So after fighting that Balrog, how much would you say he leveled up between the first and the second movie to become Gandalf the White? That was some high level demon. I'd guess he gained an unprecedented 5-10 levels all at once there. Is that about right?
shareSpeaking of which...I cannot believe it took THREE films to see an honest-to-goodness Fireball thrown by a Wizard.
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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .
I guess the old wizard from Gauntlet would put him to shame then. Gandalf would never have made it out of the first dungeon.
share[deleted]
So after fighting that Balrog, how much would you say he leveled up between the first and the second movie to become Gandalf the White? That was some high level demon. I'd guess he gained an unprecedented 5-10 levels all at once there. Is that about right?Well, your question is nonsensical in terms of the books and films (but you already knew that!), but looking at my old campaign modules from Iron Crown's out-of-print Middle-earth Role Play game (MERP) gives an answer. Rangers of the North - The Kingdom of Arthedain gives game stats for Gandalf for when he first came to Middle-earth to Mid Third Age (T.A. 1050-1640), Late Third Age (3019), and Latter 3019 (when he became Gandalf the White).
It was fun to think of him in gaming terms, so great post!
shareI generally play GURPS, myself.
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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .
Okay, but I'm pretty sure that there has never been an officially licensed Middle-earth setting for GURPS. And Cubicle 7's Adventures in Middle-earth hasn't gotten to the point yet of having game stats for Gandalf the Grey and Gandalf the White. The One Ring Roleplaying Game has been avoiding the issue.
"Hell hath no fury like that of the uninvolved." - T. Isabella
Who knows how many experience points the Balrog was worth?
Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler of Black Sabbath watch My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
It's over 9000.
shareI suppose that Tolkien might roll over in his grave at such a discussion. Gandalf is a fictional character, but within the story of Lord of the Rings he is a great historic person. So referring to him as a character in a game who "levels up" would probably seem highly inappropriate to Tolkien.
In the fictional universe of Middle-earth, Gandalf was an ainur, a sort of an angel, who was sent to Middle-earth to encourage Men and Elves and Dwarves, etc. to resist Sauron. As a maiar, one of the lesser angelic beings, Gandalf normally had great powers. After all, thousands of years earlier, the ainur had built Middle-earth, organizing it out of chaos, separating land and sea and building mountains and valleys. The ainur were beings of spirit, who could make physical bodies for themselves as easy as mortals could make clothes for their bodies. If the physical body of an ainur was destroyed, he could simply make a new one if he wanted to.
But there was a limitation. If an ainur inhabited the same physical body for a long time, he would find it harder and harder to make a new physical body. Thus every time that Sauron was killed, it took him a much longer time for him to make a new physical body than the previous time. After being killed at the end of the Second Age, it took Sauron at least a thousand years to make another physical body to begin his attempt to reconquer Middle-earth.
That is why the Balrog didn't simply whip up a new physical body and go on a roaring rampage of revenge after being killed, devastating Lorien and other places. It had been inhabiting its physical body for about 6,500 years since the Great Battle and the end of the First Age, and probably for centuries or millennia before that. It had lost the ability to make a new physical body.
And Gandalf and the other Istari, or wizards, had been inhabited their bodies for about 2,000 years by the time of Lord of the Rings and probably had lost most or all of their power to make new ones.
Continued.
Besides, when Gandalf and the other Istari or wizards had been sent to Middle-earth their powers had been reduced for the duration of the mission, so that they would not seem much more powerful than elves or men. And their bodies were not the sort of robot or automation bodies, energized by the will of the ainur, that most ainur made for themselves when they wished, but real living biological bodies.
Their bodies were living bodies, with all the weaknesses of the flesh. Their bodies were those of old men at first, and continued to age like mortal men, becoming weaker and weaker, though obviously many times slower than mortal men. And they were not permitted to use full power ainur abilities, or maybe even had most of those abilities removed, for the duration of their mission. And they were probably given a one body limit, being forbidden to make new bodies if their old ones were killed.
So after killing the balrog and dying of his wounds, the spirit of Gandalf eventually returned to Valinor to report on the events of his mission. And because Gandalf had done such a good job, especially compared to Saruman, he was unexpectedly "rewarded" - or punished as the case may have seemed to him - by being given a new body and being sent back to Middle-earth with all the powers of Saruman, the most powerful wizard, since Gandalf was to replace Saruman as the white wizard.
It is said that Olorin (Gandalf's real name) never wanted to be sent to Middle-earth in the first place 2,000 years earlier, saying that he was afraid of Sauron, but had humbly accepted the mission when it was given to him.
Gandalf was very different from most characters in games, characters played by people who enjoy playing the games, and there was no automatic system for wizards to gain points by completing various tasks. So Gandalf did not level up or gain points by fighting the balrog. Gandalf did what he had to do to save the others, expecting that his body would be killed and he would be unable to return to Middle-earth to try to help Frodo succeed in destroying the Ring.
So...this was about as interesting a thing as I've ever read. Haven't read the books, so what a great addition to the movies, this knowledge about who the wizards really were, the making of their bodies etc.
Thanks for taking the time to write all this out.
You know what'd be great? We've had these movies for nearly 20 years now...some kind of Cliff's notes like this that'd enrich them for people like me who've never read the books. After a couple decades of watching and rewatching these movies, stuff like this breathes all new life into them, you know?
What a trip...thanks MAGolding.
I don't know if the BluRay versions have a commentary track that might do this. If not, it would great to have a YouTube edit of the movies with little on-screen notes with info like this for new fans of the series.
shareDude! OhmyGodman that is a golden ticket right there! All the people who've never read the books...shoot, even those that have would get a kick out of something like that. That's a novel idea...if you could get through the copyright stuff anyway.
That's really brilliant...wow! Make sure the cuts were at least in HD quality and I'd watch the crap out of that, myself.
You're welcome.
Actually the nature of the Istari or wizards is not explicitly stated in LOTR but for the first time in The Silmarillion (1977) & Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle Earth (1980).
But LOTR clearly shows than Sauron & wizards aren't Dwarves, Men, or Elves.
The appendixes to LOTR state that Sauron was the main follower of the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, during the First Age, which ended about 6,500 years before LOTR, and has been killed at least twice before LOTR, making new bodies each time, being clearly not a Man.
3,000 years before LOTR, Gil-Galad, and Elendil, kings of Elves and Men, killed Sauron's body on the slopes of Mount Doom and were killed by him. Isildur cut off Sauron's ring finger and The Ring. In LOTR Isildur's description of The Ring is quoted, stating that Sauron's hand was black, and yet was burning hot, so hot it killed Gil-Galad!
Some Elves in LOTR have lived for thousands of years, but none of them have body heat strong enough to kill other elves.
Clearly Sauron's nature was different from that of Dwarves, Ents, Men, or Elves, greater, and except for being evil, higher.
There is a scene in LOTR, not in the movies, where Frodo says that Saruman, though turned evil, is too high and holy to be killed by mere mortals. And obviously Frodo would not have been in such awe of any Hobbit, not even the Thain, nor any Dwarf, Ent, Man, not even Aragon, or Elf.
Clearly Saruman's nature was different from that of Dwarves, Ents, Men, or Elves, greater, and except for being evil, higher.
Furthermore, the death scenes of Sauron and Saruman are similar enough, and different enough from those of Dwarves, Men and Elves, to suggest that they, and the other wizards, belong to a totally different species, as much beyond Elves as Elves are beyond Hobbits.
There is also a statement that only Cirdan seems to have recognized the true nature of the wizards at first, indicating there is a secret to be discovered. Continued.
Continued.
So for all those reasons I eventually decided that the Wizards and Sauron were all members of some species or order of beings different from, and higher than, Elves or Men, sometime before I first read the Silmarillion.
That's amazing stuff. Not sure I understand all about the body heat thing though...and Isildur cut off Sauron's ring finger, but Sauron's hand burned Gil-Galad to death? What, did Sauron grab him? Anyway, Sauron had that kind of body heat since he'd been alive for so many thousands of years?
Shoot, it makes me wonder how hot that damn Balrog must have been, being made of fire and brimstone (or whatever) in the first place lol
What's most amazing though? All of this stuff came out of the mind of a single person...its almost hard to believe, the depth of imagination that Tolkien had. To think that LotR only TOUCHED on some of the lore from his imagined world...the deities, different races, their histories etc.
And if I'm not mistaken, he created the whole concept of elves, dwarves, halflings etc...the foundation of all the medieval lore that's came since, right? This guy is like...the godfather of all nerd-dom lol
There should be a holiday, at least =P
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But with body heat? He was specifying 'body heat', wasn't he?
shareIn Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Rings, Book II, Chapter 2, "The Council of Elrond" Gandalf quotes from the Scroll of Isildur, describing the ring:
The Ring misseth, maybe, the heat of Sauron's hand, which was black and yet burned like fire, and so Gil-galad was destroyed...
"roaring rampage of revenge"
Found the Kill Bill fan!