Two Questions about the Stone Giants.

[Armetiel]

I was just wondering who or what exactly you think the stone giants in "The Hobbit" were or are? Also, whose side were they on in the war of the Ring and what happened to them afterwards. They don't necessarily seem to have been "evil" and Gandalf seemed to have been on speaking terms with them.

"I must see if I can't find a more or less decent giant to block it up again," said Gandalf, "or soon there will be no getting over the mountains at all."

Now this leads me to another entirely different question. Did Gandalf ever find a giant to block up the passage or not? Because it seems to me, that what he predicted would happen if he DIDN'T find them to, happened...It seemed pretty much the case in the Lord of the Rings that there was no getting over the mountains at all, they went under instead. So, if he couldn't find a "decent" giant to block it up, then the way was still opened. If it was opened, why did the fellowship not take this passage through the mountains instead of heading south to Caradhras and eventually Moria.

I mean, i admit that they didn't want to run into the Goblins, but even in the Hobbit Gandalf proved to have a lot of power in him to defeat them, and now he had Aragorn, Legolas and Boromir with him.

Not saying that they would still want to run into the Goblins (or orcs as they are called in LOTR), but I'm imagining that the Goblins would be better than the chance they took on "Cruel Caradhras" or the Passage through the Mines of Moria which Gandalf thought they might end up having to take. There were orcs in both the Mines and Passage that Bilbo took, but at least there was no Balrog. Even if Gandalf didn't know about the Balrog, he knew that there was another stronger kind of evil in the mines.

And now, let's assume that Gandalf DID find a decent giant to block up the passage that Bilbo took. Could he not find another decent giant, if not the same one, to UNBLOCK the passage for just as long as it would take them to get through?

O and one more question...anyone have any idea how big the stone giants were lol? jw.