# What was the point of Saruman in LotR?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-saruman-in-lotr/1026418>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** middle-earth\
**Created:** [January 7, 2026, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-saruman-in-lotr/1026418 "2026-01-07T01:17:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 13

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\
**Post date:** [January 7, 2026, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-saruman-in-lotr/1026418/13 "2026-01-07T18:41:51Z")

</div>

This, I don’t get this modern obsession of having to justify everything as “moving the plot” or “having a point”, do they charge you by the word when you read books?  
What’s the point of Tom Bombadil? what’s the point of the Ents? what’s the point of Bill the Pony? who cares? do you enjoy reading about them or not?  
Books, specially epic fantasy books are not programs to be optimized or supply chains to be streamlined.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-point-of-saruman-in-lotr/1026418)._