Wat was Gandalfs plan in LOTR?

Question

In Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy, the fellowship travels to Mordor, to mount Doom to destroy the ring. They are led by Gandalf. Obviously it was not the plan that Gandalf was lost and the fellowship broken. But suppose even with Gandalf dead, and the rest of the Fellowship reaching the Emyn Muil and dead Marshes, what would have been the way into Mordor? The Black Gate seems well defended, both in the books and the movie, Cirith Ungol makes Gandalf the White sudder, and wish they had chosen a different path, and Minas Morgul is under constant watch of the Nazgul. How had Gandalf planned the infiltration in Mordor with these paths blocked?

P.S. I asked myself this a long time ago, before the movies came out, but since I only know this site a few days, I am only asking this now.

The Eagle Taxi theory was disposed by Tolkien himself, I can't exactly remember why, though

Answer 1

It's pretty hard to say; reading through the "History of the Lord of the Rings" gives no real clue. One thing that can be said is that the Company of the Ring would have had more time -- at least a month was lost because of the grief caused delay in Lorien and Frodo going astray on the east side of Anduin. Perhaps Gandalf knew of some passage into Mordor that was further east or south, and would have made his way with Frodo through that device.

What is certain, however, is that he would not have gone to Edoras, and that the treachery of Saruman would have been free to act behind Gondor's rear; quite likely the city would have been lost to Sauron's armies before the Ring could have been destroyed.

Answer 2

As Gandalf himself stated, "Even the wise cannot see all ends."
Perhaps he had planned to go through Morgul Vale himself, and his shudder was only at the thought of two hobbits trying it by themselves. Surely he would have been able to take care of Shelob in some fashion...she wasn't nearly as powerful/dangerous as the balrog.
Here we must take into account the possibility that there is some hidden hand guiding the fate of our characters. If Gandalf had gone with Frodo to Mordor, Saruman would have had plenty of time to destroy Rohan. If the Ring wasn't destroyed in time, the Battle of Pelennor would have been lost without Gandalf to run the defenses of Minas Tirith, or without the Rohirrim to show up at the last minute.
As Gandalf said to Frodo, "There are other powers at work in the world....you were meant to find the Ring, and NOT by its owner." (This quote is from the book - only part of it was used in the movie.) These "powers" seemed to have their own way of working things out.

Answer 3

well, this is agood question, and definetely gandalf's plans were known only to him.
one thing is sure that he was not willing to take the ring himself and he was not willing to face shelob either.
i think his plan was to send frodo into mordor via sone different path which could be via some path known only to him or aragorn in the hills.
but i think that he would have preffered gwaihir and other eagles to give a ride to frodo and sam into mordor.
entering through the black gate was not his plan in any case.
buddy, no one can answer this question for sure.

Answer 4

I fell asleep watching the first film.