Gandalf

To those who met him, Gandalf seemed a grey-cloaked, aged wanderer leaning on a staff — the least imposing of the order of wizards known as the Istari. The impression was deliberate and deceptive: behind the worn hat and the bristling brows stood one of the wisest beings ever to walk Middle-earth, and those who dismissed him as a mere maker of fireworks rarely understood whom they had turned away.

His outward form concealed a far older nature. He was in origin a Maia, a spirit of the order that entered the world at its beginning, and in Valinor he was called Olórin. There he dwelt in Lórien, the garden of dreams, and learned pity and patience from Nienna; the Valaquenta names him the wisest of the Maiar. According to the account in Unfinished Tales, he was chosen for the mission to Middle-earth by Manwë himself, and accepted only reluctantly, protesting that he was too weak for the task and afraid of Sauron — a humility that was itself part of the reason he was sent. Clothed in a genuine body of flesh, he was subject to weariness, hunger, and fear like those he was sent to counsel.

His many names reflect the many peoples among whom he walked, and he once recounted them himself in words later repeated by Faramir: Olórin in the West in his youth, Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves, Incánus in the South, and Gandalf among the Men of the North. Mithrandir, the name current in Gondor as well, means the Grey Pilgrim or Grey Wanderer; Tharkûn is explained in Tolkien's later notes as a Dwarvish word for a man with a staff, while the origin of Incánus remained unsettled even in those discussions. In Rohan he was known as Greyhame, and at Théoden's court he also bore less friendly titles: the king greeted him as a stormcrow, a bringer of trouble, and Gríma Wormtongue coined the name Láthspell, meaning ill news.

Gandalf entered the history of Middle-earth around the year 1000 of the Third Age, when the Istari came over the Sea at the time a shadow first fell on Greenwood the Great. At the Grey Havens he was welcomed by Círdan the Shipwright, who perceived his true nature and entrusted to him in secret Narya, the Ring of Fire, judging that the wizard would put it to better use in the labours ahead. Unlike Saruman, who travelled far into the East, or Radagast, who settled near Mirkwood, Gandalf took no fixed dwelling, but wandered chiefly in the western lands among Elves and Men. Of all the Wise he was the one who kept closest watch on the small and overlooked, and in time this brought him into his long friendship with the hobbits of the Shire.

His attention turned early to the fortress of Dol Guldur in southern Mirkwood, seat of the sorcerer known only as the Necromancer. In 2063 he went there to learn the truth, and the power hidden within fled eastward before him, beginning the long lull remembered as the Watchful Peace, which lasted until the Shadow's return in 2460. In 2850 Gandalf entered Dol Guldur a second time, in secret, and confirmed that its master was indeed Sauron returned. In its dungeons he found the dying dwarf Thráin II, from whom he received the map and key of Erebor, though he did not then learn whose heir the prisoner was. At the White Council of the following year he urged an assault on Dol Guldur, but was overruled by Saruman.

A chance meeting with Thorin Oakenshield near Bree in March 2941 gave him the means to act on a danger he had long weighed: the dragon Smaug, whom Sauron might use with terrible effect. Gandalf joined Thorin's plan to regain Erebor and pressed upon the dwarves an unlikely fourteenth companion, the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, presenting himself unannounced at Bag End with thirteen dwarves in tow. He guided the company over the Misty Mountains, where Bilbo came by a magic ring, but left them at the eaves of Mirkwood to join the White Council, which that year finally drove Sauron from Dol Guldur. He returned north in time for the Battle of Five Armies, which ended the quest; the death of Smaug and the restoration of the Kingdom under the Mountain secured the North against the war to come.

Bilbo's ring troubled Gandalf increasingly over the following decades, and after the hobbit's farewell feast in 3001 — at which he persuaded Bilbo, with difficulty, to leave it behind — he began a long investigation with the help of Aragorn, who hunted the creature Gollum. A scroll of Isildur found in the archives of Minas Tirith in 3017 gave him the final test, and in April 3018 he proved at Bag End that Frodo's inheritance was the One Ring itself. That summer he rode to Isengard at Saruman's invitation, only to discover the head of his order turned traitor; imprisoned on the pinnacle of Orthanc, he was rescued in September by the eagle Gwaihir and afterwards tamed the great horse Shadowfax of Rohan. At the Council of Elrond in October he laid the whole matter open, and when the Fellowship of the Ring set out from Rivendell on 25 December, he went as its guide.

Within the histories of the Third Age Gandalf appears not as a ruler or commander of realms, but as a counsellor who moves between peoples. The Tale of Years places the coming of the Istari around the year 1000 of the Third Age, when the shadow of Sauron first stirred again, and Gandalf's labour thereafter is to gather knowledge, warn the Wise, and set others in motion: he prompts the expedition to Erebor, uncovers the true nature of Bilbo's ring through long investigation, and shapes the counsels at Rivendell from which the Fellowship is formed. He sits on the White Council but holds no throne, no army, and no fixed dwelling.

His visible arts are closely bound to fire and light, from the fireworks and blazing pine-cones of the Erebor journey to the light and flame he sets against the Balrog on the bridge of Khazad-dûm. Yet the narrative repeatedly marks the cost and the bounds of such power: a fire kindled on Caradhras announces his presence to watchful enemies, the shutting-spell he lays on a door in Moria nearly breaks him, and Saruman is able to hold him prisoner on Orthanc. Most telling is his refusal of the One Ring, which he will not take even as a gift, judging that through pity and the desire to do good it would master him.

The posthumously published material explains these restraints. The Istari were Maiar sent in the bodies of aged men, subject to weariness, hunger, and fear, and forbidden to match Sauron's power with open power or to dominate Elves and Men by force; their task was to kindle resistance, not to command it. Gandalf is there identified with Olórin, a spirit who in Valinor learned pity and patience, qualities that in Middle-earth define both the manner and the limit of his strength.

Gandalf's most distinctive attachment ran counter to the habits of the Wise: his friendship with the hobbits of the Shire. He had known the family of the Old Took generations before the War of the Ring, and it was he who pressed the reluctant Bilbo Baggins into Thorin's company, judging that the small and unregarded had a part to play in great events. That judgement deepened into trust when he laid the burden of the One Ring on Frodo, whom he guided by counsel rather than command. His refusal to despise the humble — and his pity for even so wretched a creature as Gollum — proved decisive to the outcome of the war.

Among the great he was an ally rather than a ruler. He worked for decades with Aragorn, with whom he hunted Gollum; he took counsel with Elrond and Galadriel; and from Círdan he received Narya, the Ring of Fire, in secret upon his arrival in Middle-earth. His sharpest relationships were adversarial. Sauron was his appointed enemy, against whom his whole mission was directed. Saruman, the head of his own order, moved from rivalry through jealousy to open treachery, imprisoning Gandalf at Orthanc; Denethor of Gondor received him with suspicion, while Théoden of Rohan, who first greeted him as a bringer of ill news, was roused by him out of decline.

Posthumously published writings trace these bonds back to his origin. His oldest bonds reached back to Valinor, and what he had absorbed there of pity and patience the qualities that later shaped his dealings with hobbits and enemies alike. Manwë chose him for the mission to Middle-earth despite his own professed fear of Sauron, and Círdan, discerning his quality at the Grey Havens, surrendered Narya to him unasked.

Gandalf has been portrayed across animation, radio, and live-action film. In the Rankin/Bass animated television film of The Hobbit (1977) and its later companion piece The Return of the King (1980), the character was voiced by John Huston; in Ralph Bakshi's animated The Lord of the Rings (1978), which covers roughly the first half of the story, William Squire provided the voice. Michael Hordern played Gandalf in the BBC radio serialisation of The Lord of the Rings (1981). The most widely known portrayal is that of Ian McKellen, who played the wizard in Peter Jackson's live-action film trilogies The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003) and The Hobbit (2012–2014), receiving an Academy Award nomination for the first film.

The Jackson films depart from the books in several documented respects. Gandalf's detention by Saruman at Orthanc, only recounted after the fact in the novel, is staged on screen as a physical duel between the two wizards. In the film of The Return of the King, Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch-king is expanded: an extended-cut scene shows the Nazgûl lord shattering Gandalf's staff, an event without counterpart in the book, and Gandalf intervenes against Denethor by force rather than through words alone. The Hobbit trilogy dramatizes Gandalf's absences from the original narrative, showing his investigation of Dol Guldur and his captivity there — material the novel leaves off-page and the appendices only summarize.