# LotR: what was the point of the whole Saruman subplot? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 26, 2013, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721 "2013-09-26T14:21:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/61 "2013-09-30T00:10:54Z")
Thus spake Stomper. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/62 "2013-09-30T01:42:55Z")
Personally, while I love both the Bombadil bits and the Scouring in the books, I think that Jackson made the right decision in excluding them. The simple fact is, unless he was going to make two movies per book (which, given Hollywood, was never really an option), he was forced to cut huge amounts of material. Given that, the best material to cut were those portions which could be cut relatively cleanly, without leaving too many loose ends. And Bombadil and the Scouring both meet that criterion. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/63 "2013-09-30T01:57:25Z")
Agreed^^^. > [@Bob\_Blaylock](#): > > There something else Ive been thinking. At some point, Sauron’s forces captured Gollum, and tortured him to learn what they could about the whereabouts of the Ring. What if, instead, they had captured and tortured Bilbo? You think Bilbo would’ve given anything up? I don’t think he would, no matter how much he was tortured. After all, you know what they say, _“Old Hobbits are hard to break.”_ Bilbo would have died before giving up any information, he didn’t have it that long. Gollum only lived long enough to talk because the Ring had given him endurance. Loss of the Ring hurt him, but he endured while hoping to reclaim it. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/64 "2013-09-30T02:34:39Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Personally, while I love both the Bombadil bits and the Scouring in the books, I think that Jackson made the right decision in excluding them. The simple fact is, unless he was going to make two movies per book (which, given Hollywood, was never really an option), he was forced to cut huge amounts of material. Given that, the best material to cut were those portions which could be cut relatively cleanly, without leaving too many loose ends. And Bombadil and the Scouring both meet that criterion. +1 ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/65 "2013-09-30T02:44:12Z")
As has likely been mentioned before, Tolkien was saying that evil can’t be destroyed just by melting a ring. It exists and must be combatted at all levels and by all sorts of people. It’s one of the deeper and more profound elements of the books. Banish Sauron but you’ve certainly not banished evil. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/66 "2013-09-30T02:49:45Z")
Isn’t the whole Sauraman thing in general Tolkein’s way to put in an anti-industrial, pastoralist bias? The Hobbits come home and instead of the Shire being the old, pseudo-English countryside, it’s turned evil and industrialized, and it’s up to Frodo and the other Hobbits to set things right and return it to the pure countryside. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/67 "2013-09-30T04:05:27Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Isn’t the whole Sauraman thing in general Tolkein’s way to put in an anti-industrial, pastoralist bias? The Hobbits come home and instead of the Shire being the old, pseudo-English countryside, it’s turned evil and industrialized, and it’s up to Frodo and the other Hobbits to set things right and return it to the pure countryside. I think that’s a too simplistic analysis. It’s not industrialism per we (Tolkien wasn’t a Luddite) it’s that he wanted to say that evil and corruption can’t be banished by melting a ring. Put another way, even Middle Earth isn’t a fairy tale. ---
**Author:** ![Glazer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e57/32.png) [@Glazer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glazer)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/68 "2013-09-30T04:17:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Personally, while I love both the Bombadil bits and the Scouring in the books, I think that Jackson made the right decision in excluding them. The simple fact is, unless he was going to make two movies per book (which, given Hollywood, was never really an option) I bet he could now. Shoot three new films of new footage. Re-edit the whole thing and re-release each year for Christmas. Which I always liked because my birthday’s a week before Christmas. Thanks Pete. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/69 "2013-09-30T11:16:43Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > I think that’s a too simplistic analysis. It’s not industrialism per we (Tolkien wasn’t a Luddite) it’s that he wanted to say that evil and corruption can’t be banished by melting a ring. Put another way, even Middle Earth isn’t a fairy tale. Except Tolkien was a Luddite. This was a man who said that he wished the “infernal” internal combustion engine hadn’t been created, and he said of the ring, [quote] The Ring is the absolute Machine, because it was made for coercion,. . . By the Machine I intend all use of external devices, with the corrupted motive of dominating, bulldozing, the real world. The Enemy in successive forms is always concerned with sheer domination. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What’s their next move?” and that Sauron’s magic and the evil of the ring was because it focused on “speed, reduction of labor and reduction of the gap between idea or desire and the result or effect.” ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/70 "2013-09-30T19:55:43Z")
[quote=“Captain\_Amazing, post:69, topic:669721”] Except Tolkien was a Luddite. This was a man who said that he wished the “infernal” internal combustion engine hadn’t been created, and he said of the ring, > [@](#): > > The Ring is the absolute Machine, because it was made for coercion,. . . By the Machine I intend all use of external devices, with the corrupted motive of dominating, bulldozing, the real world. The Enemy in successive forms is always concerned with sheer domination. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What’s their next move?” > > and that Sauron’s magic and the evil of the ring was because it focused on “speed, reduction of labor and reduction of the gap between idea or desire and the result or effect.” Or as he puts it in “kid terms” in _The Hobbit_, when writing of goblins / orcs: “It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced (as it is called) so far.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/71 "2013-10-02T13:43:05Z")
See, when I saw the movies (all in one sitting), I thought the hobbits coming back to a completely unchanged Shire really worked. You could very easily see how Frodo had changed and couldn’t fit in. You could see that you just can’t go home again. I think seeing that the Shire had changed would have been to explicit and hurt the scene. I still have not gotten my hands on the books, BTW. For some reason, they’re never available at the library when I look. (I blame the Tolkienites.) ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/72 "2013-10-02T15:52:57Z")
Big T - I’m a big fan of the Scouring & see it as an essential part of the books. But I accepted the need to cut it. Interesting that the movie’s ending worked so well for you, as a non-book person. I have extra copies of the books. You really need to read them. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/73 "2013-10-02T16:26:04Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > See, when I saw the movies (all in one sitting), I thought the hobbits coming back to a completely unchanged Shire really worked. You could very easily see how Frodo had changed and couldn’t fit in. You could see that you just can’t go home again. I think seeing that the Shire had changed would have been to explicit and hurt the scene. But Sam changed more than Frodo, and he did go home again, and he lived happily ever after with Rosie and Elanor and the rest of the kids. > [@BigT](#): > > I still have not gotten my hands on the books, BTW. For some reason, they’re never available at the library when I look. (I blame the Tolkienites.) Buy a set, you can get all four books in a box. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/74 "2013-10-02T17:52:45Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > But Sam changed more than Frodo, and he did go home again, and he lived happily ever after with Rosie and Elanor and the rest of the kids. But Frodo was irreparably damaged. By the Morgul blade, the spider bite, and the long, horrific gnawing on his psyche from the ring. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/75 "2013-10-02T18:09:26Z")
More than that - Frodo understood that he failed. At the very end he capitulated and claimed the ring. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/76 "2013-10-02T18:29:00Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > But Frodo was irreparably damaged. By the Morgul blade, the spider bite, and the long, horrific gnawing on his psyche from the ring. Yeah, that’s why “he” couldn’t go home again. It’s not why “you can’t go home again”. (imho) ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/77 "2013-10-02T20:11:34Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Yeah, that’s why “he” couldn’t go home again. It’s not why “you can’t go home again”. (imho) Yes, I think that’s right. Sam was able to go home. Frodo, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Bob\_Blaylock](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_blaylock/32/3235_2.png) [@Bob\_Blaylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bob_Blaylock)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/78 "2013-10-02T20:12:13Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > See, when I saw the movies (all in one sitting), I thought the hobbits coming back to a completely unchanged Shire really worked. You could very easily see how Frodo had changed and couldn’t fit in. You could see that you just can’t go home again. I think seeing that the Shire had changed would have been to explicit and hurt the scene. > > I still have not gotten my hands on the books, BTW. For some reason, they’re never available at the library when I look. (I blame the Tolkienites.) The books do not lose this element. It makes it more sophisticated, I would say. The four Hobbits do not return to a Shire that was exactly as they left it; after all they’ve already been through, they have to fight, once again, to drive out the evil elements, and put the Shire right. But Frodo has been so badly traumatized by all his experiences, that he just no longer can fit in there. The movies actually lose most of this. They hint at Frodo’s inability to fit in in the Shire, but they really don’t go into nearly the detail that the books do about just how messed-up he is after that point. The movies do get it right that Frodo leaves the Shire, and goes with the Elves to the Undying Lands—a privilege extended to non-Elves who have been Ringbearers. Bilbo, Gandalf, and possibly Samwise\* are among very few other non-Elves who were afforded this privilege. - Samwise’s fate is not made certain. In the appendices, it is described that as he got near the end of his life, he wandered off, and was thought to have made his way to the Grey Havens. ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/79 "2013-10-02T20:22:08Z")
As well, in the books it’s implied that Bree and the Shire have been sheltered from a desolate world by Aragorn and his kin. The hobbits are blissfully ignorant of the threats around them and completely unable to deal with Saruman’s lackeys until the four hobbits return. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2013, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721/80 "2013-10-02T20:26:02Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I still have not gotten my hands on the books, BTW. For some reason, they’re never available at the library when I look. (I blame the Tolkienites.) Buy 'em. Buy a set of older copies from before the movies. Buy a set that’s been read through ten or twelve times, with soft spines and pages whose corners are more round than sharp. They’re worth it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-what-was-the-point-of-the-whole-saruman-subplot/669721.md?page=5)