Saruman's allegiance to Sauron

bropous · 01-07-2002, 01:53 PM

In another thread, we touched on whether the film makes a misstep with Saruman basically swearing allegiance to Sauron. Some took exception to this characterization.

To me, this is straight from the spirit of the book, that Saruman actually DID swear allegiance to the Dark Lord, and that he agreed to take up a subservient role to Sauron.

From the book, and from my signature quote, when Pippin is reporting what he experienced when he looked into Saruman's Palantir:

' "So you have come back? Why have you neglected to report for so long?"

This was Sauron, speaking to whom he thought was Saruman. This shows Saruman in a servant role, at least in the mind of Sauron. Now, I felt that Saruman did this with the express intent of getting Sauron off his back, to get Sauron to look in other directions while Saruman had his own underlings search for the Ring unhindered, and with the intent of finally overthrowing and supplanting Sauron when the One Ring was in his possession.

01-07-2002, 01:53 PM	#1
bropous EIDRIORCQWSDAKLMED DCWWTIWOATTOPWFIO Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Littleton, CO Posts: 1,176	Saruman's allegiance to Sauron In another thread, we touched on whether the film makes a misstep with Saruman basically swearing allegiance to Sauron. Some took exception to this characterization. To me, this is straight from the spirit of the book, that Saruman actually DID swear allegiance to the Dark Lord, and that he agreed to take up a subservient role to Sauron. From the book, and from my signature quote, when Pippin is reporting what he experienced when he looked into Saruman's Palantir: ' "So you have come back? Why have you neglected to report for so long?" This was Sauron, speaking to whom he thought was Saruman. This shows Saruman in a servant role, at least in the mind of Sauron. Now, I felt that Saruman did this with the express intent of getting Sauron off his back, to get Sauron to look in other directions while Saruman had his own underlings search for the Ring unhindered, and with the intent of finally overthrowing and supplanting Sauron when the One Ring was in his possession. __________________ "...[The Lord of the Rings] is to exemplify most clearly a recurrent theme: the place in 'world politics' of the unforeseen and unforeseeable acts of will, and deeds of virtue of the apparently small, ungreat, fogotten in the places of the Wise and Great (good as well as evil). A moral of the whole (after the primary symbolism of the Ring, as the will to mere power, seeking to make itself objective by physical force and mechanism, and so also inevitably by lies) is the obvious one that without the high and noble the simple and vulgar is utterly mean; and without the simple and ordinary the noble and heroic is meaningless." Letters of JRR Tolkien, page 160.

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