In UT,
Tolkien says that based on Norse, the name
Gandalf might
mean that.
Are you actually implying that the name of the
dwarf from Voluspa means
elven wight..? The only refference he makes to
the old nore etymology
reffers to gandr; the meaning of the name he gives reffers to the ME
etymology.
I pointed out that it does not say that in Unfinished
Tales.
Yes it does (emphasis added):
Merry he could be, and kindly to
the young and simple, and yet quick at
times to sharp speech and the rebuking of folly; but he was not proud,
and sought neither power not praise, and thus far and wide he was
beloved among all those that were not themselves proud. Mostly he journeyed unwearingly on foot, leaning on a staff;
and so he was called among Men of the North Gandalf, "the Elf of the Wand". For they deemed him (though in error, as has been said) to be of Elven-kind, since he would at times works wonders among them, loving especially the beauty of fire; and yet such marvels he wrought mostly for mirth and delight, and desired
not that any should hold him in awe or take his counsels out of fear."
Gandalf was present and could have been
the one to place the
spells
Does Tolkien say anywhere that it was only Gandalf who put the spells?
Or does he say anywhere that the
dwarves don't have magical abilities?
The context clearly indicates that all the phases of burrying the gold
were a group action. There is no clue to your interpretation that the
putting of the spells constitutes an exception, i.e. it was an action
done by one individual. Therefore, your interpretation is a "destroying
the exception" fallacy.
Also, at the gates of
Moria, Gandalf says: "I shall not have to call
on
Gimli for words of the secret dwarf-tongue that they teach to none".
And as I have pointed out before, things from The
Hobbit are not
all directly applicable to LOTR, especially magic capabilities
You keep invoking this. Where is it stated that he wrongfully labeled
some
objects from Hobbit as being magical?
It does not prove that he gained a great knowledge of magic in
the meantime
I agree, there is no such direct refference. Inderjit's initial
statement was that
Bilbo was not very good when it came to the matters of
the wise; my counterarguments are: the hobbit folklore does reffer to magic things which are indeed magic; by the time he writes the book he
becomes a good friend of Gandalf and of the
elves; he participates in a story where magic is exerted to some quite good extents; he is called by
Gildor to be a "good master" of the Ancient Language; no "reviewer" from
Lotr (or for that matter, not even Tolkien) says that Bilbo's statements
from the red book are incorrect.
If his staff could produce flame by its own inherent power
I never argued such a thing.
Of course, you have!
Can you point exactly where I said that the staff can produce flame by
its own power?
Since you didn't reply to this, should I presume that you
reconsidered your position?
I didn't bother to respond because it is another one of your irrelevancies.[/QUOTE]
So you make a statement, you refuse to either back it up or to retract
it and then you call the initial point irrelevant.
"Tolkien never said
hobbits had wings and could fly either"
A false analogy; he did say they are humans and he described them, so
you could never infer such a thing.
"you have never explained how Gandalf acquires another "magic" staff
after his is destroyed on the
Bridge of Khazad-dum"
You are wrong; I did try to answer that (and if I remember correctly,
you forget for the second time that I try to address this issue). In
my opinion, the problem you raise is a wild goose chase; as Tolkien
states in "On fairy stories", magic needn't be explained.
"You have never explained how anyone could "see" Gandalf's spoken words
in the Pass of Caradhras. You have never explained what
balrogs had to
do with the scene in the pass."
In the case of the Moria, Gandalf was able to perceive someone else
simply because the
balrog used spells.
["Thought to have" is not the same as actually having." For a long time
many people "thought" the world was flat; it wasn't." As a minor
observation, the earth in Ea was actually flat once. And it is in magic
stories (Hobbit being one of them) where magical things, which are mere
beliefs in real life, actually exist as such.]
"Inderjit's analogy is perfectly valid"
There are more possible explanations than just the fact that the staff
isn't magical:
- merely the fact that he doesn't makes that refference again doesn't
automatically invalidate it, it is fallacious to infer such a thing; he
also wrote: "It will take me years to recover my strength
and wizardry"; does the fact that he doesn't say this again mean that
he doesn't have wizardry?
- there is no occurrence (that I know of) when the magic of an object
is consumed by mere use; the water of
Galadriel doesnt become less
magical just because more people look into it; the same with the
palantiri,
the rings or the talking
swords; so another explanation (the best one, I think) for the fact that Tolkien doesnt use that statement again might be that he simply realised that
magical objects in his universe don't loose their magic just through use.
- another speculation could be that the refference to the power
of the staff was made in a dialogue, not
as a statement of the narrator; Gandalf doesn't talk a lot about his
magic; so another explanation for not using that refference again could
be that Tolkien didn't want Gandalf to talk about this particular aspect
of his magic (considering that he also made refference to the magic of
the staff in the hobbit, so he might have considered that enough of an
refference).
"Gandalf leaned on his staff to walk, and it certainly wasn't a
"slender staff""
So the fact that he wasnt reffering to the phisical aspect of the wand
implies he reffered to something else: either the wand is a
symbol of
status - which goes against the idea that the
istari shouldn't act in a
manner which atracts attention or which is imposing in any way; or
that the wand is a refference to the magical aspect of his staff.
"I was bringing up the case of
Saruman to drive home this message"
Saruman being a balrog is clearly dismissed in later works, a thing
which doesn't happen with the refference to the magic staff, plus the
other possible explanations given above.
"This gives Gandalf even less time to go through a lengthy process of
making a new staff and somehow making it magical through rituals"
And how would you know it's a lengthy process?