WGTC Weekly Throwdown: Lord Of The Rings Battle! Who Is The Fiercest Fighter In All Of Middle Earth?

Christian: Gandalf

Is there seriously any doubt over who is the greatest member of the Fellowship of the Ring? Every member has their own strength, and without one the whole group would fail. But let’s be honest with ourselves: would that ragtag group of wanderers have gotten anywhere without the leadership of the wizard Gandalf? This has nothing to do with body counts in battle, of which Gandalf racked up a number similar to the number of men the Kardashian’s have drug to their seedy lair. It doesn’t even have to do with might, will, or determination, which Gandalf again dominates. It’s just that Gandalf is better than everybody else, in the history of ever, and he’s only modest because he’s tired of sleeping with every female creature in Middle Earth.

Let’s do a little side by side comparison here. We can easily exclude Legolas and Gimli from this experiment, because their homoerotic body count comparison is one dead orc away from a make out session atop Minas Tirith (my fan-fiction details every glorious second of that). Aragorn, the King of Gondor and Arnor, can only fling his limp sword this way and that and sniff the grass for hobbits for so long. To be fair, he is the closest competition our wizard champion has, but that’s like trying to say that Michael Bay is second only to Martin Scorsese.

And let’s not even discuss Frodo and Samwise, because their list of screw ups is longer than the hair that grows on their feet. Without Gandalf offering constant counsel and his skills on the battlefield, the One Ring would have been snatched from a very small corpse about fifty pages into the story.

So let’s glance over a very abbreviated list of Gandalf’s achievements: he leads the battle in the Mines of Moria, defeats the Balrog after about two weeks of pursuit and battle, dies momentarily (just for a breather), and then returns as an even more powerful being. And what does he do with this new form? Leads an avalanche of soldiers down a mountain to smash an army of orcs, and all before he could light up his pipe and smoke some Took Kush!

Without Gandalf, we’re left with a bunch of good looking guys (and a dwarf whose face got stamped by an Uruk-hai or two) that couldn’t traverse Middle Earth without a nose to the ground or enough weed in their pipes to carry them through their miserable trek. Show me one of those failures riding a giant eagle into battle while also battling arthritis and a nasty rash and then we’ll talk.

Here’s to you Gandalf, you wily man of mystery! You might not be the most fun to share some mead with, but based on your smoke rings, fireworks and impressive ability to craft one-liners, I’m pretty sure you’re the best leader a man could ask for.

Now it’s your turn! Head to the comments section and say if you favor bow, ax, sword, or staff.

And if you liked these arguments so much that you’re just craving more, check out some of our past throwdowns:

Twilight Battle! Team Edward Vs Team Jacob

Battle Brad Pitt! Aniston Vs Jolie

Battle Batman! Bane’s Plan Vs The Joker’s Plan