Could Gandalf have won the war alone?
 

It is said at a number of points in the story (e.g. by Gandalf himself at the "Last Debate") that there will be no hope for the free people of Middle Earth if Frodo's mission fails. However, I cannot really imagine that Gandalf did not have a "Plan B", and would have surrendered or died without doing anything in case the last battle at the Black Gate failed. By the way, otherwise it would not have been ok in my opinion to send 7000 men to an almost secure death.

My idea is the following: If the battle at Morannon turned out to be desastrous, Gandalf would have shown his full power, marched through the lines of the enemies to Barad Dur and threw Sauron down. If you think that this is complete nonsense, I ask you to consider the following points: At his encounter with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli in Fangorn, Gandalf says that nobody of these three has a weapon that could harm him, and both these warriors and their weapons were certainly much better than the orcs and men of Mordor. Second, Gandalf was able to completely break Saruman's power at Orthanc, and Saruman - like Sauron - is a Maia from his origin.

So I think that there was indeed some hope for the "West" beyond Frodo's "mission impossible" to Mordor.

I wouldn't think so; Gandalf himself states:
In the letters, Tolkien also notes:
[He also notes that Gandalf reveals his might when rescuing Faramir and forbiding the entry of the witch-king in Minas Tirith]. As far as invicibility goes, this is not something that was achieved by either Melkor or Sauron - I doubt that Eru would break the rules with Gandalf. We should also consider that in Myths Transformed, HoME X, it is said:

I don't think Gandalf would do it, but the point of "invincibility" of Gandalf lies, I think, in Tolkien's thoughts of the attributes of the resurrected body - as written in some of his letters, I think, concerning Gandalf and Glorfindel. What is most important is, that he was Gandalf the White now - being still Gandalf the Gray he could probably have died by an accidental orc arrow. But being now Gandalf the White (as he himself says, "now understanding more than he did before"), he must also have more understood to the meaning of his mission - and I'm sure marching to Barad-dur and overthrowing Sauron by force (or his own powers) was surely not a part of it. See below.

As said before, Gandalf surely knew more and knew that, whatever he was doing, was right at the moment. He just hoped - he had nothing much more (and he said it quite often from the moment it was decided that Frodo takes the Ring).
Also I'd be aware of what Raynor mentioned, that Gandalf's mission was NOT to take Sauron down by force. This is just what happens to the "normal human thinking". In this way, I dare to say that probably almost all of us, are in default "Boromirs" (Not meaning Boromir as character, just at this point of thinking at the Council. Boromir was cool!). Because this is what Boromir just did: when being asked at the Council of Elrond, what should be done, his first thought was to use the Ring as a weapon. To try to overthrow Sauron by force. Of course, this is the most logical thing from normal, human point of view. In another discussion, I asked, what would you vote for had you been sitting on the Council of Elrond. Would you let one hobbit go right into the land of the Enemy, or would you try to find some other way, at least to assemble all the forces you are able to and try to win over the Enemy? Why, the Ring was a perfect tool for this. If Gandalf wanted this, why didn't he use this "plan B" rightaway, for example giving the Ring to Aragorn, taking care of him not to go mad by the Ring as much as it is possible, quickly assemble all forces, both Men and Elves, defeat Sauron and then destroy the Ring (killing Aragorn, in the worst possibility, would be no problem against killing Sauron had he taken the Ring).

Take a parallel in the First Age: Many uncounted battles, many and many armies and heroes of the High Elves, who have seen the Light of Aman and learned from Valar and had weapons which could cut steel and who knows what else, and they were not able to get rid of Morgoth. However, Beren, "a simple son of trapper" :D was able to enter Angband and take one of the Silmarils. Not because he was "a simple son of trapper" or because he had Lúthien by his side (although of course, this was important), but because he was destined to - or better said, his deeds were according to Eru's will (like Frodo's). The point is not to have 30,000 warriors, or 300 High Elf Lords (or even one, like Fingolfin) but to do things according to Eru's will. From both LotR and the history of the Silmarils you can deducate this: whatever was done by whoever, there was almost nothing of their own accomplishment, the most powerful victories were accomplished by, said with Tolkien, accident.

I don't like these things - and many people use this. "Gandalf was a Maia, so he was the same power as Sauron." To these people I say, that I can add many others: "The Balrog of Moria was a Maia, but he was stuck somewhere, although Sauron, being Maia as well, was almost ruler of Middle-earth. How comes?" - "Ungoliant was a Maia. But Morgoth was Vala. He could have killed her almost with a single thought, so what was the problem at Lammoth?" - "Morgoth was Vala. Then some stupid halfelfmaiawhatever comes and puts him to sleep? Silly!"
You cannot say "He was a Maia, so..." - Gandalf (and Saruman! All of the wizards in the origin, after all) gave up his power willingly to be reduced, to be diminished in the mortal form. Yes, they had some more power, but they were not allowed (from their own choice in the beginning) to use it fully. I thought of one very similar situation to that of Gandalf&the other wizards, I think I could use it as some illustration, or parallel: it is from the 4th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is lead to the desert to be tempted (or tested) by the devil. "If you are the Son of God," says the devil to Jesus, "tell these stones to become bread." Gandalf could, literally, also "turn the stones to the bread". He didn't. Or more evident, if I use one more quote:
This is what Saruman did. Saruman, had he been in the place of Jesus, would have said "of course, if you give this to me freely, I'd take it". He also actually did it. This is just what he said to Gandalf in Orthanc: "We could join with this power... then we might learn to control it, maybe for a price, but... in the end, we will be able to accomplish what we came for." And these were the good goals he had in mind (or at least he said that). But what he forgot was that they were not asked to act this way.

I'm not sure what do you take as "hope for the West". Many times it is said, that if Sauron got the Ring again, his victory would be so great that no one could imagine there will ever be an end of his reign. Although I think, if it came to this, some way will be found - but again, NOT by warfare. Gondor stood with humongous army a few miles from Mordor for thousands of years, and nothing. Elrond and Galadriel could, instead of singing in the forests, come along with Glorfindel and all mighty High Elves who were there, and sweep Mordor clean. Why not. Gandalf could have probably taken down Smaug with one well-pointed lightning from his staff, and not having to be bothered with some Bilbo stuff. And after all, Valar could have come like they did in the First Age, kicked into the Barad-dur, and Sauron could just kiss all his Rings goodbye. But this was not the plan. I believe, if Frodo's mission was to fail, some hope would have come in, let's say, another thousand years from some insignificant, overlooked centre (like some Easterling camp or whatever) - or from the West, but not in the form of War of Wrath, but in some form of a man like Eärendil - or Gandalf, who would turn the enemy's victory into defeat, but currently I have no idea how, sorry - no idea for a book "An alternative ending to LotR" now, sorry :cool:

So, for those who don't like reading long posts, my answer to the question "Could Gandalf have won the war alone" is: No, and he wouldn't (and shouldn't!) even want to.

There is presumably some distinction between the statement "no weapons you have could harm me..." and the ability to actually throw down Sauron, which implies something beyond self-defense. Raynor's quote of the line that "Black is mightier still..." is very much to the point.

As we have seen, you can't simply blindly apply the hierarchy of Middle Earth--Sauron has significantly increased his power, through his own talents and through the forging of the Ring, over the course of two ages of the Earth, so he is more than a match for any number of Maia. Also, this seems to run completely counter to the entire point of the book, which is that in the end Sauron will be defeated by the lesser people, who he has ignored and underestimated. His inability to understand the course of action devised by Gandalf, namely to destroy the Ring rather than to use it, is his real undoing--of course, it is Gandalf who takes advantage of this, but that isn't the same as saying that Gandalf will storm Barad Dur...

I would disagree with that:
Now, true enough, the great weakening could simply referr to the loss of increased power the ring gave.

I think it would refer to him losing his Ring, as in the Letter to Milton Waldman Tolkien does say the Ring enhanced Sauron's power. :)

One more thing I'd like to point out is, I think with each time Sauron was killed and had to reform, he lost more of his power:
Technically if you could just kill Sauron enough times, he wouldn't have the will power anymore to reform. As each time Sauron 'rebuilds' or has to rebuild, it takes him longer and I got a sense that he gets weaker as he loses his 'inherent energy' or as Tolkien calls it 'the will.'

By the War of the Ring, I think Sauron had enough force (militarily) to beat down the West, so defeating Sauron by force wasn't an option. However, each time Sauron died and had to reconstruct a new body, he appears to have been weaker than the previous. ;)

There's also the not very insignificant factor that the One Ring had to be destroyed. Even had Gandalf marched into Mordor and opened up a whole can of wizardly whupass on Sauron and smote him or something like that (and I doubt that he could have done this anyway) the Ring would still have existed. This Ring was made by Sauron and contained something of Sauron. Note how all the great and the good refuse the Ring as they know that if they owned it then they too would turn into tyrants; had it continued to exist then there would have been a mini-me Sauron to deal with all over again in a few years time, maybe a Napoleon-like Frodo or a wicked witch of the west Galadriel.

Gandalf was going for the full monty, the absolute defeat. Draw a line under it, shut the door, return to Valinor, job done. That's what's so frightening about Frodo's mission, the whole future of Middle-earth depends on him literally unmaking the Ring.

Welcome to the Downs. regarding your point above, what people say and what then can actually do can be somewhat different!

Sorry if it seems like were all piling on here...but regarding what Essex said about the point of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli being better than the Orcs/Men of Mordor. Sure, I would say any one of those three is better than a single orc, but how about approximately 70,000 orcs/men, which is what they were up against at the Morannon? ;)

I was referring to the increase in his power relative to his primitive state as a Maiar. Now the question is, what is his power when he does not possess the Ring, but when it still exists (basically, his situation in the Third Age). Admittedly, he must have been more nearly equal with a Saruman or a Gandalf, but we see him giving the Witch King more power just before the Siege of Minas Tirith. Stated another way, does the loss of the Ring bring him back to Square One, his power before the forging of the Rings, or is his power still beyond that since the Ring still exists and answers to his will???

well if gandalf is able to take on sauron would that mean he is stronger than what gil galad elindil were

I agree with all of the Legate of Amon Lanc's points.
Gandalf had no "plan B" but perhaps he had a "plan C", for himself or his successor to wander around the slave camps of Middle Earth, spreading hope and the knowledge that a free world had once existed until, after many generations of men, Sauron felt secure enough to let his guard slip enough for someone to get at The Ring and destroy it.
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Yes, that is what I had in mind. Anyway, it does seem that Gandalf makes several .... questionable statements, this being one of them. Some other are that he stated that mithril can be found only in Moria - while in an author's note (31) in The Disaster of Gladden Fields, Unfinished Tales, it is stated that in can be found also - or when he said that the nazgul keep their rings, something which is contradicted in all the other referrences throughout Tolkien's works. Perhaps Gandalf's age is catching up with him? After all, Tolkien did note in the letters (#156) that he does make errors of judgement.
Imo, Sauron continuously loses power and he can at most replenish it by absorbing the power Melkor dissipated. Concerning the effect of Sauron not having the ring, Tolkien stated:

Raynor's brought up a crucial quote. As long as the Ring existed, then some part of Sauron existed. You could throw all the Gandalfs (Gandalves? ;)), Aragorns, Gimlis and Legoli you liked at Sauron and beat him to a pulp, but as long as that Ring existed, some part of his incredible power existed, waiting to corrupt the unwary.

That's at the very heart of the difficult decisions made at the Council of Elrond. They could plan and make strategies, pool resources, get their powerful aides such as Gandalf or Galadriel out there to fight and connive and in some way to beat Sauron. They could even use the Ring as Boromir wants to do. But the real difficulty is that the Ring must be unmade to have any kind of effective victory - as long as that exists no victory could be complete.

Yes, this is the quote I could not remember (where are you guys getting these quotes, electronically or typing them in by hand?).

So we see the remark from Gandalf quoted by Raynor about the "great weakening of his power", and then we see this quote in which it is stated that even if he did not wear the Ring, the power existed. So clearly Sauron is strongest when he has the Ring, but still in possession of power perhaps well beyond the "typical Maia" even when he is not wearing it.

Seeing as this isn't Battle for Middle-Earth, there is no way Gandalf could have done it alone. Granted, orcs are pretty weak and pathetic, but with the rest of Sauron's army and the Nazgul, Gandalf would have gone down. While he likely could have defeated the crippled and combat-inept Sauron, he wouldn't have made it through the army between the two, full power or no.

Before anyone says "But they are Maia/Vala" Sauron was a Maia, and he got beaten by a dog. Then, with the one ring, he was defeated by a very old (even for his kind) man and an elven king who was not as strong as the ones of old when both were likely tired from fighting through Sauron's armies. Just because you are something does not equal victory whatsoever.

Weren't the Istari forbidden from openly challenging Sauron himself, as in ride into Mordor and challenge him directly. I thought that they were supposed to rally the free peoples and help them overthrow Sauron. Just a thought, probably wrong though.

No, all referrences I know state that they were only forbidden to show their full power in their "contest of the growth of the Shadow":