It must be way cooler to use a staff rather than a walking stick, but outside of Middle Earth staffs are harder to find than hobbits.
Gandalf the Gray had a staff that was simply magic in his hands. It didn’t appear to be much different than a walking stick, and that was the charm of it. As Wormtongue found out in “The Two Towers,” you were playing with fire if the old wizard entered your hall without first leaving his staff at the door.
Thunder erupted from one end of Gandalf’s staff while lightning shot out from the other. In the entire “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, Gandalf was something like 64-1 when fighting with his staff. His only defeat came at the hands of his then-boss Saruman the White, who was pretty nifty with a staff himself at the time. Of course, Gandalf scored a first-round knockout in the rematch once he had been promoted to Gandalf the White.
Sort of like earning a black belt in martial arts. Continue reading