder of the fellowship, or was it like a, "cool respawn where you were last killed" video game type of thing. I may just be missing something though. Thank you!
 
I'm fairly certain that his body was actually killed. The heart stopped beating, blood stopped flowing. It wasn't so much that he blinked out and then was respawned somewhere. It's more that his...spirit(?). His unincarnated essence returned to (Valinor? - lots of questions here lol) and then found his old body. Or fashioned a new one. Either way. I think it's more than he became incarnated a second time.
 
Gandalf did not have to sail back from Valinor.

He says to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, "Then darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads that I will not tell. Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked I lay upon the mountain-top."

He reports Gwaihir saying, as he carried him from the mountain-top, "A burden you have been, but not so now. Light as a swan's feather in my claw you are. The Sun shines through you. Indeed I do not think you need me any more: were I to let you fall, you would float upon the wind."

So, Gandalf was returned to the mountain-top, but it took a while for his body to catch up. To Gwaihir he said, "Don't let me fall! For I felt life in me again." So, it was not until he was on the way to Lothlorien on the back of an Eagle, that his body really began to re-materialise.

I think the more interesting question is; what were the roads on which Gandalf wandered far, that he will not tell of?
 
I’m really interested by your interpretation there Flammifer. Are you reading it to mean that he was existing incorporeally as a body formed around him? From the quoted references I get no sense of him being anything other than a living person, certainly by the time Gwahir holds him. The problem with trying to answer the question i support is that it is intentionally otherworldly and mysterious and unanswerable
 
Flammifer said:
So, Gandalf was returned to the mountain-top, but it took a while for his body to catch up. To Gwaihir he said, "Don't let me fall! For I felt life in me again." So, it was not until he was on the way to Lothlorien on the back of an Eagle, that his body really began to re-materialise.
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I really like that. It explains what Gandalf says to Gwaihir after the last battle, that he won't find him much heavier than last time, i.e. this time. I puzzle over that from time to time. I have believed that Gandalf remains more spirit than body, but the idea of the body coming back to life more slowly does make sense.
 
Rob Harding said:
I’m really interested by your interpretation there Flammifer. Are you reading it to mean that he was existing incorporeally as a body formed around him? From the quoted references I get no sense of him being anything other than a living person, certainly by the time Gwahir holds him. The problem with trying to answer the question i support is that it is intentionally otherworldly and mysterious and unanswerable
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Hi Rob,

My interpretation of the conversation between Gwaihir and Gandalf is that Gandalf's body did not fully return to it's proper weight and mass until the pair had left the Mountain-top, and were heading for Lothlorien.

His spirit was certainly sent back to lie upon the Mountain-top. Perhaps some hint, or suggestion, or outline, of a body? But, from what Gwaihir said, it seems that the body did not materialize in full until sometime after they had taken off?

When Gandalf says, "Naked I was sent back - for a brief time, until my task is done. And naked I lay upon the mountain-top," does 'naked' mean without clothes, or does it mean without body? (Or, indeed, both?) (We know that Gandalf was 'clothed in white' in Lothlorien. Does this mean that he had no clothes when he arrived? Or that he had clothes but they were a different color - probably grey?)

Anyway, there is a lot about the process of Gandalf's transformation into The White which is mysterious. I think, however, that it is clear that his body did not fully materialize until he was on the back of the Eagle.
 
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That’s really interesting, I never thought about it in that way. I shall ruminate upon it for sure
 
I didn't interpret "naked" as "without a body" before reading the Silmarillion, but I always have since then.
 
Or his body had remained on the mountain, and his essence returned to it and transformed it from within, rather than the essence forming a body around itself. This is how I always imagined it, and it still makes sense to me.
 
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