Like Smoke From a Fire: Sharkey’s End

04 Wednesday Nov 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Fairy Tales and Myths, Imaginary History, J.R.R. Tolkien, Maps, Narrative Methods, Research

Tags

Adventure, Birmingham, Branywine, Bywater, Coketown, Dickens, Dol Amroth, England, Ents, factory, Fangorn, feudalism, Galadriel, Gandalf, Grima, Hard Times, Hobbiton, Idylls, industrial, Industrial Revolution, Isengard, King Edward School, Medieval, Merry, Midlands, Mordor, Morris, Oxford, Palantir, Pippin, poetry, pre-industrial, Saruman, Sauron, Scouring of the Shire, Sharkey, Southfarthing, Tennyson, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Tolkien

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always.

In a previous posting, we talked about Saruman as a kind of imitation Sauron and Isengard as a mini-Mordor.

In this posting, we want to consider the implications of Gandalf’s remark about him in “Many Partings”, from The Return of the King: “I fancy he could do some mischief still in a small mean way.”

The mischief, when we see it, is definitely mean, but not small, even though confined to the limits of the Shire.

The world of The Lord of the Rings is a pre-industrial one. The most advanced technology, on the one hand, is the palantir (actually perhaps a magical, rather than mechanical, device)

and , on the other hand, a watermill.

Beyond that, it’s a medieval world, but without, it seems, feudalism, although there are, for example, castles and knights in the form of the Prince of Dol Amroth.

We can easily see why JRRT wanted this regression. On the one hand, like so many boys of his age, he had grown up reading Tennyson

and William Morris

who had created a world of Victorian medievalism, Tennyson in poetry, Morris in many different art forms.

On the other, Tolkien had grown up in Birmingham, in the English Midlands, where there had been massive development throughout the era of the Industrial Revolution.

Here’s Charles Dickens’ description of such a place from Hard Times (1856):

(Excerpt Describing Coketown)

Needless to say, although Tolkien kept a strong affection for King Edward School, where he was educated before Oxford,

he was less enthusiastic about the industrial world which surrounded it and this clearly colors his picture of Saruman. Look, for instance, at Fangorn’s description of him:

“He has a mind of metals and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.” (The Two Towers, Book 1, Chapter 4, “Treebeard”) (It’s revealing, by the way that this is almost a quotation of something which Saruman later says of Gandalf, “When his tools have done their task he drops them.” The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

Saruman, then, with his metal mind, has turned the once-beautiful Isengard

into an arms factory

another Midlands,

and has angered the Ents, as well, by the wanton destruction of trees, not just for fuel, it appears, but just out of sheer spitefulness.

As we wrote earlier, all of this has remade Isengard into a mini-Mordor—as Frodo says: “Yes, this is Mordor…just one of its works. Saruman was doing its work all the time, even when he thought he was working for himself.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

So, when Saruman, Grima in tow, leaves his ruined factory, one could almost imagine just what he might have in mind when he says to the hobbits:

“Well, it will serve you right when you come home, if you find things less good in the Southfarthing than you would like.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 6, “Many Partings”)

We know from Merry and Pippin’s experience at the gate of Isengard that Saruman has been importing pipe-weed, a main export of the Southfarthing.

But when the hobbits, having forced the gate at the Brandywine, are making their way towards Hobbiton, they begin to have a feeling that much more has been damaged than the South Farthing: “Still there seemed an unusual amount of burning going on, and smoke rose from many points round about. A great cloud of it was going up far away in the direction of the Woody End.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

This smoke bears an ominous resemblance to the Midlands (and, in fact, to all of industrial England):

There is worse to come, however: Bywater. “Many of the houses that they had known were missing. Some seemed to have been burned down. The pleasant row of old hobbit-holes in the bank on the north side of the Pool were deserted, and their little gardens that used to run down bright to the water’s edge were rank with weeds. Worse, there was a whole line of ugly new houses all along the Pool Side, where the Hobbiton Road ran close to the bank. An avenue of trees had stood there. They were all gone. And looking with dismay up the road towards Bag End they saw a tall chimney of brick in the distance. It was pouring out black smoke into the evening air.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

And here, we move from a single smoking mill to a smoking mill town.

Saruman’s revenge has been more than small and mean, especially in terms of the industrial world which The Lord of the Rings rejects: the Shire is on its way to becoming another Midlands,

even to the workers’ miserable housing.

And the cutting down of trees (including, as we will find out, the Party Tree) insures the truth of Saruman’s sneering statement to the hobbits:

“…I have done much that you will find it hard to mend or undo in your lives.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

But, as we know, Saruman, even in his moment of triumph, has no more than a moment to enjoy it. He is murdered by Grima and here we see the final irony. As Saruman has turned the medieval, bucolic Shire into a smoky horror, so he himself is turned to smoke:

“To the dismay of those that stood by, about the body of Saruman a grey mist gathered, and rising slowly to a great height like smoke from a fire, as a pale shrouded figure it loomed over the Hill. For a moment it wavered, looking to the West; but out of the West came a cold wind, and it bent away, and with a sigh dissolved into nothing.” (The Return of the King, Book 2, Chapter 8, “The Scouring of the Shire”)

A final thought, however. Might we see Saruman’s gesture towards the West, in which he clearly feels that he has been rejected by that which sent him to Middle Earth, as a mirror Galadriel’s gesture of rejection towards the East, when she refuses the Ring?

“She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.” (The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 7, “The Mirror of Galadriel”)

Thanks, as always, for reading.

MTCIDC

Music to Our Ears

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Films and Music

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Tags

Alexander Nevsky, Bag End, Birth of a Nation, Darth Vader, Film music, film score, Gilraen's Memorial, Howard Shore, Imperial March, Jaws, John Williams, Journey to the Grey Havens, melodrama, Mendelssohn, Midsumer Night's Dream, Prokofiev, Rivendell, Sergei Eisenstein, silent film, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, The Tales That Really Matter, theme

Dear Readers,

Welcome, as always. In this posting, we’d like to talk a bit about film music.

We’re interested in all kinds—from classic 30s to more recent scores. We began by asking ourselves why is there film music? Where does it come from?

To begin, we looked back into the 19^th century, where we found that music could be used underneath the action in plays—Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream being a good example. Mendelssohn wrote the overture as a teenager, and as a purely orchestral piece. The rest of the music was written for a performance of the play in Berlin in 1842. Some of it consists of settings for the songs from Shakespeare’s play, but other music is meant to be played during a scene to heighten tension or to release it. (This use of music was so common in the 19^th century that we get the expression “melodrama” originally from plays with music. “Melos” is an ancient Greek word for “song”, which gets added to “drama”.)

When film began to take its place next to drama as a form of popular entertainment—sometimes in the same theatres—film was, of course, silent.

Without spoken dialogue or sound effects, as people were already used to the music played in dramas, it was natural to have music played under films, commonly using a piano or an organ.

The music could be classical excerpts or popular music of the period, which would be improvised by the organist or pianist. For some films, music was even specially written. Birth of a Nation (1915) was one of these.

Such music, as in plays, would underscore the action building or releasing the motion. This was true of early sound films—like Alexander Nevsky (1939).

PROKOFIEV , Sergei – with Sergei Eisenstein ( film director ) at film studios , 1943 working on film Alexander Nevsky . Russian composer , 27 April 1891 – 5 March 1953 .

And of more recent films. Think of the shark theme from Jaws

(Jaws theme)

Or, Darth Vader

(Imperial March)

(And think of how the music change when Luke takes off his father’s helmet.)

(Imperial March– alternate version)

A special favorite of ours is the Shire theme from The Lord of the Rings.

In the theatrical version of the film, we hear this first when Gandalf visits Frodo.

(The Shire theme in “Bag End“, taken from the complete recordings)

In this scene, we’re being told, just as in a silent movie, about a feeling—and only through music which accompanies the picture.

But when we hear the music return when Frodo and Sam have set out on their journey to Rivendell:

(“Rivendell”)

Leaving Rivendell, as a part of the Fellowship (and the theme here acts as a prelude to the Fellowship theme):

(“Gilraen’s Memorial“)

Sam’s speech, where the theme resides to accepting the journey but reminisces about home:

(“The Tales That Really Matter“)

And saying farewell before departing into the West:

(“Journey to the Grey Havens”)

And so we have an entirely different feeling each time we hear a variant of the theme– the Little People make their mark in the film not only by taking a part in the story, but also in the music, as it shifts through their adventure.

But try this for yourself, dear reader. Pick a favorite film, and try to focus less on the action and more on the music: are there recurring themes, for instance? And, if so, do they change? And if they do change, how does that affect the film and you?

Thanks, as ever, for reading,

MTCIDC,

Trading with the Enemy

15 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by Ollamh in Economics in Middle-earth, J.R.R. Tolkien, Maps

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Bree, Cross-Roads, Gandalf, Gimli, Great East Road, Greenway, Isengard, Laketown, Legolas, Marxist Critics, Merry and Pippin, Middle-earth, Mirkwood, North-South Road, Peter Jackson, Pipeweed, Roads, Roman Roads, Rome, Saruman, Sauron, South Farthing, Swanfleet, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Theoden, Tolkien, Trade, Transport

Dear Readers,

In a recent posting, we opened with the image of Merry and Pippin happily feasting among the ruins of Isengard as Gandalf, Theoden, and company ride up to meet them.

“…suddenly they were aware of two small figures lying…at their ease…there were bottles and bowls and platters laid beside them, as if they had just eaten well, and now rested from their labour. One seemed asleep; the other, with crossed legs and arms behind his head, and little rings of thin blue smoke.” L543

We, as the readers, may be just as taken aback as the company; we’re joining the Hobbits again for the first time since Isengard’s demise, and it’s natural to ask: where, in the midst of all of this ruin, did they find this stuff? Gimli doesn’t hesitate to ask for us.

“’Where did you come by the weed, you villains?’” L544

Of course, he’s talking about pipeweed, something common, yet treasured, in the Shire. It is not native to a place like Isengard, so far south, but here we have the Hobbits smoking it and even enjoying a surplus. Legolas is just as impressed,

“’You speak for me, Gimli,’ laughed Legolas, ‘though I would sooner learn how they came by the wine.’” L544

Pippin only teases, answering that

“’Here you find us sitting on a field of victory…and you wonder how we came by a few well earned comforts.” L544

And so we’re left with this mystery of supplies, but we can be sure that, in Tolkien’s mind, there was an answer. He was, after all, diligent about even minute details concerning Middle-earth, and was also the same man who once said that

“I am not incapable or unaware of economic thought; and I think as far as the ‘mortals’ go, Men, Hobbits, and Dwarfs, that the situations are so devised that economic likelihood is there and can be worked out…” LT, L.154 P.196.

In this quotation, Tolkien can almost be echoing, in an ironic way, the argument of Marxist critics that economic systems, even those appearing in literature, hide their true nature. Tolkien seems to be telling us that he was well aware of trade systems, and, we would suggest, this would include a basic foundation: transport. And, using what we are given in the texts, we can see that there were two main methods. One is by water–as in the flourishing wine trade between Mirkwood and Laketown.

This pair of places is naturally connected by river and lake. Such is not the case with the South Farthing and Isengard, of course. Instead, water bodies like the Swanfleet lie between them. And yet there is that pipeweed. The Hobbits are smoking it and, in the extended edition of the film version, Peter Jackson even shows us two large barrels of pipeweed labeled “South Farthing”.

This brings us to our second method of transport, by road.

Like all educated men of his time, Tolkien had been raised on the world of the Greeks and Romans and, among the longest-lasting monuments of the Roman world was the extensive system of roads, some of which are still in existence in our own time and are even (asphalted over) the basis of certain modern English roads. In Middle-earth, there appear to be a number of such ancient roads, such as the Cross-Roads:

The Great East road:

The North-South road:

Other possibilities would include once-active, but now abandoned routes, like the Greenway, running north from Bree and the Stone Road which the Woodwoses know and point out to Theoden.

As you can see, we can easily imagine Tolkien thinking out the economics of Middle Earth through a road network similar to that of the Roman Empire, with its own intricate road systems

Along these roads came much of Rome’s wealth and the case would have been the same for Middle-earth, so here’s a clue to Saruman’s pipeweed trade with the Shire. Looking at a map, we see that The Great East Road, which, traveling east from the Shire, would lead to Bree, and to the Cross-Roads, reaching The North-South Road.

Such trade would seem natural, not only to the Romans, but to us. In the wreckage of Isengard, however, for all that Merry and Pippin are so casual about it, there is another implication: Saruman, who wants to be another Sauron, must know much more about the Shire than anyone, even Gandalf has understood, and, thinking of the “Scouring of the Shire”, that could easily bode ill for the future of that place which the Hobbits think so safe and removed…

Thanks, as ever, for reading.

MTCIDC,

Red Books, Black Books, Yellow Books

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Language, Narrative Methods

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Bilbo, Black Book of Carmarthen, Book of Ballymote, Book of Leinster, Book of Lismore, Book of Taliesin, Book of the Dun Cow, Dwarves, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gollum, Mabinogion, Manuscript, Medieval books, Red Book of Hergest, Red Book of Westmarch, Scriptorium, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Tolkien, White Book of Rhydderch, Yellow Book of Lecan

Dear Readers,

Welcome back! This posting is devoted to a look at what lies behind that famous imaginary document The Red Book of Westmarch.

As Tolkien says of The Lord of the Rings in the section of the prologue entitled “Note on the Shire Records”:

“This account of the end of the Third Age is drawn mainly from the Red Book of Westmarch. That most important source for the history of the War of the Ring was so called because it was long preserved at Undertowers, the home of the Fairbairns, Wardens of the Westmarch. It was in origin Bilbo’s private diary, which he took with him to Rivendell. Frodo brought it back to the Shire, together with many loose leaves of notes, and during S.R. 1420-1 he nearly filled its pages with his account of the War. But annexed to it and preserved with it, probably in a single red case, were the three large volumes, bound in red leather, that Bilbo gave to him as a parting gift. To these four volumes there was added in Westmarch a fifth containing commentaries, genealogies, and various other matter concerning the hobbit members of the Fellowship.” 14

This is not the end of the material on the Red Book, of course,—that takes up another paragraph and then is continued in several more paragraphs about copies and about other pertinent written sources. This is JRRT having fun, of course: after all, for him, what is more satisfying after creating languages than building contexts for them?

This particular context is based upon material from his own specialty, medieval literature, and it’s always been said that The Red Book of Westmarch was inspired by the late 14^th-century Welsh Red Book of Hergest. This famous manuscript contains one of the major texts of the cycle of legendary material called the Mabinogion, but for Tolkien its importance may have been simply that

it’s a medieval manuscript familiar to him and a model-ready-to-hand for what he created in what he thought of as his own medieval world
as the Wiki entry says, “The manuscript derives its name from the colour of its leather binding and from its association with Hergest Court between the late 15^th and early 17^th century.”

This manuscript and others like it, both Welsh (Black Book of Carmarthen,White Book of Rhydderch, Book of Taliesin) and Irish (Book of the Dun Cow, Yellow Book of Lecan, Book of Leinster, Book of Ballymote, Book of Lismore)

were created in the scriptoriums (Latin plural: scriptoria), the medieval equivalent of a copy center, in various monasteries. The following images will give you an idea of how they worked.

In the world before Gutenberg

everything was written—and then copied—by hand, a fact which Tolkien faithfully reproduces in his world when he writes that:

“The most important copy, however, has a different history. It was kept at Great Smials, but it was written in Gondor, probably at the request of the great-grandson of Peregrin, and completed in S.R. 1592 (F.A. 172). Its southern scribe appended this note: Findegil, King’s Writer, finished this work in IV 172.” 14

There are, of course, no monasteries in Middle Earth, but, in our world, there were clerks, educated in monasteries, who worked as secretaries and copyists for kings and their nobility, so it’s quite logical that a copy of the Red Book in Middle Earth was the work of a so-called “King’s Writer”.

Comparing an actual manuscript with the Red Book of Westmarch, we find several other differences. For one, the RBW’s four main volumes appear to contain nothing but material relating to the events surrounding Bilbo, Frodo, and the Ring. In contrast, the actual medieval manuscripts are more like compilations. The Red Book of Hergest, for example, has not only the Mabinogion, but also unrelated poetry, and a Welsh translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, among other works. The Irish Book of the Dun Cow has religious texts and secular, all mixed together, and this appears to be common. The closest the RBW comes to this is volume 5, with its “commentaries, genealogies, and various other matter concerning the hobbit members of the Fellowship” and this is still material pertaining to the main subject, not something as removed as the method for determining the correct date for Easter to be found in the Book of Leinster.

Another difference brings us to a puzzle and the conclusion of this posting. Tolkien has told us that the core of the RBW is Bilbo’s diary. The Welsh and Irish manuscripts discussed above are collections of literary and religious texts, with nothing personal in them at all, as he would have been well aware. As well, we might wonder when and where and how Bilbo kept that diary. There’s no mention of it in The Hobbit—after all, Bilbo ran out of his house to join the dwarves without even a pocket handkerchief. And, even if the dwarves had provided one (along with the handkerchief–although that does not seem terrifically likely–the dwarves who visit Bilbo seem more attuned to orality than literacy), surely it would have been lost with all of the other baggage when the company fell into the goblin world and Bilbo met Gollum.

Other than assuming that Bilbo, although he had forgotten his handkerchief, had remembered his Blackberry and was constantly dictating to the Cloud for later transcription, what do we have here? (And, while we’re wondering, if The Hobbit was based upon that mysterious diary, what do we know of the adapter/narrator who turned it from a diary into a continuous narrative–another “King’s Writer”?)

Obviously, MTCIDC!

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Powerplay

12 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by Ollamh in J.R.R. Tolkien, Military History, Military History of Middle-earth, Villains

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Tags

Barad-Dur, Beer Hall Putsch, Black Country, Charlie Chaplin, Christopher Lee, Edwin Butler Bayliss, Ents, Fangorn, Franco, Frodo, Gandalf, Grima, Hitler, Isengard, Maiar, Merry, Middle-earth, Mordor, Mosley, Mussolini, O'Duffy, Orcs, Orthanc, Pippin, Rohan, Saruman, Sauron, Spode, The Great Dictator, The Lord of the Rings, The Shire, Theoden, Tolkien, Treebeard, Valar

Welcome, as always, dear readers!

We’ve discussed the nearly-invisible Sauron in an earlier posting, but now we’d like to think out loud about the all-too-visible Saruman. And, as we’ve just heard that we’ve lost our own Saruman, Christopher Lee, we would like to dedicate it to his memory.

Pippin and Merry have been filling Fangorn in about all of their adventures up to the moment when he found them in his forest.

Saruman, in particular, has caught his attention, being his neighbor and, it seems, an increasingly distant one—

“There was a time when he was always walking about my woods. He was polite in those days, always asking my leave (at least when he met me); 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 and more like that; his face, as I remember it—became like windows in a stone wall: windows with shutters inside.” 473

At that moment, everything comes together for the Ent.

“I think that I now understand what he is up to. He is plotting to become a Power.” 473

And not a friendly power, as Gandalf, during his last visit to Isengard, has learned to his dismay, having heard Saruman alternately wheedle and threaten him. Saruman’s initial words, however, were not about himself, but about someone else, to the east:

“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.” 259

So far, this must sound like the Sauron party line—and Saruman is actually described “as if he were making a speech long rehearsed”, (259), the tone of which Gandalf recognized immediately, replying:

“I have heard speeches of this kind before, but only in the mouths of emissaries sent from Morder to deceive the ignorant.” 259

If we pause for a moment and consider the era in which this was written, we might catch a glimpse of something from the history of our world in this, something from the period beginning in 1922 and extending at least through 1945, when Tolkien was beginning to write The Lord of the Rings.

JRRT always denied that his work was allegorical, although, sophisticated man that he was, he was well aware that the world around him would impinge upon his consciousness. Thus, when we see numerous sinister figures rising in power in our world, it would be difficult to imagine that they might not, even if only very distantly, exert some small influence on his work.

The lesser figures include Franco, in Spain,

Eoin O’Duffy in Ireland,

Sir Oswald Mosley in England, (mocked as “the amateur dictator “ by P.G.Wodehouse in the persona of Sir Roderick Spode—brilliantly played by John Turner in the 1990s Wodehouse “Jeeves and Wooster” television series)

and the most menacing of all, Mussolini and Hitler.

Mussolini had begun his rise to power just after World War One, achieving his position of Il Duce in 1922,

while Hitler, after a false start in 1923, in emulation of Mussolini,

finally reached the ultimate position of authority in 1933.

Although Hitler was a relative late-comer in comparison with Mussolini, it seems that Mussolini looked up to Hitler, even taking German lessons (although there is no mention of Hitler reciprocating) so that they could talk more easily (and, doubtless, securely).

Thus, it might be possible to see Saruman, in his position as lesser of two evils, looking up to and wanting to imitate Sauron, the greater of two evils, as Mussolini attempting to emulate Hitler. (And this odd partnership is sharply satirized in Charley Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, 1940.)

So, as Sauron has the Barad-dur,

so Saruman has Orthanc.

As Sauron has Orcs

so Saruman has Orcs.

Worst of all, just as Sauron has the vast wasteland of Mordor

Saruman takes the once-green and beautiful Isengard

and turns it into a mini-Mordor.

All of this is swept away by Fangorn and his fellow Ents, of course,

and it appears that Saruman will remain within the tower, but we know that he slips away, taking the former counselor of Theoden, Grima, with him.

Or, at least, that’s what Tolkien intended. Unfortunately, the makers of The Lord of the Rings films simply dropped this theme here, with the deaths both of Saruman and Grima on Orthanc. We say unfortunately because, although we have portrayed Saruman as a wanna-be Sauron (even to the point of thinking that he might gain control of the Ring), which is certainly one of his roles, his is a greater role as he was once a greater figure. He is the eldest of the Maiar in Middle Earth, those spirits whom Tolkien once described as “near equivalent in the mode of these tales of Angels, guardian Angels”, LTR 159. That he can be corrupted by Sauron (as Sauron himself had been corrupted by Morgoth), shows just how great Sauron’s power (and the lure of the Ring) really is. As well, in his fall, we see that that corruption, like Sauron’s, is complete. Offered the chance to return to the good, he spurns it and slips away—but not out of the story, and it’s here that we feel that the writers of the films missed a great opportunity.

In what might, at first, seem like an act of petty revenge, Saruman goes to the Shire, that green and so-far-safe land far west of all of evil of Middle Earth,.

and industrializes it. After all, Fangorn has said of Saruman that “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.” 473

So, just as at Isengard, trees must go, if only to feed his industrial plans. When we think of Saruman’s ultimate vision for the Shire, we imagine that it would look like the work of Edwin Butler Bayliss (1874-1950) who painted the industrial landscapes of England’s West Midlands, the “Black Country”, an area Tolkien himself thought of as his home region.

The end comes quickly, however, when the Hobbits return and we see, in “The Scouring of the Shire”, on the one hand, the new maturity of Merry and Pippin, and, on the other, the deep humanity of Frodo.

And Saruman would have been allowed to go free again—but there is an irony here in what happens. He had sought to overturn Theoden and Rohan through having subverted Grima and, instead, he himself is killed by that very agent—

and we have wondered about that. If Saruman is of the same substance as the Valar, merely inhabiting a human body, can he, in fact, be killed, any more than Sauron? We assume that Sauron, who had poured so much of his spiritual power into the Ring, would be seriously weakened by its loss, enough so that his empire collapses on him. In Saruman’s case, the end is less dramatic, but at the same time, poignant:

Although the withered remains are then described, they seem unnecessary. That was only the borrowed flesh. The tragedy lies in that wavering look, the bending away, the sigh. In the final chapter, “The Grey Havens”, we see Gandalf departing towards that very West which was denied to Saruman and here we see, as well, what it was that the spirit of Saruman had lost: the reward of being allowed, at last, to return home, to go back towards Valinor. Instead, the Valar have rejected one of their own and, though his spirit may not have been destroyed, something seems to have left him forever.

By leaving the final chapters out of the film, then, the script writers lost the chance not only to show us Merry and Pippin, at the end of their long adventure, grown into figures to rival the Old Took, both in deeds and in stature. As well, they denied us the potential contrast with the end of such figures as Hitler—a suicide—and Mussolini—executed by his own people, and that of Saruman the White, murdered by his own follower and, at the end, nothing but sadness and grey smoke.

Thanks, as always, for reading. And thank you, Christopher Lee, for acting.

MTCIDC

doubtfulsea

~ adventure fantasy

Tag Archives: The Shire

Like Smoke From a Fire: Sharkey’s End

Music to Our Ears

Trading with the Enemy

Red Books, Black Books, Yellow Books

Powerplay