Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
Saruman certainly did not consider all possibilities, but then, neither did Sauron. I think that was one thing Tolkien was trying to indicate with his main evil characters; their curious single-mindedness and inattention to detail when it mattered.
|
I might be inclined to say that it was a lack of attention to all details, and instead hyperfocusing on ones that turned out to be less important than others they ignored or dismissed. In this, they remind me of some attention deficit friends I have. They can have phenomenal attention to something that catches their interest and thus appears very important to them, but while their attention is focused on that manner, they are blind to everything else. In the case of both Sauron and Saruman, their attention was focused on one thing: the Ring, and the way they had each determined it would best be obtained. Sauron believed that anyone of "importance" who came near it would seize it and use it for military conquest. Saruman knew that Gandalf wanted to destroy it, but his lust for it drove him into haste, and thus into making serious mistakes. Perhaps if his desire for the Ring had not been part of the equation, Saruman might have done better as a military commander. With the Ring as a driving motive, he was almost doomed to make fatal mistakes, I think.