[Beanamir of Gondor]

*sigh* I just meant that for silly n00b5 or those who have never read Silmarillion or The Lost Tales, etc., they would have to do an extremely close reading of the texts to get anything about a higher power. Since you don't even know about Arda or where the Wizards came from, you don't know that their transcendence ever existed, much less that it ended when they left Ea.
It's obviously another thread topic, but I think the idea of Gandalf as a Messianic figure is going a bit far, MatthewM. "Coming back from the dead" is sticky terminology... did he really enter the halls of Mandos? (Agh! More Valar!) Or was it just a transitional phase?

This thread has gone drunken-Mr.-Rochester on me, so here I make my exit to ME Mirth.