It is with some apprehension that I launch Yet Another LOTR Thread, but after a thorough search of Cafe Society I’m pretty sure no one has asked this yet. And after just completing my umpteenth reading of the trilogy, I don’t know the answer.
Saruman and his “ruffians” came to the Shire and took it over, and Saruman started cookin’ up something in Ted Sandyman’s mill.
What was it? Frodo and Company foiled his plans, apparently before any products emerged, but no hint was ever given as to the purpose of the mill/factory.
I like to imagine Saruman was building some sort of hobbit version of the Uruk-hai, but of course I’m just guessing.
Maybe forging another ring? Sauraman had made lesser rings in the past and it seems reasonable that once stripped of his power he might attempt to regain it by forging another ring.
I don’t think he was cooking up anything. I think he was intentionally destroying the Shire and just laying waste. He expected to be put out on the road and exiled because he was understood by the hobbits to be some kind of nobility not subject to their justice. Frodo was reacting exactly the way he expected. Grima did not.
I like the theory that he was attempting a replacement ring. Saruman would be the one, umm, person on Middle Earth who would know how to make a great ring… and I for one can’t think of any reason why he couldn’t.
Speculation, but maybe the destruction of the One Ring was the next best thing that could happen to Saruman, short of laying hands on the ring (and he had relied on orcs to get it for him because…?) Gets Sauron and the One Ring out of the way, so that Saruman can fill the vacuum.
I was under the impression that to make a ring, you had to have some sort of power. The only power that Suruman had left was his voice and powers of pursuasion. At this point Saruman was nothing more than an especially silver-tongued politician. Without any powers, he was left to his knowledge alone.
I was under the impression that Saruman was starting an industrial revolution, one that would put him on the throne of capitalism and greed.
I agree. You have to realize that the Shire represented, to Tolkien, all that was good, pure, and clean in the world.
That same attitude was shown by Aragorn when he created the law to keep people from moving north.
Saruman was getting revenge, mean, spiteful revenge, by attacking purity and simplicity. He went from grand schemes of power to petty destruction. He epitomized “How the mighty have fallen” I think he was somewhat disappointed when Frodo showed the restraint he should have and did not end his miserable existance.
I am assuming that it was out of fear for a cry of “Sequel” that Tolkien had Grima kill Saruman
I agree. You have to realize that the Shire represented, to Tolkien, all that was good, pure, and clean in the world.
That same attitude was shown by Aragorn when he created the law to keep people from moving north.
Saruman was getting revenge, mean, spiteful revenge, by attacking purity and simplicity. He went from grand schemes of power to petty destruction. He epitomized “How the mighty have fallen” I think he was somewhat disappointed when Frodo showed the restraint he should have and did not end his miserable existance.
I am assuming that it was out of fear for a cry of “Sequel” that Tolkien had Grima kill Saruman
He was building a giant hydraulic spider that could shoot fireballs, in order to kidnap President Aragorn and depand that Middle Earth be handed over to him. Thank goodness Will “Frodo” Smith showed up in time! What…? Wrong story?
Well, there’s an interesting idea – orcs crossbred with hobbits? I’m having a mental image… hordes of vicious miniature orc fighters, killing and plundering throughout the day, except for a short break for afternoon tea…
I don’t think Saruman was making a new ring. You need a forge for that, not a factory. His mill in the Shire was clearly making some sort of mass product.
I think it’s clear that the petty revenge and ruin is why Saruman chose the Shire, but he’s not just uprooting trees and burning them for the hell of it. He had some purpose for the mill that isn’t clear. My ring suggestion was just a thought since we know that Saruman knows how to make minor ones and we don’t know the process necessary for making a ring of power, great or small. It’s certainly not the only possibility. He could be gearing up to try to rebuild his armies and use the Shire as a staging ground and the mill is where he’s forging the weapons and armor for them. Or maybe it was part of an elaborate process to gain some measure of power again even if it wasn’t the same as he had before. There’s just not enough information, but it doesn’t really matter since from the story perspective the ruin of the Shire is all that counts.
No, Tolkien was not worried about “sequels”. He started one at one point and then abandoned it.
The Scouring of the Shrire is an homage to the Odessey and Odesses’ return and cleaning up of Ithaca. Very obvious, I doubt I’m the first to notice that one.
I don’t think it’s an homage to The Odessey any more than the fall of Isengard and the Witch King’s last stand were homages to MacBeth. Both serve the same dramatic purpose in giving the characters something to do when they get home, demonstrating that their actions in distant lands have had an impact there. It doesn’t work if Odysseus just returns and says “Hi Penelope and Telemacus! I’m back from the war! Tonight I think I just want to kick back with a few drinks and watch some Sophocles.” And it doesn’t work if the hobbits just return home and settle in for some quiet uneventful lives after everything they went through. The real difference is that after Odysseus kills the suitors things do go back to normal for him while life in Middle Earth never does.
I do see the parallels but an extended denouement involving dealing with enemies that have taken root at home while the main characters have been away for a long time is something almost vital for an epic involving such a journey.
I don’t think it’s an homage to The Odessey any more than the fall of Isengard and the Witch King’s last stand were homages to MacBeth. Both serve the same dramatic purpose in giving the characters something to do when they get home, demonstrating that their actions in distant lands have had an impact there. It doesn’t work if Odysseus just returns and says “Hi Penelope and Telemacus! I’m back from the war! Tonight I think I just want to kick back with a few drinks and watch some Sophocles.” And it doesn’t work if the hobbits just return home and settle in for some quiet uneventful lives after everything they went through. The real difference is that after Odysseus kills the suitors things do go back to normal for him while life in Middle Earth never does.
I do see the parallels but an extended denouement involving dealing with enemies that have taken root at home while the main characters have been away for a long time is something almost vital for an epic involving such a journey.
Um, the death of the Witch King was definitely a tip of the hat to MacBeth. Tolkien was classically educated and he knew exactly what he was doing. He was borrowing from many great epics (I don’t think that Tom Bombadil was borrowed, it was probably original) to create an uber epic. Sometimes you need to go to the Silmarllion to find the epic, but is there really one that isn’t included? Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost is Melkor/Morgoth. Feanor is Ahab. (Silmarillion again.) Frodo/Sam/Gollum groping through the dark to Mordor is Gilgamesh. The ring is the Moby Dick. The Anduin journey is Huckleberry Finn. Lothlorien is The Faerie Queen. The Balrog is Beowulf. Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad dum is definitely Horatius http://www.travel-italy.com/ct/episodes/horatius.html
A better educated person than I could probably go on at quite some length, pointing Tolkien’s homages out again and again. They are definitely there, most of them are intentional (Aragorn is The Once and Future King, like duh).
These are not allegories. Tolkien hated that sort of thing (C.S. Lewis was not nearly so squeamish). These are tips of the hat, a little borrowing here and there, a suggestion for the well educated reader. The man was a full Professor of languages at Oxford, and spent his life studying myths (great translations of Beowulf and Gwain and the Green Knight). He was knew more about this stuff than Joseph Campbell would later explicate for us on Western Civilizations myths. He spent 10 years writing LOTR and you can even buy the edited (with commentary by his son, also a professor, but I am not sure what of) rough draft of LOTR in three volumes.
The extent of Tolkien’s achievement in LOTR and the Silmarillion cannot be over estimated. Some fellow went and claimed and wrote a book calling Tolkien the author of the century. While I think that this unnecessarily degrades the achievments of many other great writers of the 20th century, I do think that his achievements and their accessibility to the general public are outstanding and of the very first order.
Saruman was jonesing for Sauron’s power. Early on, that didn’t require possession of The One (or other Rings of Power) as Sauron was just a baddie that The Wise felt could be dealt with.
Saruman was instrumental in many of the victories over The Necromancer in the Third Age. That The Necromancer, in all his defeat and without his Nucular Ring, was able to rebuild the Barad-Dur from the ground up means major indifference/negligence on somebody’s part. Perhaps Saruman had some influence over Gondor folk not noticing this happening. He’d had that Palantir for a long time.
Saruman’s success was hinged on only He wielding The One, or no one else doing so. It’s likely (on a conjecture basis) that Saruman could have leveraged his own substantial power, military force and forced the surrender of the Elven Rings of Power to himself. Yet those Rings would probably be useless or wraith-traps. And Sauron was not stupid - the long-distance Palantir convo’s allowed Sauron much knowledge of Gandalf - even Gandalf The White. That Mouth of Sauron could openly insult and put dread into Gandalf the White was a measure of Sauron’s disdain for The Vala.
I’m not a Tolkein scholar, but I find it hard to believe that he simply ripped off (or, in more flowerly language, paid homage to) so many pieces of literature. I prefer to look at it this way: Tolkein wanted to establish a mythology, in particular a mythology of England. In doing so, he used a number of archetypes – the Wise Man (Gandalf all the way back to… what was his name… Unatipishitam or something like that in Gilgamesh), the Super Villian (Sauron, Grendel, Dracula, whoever it was in Gilgamesh, etc), the Quest… etc. So, rather than saying, “Oh! I get it! Lothlorien is a ripoff of Thoreau’s Walden! Or More’s Utopia! Or Christianity’s Heaven!,” it’s more appropriate to say that they’re similar because they’re powerful themes in literature and in life in general.
