Would he have done it?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Gobtwiddle, my dear sir. Do mean to imply that the first pages of the published Silmarillion (Valaquenta/Ainulindalë) came after Tolkien completed LotR? Gobtwiddle, I say. Or are you saying all the reader can know because all that other stuff wasn't published yet? Or are you saying in the context of LotR alone? Even then, we're talking about Gandalf in the context of Tolkien's entire cosmic structure. And one more point. Eru is not God, but Eru is the the prime deity of Arda, and there are enough similarities such that it is not mere convenience to "confound" the two. Gauntlet thrown, oh deadcomrade of polls and canonicitiness.

"Gobtwiddle"! "Gobtwiddle"!?!?!? The gauntlet is thrown indeed your metrically-organised smallness!

"Do mean to imply that the first pages of the published Silmarillion (Valaquenta/Ainulindalë) came after Tolkien completed LotR?" -- I thought that I was doing far more than imply this. Tolkien revised and revised the Sil until his dying day, and the final published version is also very much the result of Christopher's editing. Both the older Tolkien and his son were far more interested in bringing the cosmos of M-E into a Catholic shape than the Tolkien who wrote LotR, who was interested only -- or at least primarilly -- in telling a ripping good yarn.

"Or are you saying all the reader can know because all that other stuff wasn't published yet?" -- Also a yes.

"Or are you saying in the context of LotR alone?" -- what other context is relevant here? The question as posed is whether or not Gandalf would have taken the Ring; such a situation exists only in the context of LotR.

But the point here is not to address the Eru/God debate (but perhaps the time has come to do so in another, more effective fashion..hmmm.....) but the question of Gandalf's fate. And I still say that the question as asked was answered in the text. He did not take the Ring when it was offered to him, and he made it perfectly clear that it was madness for anyone to try. Further to that, with his reincarnation as Gandalf the White, we see Gandalf having recieved the highest benediction of those in the West: their especial faith that he would never succumb to the Ring.

(*Fordim waits for someone to catch him out in his complete flip-flop here*)

I quite like Bergil's point that Gandalf had other options -- desperate options indeed, but certainly better than taking the One.