<font face="Verdana"><table><TR><TD><FONT SIZE="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Shade of Carn Dûm
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Re: Gandalf and Sauron
I really meant that reference more as a question than as an answer. But then, I think that the question sits best that way, unanswered. It seems to me that this was an issue which JRRT left unresolved, at least within the confines of LotR. There is seemingly contradictory material pertaining to it. It is always hard to be sure whether JRRT even solved this question for himself, or whether he even cared to. If so, I think he chose not to foreclose thought on the subject by a decisive answer. Maybe, instead, the question of the two Maia's relative strength seemed to him like an unwise diversion from the more pressing issue of banishing the corrupting power of the Ring from ME. Not that I forbear from hazarding opinions. Sauron was weaker when Gandalf drove him from Dol Guldur in 2063 than he was during the War of the Ring. His preponderant might seems to me to be one of the essential preconditions of the of the story of the War of the Ring as JRRT told it.
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