There was a moment in The Lord of the Rings where Gandalf crowned Aragorn, and this has a deeper meaning than people realize. In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, the movie moves the action to Minas Tirith, where Gandalf crowns Aragorn and says, “Now come the days of the king. May they be blessed.“

This leads to Aragorn smiling at Gandalf and then turning to the crowd, who loudly cheer for him. At this time, Aragorn speaks to the crowd and declares peace, before he then begins to sing while everyone bows to him and gives him respect as the new king. Aragorn then gives thanks to his Fellowship and bows to the Hobbits.

There is one big problem. This is not what happens in The Lord of the Rings books.

First, the books showed that Aragorn was supposed to crown himself, which was not what happened. Instead, he called up two people and said he didn’t do this alone and wanted both of them with him. He asked Frodo to bring the crown and for Gandalf to crown him, letting the crowd know they did this together.

Gandalf said, “Now come the days of the King, and may they be blessed while the thrones of the Valar endure.” When Aragorn arose, everyone watched him in silence until Faramir yelled, “Behold the King!”

It is never explained why Gandalf would be the one to crown Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. While the books had a different reason for the moment, the films set things up so that Gandalf served a specific purpose.

Gandalf’s True Nature In The Lord Of The Rings Makes Aragorn’s Coronation More Meaningful

In J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings books, the Maiar are a fictional class of beings who are supernatural and angelic. While they are lesser than the Ainur, they are still immortal beings who are of divine origin and possess great power. In the Third Age, the Valar sent five Maiar to Middle-earth.

The Valar sent Gandalf the Grey, Saruman the White, Radagast the Brown, and two Blue Wizards to help save Middle-earth from the evil of Sauron. When examining their existence and purpose in the novels, the closest comparison of the Maiar would be angels from Heaven, with the Maiar acting as intermediaries for the Creator and his creations.

While Gandalf walked Middle-earth as a wizard, he was actually a Maiar and mostly kept this to himself. It was likely that no one knew about Gandalf’s true nature outside of the highest in power, such as Eldrond, Cirdan, Galadriel, and a few others.

However, there is a point where Aaragorn says Gandalf is “greater than you Shire-folk know.” It seems that Aragorn either knew the truth or began to suspect the truth, thanks to Gandalf’s actions in Middle-earth. If this is true, then Gandalf crowning him in the last movie was an honor that meant more than it did in the books.

When Gandalf crowned Aragorn, he was essentially blessing the new King. As an intermediary between the creator and the creation, when Gandalf crowned Aragorn and said, “May they be blessed,” he was literally divinely blessing the new king by the rule of Eru.

Gandalf Crowning Aragorn Will Be Made More Significant By Lord Of The Rings’ New Movie

Although the Peter Jackson trilogy didn’t give significant focus to this particular aspect of the story, it could be given greater attention on the big screen in the near future. A new movie based on The Lord of the Rings is coming out, тιтled The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, and there’s a good chance that development will become relevant once more.

Directed by Andy Serkis, the movie will focus on the search for his character, Gollum, and it intends to bring back some very familiar characters, and two of these are expected to be Frodo and Gandalf. Aragon’s inclusion has yet to be confirmed, but he would make a lot of sense for the story given the timeframe.

There was even a recent convention where Ian McKellen hinted he might be returning for the new movie as Gandalf. If that’s the case, it’ll feel more like a story set in the same canon as the previous films, rather than a story set in a separate, live-action take on Middle-earth.

The story takes place at the same time as The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, where Aragorn and Gandalf went looking for Gollum to no avail. Since this was about the wizard and Aragorn working together, it could go a long way to show their relationship building.

Seeing the two experiencing the long search together – combined with any battles and struggles that ultimately go along with it – could add greater depth to their relationship in the movies. If anything, it could show how Aragorn won over Gandalf and earned his blessing at the end of The Lord of the Rings.