Could Gandalf have won the war alone?

[CSteefel]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Raynor's brought up a crucial quote. As long as the Ring existed, then some part of Sauron existed. You could throw all the Gandalfs (Gandalves? ), Aragorns, Gimlis and Legoli you liked at Sauron and beat him to a pulp, but as long as that Ring existed, some part of his incredible power existed, waiting to corrupt the unwary.

That's at the very heart of the difficult decisions made at the Council of Elrond. They could plan and make strategies, pool resources, get their powerful aides such as Gandalf or Galadriel out there to fight and connive and in some way to beat Sauron. They could even use the Ring as Boromir wants to do. But the real difficulty is that the Ring must be unmade to have any kind of effective victory - as long as that exists no victory could be complete.

Yes, this is the quote I could not remember (where are you guys getting these quotes, electronically or typing them in by hand?).

So we see the remark from Gandalf quoted by Raynor about the "great weakening of his power", and then we see this quote in which it is stated that even if he did not wear the Ring, the power existed. So clearly Sauron is strongest when he has the Ring, but still in possession of power perhaps well beyond the "typical Maia" even when he is not wearing it.