In the movie Treebeard and the Ents totally miss that thousands and thousands of acres of forest have been knocked down. Maybe no one just noticed a whole army of Orcs hanging around
@@alundavies1016 I've read about Apocalypto recently and I agreed. The choice to put in realistic natives and not a single known face was great. Maybe you shouldn't cast someone at all once they have reached a certain amount of fame unless they look really really different. Gandalf was kind of ok as with the beard you didn't see him as Magneto. But Elrond/Smith, the actor has such a distinct face, it felt so off.
While I get that the books are not saying that Saruman was already obviously evil, I still find it significant that consistently no one (outside of Rohan) finds Saruman’s corruption to be a surprise. Gwaihir not only believes Gandalf’s claim of unjust imprisonment but does not even bother to hear Saruman’s side of the story (which presumably would be readily available downstairs). For all Gwaihir actually knows at that point, Gandalf is the one who turned evil, and Saruman is having to detain Gandalf accordingly. This continues in Rivendell, where everyone (including Boromir) seems to accept Gandalf’s claims about Saruman without any corroboration. Not only that, but no elf-despite working with Saruman for hundreds of years-even expresses a sense of personal shock or confusion. The news does not seem that surprising. No one even has a middle-ground reaction-such as proposing that miscommunication had occurred, that Gandalf had overreacted, or that persuasion could bring Saruman back to their side. The same goes for the Lothlorien elves and the ents. Even Denethor (who I guess would still see himself at least nominally as Saruman’s superior) displays no reaction. Furthermore, there seems to be an arms-length relationship with Saruman that goes back a ways. Gandalf explicitly says that he had decided not to include Saruman in the monitoring of Bilbo. Also, despite the fact that the White Council recognized Saruman as a ring expert and the fact that bearers of the Three Rings were in the White Council, Saruman seems to have played no role with those rings. For all these reasons, I feel the books do imply that while Saruman did hide the magnitude of his corruption, his allies already had reservations about and took precautions around him.
Even when the Istari first arrived, I think it's mentioned that Galadriel perceived Saruman's nature, and that was why she vouched for Gandalf as leader of the White Council
@@austinuhr8459, even earlier, Cirdan gave Narya to Gandalf rather than Saruman, despite Saruman being the nominal leader of the Istari. The whole situation with Saruman reminds me of what happened with "Anatar" in the Second Age. None of the Elven leaders realized it was Sauron in disguise, or saw his malIce. But all of them except Celebrimbor got enough of a "something's not right with this guy" vibe from Anatar that they kept him at arm's length. In fact, the whole Anatar debacle might be why everyone in the Third Age was on higher alert against the possibility of a duplicitous Maia showing up in Middle Earth. Hmmmmm...
@@isomeme, those are good points, but I'm also not clear whether it's consistently canonical with LOTR for Saruman to know that Gandalf actually has the ring given that Saruman never tries to take it from Gandalf during the imprisonment.
Clearly you are prejudiced against 'Slipery Glibmouth'. A name does not reflect a person. Glibmouth has done a great job reframing our terms of service every month. Now our customers pay for games they accepted for free, raising value for our shareholders.
Clearly you are prejudiced against our CEO 'Slippery Glibmouth'. A name does not reflect a person. Glibmouth has done a wonderful job rewriting our terms of service every month. Now our customers pay rent every month for a product they paid a singular purchase fee for, thus creating value for our shareholders. Our staff have been streamlined so that we only have 1 fifth of the number of workers. Only the most dedicated remain because they love this instiution and work 18 hour days, heroicly forgoing food, drink or rest. Our elite workforce stand as a testimant to the relentless drive 'Slippery Glibmouth' has to make our business dominate this industry. Rumours of a merger with our only competition sully the good name of 'Slippery Glibmouth' and are unfounded. Finally as a philanthropist Glibmouth has provided funding for urban renewal. Spotting that the area where our former employees live in the company town is now full of high unemployment, low income, crime and violence from desperate people. Glibmouth has proposed a clearance of housing by compulsory purchase to build a leasure centre and high net worth housing.
TBF in the Jackson Trilogy when Gandalf arrives in Isengard the woodland around Orthanc is still relatively intact at least around the main pathways and its only after Saruman imprisons Gandalf that any sense of stealth or concealment is dropped for maximum uruk production. In the book Saruman has been known to Treebeard as a despoiler of Fangorn for a long time when he talks about it to Merry and Pippin.
I always found it odd that the ents could not damage Orthanc. Sure the Numenoreans had special skill in construction. Likely even rivaling what the elves were capable of. But I just figured that the power of Nature as represented by the ents would outrank the works of Men.
Precise and thorough as usual. To be honest, I thought at first that this video would analyse the background of the White Council and Gandalf's first suspicions about Saruman's nature instead of explaining to the clueless about all the things that have been covered in the book. Therefore, I would be looking forward to a video that is centered on the events described in the Unfinished Tales and how things developed from there.
Thanks for sharing your passion for LOTR. You remind me of my friend. Zach I had went to school with who was big in LOTR too. I saw the movies before reading the books and definitely noticed it’s a lot more descriptive and a slower pace of story reading the books. It took 3 months to read, reading for 30 to 60 minutes a day. I think it could have been 6 to 9 films if everything from the books was put into film form. I’m going to rewatch the 70’s cartoon versions again.
Sauron's gambit, which almost succeeds, is the Palantir. We don't know how he got one but he does have at least one. He corrupts Sauruman and Denethor who possess one each from Orthanc and Minas Tirith through his. He probably didn't expect to take such immense citadels without that advantage, but obviously he is confounded by the Fellowship.
I do wonder about the ethnic background of Saruman's guards, especially prior to his fall... did he recruit Dunlendings, Rohirrim, Gondorians, Men of the Anduin Vales?
I feel like it was really confusing to have the main and second main villain of the story have such a similar name and aesthetic. I remember I was really confused about it as a kid first time watching the movies and hearing people talking about it.
Given that average step height is about 17cm means that you would climb around 170 meters every 1000 steps. Gandalf saying "many thousands steps" makes the Orthank tower taller than the tower of Dubai.
That assumes roughly equivalent step height, which isn’t unreasonable but is definitely an assumption we should be aware of since we know shallow steps are a thing in Middle-earth (see Moria).
To be fair someone could have read the book, never seen the movie and had similar questions. Saruman and Sauron are similar enough that I could see a casual reader confusing them. You also had to go into quite a lot of depth to explain away the orc pit. (Still, I do think you're right otherwise it gets a bit silly.)
Very good, melon Geek. I'd be interested to hear about Saruman's dealings with those who interacted with him. How did he fool his neighbors who came to his tower for advice? How did he fool the Nazgul? These and other considerations may not have come out in a meme, but they are intriguing to think about. Namarie.
@@TolkienLorePodcast Yeah, especially when you note that it is not only a distance to traverse in a straight line, but an ascent. there is a massive difference in physical exertion between walking 450 meters and actively climbing 450 meters worth of stairs.
It was politically incorrect to mention Saruman's orcs. "Hey, Gondorian friend, have you noticed those, uh, people who have moved into Saruman's yard? They're really trashing the place. Wantonly cutting down trees, looting, setting fires, etc." "Well, Rohirrim friend, are you mentioning that because the color of their skin and their fangs and pointy ears?" "No no, do not take it that way! I am a good and tolerant person. Perhaps it is me who is evil and Saruman's guests are simply expressing their culture. I shall speak no more on this matter."
I believe that "Saruman" was always an apocryphal name. He would have been called Curunir, Sharkey, or something else in his time. I suspect "Saruman" is just a bastardization of Sauron's man.
Who were Saruman’s servants? Unlike Gandalf, who was often traveling, Saruman remained in a single place. Someone else had to provide him food and clean clothes, take care of the keep, serve as guards. Who were they? Evil Gondorians? They couldn’t have been orcs, or else Gandalf would have realized his treachery much earlier, obviously.
I was reading the book this summer for the first time and that's the first thing I wondered. When Gandalf arrives, it mentions "keepers of the gate" greeting him.
Many men were still willing to serve the dark lords even some were still loyal to Morgoth in 3rd era akin to biblical satanists I have to specify biblical satanists because Levayin Satanists don't actually believe in the devil they use the name Satan to piss off the church but it's really just structured atheism
There was a gondorian garrison at Orthanc before the Rohirric civil war. The had mostly mixed with Dunlendings, but maybe they were allowed to swear fealty to Saruman as penance for their disloyalty to Gondor.
@@jeremyabrahamson2872 yeah, that just makes me curious about what kind of men he was working with. is there some special order of people that assist wizards? and how did they feel about the whole turning evil and breeding Uruk-hai thing?
I have been convinced for years that saruman and sauron were the same character that were split when the story changed from being about an order of wizards to what we see in the final story.
When I was a kid reading the books and watching the movies, I always felt that the names "Saruman" and "Sauron" were just too similar to each other. Like, what the hell? You made this all up. Make the names more distinct so you don't look dumb.
The size of Nan Curunir is directly mentioned in the text - "a mile it measured from rim to rim". So not extremely huge, but pretty big.
In the movie Treebeard and the Ents totally miss that thousands and thousands of acres of forest have been knocked down. Maybe no one just noticed a whole army of Orcs hanging around
As soon as I saw Saruman was Dracula and Count Dooku, I started to have my doubts about him.
Gandalf was Magneto. Elrond was Agent Smith of all people!
@@mysmartphonechannel Maybe once you have been two recognisable baddies you can’t come back?
@@alundavies1016 I've read about Apocalypto recently and I agreed. The choice to put in realistic natives and not a single known face was great. Maybe you shouldn't cast someone at all once they have reached a certain amount of fame unless they look really really different. Gandalf was kind of ok as with the beard you didn't see him as Magneto. But Elrond/Smith, the actor has such a distinct face, it felt so off.
@@alundavies1016 ...Only two?
@@DIEGhostfish if you fancy trawling through IMDB and giving a full “baddy” reckoning I would love that!
While I get that the books are not saying that Saruman was already obviously evil, I still find it significant that consistently no one (outside of Rohan) finds Saruman’s corruption to be a surprise.
Gwaihir not only believes Gandalf’s claim of unjust imprisonment but does not even bother to hear Saruman’s side of the story (which presumably would be readily available downstairs). For all Gwaihir actually knows at that point, Gandalf is the one who turned evil, and Saruman is having to detain Gandalf accordingly.
This continues in Rivendell, where everyone (including Boromir) seems to accept Gandalf’s claims about Saruman without any corroboration. Not only that, but no elf-despite working with Saruman for hundreds of years-even expresses a sense of personal shock or confusion. The news does not seem that surprising. No one even has a middle-ground reaction-such as proposing that miscommunication had occurred, that Gandalf had overreacted, or that persuasion could bring Saruman back to their side.
The same goes for the Lothlorien elves and the ents. Even Denethor (who I guess would still see himself at least nominally as Saruman’s superior) displays no reaction.
Furthermore, there seems to be an arms-length relationship with Saruman that goes back a ways. Gandalf explicitly says that he had decided not to include Saruman in the monitoring of Bilbo. Also, despite the fact that the White Council recognized Saruman as a ring expert and the fact that bearers of the Three Rings were in the White Council, Saruman seems to have played no role with those rings.
For all these reasons, I feel the books do imply that while Saruman did hide the magnitude of his corruption, his allies already had reservations about and took precautions around him.
Even when the Istari first arrived, I think it's mentioned that Galadriel perceived Saruman's nature, and that was why she vouched for Gandalf as leader of the White Council
@@austinuhr8459, even earlier, Cirdan gave Narya to Gandalf rather than Saruman, despite Saruman being the nominal leader of the Istari.
The whole situation with Saruman reminds me of what happened with "Anatar" in the Second Age. None of the Elven leaders realized it was Sauron in disguise, or saw his malIce. But all of them except Celebrimbor got enough of a "something's not right with this guy" vibe from Anatar that they kept him at arm's length.
In fact, the whole Anatar debacle might be why everyone in the Third Age was on higher alert against the possibility of a duplicitous Maia showing up in Middle Earth. Hmmmmm...
@@isomeme, those are good points, but I'm also not clear whether it's consistently canonical with LOTR for Saruman to know that Gandalf actually has the ring given that Saruman never tries to take it from Gandalf during the imprisonment.
@@everettdepangher6131 Saruman stuffed the 'ring maker' feather in his cap by then, so it may have been more arrogance in that vein.
"Just How Ludicrously Comically Obviously Clearly Evil was Grima Wormtongue?"
They really overdid him in the movies
Clearly you are prejudiced against 'Slipery Glibmouth'. A name does not reflect a person. Glibmouth has done a great job reframing our terms of service every month. Now our customers pay for games they accepted for free, raising value for our shareholders.
Clearly you are prejudiced against our CEO 'Slippery Glibmouth'. A name does not reflect a person. Glibmouth has done a wonderful job rewriting our terms of service every month. Now our customers pay rent every month for a product they paid a singular purchase fee for, thus creating value for our shareholders. Our staff have been streamlined so that we only have 1 fifth of the number of workers. Only the most dedicated remain because they love this instiution and work 18 hour days, heroicly forgoing food, drink or rest. Our elite workforce stand as a testimant to the relentless drive 'Slippery Glibmouth' has to make our business dominate this industry. Rumours of a merger with our only competition sully the good name of 'Slippery Glibmouth' and are unfounded. Finally as a philanthropist Glibmouth has provided funding for urban renewal. Spotting that the area where our former employees live in the company town is now full of high unemployment, low income, crime and violence from desperate people. Glibmouth has proposed a clearance of housing by compulsory purchase to build a leasure centre and high net worth housing.
TBF in the Jackson Trilogy when Gandalf arrives in Isengard the woodland around Orthanc is still relatively intact at least around the main pathways and its only after Saruman imprisons Gandalf that any sense of stealth or concealment is dropped for maximum uruk production.
In the book Saruman has been known to Treebeard as a despoiler of Fangorn for a long time when he talks about it to Merry and Pippin.
I always found it odd that the ents could not damage Orthanc. Sure the Numenoreans had special skill in construction. Likely even rivaling what the elves were capable of. But I just figured that the power of Nature as represented by the ents would outrank the works of Men.
Yeah, this was good! I'd watch more meme analyses!
Precise and thorough as usual. To be honest, I thought at first that this video would analyse the background of the White Council and Gandalf's first suspicions about Saruman's nature instead of explaining to the clueless about all the things that have been covered in the book. Therefore, I would be looking forward to a video that is centered on the events described in the Unfinished Tales and how things developed from there.
Thanks for sharing your passion for LOTR. You remind me of my friend. Zach I had went to school with who was big in LOTR too.
I saw the movies before reading the books and definitely noticed it’s a lot more descriptive and a slower pace of story reading the books. It took 3 months to read, reading for 30 to 60 minutes a day. I think it could have been 6 to 9 films if everything from the books was put into film form. I’m going to rewatch the 70’s cartoon versions again.
Also, outside of the movie, there's a question about which towers are the actual two towers. That's another way the movie supports the meme.
Once he started moving armies of his brand of orcs around the cat was out of the bag.
Arumaaaaan!!!
Don't laugh, but when I first read LOTR at the tender age of 12, I got Sauron and Saruman confused myself.
Sauron's gambit, which almost succeeds, is the Palantir. We don't know how he got one but he does have at least one. He corrupts Sauruman and Denethor who possess one each from Orthanc and Minas Tirith through his. He probably didn't expect to take such immense citadels without that advantage, but obviously he is confounded by the Fellowship.
Sauron is a sorcerer of old craft, you see. He didn't create the Palantir but he tries to use them.
I do wonder about the ethnic background of Saruman's guards, especially prior to his fall... did he recruit Dunlendings, Rohirrim, Gondorians, Men of the Anduin Vales?
I feel like it was really confusing to have the main and second main villain of the story have such a similar name and aesthetic. I remember I was really confused about it as a kid first time watching the movies and hearing people talking about it.
Given that average step height is about 17cm means that you would climb around 170 meters every 1000 steps. Gandalf saying "many thousands steps" makes the Orthank tower taller than the tower of Dubai.
That assumes roughly equivalent step height, which isn’t unreasonable but is definitely an assumption we should be aware of since we know shallow steps are a thing in Middle-earth (see Moria).
To be fair someone could have read the book, never seen the movie and had similar questions. Saruman and Sauron are similar enough that I could see a casual reader confusing them. You also had to go into quite a lot of depth to explain away the orc pit.
(Still, I do think you're right otherwise it gets a bit silly.)
Very good, melon Geek. I'd be interested to hear about Saruman's dealings with those who interacted with him. How did he fool his neighbors who came to his tower for advice? How did he fool the Nazgul? These and other considerations may not have come out in a meme, but they are intriguing to think about. Namarie.
Nice deconstruction
10:48 15 cm per step * 3000 = 450 meters.
Is 3000 "many thousand"?
When you have to walk it I’m sure it is 😂
@@TolkienLorePodcast Yeah, especially when you note that it is not only a distance to traverse in a straight line, but an ascent. there is a massive difference in physical exertion between walking 450 meters and actively climbing 450 meters worth of stairs.
@@TolkienLorePodcast My thought exactly!
There is a relatively short video about Tomkien naming characters and places in the legendarium that I found rather funny. Have any of you seen it?
You’ll have to be more specific. What video are you referring to?
@@TolkienLorePodcast The video's called "Tolkien naming his characters"
Great meme
The movies didn't really show saruons use of his fortress . I wish besides the gollum torture scene. You really never get a look inside the dark tower
Let's see what Peter Jackson does in the movie "The Hunt for Gollum." We should get more details of Barad-dür.😁👍🏻
It was politically incorrect to mention Saruman's orcs. "Hey, Gondorian friend, have you noticed those, uh, people who have moved into Saruman's yard? They're really trashing the place. Wantonly cutting down trees, looting, setting fires, etc." "Well, Rohirrim friend, are you mentioning that because the color of their skin and their fangs and pointy ears?" "No no, do not take it that way! I am a good and tolerant person. Perhaps it is me who is evil and Saruman's guests are simply expressing their culture. I shall speak no more on this matter."
.... And it isn't as if everyone in The Lord of the Rings books has a similar name to many other people..... 🤔
Well Eru knew about Saruman's betrayal and said nothing for he had ordained it to be so
I believe that "Saruman" was always an apocryphal name. He would have been called Curunir, Sharkey, or something else in his time. I suspect "Saruman" is just a bastardization of Sauron's man.
@@whyukraine doesnt work etymologically. Tolkien explained the reasoning behind these names already.
Who were Saruman’s servants? Unlike Gandalf, who was often traveling, Saruman remained in a single place. Someone else had to provide him food and clean clothes, take care of the keep, serve as guards. Who were they? Evil Gondorians? They couldn’t have been orcs, or else Gandalf would have realized his treachery much earlier, obviously.
I was reading the book this summer for the first time and that's the first thing I wondered. When Gandalf arrives, it mentions "keepers of the gate" greeting him.
If it helps, the introduction of orcs is portrayed as massive twist even after Sarumans treachery is revealed. Largely its implied he works with men.
Many men were still willing to serve the dark lords even some were still loyal to Morgoth in 3rd era akin to biblical satanists I have to specify biblical satanists because Levayin Satanists don't actually believe in the devil they use the name Satan to piss off the church but it's really just structured atheism
There was a gondorian garrison at Orthanc before the Rohirric civil war. The had mostly mixed with Dunlendings, but maybe they were allowed to swear fealty to Saruman as penance for their disloyalty to Gondor.
@@jeremyabrahamson2872 yeah, that just makes me curious about what kind of men he was working with. is there some special order of people that assist wizards? and how did they feel about the whole turning evil and breeding Uruk-hai thing?
I have been convinced for years that saruman and sauron were the same character that were split when the story changed from being about an order of wizards to what we see in the final story.
Maybe read some of the History of Middle-earth series to find out the real story ;)
First!
When I was a kid reading the books and watching the movies, I always felt that the names "Saruman" and "Sauron" were just too similar to each other. Like, what the hell? You made this all up. Make the names more distinct so you don't look dumb.
Its the people who cant read the difference between names that are dumb, not Tolkien