HieroGlyph said:
The above is more an admission of what the Valar aught to have done, is it not? You've just argued against your teams standing!!
Not at all, it just emphasizes that a quick end to Sauron was not their goal.
Raynor, I still contend that if Gandalf had been thinking as a Maia he would have been, essentially, on Valinor time, and therefore there's no guarantee that he would have acted sooner in regard to Sauron, Saruman, or anything else, even if he had caught on sooner.
And may I say that your very argument that the Valar made a mistake just shows that Gandalf as Olorin (a mere Maia) would not necessarily have been as clever about working things out as you indicate.
As for actual fighting, yes, Gandalf does fight: to defend himself, his friends, and the people around him -- but not
directly against Sauron at the Pelennor Fields or before the Black Gate. And I don't believe Tolkien ever says exactly what part Gandalf and Saruman played when the White Council drove the Necromancer/Sauron out of the Dol Guldur. For all we know, they may simply have been there advising and encouraging Galadriel and the rest.
In the end, even coming back with enhanced powers, Gandalf's role is such that he still does his important work through others -- and the very most important thing, the destruction of the Ring, was accomplished through a series of events he set in motion as Gandalf the Grey.
I particularly like a phrase in that older Istari thread HieroGlyph resurrected yesterday: that the wizards came as men to be emulated, rather than gods to be worshipped.
The Valar were in no hurry to dispose of Sauron -- for one thing, because everything we know about them indicates that they never
were in a hurry period. But also, it's pretty obvious that Sauron in and of himself did not seem that important to them. Compared to Morgoth, he was pretty small potatoes. Though a shapeshifter himself, he didn't have his old master's ability to twist other beings into new and hideous shapes -- it wasn't Sauron who turned Elves into Orcs, or manufactured dragons and firedrakes out of ... whatever. He didn't recruit other Maiar to his cause. He couldn't even have made Rings of Power without the help of Celebrimbor and his crew. As far the Valar were concerned, old Thu (as he was once known to his friends and intimates) was probably just a passing dischord in the Music.
If they had been that eager to dispose of him, they had the perfect opportunity long before, when he was captured by the Numenorians and taken to Numenor. What could have been easier at that point than extraditing him to Valinor and casting him into the void along with Melkor? They didn't even try. Which either shows that they didn't care -- or that they did care but never quite got around to it (which brings us back to what I said before about Valinor time).
The one time that they really sat up and took notice of Sauron's activities was when he seduced the Numenoreans into violating the Ban.
Which demonstrates that the one place where Sauron was able to get under their skin was in his ability to corrupt men through their own weaknesses, their own fears. That, so far as the Valar were concerned, was the real danger that he presented: that he might continue to turn men into the paths of evil to their own destruction.
And that is the danger the Istari were sent to combat -- Sauron the tempter, the deceiver, the agent of crippling despair. As teachers, advisors, examples, the wizards were there to help men (and other peoples, but particularly men since they were the most vulnerable to him) see through those deceits, abjure those temptations, and resist when resistance seemed most futile.
It wasn't a task that could be completed overnight. Nor could it be completed successfully if the Istari took too active a role.
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