Quote:
What LOTR never gives us is the dramatization of Saruman's fall. We are told over and over than he is the bad guy. And we see behaviours which are not estimable. But we are never shown how it was that he succumbed to this evil. If we weren't told he was bad from the outset, would we be able to recognize his turpitude?
Likely this is a consequence of Tolkien's decision (I assume) to attempt to dramatize good rather than evil. But it leaves us, I would argue, with a fuzzy view of evil. A view which tends towards the relatively simple habit of naming things evil without really analyzing what is the perilous attraction of evil. And without demanding from readers an active effort to discriminate who is good and who is evil.
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Evil is not so clearly or intentionally evil in its beginnings (often). It starts with mere disagreement with how things are being done; the "evil" guy thinks he would handle the situation better. It comes from good intentions. We
do see where the problem with Saruman starts - with Curumo and Olorin being sent to Middle-earth. Who or what is evil is "fuzzy" because evil is a fuzzy concept. Saruman's problems begin (so far that we are aware) with Vara's noting that Gandalf is arriving last, but doesn't rank as such. The problem continues with Cirdan's giving Gandalf Narya, Galadriel and Elrond wanting Gandalf to head up the White Council, and so on. Further, Saruman was a Maia of Aule - Aule himself had trouble letting Eru be the Creator. It's not a coincidence that Sauron too was a Maia of Aule. This isn't given in
The Lord of the Rings, but that's part of the limitations of the work's context. It's a journal written by a hobbit (or four) about the events in a very small slot of a world's history. It's a very limited point of view and time period when we're observing the 'angelic' immortal characters involved in a grander scale. Still, the jealousy/clashing of Saruman with Gandalf is presented with enough background information in the appendices, and we see what drove this further - the palantir, found with his occupancy of Orthanc nearly 100 years prior to his disagreement with Gandalf and the invasion of Dol Guldur.
[ October 27, 2003: Message edited by: Legolas ]