[Mithalwen]

To be fair he wasn't on to talk about LOTR he was on to talk about the Agge of Anxiety (topic of the symposium or whatever) - but I agree that it is easy to overlook the ambiguous characters inLOTR. The interview struck me particularly because I was thinking a lot about Saruman in connection to the Radio discussion.

However I suppose the difference is that while Saruman deludes some of the characters some of the time, the reader is left in no doubt that he is a wrong-un unlike in Northern Lights where the first scene (if I remember right) we see a subtle poisoning attempt by the heroine's custodians on Lord Asriel and left in a lot of doubt about him, Mrs Coulter and many others.