[alatar]

Interesting thoughts, LoAL. I think that your thoughts about 'power' are what separate the good from the bad in Middle Earth. To use power without much forethought can be folly; the use of power can create the equal but opposite reaction.

Gandalf could have forced anyone, save a few, to bend to his will. In doing so he would have become like those he wished to oppose.

My one brother is much stronger and faster than me. He was a track star, holding some local records in both pole vaulting and sprinting. My brother can lift me completely above his head. In a fight, which, as brothers we did sometimes as kids, he could easily best me unless I played to my strengths, which were to taunt him until he lost control, and then hit him when he was ill-prepared - usually by taking out one of his legs. When he would hit the ground, I would wrap his one arm with both legs and the other with both arms and restrain him until he either came to his senses or he got loose and beat the tar out of me.

There were easier ways to take him down, but...he was my brother, and except for a few seconds when I would be enraged, even when we were fighting, I never would want to physically hurt him. A jab to the neck, a kick to the lower region and he'd be down...but why? Why would I do something so reckless/dangerous just to show him up? If/when he recovered, he too would escalate, and then I would have to hurt him seriously to keep him from hurting me more. Where would it end?

Being the calmer of the two of us, I tried to keep it from getting out of hand. I love my brother, even when he's being a pain in the neck.

I think that Gandalf felt this way. He could have fought Saruman, but he didn't want to start a fight which, even if he won, would only have resulted in the destruction of his foe, and I don't think that he wanted that. Even at the end he wished that Saruman found healing, and it may be that he felt the same about Sauron.

Look at the clear difference between Gandalf and the Witch-King. The later stomps over both friend and foe alike, whereas the former felt pity even for Sauron's slaves.