Dumbledore as Gandalf the White? (some LOTR spoilers)

[Samantha Thomas]

No: HPFGUIDX 143541

Dear fellow list members,
     I do apologize for bringing this up if it has been brought up before, but with all this talk about DD still being alive, I was wondering about the DD/Gandalf connection from LOTR.  Obviously, every great series has to have its wizard and each fantasy draws from other franchises.  (Some more blatantly than others).  But if DD is truly dead (and in a sense, Gandalf was too), then who's to say he won't come back?  We are told after Harry' s run-in with the Mirror of the Erised in SS/PS by DD himself that there is no way to bring witches and wizards back from the dead.  So, obviously we dismiss this as a possibility forever, because if DD says it, it's law.  I'm not saying that they'd been planning to fake his death for that long, I'm just saying that perhaps there are advances in magic like there are advances in science.  
   
  Or perhaps the curse he's fighting on his hand is similar to the Balrog (that was what it was called, wasn't it?), something he's going to reach deep inside himself to defeat and come back whole, more powerful than before.  Or perhaps, in an Obi-Wan Kenobi sort of way, he had to let Snape kill him in front of Harry to make the reality of it all sink in, the urgentness of the situation and the utter evil of that man (I doubt that is the case).  But, either way, I don't believe DD was helpless.  
   
  Sincerely,
   
   
  Samantha