After reading the Lord of the Rings relatively recently, I must admit that Gandalf the White is much more powerful than I thought he was. Only having watched the movies before that, I was not really that impressed with his powers. I did not understand why if he is this big bad wizard guy, why doesn’t he just walk into Mordor alone, the One Ring in hand and toss it into the fires of Mt. Doom. In the books, though probably more from the Lost Tales and the Silmarillion, we learn about Gandalf and where he comes from and thus the rules restricting what he can and cannot do. Those quotes I put at the beginning of Gandalf’s summary struck me quite powerfully when reading the books.
Most of Gandalf’s power is implied rather than actually shown or explained. What I wrote before about Tolkien’s understanding of the realm of faerie and magic shows why we never see Gandalf’s powers in full. It makes him seem more powerful if everyone is sort of in awe of him. It lets people’s imaginations fill in the blanks. It is kind of like horror movies, especially older ones, where the evil creature or monster is always more scary before you see it. Not showcasing all of Gandalf’s powers creates an aura around him that is only limited by a reader’s imagination.
This makes him an especially tricky character to figure out for this kind of scenario. It would not be fair to grant him powers we never see, but at the same time it would not be fair to limit his powers to only what we see when we know he has more. I did not include powers he uses in the movie, but does not show in the book because I was only using the character that Tolkien created, not the one Peter Jackson did. Thus, Gandalf does not have that shield he possessed when he fought the Balrog in the movie.
As I have heard before when discussing this fight with people, they point that as Gandalf the Grey, when less powerful than after he is resurrected, he defeated the Balrog called Durin’s Bane. His defeat of the Balrog in the books is even more impressive than in the movies, when one considers the amount of effort involved with the chase and length of the battle. In the books, once again, Tolkien gives us few details to work with, letting the reader’s imagination create the imagery of this fantastic battle, taking place on a mountaintop shrouded in clouds and “those that looked up from afar thought the mountain was crowned with storm. Thunder they heard, and lightning, they said, smote upon Celebdil, [the mountain] and leaped back broken into tongues of fire.”
In the First Age, before Gandalf arrived in Middle-Earth, there were seven Balrogs. The elves Ecthelion the Fountain and Glorfindel each killed a Balrog during the Fall of Gondolin during the first age. Balrogs were once Maiar, just like Gandalf, and it seems fair to assume that their powers in Middle-Earth might be comparable to one another. That would mean Gandalf was not overmatched against a Balrog, as the elves that killed them before certainly were. So if Gandalf was more powerful than those highly skilled elves, he should theoretically have been able to defeat a Balrog more easily than the elves did and not have ended up dying; especially if it is considered that Glorfindel slew the leader and most fearsome of the Balrogs, Gothmog.
No matter how much I downplay the defeat of the Balrog, it is still a badass accomplishment. There is no denying that Gandalf the White is powerful. I think in the end though, Gandalf’s powers are far more limited than Darth Sidious’. Gandalf himself admitted that he did not know whether he could defeat the Witch King of Angmar, Leader of the Nazgul.
Darth Sidious was the most powerful Sith Lord ever. It is hard to explain exactly what that means if you do not understand a lot of Star Wars Expanded Universe lore, but let me put it this way: there were Sith capable of making a star go supernova. Darth Sidious had the power to create a Force Storm capable of ripping the space-time continuum. Gandalf came nowhere near to possessing that kind of power. Granted, in a one-on-one fight, Darth Sidious wouldn’t use that kind of power, but it gives you an idea of what he is capable of.
Darth Sidious is bringing a more powerful arsenal of known powers to the fight. As I said with Gandalf, it would be unfair to give him powers we don’t know about, but unfair to restrict it to what he has if we know he has more powers than we have seen. The fact that Sidious had invented dark side powers is pretty impressive in and of itself. Sidious had created creatures as large and vicious as a Balrog, or pretty damn close anyway.
Looking at the powers we do know about (Force telekinesis, Force choke/grip, Sith Lightning, Force-enhanced speed, etc.) I think it is easy to see that Gandalf is overmatched in a fight based on powers alone. I can definitely understand the reasoning of some people who say there is no way to know which of them is more powerful when using the Force and magic, simply because we do not know the true extent of either of their powers. I admit that I disagree with that argument, because I think that if Sidious’ known powers are greater than Gandalf’s, their unknown powers would yield the same outcome.
But lets say for a second that their powers, known and unknown, are comparable and equal, yielding a draw in that category. Then it comes down to skill with a blade. In this case, there is no arguing that Sidious would not simply bash the living crap out of Gandalf. Assuming that the blade of Gandalf’s magical, Elven-made sword is not sliced instantly through by the Sith Lord’s lightsaber, (a power I granted it for the sake of entertainment,) you have a weight and maneuverability factor. The blade of a lightsaber has no mass and is very easy to wield at high speed and with great dexterity. A steel sword, even a magical one, is still heavy and would tire the wielder much faster than a lightsaber. Sure, Gandalf has some skill with a bladed weapon, but in the books he uses his sword nowhere near as much as he does in the movies. Darth Sidious on the other hand is one of the most skilled lightsaber duelists of all time. He beat Yoda in a lightsaber battle and it is questionable if Mace Windu truly beat him or whether he let Windu beat him as a part of the plan to turn Anakin to the Dark Side of the Force. He was a master of every form of lightsaber combat and could mix and change styles during battle, throwing off his opponent’s understanding of his moves and strategy. If Gandalf was fighting with a staff in one hand and a sword in the other, his sword would be used less effectively because his staff would be in the way at times. If he doesn’t use his staff in battle, Sidious could use the Force against him and without his staff I think it is unlikely he could do anything against Force powers, which Sidious would certainly utilize. All of those things rolled into one duel, make it look impossible for Gandalf to be victorious.
In my mind, Darth Sidious’ Force power outmatches Gandalf’s magic by a long shot. I see why this is not necessarily verifiable and some people would argue vehemently against my belief. But as I said before, no legitimate argument could be made for Gandalf defeating the Emperor in an armed fight. So if Gandalf was not killed by Sidious’ Force powers alone, he would die at the edge or the tip of a crimson-bladed lightsaber.
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