Basic plot- The dark tide is rising, and the good guys decide on a desperate gamble to defeat it. Frodo and Sam brave Mordor to destroy the Ring while the others fight to keep the west from being overrun before they can. But then there’s a whole subplot, a diversion really, about dealing with the machinations of a would-be rival dark power. It seems so dispensable to the story that the Peter Jackson movie omitted the entire Scouring of the Shire. From a literary standpoint, what was Tolkien’s objective in including this in the story?
It was, in my opinion, to show how corruption worked on a scale that was readily comprehensible to the reader.
The reader may not be as moved by the fall of empires, as by the ruin of the Shire.
Yeah, I think it was primarily about corruption. It’s one way to show how Frodo and Bilbo really do have some kind of special immunity. If the reader says “Yeah, but so-and-so could have done it” they can look at examples like Saruman. Saruman’s use of the Palantir also mirrors Denethor’s, and Denethor was also corrupted.
For those who see parallels between World War II and the books, Sauron is Hitler/Germany and Saruman is Mussolini/Italy. Tolkien apparently denies this inspiration, but I’m not sure I believe him.
I heard that the first and last parts of LotR were the first that Tolkien wrote. This makes sense because the style and scope of the writing is more in keeping with The Hobbit.
So they were probably kept in because they had been in there from the very beginning, with everything else added on at the end.
From a narrative point of view, it completes the character arc for Merry and Pippin, who are shown to be heroes in the books, not just the comic relief they are in the films. It’s those two that save the Shire, not Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Gandalf, or any other heroes, kings or gods. Of course, it helped that they were Knights of Gondor and Rohan, a point rather glossed over in the films. Whilst Denethor, in his ignorance and hopelessness, sees that as a joke, Theoden clearly doesn’t. It’s rather a shame that Peter Jackson tended to view characters through Denethor’s corrupted eyes.
It also makes clear that, whilst destroying the Ring allowed for the possibility that good would flourish, evil has not been destroyed, and the remaining evil beings will find a way, no matter how petty - and make no mistake, Saruman’s attempted destruction of the Shire was a petty attempt to hurt Gandalf, nothing more - and still need to be defeated.
To me it’s about how corruption can reach its gnarled hands into the highest and purest of beings. A wizard, no less! And it gave Gandalf something to grow into, while providing a counterpoint to his wizarding for the good side.
It also delivered the one working palantir left to the Free Peoples into Aragorn’s hands, which is a subtle but very important plot point. It was Aragorn using that palantir, wresting its control away from Sauron, and therefore tricking Sauron into believing that Aragorn was a) strong enough in will to control the Ring and b) about thisfar from actually doing so, that caused Sauron to concentrate his forces and will on the Morannon instead of on the two little hobbits trudging their way up Mount Doom.
ETA: Not to mention that it also brought in the Ents, who were needed to succor and deliver Merry and Pippin back to the Fellowship. It was Saruman’s rape of the Entwood that brought them out of the forest and into the story. Without them, Helm’s Deep would not have ended well and neither the Fellowship nor the Rohirrim would have made it to Minas Tirith.
Sauruman’s a cautionary tale on the corrupting influence of regimented order and mechanical thinking. Having studied Sauron to defeat him he comes to see his allies as far too decentralized, weak, and unwilling to heed his advice. He begins to want to dominate other’s wills and impose order just like Sauron - evil as the removal of free will.
At which point he doesn’t create any new plans for imposing order, he simply apes Sauron by fortifying a tower and creating a massive army and dominating the leader of his closest opposition - evil as creatively sterile.
And finally Sauruman becomes a small vindictive creature bent only on spiting the least powerful people he can find - evil as destruction for destruction’s sake.
Okay, I’m gonna have to interrupt here as an igorant movie-only person and say, huh?! Merry and Pippin are absolutely not “just the comic relief” in the films – that stops basically at the end of FOTR once they split from Frodo to draw attention away from him and then witness Boromir’s death. Do they provide some comic relief in the other films? Yes, albeit more in TT than in ROTK. But the character development / growing gravitas of Merry and especially Pippin is some of my favorite stuff in the film series, and to my eyes the Merry/Eowyn and Pippin/Gandalf/Faramir interactions in ROTK are among the most touching, significant and heroic of the trilogy. (Frodo/Sam at the end aside.)
The “we are not expected to be heroes but damnit we are” kinship between Merry and Eowyn, the initial irritation Gandalf shows toward Pippin that soon develops into an increasingly mentorlike respect, and Faramir/Pippin’s mutual empathy that leads to Pippin rescuing Faramir–all of these make ROTK my favorite of the trilogy, which I know is a heretical view but so be it. I dig side stories that show unforseen depth of secondary characters.
Sorry to interrupt with the apologia for Peter Jackson’s versions of the characters. Carry on!
Yes, I’ve been meaning to read the books for years (bought the boxed set right after gorging on the films for the first time three years ago) but then went and lost the first book, and keep forgetting to replace it. And I’ll be damned if I read the books out of order.
Fair enough, I’m glad at least some of it came through. It’s just rather pointless without the ending to their story, in my opinion anyway. And yes, you really should read the books 
Pssst! Library.
You may even find an audio version.
I think a lot of that has to do with trimming for time. To show them as more heroic and effective physically you would have to go into the whole Ent Draught business and showing that they grew. If you need to cut the Scouring of the Shire due to time constraints then there isn’t too much need to make Merry and Pippin into warriors.
That was in the movies - at least, in the extended edition. Might not have made the theatrical cut.
Extended. And I don’t remember it being fully explored. Just a brief mention.
They weren’t just bigger though, they were infinitely tougher due to their adventures.
After dealing with Grishnakh, Robin Smallburrow was No Big Deal.
Without Saruman, the story would be vastly different; the Fellowship only took the trip through Moria to keep away from Isengard. Without Saruman, if the Fellowship was still attacked by Orcs (though of course, that would be less likely), any captives would obviously be carried straight in the direction of Mordor, so there would have been no decision to make about who to follow- they’d be all heading in the same direction, and the whole fellowship would have headed to Mordor. Without Theoden’s corruption, and without an enemy nearly, there would be nothing keeping Rohan from joining in with their allies straight away, so there would be an undivided front of men, no need for the help of the Fellowship anyway. Then Frodo would likely have Aragorn there, who had spent years wandering the wastes, so there would be no need to have Gollum as a guide… Very different.
Personally, I don’t really see the Scouring of the Shire as really dispensible, and I was very disappointed in it’s being cut from the film. The falling of a character that starts off almost as a god to a pathetic, vengeful beggar is so much more interesting than the defeat of Sauron, an enemy of pure uncomplicated evil.
Well, without the Saruman story there would have been no Helm’s Deep. And Rohan would not have been almost fatally weakened, and would have been able to overwhelm Sauron’s army in front of Minas Tirith perhaps beyond recovery. And then the whole other story about the army of the dead wouldn’t have been necessary.
So that’s another reason for this part of the story, to weaken Rohan, and to bring in the army of the dead (to prove Aragorn’s kingliness). It all really ties together pretty neatly.
Roddy
eta: without Saruman’s orcs chasing down the Fellowship, it might not have broken up when it did, making the whole second half of the story very different.
LOTR was written on a grand scale. In the books, there’s all kinds of other stuff going on all over Middle Earth, most of which is only hinted at. The dwarves in the north were busy with battles of their own, as were the Mirkwood elves. There’s a little more detail about the Prince of Dol Amrath (sp?), but it still isn’t that much. Which makes sense, the entire story is supposed to be written by Bilbo and Frodo based on accounts from the fellowship. For even more detail, read Unfinished Tales, which has lots of little bits and pieces that make LOTR even more complicated and interesting.
I think the “purpose” of the Saruman subplot was to illustrate that even the mighty could be corrupted and fall. If you’re asking why the complicated side quests that don’t have much to do with the main story, I think you’re misunderstanding LOTR. What you see in the movies is scratching the surface of the whole story.
Just as a side note, it allowed Tolkien to use a lot of traditional “Satan” imagery, specifically in the scene where Gandalf and Treebeard confront Saruman at the ruins of Orthanc. You get the deceitful power of the master of lies, and even a passing “serpent” image. It’s one of the relatively few overtly Christian images in the book.
I think the Scouring of the Shire was supposed to show that events as momentous as described in the book reached everywhere in Middle Earth. There was no area left untouched by the war and even in the Shire things couldn’t remain the way they had been before.