Genuinely, what a giant load of BS. The lengths to which some people will go, the sheer mental gymnastics in which some people will engage, in order to defend this show is absolutely baffling. To see Corey Olsen go down that road is actually sad.

Yes, there absolutely *is* canon in Tolkien. The works that he published in an official capacity are canon. Simply because he had evolving ideas about *some* things later on in life does not invalidate the canon status of his entire body of published work.

In that canon, Gandalf arrives in the Third Age, year 1000. He does not have amnesia. He is fully aware of his purpose and quest from the very get go. He never travels to the East, hence why he doesn't have a moniker in that region (contrary to the half-baked explanation Corey Olsen attempts to give in the article). All of these things are well established, and afaik Tolkien never second guessed any of this.

His only evolving idea that involved the timing of the wizards' arrival was specifically regarding the Blue Wizards, who he later thought may have come during the Second Age around the time of the creation of the One Ring.

To use this loose idea about the Blue Wizards as a justification for what this show is doing with Gandalf, and to claim that it doesn't break anything in the canon (that supposedly doesn't even exist?) is truly dumb. Very, very dumb.