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Hair, I'm calling in some others- Posters Where Are YOU?

The paragraph just prior to your selection had a situation that stood out for me: Aragorn speaking to White Rider: ="...you are the captain and banner.. . .The Dark Lord has Nine. But we have One,.....the White Rider. He has passed through the fire and the abyss, and they shall fear him."

When I read this I was struck by Aragorn- (carrying Narsil - reforged as Anduril) talking to Gandalf - 'reforged' as White Rider.
And, Gandalf is the bearer of the Ring of Fire- to inflame or motivate hearts.
Also, Gandalf "passed through the fire" (of Balrog). Have ya'll done any study on the use of Fire throughout LotR?

Passing through the fire, and sinking into the Abyss- sure has a counterpart to Christ 'going down into Hell and defeating death' , being completely changed and returning as King-
This part gets really muddled for me, I can go round and round with these few lines.
Help! Looking for wisdom out there?

Good Morning!

Have ya'll done any study on the use of Fire throughout LotR?

Aaagh!!! We have to do fire too? :)

Okay. I'm trying to remember all the uses of fire here. Outside of the homey use of campfires and hearthfires there's the part where Gandalf puts the Ring in the fire to bring out the writing, the fire at Mount Doom, the burning Eye, Hobbiton on fire in Frodo's Mirror vision (or am I remembering the movie too much?) Those are the fire images that I've noticed.

"He has passed through the fire and the abyss, and they shall fear him."

That sounds like Gandalf being tried and...I want to say "purified" by fire but I don't know if that's quite the right word. "Tempered" maybe? But anyway, I think that fire and abyss thing is a great trial that Gandalf goes through and emerges stronger and more able to take on the bad guys than before.

"Passing through the fire, and sinking into the Abyss- sure has a counterpart to Christ 'going down into Hell and defeating death', being completely changed and returning as King-"

I agree that the descent and and subsequent ascent are parallel, though I keep in mind that JRRT stated more than once that LOTR was not a paraphrase of the bible. I think that Gandalf's experience may have been purposely similar, though I don't at all suppose that Gandalf was any sort of Christ figure. I believe JRRT thought of him as more of an "angel," though I don't remember exactly where I read that.

It' discussed at some length in the "Letters" if I remember right.