LotR: what was the point of the whole Saruman subplot?

[the_diego]

I thought it rounded the war of the ring pretty well. The war began when riders entered the Shire, and it ended with the death of Saruman in the Shire. Saruman focused on men and hobbits much more than Sauron. There was the English fascination for pipe weed. The danger of the Palantiri was also highlighted.

You’d as why was the battles in the east and north were not mentioned? You had Thranduil and Celeborn defending their respective necks of the wood. There was the siege of Dale and the lonely mountain.

And then there were the labors of the last two wizard to the east, of which nothing is known.

[Trinopus]

Maybe they did their jobs, quietly but well, and this is why Indian Rakshasas and Chinese dragons didn’t come to Sauron’s aid. (Let alone hordes and hordes of horse-archers and “Far Easterlings.”)

[Tom_Tildrum]

@the_diego

And then there were the labors of the last two wizard to the east, of which nothing is known.

There’s another question: Why are those two in the story at all?

[Peremensoe]

They’re not in the story. They’re just mentioned in passing, one more hint of the width of the world.

[Loach]

@Filbert

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.

I agree but Hollywood reality intruded. Adding the Scouring of the Shire would have made the 3rd movie well over 4 hours. It’s easy to say make it four movies instead of three but the reality was he was lucky to get three movies financed. When Jackson first went to go get financing he was willing to try it in two movies. Now after his success he probably could have demanded more but not at the time he made the deal.

[The_Second_Stone]

@Grey

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.

I think this is it. Saruman was tried to use knowledge and technology for good and got corrupted by it. A Nietzschen “be careful fighting monsters lest you become one.” Saruman convincingly fell due to his love of the study of Sauron and his lust for power to dominate. Industrialization to fight nazis can turn you into something frighteningly similar. Also, the chapter, The Voice of Saruman was a tour de force of writing.

[jayjay]

@Peremensoe

They’re not in the story. They’re just mentioned in passing, one more hint of the width of the world.

And I’m not sure they’re even mentioned in passing in the story. I know they’re mentioned in one of the appendices, but I can’t remember if anyone actually references them in the narrative.

[aNewLeaf]

Gandalf mentions them when explaining who Saruman is. There’s no info, just a reference that they exist.

[Lightray]

@Apocalypso

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.

This is the key. The Lord of the Rings story revolves around the One Ring – whose main danger is that it will corrupt anyone. For this to be a credible danger, JRRT needed to show someone who was the equal of one of the main characters, becoming corrupted. Hence, Saruman – not just Gandalf’s peer, but his superior – being introduced to demonstrate the peril of the One Ring.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

It’s also parallels Frodo and Sam’s adventure. Sauron, like Saruman, are painted as magnificently evil, great powerful beings. But the final confrontation, Saruman is really just Sharkey – a nasty, petty, malicious little nothing. And the final confrontation with Sauron, evil is really just Gollum – again, nasty and petty, not glamorous and awesome. I think Tolkien’s “message” is that evil may seem glamorous, magnificent, powerful, and attractive – but at bottom it’s just small and petty and nasty.

[Quercus]

@C_K_Dexter_Haven

It’s also parallels Frodo and Sam’s adventure. Sauron, like Saruman, are painted as magnificently evil, great powerful beings. But the final confrontation, Saruman is really just Sharkey – a nasty, petty, malicious little nothing. And the final confrontation with Sauron, evil is really just Gollum – again, nasty and petty, not glamorous and awesome. I think Tolkien’s “message” is that evil may seem glamorous, magnificent, powerful, and attractive – but at bottom it’s just small and petty and nasty.

I agree, but also, I think Tolkien (consciously or not) wanted to say that evil is not EVIL !!1!, some kind of Manichean force that is completely separate from personal weaknesses and failings.

It’s all to easy to ascribe ultimate evil to our opponents, so we don’t have to examine our own motives and failings, but obviously this is wrong. Tolkien believed we are all sinners to some degree. And in particular, if you read his foreword where he says how the story would go if it was a conscious allegory of WWII, or the appendixes telling of the failings of various leaders of the Numenoreans, it’s clear he believes that (real world and Middle Earth) leaders are just as capable of petty greed and powermongering as any other flawed human.

Now when the villain of the story is more or less a demi-god of evil, with minions that are supposed to be slain with no thought of mercy, and the hero is a divinely-ordained king (with an advisor that’s more or less an Archangel), it’s a hard point to make. Minor asides like Sam seeing the dead Easterling are part of making that point, but so is showing how someone supposedly good and wise and trusted (even divinely appointed) can also fall prey to greed and lust for power and turn to the rationalizations that follow.

[Dioptre]

From a storytelling point of view, Sauron isn’t an adversary, but a force of nature. The Fellowship (in fact all of Middle Earth) can survive Sauron, and return home after Sauron, but they can’t fight against him. In any story where the main villian is a force of nature, you need to set up the conflict somewhere else.

One way to do it is to have the characters trying to overcome their own weaknesses. This could have been done just with the Ring, but then the only characters are those who have to fight against their own ambition. Once they leave the vicinity of the ring, their part in the story is over.

The other way to do it is to set up some petty villian whose machinations prevent everyone else trying to survive the greater disaster. Then the story becomes the good side of humanity trying to overcome the bad side of humanity in order to survive. (E.g. every disaster movie ever).

Tolkein liked to play with both of those meta-plots. Gandalf is essentially an agent to highlight the conflicts. In the other middle-earth books, including the Hobbit, this is made very explicit. Gandalf’s in-universe job is helping the good side of humanity overcome their own weaknesses to overcome the external darkness.

[astorian]

The Scouring of the Shire was probably inspired in PART by real conditions in England in the aftermath of the two World Wars, but it also has parallels in many ancient epics.

Start with Homer’s Odyssey- after fightng in the Trojan War, Odysseus spends years trying to get back home. And what does he find there? His kingdom is in shambles, and his palace is filled with revelers who all want to replace him. His baby son is now an adult, his beautiful wife is an old woman, and nobody even recognizes Odysseus except a flea-bitten old dog and a pig tender. Odysseus has to take up arms and reclaim his kingdom by force.

What was Homer getting at with the story of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca? Simply this: we KNOW that our adventures and travels will change us over time, but we somehow imagine that the homes we leave behind will stay the same forever. When we’re away from home for long periods, we get nostalgic, and long to return and see the familiar faces and places we loved. But if we do return, we’ll find that home hasn’t stayed the same. How could it?

That’s the general lesson that Homer and Tolkien taught us… but Tolkien’s particular portrait was probably affected by the changes he saw in England after he returned from World War 1 and the changes countless ordinary British soldiers saw in England when they came home after World War 2. It might be years before England was rebuilt and before Tommy could settle down to anything like a happy normal life again.

I’ve given this spiel before, in almost the same words (forgive me if it sounds familiar): how did “Tommy Atkins,” the ordinary English soldier, make it through Dunkirk, El Alamein and the Normandy invasion? The same way Sam Gamgee did- by thinking constantly about the small comforts and pleasures that awaited him when he got home. Sam Gamgee and Tommy Atkins dreamed of eating their favorite foods again, of having a good smoke with their old mates again, having a pint at their favorite local pubs again, of dancing with pretty girls again!

But when they did return to their respective homes, both Sam and Tommy were in for a shock: in their absence, Sauron/Saruman and Hitler had made their presence felt back home. Tommy found that his parents had gotten old and frail while he was away, that many of his favorite haunts had been destroyed by the Luftwaffe, that his old girlfriend had married someone else, that tea and beer and almost everything else were being rationed, so he COULDN’T easily enjoy the pleasures he’d been dreaming about.

Tolkien himself had suffered from severe post-traumatic stress after World War 1. For a long time, he felt he could NEVER live an ordinary, happy life again. Eventually, he DID marry, he ahd a successful career in academiz, and had a fairly happy life. But Tolkien understood all too well why many veterans could never be happy again, just as Frodo couldn’t.

[Chronos]

Nitpick: Sam didn’t find that his old girlfriend had married someone else. Rosie waited for him.

he ahd a successful career in academiz,

JRR in the hizzous!

[Bozuit]

@dracoi

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’m not sure I’d agree with you here. Mussolini was Hitler’s inspiration, whereas Sauron is Saruman’s inspiration. Perhaps Japan would be a better comparison for Saruman - it was convenient for Sauron and Saruman to team up to some extent, but they’re motivated by different things and would probably just as happily destroy the other once their shared enemies were defeated. I’m not convinced that the WW2 parallels are that great anyway.

@choie

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.

You really can’t read them out of order anyway - they’re one story to a much greater extent than something like Harry Potter.

[YogSothoth]

@Dioptre

From a storytelling point of view, Sauron isn’t an adversary, but a force of nature. The Fellowship (in fact all of Middle Earth) can survive Sauron, and return home after Sauron, but they can’t fight against him. In any story where the main villian is a force of nature, you need to set up the conflict somewhere else.

Can you expand on this? I don’t necessarily disagree, but I am having a hard time understanding how the Fellowship can survive Sauron when survival would mean enslavement or death. And to me, they did fight him, if not directly in the field of battle, but through the destruction of his power or the battles against his army.

In fact, someone made a point in a previous LOTR thread that Tolkien didn’t do enough to show Sauron as a threat. By the end of Helm’s Deep, the Men had won the battle, and Men again won the Battle of Pellennor Fields. There wasn’t many instances when Sauron had the world of Men on the ropes. There were specific instances of individuals in danger, but Gondor and Rohan seemed to have fared pretty well against Sauron’s armies. They won pretty much every major battle.

[The_Second_Stone]

@YogSosoth

There were specific instances of individuals in danger, but Gondor and Rohan seemed to have fared pretty well against Sauron’s armies. They won pretty much every major battle.

When they had the will to fight. Remember that Theoden and Denethor were both weakened and essentially refused to fight until Gandalf freed Theoden and essentially usurped Denethor’s position as commander in chief. Denethor gave in to despair due to his pride.

[Zakalwe]

@YogSosoth

Can you expand on this? I don’t necessarily disagree, but I am having a hard time understanding how the Fellowship can survive Sauron when survival would mean enslavement or death. And to me, they did fight him, if not directly in the field of battle, but through the destruction of his power or the battles against his army.

In fact, someone made a point in a previous LOTR thread that Tolkien didn’t do enough to show Sauron as a threat. By the end of Helm’s Deep, the Men had won the battle, and Men again won the Battle of Pellennor Fields. There wasn’t many instances when Sauron had the world of Men on the ropes. There were specific instances of individuals in danger, but Gondor and Rohan seemed to have fared pretty well against Sauron’s armies. They won pretty much every major battle.

They were losing in front of the Black Gates. Badly. The point was made that in spite of their earlier victories Sauron still could field a huge army, they couldn’t.

[Little_Nemo]

@astorian

The Scouring of the Shire was probably inspired in PART by real conditions in England in the aftermath of the two World Wars, but it also has parallels in many ancient epics.

Start with Homer’s Odyssey- after fightng in the Trojan War, Odysseus spends years trying to get back home. And what does he find there? His kingdom is in shambles, and his palace is filled with revelers who all want to replace him. His baby son is now an adult, his beautiful wife is an old woman, and nobody even recognizes Odysseus except a flea-bitten old dog and a pig tender. Odysseus has to take up arms and reclaim his kingdom by force.

What was Homer getting at with the story of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca? Simply this: we KNOW that our adventures and travels will change us over time, but we somehow imagine that the homes we leave behind will stay the same forever. When we’re away from home for long periods, we get nostalgic, and long to return and see the familiar faces and places we loved. But if we do return, we’ll find that home hasn’t stayed the same. How could it?

That’s the general lesson that Homer and Tolkien taught us… but Tolkien’s particular portrait was probably affected by the changes he saw in England after he returned from World War 1 and the changes countless ordinary British soldiers saw in England when they came home after World War 2. It might be years before England was rebuilt and before Tommy could settle down to anything like a happy normal life again.

I’ve given this spiel before, in almost the same words (forgive me if it sounds familiar): how did “Tommy Atkins,” the ordinary English soldier, make it through Dunkirk, El Alamein and the Normandy invasion? The same way Sam Gamgee did- by thinking constantly about the small comforts and pleasures that awaited him when he got home. Sam Gamgee and Tommy Atkins dreamed of eating their favorite foods again, of having a good smoke with their old mates again, having a pint at their favorite local pubs again, of dancing with pretty girls again!

But when they did return to their respective homes, both Sam and Tommy were in for a shock: in their absence, Sauron/Saruman and Hitler had made their presence felt back home. Tommy found that his parents had gotten old and frail while he was away, that many of his favorite haunts had been destroyed by the Luftwaffe, that his old girlfriend had married someone else, that tea and beer and almost everything else were being rationed, so he COULDN’T easily enjoy the pleasures he’d been dreaming about.

Tolkien himself had suffered from severe post-traumatic stress after World War 1. For a long time, he felt he could NEVER live an ordinary, happy life again. Eventually, he DID marry, he ahd a successful career in academiz, and had a fairly happy life. But Tolkien understood all too well why many veterans could never be happy again, just as Frodo couldn’t.

I always think that people who feel nostalgia misunderstand what it is they miss. It’s not the hometown or even their family they’re feeling nostalgic for - it’s their own childhood.

That’s why people who grew up in objectively bad circumstances can feel nostalgic for them. And people who return to hometowns and families which haven’t objectively changed can feel that things are different. The difference is they grew up and see things from a different perspective.

It wouldn’t matter if England had remained unchanged by the wars - the men who cam home from World War I or II were no longer the boys who had gone off to war. England wouldn’t have seemed the same to them. And it wouldn’t have mattered whether or not Saruman invaded the Shire - Sam was not the same Hobbit who had lived there before.

Tolkein was just making an external reality out of the internal change his characters underwent.

[Lightray]

@Zakalwe

They were losing in front of the Black Gates. Badly. The point was made that in spite of their earlier victories Sauron still could field a huge army, they couldn’t.

Also, the battles of Helm’s Deep and the Pellennor Fields were not the first battles against Mordor, simply the first witnessed by the point-of-view characters. Gondor had been falling back steadily by the onslaught from Mordor, to the point that Faramir was basically defending the borders with guerilla tactics. Eomer had a bit more success against Saruman’s orcs in Rohan, but he’d still been riding all over the place to fight them. The reader really only gets to see the very end of the war of the rings.