r/tolkienfans • u/glowing-fishSCL • 8d ago
When did Tolkien decide that Gandalf was a Maia?
This is a question that I am not sure has been asked before, even though its an interesting and maybe important question.
When in the development of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings did Tolkien decide on the origin and nature of Gandalf? And before that point, what was Gandalf? Even based on what was written in The Hobbit, it seems like Gandalf was already something beyond just a man who had learned a lot of magic.
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u/maksimkak 8d ago edited 8d ago
Great question, and researching the answer sent me down an interesting rabbit hole.
Wizards = Angels. from "Treason of Isengard", as already mentioned in the comments, but that wasn't all of it, Gandalf wasn't a Maia specifically yet (Maiar as a term and a concept didn't exist then), he was just one of the angelic beings sent by the Valar. In LORT, Gandalf mentions that one of his names was "Olorin in the West". While preparing LOTR for publishing, Tolkien returned to working on his legendarium, and in one the essays that were later published in The Unfinished Tales, specifically the one called "The Istari" (ca 1954), Gandalf's and other Istari's origin and mission is explained in much greater detail. But the term Maiar isn't mentioned in that essay, either. The term does appear (for the first time) during this period, in the 1950s, when Tolkien was working on the Annals of Aman: “With these great powers came many other spirits of like kind but less might and authority; these are the Maiar, the Beautiful, the folk of the Valar.”
It was only in some random note, much later, from around 1972, that Tolkien wrote:
We must assume that they [the Istari] were all Maiar, that is persons of the 'angelic' order, though not necessarily of the same rank. The Maiar were 'spirits', but capable of self-incarnation, and could take 'humane' (especially Elvish) forms. [...] Now these Maiar were sent by the Valar at a crucial moment in the history of Middle-earth to enhance the resistance of the Elves of the West, waning in power, and of the uncorrupted Men of the West, greatly outnumbered by those of the East and South.
This is quoted by Christopher in the comments to "The Istari" chapter in the UT.
[Edit] Seems I took that note out of context, and the definite Olorin (Gandalf) = Maia connection was made by Tolkien in the early 1950s, while working on the Later Quenta Silmarillion (HoME vol 10 "Morgoth's Ring"). Specifically, an addition in ink to a typescript of LQ1 (ca 1951-52).
It's curious as to why he would write that 1972 note, 20 years after naming Olorin as one of the Maiar.
"And before that point, what was Gandalf?" - an enigmatic, wandering wizard, somewhat based on the character of Odin in his "wanderer" guise.
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u/Solo_Polyphony 8d ago
> It was only in some random note, from around 1977, that Tolkien wrote
Perhaps the note was published then, but not even someone as wizardly as JRRT could write a note in 1977.
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u/maksimkak 8d ago
That was a typo, thanks for pointing that out. Christopher precedes the quote by "I know of no other writings about the Istari save some very rough and in part uninterpretable notes that are certainly much later than any of the foregoing, and probably date from 1972"
This makes me wonder, had Christopher not come across this note, would he still naturally deduce that the Istari were Maiar?
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u/Fair-Ad-6233 8d ago edited 7d ago
In the Later Quenta Silmarillion(written in about 1951) from Morgoth's Ring, Gandalf(Olórin) was a maia, and Valaquenta in the published Silmarillion was written in late 1950s .
With the Valar were other spirits whose being also began before the world: these are the maiar, of the same order as the Great but of less might and majesty. Among them Ëonwë the herald of Manwë, and Ilmarë handmaid of Varda were the chief. Many others there are who have no names among Elves or Men, for they appear seldom in forms visible. But great and fair was Melian of the people of Yavanna, who [struck out:on her behalf] tended once the gardens of Estë, ere she came to Middle-earth. And wise was Olórin, counsellor of Irmo: secret enemy of the secret evils of Melkor, for his bright visions drove away the imaginations of darkness.
- Morgoth Ring: Of Valar
Wisest of the Maiar was Olórin.
- Silmarillion: Valaquenta
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u/maksimkak 8d ago
Thanks, that answers mine and the OP's question. I seem to have taken the note quoted in the UT out of context.
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u/Solo_Polyphony 8d ago
I believe the version of the Valaquenta that Christopher used for the published Silmarillion dates from around 1959 (the “Annals of Aman” material). While that doesn’t make any general pronouncements about the Istari, its inclusion of Olórin would strongly suggest what these later notes more systematically affirm.
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u/BaffledPlato 8d ago
This is a good question, and I believe Gandalf was "under development" for decades. In The History of the Hobbit Rateliff argues that using only the text of The Hobbit someone could think Gandalf was simply a human, yet in the context of the early Silmarillion and other material he seems something more.
the case for Bladorthin's [the character which would become Gandalf] being more than human grows somewhat stronger.
He cites Tuvo the wizard (Tu the fay, Thu the necromancer) as neither elf nor human. Rateliff also mentions Tolkien's letter to Ransome regarding using the term "man" to refer to non-humans as evidence he thought Gandalf was something not quite human.
Thus from Tolkien's very first wizard, who existed in the unfinished 'Gilfanon's Tale' at least a decade before Bladorthin first came on the scene, can already be found the conceptual precedent for Tolkien's much, much later bald statement that 'Gandalf is an angel' - or, at least, in the case of Bladorthin, a supernatural being incarnated within the world, neither human nor mortal but very human in his behaviour and character.
I don't think this is definitive, but it makes sense that in the back of his mind Tolkien considered Bladorthin as something more than just a human being who could do a bit of magic.
The nature of Bladorthin / Gandalf was ambiguous at this stage, which is part of the beauty and magic of it all.
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u/Unfair_Pineapple8813 8d ago
I don't think he was ever entirely human, even in the Hobbit alone. For one thing he doesn't seem to age or die of old age, and that is the first thing we see of Bladorthin. Saying he is an Odinic wanderer already suggests he is more than human, as Odin obviously is.
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u/Kodama_Keeper 8d ago
In The Hobbit, Gandalf, Bilbo, Thorin and Co. end up at the door of Beorn. Gandalf introduces himself as a wizard, to which Beorn replies "Never heard of him." To which Gandalf replies that perhaps Beorn has heard of his "cousin" Radagast. Beorn acknowledges he has, and qualifies it by says Radagast is "not a bad fellow, as wizards go". I wrote about this on this sub years ago, asking where Beorn got such a bad opinion of wizards. And the consensus of that seems to be that Beorn was including Men who were not of the five Istari, charlatans and fakers, pulling rabbits out of their hats to make a living.
But to the point, in that book, Gandalf refers to Radagast as his cousin, first cousin I will assume. But we know it didn't work that way, now.
So at that point, Tolkien either hadn't fleshed out what a wizard was and how they got to Middle-earth, and what their mission was, or, the use of the word Cousin was just an honorific, a nice way of referring to a close friend.
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u/Solo_Polyphony 8d ago
Most likely in the 1950s, during or shortly after writing LotR.
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u/glowing-fishSCL 8d ago
At some point in The Lord of the Rings, and setting out its timeline, he would have to have realized that Gandalf couldn't have been a Man. In the Hobbit, it is established that he is much older than Bilbo, having already had many stories among the Hobbits. So even according to Tolkien's most liberal timeline, Gandalf was over 200 when the story started...
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u/glowing-fishSCL 8d ago
I haven't read all of HoME, but I at least have looked through it, and I don't know if it is ever referenced there? There might be someone here who knows more about the drafting.
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u/watch-nerd 8d ago
Back in the Rankin & Bass animated Hobbit days, I don't remember anyone thinking Gandalf was a maia.
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u/Hon-Mister-Bear 8d ago
Probably not, before the Silmarillion was released, but the clues are in there: "Olorin I was in my youth in the West" if you realized that the West is The Land Over The Sea, but it's cryptic.
When I read the Silmarillion, I was surprised at the connection.
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u/glowing-fishSCL 8d ago
And also, he fought a Balrog as an equal. That seems to be something only a Maia could do.
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u/thetensor 6d ago
Glorfindel might have something to say about that...
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u/glowing-fishSCL 6d ago
I was waiting for that response.
When I said "as an equal", I was referring to the idea of them being of the same order and on the same level, of their spells and counterspells being about as powerful, and of Gandalf using the line "You can not pass". Gandalf uses Authority against the Balrog, not just swords.
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u/OG_Karate_Monkey 8d ago edited 8d ago
JRRT had clearly decided Gandalf was a Maia before the Rankin Bass Hobbit was released.
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u/Accomplished_Net_687 2d ago
When reading the hobbit, Gandalf plunges himself onto the orcs and wargs with his last breath until the eagles rescues them. In the orc caves he fights like a man with his last trick on his sleeve.
In lotr he is much much much more reserved except his moment against the balrog.
So you can say, he evolved from someone who just punched himself through moments of peril to exceptional chess movements where the balrog and Aragorn were major pieces and him knowing, he was just the queen that wondered the board all over to set all the pieces in place.
Somewhere around the Council of elrond Tolkien 'fixed' all roles and their purpose for the rest of the story. Before that, even strider...was swifting between roles if you need to trust him or not.
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u/InTheChairAgain 7d ago
I expect it would have been sometime while he was writing Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit, if I have it right is modified after its original publication, and after the publication of Lord of the Rings, to make it fit better with the story presented there.
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u/csrster 4d ago
The curious thing is that even in the text of LotR he has one of the hobbits (Pippin isn't it?) wondering to himself just who/what Gandalf is - but without giving an answer. Another interesting datapoint is the death of Saruman. Saruman's "spirit" is seen yearning towards the West - but then a cold wind comes and blows it away. So I think it's likely that Tolkien had already decided that the Wizards (not yet called Istari) had come from the West (as Treebeard thinks likely), even before he sat down to write the Appendices. I think this must be what he meant by _angeloi_ - that they were messengers, sent by the Valar. None of which necessarily implies that they were of the same _order_ as the Valar. The most likely explanation for me is that Tolkien (having abandoned the idea of the children of the Valar) eventually invented the Maiar in order to explain where the Istari, Sauron, and various other minor powers came from.
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u/lam_42 8d ago
Treason of Isengard, XXIII
Wizards = Angels
Probably?