Wizards in Middle-earth

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Men
.

The Wizards or Istari in

Eru Ilúvatar
, in the earlier ages.

Two Wizards,

Christ.[1]

All three named Wizards appear in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. Commentators have stated that they operate more physically and less spiritually than the Wizards in Tolkien's novels, but that this is mostly successful in furthering the drama.

Maiar

Further information:
Maiar in Middle-earth

The Wizards of Middle-earth are Maiar: spirits similar to the godlike

Third Age to counter the Dark Lord Sauron, a fallen Maia of great power.[T 1][2]

Names

The first three of these five Wizards were named in

Gwaihir to rescue Gandalf. The two Blue Wizards do not feature in the narrative of Tolkien's works; they are said to have journeyed far into the east after their arrival in Middle-earth,[T 1][2] and serve as agitators or missionaries in enemy occupied lands.[4] Their ultimate fates are unknown.[5]

Servants of the Valar

As the Istari were Maiar, each one served a Vala in some way. Saruman was the servant and helper of

Yavanna, loved the things of nature, both animals and plants. As each of these Istar learned from their Vala, so they acted in Middle-earth.[T 1]

Gandalf

Main article: Gandalf
Further information: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

Gandalf the Grey is a protagonist in

"Catalogue of Dwarves" (Dvergatal) in the Völuspá; its meaning in that language is "staff-elf".[6][T 1] Originally called Olórin, he was the wisest of the Maiar and lived in Lórien until the Third Age, when Manwë tasked him to join the Istari and go to Middle-earth to protect its free peoples. He did not want to go as he feared Sauron, but Manwë persuaded him, telling him that his fear of Sauron was why he was a good fit for it.[T 1]

As a Wizard and the bearer of a

Moria. He is sent back to Middle-earth to complete his mission, now as Gandalf the White and leader of the Istari.[T 1]

Tolkien once described Gandalf as an

Christ-figure, a prophet.[10][11][12][13][1]

Saruman

Main article: Saruman

Saruman the White is leader of the Istari and of the White Council, in The Hobbit and at the outset in The Lord of the Rings. However, he desires Sauron's power for himself and plots to take over Middle-earth by force, remodelling

Barad-Dur.[T 1][2]

Saruman's character illustrates the corruption of power; his desire for knowledge and order leads to his fall, and he rejects the chance of redemption when it is offered.

Anglo-Saxon;[14] he serves as an example of technology and modernity being overthrown by forces more in tune with nature.[T 1][2]

Radagast

Main article: Radagast

Radagast the Brown is mentioned in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings. His role is so slight that it has been described as a plot device.

shamanistic ability to change his shape and colours, are as described by Tolkien.[16] Unusually among Middle-earth names, Radagast is Slavic, the name of a god.[17]

Significance

Tolkien stated that the main temptation facing the Wizards, and the one that brought down Saruman, was impatience. It led to a desire to force others to do good, and from there to a simple desire for power.[T 4]

The Tolkien scholar Marjorie Burns writes that while Saruman is an "imitative and lesser" double of Sauron, reinforcing the Dark Lord's character type, he is also a contrasting double of Gandalf, who becomes Saruman as he "should have been", after Saruman fails in his original purpose.[18]

Charles Nelson writes that although evil is personified in Sauron and his creatures such as

Second World War, despite Tolkien's claims to the contrary.[19][T 7]

The scholar of humanities

Patrick Curry rebuts the "common criticism" of Tolkien, levelled by literary critics such as the scholar of English literature Catherine Stimpson, that his characters are naively either good or evil. Curry writes that far from being "seemingly incorruptible" as Stimpson alleges, evil emerges among the Wizards.[20]

William Senior contrasts Tolkien's Wizards as angelic emissaries with those in Stephen R. Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (published 1977–2013), who are simply human. In Senior's view, where Tolkien used myth and a medieval hierarchy of orders of being, with Wizards higher than Elves who are higher than Men, Donaldson's Lords are "wholly human" and "function democratically".[21]

Adaptations

Christopher Lee played Saruman in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit[22] as "a powerfully haunted and vindictive figure".[23]

Three Wizards appear in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies: Saruman, portrayed by Christopher Lee;[22] Gandalf, portrayed by Ian McKellen;[24] and Radagast, portrayed by Sylvester McCoy.[16]

The critic Brian D. Walter writes that the films seek to make Gandalf a powerful character without having him take over the Fellowship's strategy and action. As in the novels, Gandalf is "an oddly ambivalent presence, extraordinarily powerful and authoritative ..., but also a stranger, the only one of the Istari who never settles down".

Shakespearean ... [with] the potential to rise to a kind of tragic dignity"; he considers that Lee attains a suitable presence as "a powerfully haunted and vindictive figure, if less self-deluding than Tolkien's", even if the film version of the verbal confrontation with Gandalf fails to rise to the same level.[23]

Kristin Thompson notes that the Wizards' staffs are more elaborate in the films; their tips are "more convoluted" and can hold a crystal, which can be used to produce light.[25] Rosebury considers the staff-battle between Gandalf and Saruman in

Orthanc "absurd", breaking the spell of the film in The Fellowship of the Ring, and coming "uncomfortably close" to the light-sabre fights in Star Wars.[23]

In Amazon's series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Daniel Weyman portrays "the Stranger", a Wizard who falls from the sky in a meteorite.[26]

References

Primary

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Tolkien 1980, "The Istari"
  2. ^ Tolkien 1996, pp. 384–385
  3. ^ Carpenter 2023, #107 to Sir Stanley Unwin, 7 December 1946
  4. ^ Carpenter 2023, #181 to Michael Straight, January or February 1956
  5. ^ Carpenter 2023, #131 to Milton Waldman, late 1951
  6. ^ Carpenter 2023, #144 to Naomi Mitchison, 25 April 1954
  7. ^ Tolkien 1954a, Foreword to the Second Edition

Secondary

  1. ^ a b Kreeft, Peter J. (November 2005). "The Presence of Christ in The Lord of the Rings". Ignatius Insight.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1
    .
  3. ^ His name is taken from the Slavic god Radegast.Orr, Robert (1994). "Some Slavic Echos in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth". Germano-Slavica. 8 (2): 23–34.
  4. ^ a b Duriez, Colin (1992). The J.R.R. Tolkien Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide to His Life, Writings, and World of Middle-earth. Baker Book House. p. 290.
  5. ISBN 978-0954320706
    .
  6. ISBN 978-0-00-725066-0
    .
  7. ISBN 0-8020-3806-9
    .
  8. JSTOR 43308562
    .
  9. ISBN 0-87548-303-8
    .
  10. ISBN 978-0-415-86511-1
    .
  11. ISBN 978-0415289443
    .
  12. ISBN 978-1-61147-065-9
    .
  13. ^ Schultz, Forrest W. (1 December 2002). "Christian Typologies in The Lord of the Rings". Chalcedon. Retrieved 26 March 2020.
  14. ^ Clark Hall, J. R. (2002) [1894]. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (4th ed.). University of Toronto Press. p. 300.
  15. ^ Birns, Nicholas (2007). "The Enigma of Radagast: Revision, Melodrama, and Depth". Mythlore. 26 (1): 113–126.
  16. ^
    ISBN 978-0-547-89930-5
    .
  17. ^ Orr, Robert (1994). "Some Slavic Echos in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth". Germano-Slavica. 8: 23–34.
  18. ISBN 978-0-415-96942-0
    .
  19. ^
    ISBN 978-0-313-30845-1
    .
  20. ISBN 978-0-544-10656-7
    .
  21. ^ Senior, William (1992). "Donaldson and Tolkien". Mythlore. 18 (4). article 6.
  22. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7528-5770-1
    .
  23. ^
    ISBN 978-1403-91263-3
    .
  24. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7864-8473-7
    .
  25. ISBN 978-0-7864-8473-7
    .
  26. ^ Dockterman, Eliana (14 October 2022). "There's a Deeper Meaning Behind Wizards in 'The Rings of Power'". Time. Retrieved 15 October 2022.

Sources

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