# Gandalf and Galadriel



## wsx04321 (Dec 30, 2020)

I'm quite a big LOTR fan but one of the things I don't understand is why Galadriel (an Elf) is more powerful than Gandalf (a Maia).
Also I don't understand why Elrond, Galadriel and Glorfindel (the high Elves) didn't join the fellowship when they could have made it way easier.


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## 1stvermont (Dec 30, 2020)

wsx04321 said:


> I'm quite a big LOTR fan but one of the things I don't understand is why Galadriel (an Elf) is more powerful than Gandalf (a Maia).
> Also I don't understand why Elrond, Galadriel and Glorfindel (the high Elves) didn't join the fellowship when they could have made it way easier.



The first question most [not me] would object to and needs a more in-depth answer than I can provide at the moment. Also, I assume you are referring to Gandalf the grey only and not Gandalf the White. 

The second is that they depended on secrecy and stealth rather than force. I think Elrond mentioned if Glorfindel went it would change nothing since he could not storm Mordor himself. Elrond due to his wisdom would have been a great choice. But in the end, it had to be Frodo and sam alone with no great warrior like an Aragorn, Gandalf, or Glorfindel.


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## wsx04321 (Dec 30, 2020)

1stvermont said:


> The first question most [not me] would object to and needs a more in-depth answer than I can provide at the moment. Also, I assume you are referring to Gandalf the grey only and not Gandalf the White.
> 
> The second is that they depended on secrecy and stealth rather than force. I think Elrond mentioned if Glorfindel went it would change nothing since he could not storm Mordor himself. Elrond due to his wisdom would have been a great choice. But in the end, it had to be Frodo and sam alone with no great warrior like an Aragorn, Gandalf, or Glorfindel.


Thank you for your answer and yes I was referring to Gandalf the grey.


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## Inkling (Dec 30, 2020)

wsx04321 said:


> I'm quite a big LOTR fan but one of the things I don't understand is why Galadriel (an Elf) is more powerful than Gandalf (a Maia).
> Also I don't understand why Elrond, Galadriel and Glorfindel (the high Elves) didn't join the fellowship when they could have made it way easier.


For the second question, The other responses mentioning the need to be stealthy are really good, but I’d also like to point out that Gandalf leaves the company very soon in Moria, and Galadriel herself tells Frodo that he must complete the task alone. Even Gandalf admits that he is tempted by the Ring, so having super powerful companions wouldn’t help, they’d just try and take the Ring from Frodo. We can see that Boromir succumbs first, but eventually all of the company would have done the same.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Dec 31, 2020)

The essay on the Istari makes it clear that they were severely -- and deliberately -- restricted in the power they could wield in Middle-earth. I'll leave discussion of Galadriel to Elthir, or someone. 

As to the second question, it was discussed on (I think) a fairly recent thread, which I can't seem to locate at the moment. I gave some quotes there, but in brief, the main problem with one of the "Elf-lords" in the company is shown by Frodo's vision of Glorfindel, on the banks of the river, while half in the wraith-world: he would have been seen as a bright light, to Sauron or Nazgul. Elrond's somewhat obscure reference to this is made more forcefully in one of the drafts.


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## wsx04321 (Dec 31, 2020)

Thank you that's the best answer I've had so far.


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## Inkling (Dec 31, 2020)

wsx04321 said:


> I'm quite a big LOTR fan but one of the things I don't understand is why Galadriel (an Elf) is more powerful than Gandalf (a Maia).
> Also I don't understand why Elrond, Galadriel and Glorfindel (the high Elves) didn't join the fellowship when they could have made it way easier.


In answer to your fist question, I thought of maybe three main reasons. 
1. Gandalf is not the head of the Istari, and I think that definitely effects the power that they hold. As we can see Radagast is less powerful, but I think Saruman when he was the head of the order may have been closer in power to Galadriel, and later Gandalf the white as well.
2. Galadriel holds the ring and Nenya, who can she is able to use. Although Gandalf holds an elven ring of power, I don’t think he used it as it was mainly for safekeeping, and few knew that he had it.
3. This Istari, although also Maia, had their power decreased when they were sent to middle earth to try and keep them from becoming like Sauron. For example, they were put in the bodies of old men, instead of being able to change form like Sauron could.


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## Hisoka Morrow (Dec 31, 2020)

wsx04321 said:


> why Elrond, Galadriel and Glorfindel (the high Elves) didn't join the fellowship when


High command aren't supposed to join the frontal military operation so easily, after all, their job is to keep an eye on the whole table, apart from those exclusive case, such as Aragorn(not in permanent command of big army or political state), Gandalf(Special Agent strictly speaking), or even Boromir(Double Agent to steal the Ring).


wsx04321 said:


> is why Galadriel (an Elf) is more powerful than Gandalf (a Maia).


Galadriel's true power has always been a question in fact, for her factual combat record has been to few.
The further discussion is here


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## wsx04321 (Dec 31, 2020)

Also does anyone know if Gandalf (or another wizard) took part in the last alliance?


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Dec 31, 2020)

The Last Alliance, and the fall of Sauron, ended the Second Age. As The Tale of Years says, "When maybe a thousand years had passed" of the Third Age, ""the istari or Wizards appeared in Middle-earth". So no, none participated.


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## wsx04321 (Dec 31, 2020)

Oh ok thanks.


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## Olorgando (Jan 1, 2021)

I think it will remain impossible to quantify the relative powers of the high Elves and the Istari, or even find a "unit of measure" by which to quantify them.

But as to Gandalf the Grey in "Fellowship", consider the following:

During the Council of Elrond, Gandalf describes how he overtook Aragorn and the four Hobbits after they had left Bree, arriving at Weathertop ahead of them. Finding all nine Nazgûl there, but first "They drew away from me, for they felt the coming of my anger, *and they dared not face it while the sun was in the sky*. But they closed round at night, and I was besieged on the hill-top, in the old ring of Amon Sûl. I was hard put to it indeed ... At sunrise I escaped and fled towards the north. ..."
So he held of *all nine* of the Nazgûl for an entire night of more than twelve hours, as it was the beginning of October. And in fleeing north he drew off four of them who tried to follow him, so that Aragorn and the four Hobbits did not have to face all nine when they were at Weathertop

Then the duration of Gandalf's fight with the Moria Balrog. For this, check Appendix B the Third Age section "The Great Years" (starting 3018 TA or SR 1418). Gandalf falls at the bridge of Khazad-dum on 15 January 3019, casting the Balrog to the latter's destruction from the peak of Zirak-zigil *ten days later*! Gandalf describes some details of the fight when he meets Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli again on the eaves of Fangorn Forest in "Two Towers". Main points: the Balrog's flame apparently was extinguished when they both fell into that icy subterranean lake, and then the Balrog *fled* from Gandalf. IIRC, the Balrog's flame was only rekindled when they both came back into the open on the peak of Zirak-zigil. This rekindling may have been what damaged Gandalf's assumed bodily form "beyond repair", but he was still able to cast the Balrog to its destruction.

Gandalf *the White* is an entirely different matter. He basically states outright that the only power he cannot match is Sauron. His confrontation with the Witch-king at Minas Tirith, had the latter not been distracted by the horns of the arriving Rohirrim, would have ended in disaster for if not utter destruction of the Witch-king. Glorfindel, who had already notched a kill of a Balrog in the First Age, then was sent back to middle-earth from Mandos / Valinor in what was very likely a *very *much enhanced bodily form, wielding an Elven sword, would probably have dismembered the W-k en route to killing him (there's this scene in Monty Python's "Holy Grail" involving a very obstinate knight that I'm thinking of). Gandalf the White with Glamdring, once Turgon of Gondolin's sword, would have turned the W-k into minced meat.

I mean, that dagger Merry had from the Barrow-downs with which he perhaps decisively injured the W-k at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was crafted by a smith of a remnant of Arnor in the Third Age. Elven blades, including Bilbo and Frodo's dagger (to them sword) Sting, were hugely more dangerous to any of Sauron's minions. Sam's blade, also from the Barrow Downs, bounced helplessly off Shelob's thick cobweb strands at the exit from the tunnels at Cirith Ungol, while Sting scythed through them like a red-hot knife through butter. And Shelob's (understandable) mistake of slamming herself down on the same Sting is what sent her off squealing back into her lairs (with some non-trivial help from Galadriel's phial, IIRC).


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## wsx04321 (Jan 1, 2021)

Wow you must know a lot about Middle-Earth.


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## Olorgando (Jan 1, 2021)

wsx04321 said:


> Wow you must know a lot about Middle-Earth.


Just wait until @Alcuin answers one of your questions!


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