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Saruman.
#1
This evil wizard in LOTR's is played by the brilliant Christopher Lee. Don't think anyone else could have played him so well. He has those eyes and that voice that just sends chills through you.



The Lord of the Rings

Saruman first appears in The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), which is the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings describes a quest to destroy the One Ring, a powerful and evil talisman created by the Dark Lord Sauron to control Middle-earth (the fictional continent on which Tolkien's story takes place). Sauron lost the Ring in battle thousands of years before the beginning of the story, and it is now held in secret in the Shire by the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, who passes it on to Frodo Baggins, one of the story's main protagonists. Early in The Fellowship of the Ring, the wizard Gandalf describes Saruman as "the chief of my order"[2] and head of the White Council that forced Sauron from Mirkwood at the end of Tolkien's earlier book The Hobbit. He notes Saruman's great knowledge of the magic rings created by Sauron and by the Elven-smiths. Shortly afterwards, Gandalf breaks an arrangement to meet Frodo, whom he has sent to take the Ring out of the Shire to keep it safe from Sauron's agents.

After Frodo and Gandalf are reunited at Rivendell midway through The Fellowship of the Ring, the wizard explains why he failed to join Frodo: he had been summoned to consult with Saruman, who proposed that the wizards ally themselves with the rising power of Sauron in order to eventually control him for their own ends. Saruman went on to suggest that they could take the Ring for themselves and challenge Sauron. When Gandalf refused both options, Saruman imprisoned him in the tower of Orthanc at Isengard, hoping to learn from him the location of the Ring. Gandalf observed that Saruman had industrialised the formerly green valley of Isengard and was creating his own army of Orcs and wolves to rival Sauron.[3]

In The Two Towers (1954), the second volume of the story, Saruman is the main antagonist. Orcs from Saruman's army in search of the Ring attack Frodo and his companions. Following Saruman's orders to capture hobbits, they carry off two of Frodo's closest friends, Merry and Pippin. The two escape into Fangorn Forest, where they meet the Ents, protectors of the trees, who are outraged at the widespread felling of trees by Saruman's orcs.[4] Meanwhile, Saruman's army has invaded the land of Rohan, with the effect of preventing the Riders of Rohan from joining the fight against Sauron. Having betrayed Sauron by attempting unsuccessfully to seize the Ring for himself, Saruman is ruined when the Riders of Rohan defeat his army and Merry and Pippin prompt the Ents to destroy Isengard. Saruman himself is not directly involved, and only appears again in chapter 10, "The Voice of Saruman", by which time he is trapped in Orthanc. He fails in his attempt to negotiate with the Rohirrim and with Gandalf, and rejects Gandalf's conditional offer to let him go free. Gandalf casts him out of the White Council and the order of the wizards, and breaks Saruman's staff.[5]

Saruman makes his final appearance at the end of the last volume, The Return of the King (1955), after Sauron's defeat. After persuading the Ents to release him from Orthanc, he travels north on foot, apparently reduced to begging. He is accompanied by his servant Gríma Wormtongue, whom he beats and curses.[6] When they reach the Shire, Saruman's agents—both Hobbits and Men—have already taken it over and started a destructive process of modernization. Saruman governs the Shire in secret under the name of Sharkey until the events of chapter 8 ("The Scouring of the Shire") in which Frodo and his companions return and lead a rebellion, defeating the intruders and exposing Saruman's role. He tries to kill Frodo, who subdues him and allows him to leave. As he turns to leave, he mocks the long-suffering Wormtongue who attacks him and cuts his throat before being felled by Hobbit arrows.
Love many, trust few, paddle your own waka.
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