Gandalf Like a King of Old

Brandon Minich

New Member
One of the things that struck me about Gandalf being described as kingly at Elrond's table is how this plays in to his nature as an embodied Maia. The Valar and Maiar took on bodies in Ea, which are described as them taking on forms that suited their current purpose, if I remember correctly, and that their embodied nature was always a bit strange and varied, and they could look differently depending on who they were talking to and what they were doing.

Part of me wonders if this is what's at work in Gandalf here, that his Maia nature can shine through his actual body sometimes, changing how it looks to those around them even more than context changes might. It's the kind of thing that makes sense with Gandalf as Maia, even if that hasn't occured to Tolkien quite yet (I wonder if he made the Istari the way they were because Gandalf was taking on elements of an embodied Maia in the LOTR text already.) Sometimes, his embodied spirit emphasizes his physical form in ways to emphasize certain aspects of who he actually is.
 
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