🧙Gandalf's Death in Moria - An Afterthought?

[jallan]

One should look at all the relevant passages in in letter 156 following the passage that Walter orginally cited in this thread:

But G. is not, of course, a human being (Man or Hobbit). There are naturally no precise modern terms to say what he was. I wd. venture to say that he was an incarnate ‘angel’ — strictly an ἃγγελος² that is, with the other Istari, wizards, ‘those who know’, an emissary from the Lords of the West, sent to Middle-earth, as the great crisis of Sauron loomed on the horizon. By ‘incarnatel’ I mean they were embodied in physical bodies capable of pain, and weariness, and of afflicting the spirit with physical fear, and of being ‘killed’, though supported by the angelic spirit they might endure long, and only show slowly the wearing of care and labour.

    Why they should take such a form is bound up with the ‘mythology’ of the ‘angelic’ Powers of the world of this fable. At this point in the fabulous history the purpose was precisely to limit and hinder their exhibition of ‘power’ on the physical plane, and so that they should do what they were primarily sent for: train, advise, instruct, arouse the hearts and minds of those threatened by Sauron to a resistance with their own strengths; and not just to do the job for them. They thus appeared as ‘old’ sage figures. But in this ‘mythology’ all the ‘angelic’ powers concerned with this world were capable of many degrees of error and failing between the absolute Satanic rebellion and evil of Morgoth and his satellite Sauron, and the fainéance of some of the other higher powers or ‘gods’. The ‘wizards’ were not exempt, indeed being incarnate were more likely to stray, or err. Gandalf alone fully passes the tests, on a moral plane anyway (he makes mistakes of judgement). For in his condition it was for him a sacrifice to perish on the Bridge in defence of his companions, less perhaps than for a mortal Man or Hobbit, since he had a far greater inner power than they; but also more, since it was a humbling and abnegation of himself in conformity to ‘the Rules’: for all he could know at that moment he was the only person who could direct the resistance to Sauron successfully, and all his mission was vain. He was handing over to the Authority that ordained the Rules, and giving up personal hope of success.

     That I should say is what the Authority wished, as a set-off to Saruman. The ‘wizards’, as such, had failed; or if you like: the crisis had become too grave and needed an enhancement of power. So Gandalf sacrificed himself, was accepted, and enhanced, and returned. ‘Yes, that was the name. I was Gandalf.’ Of course he remains similar in personality and idiosyncrasy, but both his wisdom and power are much greater. When he speaks he commands attention; the old Gandalf could not have dealt so with Théoden, nor with Saruman. He is still under the obligation of concealing his power and of teaching rather than forcing or dominating wills, but where the physical powers of the Enemy are too great for the good will of the opposers to be effective he can act in emergency as an ‘angel’ — no more violently than the release of St Peter from prison. He seldom does so, operating rather through others, but in one or two cases in the War (in Vol. III) he does reveal a sudden power: he twice rescues Faramir. He alone is left to forbid the entrance of the Lord of Nazgûl to Minas Tirith, when the City has been overthrown and its Gates destroyed — and yet so powerful is the whole train of human resistance, that he himself has kindled and organized, that in fact no battle between the two occurs: it passes to other mortal hands. In the end before he departs for ever he sums himself up: ‘I was the enemy of Sauron’. He might have added: ‘for that purpose I was sent to Middle-earth’. But by that he would at the end have meant more than at the beginning. He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or governors; 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 discarnate), and so ready to receive the white robes of the highest. Galadriel’s power is not divine, and his healing in Lórien is meant to be no more than physical healing and refreshment.

     But if it is ‘cheating’ to treat ‘death’ as making no difference, embodiment must not be ignored. Gandalf may be enhanced in power (that is, under the forms of this fable, in sanctity), but if still embodied he must still suffer care and anxiety, and the needs of flesh. He has no more (if no less) certitudes, or freedoms, than say a living theologian. In any case none of my ‘angelic’ persons are represented as knowing the future completely, or indeed at all where other wills are concerned. Hence their constant temptation to do, or try to do, what is for them wrong (and disastrous): to force lesser wills by power: by awe if not by actual fear, or physical constraint. But the nature of the gods’ knowledge of the history of the World, and their part in making it (before it was embodied or made ‘real’) — whence they drew their knowledge of the future, such as they had, is part of the major mythology.

2. Greek, ‘messenger’.

This partly answers some of the questions raised in this thread.

As to Tolkien admitting that Gandalf’s death was somewhat a cheat, I think possibly Tolkien might have been looking at it in either or both of two ways.

First, it was and is a common trope in adventure ficture for a person to be killed apparently, and then turn out later to be alive, the person’s survival often being weakly explained. (Does anyone recall a recent film in which a hero was knocked over a cliff but roused by the kisses from his horse?)

It seems from the citation provided by Aragil that Tolkien originally did intend such normal, common, hackneyed adventure melodrama. But, Gandalf, after is not really a mortal, though one doesn’t know when Tolkien actually decided what Gandalf was.

But having decided that Gandalf was a Maia from the West, embodied in flesh, a new embodiment would not be the same stretch that it would be if a mortal were returned to bodily form. Why not have Gandalf actually slain and then brought back stronger?

As it comes out in the tale however, the feeling is still not that far from the original normal hackneyed authorial deception that Tolkien had originally planned. The rules of Tolkien’s world may explain how Gandalf could be brought back, but the reader doesn’t know those rules.

What would have improved the situation would have been a setup of some kind before Gandalf’s death to give the reader a hint about Gandalf’s true stature, e.g. a few words about how embodied spirits like Sauron cannot quite be killed in the same sense that mortal are killed and somewhere else some speculation about Gandalf s origin in which someone suggests he is an embodied spirit.

The reader ought to have been given more clues.

Also, the return of Gandalf is somewhat deus ex machina, a term meaning ‘god from the machine’ referring to Greek tragedies, not the best Greek tragedies, where a god descends from heaven (actually lowered from above by some kind of crane machine) and ties up the plot. This also feels like cheating.

Gandalf of course doesn’t tie up the ends by himself and is still far from being an omnipotent god.

I am also not entirely sure that Tolkien’s explanations here are totally adequate. If those Ainur entered Eä were bound to it until the End, then why and how does Gandalf’s spirit leave the world? Why would it simply not return to the West?

Of course one can invent the explanation that Eru simply took Gandalf’s spirit as one of the various exceptions that Tolkien believes are found to most rules. But that explanation seems a bit of a cheat also.