Killing Gandalf
 

How can Gandalf be killed, because in Two Towers chapter 'The White Rider' he says to Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli that the weapons they have could not hurt him. Now I thought Gandalf was a spirit in an old mans body exposed to human conditions such as; tiredness, hunger and injury etc. What weapons can be used against him?

I think the weapons that can harm Gandalf are the weapons of dark scorcery from the ancient world. The Balrog seemed to hurt him quite a bit and he didn't seem to up-beat around the Witch King of Angmar.

This thread may be useful :).

Gandalf the White (and Grey) is incarnate. So, probably, while a weapon may harm the flesh that he is 'clothed' in, it won't be able to do any damage to the spirit that resides within his body.

I believe that while weapons like Anduril and Aeglos may be able to harm Gandalf's body (I mean, hey, look what Narsil did to Sauron), there probably isn't any weapon in Middle-Earth that can harm his actual spirit. I'm not sure if even the Valar would be able to do that; no doubt Eru could cook up something to get rid of him though ;).

This question raises some other fascinating possibilities for me. We saw Wormtongue kill Saruman with a dagger, yet he only injured his body, whereas his spirit was dissipated by a cold wind from the West. That seems to contradict my theory that the Valar themselves probably can't harm the spirit of an incarnate being, though that gust may have been sent on the bidding, or by, Eru himself.

In the (abandoned) Second Prophecy of Mandos, it is predicted that Melkor will enter Valinor from the Void and will be slain by the Black Sword of Turin, Gurthang and he will finally die- i.e. his spirit will be slain. This is interesting, since the spirit of (formerly) the most powerful being in Arda can be slain by the sword of a Man - albeit that 'once it bites', it kills (don't have quote on me) - yet Anduril is seemingly unable to harm Gandalf. Himilsillion may be on to something with the 'dark sorcery' weapons- the good cannot hurt good notion, etc., but I don't know if I totally agree with this one.

So in answer to your question- I honestly am not too sure. The canon quotes and evidence I've presented appear to show that the 'clothed body' of an incarnate being can be harmed/destroyed by physical weapons, yet the actual spirit of the Maia cannot. Then there's the Second Prophecy :).

We don't know in which situation the Black Sword of Turin would be able to harm Morgoth. Perhaps the sword would be the vehicle in which some other power poisons the 'spirit' of Morgoth, and destroys it. I'm thinking something like a vaccine and a syringe, the syringe will not do anything to us but it will help to open an entrance for the vaccine itself.

Fingolfin, you've explained it quite well. :) Rudeboy, I think that Gandalf probably could be killed physically by a weapon on Middle-earth, but as Fingolfin says it wouldn't kill his spirit, only his "physical form." Just like how when Isildur cut the Ring from Sauron's finger, it only killed his physical form, not his spirit. He was still alive and capable of taking another physical form. Gandalf, if he was to be killed by say Aragorn, he would still be able to come back.

Perhaps they may not be able to "harm" a spirit. But, they are able to decide who enters Valinor or not. And I think this was the case when Saruman was killed. His "spirit" look to the west, and he was denied entrance back to Valinor, and so his spirit just went away.
So, I think as Saruman's spirit was leaving his body, it attempted to go to Valinor, and the Valar, who do have the authority of who to allow in or not, denied him, and his spirit dissappeared. It may not have been destroyed, Saruman's spirit just may be like Sauron's when the Ring was destroyed.

Granted that Maiar are much different than "mortals" (including Elves, Men, Dwarves, Hobbits ect.) but could not the same be said for all? Gleaning things like the souls of elves being rebodied and them fading after living too long, it could it perhaps be argued that they too are only able to be harmed in body. The discussion that orcs have souls is another thread and I will leave them out. However, is it possible all sentient creatures (what Lewis would call Hnau in his space trilogy) of ME are only able to be killed in body but not in soul?

Think you are on to something, at least all the creatures that are not evil go 'somewhere' when they die, they don't just dissipate. If I'm not mistaken, men whether they die from old age or are killed by something else, go somewhere beyond the realms of Arda, but I don't really know if that means their soulds just dissipate or that they go to some sort of 'heaven' outside the halls of Mandos. Elves can only be killed yet their souls are not lost, they are kept in the halls of Mandos I believe. Regarding hobbits and dwarves I do not know, but hobbits might have descended from Men and therefore share their destiny?

Yet we are straying off topic. I have another question that's a bit closer to what was originally asked. Gandalf is a Maia sent to the ME by the Valar and in Moria he fights a Balrog. Weren't Balrogs also Maiar, but corrupted by Morgoth? and if so, we hear that Gandalf kills the Balrog.... is it possible that they could kill one another? (say, a Maia kill another Maia but an elf could not kill them because they walk on different dimensions or something like that?) I might be mistaken though, feel free to correct me.

I am not for sure, but I don't think a Maia could kill another Maia. The Valar did not kill Morgoth even for all his heinous crimes, but perhaps they had a lot of mercy. But doesn't Gandalf exhibit mercy towards Gollum/Smeagol, and didn't he learn much wisdom from Nienna the Weeper? How could he then 'kill' another kindred spirit. Both the Balrog and Gandalf "died" on top of the Endless stair, but neither of their souls died.

And men's spirits go to the halls of Mandos, Farael. They do not leave Arda entirely, but go to Valinor.

So the spirits of men go to the halls of Mandos and the spirits of dead elves too, but a different place? I guess I got that mixed up, my bad. I do remember that the dead elves went to a place in which they had no physical body, only soul and that it was not the same place men went to (because if not, Arwen and Eleassar would have been to gether even after passing away) but I thought the men went out of the reach of the Valar.

Elves, not Men, go to the Halls of Mandos.

Quote from my PM to Estelyn:

Much obliged if somebody could provide a quote to support/disprove what I just said above.

More on topic, bilbo_baggins said-

As I said in my previous post, I don't believe that the Valar had the power to kill Morgoth; merely cast him into the Void at the bidding of Eru. Certainly if they do have this power to destroy his fea, then they didn't exercise it.

Fingolfin II -

This may help support your point. See Morgoth's Ring, Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, Author's Notes on the Commentary, note 4, for this :

This seems to be one of those clarifications framed in terms of "It is said or believed", rather than a clear statement of fact. But this is a device that Tolkien employs time and again (such as Sam eventually going to the West), which many readers (myself included) accept as "fact".

See also the statement in the usually reliable Encyclopedia of Arda:

Hope this helps. Perhaps someone has additional quotes on this?

I can't find it because my books are all packed up (I'm moving) and I can't get to my Silmarillion, but there is a section where Tulkas the Vala wants to go and contend with Melkor. The other Valar retain him and afterwards they chain Melkor and try him on the hill. Would Tulkas have gone just to be a gently rough police officer and bring Melkor back? I think that Tulkas had the power to outright kill Melkor or at least send him beyond their present realm of existence. Perhaps we are agreeing indirectly. Is not exiling Melkor to the Void in a sense like killing him? Sometimes when the elves die, they go to the halls of Mandos, and the men eventually go to Eru, so why not have the Valar and Maiar that are killed just whisp away to nothingness, like the case of Melkor, Saruman, and Sauron?

Again, I'm just rambling without a book, so feel free to laugh if I'm totally wrong.

Tulkas certainly did beat Melkor in the wrestle with him and thus, allowed him to be taken back as a prisoner to Valinor, yet I still maintain my assertion that Tulkas, nor any of the Valar, could kill Melkor outright. In the wrestling match you just alluded to, Tulkas beat Morgoth in a physical sense, yet I still have doubts as to whether he can actually kill him.

I don't think so- Melkor was simply confined to the Void, unable to return within the circles of Arda. Certainly his own inherent power was reduced by the war and the power that he put into his armies (Morgoth's Ring), yet he himself was not dead. You don't kill a spider just by putting it into an empty rubbish bin (unfortunately).

As I stated above, Melkor did not whisp away into 'nothingness', nor did Sauron. Certainly Saruman's spirit was dissipated after his body was killed by Grima; yet, I believe that the cold air that did this was summoned by, or on the command of, Eru himself. Sauron was not killed at the end of the War of the Ring- rather he was so crippled by the destruction of the Ring that he was not able to take shape again and was reduced to a mere spirit of malice. Not killed though. I don't have the books on me at the moment, either, but in The Silmarillion, before the story starts, it tells of how Morgoth was cast into the Void and of how Sauron 'took the same ruinous path into the Void' (or something like that). However, I fear that I digress from my main point and that is that Morgoth and Sauron were both not 'killed'; the former is merely unable to enter the Circles of the World again (as well as losing a lot of his power), while Sauron was weakened to an impotent spirit of malice.

bilbo, I hope I haven't taken away from any of your points and that you can put up with a lack of canonical evidence. Perhaps I've missed your point and we are agreeing indirectly; please feel free to tell me so :).

To be short and simple, is not sending Melkor beyond the Circles of Arda (into the Void) like killing him? Sending him is like "killing him." When the elves are "killed" they go to the Halls of Mandos, so when the Vala Melkor was "killed" they sent him beyond, into the Void. A similar thing, albeit not the same, happened to Sauron. I believe that the spirit of Saruman was taken to the Void as well, because Melkor deserved just as much punishment as Saruman, and if Eru let something like exile happen to Melkor, then the same coul happen to Saruman.

But I digress. Short and simple it is...

Late writings show that Melkor was indeed executed as a mortal. He had become thoroughly incarnate and was thus "killable" even though his impotent spirit would persist infinitely.