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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Tue 12 Jul , 2005 1:48 pm
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Indeed. :)


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Faramond
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Posted: Sat 27 Aug , 2005 4:30 am
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The old wizard often is seen as the giver of wisdom. Gandalf, of course, is a famous and prolific giver of wisdom. But how does the old wizard become wise?

It is not from just being old, from sitting in his tower and studying texts and scrolls through the long seasons. In fact none of his wisdom comes from sitting in a tower and studying ( or whereever else he may live ). Wisdom, as I think most will agree, is not the same as deep knowledge or expertise. It is a practical kind of knowledge that comes with experience. The deepest wisdom arises when experience is paid attention to, and learned from, and integrated into one's perpective. Without listening to others, and striving to understand others, there is no wisdom. The wise man, therefore, can not spend his time in the tower.

I suppose anyone reading this post can see where I am headed with Saruman and Gandalf. Saruman sits in his tower, brooding, calculating, thinking, reading. He reflects his own perpectives off of the walls and thinks them the foundation of wisdom. Saruman hoards his perverted idea of wisdom in his tower, and shares it with no one. The tower is the place of command, of giving the speech to set the men in motion. It is never a place of listening. From the tower the soldiers look like pieces on a board, moved at will and sacrificed easily. Nearly all wars, I suppose, are begun from a tower, at least metaphorically.

Gandalf has no tower. He, in fact, has no fixed home. His home is Middle-Earth. He moves about in the same level as everyone else, conversing with them, listening to them, gathering wisdom, and new perspectives, and many friends ( as well as a few enemies ). Gandalf goes to the most useless place in Middle-Earth and even listens there, and so finds his Ringbearer. Gandalf's wisdom is shared with all.

Gandalf and Saruman meet twice. Both times they meet Gandalf is prepared to listen to Saruman, and to share his wisdom. And both times Saruman is too proud to even think of listening to Gandalf, and wishes only to gives commands. Moreover, Saruman has shut himself into a perspective in which he believes Gandalf will only give commands as well. It is the only sort of communication he knows anymore.

The first time they meet, Saruman is the more powerful, and so he is able to command Gandalf, and forces him into imprisonment. Gandalf is saved, of course, by the friends he has made during his travels through Middle-Earth.

The second time they meet, Gandalf tries to communicate with Saruman, but Saruman will only hear the language of command, and so Gandalf, now being the more powerful, is forced, to his sadness, to command Saruman. Gandalf, however, has no need to imprison Saruman, for Saruman has already done that to himself.

Why, exactly, is Gandalf more powerful the second time they meet? There are reasons, of course, in the story, but what I am interested in are the underlying philosophical reasons that this should be so. If any reading this will permit me to frame the question this way, why in Tolkien's Moral Universe does the truly wise man become more powerful than the false wise man? Why does the old man of the earth become taller and more far seeing than the old man of the tower?

This question, I suppose, I shall examine in a later post.


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Jnyusa
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Posted: Sat 27 Aug , 2005 6:11 am
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Cool. The old school is dusting off its books. :cool: It's starting to feel just like home.

I'll take a stab at your question, Faramond - a partial answer at least. :)

True wisdom sees clearly because it has been paying attention. That's a predictive power; it's the power to know whom to trust and in what way to trust them. I was thinking: How did Gandalf dare to take Theoden to the parley with Saruman? How could he be so sure that Theoden would not be deceived again? And how did Saruman so misjudge Theoden's new-found strength?

Because, as you said above, Saruman assumes that Gandalf wishes to command just as he himself does. S. judges everyone by his own standard, so he assumes that the change in Theoden has been accomplished by force. The only question is whether Theoden will be Gandalf's puppet or Saruman's puppet. At that point Saruman has nothing to lose by casting one last time for power over Theoden. At the very least, he feels able to weaken Theoden's resolve, to make him distrust his new master.

What Gandalf knows is that Theoden accomplished this change himself and is not likely to submit to another master now that he has refound his own mind. Gandalf knows the truth about Theoden and that is what allows him to trust Theoden and to guess correctly what the outcome of the parley will be.

The person who sees trouble coming is able to step out of the way, and so it appears that they are 'charmed.' When they have to confront trouble they are able to discern the best way, from experience, and so it appears that they have foreknowledge. But really they are just paying attention all the time.

It would be hard to underestimate the value of listening. I'll go out on a limb and say that it is the source of all 'power.'

Jn

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Faramond
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Posted: Sat 27 Aug , 2005 6:47 am
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That is a great answer, Jn.

How do you pay attention? How do you listen? You have to first "take others seriously", as the expression goes. Gandalf takes hobbits seriously, which is a rather astonishing thing.

Gandalf is charmed, enchanted, able to step out of the way of trouble ( sometimes ) or more often step into the way of an enemy move. He is, in some deep sense, a part of the earth. Not separate from it, and not above it. It is as if, by paying attention and listening, he is able to surrender to the will of the 'earth', or to Providence, or to whatever one wants to call it, and be moved as a part of the greater whole into exactly the right spot, as if he is a limb being moved by a vastly greater intelligence. Of course Gandalf is always doing it himself, but it is the voices of all the others he allows to speak inside of him that lets him do this, and the voices of those who choose to be at his side.

Saruman will be a part of nothing. He will stand alone, with no other voices inside of him, and no other independent voices allowed at his side. As long as Saruman is against Gandalf alone, he would always come out on top in a confrontation, wisdom notwithstanding, because he was intrinsically more powerful. But Saruman is NOT set against Gandalf alone. Saruman has rejected the earth and everyone else, and he will take no one seriously and will only see them as pieces on the board far below, and he will only see the playing board he looks for, and not the world that actually is. ( This is how he missed the Ents, of course. ) Saruman has through his own choices arranged to set himself against all of Middle-Earth. He makes enemies of the his neighbors. He makes an ememy of the trees, he makes an enemy of the very earth itself! He cannot hope to triumph in such a confrontation.

Saruman thinks he can be master to everything, master to all colors ( Saruman of many colors ) and of course he cannot. I love the way the confrontations evolve in the book. Between the first and second wizard confrontations Saruman systematically maneuvers himself into a losing position by cutting himself off from all honest and natural kinds of 'power'. He does this by listening to no one, seeking to command everyone ( or jealously heeding the commands of Sauron ), and denying his own true nature ( as Saruman the White ) in an effort to weild more power than he is capable of. Gandalf could never lose, once Providence stepped in after his confrontation with the Balrog. He was never even playing at the same game Saruman was. Gandalf never looked to set himself against Saruman. He only looked for others to have at his side, as equals.


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Faramond
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Posted: Sun 25 Sep , 2005 3:55 am
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The wizard is the storymaster. He is the guide; he sees far. Characters in the story gather around the wizard. Some enter the story through the wizard. The wizard is part of the foundation of the story. But the wizard is not the main character in the story. If the wizard strives to become the main character then the story around him ends.

Why does the story end? Because as power evolves it disappears. Power is to control something else, but once something is fully controlled it is part of the controller, and no longer something else. A story must have at least two characters. If the wizard strives to become the main character then he will dominate the other characters and make them extensions of himself, as though they were extra limbs.

Does Gandalf forsee specific roles for those in his story? When Gandalf pushed Bilbo out of his door, was he overruling the fat hobbit's free will and setting him on a course to fulfill a specific role?

Saruman is fairly boring, isn't he? Are there any really interesting stories whose foundation is Saruman? As a wizard he is a failure. He guides no one and he sees nothing, for he surrounds himself with vessels of his will. What about Wormtongue? At the end I think he is Saruman's way of comitting suicide.


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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Sun 25 Sep , 2005 4:52 am
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Interesting thoughts, Faramond. Thanks for posting them, and for keeping this thread alive. Hopefully, I'll have some substantive things to say in the next few days or so. :)


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Sassafras
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Posted: Sun 25 Sep , 2005 5:28 pm
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My thinking is neither so abstract nor so advanced as some … and I frequently find some few of the more abstruse posts (think dhspgt) both baffling and, in some bizarre fashion, uncomfortable because their salient points seem just beyond my grasp.

That said (as an apology for my simple mind) Here’s a Faramond post I can not only understand but actually find myself in agreement. O wonder of wonders!
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What about Wormtongue? At the end I think he is Saruman's way of comitting suicide.

This one sentence caused me to speculate about Wormtongue’s use by Saruman as a mechanism for suicide? Yes indeed. The severity of his pride prevents any sort of softening, of capitulation (as he sees it). His course is set and he cannot deviate. Which leads one back into the conundrum of free will as Tolkien wrote about it. Because the providential hand is not prevented from gentle manipulation in these stories I question the absolute freedom of ‘free will’ … to me, it seems more aptly described as “conditional free will” (bear with me, I’m getting to Saruman in a moment) That is, of course it is theoretically possible for Saruman to come down from the tower and accept Gandalf’s offer …. But, in actuality, given the path Saruman has chosen for all of these long years; the path of power, of subjugation … the path his overwhelming pride has set his spiritual feet upon … is it even possible that he could perform an about turn, embrace humility and forsake the rigidity of hubris by outwardly admitting to a wrongdoing which rejected all of his former moral principles? I suggest it is not. He no longer has the capacity.

And yet, hidden deep within the recesses of his soul one suspects that the
Spiritual values of being an Istari still flicker … causing an inner dismay and an inner discomfort. And within these values now so distorted, he adheres to his own code and deliberately provokes his chosen instrument, Wormtongue, into killing him, thereby affecting his own suicide and hence his oblivion.

Can the mythic soul be utterly perverted?

I am suggesting that Saruman was still able to introspect; that the remnants of who and what he was (maia) remained buried albeit in a diluted form.

It is his forlorn attempt at justice.


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Faramond
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Posted: Mon 26 Sep , 2005 2:22 am
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Are you saying, Yankee-fan-Sass, that my posts are often impossible to understand?

Well, I love your theory about how and why Saruman killed himself through Wormtongue.

I didn't back up my statement at all when I made it, of course.

What I had in mind, dimly, was something different. But I couldn't quite explain it, so I just threw out the statement unsupported.

In brief, I thought of Wormtongue as an audience for Saruman, a kind of mirror in which Saruman could admire himself and his power and cleverness. A mirror for what Saruman thought of himself and his position as an aspiring great lord.

When Saruman was great and powerful and a commander of orcses, Saruman must have believed he deserved devotion, and there was Wormtongue to be devoted to him. When Saruman fell from power and commanded only some ruffians and a few perverted hobbits he must have believed he deserved to be slain as a pathetic failure, and there was Wormtongue to cut him down.

Sass's theory is kinder to Saruman perhaps, because it reveals some small amount of shame in the fallen maia's character. But I don't believe that he had any speck left that could appreciate justice.



Now, Sass, you suggest that Saruman did not have the full freedom to make a turn and come down when Gandalf gave him the chance. I wonder what the reaction of readers would be if Saruman did come down. Is this not out of character, an absurd and unsupported turn? It is certainly right that all of Saruman's actions before made it nearly impossible to come down. He set his path long ago, it seems.


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Parmamaite
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Posted: Sun 19 Feb , 2006 12:31 pm
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Interesting point that Saruman might have purposely driven Wormtongue into killing him.

Saruman knew that he had lost, and he probably knew that the only sensible thing to do was to give himself up, but he was too proud for that. Now he faced a miserable future as a commander of ruffians, allways on the move whenever the Powers that Be kicks him out of his hole. I guess death started to look like a better alternative.

Of course, this is just idle speculation, there's nothing in the text AFAIK that even hints that Saruman wanted to die.

It could be interesting to know what happened to Curumo when his hroa was slain. As a Maiar, he should dwell in Eä until the end of time. so is he reduced to a powerless haunt, or could he actually cease to be?
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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. (From "The Scouring of the Shire")
Hmmm... Sounds like he expected to return to Valinor, seems a tad optimistic.


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ToshoftheWuffingas
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Posted: Sun 19 Feb , 2006 8:15 pm
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The suicide opinion is interesting. Saruman's attempt on the life of Frodo if successful would have led to his death at the hands of the hobbits; something he must have foreseen and indeed Frodo's commandment to show mercy pained him as well as thwarting an attempt to bring a curse down upon them.

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