Wizards in Middle-earth
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The Wizards or Istari in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction were powerful angelic beings, Maiar, who took the physical form and some of the limitations of Men to intervene in the affairs of Middle-earth in th
Wizards like Gandalf were immortal Maiar, but took the form of Men.
Christopher Lee played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as "a powerfully haunted and vindictive figure".
Gandalf
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Gandalf, in longer form Gandalf the Grey and later Gandalf the White, is a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He is a wizard, one of the Istari order, and t
Wizards in Middle-earth
…Third Age, after catastrophically violent direct interventions by the Valar, and indeed by the One God, Eru Ilúvatar, in the earlier ages. Two Wizards, Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White, largely represent the order, though a third Wizard, Radagast the Brown, appears briefly, more or less as a plot device…
Gandalf (right) turning trolls to stone in a detail from one of J.R.R. Tolkien's drawings for The Hobbit
Gwaihir the Eagle rescues Gandalf from Orthanc. Scraperboard illustration by Alexander Korotich, 1981
Tolkien said that Der Berggeist by Josef Madlener was the origin of Gandalf.
Väinämöinen as depicted by Akseli Gallen-Kallela in The Defense of the Sampo (1896)