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Old 10-24-2002, 07:24 PM   #16
Kalimac
Candle of the Marshes
 
Join Date: Mar 2002
Location: Flyover Country
Posts: 780
Kalimac has just left Hobbiton.
Pipe

Mark, I hadn't thought of that about getting the spoils. The only thing I'd have against it is that saying "I want them unspoiled" sounds like you're talking about the hobbits themselves - their bodies. If he had said "undespoiled" that would have been a specific reference to taking any objects they may have had on them. Or maybe, since that line isn't in the books, PJ himself didn't quite know, and didn't mean it to say specifically either "don't hurt them" or "don't take their possessions, but I don't care what you do with them personally". Maybe it was just meant to be scary-sounding all-encompassing "hands off" order. <P>And while Saruman probably wouldn't care about having the hobbits knocked around, he probably would want very much to have them in reasonable physical shape; enough so that they were still capable of giving him valuable information. Saruman at this point is already thinking of grabbing the Ring for himself, and if he's going to be battling both Rohan/Gondor/the Elves on one hand and Sauron on the other, he'd better know a lot more about what's going on in the world than he currently does, and who better to get information from than a member of the Fellowship? It's true that he did have Wormtongue feeding him information from Rohan, but you get the feeling that was rather small potatoes compared to all the stuff he WASN'T finding out about from Rivendell, Lorien and Gondor. <P>You get the feeling that if Merry and Pippin had ever arrived at Orthanc, Saruman would have considered them valuable even when they turned out not to have the Ring; they were fellowship members, but not nearly as powerful, dangerous, or liable to escape or be rescued as, say, Aragorn, Legolas or even Boromir would be; he probably considers hobbits to be much more easily pumped for information as well, and also less likely to have all-out searches made for them since strategically they aren't terribly significant at the time. So yes - he'd want to make sure the Orcs kept their hands off of any jewelry the hobbits might have had, but he would have wanted the hobbits very much as well. <P>OK, enough burbling on this topic. Any additional thoughts? .
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