Did Saruman Believe He Could Master The One Ring?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Hmmmm....a trickier question than it looks. The obvious answer is "yes, of course Saruman thought he could master it? Why else would he have sought it out?" But then another thought occurs to me -- he probably really could have "mastered" it insofar as he could have taken it and used its power to throw down Sauron and set himself up in the Dark Lord's place. Of course, he would then himself have been "mastered" by the Ring insofar as he would have become the new Dark Lord, but even that is really being self-mastered insofar as it was his own selfish desire to be a Power that would have led him to take the Ring in the first place...

So was Saruman really all that wrong in his assumption that he could master the Ring? Galadriel and Gandalf both say tha they could take the Ring and use it to defeat Sauron (not what Sauron would want, so clearly they are saying they can take the Ring 'away' from his will) -- I account that a form of mastery. Of course, they also argue that the Ring would pervert and twist them into figures of corruption and evil, but they also state that it would have worked on their own desires to do this -- so once more, it was their own innermost desires and flaws that would have overmastered them, not really the Ring.

(Is this why Bombadil was immune to the Ring? He was so pure, so entirely devoide of desire for control or sway that it had nothing to work on? That is why Bombadil describes himself as "Master" -- because he is his own Master?)

So, I guess I stick with the obvious answer, but in a more complicated way: Yes, Saruman thought he could master the Ring, because he could master it; that is, he could wrench it from Sauron's control and use it to overthrow the Dark Lord. But then he would have been mastered by himself, at the Ring's prompting...