The Strength of Saruman

Ted Nasmith

Gandalf becomes a much more interesting character when you realize that he actually dwelt among the Valar, and has been around since before the beginning of time. 

In the Lord of the Rings, I think it is too easy to just discount him as the traditional wizard: an old wise man who does cool stuff every now and then. 

Which is exactly what the people of middle-earth were supposed to think. It is so cool to imagine this amazingly powerful Maia, the same species as Sauron, sitting in Bag-end having tea. 

Ted Nasmith

Gandalf, contrary to popular belief, does not use magic. He is a servant of the Valar, and therefore also a servant of Eru, and that is where his power comes from. Which explains quite nicely why sometimes he is able to do certain things (like scare away Nazgûl) and then is unable to do them later on. 

Think of it this way:

It's like how we humans have the strength that we have. It can be built up with practice, or atrophy from disuse. It varies between different people. This is the sort of baseline power that each Maiar has. 

Then there are adrenaline rushes, which is a natural increase in strength, brought about by a need for said increase. They enable us to do things that we cannot usually do. It cannot be brought on at will. This is the power that Eru gives to the Maiar at times, when he wants a certain thing to be done. When Gandalf scares off the Nazgûl, it is because that was not the time for him to be tested, and that was not the time for Faramir to die etc. So he was able to do that. He cannot replicate it at will to scare everything off all the time. So no, that is not a plothole. 

Next we have steroids. An artificial increase in strength, that can be used at will, and is not good for you. It is also potentially addictive. It can be used for good, but in small amounts and in a very controlled way. And yes, it is often more powerful than any adrenaline rush. This is like magic/sorcery. It does not come from Eru, one can get into it with the intention to do good, but usually they end up going overboard and becoming corrupted and it consumes them. 

Saruman is definitely guilty of sorcery, which he no doubt started looking into out of a mistrust of Eru, or dislike of how he couldn't have greater power whenever he wanted it. I imagine he told himself that it was for the best, and that he would use it to help people. 

And please leave Gandalf alone about the supposed inconsistencies in his abilities. It isn't in his control, so stop saying things like “well if he knew that he should have said it earlier and saved them all the trouble” or “why couldn't he just do that again and fix everything?” 

That isn't how this works. The Istari were not sent to blow up the bad guys, they were sent to give counsel to the good guys. Their greatest power is their wisdom, built up by living through all of time, and being inspired by Eru. 

Sauron's "baseline power" is considerable, but he is also a necromancer, and that is the majority of his strength. He is certainly the most powerful necromancer ever to have lived. After all, he was taught be Melkor himself. I look it as Melkor creating this darkness and sorcery (I am using sorcery and necromancy interchangeably in this post, though they do have slightly different definitions) etc., more evil than anyone could just learn on their own, and then Sauron just took it all into himself. The Maiar are, after all, the same sort of things as the Valar, just less powerful, so I imagine that everything Melkor had would fit into Sauron quite nicely. 

Alan Lee

Now then, you may have just rushed to your copy of LOTR to pick out a bunch of quotes where magic is spoken of favourably. You will say "there are two kinds, good and bad, look just here" and put your finger on a page. There is magic, which is questionable, dangerous, and pretty much always bad, then there is the power of Eru (and Valar and Maiar), and the power of the elves. I do not have a lovely word for "the power of elves' because there isn't really a word for it. But to them, it is no more magic than my ability to knit. It is an entirely different thing. A skill. A part of their being. Samwise, like you, may just think "Elf-magic" is the good sort, but Galadriel begs to differ:

"'And you?' she said, turning to Sam. 'For this is what your folk would call magic, I believe; though I do not understand clearly what they mean; and they seem to use the same word of the deceits of the Enemy. But this, if you will, is the magic of Galadriel.'"    

 ~The Fellowship of the Ring

In simpler terms, it isn't magic, but they sometimes call it magic because that is, apparently, the only frame of reference we have. Which is weird, because we don't say that God uses magic, so we must have some idea of a different sort of thing, but perhaps Hobbits do not. 

Alan Lee

I shall now return to Saruman 

I get terribly mother hennish when people say that Saruman was weak, because he wasn't. He was very very strong. 

Otherwise he wouldn't have been the head of the order. He didn't get there by bullying people. Peter Jackson shed a rather dark light upon him. Being in a position of authority over other people has a tendency to make you feel responsible every time the 'team' fails, even if it isn't anyone's fault. 

This leads bad things, as you can imagine. The more trust that is placed in you, the worse you feel when you fail. Saruman's purpose was to help help stop evil, and he failed over and over and over again. And then he finally saw Morgoth stopped, and everyone was happy and rebuilding their lives for perhaps the millionth time, and Sauron popped up, and bounced back from several "defeats" over and over again.  You would despair too. 

As far as I can tell, Saruman's corruption began not terribly long before the events in The Hobbit took place. They had had what was probably the longest stretch of peace they had known since Sauron took charge, and were probably thinking that they had actually succeeded in getting rid of him after working since the beginning of time. And then, bang, he's back in Mirkwood. Saruman was also alone too much, which is depressing. Because he was the head of the order, and rather proud, he would probably not have asked for help or counsel from any of the other wizards. He lacked Gandalf's humility, and it showed. Cut to later on, and he was hanging out in a lonely, cold, dark tower, with an excellent view of Mordor. Because he is a brooding type and had no one to talk to, he probably sat by the hour staring at Mordor, growing more and more certain that they would fail again. He didn't just give up. He wasn't being illogical. He was being quite logical. If a thing happens a hundred times in a row, it is silly to think it won't happen again. Isn't that the definition of insanity or something? No wonder he thought Gandalf had gone batty. 

The White Council

What he failed to remember is that hope usually is illogical and seems crazy. So if anyone thinks that they are better than Saruman the Traitor, they are wrong. He held out his 'illogical hope' much longer than you ever would, and you would do well to remember it. Weren't we just talking about humility?

So how come everyone else managed to hold on? Well, the elves didn't really. If I remember correctly, they had hope on principle, but Elrond in particular seemed quite the naysayer. It's all very well for men to run about with that hope, but his daughter is going to the grey havens anyway. Most of the elves left Middle-earth. He was willing to support them and he didn't quite despair, and he himself stayed, but as my mother said 'he was unwilling to invest his daughter in their hope.'

Alan Lee

And Gandalf? In my humble opinion, Gandalf was saved by the hobbits. They showed him that strength can be a weakness. They were a constant reminder to him off good and peace and innocence. A constant reminder that everything wasn't under Sauron's shadow. Their amazing resistance to evil no doubt put him in his place. If you were a timeless being of great power and wisdom, you would probably feel pretty ashamed to give up before a little hobbit. He saw their strength and their innocence and their stupid trust that life would just go on as it always had, and it made him stronger.

As for men, they hadn't been around long enough to have seen evil rise up again and again. That is to say, as a species, they had been around for a long time and had history to shake their hope but no personal experience. They didn't really know that much, and the ones who did were broody and not terribly hopeful. Aragorn had to be sort of shoved into fighting, when he was content to stay in the wild until the war came to him. And Denethor went down a very unpleasant path, as a result of learning too much through the palantir. 

Alan Lee

Knowing a lot about your enemy can be helpful in fighting him, but it can also lead to despair. Sometimes it is better not to know how small your chance of success is. 

*Maia is not a typo, it is the singular term for the Maiar. 'He is a maia, and one of the Maiar.'