Johannes
Member
Yes, Gandalf is wise beyond belief, and he can probably deduce a whole lot with the information he got, but I'm pretty sure he can also read minds in the traditional magical sense. He does it all the time.
For one thing, people are always commenting about how he seems to know (or guess) what they think, like Bilbo does after he escapes the from the goblins. "“Mr. Baggins has more about him than you guess.” He gave Bilbo a queer look from under his bushy eyebrows, as he said this, and the hobbit wondered if he guessed at the part of his tale that he had left out."
Frodo makes a similar observation in Moria, after he survives the orc attack. "‘There is more about you than meets the eye, as I said of him (Bilbo) long ago.’ Frodo wondered if the remark meant more than it said."
I'm pretty sure there are other times when this happens, but I can't think of any right now.
More concrete examples are, for instance, when Gandalf knows Pippin's exact thoughts after he stole the Palantír. "You knew you were behaving wrongly and foolishly; and you told yourself so, though you did not listen...". He also has great insight in what's going on in Éowyn's head, when he is talking to Éomer about her in the Houses of Healing.
I think this might also explain how Gandalf was able to learn Gollum's whole backstory. Some of it he got from what Gollum told him, and some of it he got directly from Gollum's thoughts.
An other small thing, that I always find a bit mystical, is that he seems to know everyone's name. Like I said, it's a small thing, but still a little mysterious to my mind.
These are just examples from the top of my head, and you can probably argue that all of these are due to Gandalf's wisdom and his power of deduction, and not mind reading, but I have always interpreted it as a bit of both.
There are other examples other characters, besides Gandalf, doing similar thing (like Denethor, Faramir and Aragorn), and I think this also shows that mind reading isn't so far-fetched in Tolkien's world.
Apparently Tolkien did write about the subject of mind reading, in his fantasy world, in his essay (or manuscript) The Ósanwe-kenta (or "Enquiry into the Communication of Thought"). <-- Link
It goes in to great detail about the rules and whatnot, and there is something in there about how "The receiving mind must be open", so maybe that's part of why Gandalf can't read all minds all the time.
For one thing, people are always commenting about how he seems to know (or guess) what they think, like Bilbo does after he escapes the from the goblins. "“Mr. Baggins has more about him than you guess.” He gave Bilbo a queer look from under his bushy eyebrows, as he said this, and the hobbit wondered if he guessed at the part of his tale that he had left out."
Frodo makes a similar observation in Moria, after he survives the orc attack. "‘There is more about you than meets the eye, as I said of him (Bilbo) long ago.’ Frodo wondered if the remark meant more than it said."
I'm pretty sure there are other times when this happens, but I can't think of any right now.
More concrete examples are, for instance, when Gandalf knows Pippin's exact thoughts after he stole the Palantír. "You knew you were behaving wrongly and foolishly; and you told yourself so, though you did not listen...". He also has great insight in what's going on in Éowyn's head, when he is talking to Éomer about her in the Houses of Healing.
I think this might also explain how Gandalf was able to learn Gollum's whole backstory. Some of it he got from what Gollum told him, and some of it he got directly from Gollum's thoughts.
An other small thing, that I always find a bit mystical, is that he seems to know everyone's name. Like I said, it's a small thing, but still a little mysterious to my mind.
These are just examples from the top of my head, and you can probably argue that all of these are due to Gandalf's wisdom and his power of deduction, and not mind reading, but I have always interpreted it as a bit of both.
There are other examples other characters, besides Gandalf, doing similar thing (like Denethor, Faramir and Aragorn), and I think this also shows that mind reading isn't so far-fetched in Tolkien's world.
Apparently Tolkien did write about the subject of mind reading, in his fantasy world, in his essay (or manuscript) The Ósanwe-kenta (or "Enquiry into the Communication of Thought"). <-- Link
It goes in to great detail about the rules and whatnot, and there is something in there about how "The receiving mind must be open", so maybe that's part of why Gandalf can't read all minds all the time.
