Siegurt wrote: Apparently it was Eru who sent him back, not any of the Valar:
Wikipedia wrote:Although immortal, their physical bodies could be destroyed by violence—thus Gandalf truly died in the fight with the Balrog, beyond the power of the Valar to resurrect him; Eru Ilúvatar himself intervened to send Gandalf back.
(footnote) ^ In Letters, #156, pp 202–3, Tolkien clearly implies that the 'Authority' who sent Gandalf back was above the Valar (who are bound by Arda's space and time, while Gandalf went beyond time). Tolkien clearly intends this as an example of Eru intervening to change the course of the world.
This is interesting, I haven't read the letters -neither had the internet wizards that were arguing in favor of Valar intervention, although I did leave a door open for this originally in my speculation. I feel that this revelation further solidifies my point.
rebthor wrote:You are conflating belief with worship. No one says that the Dg may not believe in other gods. In fact it would be quite odd if they disbelieved in their progenitor. What they may not do is worship them.
You make a fair point, I think this is the most convincing argument yet. You are right that demigods must have half divine origin so they must have had some kind of connection to a divine being at some point of their lives even if the link would have (possibly) been severed by now.
Still, I think it is plain wrong to say that Gandalf simply just believes in Eru (or Valar) without actually showing it in his actions in any way so I must insist Gandalf should not be Dg. The intresting wikipedia article clearly says that "As one of the angelic Maiar spirits, Olorin (my addition: later known as Gandalf in Middle Earth) was in service to the Creator (Eru) and the Creator's "Secret Fire" (i.e. Holy Spirit)". I find it hard to believe that his servitude ended when he entered Middle Earth -quite the contrary: "The Wizards were commanded to aid Men, Elves, and Dwarves, but only through counsel; it was forbidden to use force to dominate them".
A Dg character would never get resurrected by deity in Crawl no matter what assumptions you make about their lives and beliefs outside of Crawl. Also bear in mind, that resurrection (or the chance of it) is
exactly the same tool that is used by some Crawl gods to reward a follower at high piety! Think of TSO and Ely, for example. So, if we want to have a coherent character of Gandalf in Crawl, he should be able to show devotion and worship a god like Gandalf, to a some extent, seems to be doing in Tolkien's books eventhough it is rarely written out explicitly. The "worshipping" is done in a more discrete way compared to the the how Crawl's god-follower relationship is generally handled but it is there and I think it is strong an explicit enough to forbid Gandalf being a Dg in Crawl. Gandalf is more like a 27 level fire elementalist of some deity X who has grinded zigs for experience and great gear (magical ring, magical sword, great skills).
Grimm wrote:Given the new information that has surfaced regarding Eru's role in Gandalf's resurrection, I feel that that event, though not very congruent with Crawl metaphysics, does not sufficiently weigh against Gandalf's nature as a demigod for me to abandon my position. Also the resurrection did not happen as a reward at high piety, as it would for a Crawl character, but was the result of duty and a much higher power. (A rough equivalent would be Linley Henzell posting on the Tavern and demanding that Mountain Dwarves be reinstated.) Furthermore this resurrection is the only evidence against. There are still more facts for, namely that the Istari resembled men but "with greater vigour" (= enhanced stats), and that, unlike many of the other races in ME, they were not particularly dedicated to one or another of the Valar, just like Dg have no immediate lord.
Actually, Gandalf's resurrection
did happen because of high piety or maybe more accordingly, because of the deep devotion he had for his duties. Saruman did not get resurrected after all -he broke the Eru's (or Valar's or both's, hard to make the difference at times) "code of conduct" which would be something like casting necromutation on a TSO character in Crawl. Think of it this way: Gandalf had gained enough piety (probaly was at full 200 piety) with Eru to able to the get the life saving. Gandalf is following the instructions he has been given when he left to Middle Earth: the instructions are not that different from Trog's "no magic" or TSO's "no necromancy" conducts although much more vague and less explicit in nature. However, as we clearly see in Saruman's case, there are repercussions for messing with that conduct.
Wednesday, 13th November 2013, 09:42 
)
