sauron and saurman
 

if saruman had defeated rohan and sauron defeated gondor,who would be saurons next opponent?I think it would have been saruman.

No, Saruman was Sauron's servant. There wouldbe no reason to attack him since he's already his slave. Sauron would have probably tried to conquer Rivendell, Lothlorien, Bree, and those kind of places.

Err, not exactly. Although Saruman pretended to be subservient to Sauron, he was in fact being subversive to the will of the Dark Lord, and his ultimate goal was to gain the One Ring for himself and set himself up as the new Evil Despot (didn't feel like using 'Dark Lord' again [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]).

Any misinterpretation of this premise could be due in part to the dumbed down movie version of Saruman and Sauron's relationship.

-Angmar

Saruman may have thought that he was being clever by deceiving Sauron into thinking that he was the latter's servant, but it was not so. Sauron was The Deceiver. He saw through Saruman's plans from the very beginning, and was just using the wizard to do his dirty work for him, so that he wouldn't have to expend much-needed troops, needed in the assault on Gondor.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 12:22 PM January 23, 2004: Message edited by: Finwe ]

I completely agree. To Sauron, Saruman was expendable. However, I DO think Sauron would have destroyed Saruman had he won the war. Saruman was too wise, and he would have posed at least some semblance of a threat to Sauron--greed (for knowledge and power, as with Saruman) will make even the wise do foolish things.

Yep, exactly. Sauron was playing Saruman like an old violin. Saruman needed to get close to the Dark Lord to have a better chance at finding the ring. Sauron saw through it, but also saw his chance to use this pawn(meaning Saruman) as an extra piece in the war. It would draw attention away from Mordor's attack, and create another front on Gondor if it succeeded. He had nothing to lose.

Oh, he definitely would have destroyed Saruman if the latter had grown too strong or wise for his lacking. Sauron had the power to do it any time that he wished. He probably just liked seeing Saruman gloat over seemingly deceiving The Deceiver.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 12:57 PM January 23, 2004: Message edited by: Finwe ]

Sauron's plan might well have backfired, though, if Saruman had actually got hold of the Ring (and he very nearly did, but for a touch of mistaken Hobbit identity and a group of rogue Rohirrim).

I'm not saying that Saruman with the Ring would have defeated Sauron, but he would certainly have presented (to use the current parlance) a credible threat.

IF they could have continued to reek havok on the remaining people of ME, They would continue to use each other till one was no longer benificial to the success of the other. Maybe after the defeat of free peoples of ME Sauron would have his orcs E TU BRute Saruman.

if saruman had defeated rohan then gondor could not have been saved by even aragorn

so after defeating rohan saruman would not have any army left at all

so the dark lord could easily slave saruman and use him for his evil purposes

and thrn maybe defeat lothlorein,mirkwood,dwarves and capture the whole middle earth