Tolkien eventually decided that each Elf's name should be unique, and therefore the two Glorfindels should be one and the same. In 1972, he wrote an essay in which he explains how Glorfindel returns to Middle-earth following his death in the First Age. On Glorfindel's status as a Noldor Exile, Tolkien noted that Glorfindel left Valinor reluctantly and is blameless in the Kinslaying, and since his sacrifice in defeating the Balrog was deemed to be "of vital importance to the designs of the Valar", he is granted an exemption to the Exiles' ban and purged of any guilt. Once restored and allowed to dwell in Valinor, his spiritual power is greatly enhanced, almost an equal of the Maiar. Tolkien considered having Glorfindel as a companion to Gandalf during the latter's travel to Middle-earth in the Third Age, but changed his mind as breaching the divide between Valinor and the "Circles of the World" would make him "of greater power and importance then seems fitting". He proposed that Glorfindel is sent back to Middle-earth by the Valar during the Second Age circa 1600, when Barad-dûr was completed and Sauron forged the One Ring, and while Númenor was still friendly with the Elves under Tar-Minastir. In one version he is sent as a predecessor to the Istari (Wizards); in a different version, he arrived in Middle-earth together with the Blue Wizards. At one point he was even considered as a possibility for the identity of one of the Wizards, but Tolkien abandoned the idea since the Elves were not initially conceived as possibilities for the Wizards, and he had come to the conclusion that they were exclusively Maiar.