Saruman for or against Sauron?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

These are all merely your opinions, which are in stark and direct contradiction to the expressed opinion of the author of the works. You can certainly argue with him about anything you like, but once you start disagreeing with things he says would have happened in the story you are no longer talking about his works, you are talking about yours.

Opinions expressed in the Letters cannot be taken as canonical. We don't have any context for such statements, as we don't have the letters Tolkien was responding to. Also, its easy to make statements in letters because they don't have to be made to fit the story. Tolkien was free to say anything in his letters without having to worry whether his statements would cause a problem. The letters were not written for publication - I think he would have been a lot more careful in what he said if they had been.

In short, statements in the letters were made off the cuff, & I'm sure Tolkien never expected them to be challenged. They also reflect his later thoughts & his personal opinions on the story as well as his interpretations of events. If a statement of Tolkien's in a letter to F. Bloggs in 1962 challenges or contradicts an explicit statement in LotR as published then whatever is stated in the book takes precedence.

The Letters are interesting & often helpful, but clearly the statement that only Gandalf could master the Ring is false because it contradicts what is both stated & implied in LotR.

Of course, the Legendarium changed over the years, characters altered, things were added, but new thoughts would often lead to dead ends. I give no more weight to much that is in the Letters than I do to what is contained in the whole 'Myths Transformed' farrago.

If we take Tolkien's statement re Gandalf & the Ring as fact then much of the dramatic tension in LotR is dissipated & we would read it thinking, 'Well, that's just them being silly!'. It is essential in reading LotR that we know that not just Gandalf but Aragorn, Elrond, Galadriel as well as Saruman could take, master & wield the Ring.