The Wise in Middle Earth

[JeffF.]

I just wanted to respond to the original post. Elrond never said he would choose Glorfindel over Pippin. Gandalf used Glorfindel as an example of a potential alternate to Pippin. Elrond's objection to Pippin was his age (by his own admition in RotK Pippin was not yet at the hobbit age of adulthood) and wished to send him with warning to the Shire to prepare as best they could.

Glorfindel would not have been all that bad a choice. An elflord with his power "revealed in his wrath" would have been an excellent way of fixing Sauron's attention and distracting him from the real ringbearer, but in all likelihood it would probably have been Glorfindel who would fall fighting the Balrog in Moria rather than Gandalf (since he'd killed one before at the Fall of Gondolin at the cost of his own life), but then Gandalf would not have been reincarnated as Gandalf the White.