A Power

25 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods, Villains

Tags

Gandalf, Grima, Harry Potter, Isengard, Istari, Mini-Me, Mirkwood, Necromancer, Ornthanc, Palantir, power, Rings of Power, Rohan, Saruman, Sauron, The Council of Elrond, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Theoden, Tolkien, Voldemort, White Council, Wormtongue

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

Some time ago, we did a post on Saruman as a “Mini-Me” version of Sauron

but, since that time, one of us has used The Hobbit in a class. Mirkwood

and the Necromancer

came up and we began to think about him again, this time to consider his strategy: how long has he been planning something and what might be the elements within that plan?

Although there is no hard evidence for just how long Saruman has been at work, it seems like his scheme has been under construction for at least 80 years. We base that upon Gandalf’s description of the White Council’s meeting on the subject of Sauron and what to do when it’s discovered that he is in Dol Guldur, calling himself the Necromancer:

“Some, too, will remember also that Saruman dissuaded us from open deeds against him, and for long we watched him only. Yet at last, as his shadow grew, Saruman yielded and the Council put forth its strength and drove the evil out of Mirkwood and that was in the very year of finding this Ring…”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Almost 80 years before the story of Bilbo and the Ring, then, it appears that one element in Saruman’s plot was shielding Sauron—a fact clearly not lost on Treebeard:

“He was chosen to be the head of the White Council, they say; but that did not turn out too well. I wonder now if even then Saruman was not turning to evil ways.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

From something Saruman says to Gandalf we might guess the obvious reason for helping Sauron to escape action by the White Council:

“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves and dying Numenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

But being a lackey to that Power is not quite his ultimate design, as we see:

“As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish…”

As is well-known, Saruman, as one of the Istari, was sent into Middle-earth as a counter to Sauron, not as an ally, and their purpose was:

“…coming in shapes weak and humble were bidden to advise and persuade Men and Elves to good and to seek to unite in love and understanding all those whom Sauron, should he come again, would endeavor to dominate and corrupt.”

(Unfinished Tales, 406)

Knowledge, yes, but Rule and Order? Emphatically not! But if that Power (and we note that even Saruman won’t just come out and say “Sauron” at this point, rather like the use of “He Who Must Not Be Named” in the Harry Potter books)

image5voldemort

can be used as a tool in Saruman’s hands—which may show us one element in his grand design.

First, however, it would seem that he needed a base. As Treebeard tells Merry and Pippin:

“He gave up wandering about and minding the affairs of Men and Elves, some time ago—you would call it a very long time ago; and he settled down at Angrenost, or Isengard as the Men of Rohan call it.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

image6orthanc

Saruman even then was already thinking of something, though the purpose was intentionally shrouded:

“There was a time when he was always walking about in my woods. He was polite in those days, always asking my leave…and always eager to listen. I told him many things that he would never have found out by himself; but he never repaid me in like kind. I cannot remember that he ever told me anything. And he got more like that; his face, as I remember it…became like windows in a stone wall: windows with shutters inside.”

Although he was powerful, Saruman needed allies—or, rather, servants—and he wasn’t too particular who or what they were:

“He has taken up with foul folk, with the Orcs…Worse than that: he has been doing something to them; something dangerous. For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman’s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!”

With the help of these servants, Saruman has turned his base into a factory and storehouse for his scheme, as Gandalf says:

“…it had once been green and fair, it was now filled with pits and forges. Wolves and orcs were housed in Isengard, for Saruman was mustering a great force on his own account, in rivalry of Sauron and not in his service, yet.”

(The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

In fact, it would appear from what Saruman has told Gandalf, that he actually never intends to offer his service to Sauron.

From his base, he has been extending his own power into Rohan, in the south. In his encounter with Aragon and his companions, Eomer says:

“But at this time our chief concern is with Saruman. He has claimed lordship over all this land, and there has been war between us for many months. He has taken Orcs into his service, and Wolf-riders, and evil Men, and he has closed the Gap against us, so that we are likely to be beset both east and west.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 2, “The Riders of Rohan”)

His attacks aren’t always military and Eomer hints at another possibility:

“His spies slip through every net, and his birds of ill omen are abroad in the sky. I do not know how it will all end, and my heart misgives me; for it seems to me that his friends do not all dwell in Isengard. But if you come to the king’s house, you shall see for yourself.”

We know that this is “fifth-column” work—Grima Worm-tongue, who has been slowly poisoning King Theoden with defeatism.

And now we can see, in broad outline, what Saruman is up to:

establish a base
recruit an army
build up an intelligence network (birds, spies, even wandering himself to pick up information)
use your strength to expand power into the next land, Rohan
at the same time undercut the King of Rohan’s ability to resist by subversive methods

So far, so good, as long as all that Saruman wants is to be the ruler of the land south of the Gap of Rohan and north of Gondor, but we’ve already seen that he’s more ambitious yet, suggesting to Gandalf that they—really he, as Gandalf knows—can take over that unnamed Power and use it for their—his– purposes, Knowledge, Rule, Order. When he sees that Gandalf is unconvinced, Saruman lets slip the capstone of his scheme:

“Well, I see that this wise course does not commend itself to you…Not yet? Not if some better way can be contrived?…And why not, Gandalf? Why not? The Ruling Ring? It we could command that, then the Power would pass to us.”

And here is the real heart of Saruman’s design: to obtain the One Ring.

He has been searching for it for a long time, even traveling to Minas Tirith to examine ancient records.

“In former days the members of my order had been well received there,” says Gandalf to the Council of Elrond, “but Saruman most of all. Often he had been for long the guest of the Lords of the City.”

His purpose is now easy to guess.

Gandalf had been aware that Saruman had seemed to know a great deal about the Ring, even to its appearance, as Saruman had said to the White Council:

“The Nine, the Seven, and the Three had each their proper gem. Not so the One. It was round and unadorned, as it were one of the lesser rings; but the maker set marks upon it that the skilled, maybe, could still see and read.”

How had Saruman known that since, as Gandalf says, “What those marks were he had not said. Who now would know? The maker. And Saruman? But great though his lore may be, it must have a source. What hand save Sauron’s ever held this thing, ere it was lost? The hand of Isildur alone.”

Gandalf discovers the truth of this in the dusty records of Gondor:

“…there lies in Minas Tirith still, unread, I guess, by any save Saruman and myself since the kings failed, a scroll that Isildur made himself.”

And, with the discovery and reading of that scroll, Gandalf knows not only about much more about the Ring, but how Saruman knew about its appearance and now, in Orthanc, pressed by Saruman to join him, he understands the last element in Saruman’s design—and also why Saruman has summoned him:

“That is in truth why I brought you here. For I have many eyes in my service, and I believe you know where this precious thing now lies. Is it not so? Or why do the Nine ask for the Shire, and what is your business there?”

So here, lacking only one element, the real element under all, is Saruman’s long plan—but lacking “this precious thing” (a telling phrase!), we will see how successful the rest will be. Treebeard has said of him,

“He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.”

What will happen when, without the Ring, Saruman will find that growing things, instead of serving him for the moment, might unseat him forever?

As always, thanks for reading!

MTCIDC

Orcked

22 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Economics in Middle-earth, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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Arthur Rackham, Bosch, Brueghel, counterfeit, creation, Elves, Ents, Fangorn, Goblins, John Bauer, mockery, Orcs, Saruman, Sauron, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Treebeard, trolls, US Treasury Department, Weimar Republic

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

In our last, we discussed less familiar characters in The Lord of the Rings, the Corsairs of Umbar, and what we imagine they could look like.

In this posting, we want to look at much more familiar characters, Orcs—but from the viewpoint of Fangorn.

He says of them:

“Maybe you have heard of Trolls? They are mighty strong. But Trolls are only counterfeits, made by the Enemy in the Great Darkness, in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

We’ve always been a bit puzzled by this. “Counterfeit” makes us think, immediately, of counterfeit money. Here are a pair of US 10-dollar bills: can you tell the counterfeit (from Old French via a Latin compound, contra, “against” + facere, “make/do”—in Medieval Latin a contrafactio is a thing put against another, something in contrast, thus “imitation”)?

To be a successful counterfeit, normally, it’s necessary that the imitation be as close to the original as possible, as in the case of these two tens. The US Treasury Department goes to a lot of time and expense to make counterfeiting as difficult as possible

image3anticounterfeit

but, if a counterfeiter is successful, he stands to make (in two senses) a lot of money. He can also cause a great deal of financial damage, breeding distrust in a government’s ability to coin money and to stand behind it. The more counterfeit money in the system, the more money the government has to back, which, in time, could lead to what is called hyperinflation and can bring a currency to collapse. When a government does this itself it can cause havoc with a country’s economy, as happened in the Weimar Republic in 1921-1924. At that time, for complex reasons having to do with paying off the German Empire’s war debts, the government began producing too much paper money and too rapidly. This caused the money to lose value very quickly, rendering it almost worthless.

image4weimarmoney

It’s no wonder that the penalty for counterfeiting was usually the most severe possible.

image5tyburn

Treebeard’s use of the word “counterfeit”, then, would suggest that what Sauron was doing was trying to make nearly-exact copies of something, either Ents or Elves, in his creation of Trolls and Orcs. So what do we find when we first see a description of Orcs?

“There were four goblin-soldiers of greater stature, swart, slant-eyed, with thick legs and large hands.”

(The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 1, “The Departure of Boromir”)

That’s not much to go on:

“greater stature” would suggest that most Orcs were short
“swart” means “dark-complexioned” (a term Sam uses to describe men from Harad, whom he calls “Swertings”—The Two Towers, Book Four, Chapter 3, “The Black Gate is Closed”)
“slant-eyed”—for contemporary people this is a tricky term, even a racial slur, but JRRT probably meant no more than that these Orcs had epicanthic folds to their eyelids, which is not uncommon among many of the world’s peoples.

image6epicanth

“with thick legs and large hands” suggests very stocky builds—like the “Trolls turned to stone” in JRRT’s illustration of the scene in The Hobbit.

image7stonetrolls

This is a start, but will our next view help? Pippin and Merry are the prisoners of the Orcs and Pippin is listening to a quarrel between those of Saruman and those of Sauron:

“In the twilight he saw a large black Orc, probably Ugluk, standing facing Grishnakh, a short crook-legged creature, very broad and with long arms that hung almost to the ground.” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 3. “The Uruk-hai”)

Counterfeit Elves? Of course we know—also from Fangorn—that perhaps Saruman was up to something more, as Fangorn says of him:

“He has taken up with foul folk, with the Orcs. Brm, hoom! Worse than that: he has been doing something to them; something dangerous. For these Isengarders are more like wicked Men. It is a mark of evil things that came in the Great Darkness that they cannot abide the Sun; but Saruman’s Orcs can endure it, even if they hate it. I wonder what he has done? Are they Men he has ruined, or has he blended the races of Orcs and Men? That would be a black evil!” (The Two Towers, Book Three, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”)

This might account for the size of the Uruk-hai, as well as for their ability to endure daylight, but what about the crook-leggedness and “long arms that hung almost to the ground”?

Perhaps here we should remember the end of Fangorn’s description: “…in mockery of Ents, as Orcs were of Elves.”

Hmm. Trolls certainly don’t look much like Ents—

Is this the “mockery”? It’s certainly not counterfeiting in the usual sense!

Should we understand the same for Orcs vs Elves? Here are illustrations of Galadriel and Legolas (both by the Hildebrandts):

Set those against any modern artist’s view of Orcs and, again, it’s not counterfeiting, in the strictest sense, so we suppose that we have to assume “mockery”—but with the added assumption that Sauron had a very twisted sense of humor. (There’s also that nasty half-suggestion of Fangorn’s that, since Saruman’s Orcs are behaving more like men, Saruman has been performing genetic experiments, something even Fangorn doesn’t want to think about.)

Looking at all of these illustrations, by the way, we were struck by where we’d seen creatures like this before. Could it be in the works of those strange Flemish/Dutch painters like Brueghel and Bosch?

Or Arthur Rackham?

Or the early 20^th-century Swedish painter, John Bauer, who, in his depiction of forests was an influence upon JRRT?

And, more recently, considering P. Jackson’s Orcs,

their skin color and general look: is there a suggestion here of the so-called “Bog People” (about whom we wrote a posting some time ago)—a whole series of bodies, at least one dating from the 4^th century bc

who have been discovered buried in peat bogs (a great preservative) in northern Europe?

And, in their color and oozy look–not to mention that they seem to move in scuttly groups–is there something cockroachy about them?

But, just as there is a place Fangorn doesn’t want to go, it’s true for us as well!

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

You probably spotted this (we have very intelligent readers), but it’s the top 10-dollar bill which is the counterfeit.

PPS

It has also occurred to us that JRRT more than once discussed the fact that Sauron, as a lesser deity-figure, could never originate, only copy and “subcreate”—perhaps suggesting another reason for making “mockeries”: his anger at his inability to do original work?

In the Future, Use the Past

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, Fairy Tales and Myths, Films and Music, Heroes, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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A New Hope, A Princess of Mars, Ages of Middle-earth, Death Star, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Emperor Palpatine, Frank Schoonover, George Lucas, Hildebrandt, Mos Eisley, Oxford, Percival Lowell, Return of the Jedi, Sauron, science fiction, special effects, Star Wars, Stonehenge, Tatooine, The Empire Strikes Back, The History of Middle-earth, The Last Jedi, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, tower of St Michael

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

As The Last Jedi (Star Wars 8) approaches (and Star Wars Rebels, season 3 has appeared via the postman—season 4 premieres in mid-October—sadly the last season, as Disney has canceled season 5), we’ve been thinking about the original Star Wars of 1977.

This poster—the second ever Star Wars poster, in fact (used by 20^th Century Fox in the UK)– is a great link to JRRT—as if we don’t seem to make such links every time we write! It’s by two of our favorite Tolkien illustrators, the Hildebrandt brothers. Here’s a picture of the surviving twin, Greg, with that very poster (his brother, Tim, died in 2006).

(Clink here for a LINK to an interesting little piece from 2010 about the Hildebrandts and George Lucas.)

We believe, however that there may be a deeper link.

The original reviews (here’s a LINK to summaries of some of them) were a mixture, with some critics enthusiastic about what they saw and others (in our view the stodgier ones) calling the film things like “puerile”. One element which was occasionally commented upon was the look of the picture—and not just the (for the time) dazzling special effects—but the fact that all the worlds depicted were lived-in, not shiny and new—well, almost. Consider Mos Eisley, for example,

which looks dusty and battered, suggesting the passage of time as well as the effects of the harsh desert climate of Tatooine.

Or the Jawa sandcrawler, old and clearly rusting–

We said “almost” shiny and new because there’s one part of this galaxy with a different look: the Death Star.

It looks like it’s dusted and waxed hourly, doesn’t it? And the outside appears to be just as neat.

What does this say about the nature of those who inhabit it? For us, thinking about the spotless Darth Vader,

immediately suggests that the old proverb should be changed to “Cleanliness is next to Un-godliness”! (Okay—we’re not the neatest and most organized people we know.)

It has been pointed out, more than once and beginning with the director himself, that George Lucas was influenced by Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter series, beginning with A Princess of Mars (first published serially in The All-Story, February to July, 1912).

(And here’s another connection—this cover and the illustrations for its first publication in book form, in 1917, were by Frank Schoonover, 1877-1972, who was the student of another of our favorite illustrators, Howard Pyle, whom we have occasionally mentioned in previous postings. The convincing detail in this cover painting shows that, just like his teacher, Schoonover did his research—in his case, by very carefully going through the text and taking note of any technical information the author might have mentioned.)

In A Princess of Mars and subsequent books, Mars has a civilization which is old and in decline (the inspiration for which, in turn, may have come from the work of the amateur astronomer, Percival Lowell, 1855-1916, whose telescopic observations of Mars had convinced him that the planet was—or had been—the home of a dying civilization which had constructed a vast network of canals to supply themselves with water from the polar ice caps—unfortunately, numerous NASA missions have found no evidence of the desperate Martians or their canals). It would be easy, then, to say that Lucas was just following his source material, but we would suggest that there are two better explanations for showing wear.

The first comes from something Lucas is quoted as having said to his production designers: “What is required for true credibility is a used future.” In Lucas’ view, then, the story’s believability comes in part from its look: if things appeared not shiny, but worn, then viewers would be more likely to accept the narrative as somehow “true”, we presume because things in our world so often look used.

There is then, we think a further presumption: if things look worn, then they have a past, which implies that the here-and-now of the story is a small part of bigger things and, certainly, just looking at the “crawl” at the beginning of the original Star Wars,

which leads us to our second explanation. This one deals with something deeper, something which we would say might provide another possible link with JRRT and is, in fact, suggested by the titles of the first three Star Wars films made and even in their sequence: A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, The Return of the Jedi.

In two earlier postings, we talked about the condition of Middle-earth at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, in which everything, from the trees to the houses of Minas Tirith, has grown old and weary—and even potentially hostile, in the case of the trees. Part of this comes from the fact that Middle-earth is old: one has only to turn to Appendix B, subtitled “The Tale of Years”, in The Lord of the Rings to see that, in the Second and Third Ages alone, nearly 6000 years have passed. (In terms of our earth, that’s moving from the late Neolithic Era to modern times, 4000bc to 2017ad.) This also emphasizes the age and depth of evil, as well as its power to corrupt in the present: Sauron began to build Barad-dur c. SA1000—5000 years before the main narrative of The Lord of the Rings opens and, in the present, the world is crumbling.

Of course, JRRT lived surrounded by the past. The oldest surviving building in his daily Oxford is the tower of St Michael at the North Gate, dating from 1040ad, nearly a thousand years before his time,

but Neolithic Stonehenge is only 58 miles (93km) southwest of the city and that’s 5000 years old, taking us back to the time when, in Middle-earth, Sauron had begun the Barad-dur.

In contrast, Lucas was born in 1944 in Modesto, California, a town only founded in 1870, and grew up in a post-World War II world, where the key was “the future”. It is a tribute, then, to his story-telling gift that he realized how useful in telling his story the past—even an imagined one—could be and it is interesting to see how he shares that understanding with JRRT and perhaps shares a goal, as well.

We’ve said that our second explanation may be seen in the titles of Lucas’ three films, so let’s consider them in comparison with the general shape of Tolkien’s work to see what that shared goal might be. (In an interview, Lucas even described the three as being like a three-act play, suggesting the dramatic progress inherent in the movement from one to another.)

At the beginning of the first film, it is a dark time in the galaxy: the repressive regime of the evil Emperor Palpatine dominates and resistance is confined to “The Rebel Alliance”, which has scraped together a fleet (and, presumably an army—we see elements in Rogue One, which takes place before this film) to resist, but seems to spend most of its time running and hiding. The past is only implied, but the fact that there is an Empire and a resistance suggests much, just as the run-down condition of places like Tatooine might suggest both age and that the galaxy has become run-down because of that Empire.

At the beginning of The Lord of the Rings, we find ourselves in a place with a long history, as we see from the many pages of the “Prologue”. It has been a quiet place, but the world outside is becoming less so, with sinister forces growing, as Frodo hears from passing dwarves:

“They were troubled, and some spoke in whispers of the Enemy and of the Land of Mordor.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book One, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

In time, readers are brought to see that the dwarves are grossly understating the case: the Enemy is real, Sauron, and that he has not only huge armies, but the Nazgul and a would-be ally in his enemies’ camp, Saruman. The same may be said for the Empire: not only do they have huge fleets and armies, but they have the “ultimate weapon”, the Death Star.

We will learn, as well, that, for all his great age and might, Sauron has an Achilles’ heel: to give the One Ring its power, he has had to pour most of his power into it. Thus, if he regains the ring, he will be much more powerful than he is at present, but, should the ring be destroyed, Sauron will be virtually destroyed with it. As this struggle has been going on in Middle-earth for thousands of years, the idea that Sauron is vulnerable could easily be termed “a new hope”, just as Luke, the son of the Enforcer of the Galaxy, Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, will provide a new hope for the Rebels (especially when we are told about “the Chosen One”—for whom he can be taken).

For a time, things do not go well for those opposed to Sauron: he combines psychological/meteorological attacks with the march of huge armies, and even pirate raids on Gondor’s south coast. Gondor is overrun and Minas Tirith is assaulted. This is clearly The Empire Strikes Back, just as the pursuit of the Rebel fleet to Hoth and the destruction of Echo Base disperses the Rebels and casts a shadow over the hope felt after the destruction of the Death Star.

This is not the end, however, for the Rebels or for the good people of Middle-earth. Not only is the Ring destroyed and Sauron disembodied, but this paves the way for The Return of the King, with all of the reflowering-to-come, as we have suggested in a previous posting.

And there is a strong echo in the title of Lucas’ third film, The Return of the Jedi, in which the Emperor is destroyed and balance brought back to the Force—and the galaxy. (Of course, with Star Wars 7, we see that the happy ending is only temporary, but we have hopes that, by the conclusion of 9, there will come a final rebalancing and peace at last.)

Lucas’ acknowledges many sources but, so far, we have yet to locate a quotation from an interview or anywhere else in which he says, “Yes, I’ve read Tolkien closely and, indeed, there is a strong affinity between my work and his”, but we believe that we can suggest, at least, that he, like JRRT, is following the same path in creating a world in turmoil, a visibly-aging world. Into this world, he places his protagonist who provides a new hope, faces the might of a not-easily-defeated enemy, but, by his bravery and determination, finally brings about the destruction of that enemy (interesting in both cases he does not do so himself—Gollum inadvertently destroys the ring, just as Anakin, not his son, kills the Emperor) and the promise of renewal in the return of the Jedi—and the King.

And what do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

Oh, Come, Let Us Adore…

21 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by lebedusya1 in Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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1984, Adolf Hitler, altar, Ar-Pharazon, Armenelos, Artemis, Aulis, Avebury, Aztec, Benito Mussolini, Big Brother, France, Gallic Celts, George Orwell, Germany, Gondor, Greek temple, Hera, Herodotus, human sacrifice, Iphigenia, Melkor, Nazis, nemeton, Numenor, occupation, Olympia, Pantheon, Rome, sacrifice, Sauron, shrine, Soviet Union, Stalin, Stonehenge, Tenochtitlan, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The War of the Ring, Tolkien, Valar, World War II, worship

Welcome, as always, dear readers.

Some time ago, we posted a piece on what Sauron wanted out of the War of the Ring. Our evidence was this, spoken to Aragorn and Gandalf and the allied army which had marched to the Morannon as a distraction, by the Lieutenant of the Tower:

“The rabble of Gondor and its deluded allies shall withdraw at once beyond the Anduin, first taking oaths never again to assail Sauron the Great in arms, open or secret. All lands east of the Anduin shall be Sauron’s for ever, solely. West of the Anduin as far as the Misty Mountains and the Gap of Rohan shall be tributary to Mordor, and men there shall bear no weapons, but shall have leave to govern their own affairs. But they shall help to rebuild Isengard which they have wantonly destroyed, and that shall be Sauron’s, and there his lieutenant shall dwell: not Saruman, but one more worthy of trust.” (The Return of the King, Book Five, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

These are political conditions: Sauron is demanding territory, just as any conqueror in our world would. When France was occupied by the Nazis in 1940–something with which JRRT would have been quite familiar while writing The Lord of the Rings—here’s a map of what Hitler demanded—and got.

France-occupation

The last sentence of Sauron’s conditions even reminds us of the relationship between Hitler and Mussolini—although not how Mussolini would have viewed it.

Hitler-and-Mussolini

Hitler had another dictator-partner for a short time, however, Stalin, whom he distrusted even more than Mussolini.

STALIN-HITLER-2-676x450

And Stalin, unlike Sauron, won his war and swallowed all of central Europe, as well as eastern Germany.

post-war-soviet-influence

It’s clear that George Orwell had this dictator in mind when he was creating his “Big Brother”, in 1984, even to his physical description (from a poster—it appears that no one has actually seen Big Brother in the flesh): “an enormous face, more than a meter wide: the face of a man about forty-five, with a heavy black mustache and ruggedly handsome features…”

stalin

These posters were so constructed that, “It was one of those pictures…which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move.”

Big-Brother-Is-Watching-You-Poster

In fact, as we think about the image, its slogan, “Big Brother is Watching” might be applied to the All-Seeing Eye.

sauron-eye

That all-seeing eye, however, has another meaning, we believe, and it has to do with a goal which the Lieutenant doesn’t mention, but JRRT does:

“Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants. If he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all the rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world.” (Letters, 244)

Thus, like various gods through the history of the world, by showing himself not a full physical form, but only as an eye, we can imagine that Sauron was claiming divine omniscience.

This set us to thinking: there is virtually no trace of religion in the latter part of the Third Age and certainly no religious structures. What might Sauron build as a shrine—to himself? And, as a corollary, what would he demand for worship?

In Western Europe, some the earliest shrines were not actual buildings, but sites claimed to be somehow invested with divinity, such as groves of trees, something which the Gallic Celts called a nemeton, perhaps related to the Old Irish word nemed, meaning, according to the on-line OI/Middle Irish dictionary, “(small) sacred place”.

DollTorWest0801

It’s easy to see how this could lead to the idea of a stone circle (perhaps beginning with a ditch of the sort which could ring settlements?), like that at Avebury.

Avebury

Or its more concentrated version, Stonehenge.

stonehenge-copy1

Another possibility might be to organize that grove into lines of pillars—using the trunks of the trees—and adding a roof—and you get a Greek temple.

templeofhera

Herodotus tells us that, in his time, this temple, devoted to Hera at Olympia, still had a couple of wooden columns, showing just how old it was. (There are also building elements, like pegs—all in stone in later time—which mirror earlier wooden construction.)

In the Greek world (and the Roman, as well), worship was done outside the building, at an altar in front.

snake-altar-from-mausoleum-of-halicarnassus-in-bodrum

That worship would consist of prayers and sacrifices. As the majority of the gods were believed to live in a place above humans (Olympus—an actual mountain, but also, seemingly, an imaginary location in the sky), sacrifices were conveyed in smoke. These could be as simple as incense

elt200810220812093544851-142058F954A638F8693

or as complicated as the barbecue after a multiple animal-slaughter, like the Roman suovetaurilia (“pigsheepbullactivity”). (Guess who got to consume the actual meat?)

multipleanimalsacrifice

Classical people did not practice human sacrifice, considering it abominable, but it may have existed, at least in desperate circumstances in the far past, as has been preserved in the Greek story of Iphigenia, murdered at the altar of Artemis at Aulis to propitiate the goddess, who had blocked the Greeks from sailing to attack Troy.

Black-figured Tyrrhenian amphora (wine-jar) attributed to the Timiades Painter

Of course, when it comes to wholesale, regular human sacrifice, we immediately think of Aztec devotion to their god, Huitzilopochtli, who was fed on the blood of human hearts at the top of his temple in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.

huitzilopochtli

ThinkstockPhotos-98193978

sacrifice-2

And this brings us back to Sauron, his temple, his worship. Because there is so much wonderful material to work from in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, in general, we confine ourselves to those and the Letters, but a little wider research gave us a clue—a horrible but not surprising clue—to answer our original question. In the Silmarillion, we found this:

“But Sauron caused to be built upon the hill in the midst of the city of the Numenoreans, Armenelos the Golden, a mighty temple; and it was in the form of a circle at the base, and there the walls were fifty feet in thickness, and the width of the base was five hundred feet across the center, and the walls rose from the ground five hundred feet, and they were crowned with a mighty dome. And that dome was roofed all with silver, and rose glittering in the sun, so that the light of it could be seen afar off; but soon the light was darkened and the silver became black.” (The Silmarillion, “Akallabeth”, 273)

As people who are much involved with the Greco-Roman world, this description immediately brings to our minds the Pantheon, in Rome, whose dome was sheathed in copper, until that was stolen by the eastern emperor Constans II in 663AD, only to be stolen from him en route by Saracen pirates. It’s not 500 feet by 500 feet (152.4m.), of course, being only about 140 (42.67m.), but it’s certainly large and impressive—and circular, with a mighty dome.

aerial-view-pantheon

26.pantheon

Pantheon_Rome_(1)

But why did the “silver become black”? Do we have a bad feeling about this?

“For there was an altar of fire in the midst of the temple, and in the topmost of the dome there was a louver, whence there issued a great smoke…Thereafter the fire and smoke went up without ceasing; for the power of Sauron daily increased, and in that temple, with the spilling of blood and torment and great wickedness, men made sacrifice to Melkor that he should release them from Death. And most often from among the Faithful they chose their victims…”

Sauron, once Melkor’s servant, had gained great power over the Numenorean king, Ar-Pharazon, using it to persuade the king to attack the Valar—and thus bring about the destruction of Numenor. Sauron’s spirit survived that destruction, and perhaps his memory of Melkor’s temple and its worship would have, as well?

Thanks, as ever, for reading!

MTCIDC

We can’t resist adding this wonderful John Howe impression of the drowning of the city of Armenelos…

John_Howe_-_The_Drowning_of_Numenor

Ugluk Was Here

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in Artists and Illustrators, J.R.R. Tolkien, Language, Literary History, Military History

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Alan Lee, Alfred Waud, American Civil War, Angus McBride, Argonath, Belgium, Black Speech, cemeteries, Confederate, Egyptian monuments, First Virginia Cavalry, graffiti, Great War, Greek mercenaries, Greeks, Hildebrandt, John Howe, Journey to the Cross-roads, Kilroy, Kilroy was here, Literacy, Napoleon I, Orcs, Pompeii, quarry at Naours, Sauron, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Union, Virginia, World War I, World War II

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

One of our reasons for holding Tolkien’s work in such high esteem is that it’s so rich: practicing Sortes Tolkienses (see our earlier posting on this), we find innumerable subjects to write about.

In this posting, our eye was caught by this:

“The brief glow feel upon a huge sitting figure, still and solemn as the great stone kings of Argonath. The years had gnawed it, and violent hands had maimed it. Its head was gone, and in its place was set in mockery a round rough-hewn stone, rudely painted by savage hands in the likeness of a grinning face with one large red eye in the midst of its forehead. Upon its knees and mighty chair, and all about the pedestal, were idle scrawls mixed with the foul symbols that the maggot-folk of Mordor used.” (The Two Towers, Book 4, Chapter 7, “Journey to the Cross-roads”)

We had the feeling that we’d seen a statue something like this before—and we were curious whether JRRT had, too, and with a little mental rooting-around, we found this:

It’s Egyptian (13^th century BC), and has a head, but, not only is it monumental, and seated, but it has lots of “idle scrawls” on the bases and lower parts of its legs.

What’s particularly interesting to us is that one piece of the graffiti is actually from some Greek mercenaries c. 600bc

As long as there has been a certain level of literacy, of course, there has been graffiti. The walls of ancient Pompeii (sealed in by the eruption of 79AD) are loaded with everything from election posters to the admiration of gladiators to personal insults.

There’s so much, in fact, that this is our favorite:

A translation of this might be: “I wonder/am in awe, wall, that, you, who are holding up so much boring writing, haven’t fallen down!”

Soldiers, in particular, seem prone to leaving messages behind—beginning with those 7^th-c Greeks, but continuing throughout the centuries. When Napoleon I led an expedition to Egypt in 1798,

his soldiers left their mark in more ways than one upon the landscape.

Recently discovered in a house in Virginia was a large collection of inscriptions from the soldiers, Union and Confederate, of the American Civil War.

Graffiti House Wall and Chair.jpg Alfred R. Waudfirstva.jpg

(An irresistible footnote: the picture you see of the Confederate cavalry—actually the 1^st Virginia—was made by one of the greatest Civil War artists, Alfred Waud (pronounced “woad”). He had been briefly detained by this unit and took the opportunity to sketch them from life. His sketch—with his notes—then went to his publisher in New York, who had a group of engravers ready to turn his sketch into a finished—and publishable—picture. 1st-virginia-cavalry-halted-based-on-sketch-by-waud-harpers-sept-27-1862.jpg

For more on the process by which a sketch becomes a magazine illustration, see this link.)

Another recent discovery was a mass of inscriptions (something like 2000 of them) in an abandoned quarry at Naours, in northern France.

6XYh68h5xHSK2-3026250-In_this_image_made_on_Feb_20_2015_showing_names_engraved_on_the_-a-32_1428320205858.jpg

These date from the Great War (World War I) and, in a sad way, parallel the epitaphs on the seemingly-endless graves in the seemingly endless military cemeteries in the same region and in southern Belgium.

Tyne Cot 3.jpg

And World War II brought us Kilroy, of the famous (and ubiquitous) “Kilroy was here”.

Engraving-of-Kilroy-on-the-WWII-Memorial-in-Washington-DC.jpg

American prankster soldiers doodled this everywhere they went.

We have written previously about literacy in Middle-earth: not uncommon among hobbits, it would seem, but much less so among the other peoples. As for orcs, be they Hildebrandt

Mcbride,

Howe

John Howe - Merry et Pippin prisonniers des orcs.jpg

Or Lee,

Alan Lee - Orcs (1).jpg

although the Black Speech was created for them and Sauron’s other creatures, we have no evidence (except for the Ring inscription) of any use of it as a writing tool by any of them.

Which leaves us free to imagine just what those “idle scrawls” might read like. How about:

LUGDUSH SMELLS LIKE MAN FLESH!

LAGDUF + MUZGASH = CLUELESS AND SHIRTLESS!

GORBAG LOVES SHELOB

SHAGRAT IS A SNAGA!

And, of course:

UGLUK WAS HERE

Thanks for reading! (And why not submit your own graffiti? We’d be glad to add them to our list!)

MTCIDC

Further Thoughts

02 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Maps, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Uncategorized

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Alexander of Macedon, Athenian Empire, Babylon, Cleopatra VII, Delian League, Mongol Empire, Mordor, Persians, Plataea, Ptolemy, Sauron, Tolkien, W.H. Auden

Welcome, dear readers, as ever.

It is one of the pleasures—perhaps we should say even blessings—of JRRT that there is such a richness available within his work—and within him—that no subject can ever be discussed to a perfect conclusion. In an earlier posting, we talked about Sauron and his demands, but, as we watch our current world and certain powers who are maneuvering to gain increasing control over land and sea, we have come back once more to wondering about what it is that Sauron has planned to do and what he will have if he succeeds.

In an unpublished reply to a review by W.H. Auden, JRRT wrote:

“The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary. The essentials of that abiding place are all there (at any rate for inhabitants of N.W. Europe), so naturally it feels familiar, even if a little glorified by the enchantment of distance in time.” (Letters, 239)

Thus, we can feel justified, we think, in looking at a would-be world conqueror from an actual historical period to see if we can better understand the fictional Sauron.

If we consider Alexander of Macedon,

we see someone who began with a project which, in part, went back for a century and more before his own time: to take back the western shore of northern Asia Minor from its Persian overlords. This had been begun by the Delian League,

The Delian League - map.jpg

a group of Greek city-states who had been participants in the ultimate battle defeat of the invading Persians, at Plataea, in 479bc.

After he had defeated the southern Greeks at Chaeronea in 338bc with the aid of his son, Alexander, it had been Philip II of Macedon’s plan to do what the League had planned and take back Asia Minor from the Persian empire. Philip was murdered (by a “lone spearman”) in 336, but Alexander, took over the plan and, in 334, invaded the Persian empire and, within three years or so, had conquered it—

but then had kept moving eastward, besieging cities, winning battles, all the way into western India, where his army finally revolted and refused to go farther.

He returned to his new capital, Babylon, to die there in 323bc.

the_death_of_alexander_the_great_after_the_painting_by_karl_von_piloty_1886

Because Alexander had no grown male heirs, his new empire fell apart very quickly, his chief generals seizing big chunks and defending them against other generals. We can presume, we think, that he hadn’t been planning to die young (he was born in 356), so we assume that he was out to do something permanent. His generals—the successful ones—founded dynasties, the longest-lived of them being that of Ptolemy,

Coin (Ptolemy I) (Alexandria 305-285 BC).jpg

who grabbed Egypt, and whose last descendant to rule was Cleopatra VII (yes, that Cleopatra), who committed suicide in 30bc.

Kleopatra-VII.-Altes-Museum-Berlin1.jpg

If Alexander was planning to do something similar, only on a larger scale, how do we understand it? What was all of that conquest for and why was it never enough?

Part of the explanation may lie in the analogy of the folk-tradition about sharks: that they have to keep moving to breathe. This is apparently not true (google Discovery.com/tv-shows/shark-week).

great-white-shark-swimming-blue.jpg.adapt.945.1.jpg

It’s a good image, however, of how an expanding kingdom has to work: the more land you have, the more people you have, the more people you have, the more food you need, therefore you need an increased food supply, which means either buying it or taking it from outside, or making the land itself produce more or simply acquiring more land—and the cycle begins again. This may have been what caused the rapid expansion of the Mongol empire in the 13^th century ad, although, in their case, it may not have been expanding population so much as expanding flocks and herds which needed more pasture land.

We might see Sauron in the same light: he needed huge armies to conquer Middle-earth, his huge armies, both humans and orcs, would need feeding (even orcs ate, after all, although as to what they ate…) and therefore would have needed a huge amount of growing land to be fed from, and so on and so on. Certainly Mordor was not the place for gardens and grain fields.

JRRT says of Sauron:

“Sauron desired to be a God-King, and was held to be this by his servants; if he had been victorious he would have demanded divine honour from all rational creatures and absolute temporal power over the whole world.” (Letters 243-244)

And perhaps this offers another view of Alexander, in turn. As Sauron would have needed land to feed his armies, perhaps Alexander was intent upon collecting worshippers? Certainly he allowed rumors to circulate that he was at least semi-divine—as we see in this coin portrait, where he is portrayed with the horns of Zeus/Ammon, a combination Greek and Egyptian god.

Alexander succeeded in gaining territory—although not so much as he wished—but died before founding the dynasty which might have given his kingdom stability. Sauron lost, not only his kingdom-in-the-making, but his corporeal form and the bulk of his power. JRRT has given us a hint as to one side of his plans—founding a religion with himself as the god, but perhaps Alexander has given us a clue as to another side, the need to support his means of conquest. In turn, Sauron may supply a clue to another side of Alexander’s plans: inserting himself into the religion of his Greek subjects, then expanding his cult throughout as much of the world as he could conquer.

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC

Nought’s had, all’s spent

03 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in J.R.R. Tolkien, Literary History, Narrative Methods, Theatre and Performance, Villains

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A Shadow of the Past, Birnam Wood, Eowyn, Fangorn Forest, Gandalf, Gondor, Isengard, Istari, King Duncan, Lady Macbeth, Macbeth, Macduff, Orthanc, Palantir, Saruman, Sauron, Shakespeare, The Lord of the Rings, The Weird Sisters, The Witch-King, Tolkien

In “The Shadow of the Past,” Gandalf, giving Frodo backstory of the Ring, makes a confession:

“I might perhaps have consulted Saruman the White, but something always held me back.”

“Who is he?” asked Frodo. “I have never heard of him before.”

“Maybe not,” answered Gandalf. “Hobbits are, or were, no concern of his. Yet he is great among the Wise. He is the chief of my order and the head of the Council. His knowledge is deep, but his pride had grown with it, and he takes ill any meddling. The lore of the Elven-rings, great and small, is his province. He has long studied it, seeking the lost secrets of their making; but when the Rings were debated in the Council, all that he would reveal to us of his ring-lore told against my fears. So my doubt slept– but uneasily. Still I watched and I waited.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, Chapter 2, “The Shadow of the Past”)

In terms of the spiritual life and safety of Middle-earth, Gandalf’s confession foreshadows much evil to come. Both Gandalf and Saruman are Istari, one of a group of five divine beings sent specifically to counteract the activities of Sauron.

Gandalf suspects that “the chief of my order and the head of the Council” is false, and his suspicion will prove to be true, but what has happened to Saruman? Gandalf suggests that it has something to do with the ring, but, in fact, the ring is only emblematic of the real problem: the lure of control.

Here is Saruman attempting to seduce Gandalf into joining him:

“I said we, for we it may be, if you will join with me. A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Numenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Instead of fulfilling his role as a counter-balance to Sauron, Saruman proposes first to control Sauron, and then even to become Sauron. As Saruman says, “Why not? The Ruling Ring? If we could command that, then the Power would pass to us.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”) This use of the first person plural pronoun is not convincing:

“Saruman,” I said, standing away from him, “only one hand at a time can wield the One, and you know that well, so do not trouble to say we.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

But what is it which Saruman wants to do with that ring?

“We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Knowledge, rule, order? We immediately want to know, knowledge of what, and who is ruling whom, with what order? And the answers are all the same: Saruman’s knowledge, Saruman’s rule, Saruman’s order. But what has happened to Saruman to so turn him away from the purpose for which he was sent?

Saruman’s headquarters are at Orthanc, a tower set in a stone circle at Isengard.

Originally, this had been the site of a Gondorian strongpoint, but, as Gondor waned, it fell into disuse until taken over by Saruman with the permission of the Steward of Gondor, Beren. When we think of wizards, we imagine them as wanderers, like Gandalf and Radagast, and even more so, the two Blue wizards who have wandered so far as to have disappeared almost entirely from the history of Middle-earth. Could the very fact that Saruman would want a permanent base have been a hint that his plans went beyond the directive he had received in Valinor?

And there is worse to come. Within Orthanc, Saruman has discovered a Palantir, a far-seeing stone of Numenor.

Who else might have one of these stones? Unfortunately, one of them is in the hands of Sauron.

And the seduction of Gandalf began with the seduction of Saruman, as Gandalf says:

“Saruman…I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to deceive the ignorant.” (The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

This figure for good being drawn away from the proper path reminded us of a similar situation in Shakespeare. Macbeth has been a successful general for Duncan, the king of Scotland. For his latest victory, he has been well-rewarded by the king, but just as in the case of Saruman, there is some part of him which wants more. Thus, when, after the battle, he and a companion meet three strange women on the edge of the battlefield, their prophetic words touch him in a place perhaps untouched before, but there.

MacbethAndBanquo-Witches

They first hail him by titles King Duncan has yet to give him–but will. Then they hail him as King of Scotland itself, and his corruption begins. It may have gone no farther than unquiet dreams had there not be a second element in his seduction: his wife.

Ellen-Terry-as-Lady-Macbeth-by-John-Singer-Sargent-1889

It is she who completes what these three strange women began, not only nurturing Macbeth’s ambition, but even planning the murder of King Duncan.

Lady_Macbeth_Cattermole Like Saruman, Macbeth is overcome, gives in, murders Duncan, seizes power, but, also like Saruman, can not retain it and, interestingly, an element in his defeat closely resembles an element in Saruman’s defeat: trees.

As his reign suffers resistance and becomes bloodier and more confused, Macbeth sees a series of apparitions, including one which reassures him–or so he thinks–that

“Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care

Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.

Macbeth shall never vanquished be until

Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill

Shall come against him.” (Macbeth, 4.1.94-98)

But his enemies, to disguise their numbers and movements, camouflage themselves with foliage from Birnam Wood,

Macbeth’s fortress is successfully taken, and Macbeth is killed in battle, his head taken by an avenging enemy, Macduff.

Where Macbeth has had Birnam Wood, Saruman suffers from the Forest of Fangorn–

Tolkien, Nasmith, painting, illustration, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, Hobbit, Middle-earth

The Wrath of the Ents, by Ted Nasmith

(We would add one more Macbeth parallel for The Lord of the Rings. Another seemingly reassuring apparition has told Macbeth that he can only be killed by a very special person:

“Be bloody, bold, and resolute. Laugh to scorn

The power of man, for none of woman born

Shall harm Macbeth.” (Macbeth, 4.1.81-83)

That person turns out to be Macduff, born from a Caesarian section.

Do we need to remind our readers of what Eowyn says in reply to the Witch-king’s “Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!”)

After the fall of Isengard, Saruman is imprisoned in his own tower. During his imprisonment, he is deprived of the Palantir, but Sauron’s seduction has been thorough and, even when offered another chance, there will be nothing left for him in the future but being a petty spoiler and then the victim of his own slave, someone he had once seduced.

jwyatt-sarumande

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Strange as News from Bree

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Language, Literary History, Narrative Methods

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acta, Barad-Dur, Barliman Butterbur, Bree, Bronte, copyists, Dwarves, English coaching inn, Forum Romanum, Frodo Baggins, Gandalf, Gondor, Gutenberg, Haworth, Johann Carolus, Literacy, manuscripts, Medieval, Minas Tirith, Orality, Peter Jackson, pre-print, press, printing press, Romans, royal archives, Sauron, scriptoria, Story, The Lord of the Rings, The Prancing Pony, The Red Book of Westmarch, The Shire, Tolkien, War of the Ring, word-of-mouth, Yorkshire

Welcome, dear readers, as always.

After the last couple of postings, full of war, this is a rather peaceful one. We want to put forward a scheme for a larger project, all about orality versus literacy in Middle Earth, of which this is one small step, our initial question for the project being, “What is written and how and what is only spoken and remembered?”

Early in Chapter 9 of The Fellowship of the Ring (“At the Sign of the Prancing Pony”), we encounter this passage:

“For Bree stood at an old meeting of ways; another ancient road crossed the East Road just outside the dike at the western end of the village, and in former days Men and other folk of various sorts had travelled much on it. Strange as News from Bree was still a saying in the East Farthing, descending from those days, when news from North, South, and East could be heard in the inn, and when the Shire-hobbits used to go more often to hear it.”

Bree, of course, is the little town to which Frodo and his companions travel once they have gotten free of the Barrow Downs.

The little town is described as being surrounded by a dike—a wide ditch, the inner side topped with a thick hedge—perhaps something like this—

And consisting of “some hundred stone houses of the Big Folk, mostly above the Road…”. Without knowing the kind of stone, we have imagined it as looking rather like Haworth, in Yorkshire, the home of the Bronte family (without the modern touristy stuff, of course).

(And we note, by the way, that its depiction in the Jackson films doesn’t appear to reflect JRRT’s description that the houses were made of stone: rather, it appears to be filled with half-timbered, plaster and lath constructions.)

Here, the Hobbits stay at the Prancing Pony.

Tolkien describes it as

“a meeting place for the idle, talkative, and inquisitive among the inhabitants, large and small…”

To our minds, it probably looked like one of those very old English coaching inns.

And we begin our research inside.

Before we do, let’s spend a moment thinking about that word “news”, as in “Strange as news from Bree”.

In pre-print days, for most people in most places, information about events was circulated only by word-of-mouth. There were a few exceptions: the government in Rome produced hand-written circulars, called acta which were put up in the Forum Romanum from the middle of the last century BC through to the 3^rd century AD. These would obviously have had a very limited circulation, however, and we can imagine that the contents would still have been passed on mouth-to-mouth for most people in Rome.

To gain greater circulation really demanded print. Although Gutenberg produced the first press and movable lead type by 1440,

the earliest surviving printed newspaper known at present dates from 1609, produced in Germany. (It appears that the publisher, Johann Carolus, had actually begun printing, rather than hand-copying, in 1605.)

As far as we can tell, true to the general image of Middle Earth as a medieval world, printing presses have yet to appear (unless Sauron is producing very limited editions at the Barad-dur Press and circulation consists of exactly one copy). This means that we are still in the preprint world of hand-copying, when it comes to documents. In the western European world, on which places like Gondor are modeled, this means scriptoria—copy centers—mainly in monasteries and in royal courts where the copyists had probably been trained in monastic scriptoria.

Because there are no religious foundations or even schools of any sort mentioned in Middle Earth, we don’t know how or where documents were written or copied or even how and where anyone learned to read and write (except Sam, who was taught his letters by Frodo), but literacy turns up all over the place, from the Red Book of Westmarch to the runes of the dwarves to the writings Gandalf says he searched through in the archives of Minas Tirith.

All of this is, in a sense, commemorative—it’s history, really, whether a dwarvish map or tomb inscription, or an account of the War of the Ring. What about other things, however—word of daily events, or even entertainment forms, like songs and poems, things which may some day become part of history but, at the present, seem much more ephemeral? That’s what we’ve come to Bree to find out—and we’re quickly helped in our investigation by the host of the Prancing Pony, Barliman Butterbur, who says to Frodo and the others:

“ ‘I don’t know whether you would care to join the company…Perhaps you would rather go to your beds. Still the company would be very pleased to welcome you, if you had a mind. We don’t get Outsiders—travelers from the Shire, I should say, begging your pardon—often; and we like to hear a bit of news, or any story or song you may have in mind…’ “

And there’s that emphasis on the oral: “we like to hear”. You, readers, have a world of electronic devices to turn to for “a bit of news, or any story or song”, as well as, in the case of news, actual newspapers, not to mention bookstores, libraries, and the wonderful resources of Gutenberg and the Internet Archive. None of that in any form is available to carry or preserve information in Middle Earth. What books there are—and they are manuscripts, remember, things which look like this—

or, if you are rich, this—

are either in royal archives, as in the case of those which Gandalf consults in Minas Tirith, or in the hands of families, as is the fate of The Red Book of Westmarch and other such items in the Shire. And so people are, on the one hand, eager for news and entertainment, but, on the other, forced either to make it for themselves or to wait for willing strangers to add to their meager store.

It’s natural, then, that “As soon as the Shire-hobbits entered, there was a chorus of welcome from the Bree-landers.” The first local reaction to Frodo’s attempts to create an explanation for why he and his companions are traveling is also natural:

“He gave out that he was interested in history and geography (at which there was much wagging of heads, although neither of these words were [sic] much used in the Bree-dialect). He said he was thinking of writing a book (at which there was silent astonishment), and that he and his friends wanted to collect information about hobbits living outside the Shire, especially in the eastern lands.”

In the nearly-oral world of Bree (there must be some literacy—the Prancing Pony has a sign with an inscription and Barliman seems to know what a letter is), the next reaction is also natural:

“At this a chorus of voices broke out. If Frodo had really wanted to write a book, and had had many ears, he would have learned enough for several chapters in a few minutes. And if that was not enough, he was given a whole list of names, beginning with ‘Old Barliman here’, to whom he could go for further information.”

These would all be so-called “oral informants”—not one mention of manuscripts or documents to suggest that information is conveyed and recorded in writing—and so the Breelanders’ third and final reaction is also natural:

“But after a time, as Frodo did not show any sign of writing a book on the spot, the hobbits returned to their questions about doings in the Shire.”

It’s obvious then, that books, like the words “history” and “geography”, are almost alien to these people and so their interest is in the spoken—or sung—word, which is why, when Frodo breaks into Bilbo’s “There is an inn…” to distract the audience from Pippin’s indiscreet recounting of the birthday party, his stratagem almost works—until he overdoes it and—

But even in the aftermath, although it leads to more trouble for Frodo and his companions, Butterbur can imagine that, in time, that surprising event, like all of the others in this near-oral world, will subside into word-of-mouth.

“He reckoned, very probably, that his house would be full again on many future nights, until the present mystery had been thoroughly discussed.”

And then it would become just another piece of strange news from Bree.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Knowledge, Rule, Order

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by lebedusya1 in Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Narrative Methods

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Adolf Hitler, Anduin, Benedict Cumberbatch, Benito Mussolini, British Government, Charlie Chaplin, dictatorships, England, Gandalf, George V, Germany, Gondor, gothic script, Government, History, India, Isengard, Kaiser Willhelm II, Lenin, Mehmed VI, Middle-earth, monarchs, Mordor, Nazis, newsreel, Numenor, Ottoman Empire, Oz, Peter Jackson, Queen Mary, Queen Victoria, Rohan, Saruman, Sauron, Scott, Smaug, Stalin, Stock Market Crash of 1929, Sultan, The Great Dictator, The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien, Treaty of Versailles, Valar, Victoria Louise, Weimar Republic, William Morris, Writing

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

Have you ever wondered what Middle Earth would have been like if the Fourth Age had begun on a calendar written by Sauron?

That of the Third Age was hardly a democratic paradise: a king rules Rohan, a stand-in for king rules Gondor. Elrond and Celeborn/Galadriel behave and are treated like royalty and Thranduil, as we learn from The Hobbit, is the king of Mirkwood. The dwarves have hereditary rulers. Only the outliers—communities like Bree and the Shire and the earlier inhabitants like Tom Bombadil and Fangorn—appear to be completely independent. (The Shire even has elections and a mayor, although the actual government, except for the shire reeves, appears to bemostly token—you wonder who’s running their seemingly-efficient postal service.)

This is not surprising, not only for an author born during the later years of Victoria,

but also for someone powerfully influenced by the medievalist interests of everyone from Scott

Sir_William_Allan_-_Sir_Walter_Scott,_1771_-_1832._Novelist_and_poet_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg

to William Morris.

(We might add that the world of fairy tales, full of princes and princesses, queens and kings, was also a powerful influence at the time—and not only on story-tellers born in monarchies—after all, even Oz is ruled by a queen—

Yet, after Smaug—who could better be a medieval fantasy villain (especially with the voice of the incomparable Benedict Cumberbatch attached)?

—something changed in Tolkien’s world. In fact, something changed in the whole outside world. With the end of World War One, monarchs toppled all over Europe and beyond, from:

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany

to Mehmed VI, last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

In place of the former, there appeared the always-troubled Weimar Republic, full of good intentions, but badly crippled, not only by the war which had sapped its manpower and resources, but by all kinds of social unrest and then by the Crash of 1929, which notoriously destroyed the value of its currency.

weimar currency.jpg

As early as 1919, there had been clashes among the forces of different ideologies—

CombatesEnBerlín19190903.jpg

And, amidst all of the unrest, there was a failed coup attempt in 1923 by the man in the overcoat in this picture.

Bundesarchiv_Bild_102-00344A,_München,_nach_Hitler-Ludendorff_Prozess.jpg

He, of course, was only following the footsteps of this man, who had pushed his way into power the year before—

to be followed, in turn, by the man on the left, from the mid-1920s.

That first man, having failed at obvious violence, tried again through more complicated means (although still employing violence, if it suited his purposes) and succeeded in 1933.

He was, so we are told, a riveting public speaker, but, if the newsreels we’ve seen are evidence, we guess you would have had to have been there.

Some people thought the style exaggerated in the 1930s and caricatured it even then.

He had a definite social agenda, which he outlined at length and often, although concealing certain of the most horrible aspects. And he liked big words and big concepts, like:

It would have been impossible for someone as intelligent and generally well-informed as Tolkien not to have been very much aware of this man and all of the other like men, busy oppressing as much of the world as they could. And this would have been especially true in a time when radio and film were changing how people received news—and how those interested in influencing others might shape what people saw. As early as 1911, the British government was using newsreel film to show the might and reach of its empire (2/5 of the globe was in their hands) when the king, George V, and his wife, Queen Mary, visited India.

Delhi_Durbar,_1911.jpg

Not to be outdone, Kaiser Wilhelm II encouraged a grand—and filmed–event in 1913, for the wedding of his daughter, Victoria Louise—and some of the film was even in color.

The Marriage of Victoria Louise Color Film

It would be easy to imagine, then, that the weight of such public figures might have influenced Tolkien in his depiction of late-3^rd-Age villains. We can see it in Saruman’s unsuccessful attempt to persuade Gandalf to join him:

“ ‘He drew himself up then and began to declaim, as if he were making a speech long rehearsed. ‘The Elder Days are gone. The Middle Days are passing. The Younger Days are beginning. The time of the Elves is over, but our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule. But we must have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

Thus, unlike the script of Jackson’s version, there is no plan to wipe out men and replace them with orcs. Instead, men are to survive: to be ruled—perhaps under what definitely sounds like it should be a translation from something written in Fraktur—the fake Gothic script favored by the Nazis–

die-schöne-deutsche-Schrift-detail1.jpg

“ ‘We can bide our time,’” says Saruman, “ ‘we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish…’ ”

Such abstract, but somehow menacing, words sound like a translation of something from Hitler’s Germany: Kenntnisse, Herrschaft, Ordnung. They do not sound in the least like Gandalf’s goals, ever, and he, in fact, replies by implying that not only are they not really Saruman’s words, but that Saruman is foolish for believing them:

“ ‘Saruman,’ I said, ‘I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to deceive the ignorant.’ “

As really the words of Sauron, however, they give us an idea of what to expect in a world under his control. Knowledge would be for Sauron alone, we suppose, perhaps after regaining his lost ring? Certainly he wouldn’t share it with Saruman, whom, it will become clear, he never trusted. As for Rule and Order, the world would be a place full of rules and those watching that they be obeyed. And here we can remember Sharkey’s Shire, with its “by order of the Chief” signs—and its gangs of human enforcers. As well, we can think of its grey, industrial character, as we’ve discussed in a previous post, a universal Mordor, devoted to production. To this, we can add the Mouth of Sauron’s recitation of surrender conditions, delivered to the allies before the Morannon:

“ ‘These are the terms…The rabble of Gondor and its deluded allies shall withdraw at once beyond the Anduin, first taking oaths never again to assail Sauron the Great in arms, open or secret. All lands east of the Anduin shall be Sauron’s for ever, solely. West of the Anduin as far as the Gap of Rohan shall be tributary to Mordor, and men there shall bear no weapons, but shall have leave to govern their own affairs. But they shall help to rebuild Isengard which they have wantonly destroyed, and that shall be Sauron’s, and there his lieutenant shall dwell: not Saruman, but one more worthy of trust.’ “ (The Return of the King, Chapter 10, “The Black Gate Opens”)

In keeping with the influence of current events in this world, we might see this as being a parallel with the 1919 Versailles Treaty, in which Germany was to be forced to make huge territorial concessions, to disarm almost entirely, and to pay massive amounts in reparation to the victorious allies.

Treaty_of_Versailles,_English_version.jpg

The Treaty of Versailles– Wiki Article

Such terms as Sauron offers would also destroy Rohan as an ally and set up a permanent garrison between it and the north. We might also expect the restored Isengard to be a staging area for an assault upon Fangorn and the ents, to their ultimate destruction. As well, “west of the Anduin” is a very vague expression—does it include Gondor, as well as Rohan?

Religion in The Lord of the Rings has always been the subject of debate: how much or how little? Of what kind? Tolkien is quoted as saying that it was monotheistic, although, when attacked by the Mumak, Faramir’s men called on the (plural) Valar. There is no mention, in what is often extremely detailed landscape description, of any kind of temple or shrine, however. Nevertheless, we would like to conclude with an eerie thought about religion in this alternative Fourth Age. The Mouth of Sauron, aka, The Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dur, is described as:

“…a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Numenoreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-earth during the years of Sauron’s domination, and they worshipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge.”

Could we imagine that, in this other Fourth Age, a new and horrible religion might have appeared, one dedicated to the worship of Sauron—and to that Knowledge which Saruman finds so important? What do you think, dear readers?

As always, thanks for reading.

MTCIDC

Mirror, Mirror

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by lebedusya1 in Fairy Tales and Myths, J.R.R. Tolkien, Narrative Methods

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A Christmas Carol, Denethor, Dickens, Disney, Evil Stepmother, Fates, Fiction, Folktale, Frodo, Galadriel, Gandalf, Gondor, Grimm Brothers, Istari, Kinder und Hausmaerchen, Lothlorien, Magic mirror, Maiar, Middle-earth, mirror, Mordor, Muses, Norns, Norse Mythology, Numenor, Ornthanc, Palantir, Saruman, Sauron, Schneewittchen, Scrooge, scrying stone, Snow White, Story, The Lord of the Rings, The Theogony, Tolkien, Urtharbrunnr, Valar, Yggdrasil

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

This is the second of two postings which, as we said in our last, was originally just one. That earlier draft linked the Palantiri with Galadriel’s mirror, but, on reconsideration, we believed—at least at first–that, in fact, they weren’t so close as we thought and so we separated them.

In our last, we discussed the Palantiri and what might have been a possible inspiration for them. In this posting, we propose to look a little more closely at Galadriel’s mirror (but we promise not to touch the water).

When we speak of mirrors—and, in this case, magic ones—the first one which pops into our mind is from childhood—the mirror in Snow White and the particularly creepy mirror in the 1937 Disney animated film.

In the original Schneewittchen, first published in the Grimm brothers’ Kinder und Hausmaerchen in the original edition of 1812,

the mirror belongs to Snow White’s stepmother, of whom the story says (in our translation):

“She was a very beautiful woman, but she was proud and arrogant and couldn’t allow that anyone would surpass her in beauty.”

She monitored her position by means of that mirror:

“She had a wonderful mirror. When she stepped before it and looked at herself within it, she said:

Little mirror, little mirror, on the wall,

Who is the most beautiful in the whole land?

The mirror answered thus:

Madame Queen, you are the most beautiful in the land.”

Franz_Jüttner_Schneewittchen_1.jpg

This makes us wonder about the stepmother. Was she like so many of the people we see around us every day (and not “everyday”, which is a compound adjective, meaning “commonly” as in “everyday usage does not necessarily equal correct usage in language”), compulsively fiddling with their electronic devices? How often did she go to that mirror and ask that question? As it was attached to the wall, she wasn’t carrying it in her back pocket, so, can we picture her making excuses to the king, to the prime minister, to her ladies in waiting, just so that she could go back to visit it? The text only says that she did—it’s a folktale, after all, and therefore old and so before current addictions were available, but she seems so obsessed—and familiar.

But then comes the day when the answer is:

“Madame Queen, you’re the most beautiful here,

But Snow White is a thousand times more beautiful than you.”

And the story goes on from there to places we don’t intend to follow. It is interesting, however, that the mirror itself appears to do the talking, not a visible spirit within it, as in the Disney movie, and there is a certain logic to this. After all, normally, a mirror is only a reflecting device: it shows the person who is looking into it, as we see the stepmother doing. Then again, having someone—or something—looking out when you look in raises all sorts of interesting questions: who is it? Where is it? How does it know what it knows and how to speak? Does it have limits?

We might imagine, from her single, repeated question that the woman does. She never, for example, asks “Was there anyone as beautiful before me?” or “Will I always be the most beautiful?” She seems trapped in the moment and, without a greater context, the mirror’s last reply will be that much more shocking.

In contrast, Galadriel’s mirror, is neither on a wall, nor portable. In fact, it’s not really a mirror in the conventional sense at all.

“With water from the stream Galadriel filled the basin to the brim, and breathed on it, and when the water was still again she spoke. ‘Here is the Mirror of Galadriel,’ she said. ‘I have brought you here so that you may look in it, if you will.’ “ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

When Frodo asks what might be seen therein, Galadriel replies:

‘Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,’ she answered, ‘and to some I can show what they desire to see. But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things which we wish to behold. What you will see if you leave the Mirror free to work, I cannot tell. For it shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. But which is it that he sees, even the wisest cannot always tell.’ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

There appear to be several possible influences here. In the ancient Greek poem, The Theogony, the Muses are described as knowing past, present, and future (Theogony 380), as they choose the shepherd, Hesiod, to become a poet.

Others have suggested that an influence upon the author here was the Urtharbrunnr, the well of fate, as it may be translated, from Norse mythology, which lies at the foot of the tree called Yggdrasil. Here the Norns, or Fates in Norse tradition, sit to do their work.

Another possibility yet might be the three Christmases who visit Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and an advantage to pointing to them is that Christmas Yet to Come, although mute, shows Scrooge what turn out to be only “things that yet may be”, as Scrooge, by his change in behavior, diverts fate.

The_Last_of_the_Spirits-John_Leech,_1843.jpg

That sense of potentiality about the future is clearly a very important feature of Galadriel’s Mirror. Lorien is not only a haven from Orcish pursuit,

but also a testing ground, where the surviving members of the Fellowship are probed by the Lady of the Wood, even as she herself is inadvertently tested when Frodo offers her the Ring. Sam may suffer the most from this, being shown what appears to be the destruction of the Shire and the destitution of his own grandfather.

And yet, as Galadriel says,

‘But the Mirror will also show things unbidden, and those are often stranger and more profitable than things which we wish to behold.’ (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

What Sam sees shakes him for a moment to the point of stepping back from the basin, saying (almost shouting, as the sentence ends with an exclamation point), “I must go home!” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, “The Mirror of Galadriel”) He recovers immediately, however, resolving, “ ‘No, I’ll go home by the long road with Mr. Frodo, or not at all.’” And thus he, like Galadriel, passes the test and perhaps that’s what the odd word “profitable” means in her explanation. Sam is confronted with what must have been that which he subconsciously dreaded most, but his new resolution ultimately proves the salvation of Middle Earth, on the one hand, and the healing of the Shire by means of Galadriel’s gift of a little Lorien, on the other. And, considering that Sam first appears in the story as an eaves-dropping gardener and hardly a giant elf-warrior, that other adjective, “stranger” may be appropriate, too.

So far, the Mirror has nothing in common with a Palantir, which was clearly designed not as a “scrying stone”, but as a communication device. And yet there is Galadriel’s remark,

“ ‘Many things I can command the Mirror to reveal,’ she answered, ‘and to some I can show what they desire to see.’ “

This strikes us as an ambiguous statement—and probably meant to be. Does Galadriel mean:

people come to ask her, for example, to see their future—implication being that she shows them that, and nothing more
people come, ask, and she shows them what they want to see—implication being that what they see is not necessarily what is real?

When Frodo looks into Mirror, he sees the very last thing he would want to see, however:

“But suddenly the Mirror went altogether dark, as dark as if a hole had opened in the world of sight, and Frodo looked into emptiness. In the black abyss there appeared a single Eye that slowly grew, until it filled nearly all the mirror. So terrible was it that Frodo stood rooted, unable to cry out or to withdraw his gaze. The Eye was rimmed with fire, but was itself glazed, yellow as a cat’s, watchful and intent, and the black slit of its pupil opened on a pit, a window into nothing.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

This is especially true in that:

“Then the Eye began to rove, searching this way and that; and Frodo knew with certainty and horror that among the many things that it sought he himself was one.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

This is clearly not the past or the future, as Frodo sees it, but the all-too-realistic present. And this is not just a present to be viewed. Like the figure in the mirror in the old Disney Snow White, this is someone who would respond directly to what he sees, if he could. And Frodo is aware of this:

“But he also knew that it could not see him—not yet, not unless he willed it.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

Does the Mirror have more potential, then? Can it be used as a communication device, like a Palantir? If it can combine the functions of “magic mirror” and Palantir, might the Palantir be able to combine functions, as well?

Certainly Sauron does something which ruins Denethor’s ability to resist Sauron’s view of the future to the point where he attempts to commit flaming suicide along with his one surviving son, having abandoned his city to its fate.

Denethor, though, is just a human, and rather a vain one, at that.

How would Sauron do the same with one of the Maiar, those beings sent by the Valar to protect Middle Earth from the danger which Sauron represents? Certainly we know that Sauron has communicated with Saruman through the Palantir.

There may be a clue in Gandalf’s reply to Saruman, just before he is held captive in Orthanc:

“I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Mordor to deceive the ignorant.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, “The Council of Elrond”)

What Gandalf is responding to is:

“A new Power is rising. Against it the old allies and policies will not avail us at all. There is no hope left in Elves or dying Numenor. This then is one choice before you, before us. We may join with that Power. It would be wise, Gandalf. There is hope that way. Its victory is at hand; and there will be rich reward for those that aided it. As the Power grows, its proved friends will also grow; and the Wise, such as you and I, may with patience come at last to direct its courses, to control it. We can bide our time, we can keep our thoughts in our hearts, deploring maybe evils done by the way, but approving the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish,,hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends. There need not be, there would not be, any real change in our designs, only in our means.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, “The Council of Elrond”)

“Knowledge, Rule, Order”? It’s no wonder that Gandalf replies as he does. Such words sound more like the slogan of a totalitarian state—exactly what Mordor has become under its lidless-eyed master–than those of one of the Istari.

And how did Saruman come to have such a distorted vision of the future? Just as Denethor, bitter over his son’s death and the loss to Gandalf—he thinks—of his younger son, has been shown what must have been an increasingly-bleak picture of Gondor and its fate, so can we imagine that Sauron, sensing a latent arrogance and desire for power in Saruman, has given Saruman the second possible understanding of Galadriel’s statement. He has shown Saruman what Saruman secretly wishes for and, in doing so, he cunningly paints for Saruman, who is just wise enough to know that he will never be Sauron, a picture of an alliance which will grant him his wish. Why does Saruman, who is himself an extremely powerful figure, fall for this? Perhaps he’s like Snow White’s stepmother and limited to one question: “Little globe, little globe, who is the (second most) powerful in Middle Earth?”

What do you think, dear readers?

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure romance fantasy

Tag Archives: Sauron

A Power

Orcked

In the Future, Use the Past

Oh, Come, Let Us Adore…

Ugluk Was Here

Further Thoughts

Nought’s had, all’s spent

Strange as News from Bree

Knowledge, Rule, Order

Mirror, Mirror