# LotR: Saruman vs Sauron (but not how you think)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 12, 2017, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768 "2017-06-12T12:26:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/21 "2017-06-14T17:08:47Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Ok. I haven’t watched all three of those, and I have only watched the two I DID watch once. They are an abomination upon the whole Tolkien legendarium. Maybe not as strongly, but I pretty much agree. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/22 "2017-06-14T17:18:50Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Mmmmm, not so sure Saruman is a walkover for Sauron. > > Both Sauron and Saruman are Maiar. It’s clear from the extended writings that there are different levels of Maiar. Some are very powerful, almost like Valar. See, for example, Oromë. Others are minor powers (think dryads, etc.). Where in this hierarchy Saruman falls is unclear. We do know, however, that Gandalf was a particular favorite of at least one Vala, and the implication is that he wasn’t exactly a minor functionary. > > Sauron was at one point very powerful for a Maia. However, he’s poured a significant amount of his power into the Ring; minus the Ring, he is definitely weakened. Just how weak that is we’ll never know. _Mano a mano_ maybe. But Sauron has the Ringwraiths and a zillion orcs. ---
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/23 "2017-06-14T18:21:37Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > _Mano a mano_ maybe. But Sauron has the Ringwraiths and a zillion orcs. And Saruman, like the rest of the Istari, has the limitation that he is not a Maia that looks like a man, he is in fact embodied in flesh with all its weaknesses, limited in powers, and only dimly remembering the West and where he came from. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/24 "2017-06-14T18:59:05Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’m pretty sure that Saurman wasn’t nearly the match that he thought he was. > > A central feature of the Sauron/Saruman relationship was Sauron corrupting him and deceiving Saruman into thinking that he was becoming more powerful than he actually was by his own efforts, instead of making toy versions of what Sauron had. “The biter bit, the hawk under the eagle’s foot, the spider in a steel web!” ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/25 "2017-06-14T19:26:35Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > What is that a quote from? It’s not from the written version of _The Hobbit_, I don’t think. It’s poked into the movie and not into the books, but it kind of summed up the idea nicely, which is what i guess they tried to accomplish, smash a whole bunch of left out things into one phrase. The exact quote does not exist in whole or even part in any of the books, but its meaning does exist in them, many times Sorry i should have noted it was not a book quote. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/26 "2017-06-14T19:45:47Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Ok. I haven’t watched all three of those, and I have only watched the two I DID watch once. They are an abomination upon the whole Tolkien legendarium. I would not say an abomination per say They are not the books and no movie no matter who makes it can ever be the books. There are so many things going on, they simply dont fit into movie sized restrictions or Hollywood budgeting. What the movies are, is enjoyable action/adventure films _based on_ events from the red book of westmarch. They work, they do what they were meant to do. The Silmarillion on the other hand, i don’t think would lend itself well to that? For what it is worth, i’d imagine a faithfully accurate Hobbit movie to span like 9 movies in length or so, maybe more. And it’s the short book ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/27 "2017-06-14T20:36:26Z")
I used to play a hexagon game called “War of the Ring”. There was a simpler character game that I played a bunch of times. There was a more complex army type game (but nothing compared to squad leader). It was much like the books in that the good guys could only hope to win a ring victory. Sauron’s armies were vast and numerous, Good Guys were armies were small and dispersed. For the Good guys, the armies could only prolong the game in hopes of achieving a Ring victory. ONCE, I played the three man version (where I got to play Saruman). Saruman’s job was to play both ends against the middle, and hope to land the Ring to win. I did almost get the ring, but once I tried and failed, I was quickly relegated to irrelevance. Just as happened in the books. I respect the comments above about Saruman having been deceived, and the thought that anyone attempting to wield the Ring would eventually hand it over to its true owner, BUT … I guess I have always taken the Wise (Saruman, Gandalf, Galadriel) at their word when they say that they could wield the Ring (albeit, to ultimate corruption). I’ve always seen it as a win for Evil, but not necessarily a win for Sauron. But who knows, Sauron can be quite the flatterer, and he snatched victory from defeat by surrendering to Numenor. Maybe he would just surrender to Saruman (or Galadriel) and simply bide his time… ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/28 "2017-06-14T23:15:59Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > I would not say an abomination per say > They are not the books and no movie no matter who makes it can ever be the books. > There are so many things going on, they simply dont fit into movie sized restrictions or Hollywood budgeting. > > What the movies are, is enjoyable action/adventure films _based on_ events from the red book of westmarch. > > They work, they do what they were meant to do. > The Silmarillion on the other hand, i don’t think would lend itself well to that? > > For what it is worth, i’d imagine a faithfully accurate Hobbit movie to span like 9 movies in length or so, maybe more. > And it’s the short book I was referring to the trilogy of movies made from the original book _The Hobbit_. Unlike the Jackson trilogy based upon _The Lord of the Rings_, about which I won’t get into detailed discussion, since it would be treading old ground (to mix my metaphors), the three movies made very LOOSELY on the basis of _The Hobbit_ were so filled with stuff the book never had, written in a tone the book never adopted, and so generally unfunny and uninteresting as to make most people who see them wonder why anyone ever bothered to read the whole story. And that’s an opinion I’ve heard from a LOT of people who never actually read the book, but watched one or more of the movies. As for the quote you gave, while there are certainly aspects of that found in Tolkien’s actual writings (I recall for example a specific instance in the LotR where someone talks about the ability of The Shire to resist the Dark Lord), it is most decidedly not the case that Tolkien’s writing support the idea that “everyday deeds of ordinary folk keep darkness at bay.” Indeed, part of the whole point to the trilogy is that such folk eventually have to partake in the great deeds of the day, if anything permanent is to be done. Else, all that happens is that such ordinary folk eventually get run over, and die out. At least so I feel. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768/29 "2017-06-14T23:31:47Z")
Adding in some material from other works about just what Gandalf was up to in the middle of the Hobbit and what the Necromancer actually meant was an okay idea. The entire execution of the movies–other unnecessary changes like the whole “white orc” thing, long and tedious CGI-fest fights and running, the way that a character like Radagast was depicted (okay, I gave up watching after the first movie)–is what was terrible. Making a book (even with all the intra-book additions) that could hit all the general highlights in 78 minutes in 1977 to something like nine hours was another terrible idea. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-saruman-vs-sauron-but-not-how-you-think/788768.md?page=1)