He is not a hobbit, neither a man, but what is he? Is he a dwarf? A wizard? A god? Something else entirely?

  • A druidic forest spirit.

    Maybe he’s a demi-god whose back story we don’t know enough about.

    Gandalf seems pretty human to start with, but then we find out that he’s a superhuman/demigod. That whole circle of wizards seems superhuman.

    What was Sauron?

    I think CS Lewis and Lewis Carroll had a better approach of just being like “Look, anything we want can show up as part of the story.”

    Tolkien had to create all of these taxonomies, bloodlines, and typing, which is why we’re talking about this.