[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I I think that since [Gandalf] used ALL his power to defeat the Balrog, he didn't have any strength to stay alive. … I don't think that his death was a punishment for revealling himself as a Maia at a time of need… Gandalf was went back to ME to complete his task, so I think that the Valar and Eru totally approved of Gandalf's choice. …

I agree. That’s why I posited that his death

Originally Posted by Alcuin

was the natural outcome of his decision to “fight like a Maia”

To clarify – and concur –, I was not suggesting that it was some kind of “punishment”, but rather the natural outcome of using all his powers in the “shape weak and humble” to which he was confined; and perhaps that would have been the outcome even had he retained the physical form he’d used in Valinor.

But since this thread is about his wizard’s staff, it has been noted already that Gandalf’s staff was an ex-staff by this point. I don’t think he was “missing” any of his power when he fought the Balrog.

So what did Gandalf’s breaking his staff signify? He did not intend to die: what would have been the outcome without the staff? Could he just pick up another one anywhere in the woods? Did the staff of an Istar need somehow to be consecrated?

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As first conceived, I think it may be that a wizard’s staff was merely a “staff of office.” In Treason of Isengard, chapter “Flotsam And Jetsam” (remember, this is a draft of Two Towers), one of the earlier versions said,

Gandalf demands [Saruman’s] staff of office. He refuses; then Gandalf orders him to be shut up [in Orthanc].

Later in ToI, in the chapter “Voice Of Saruman” (again, this is not the finished tale of TT), CJRT says that

in the original sketches … Saruman was not in his tower, Gandalf took his staff from him and broke it with his hands

And footnote 6 to this chapter says that in one draft Gandalf advises Treebeard, “with the Key of Orthanc and his staff [Saruman] must not be allowed to escape.”

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There are at least two other broken staffs in Lord of the Rings. For now, I impute no associations with the breaking of Gandalf’s or Saruman’s staffs, but I report them so that they might be useful to the general discussion.

1. In TT in “Shelob's Lair”, Sam broke the stout walking staff that Faramir gave him across Gollum’s back. This staff seems to be purely utilitarian. The description Tolkien gives us is,

   The staff cracked and broke.

   Compare that to the TT final published “Voice of Saruman”, where JRRT describes Gandalf’s breaking Saruman’s staff:

   There was a crack, and the staff split asunder in Saruman's hand, and the head of it fell…

   And in FotR, “The Bridge of Khazad-dûm”, the description used is

   The staff broke asunder and fell from his hand.

   My point is that the description of Sam’s breaking his purely utilitarian staff over Gollum’s back is similar to the breaking of Gandalf’s and Saruman’s staffs.
   
   
2. In RotK, “Pyre of Denethor”, Denethor lit a fire, climbed onto the funerary table in its midst, broke his staff of office over his knee, and cast the broken remains into the blaze. Here the staff, although likely quite old, was purely symbolic. Later in “The Steward and the King”, Faramir handed Aragorn “a white rod” as the symbol of his office of Steward, which Aragorn took (emphasizing that the office of Steward was Aragorn’s to bestow), gave the stewardship to Faramir as an hereditary office (the House of Húrin had at first remained stewards by consensus among the uneasy nobles), which he symbolized by returning the white rod to Faramir.