Just think about it, all the importans things that happens in the 3rd age involves gandalf... He kinda made bilbo get the ring by taking him on the journey (the hobbit), he made sure that bilbo didnt keep it, and he made frodo realize what he had to do. He made Aragorn king, he even helped himself become more powerfull..

It like gandalf knew what was about to happen and had it planed all along..

Well, actually in the book Gandalf says the third age was his age, and when Sauron is defeated and so the Third Age ends, his time in Middle-Earth also ends and he goes to the West.

But Gandalf is "just" Sauron's enemy. He fights Sauron. The Third Age is his age, but not all the important things that happened in that Age involved the participation of Gandalf.

Oh my God. I think my ability to express myself in English gets worse everyday... I hope you understand what I wanted to say...

And Gandalf didn't make Bilbo found the ring, He was planing to defeat Smaug because Sauron will have too many force on the north because Saruman was triying to stop an atack to sauron's lair in the Black forest (I suppose the name in the original book is it ).

Please, correct me if I don't know how to explain that Gandalf is only a person that didn't use his power to fight against sauron and it hasn't any power to see the future when he sent bilbo with the dwarfs.

What I ment, you could belive that he could see into the future if you looked on his actions... Hes actions cant just be coincidences (or could they ?)

im not saying Gandalf knew but he did make some pretty nice choices

They were chances and coincidences for the most part. Though he did have intuitions (sparing Gollum's life and saying that he feels that Gollum has a part to play in LotR before the end, foreshadowing Gollum falling with the Ring into the Cracks of Doom) and such. But it was mostly luck and coincidence, IMHO.

Well, in some ways you could say that, especially considering that the third age of the sun ended not with the fall of the dark tower but with Gandalf's departure to the undying lands.
However, you have to remember that the Istari didn't arrive in the grey havens until a thousand years of the third age had passed.
I do think that Tolkien wanted Gandalf to be the true hero of the third age though.

Well, the Valar (Powers, Lords of the West) sent the Istari to aid the inhabitants of Middle-Earth when Sauron arose into power. Their main purpose was to spur the Peoples of Middle-Earth (a proverbial fire under their butts) to take action and amass forces before it was too late to stop Sauron's return. Unfortunately, as LotR shows, only one of the Istari truly accomplished this: Mithrandir, or Gandalf. The rest remained in Middle-Earth (save Curunir, or Sauruman who died by the hands of his own thrall), being ensnared by other things and digressing utterly from their path purposed to them by the Valar. Radagast diminished because he cared more for the creatures of the wild than the welfare of Men. Sauruman fell (literaly) because he became ensnared by thoughts of Power and Dominion over all. It is sad that he became so ensnared, he who had studied the arts of the Enemy for so long.

But only Gandalf sayed true to his purpose and mission, and thus was the only Istari, out of the five, to return to Valinor.

Very well put ^_^

Another thing to point out is that Gandalf was sent to Middle-Earth against his will. He never wanted to be one of the Istari, and actually was just told by the Valar to go there. He did his duty despite all however, and saved Middle-Earth.

Yes, actually he was the last of the Istari to come to Middle-Earth, and the only one who keep true to his duty.

Good old Gandalf!

spoiler alert !!
if you didnt read the books skip this post
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I remember the chills i felt when I read in the silmarilion about Olorin the maia, and remembering Gandalf's line ... " when I was Olorin, in my youth in the west".

When I first read LOTR the name Olorin meant nothing to me, but in the silmarilion he is revealed as one of the Maiar, that used to wander as a body-less spirit in the elf lands in middle earth, and project visions of wisdom into their minds.

I mean WHOA !!!! isnt Tolkien THE MASTER or what ?!

I've heard somewhere that Gandalf is 3000 years old so he could possibly be on EM too!!! Just a rumors I've heard (or then I rode it from the book. Iam not sure because I have forgotten half of the of the book before I watched the movies )

Whatever rumours you have heard they were wel land truely wrong. Or, in another way, only a little but wrong. Let me explain...

Gandalf (Mithrandir, Olorin, whatever) arrived 1000 years after the start of the Third Age, and has already been stated, and the Third age was 3021 years long (i think. Maybe add a year or two on either side), placing Gandalf in his human form as being 2021 years old.

Buuut, then again, your rumour could be including the time Olorin spent as a Maia in Beleriand, in which case it might make sense. Sorry for the "free-form" answer

Actually, sorry for this stupid correction, but the One Ring went down the Cracks of Doom, along with Gollum, the 25th of March, TA 3.019.

So the Third Age lasted 3019 years. As you said, it was two years less

This isn't an April's joke there JesuGandalf?

No, I assure it's true

Please don't regard this as rude, but to presume that an entire age was entrusted via The Valar to a single individual, even one so grand as an Istari incarnate in Middle Earth is preposterous!

So many others lived during this span, Elves-Dwarves-Men-etc. that were extremely beneficial in preserving the freedom of peace-loving races.

When push came to shove, Mithrandir was NOT omniscient, but rather mindful of the task appointed to him, above all else.

This is most clearly evident following the fall of Sauron and the partial restoration of the Fellowship, when he is carefree and jovial, traits he rarely displays earlier in the novel(s). He was in no way singlehandedly responsible for leading to the destruction of Morgoth's apprentice, Gandalf was, rather, aware of opportunity and most earnest in the gaining of all knowledge which stood to further the elimination of such villiany. Joint effort among varied races is, after all, an enduring legacy of Tolkien's literature.

Damn it! I editted my reply from 3019 to 3021 because i read on the EoA that the Third Age ended when Gandalf left, which was two years after (it said. Whether this is also wrong, i do not know). I'll take Jesugandalf's word for it though, since he is seems to be much wiser than I .

Well, you've made me doubt now...

Actually, after some searching, I've found both things (TA ending in 3021 or in 3019), but I will give the credit to you instead: Third Age seems to have ended after the departure of Gandalf and the Ring-bearer from Middle-Earth, that is, in 3021, so I was (again) wrong.

Ha ha, feel the power *Ducks behind a stone in case Jesugandalf calls down the powers that be to smote the braggard in his tracks*

In an attempt to keep this thread going, why is it that Gandalf seemed to be the only one to really stay true to what he was told to do? I mean, Saruman went all nasty, Radagast went and hugged trees and little bunny rabbits (you know, in some parts of the world you can get arrested for that) and the other two (I've forgotten their names, the two Blue Wizards) went off and were never heard from again. Why is it that only Gandalf actually did his job?

Like I said before, his actions makes you think that he knew it all along..

Maybe he was the only one understanding the meaning of his job

To repeat, in the kindest of ways, dear Simaron, to attribute an omniscient quality to Galdalf is tantamount to equating his powers to those of Eru! A huge mistake, indeed. True, he was a main character in the novel, and therefore had a large hand in persuading the factions around him in pursuing a noble cause: Destroying Sauron and preserving Middle Earth.

Loveme4..., I know this topic of the Blue Wizards is close to our hearts. Their trials and tribulations seem truly worthy of another tale altogether. I hope we stand the remotest of chances of encountering them in MeMod!!!

Well, that's a good thing. I had no desire to travel to the Far Eastern provinces anyways, nor did I desire to seek out the two Blue Wizards. Because it is hinted at that they turned to the path of Domination of the Lesser races, and worked evils and such even after the Fourth Age...

I was going to open a new topic on this but since the subject has been brought up... how are the borders of Middle-earth going to be handled in the mod? I'm hoping this question hasn't already been answered (truth be told, i haven't actually searched for the answer yet. I will after posting though). I mean, the world doesn't just stop at the edges of the map. So, whats going to happen. eh?

i was just wondering could someone tell me where to get more information on these two blue wizards, because im obsessed with the rest of the istari. please...

In fact Tolkien didn't write much about them, so, I'm afraid, you won't know what was of them in the East (well, neither you nor me nor anybody else ).

well in that case could someone with immense knowledge of Middle-Earth(Daerk) please tell me where to find what little information there is on these two mysterious wizards. I would like to create my own opinions of them.

Well, I'm not Daerk, but I'd suggest you to try and look in the Unfinished Tales, in the part devoted to the Istari... I believe there is where you'll find more info about them...

Yeah, but it really doesn't talk so much about the Blue Wizards as much as it does the origin of Gandalf and Saruman. It makes like a very brief reference to the two Blue Wizards along the lines of 'But the Two Blue Wizards went into the East, and never came into the Tales or Events of the West of Middle-Earth'. IIRC...

Yes indeed, Ancalagon! And still we wonder...

yeh its a pity, do you think in the future they might me a Tolkien emulator to attempt to write more Tolkien books. That would be funny a Tolkien emulator...

What do you mean? Have a little icon that sits in your desktop feverishly writing more stories to be released? Maybe it could be animated to look like those thousand monkeys with typewriters i keep hearing about...

Regarding "Tolkien emulator"..."Many have tried, many more have failed." Is this particular forum still related to Mithrandir's involvement in the Third Age? Just wondering...

at the risk of repeating myself for the eight hundred millionth time: Tolkien never finished his histories of middle earth, he died before he finished the Silmarillion which was edited together by Christopher as everybody knows. Everything else is edited together in a way that Christopher (not big prof. John Ronald Ruel!!!) saw as closest to his father's vision as well as he knew them. The truth is that apart from the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings (and to an extent the Silmarillion) none of the information available to us is as Tolkien would have had us see. There are (apparantly) different back-stories for nearly all the major and some of the minor characters sitting in filing cabinets on the Tolkien estate that we will never see.
The reason I'm saying this is that Tolkien never really explained about the the Istari to us when he was alive because he hadn't decided completely on their stories. We will never know about the "blue wizards", it's just something we have to accept.

Just wondering. Gandalf is the only 1 who has killed a balrog ?

This wanst worth a new topic so

No, he is not. To mention a few who have killed a balrog as well: Glorfindel and Ecthelion. But to kill a balrog is a rare deed as their numbers were very limited even in the first age of the world.
I suggest you start reading The Silmarillion if you want to know more..


pharzon..

I'm pretty sure that the third age ened with the destruction of The One Ring.

After all, doesn't Aragorn or somebody else tell Frodo after he wakes up after the destruction of the ring that the new year in the fourth age will always be marked by that day?

What are you replying to?

No, the third age ended when Gandalf departed from middle earth. I'm sure that's actually written in RotK, if not it's in the appendices. I can't remember where else it is.