Saruman
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Saruman is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium. Referred to as Saruman the White (Curunír Lán in Sindarin), he is described as the first of his order of Wizards (or Istari), who came to Middle-earth as emissaries of the Valar in the Third Age. He is introduced in The Lord of the Rings as the chief of the Istari, and the leader of the White Council. In the narrative, his Sindarin name, Curunír, meant Man of skill.
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[edit] Characteristics
Tolkien described Saruman as an old man with white hair and a long white beard with black strands about the lips and ears; in his youth, his hair was raven-dark. He was tall, his face was long, and his eyes were deep and dark. He would appear in a hooded white cloak; later, he changed into a cloak that changed colours as he moved.
He was not actually a Man or even an Elf (as Men often suspected), but a Maia clothed in flesh (see Origins below). As such, he was immortal and extremely powerful, yet he had limits on how far these powers could be used. His two most salient powers were his knowledge and his voice.
Knowledge of the "deep arts" (or magic, such as it is in Middle-earth) was of particular interest to him, especially when relating to power — such as the Rings of Power and the far seeing palantíri. He was also deeply learned in ancient lore regarding powerful kingdoms such as Númenor, Gondor and Moria. His voice and speech were extremely convincing, more powerful than mere rhetoric. When he focused this power on a person or a group of people, he could sway their hearts, plant fears and sow lies as he pleased. Depending on the willpower of the listener, this spell could last as long as the speech did, or it could take root in them and last forever.
Other powers include knowledge of machinery and chemistry, probably inseparable from explicit magic. An instance of this includes the "blasting fire" employed by his Uruk-hai army in the Battle of the Hornburg, which was probably some kind of explosive. Machinery and engines characterized both his fortified Isengard and his altered Shire. In this, he probably sought to emulate Sauron.
His science also extended to biological areas. He cross-bred Men and Orcs, creating both 'Men' with Orc-like vileness and treachery and 'Orcs' with human size and cunning. His Uruk-hai, Orcs unafraid of daylight, are often speculated to have been examples of the latter. Likewise, his human spies in Bree were said to have Orc blood. He also employed birds in his service, although this might be attributed to Radagast the Brown, ordering them to report to Orthanc, Saruman's stronghold.
For many years, Saruman and Gandalf were friends and partners, and were roughly equals in wisdom and power. Unlike Gandalf, however, Saruman was proud; He saw himself as the most powerful of the Istari, expressing clear contempt for Radagast. He became jealous of Gandalf, eventually convincing himself Gandalf must be scheming against him, to justify his own scheming against Gandalf and the rest of the White Council. Being regarded as more powerful than Gandalf before Gandalf's "rebirth", it is a common assumption he would also wield explicit magic similar to Gandalf, including using artificial light, or locking spells.
Saruman likely was true to his mission in the beginning and actually believed in working to stop Sauron, but his pride, arrogance and jealousy turned him into a traitor to the cause he had once served. Saruman's betrayal was not sudden but slowly grew over time, until at last he had convinced himself that he could not have taken any other path. This self-deception kept him from taking his last chance at redemption.
[edit] Names and titles
The name given to him by Men, Saruman, is in the Westron language. In Tolkien's works, this language is almost never shown directly but translated into English and Anglo-Saxon forms. In this case, Tolkien used the Anglo-Saxon root word searu which means "skill" or "cunning." The true Westron version of his name remains unknown. His name among the Elves is Curunír, which is in Sindarin, a language Tolkien did not translate. It means "man of skill," and was often followed by 'Lân, which means "white." In Valinor, his name was Curumo, which is the Quenya version of the same name. His name Sharkey, given by the men before the Scouring of the Shire, is a bastardisation of the Orkish sharkû which means "old man".
His original title as a Wizard was "the White," and he wore matching robes. Later he declared himself to be "Saruman of Many Colours," and the colour of his robes changed thus. He also declared himself "Saruman Ring-maker," and may have made a less powerful imitation of the Rings of Power; he wore a ring in his confrontation with Gandalf. He was also called "Saruman the Wise" and "Jailer of Mordor."
[edit] Biography
[edit] Origins
In Valinor, the land of the Valar, a council was called by Manwë, leader of the Valar, shortly after the defeat of Sauron by the Last Alliance. Though Sauron was overthrown, it would later turn out that he had not been effectively vanquished and his shadow began to fall upon Middle-earth a second time. It was decided to send five emissaries to Middle-earth. These should be "mighty, peers of Sauron, yet forgo might, and clothe themselves in flesh", as they were intended to help men and elves unite against Sauron, but the wizards were forbidden from matching the Dark Lord in power and fear.
One of those who went was Curumo (Saruman), a powerful Maia of Aulë, just as Sauron once was. Maiar were angelic creatures "of the same order as the Valar but of less degree", as stated by "Of the Maiar", Valaquenta, The Silmarillion. Both the Maiar and the Valar were Ainur, the first created beings, and they existed before Arda (the world) was made.
[edit] Middle-earth
Saruman was one of the two Istari who were first selected to go to Middle-earth:
"But two only came forward: Curumo, who was chosen by Aulë, and Alatar, who was sent by Oromë". - Unfinished Tales, Part Four, Chapter Two: The Istari
whereas the last one, Olórin (Gandalf), was commanded by Manwë to go. Varda said of Gandalf the Grey, who went as the third Istar, that he was "not the third". Saruman was also asked to take Radagast with him: "Curumo was obliged to take Aiwendil to please Yavanna, wife of Aulë". This may have contributed to his contempt for him. They travelled to Middle-earth with two other Istari, Alatar and Pallando, known as the Blue Wizards.
The five wizards arrived at the Grey Havens in the west of Eriador around the year 1000 of the Third Age. Only the keeper of the havens, Círdan the Shipwright, knew Saruman's identity and origin. Saruman would later discover that Círdan had given Narya the Red Ring to Gandalf upon their first landing in Middle-earth. Even though Saruman was immediately considered the head of the order while Gandalf was considered the least, Círdan had divined in Gandalf as the wisest and greatest of the wizards. Saruman's jealousy of Gandalf grew from these events, perhaps because he feared that the Grey would eventually supplant him.
Saruman and the two Blue Wizards went into the east of Middle-earth. After one and a half millennia, he returned to the west, just as Sauron's power was growing again in Dol Guldur.
[edit] White Council
When the White Council was formed at approximately year 2463 of the Third Age, Saruman was appointed its leader, though Galadriel wanted Gandalf in this position. Saruman refused to step down due to his pride, while Gandalf had declined. At this point Saruman had begun to sense the resurgence of Sauron and to envy and desire his power, and especially his One Ring. This was also the same year that the One Ring was taken by the halfling Smeágol (later called Gollum), who disappeared with it into the Misty Mountains for hundreds of years.
It was during the meetings of the Council that Saruman first noted Gandalf's interest in Hobbits and The Shire, and believing that all his deeds related to some as yet undisclosed plan of his for self enhancement, Saruman himself began keeping a greater watch on Gandalf and sent spies to The Shire. At first he himself visited it secretly but stopped when he realized that he had been noticed by its inhabitants. Amongst the purposes of his visits was to procure some of the halfling's leaf, since in secret imitation of Gandalf he had begun to smoke.
In the year 2759 T.A., Saruman settled in Isengard with the permission of the Steward of Gondor, Beren. The stronghold was by then abandoned by Gondor. There he became important in the informal alliance defending the west of Middle-earth. In the tower of Isengard, Orthanc, he also found one of the remaining palantíri.
In 2850 T.A., Gandalf entered Dol Guldur and confirmed that the evil presence was indeed Sauron. By Saruman's advice, the White Council decided against attacking Dol Guldur. Gandalf would later remark that it was at this council-meeting that he first began to suspect that Saruman desired to possess the One Ring. Saruman's real intention was to permit Sauron to build up his strength, so that the One Ring would reveal itself. He later found that Sauron had more knowledge of the possible location of the One Ring than he expected, and in 2941 T.A., he finally agreed to attack Dol Guldur.
When Sauron abandoned Dol Guldur, he took up his reign in Mordor and declared himself openly. He established contact with Saruman through the palantír captured from Minas Ithil, now Minas Morgul.
[edit] War of the Ring
When Gandalf presented Saruman with the discovery and the location of the One Ring, Saruman revealed his desire for it and his alliance with Sauron. When Gandalf refused to join with him, he held him captive in Isengard. Gandalf later escaped with help from Gwaihir the Windlord and made Saruman's treachery known to the rest of the White Council.
Saruman also betrayed Sauron by lying to the Nazgûl, who were searching for Baggins, who had found the One Ring years before. He pretended to know nothing, but the Nazgûl later captured Gríma Wormtongue as he was hastening from Edoras to warn Saruman that Gandalf had been there and had warned the King about his treacherous plans for Rohan. The Nazgûl Lord spared his life after learning from him that Saruman indeed knew where the Shire was, and he even went further to give them general directions to follow the Greenway (the old North-South Road). Along the Road they met one of his Shire spies from whom they got detailed maps of the Shire made by Saruman. They sent the spy back to the Shire after warning him that he was now in the service of Mordor (the Orc-like man in the Inn of the Prancing Pony). Believing that he would find no pity from either quarter (a false assumption, since he was later offered pardon by Gandalf), Saruman now put all efforts into obtaining the One Ring for himself. Not all of these efforts ever became clear, but they included sending spies to waylay Frodo Baggins on his flight from the Shire (Bill Ferny in Bree), attacking Rohan outright with Uruk-hai and dispatching raiding parties of Uruk-hai accompanied by Moria Orcs on likely routes the Fellowship of the Ring might take to Gondor. One of those parties captured Peregrin Took and Meriadoc Brandybuck after slaying Boromir with arrows as he tried to defend Pippin & Merry, which led Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli on a search which eventually led them to the breaking of Isengard by the Ents under Treebeard (Fangorn).
His plans failed, and Saruman suffered a series of setbacks. Saruman's Shire network did not capture Frodo Baggins; and Éomer destroyed his only partially successful raiding party. His invasion of Rohan ended in disaster, with the utter defeat of his army at the Battle of the Hornburg. Leaving Isengard undefended resulted in its destruction at the hands of the Ents (Saruman had underestimated the Ents' anger and strength).
Confined to the Orthanc and with his servants scattered or killed, Saruman made one final unsuccessful attempt to turn Théoden and Gandalf. The latter then offered Saruman a chance for redemption, which involved surrendering his staff and the keys to the Orthanc as a pledge. Saruman refused out of pride and fear. Gandalf, who had returned from death to supplant Saruman as the White and the head of the Istari, expelled Saruman from the order and broke his staff. Saruman also lost the palantír of Orthanc when Gríma Wormtongue threw it off a balcony of Orthanc, undecided about which he hated more, Saruman or Gandalf, and hitting neither.
Left out of the final stages of the War of the Ring, he eventually managed to convince the Ents who kept him captive into letting him leave Isengard after he met the conditions of handing over the keys of Orthanc. He then went to the Shire, which his agents lead by Lotho Sackville-Baggins had brought under control. Spending his final days as a small-time thug lord in Hobbiton known as Sharkey, where he enslaved the Hobbits, he was eventually betrayed and killed by his own servant Gríma Wormtongue on November 3, T.A. 3019, after the Battle of Bywater, where the Hobbits had Saruman's thugs surrounded with many Took bowmen, and as the thugs tried to fight their way out, they were shot.
Saruman, being a Maia, did not truly die. His spirit separated from his body much like Sauron's after the Downfall of Númenor. As a discorporated spirit, he should have been called to Mandos, but the tale implies that he was barred from returning. Tolkien indicated that his spirit was left naked, powerless and wandering, never to return to Middle-earth:
"Whereas Curunir was cast down, and utterly humbled, and perished at last by the hand of an oppressed slave; and his spirit went whithersoever it was doomed to go, and to Middle-earth, whether naked or embodied, came never back" - Unfinished Tales, Part Four, Chapter Two: The Istari
In Unfinished Tales, when the King Elessar entered the Orthanc with the intent of re-ordering that realm. Inside, Elessar's men found many treasures that Saruman had conned off of King Théoden. There was a secret closet that could only be found with the aid of Gimli the dwarf; it contained the original Elendilmir, which had presumed to be lost forever when Isildur perished in the Gladden Fields, as well as a golden chain which was presumed to have once borne the One Ring.
[edit] Adaptations
In Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, Fraser Kerr provided the voice of Saruman. At one point in that film's development, film executives thought that the names "Saruman" and "Sauron" were too similar, and would confuse the audience and decided that Saruman should be renamed "Aruman". This decision was eventually reversed, but some references to "Aruman" remained in the finished film. The dialogue of Bakshi's film retained Saruman's adoption of the title "Saruman of Many Colours", and the character was dressed in different shades of red.
Peter Howell played Saruman in BBC Radio's 1981 serialization of The Lord of the Rings.
In Peter Jackson's film trilogy, Saruman was played by Christopher Lee.
In the films, Saruman is Sauron's servant, an interpretation that downplays the idea that Saruman was independently seeking the Ring. Jackson's films do not include the title "Saruman of Many Colours", referring to him only as "Saruman the White". The film trilogy also did not include the Scouring of the Shire, but the extended DVD version does depict Saruman being killed by Gríma Wormtongue in Isengard, after his encounter with Gandalf and Théoden. In the film, Gríma stabs Saruman in the back, causing him to fall on a spiked wheel below the tower of Orthanc. In the original version, Saruman is never shown after Isengard is destroyed. All that was revealed was that he was locked in Orthanc by Treebeard and stripped of his power. Jackson reasoned that it would be anticlimactic to show Saruman's fate in the second movie (after the Battle of Helm's Deep) and too retrospective for it to be in the third one.[1]
Actor/musician Brian Protheroe is cast for the (non-singing) role in the stage musical production of LOTR.
[edit] Relationship with Sauron
There is some debate whether Saruman succumbed to Sauron's will and became in secret a reluctant subject of Mordor. In Jackson's film trilogy, Saruman is described as a servant being used by Sauron. In the second film, Galadriel and Faramir figure out that Isengard and Mordor are attacking Rohan and Gondor from both sides to keep the allies occupied. However, though it is made prominently in Jackson's film trilogy, this is far less so in Tolkien's works.
In Unfinished Tales, Saruman is subtly but knowingly causing trouble for Sauron's attempt to find the One Ring. Sauron himself realizes Saruman's dealings after a time but at the moment his arm is not long enough to reach Isengard, with Rohan and Gondor still standing in the way.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Saruman at the Encyclopedia of Arda.
- Saruman at The One Ring.net.
- Saruman at The Thain's Book.
- Christopher Lee Talks Lord of the Rings
| Ainur from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium | |
|---|---|
| Ainulindalë (Music of the Ainur) | |
| Lords of the Valar: | Manwë | Ulmo | Aulë | Oromë | Námo (Mandos) | Irmo (Lórien) | Tulkas |
| Queens of the Valar (The Valier): | Varda | Yavanna | Nienna | Estë | Vairë | Vána | Nessa |
| The Enemy: | Morgoth (a.k.a. Melkor) |
| Maiar: | Eönwë | Ilmarë | Ossë | Uinen | Salmar | Sauron | Melian | Arien | Tilion | Gothmog Curumo (Saruman) | Olórin (Gandalf) | Aiwendil (Radagast) | Alatar and Pallando | Durin's Bane |
