Saruman's ring

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Sarumian

We actually know 7 Maiar acting in ME after the War of Wrath - 5 wizards, Sauron and merry old Durin's Bane. But that's true, only 5 of them (the Istari) were SENT to ME by Valar, while the other two remained without a valid permit.

Well, who knows how many there were in reality, I'd guess much more (a couple of other balrog-like things, and there were also many of the weird creatures that are by some considered Maiar or somehow close to Maiar, like Goldberry, Gothmog the Lieutenant of Morgul and of course the ever-present Tom Bombadil. What I think about those is another topic, but I think it's correct to assume the number of Maiar in Middle-Earth did not end at 7).

[Ardent]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Well, who knows how many there were in reality, I'd guess much more (a couple of other balrog-like things, and there were also many of the weird creatures that are by some considered Maiar or somehow close to Maiar, like Goldberry, Gothmog the Lieutenant of Morgul and of course the ever-present Tom Bombadil. What I think about those is another topic, but I think it's correct to assume the number of Maiar in Middle-Earth did not end at 7).

Well Saruman was not the only one with the power of the Voice. What kind of beings were dragons in the creation song?

"...were they laughing in their sleeves at him all the time? That is the effect that dragon-talk has on the inexperienced... Smaug had rather an overwhelming personality."

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Ardent

Well Saruman was not the only one with the power of the Voice. What kind of beings were dragons in the creation song?

The dragons were something rather interesting, I would say similar to the ents or eagles or werewolves (or even possibly Barrow-Wights): it is said, or in some cases hinted at, that there were some "spirits" inhabiting the bodies of those creatures, or in other words, the way to e.g. create a werewolf was apparently to call an evil spirit (what exactly do these mean remains a question - it is said about the eagles and ents that the Valar "called spirits from afar" in the account of Aulë and Yavanna, so whether that's supposed to mean some lesser Ainur who had remained outside the world before, or who knows) and trap it in a wolf's body, just like the Barrow-Wights were evil spirits who had entered the tombs of old kings, and so dragons most likely were some similar spirits placed into the bodies of beasts (it is hinted at in the descriptions of Glaurung, the forefather of dragons, concerning "the spirit inside him"). At least when it comes to the "first generations" - later, the breeding of dragons seemed to continue normally - just like the spiders of Mirkwood were simply offspring of Ungoliant, resp. Shelob, and did not need any special "spirits" to inhabit their bodies, it seems. They were simply already "born" that way, just like, excuse the parallel, Melian's daughter also was no longer a Maia, but had her own life.

But I guess all this is a bit outside the scope of this thread...

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

just like the spiders of Mirkwood were simply offspring of Ungoliant, resp. Shelob, and did not need any special "spirits" to inhabit their bodies, it seems. They were simply already "born" that way

I don't think Lady Gaga has tried a spider outfit yet, has she? But either way, I now have a weird vision of Shelob forming in my mind

Originally Posted by Zigur

If I might make a humorous aside before I begin, I'm afraid that to me the modern version of Doctor Who is a bit like the films of The Lord of the Rings: my love is reserved for the original, in this case the Hartnell-to-Radagast, I mean McCoy, era (McGann too), and I'm extremely skeptical of almost everything in the modern interpretations. My mind is reeling at the thought of Professor Tolkien's work being at all improved by having similarities to the writing of Mr Russell T Davies...

RTD is a genius! I will agree that Moffat leaves a lot to be desired though...one day he will choose to focus on Sherlock instead and pass the baton to someone else *crosses fingers*

Originally Posted by Zigur

Personally I see Saruman's "of Many Colours" routine as being symptomatic of a descent into darkness: first the light is broken, then it goes out. Consider, if you will, Morgoth in Valaquenta: "He began with the desire of Light, but when he could not possess it for himself alone, he descended through fire and wrath into a great burning, down into darkness." To me this act of refraction on the part of Saruman evokes the decay of motives which emphasises him as a feeble imitation of his diabolic role models, much like his attempts to forge his own Ring: "for all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came but from Mordor". (LR p.542)

Yes. It can be read in many ways - I have tried to dig down and work out for myself exactly how the Rings worked within the context of Tolkien's creation, but it can also be looked at in the context of what was 'moral' in Eru's world. Which is what I think you are referring to? Light is at once both intangible and very real - it symbolises the 'correct' path in Arda, but it is also something which can be claimed and used (many instances of Light's physical reality: the Two Trees; Silmarils; the Phial of Galadriel etc). Morgoth like many others wants to claim Light for himself, he even teams up with Ungoliant, who turns out to only want to negate Light. The act of trying to claim Light is both a physical act and a spiritual one, a metaphor for descending into evil.

This is another example, I would argue, of how Saruman was merely an imitator of Sauron; the Dark Lord had achieved the same thing with Trolls, the Olog-hai: "they could endure the Sun, so long as the will of Sauron held sway over them."
I personally don't see anything different or new about Saruman's activities, just inferior replications of the evil of Sauron. That his servants needed protection from the light (if this was not a mere effect of them being bred with Men) to me symbolises his evil. It is not an act of mastery; it is a compensation for one of the shortcomings of rebellion - an anathema for and weakness to something holy and good. I would suggest that, much like Sauron in the Second Age, Saruman still had "the relics of positive purposes" at some point in his plan (although I very much doubt that these were still present by the time of the Scouring of the Shire). "Sauron had, in fact, been very like Saruman, and so still understood him quickly and could guess what he would be likely to think and do." (Morgoth's Ring p.396) In this way I tend to see Saruman's fall, with its ring-making and many colours, as a sort of sped-up, rushed version of Sauron's own, and correspondingly fragmented for its brevity and Saruman's relatively lesser strength.

And yes, I agree, it could well be that what Saruman tries to achieve is just an echo of what Morgoth and Sauron have also tried to achieve. He does it in a different way though. Morgoth tries to claim Light at every opportunity. Sauron seems to deny it. Saruman however attempts to work out what it is and use the 'base chemicals' to craft something new.

Ultimately yes, his actions only echo what Morgoth and Sauron did before him, as in Arda, it is not acceptable to challenge or claim ownership of Light. But he still tries, and he tries something a little different. This is why I have nicknamed it Saruman's 'third way' - he does not see it as good or evil, it is another path to him. But it is also a slightly different approach to those taken by both Morgoth and Sauron.

I like the thought that just as Light and light refract and splinter, so the attempts by those on the side of evil in Arda also refract - their works shatter, and with each new attempt to gain control, their efforts grow ever weaker.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

RTD is a genius! I will agree that Moffat leaves a lot to be desired though...one day he will choose to focus on Sherlock instead and pass the baton to someone else *crosses fingers*

Oh dear! I'm afraid I find Moffat occasionally tolerable but RTD (and Tennant) not at all. And Moffat's Sherlock is in the same boat for me as the films of The Lord of the Rings and New Who - a modern interpretation which, to me, seems to miss the point of the source material in an effort to glam up for modern audiences. But I digress.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Saruman however attempts to work out what it is and use the 'base chemicals' to craft something new.

This comes across as reading into things a tad in my opinion. Gandalf's words, "he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom" evokes to me the idea that Saruman was not breaking it down to understand it, but simply to make change for change's sake: "It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken." To me this disassembly of his whiteness is largely an effort to make himself seem progressive, more advanced, better, but to transform he can only destroy something complete and whole. All he could do was desecrate his own position and inspect the broken fragments, and so he lost what he had.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

he does not see it as good or evil, it is another path to him. But it is also a slightly different approach to those taken by both Morgoth and Sauron.

I agree that it is, perhaps, different in its means, but I feel the intentions are the same. I daresay Morgoth and Sauron did not consider themselves to be "evil" either. This to me is Saruman's delusion: he was "the White", the highest of the Order and the Council, but he came to convince himself that White was only a base from which to build rather than a summit which he was breaking underneath himself. It turns out he was wrong: being "the White" was promotion; he was effectively demoting himself on a spiritual level. To me this is the same self-deception as Morgoth and Sauron, convincing themselves that there was some property of existence about which they had insights beyond that of Eru, that Eru was wrong and they were right. To me it suggests not a genuine effort to understand light, but a fatuous act of arrogance. Saruman cannot improve on "White", so he shatters it and claims (to himself as well as others) that the broken wreckage is better than the original, unspoiled thing. I suppose what I feel like Gandalf is trying to say is that Saruman could have understood the White light had he tried, but he refuses to do so, because that would involve admitting it as being out of his control, and control is what he desires. The only control he can exert upon it is to break it down, just like Morgoth sought the ruin of Arda because he couldn't stand the notion that it was not solely his and that he could never have absolute power over it, or like how Sauron, fool that he was, convinced himself that Eru had "given up" on Arda and would let him do what he liked with it.
To me this deconstruction of the light is representative of villainous folly in general in Arda: the idea that finite, incarnate beings exerting their limited power over individual constituents of something to which they were themselves internal and a part were somehow capable of turning the ultimate control away from the external, infinite authority - it's completely delusional. They were part of the system; the system can't change itself. Only the person on the outside, Eru, has that power. Breaking things down gives the illusion, however, that they do have that power; the Shadow confounded itself just as readily as its enemies. This is how I read the breaking of the White light.
That being said, thank you for your insights, this has been an extremely illuminating (pun intended or not, your choice) discussion!

[Alfirin]

This is a bit tangential, but I am wondering if, in choosing his new appearance, Saruman had also directly violated one of the cardinal laws of the Istari (the one about not revealing their nature") Based on the way it is described I have always assumed that Saruman's "many hued robe" would be what we would call iridescent. Merely putting muticolored threads next to each other would not accomplish the effect being desrcribed (if they were random, the robe would appear grey or black from a distance, not white (because of the way pigments work versus light). If they were arrayed in spectrum order, you might get gradients of color if the bands were narrow enough but it wouln't change color like described (and from a distance, still could not be mistaken for white). So an iridescent robe (or a robe make of iridescent threads) would seem to be the logical choice. However, making iridescent threads would, I imagine. likey be beyond the tech of ME (unless it is a twisted version of the craft the elves use to make thier camoflague cloaks) The ONLY way I can see someone doing it is through the use of "magic"/ Valarian skills not known in ME, which would violate the rule. Even if the method is one Saruman came up with himself, showing himself with an appearance including something that the other people of ME literally COULDN'T do would probably be a no-no under the rule.

[Rumil]

A couple of possibly relevant quotes :

Gandalf's explanation has been alluded to above-

In Eregion long ago many Elven-rings were made, magic rings as you call them, and they were, of course, of various kinds: some more potent and some less. The lesser rings were only essays in the craft before it was full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but trifles - yet still to my mind dangerous for mortals. But the Great Rings, the Rings of Power, they were perilous

But Galadriel may give us another glimpse of an aspect of the powers of the Three

I say to you, Frodo, that even as I speak to you, I perceive the Dark Lord and know his mind, or all of his mind that concerns the Elves. And he gropes ever to see me and my thought, But still the door is closed!

which, I think generally ties in with Lal's hypothesis.

I wonder... exactly when Saruman forged his ring (or rings?) is not told. Nor is his reason for risking the use of the Palantir at that time. Putting two and two together, perhaps Saruman's ring gave him the over-confidence to believe that he could withstand Sauron in a Palantir encouter, or maybe I've made two and two equal five!

Another possible Saruman ring influence: Theoden. Doesn't it seem a little unnatural that Grima Wormtongue, roundly hated by all and sundry in Theoden's court, could exert such influence over the King? Who after all seems a straightforward and noble character underneath.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

Oh dear! I'm afraid I find Moffat occasionally tolerable but RTD (and Tennant) not at all. And Moffat's Sherlock is in the same boat for me as the films of The Lord of the Rings and New Who - a modern interpretation which, to me, seems to miss the point of the source material in an effort to glam up for modern audiences. But I digress.

Sometimes I think the Downs needs a little "Geeks' Corner" for such topics

Anyway...I think in essence we agree on the end result of all these efforts to capture, corrupt or break Light in Middle-earth, it's clearly not possible to ultimately take control and 'beat' Eru at his own game. Eru is after all omnipotent and more than willing to do some smiting, and if plans collapse before it gets to that stage then he is still capable of showing his displeasure (as we see with Saruman's fea being turned away at the end of The Return of the King).

What's interesting is why characters like Morgoth, Sauron and Saruman think they can beat Eru. We might differ a bit here?

This comes across as reading into things a tad in my opinion. Gandalf's words, "he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom" evokes to me the idea that Saruman was not breaking it down to understand it, but simply to make change for change's sake:

I think Saruman genuinely thought that he could do things differently. It is backed up by his character and him being one of Aule's people. He is proud and he also possesses incredible skill - and he has that urge that a lot of people have, to see how things work and try and improve them (like a bloke taking apart his bike). But it's more serious than someone taking apart their bike, as Gandalf points out to him.

"It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken." To me this disassembly of his whiteness is largely an effort to make himself seem progressive, more advanced, better, but to transform he can only destroy something complete and whole. All he could do was desecrate his own position and inspect the broken fragments, and so he lost what he had.

Yes, you're right. He can break the Light, and he can make a Ring. But all he achieves by doing so is ultimately failure. The same as Morgoth and Sauron.

I agree that it is, perhaps, different in its means, but I feel the intentions are the same. I daresay Morgoth and Sauron did not consider themselves to be "evil" either. This to me is Saruman's delusion: he was "the White", the highest of the Order and the Council, but he came to convince himself that White was only a base from which to build rather than a summit which he was breaking underneath himself. It turns out he was wrong: being "the White" was promotion; he was effectively demoting himself on a spiritual level.

It sheds some light on what Galadriel may have been had she taken the One. It's easier for us to see Saruman as 'evil' as we never seem him in fairer times unlike Galadriel (in contrast, we see her in her fairer days, not so much when she was a Noldorian rebel). And what both Gandalf and Radagast might have been, too. It does pose some very interesting questions - it's easy to see that Morgoth and Sauron did evil in the quest for power, but Saruman sets out with what we may see as good intentions.

To me this is the same self-deception as Morgoth and Sauron, convincing themselves that there was some property of existence about which they had insights beyond that of Eru, that Eru was wrong and they were right. To me it suggests not a genuine effort to understand light, but a fatuous act of arrogance. Saruman cannot improve on "White", so he shatters it and claims (to himself as well as others) that the broken wreckage is better than the original, unspoiled thing. I suppose what I feel like Gandalf is trying to say is that Saruman could have understood the White light had he tried, but he refuses to do so, because that would involve admitting it as being out of his control, and control is what he desires. The only control he can exert upon it is to break it down, just like Morgoth sought the ruin of Arda because he couldn't stand the notion that it was not solely his and that he could never have absolute power over it, or like how Sauron, fool that he was, convinced himself that Eru had "given up" on Arda and would let him do what he liked with it.

(An aside - Sauron may have had more motives we haven't considered as he saw what Eru could do in Numenor...that might be another topic...)

I think it's fair enough that Saruman might think the white Light can be used, after all there are examples of crafts of Light like the Silmarils. But Saruman does try to improve on Light - I don't think he does seek to control it in any way, more to use it. If I can use an analogy, where Morgoth/Sauron were more like dabblers in medieval dark arts, Saruman is more like a scientist dabbling in some very morally grey areas. Not sure if that works but never mind....

To me this deconstruction of the light is representative of villainous folly in general in Arda: the idea that finite, incarnate beings exerting their limited power over individual constituents of something to which they were themselves internal and a part were somehow capable of turning the ultimate control away from the external, infinite authority - it's completely delusional. They were part of the system; the system can't change itself. Only the person on the outside, Eru, has that power. Breaking things down gives the illusion, however, that they do have that power; the Shadow confounded itself just as readily as its enemies. This is how I read the breaking of the White light.

Yes. You cannot get away from the fact that in Tolkien's creation, Eru is omnipotent and it is ultimately going to fail if you try to harness, control or break Light. It doesn't mean that what Saruman achieved was without power, as we can see that what Morgoth and Sauron achieve is also wrong but it is effective. For a time.

Originally Posted by Rumil

I wonder... exactly when Saruman forged his ring (or rings?) is not told. Nor is his reason for risking the use of the Palantir at that time. Putting two and two together, perhaps Saruman's ring gave him the over-confidence to believe that he could withstand Sauron in a Palantir encouter, or maybe I've made two and two equal five!

Not at all, it's a fair assumption. One of the many good, meaty things about Saruman's tale is that we just do not know how much influence Sauron had over him.

[Zigûr]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

it's easy to see that Morgoth and Sauron did evil in the quest for power, but Saruman sets out with what we may see as good intentions.

So did Sauron: "Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganising and rehabilitation of Middle-earth, 'neglected by the gods', he becomes a reincarnation of Evil, and a thing lusting for Complete Power." (Letter 131) It seems very reminiscent to me of Saruman's speech: "we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see." (LR p.252)
Once again Saruman was a facsimile of Sauron, his superior in Evil. Saruman lacked the opportunity to embrace Darkness, but the breaking of the Light was in my view a beginning: he tries to break down the Light to understand it, which to me is still an act of possession, like Morgoth's theft of the Silmarils or, maybe even more appropriately, Fëanor's withholding of them. Saruman lacked the time or opportunity (or perhaps the power) to become a full-blown Dark Lord but I see the breaking of the Light as an initial phase. I'm not sure when Saruman "uses" the Light: to me its deconstruction comes back to this threefold purpose: "Knowledge, Rule, Order". The greater his lore, the greater his power, the greater his power the more secure his order. It seems to me very much like Sauron's purpose with the forging of the Rings, just on a lesser scale which never comes to fruition. In Théoden's words, "I perceive only a finger of the claw of Mordor."

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

(An aside - Sauron may have had more motives we haven't considered as he saw what Eru could do in Numenor...that might be another topic...)

Sauron assumed Eru no longer cared: "He probably deluded himself with the notion that the Valar (including Melkor) having failed, Eru had simply abandoned Eä, or at any rate Arda, and would not concern himself with it any more. It would appear that he interpreted the 'change of the world' at the Downfall of Númenor, when Aman was removed from the physical world, in this sense: Valar (and Elves) were removed from effective control, and Men under God's curse and wrath." (Morgoth's Ring)
This seems to me to be awfully similar to Saruman's sentiments: "There is no help left in Elves or dying Númenor". Sauron's efforts at rehabilitation were predicated on the notion that the Valar no longer cared and that therefore it was 'up to him' to set things right in the East; later this assumption of apathy was extended to God Himself. Saruman similarly abandons his mission, believing that, contrary to the Valar's instructions, it was the place of higher beings to order the world of Men, but he shows up very late in the scheme of things and doesn't do a very good job even of being a new Enemy. He doesn't even get as far as Darkness; he simply breaks a White Light into Many Colours. The "Many Colours" do emphasise his ambiguity, however, which is I think what makes him interesting, as well as his role as a foil to both Gandalf and Sauron. Maybe instead of being on a "third way" I more see him as a kind of in-betweener.
While I've always considered a lack of humility to be one of his main failings, I've often wondered that the Valar didn't help things much. First he was burdened with Radagast, whom he apparently disliked from the start, and then despite being appointed head of the Order this is undermined before they've even left Valinor by Varda's rather unsubtle remark that Gandalf is "not the third." Obviously Saruman, a servant of the Valar and by extension of Eru, should have been able to deal with this, and obviously no one but he can be blamed for his own failure and fall, but I really can't help shake the impression that this whole 'Wizard plan' on the part of the Lords of the West was not implemented as well as it could have been. I suppose that's why it took Eru's intervention to see it to any kind of fruition.

[Ardent]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

...I think Saruman genuinely thought that he could do things differently. It is backed up by his character and him being one of Aule's people. He is proud and he also possesses incredible skill - and he has that urge that a lot of people have, to see how things work and try and improve them (like a bloke taking apart his bike). But it's more serious than someone taking apart their bike, as Gandalf points out to him. ...

In the foreword to LotR JRR says that IF he had intended the book to be an allegory of WWII then he would have had Saruman go, not to the Shire, but to Mordor to find "the missing links in his own research..."
In the real war the victorious powers plundered many things from the defeated Germany, most well known are V2 rocket technology and the research of Josef Mengele. Both these fields produced positive and negative results in the form of the space race vs the nuclear arms race, and insights into genetics vs genetic engineering.
The benefits are with us still, as are the fears of the abuses, but one might say that good intentions make the Sarumans of our world brave or heroic, since they acheived what the morally restrained could not ("conscience doth make cowards of us all". as Hamlet says). Saruman's aims justify his means, in his own eyes at least.

By avoiding making LotR an allegory, Tolkien denies us the ability to point to any one figure or event in history and make them a scapegoat; as if to say "X = bad therefore I must be good." Instead, by making the books' themes "applicable", we're left with the uncomfortable questions:
"Who/what does this apply to?"
and
"How might this apply to me?"

ie. Is a man who dissassembles his bike any better than Saruman? I have dissassembled a rat so am I any better then Saruman? Does the fact that I did this as an obligatory part of studying 'A' level Biology provide me with justification?

The power of Saruman's (and Smaug's) Voice lies in saying things that are valid; but these things only work on those who are unprepared, who have not already decided where to draw the line they will not cross.

Gandalf gave Saruman the opportunity to redraw his lines (also a theme of the recent Dr Whos), on the terms that he lay aside his staff and the keys to Orthanc until he'd proved himself trustworthy. He declined and so lost his staff, but in this Gandalf appears to have made a similar mistake to that of Hama at the doors of Edoras. Where Hama failed to part Gandalf from his staff, Gandalf failed to part Saruman from his ring. He knew it existed, so was this an oversight or would removing his ring have had some effect Gandalf would deem undesirable?