Saruman's death

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Alfirin

I can understand them being kept, or waiting in, the Halls of Mandos, but why on Middle Earth would he lock them up? Being slain is hardly a punishable offence. Icidentally if Tolkien's fears were correct, it would also be a major strike against Saruman, since Tolkein's thoughts seem to imply that if The Blue are dead it was at Saruman's hands, which would add killing fellow wizards to his rap sheet.

Nay, what I had in mind was what seemed to be Tolkien's most immediate fear, something he seemed to consider most likely of all possibilities, and that was not just being slain, nor by Saruman (that was really just a distinct possibility that was only hinted), but that they turned to evil themselves. THAT was why I said they would be locked up.

Originally Posted by UT, Istari, note #3

In a letter written in 1958 my father said that he knew nothing clearly about "the other two," since they were not concerned in the history oh the North-west of Middle-earth. "I think," he wrote, "they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Numenorean range: missionaries to enemy-occupied lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and 'magic' traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron."