The White Council assaults Dol Guldur?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Sardy

1. Was there any discussion, debate or verbal confrontation between the White Council and Sauron? Possibly before the military "assault" on Dol Guldur was launched?

You mean, any "diplomacy talks" or such things? Not sure how it would've looked like. Though maybe... well, I don't think there is anything about it. Maybe in HoME, if ever.

2. (Apologies if this had already been addressed, I'm still reading through the thread...) Did the White Council realize that they were dealing with Sauron? Or did they think that they were driving out a previously unknown threat (i.e., "The Necromancer")? Was their goal to utterly defeat Sauraon/Necromancer? Drive him out of Greenwood? Or simply just to post-pone his inevitable re-emergence in M-e?

They knew it was Sauron since Gandalf visited Dol Guldur for the second time. Their goal was to get rid of him - definitely to prevent him from rising, to drive him away from Mirkwood, and they counted on at least diminishing his power and stopping him for several hundred or thousand years to come.

3. When Gandalf arrived at Dol Guldur, did he explain his tardiness to the rest of the White Council in something along the lines of, "Sorry I'm late... I was just creatively re-interpreting my Istari mandate of not directly interfering by arranging the murder of (the last) dragon and instigating a War of Five Armies?"

He arrived on time - and not to Dol Guldur, but to the Council, possibly Lórien. That can be concluded from his words:

Originally Posted by UT, The Quest for Erebor

I had to be with the White Council in August at the latest, or Saruman would have his way and nothing would be done.

Of course he didn't know that Saruman wanted to attack as well already, but that's a side issue.