The Mortality of Wizards

Gordy N. Knott

New Member
This question is a bit silly, but it has been fun for me to think through lately. Consider these words of Saruman: “. . . our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule.” I wonder if another possible reading is that wizards must rule because they are, in a sense, men as well, though the greatest of men? It’s not right to say that their mortal bodies have “corrupted” the wizards, but perhaps over the centuries they have been changed by living in mortal bodies, feeling the weight of the passing years. Mortality has distracted them over time, leading to the arguable failure of so many of the wizards. Could “wizard” no longer signify what they are as much as what they do? Has wizard become more of a job description than a statement of their essence? To Saruman, as the greatest of men it is in fact his duty to rule the coming age just as Numenoreans naturally ruled the men of Middle-earth after they washed ashore.
 
I don't doubt that you are correct and that being incarnate has altered their worldview considerably. I do imagine they feel time differently than a non-incarnate; but I have to think that the reason Saruman wanted to rule the world of Men was because it was obvious to everyone (and probably to a Maiar even more so) that the Elves were waning and Men were waxing.

If the situation had been different and, say, Dwarves were becoming dominant, I'm quite certain Saruman would have wanted to rule the emerging Age of the Khazad in the same way, but he would have had to use different methods.
 
I like this reading Gordy. It's subtle, but "our time is at hand: the world of Men, which we must rule" does have a feeling of Men being ruled from within, not by an outside force. Sandwiching "Men" between the pronouns "our" and "we" implies at least the partial membership of "us" within the group "Men".
 
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