The figure of Saruman is undoubtedly one of the most important of the Third Age of Middle-earth, both for longevity, influence, and the center of significant conflicts that will take place during the events of The Lord of the Rings.
The story of the former leader of the Order of the Istari is an example of a downward trajectory, a journey from light to darkness, and a clear allegory of how fragile the spirit of the human being can be.
Because Saruman exemplifies the corrupt factor that we all have inside and how easy it can be to fall into temptation or be carried away by the lust for power and dominance.
Saruman before he was Saruman
We must go back to the beginning of time in Arda and the arrival of the Valar and the Maiar to build that vision that Eru-Ilúvatar had shown them.
Although members of the same group of creatures, the Ainur, in Arda were divided between the Valar (the most powerful) and the rest, who were called Maiar and were serving the former.
Saruman was part of the Maiar and was known as Curumo, which meant “the Skilful”. He was among the most powerful, and only Mairon could rival him. In time, Marion fell into the shadows because of Melkor and became Sauron himself.
Time passed in Valinor, and the events of Middle-earth, though terrible, remained untold.
Curumo participated in the War of Wrath, the great war in which an army of Maiar, eagles, elves, and men ended the threat of Melkor, who was imprisoned and separated from the world until the end of his days.
After that battle, Curumo returned to Valinor and continued to enjoy that paradise. However, Evil still resisted in Middle-earth, for Melkor had left part of his dark being in the bowels of the world, and the darkness could never disappear.
Midway through the Second Age, and coinciding with the creation of the Rings of Power, Manwë (the most powerful of the Valar) called a meeting after which it was concluded that Middle-earth needed help again, as Sauron grew unhindered and threatened to complete the plan that his master (Melkor) had begun centuries before.
Men and Elves (less and less) tried in vain to fight against the darkness of the East, but their efforts were fruitless. Therefore the Valar decided that five emissaries, called Istari, would be sent to Middle-earth, almost as powerful as Sauron but bound by the limits of mortal body and flesh.
Their goal was not to fight the Dark Lord directly but to lead the free peoples in the fight.
Curumo arrived alone in Lindon, an Elven kingdom on the eastern coast of Middle-earth, around the year 1000 of the Third Age. The elves, already slowly declining as a mighty civilization, welcomed him warmly and learned many things from the old-looking man. They called him Curunír, “the skillful man”.
All the Istari adopted Curunír’s appearance, a voluntary decision of the Valar since the image of an elder always evoked wisdom and common sense.
He was the tallest of the five Istari, with an elongated face and dark eyes. He wore white, with a cloak that changed color with movement.
His voice and ever-growing knowledge were two of the leading powers he could use in Middle-earth. The second was also the cause of his undoing, which would come with time and as the Istari acquired more and more information about dark magic and the Rings of Power (and thus, about Sauron’s One Ring).
Only Círdan knew of his true identity during those early years in Lindon, but he kept it a secret. He never knew of the mission of the Istari, but he sensed that it was of the highest importance.
A few years after arriving in Middle-earth, Curunír left for the East with the two Blue Wizards, two members of the Istari, with whom he spent more than fifteen centuries in labors that no one ever knew but that undoubtedly helped to boycott any attempt by Sauron to consolidate his power in those distant lands.
Already known as Saruman to men, he returned to the West when he learned that Sauron was emerging again in his stronghold of Dol Guldur.
To fight against this threat, the White Council was created, of which Saruman was elected leader. Although no one knew it, for he knew how to hide his feelings and thoughts very well from others, he had begun to desire Sauron’s power after centuries of deep study of the arts of the Rings of Power and how the Dark Lord had perverted them.
Saruman ceases to be the White One
A significant event in understanding how Saruman mutated and became more and more ambitious for power was his decision to live in Orthanc. It was a tower built during the Second Age by the Numenoreans and was uninhabited but guarded by Rohan and Gondor.
After returning from the East, Saruman studied many books in Minas Tirith, concluding that it was very likely that in Orthanc, there was one of the Palantiri, Numenorean objects but created in Valinor and used to communicate over long distances.
With the approval of the kings of Rohan and Gondor of those years, Fréalaf and the Regent Beren (Gondor had lost the royal lineage), Saruman established in Orthanc his home and base of operations for the White Council in its fight against Sauron.
Secretly, however, Saruman decided that he would not fight the Dark Lord but would use all his power and resources to find the One Ring first. If he succeeded, no one could stop him.
That is why Saruman convinced the White Council not to attack Sauron when Gandalf confirmed the true identity of the necromancer who dwelt in Dol Guldur.
Thanks to a network of spies he had deployed everywhere, he learned that Sauron had suspicions about where the One Ring might be, so he changed his mind and agreed to attack him, causing the Dark Lord to flee to Mordor, thus gaining time to find the Ring. He convinced the rest that he was lost forever at the bottom of the sea, swept away by the Anduin.
After a final Council meeting, Saruman decided to fortify Orthanc, renamed Isengard and claimed it as his own.
Years later, and again thanks to that immense network of spies scattered throughout the lands, he learned that Gandalf often visited a region called The Shire, so he sent secret agents to the area to see what could interest his companion Istari so much.
In those same years, Saruman began to use the Palantiri to spy on Sauron’s plans but fell under its influence and was seduced by the Dark Lord.
At this point, it is crucial to understand that Saruman was not evil from the moment he arrived in Middle-earth, nor that he accepted the Valar’s mission with a dark secret desire.
Curumo’s intentions were sincere, and he came to Middle-earth with the firm intention of ending the threat of Sauron. Although there is no official record of it, he likely achieved great victories during his first years in the East with the Blue Wizards.
However, Saruman’s significant problem was the same. His great power bestowed upon him great pride. He saw and knew himself to be the mightiest of the Istari, just as before he knew himself to be among the strongest of the Maiar of Valinor.
This ego, and the fear that Gandalf wanted to usurp his predominant position, fueled a fear that was gradually transformed into a craving for power, precisely so as not to fall from his pedestal.
This quest brought him closer to the dark arts through the study of the Rings of Power and of the Enemy, an influence that gradually convinced him that the only way to achieve his mission was to become more powerful than Sauron. He had to embrace all possible power, wherever it came from.
He was always aware of what he was doing and becoming, but determined as he was that it was the only way. He no longer knew how to turn back, and his subsequent actions marked his destiny.
Saruman and the War of the Ring
Entrenched in Isengard, he began his war against Rohan to have a free hand on both sides of the Misty Mountains to the south. He thus incited wildlings (the Dunlendings) to attack the Rohirrim lands, and for years the kingdom was in constant struggle.
At the same time, the search for the One Ring continued unabated, and all was turned upside down when Gandalf went to Isengard to inform Saruman that he had found it: it owned Frodo Baggins in the Shire.
Saruman removed his mask and showed his intentions to Gandalf, urging him to join him. When he refused, he locked the wizard at the top of the tower and set out for the Ring. He also began to create an army of Orcs and Uruk-hai to ravage Rohan and pave the way for the Dark Lord.
However, Saruman remained convinced that the best solution was for him to win. He lied to Sauron about his knowledge of the Shire and Frodo Baggins and sent the Nâzgul on a mistaken quest. In this way, he pretended to conceal from Sauron that he knew who the Ring had.
However, his deception was discovered, and suddenly Saruman found himself in the middle of two powers that wanted to finish him off: the one hand, the Free Peoples because they saw him as another dark threat, and on the other hand Sauron, who had been betrayed by the Ishtari.
With this prospect, Saruman knew he had only to get the Ring or be destroyed.
Knowing of the departure of the Company of the Ring to Gondor, he maneuvered through spies and his power to divert the route of Frodo Baggins. When the time came, he would launch an attack with his Uruk-hai to capture the hobbit and get the One Ring.
At the same time, he would launch an all-out attack against Rohan to finish them off and enslave all their people once and for all. He increased his army and hastened his final attack on Helm’s Deep.
His plan failed on all sides:
The Uruk-hai captured the wrong hobbits (Merry and Pippin).
Gandalf, who had escaped from Isengard, arrived in time to contribute to Rohan’s victory over Saruman’s armies.
The Etns, who had suffered the evil of the Istari by using them as fuel to create weapons and armor for their army, exterminated the Uruk-hai and blockaded Isengard.
He tried again to seduce Gandalf, who routed him and expelled him from the Order of the Istari. Ultimately defeated, for a moment, he considered repenting. However, he decided to lock himself in his tower so as not to come out under any circumstances, perhaps fearful of reprisals from Gandalf or the Dark Lord (whom he believed would eventually rise as the victor once he had failed).
Confined in his tower, he only came out when he learned that Sauron had been defeated. He convinced the Ents and fled. He ended up in the Shire, a region he hated as the source of his end, and decided to raze it to the ground. However, the return of the hobbits of the Company thwarted his plans.
Stripped of his power and consumed by defeat and humiliation, he ended up murdered by his servant Grima after the umpteenth show of contempt from the wizard.
When he died, he was denied his return to Valinor, and his spirit turned into smoke, carried by the wind, and faded throughout Middle-earth as a barely audible rumor.
Thus ended the story and life of Saruman, who could have become one of the great heroes of Middle-earth but ended up consumed by pride, fear, and greed.