I’m sorry, but I thought your comment was
I’m not sure WHERE he went after dying has anything to do with what he would become if he were to return to the place where he came from upon his final journey from Middle Earth.
My comments, directed to your question, were that Gandalf- where ever he has been since leaving Valinor as an Istari- has been LESS of what he was when he was a Maiar. My comments of him returning to the Valar after his death in Moria are speculation. But much of Tolkien’s work is speculation. He help an amazingly broad perspective of the lands of Middle Earth, all their inhabitants and all its geography. He spent a lifetime filling in the details and etching out a history for his imaginary world, but it is still full of inconsistancies and error, or just plain omittance.
Here is a comment I found where Tolkien speaks of Gandalf’s death directly:For in his condition it was for him a sacrifice to perish on the Bridge in defence of his companions, less perhaps than a mortal Man or Hobbit, since he had a far greater inner power than they; but also more, since it was a humbling and abnegation of himself in confirmity to ‘the Rules’: for all he could know at that moment he was the only person who could direct the resistance to Sauron successfully, and all his mission was in vain. He was handing over to the Authority that ordained the Rules, and giving up personal hope of success.
…So Gandalf sacrificed himself, was accepted, and enhanced, and returned. ‘Yes, that was the name. I was Gandalf.’ Of course, he remains similar in personality and idiosyncrasy, but both his wisdom and power are much greater. When he speaks he commands attention; the old Gandalf could not have dealt so with Theoden, nor with Saruman. He is still under the obligation of concealing his power and teaching rather than forcing or dominating wills, but where the physical powers of the Enemy are too great for the good will of the opposers to be effective he can act in emergency as an ‘angel’ - no more violently than the release of St. Peter from prison…
Gandalf really ‘died’, and was changed: for that seems to me the only real cheating, to represent anything that can be called ‘death’ as making no difference… He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or govenors; but Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure. ‘Naked I was sent back- for a brief time, until my task is done’. Sent back by whom, and whence? Not by the ‘gods’ whose business is only with this embodied world and its time; for he passed ‘out of thought and time’. Naked is alas! unclear. It was meant just literally, ‘unclothed like a child’ (not disincarnate), and so ready to receive the white robes of the highest. Galadriel’s power is not divine, and his healing in Lorien is meant to be no more than physical healing and refreshment."
[The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, (#156)]
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