| Saruman the White | |
|---|---|
| Tolkien character | |
 | |
| First appearance | The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) |
| Last appearance | Unfinished Tales (1980) |
| In-universe information | |
| Aliases | Curunír Curumo Sharkey Man of Skill White Messenger Head of the White Council Lord ofIsengard |
| Race | Maia |
Saruman, also calledSaruman the White, laterSaruman of Many Colours, is a fictional character inJ. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novelThe Lord of the Rings. He is the leader of theIstari, wizards sent toMiddle-earth in human form by the godlikeValar to challengeSauron, the mainantagonist of the novel. He comes to desire Sauron's power for himself, so he betrays the Istari and tries to take over Middle-earth by force from his base atIsengard. His schemes feature prominently in the second volume,The Two Towers; he appears briefly at the end of the third volume,The Return of the King. His earlier history is summarised in the posthumously publishedThe Silmarillion andUnfinished Tales.
Saruman is one of several characters in the book who illustrate thecorruption of power. His desire for knowledge and order leads to his fall, and he rejects thechance of redemption when it is offered. The nameSaruman (pronounced[ˈsɑrumɑn]) means "man of skill or cunning" in theMercian dialect ofAnglo-Saxon;[1] he serves as an example of technology and modernity beingoverthrown by forces more in tune with nature.
Saruman has appeared in adaptations of Tolkien's works for radio, cinema, and games, and was portrayed byChristopher Lee inPeter Jackson'sThe Lord of the Rings andThe Hobbit film trilogies.
TheLord of the Rings describes a quest to destroy theOne Ring, a powerful andevil talisman created by the Dark LordSauron to control the nine rings of men, the remaining rings of the dwarves (originally seven) and the three of the elves, the most powerful, thus furthering Sauron's dominion overMiddle-earth. Sauron lost the Ring in battle thousands of years before the beginning of the story, and it is now held in secret inthe Shire by thehobbitBilbo Baggins, who passes it on toFrodo Baggins, one of the story's protagonists. Early in the first volume,The Fellowship of the Ring, the wizardGandalf describes Saruman as "the chief of my order"[T 1] and head of theWhite Council that forced Sauron fromMirkwood at the end of Tolkien's earlier bookThe Hobbit.[T 2] He notes Saruman's great knowledge of theRings of Power created by Sauron and by theElven-smiths. Shortly afterwards, Gandalf breaks an arrangement to meet Frodo and guide him out of the Shire toRivendell to keep the Ring safe from Sauron's agents.
Frodo and Gandalf are reunited at Rivendell midway throughThe Fellowship of the Ring. The wizard explains why he failed to join Frodo: he had been summoned to consult with Saruman but had been held captive. Saruman initially had proposed that the wizards ally themselves with the rising power of Sauron in order to eventually control him for their own ends, revealing himself as a traitor. Saruman went on to suggest that they could take the Ring for themselves and challenge Sauron. When Gandalf refused both options, the traitorous Saruman imprisoned him in the tower of Orthanc atIsengard, hoping to learn from him the location of the Ring. Whilst on the summit ofOrthanc, Gandalf observed that Saruman had industrialized the formerly green valley of Isengard and was creating his own army of Half-Orc/Half-Man fighters andWargs to rival Sauron.[T 3] Gandalf's escape from the top of the tower on the back of aGreat Eagle left Saruman in a desperate position, as he knew he would now be known as traitor to his former allies, but was unable to procure the Ring directly for himself and therefore could not hope to truly rival Sauron. Shortly after arriving in Rivendell, Gandalf informs theCouncil of Elrond about Saruman's betrayal.
InThe Two Towers, the second volume of the story, Orcs from Saruman's army attack Frodo and his companions, and carry off two of Frodo's closest friends,Merry andPippin. The two escape intoFangorn Forest, where they meet theEnts, protectors of the trees, who are outraged at the widespread felling of trees by Saruman's Orcs.[T 4] Meanwhile, Saruman prepares to invade the kingdom ofRohan, which has lain exposed ever since he had his servantGríma Wormtongue renderThéoden, Rohan's king, weak and defenceless with "subtle poisons". Gandalf frees Théoden from Wormtongue's control just as Saruman's army is about to invade.
Saruman is ruined when the Riders of Rohan defeat his army and Merry and Pippin prompt the Ents to destroy Isengard. Saruman himself is not directly involved, and only appears again in chapter 10, "The Voice of Saruman", by which time he is trapped in Orthanc. He fails in his attempt to negotiate with the Rohirrim and with Gandalf, and rejects Gandalf's conditional offer to let him go free. Gandalf casts him out of the White Council and the order of the wizards, and breaks Saruman'sstaff.[T 5]
Saruman makes his final appearance at the end of the last volume,The Return of the King (1955), after Sauron's defeat. After persuading the Ents to release him from Orthanc, he travels north on foot, apparently reduced to begging. He is accompanied by Wormtongue, whom he beats and curses.[T 6] When they reach the Shire, Saruman's agents—both Hobbits andMen—have already taken it over and started a destructive process of industrialization. Saruman governs the Shire in secret under the name of Sharkey until the events of "The Scouring of the Shire". In that penultimate chapter, Frodo and his companions return and lead a rebellion, defeating the intruders and exposing Saruman's role.[T 7] Even after Saruman attempts to stab Frodo, Frodo lets him go; but Wormtongue, whom Saruman continues to taunt and physically abuse, finally snaps and murders him.[T 8][T 7]
Consistent accounts of Saruman's earlier history appear in Appendix B toThe Lord of the Rings, first published inThe Return of the King, and in the posthumously publishedThe Silmarillion andUnfinished Tales. All were written in the mid-1950s. Saruman, like Gandalf andRadagast the Brown, is one of five 'wizards', known as theIstari, who begin to arrive in Middle-earth some two thousand years before the beginning ofThe Lord of the Rings. They areMaiar, envoys of the godlikeValar sent to challenge Sauron (who was regaining his strength following his defeat at the end of the second age) during the third age by inspiring the people of Middle-earth rather than by direct conflict.[T 9] Tolkien regarded them as being somewhat like incarnateangels.[T 10] Saruman initially travels in the east; he is later appointed head of the White Council and eventually settles atGondor's outpost of Isengard. However, studying Sauron and the lore of the Rings of Power makes him desire to possess the ring for himself, eventually leading to his betrayal. Fifty years beforeThe Lord of the Rings, after his studies reveal that the One Ring might be found in the riverAnduin near Sauron's stronghold atDol Guldur, he helps the White Council drive out Sauron in order to facilitate his search.[T 11]
Unfinished Tales contains drafts, not included inThe Lord of the Rings, that describe Saruman's attempts to frustrate Sauron's chief servants, theNazgûl, in their search for the Ring during the early part ofThe Fellowship of the Ring; in one version he considers throwing himself on Gandalf's mercy. There is also a description of how Saruman becomes involved with the Shire and of how he gradually becomes jealous of Gandalf.[T 12] Another brief account describes how the five Istari were chosen by the Valar for their mission.[T 13]
Tolkien had been writingThe Lord of the Rings for several years when Saruman came into existence as the solution to a long-unresolved plot development, and his role and characteristics continued to emerge in the course of writing. Tolkien started work on the book in late 1937 but was initially unsure of how the story would develop.[2] Unlike some of the other characters in the book, Saruman had not appeared in Tolkien's 1937 novel,The Hobbit, or in his then-unpublishedQuenta Silmarillion and related mythology, which date back to 1917.[a] When he wrote of Gandalf's failure to meet Frodo, Tolkien did not know what had caused it and later said: "Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as concerned as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear."[T 14] Tolkien's son,Christopher, has said that the early stages of the creation ofThe Lord of the Rings proceeded in a series of waves, and that having produced the first half ofThe Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien rewrote the tale from the start three times.[T 15] Saruman first appeared during a fourth phase of writing in a rough narrative outline dated August 1940. Intended to account for Gandalf's absence, it describes how a wizard titled "Saramond the White" or "Saramund the Grey", who has fallen under the influence of Sauron, lures Gandalf to his stronghold and traps him.[T 16] The full story of Saruman's betrayal was later added to the existing chapters.[T 3]
Several of Saruman's other appearances in the book emerged in the process of writing. Christopher Tolkien believes that the old man seen byAragorn,Legolas andGimli at the edge ofFangorn forest near the beginning ofThe Two Towers is in the original drafts intended to be Gandalf. In the finished version he is Saruman.[T 17] Similarly, in the first drafts of the chapter "The Scouring of the Shire", Sharkey is successively a ruffian met by the hobbits, and then that man's unseen boss. It is only in the second draft of the chapter that, asChristopher Tolkien puts it, his father "perceive[d]" that Sharkey was in fact Saruman.[T 18] The name used by Saruman's henchmen for their diminished leader is said in a footnote to the final text to be derived from an Orkish term meaning "old man".[3]
Saruman's death scene, in which his body shrivels away to skin and bones revealing "long years of death" and "a pale shrouded figure" rises over the corpse,[T 7] was not added until Tolkien reviewed thepage proofs of the completed book.[T 19]John D. Rateliff andJared Lobdell are among those to write that the scene shows similarities to the death of the 2000-year-old sorceress Ayesha inH. Rider Haggard's 1887 novelShe: A History of Adventure.[4]
"[His voice was] low and melodious, its very sound an enchantment [...] it was a delight to hear the voice speaking, all that it said seemed wise and reasonable, and desire woke in them by swift agreement to seem wise themselves ... for those whom it conquered the spell endured while they were far away and ever they heard that soft voice whispering and urging them."
Tolkien described Saruman at the time ofThe Lord of the Rings as having a long face and a high forehead, "...he had deep darkling eyes ... His hair and beard were white, but strands of black still showed around his lips and ears."[T 5] His hair is elsewhere described as having been black when he first arrived in Middle-earth. He is referred to as 'Saruman the White' and is said to have originally worn white robes, but on his first entry inThe Fellowship of the Ring they instead appear to be "woven from all colours [, they] shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered" and he names himself 'Saruman of Many Colours'.[T 3]
The power of Saruman's voice is noted throughout the book.Jonathan Evans calls the characterisation of Saruman in the chapterThe Voice of Saruman a "tour de force".[3] The early criticRoger Sale wrote of the same chapter in 1968 that "Tolkien valiantly tried to do something worth doing which he simply cannot bring off."[5]Tom Shippey writes that "Saruman talks like a politician ... No other character in Middle-earth has Saruman's trick of balancing phrases against each other so that incompatibles are resolved, and none comes out with words as empty as 'deploring', 'ultimate', worst of all, 'real'. What is 'real change'?"[6] Shippey contrasts this modern speech pattern with the archaic stoicism and directness, theNorthern courage, that Tolkien employs for other characters such as theDwarven KingDáin, which Shippey believes represent Tolkien's view of heroismin the mould ofBeowulf.[6]
Saruman has been identified by critics as demonstrating the fall of an originally good character who has distinctively modern connections with technology.[7]
Tolkien writes thatThe Lord of the Rings was often criticized for portraying all characters as either good or bad, with no shades of grey, a point to which he responds by proposing Saruman, along withDenethor andBoromir, as examples of characters with more nuanced loyalties.[T 20]Marjorie Burns writes that while Saruman is an "imitative and lesser" double of Sauron, reinforcing the Dark Lord's character type, he is alsoa contrasting double of Gandalf, who becomes Saruman as he "should have been", after Saruman fails in his original purpose.[8]
Saruman "was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare raise our hands against" but decays as the book goes on.[9]Patricia Meyer Spacks calls him "one of the main case histories [in the book] of the gradual destructive effect of willing submission to evil wills".[10]Paul Kocher identifies Saruman's use of apalantír, a seeing-stone, as the immediate cause of his downfall, but also suggests that through his study of "the arts of the enemy", Saruman was drawn into imitation of Sauron.[11] According to Jonathan Evans and Spacks, Sarumansuccumbs to the lust for power,[3][10] while Shippey identifies Saruman's devotion to goals of knowledge, organization and control as his weakness.[12] Tolkien writes that the Istari's chief temptation (and that to which Saruman fell) is impatience, leading to a desire to force others to do good, and then to a simple desire for power.[T 21]
Treebeard describes Saruman as having "a mind of metal and wheels".[T 22]Evil inThe Lord of the Rings tends to be associated with machinery, whereas good is usually associated with nature. Both Saruman's stronghold of Isengard and his altered Shire demonstrate the negative effects of industrialization and Isengard is overthrown when the forests, in the shape of the Ents, literally rise against it.[10]Patrick Curry says Tolkien ishostile to industrialism, linking this to the widespreadurban development that took place in theWest Midlands where Tolkien grew up in the first decades of the 20th century. He identifies Saruman as one of the key examples given in the book of the evil effects of industrialization, and by extension ofimperialism.[13]
John R. Holmes writes that there is aphilological link between "a perverted will to power with the love of machines we see in Isengard". The etymologies of English "magic", Latinized Greekmagia, "the power of causing physical change in the real world", and English "machine", Greekmekhane ormakhana "device", are both from Old Persianmaghush "sorcerer", from Proto-Indo-European*magh, "to have power". Thus, Holmes writes, Tolkien was following an ancient cultural connection in making Saruman think in this way, usingmagic.[14]
Shippey notes that Saruman's name repeats this view of technology: in theMercian dialect ofOld English used by Tolkien to represent theLanguage of Rohan in the book, the wordsaru[b] means "clever", "skilful" or "ingenious". This has associations with both technology and treachery that are fitting for Tolkien's portrayal of Saruman, the "cunning man".[15] He also writes of Saruman's distinctively modern association withCommunism in the way the Shire is run under his control in "The Scouring of the Shire": goods are taken "for fair distribution" which, since they are mainly never seen again, Shippey terms an unusually modern piece of hypocrisy in the way evil presents itself in Middle-earth.[16]
Saruman is in part the architect of his own downfall. Kocher,Randel Helms and Shippey write that Saruman's actions in the first half ofThe Two Towers, although intended to further his own interests, in fact lead to his defeat and that of Sauron: his orcs help split the Fellowship atParth Galen, and in carrying off two of the hobbits initiate a series of incidents that lead to his ruin. In turn this frees the Rohirrim to intervene at theBattle of the Pelennor Fields and then together with the men ofGondor to assault Sauron's stronghold ofMordor and distract him from Frodo's final effort to destroy the Ring. Shippey says that this demonstrates the value of persistence in the face of despair, even if a way out cannot be seen;[17] Kocher and Helms write that it is part of a pattern ofprovidential events and of the reversed effects of evil intentions throughout the book.[18][19]
After the defeat of his armies, having been caught in the betrayal of Sauron, Saruman is offered refuge by Gandalf, in return for his aid, but having chosen his path, is unable to turn from it.[10] Evans has compared the character of Saruman to that ofSatan inJohn Milton'sParadise Lost in his use of rhetoric and in this final refusal of redemption, "conquered by pride and hatred".[3]
In the end, the diminished Saruman is murdered, his throat cut, and Shippey notes that when he dies his spirit "dissolved into nothing". He identifies Saruman as the best example in the book of "wraithing", a distinctive 20th-century view of evil that he attributes to Tolkien in which individuals are "'eaten up inside' by devotion to some abstraction".[12] Referring to Saruman's demise, Kocher says that he is one example of the consistent theme of nothingness as the fate of evil throughoutThe Lord of the Rings.[20]
Saruman has appeared in film, radio, stage and video game adaptations ofThe Lord of the Rings.BBC Radio produced thefirst adaptation in 1955, in which Saruman was played byRobert Farquharson, and which has not survived. Tolkien was disappointed by it.[21] BBC Radio'ssecond adaptation ofThe Lord of the Rings, from 1981, presents Saruman much as in the books. Smith and Matthews reportPeter Howell's performance as Saruman as "brilliantly ambiguous ..., drifting from mellifluous to almost bestially savage from moment to moment without either mood seeming to contradict the other".[22]
InRalph Bakshi's1978 animated adaptation ofThe Lord of the Rings, which corresponds toThe Fellowship of the Ring and part ofThe Two Towers, Saruman is voiced byFraser Kerr. He has only one major scene—his attempt to persuade Gandalf to join him. He appears again briefly before theBattle of Helm's Deep, speaking to his army. The character is dressed in red and is called 'Saruman' and 'Aruman' at different points. Smith and Matthews suggest that the use of 'Aruman' was intended to avoid confusion with 'Sauron'.[23] The 1980Rankin/Bass TVanimated version ofThe Return of the King begins roughly where Bakshi's film ends but does not include Saruman's character.[24] Saruman is played byMatti Pellonpää in the 1993 televisionminiseriesHobitit produced and aired by Finnish broadcasterYle.[25]
InPeter Jackson'sfilm trilogy (2001–2003), Saruman is significantly more active in the first two films than in the corresponding books, and he appears in several scenes that are not depicted in Tolkien's work. He was portrayed byChristopher Lee. In the films, Saruman presents himself outright as a servant of Sauron and a traitor to the White Council. Smith and Matthews suggest that Saruman's role is built up as a substitute for Sauron—the story's main antagonist—who never appears directly in the book, a theory which Jackson confirms in the commentary to the DVD.[26] They suggest that having secured the veteran British horror actorChristopher Lee to play Saruman, it made sense to make greater use of his star status.[27] Despite this increased role in the first two films, the scenes involving Saruman that were shot for use in the third film,The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, were not used in the cinematic release, a decision which "shocked" Lee. Jackson reasoned that it would be anticlimactic to show Saruman's fate in the second movie (after theBattle of Helm's Deep) and too retrospective for the third one.[28] The cut scenes end with Saruman falling to his death from the top of Orthanc after being stabbed by Wormtongue who had reached his breaking point after being slapped by Saruman, and include material transposed from the chapter "The Scouring of the Shire". They are included at the start of the Extended Edition DVD release of the film.[29] In Jackson'sfilm adaptations ofThe Hobbit (2012–2014), Lee reprises his role as Saruman the White, even though Saruman does not appear in the book. In the first film, Saruman, Gandalf,Galadriel, andElrond gather at a meeting of theWhite Council in Rivendell, loosely based on material from the Appendices toThe Lord of the Rings.[30]Lee posthumously reprises his role as Saruman in the 2024 anime filmThe Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim through archived voice recording.[31]
In the 2014 video gameMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Saruman is voiced byRoger L. Jackson.[32] Saruman appears as a minor villain inLego Dimensions, in which he allies himself with main antagonist Lord Vortech.[33]
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