Saruman Lord of the Rings: Who He Is and Who Plays Him

Saruman is the wizard who rules Isengard and, by the time of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, has sided with the Dark Lord Sauron. Christopher Lee plays him in fellowship of the ring (2001) and the two towers (2002), both directed by Peter Jackson, where he is billed seventh and twelfth respectively, credited as Saruman.

The title "the White" causes confusion, because Gandalf becomes Gandalf the White in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, after he returns from death in a new form. Saruman the White is the fuller form of his own name, but the two wizards are different characters with different loyalties, and gandalf is the one Saruman holds prisoner.

In Tolkien's books, wizards of this kind are called the Istari, and they arrive in Middle-earth as emissaries of the Valar, the godlike powers who shaped the world. Saruman is the leader of that order, which is why his turn to Sauron carries so much weight. In the films, his influence in Rohan works through Gríma (often written Grima without the accent), the adviser who stands beside King Théoden.

Saruman and Sauron are also separate figures. Sauron forged the One Ring and is the Dark Lord of Mordor, while Saruman is a wizard who works for him and commands his own army of Uruk-hai from Isengard. If you want the other half of that pairing, the profile of sauron lord of the rings covers him. For the wider ensemble, see the lord of the rings characters index.

Saruman's relationships define him more than any single scene, and the main ones are with Sauron, Gandalf, Gríma and the Uruk-hai. With Sauron the relationship is one of allegiance: the films state that he has sided with the Dark Lord. The difference in power is plain, since Sauron is the one who made the Ring and Saruman is the one who sends armies in his cause.

With Gandalf the relationship is a reversal. In The Battle of the Five Armies, Saruman helps free Gandalf from Dol Guldur, and by The Fellowship of the Ring he is the one holding Gandalf prisoner. Gandalf later returns as Gandalf the White and is the person who breaks the hold Saruman has over Théoden.

Gríma, the adviser to King Théoden, is the human face of Saruman's influence in Rohan. In The Two Towers, Théoden is under the spell of both men, and it is Gandalf who frees him. The Uruk-hai are Saruman's own soldiers: they kill and capture in The Fellowship of the Ring, and they make up the army sent against Helm's Deep.

The enemies he makes at the end are the Ents. Merry and Pippin befriend the Ent Treebeard, and the Ents' march on Isengard is what traps him. Across the long gap in time, Saruman also meets the Rohirrim twice, as the neighbor who offers friendship to Fréaláf in The War of the Rohirrim and as the enemy at Helm's Deep, the fortress that takes its name from Helm in that film's ending. For the full cast around him, see the lord of the rings cast page.

In my opinion, Saruman's best moments are the ones where the films show what he can do without needing him on screen. The first is the Uruk-hai attack in The Fellowship of the Ring, where Boromir dies defending Merry and Pippin. It is an act of Saruman's will carried out by soldiers, and it breaks the Fellowship apart in a single sequence.

The second is Helm's Deep in The Two Towers. It could be argued that this is the most complete picture of his power, because it combines the huge Uruk-hai army, the heavy losses among the defenders and the long night before Gandalf arrives with Éomer and the Rohirrim at dawn. As a set piece, it also shows how much of the second film depends on Saruman, even though Christopher Lee is billed twelfth there.

The third is the flooding of Isengard, which pays off the Ents' slow decision to join the war. Perhaps the quiet irony is that the wizard behind the destruction of a forest is undone by the forest's own guardians.

The fourth is the one most people overlook: his appearance in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, where he stands alongside Galadriel and Elrond against Sauron. Watched in release order, the Hobbit trilogy arrives after the Lord of the Rings films, so, in my reading, it shows a character you already know as a villain acting as an ally. That being said, it is a short scene, and it works mainly because of what the earlier trilogy has taught you about him.