# Why didn't Gandalf become 'as light as a feather' when he was falling though the Mines of Moria?



## Licky Linguist (Nov 23, 2020)

In the book or movie (maybe both, I don't remember), when Gandalf escapes Saruman on the back of an eagle, it's said that he became 'as light as a feather'. This is probably because he faded his physical form and went nearly into pure spirit to help the eagle carry him. But why didn't he do this when he was fighting the Balrog in the Mines of Moria? The Balrog would have fallen and Gandalf would have floated (now that I put it in words, it sounds stupid) until he used magic to get back up. Any ideas?


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## Erestor Arcamen (Nov 23, 2020)

I always had assumed that just meant the eagle's great strength made Gandalf's weight irrelevant and it was no struggle at all for him to be born by the eagle.


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## Aldarion (Nov 23, 2020)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> I always had assumed that just meant the eagle's great strength made Gandalf's weight irrelevant and it was no struggle at all for him to be born by the eagle.


Except it was a comparison made to how Gandalf weighted when eagle had borne him before. So something had clearly changed in Gandalf, himself.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Nov 23, 2020)

Indeed, I think it shows a fundamental change; in relating the incident to the Three Hunters, he gives Gwaihir's words to him:

_' "A burden you have been," he answered, "but not so now. Light as a swan's feather in my claw you are. The sun shines through you." '_ 

There seems to be a parallel here, to Gandalf's musings while observing Frodo in Rivendell:

_'He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.'_

Further, in both cases, there's an association with _healing_; Gwaihir takes Gandalf to Lothlorien. '_Healing I found,' _he says. I don't know what Tolkien may have had in mind at the time, nor if he was more explicit in later writings, but it follows a common trope of romance, in which the hero suffers a wound or sickness, and is cured by a "doctor". Often enough, this gives him an aura of what could be called "holiness".


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## Olorgando (Nov 23, 2020)

Licky Linguist said:


> In the book ... when Gandalf escapes Saruman on the back of an eagle, it's said that he became 'as light as a feather'. ...


In the book, yes. But not when Gandalf escapes Saruman. It is after his fight with the Moria Balrog, leading to both of their physical deaths, and after he has been sent back to Middle-earth as Gandalf the White. To be found in Book Three, chapter V "The White Rider" in "The Two Towers", perhaps three pages from the end of the chapter, when he retrospectively describes his battle with the Balrog to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, with whom he has just joined up again on the border of Fangorn Forest.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Nov 23, 2020)

Ahah. I didn't notice that in the OP. Good catch, Olorgando!


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## Hisoka Morrow (Nov 24, 2020)

Or maybe those Eagles were to big to get into the entrance of Moria XDDD. You know...they might just get simply stuck in the entrance.XDDD


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## Goldilocks Gamgee (Dec 3, 2020)

I think that it is because Gandalf hadn't eaten in day (maybe weeks), and he has just been through the doors of death, he might not have been fully material at that time, yet. That's how I always thought about it.


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## Olorgando (Dec 3, 2020)

Lily-Victoria Thorn said:


> I think that it is because Gandalf hadn't eaten in day (maybe weeks), and he has just been through the doors of death, he might not have been fully material at that time, yet. That's how I always thought about it.


Not fully material sounds right, if only for a short moment:

"Ever am I _[Gandalf]_ fated to be your _[Gwaihir]_ burden, friend at need," I said.
"A burden you have been," he answered, "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 anymore: were I to let you fall, you would float upon the wind."
"Do not let me fall!" I gasped, for I felt life in me again. "Bear me to Lothlórien!"


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## Goldilocks Gamgee (Dec 3, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Not fully material sounds right, if only for a short moment:
> 
> "Ever am I _[Gandalf]_ fated to be your _[Gwaihir]_ burden, friend at need," I said.
> "A burden you have been," he answered, "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 anymore: were I to let you fall, you would float upon the wind."
> "Do not let me fall!" I gasped, for I felt life in me again. "Bear me to Lothlórien!"


Do you agree with me, or do you not?


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## Olorgando (Dec 3, 2020)

Lily-Victoria Thorn said:


> Do you agree with me, or do you not?


Food / eating, no.

But when Gwaihir picked up Gandalf, the latter's re-in-carnation may very well not have been completed, thus Gwaihir's words. So not *yet* fully material, yes.
But Gandalf's words after Gwaihir's seem to indicate to me that the re-in-carnation was then completed very quickly. So not yet fully material, but only for a short moment.


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## Radaghast (Jun 22, 2021)

I agree with Lily-Victoria. As Tolkien wrote in a letter, Gandalf also goes to Lothlórien for "refreshment" which is taken to mean nourishment throughout LotR.


> 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.


— _The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien_, #156.

I don't think Gandalf is in any way immaterial after he is brought back in his physical body. I think the sense is that he is spent from fighting the Balrog as well as being without food or water for a few days, which is what prompts Gwaihir's comments. I think he is meant to appear emaciated or gaunt. I don't think he is literally as light as a feather or translucent (though, to a giant eagle, perhaps the difference between a feather and a ravaged old body might not be that noticeable anyway).

Gandalf is resurrected, not reincarnated.


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## Olorgando (Jun 22, 2021)

Radaghast said:


> Gandalf is resurrected, not reincarnated.


"Re-clothed" in his incarnate form (which stayed behind while his spirit traveled back to Aman and perhaps even beyond). The forms the Ainur took to be visible to the Eruhini were, as per the Ainulindalë:

"Moreover their shape comes of their knowledge of the visible World, rather than of the World itself; and they need it not, save only as we use raiment, and yet we may be naked and suffer no loss of our being. Therefore the Valar may walk, if they will, unclad, and then even the Eldar cannot clearly perceive them, though they be present _[this is specifically said so about Olórin walking among the Eldar in Aman]_. But when they desire to clothe themselves ..."

And when Gandalf took up his incarnate form again in Middle-earth, he must have made some "improvements" to his "garment". As he tells Gimli just after Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn have just met him in Fangorn Forest (at first mistaking him for Saruman), "Indeed my friends, none of you have any weapon that could hurt me." Something that Gandalf the _*Grey*_ could certainly not have claimed! So this "clothing" of his now definitely had some super-human qualities, but JRRT does not elaborate what some possible others might have been.


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## Radaghast (Jun 22, 2021)

I think he is certainly allowed to unleash more of his innate power after he is sent back and his newer, brighter aura definitely shows that. But I'm inclined to think weapons can't harm him because he won't allow any to strike him, as he demonstrates by disarming Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, but I don't think he's actually physically invulnerable. I think there is more to it than that.


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## Olorgando (Jun 22, 2021)

"... any weapon that could hurt me" is a flat-out, unambiguous statement of fact, to my eyes.


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## Radaghast (Jun 22, 2021)

I agree, after a fashion. Just my interpretation is a bit different


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jun 23, 2021)

Tolkien deliberately left it -- like so many things -- ambiguous, IMO.
Of course, MO is just that: O. So feel free to disagree.

Anyway, it's time for some popcorn and anime!


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## Radaghast (Jun 23, 2021)

Yes, that's my feeling too. Ambiguity was Tolkien's forte. Look at the Balrogs; their appearance is left almost entirely to the imagination of the reader. For some reason, this has resulted in the common depiction of a red-and/or-black horned demon in popular culture, probably thanks to Dungeons & Dragons and the Balor. I have a feeling that's not how Tolkien envisioned them or how he expected them to be imagined. But he left the door wide open.

This tendency towards vagueness on Tolkien's part is something I find both maddening and intriguing.


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## Aldarion (Jun 23, 2021)

Radaghast said:


> Yes, that's my feeling too. Ambiguity was Tolkien's forte. Look at the Balrogs; their appearance is left almost entirely to the imagination of the reader. For some reason, this has resulted in the common depiction of a red-and/or-black horned demon in popular culture, probably thanks to Dungeons & Dragons and the Balor. I have a feeling that's not how Tolkien envisioned them or how he expected them to be imagined. But he left the door wide open.
> 
> This tendency towards vagueness on Tolkien's part is something I find both maddening and intriguing.


It is part of the magic of Tolkien's work. Rather than a history, his work reads like ancient mythology. The result is that the reader basically has to think about what was written - which pulls him deeper into the work itself.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jun 23, 2021)

_I feel it is better not to state everything (and indeed it is more realistic, since in chronicles and accounts of 'real' history, many facts that some enquirer would like to know are omitted, and the truth has to be discovered or guessed from such evidence as there is)._

Letter 268


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## Olorgando (Jun 23, 2021)

One thing about Beowulf, IIRC, that drove many of the commentators from the late (?) 19th century onward nuts was the constant allusion to other stories on the periphery of the one being told - stories on the edge of what we would call history. The thing is, again IIRC, that the original audience for Beowulf didn't *need* more than these allusions, as they knew the stories being alluded to. We no longer do.

JRRT's genius - at least a part of it - was to create a similar "illusion" of there being much more than is being told, hinted at.
I wrote "illusion" instead of illusion because at the time LoTR was completely published in 1955, it must have seemed to all but a handful of people to be just that.
22 years later, beginning with The Sil, then UT, then HoMe, Christopher Tolkien taught us better. There *was* much existing but untold writing at the back of LoTR.

In contrast, say, to what is the "Nibelungenlied" with (one of) its back saga(s), the "Völsunga Saga", the writers probably spanning centuries - this was all written by a single author.

To quote a blurb printed on the back of my 1986 paperback reprint of The Sil, by one of England's most respected papers, The Guardian:
"How, given little over half a century of work, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people."


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