Blue Wizard Idea

[Pringolfin]

I have a new thought on the blue wizards.

From what I've read, Tolkien set out to not only create a world around his created languages and give them a common origin, but also to give a heroic/mythological/pagan/christian/bla bla bla background to his homeland's history, and I think he's got everything covered with:  The Valar=the greek/roman gods, the Noldor rebelling=paradise lost, the destruction of Numenor=the great flood..........  You get the point.

Soooooooooooo, after stewing over all of this material for the past 20 years, I have come to a new conclusion about the role of the other two Istari that don't come into the stories. 

I think, and I can't wait for support and criticism, but I think they are analogous with people such as Christ, Buddha, Mohammad, Confusius, etc....

Think about it:  They went into the "EAST" and never returned.  Tolkien stated something along the lines that they went to foil the ways of the Enemy, to stop the spread of his evil ways and the uniting of those people into one "anti-light" force.  They went to teach, and they were forgotten.

Maybe this is a metaphor for Tolkien who saw his Christian world at a loss for explanation as he sat in a bunker, waiting to be shelled by unseen enemies.

I don't know....it's a topic I'd love to explore with any or many and maybe come up with an answer. 

I hate to write 2 guys off who could be as true or truer than Gandalf, or as untrue as Saruman.

Please let me know what you think.

[LOTRfan1414]

Yea, I agree, I've always wanted to know what happened two the other two Istari.

[Beren One-Hand]

Very good idea.  I believe Tolkien said at one point that his Middle Earth was not to be an allegory, per se.  That is to say that one thing or person is an exact symbolic representation of something in real life or in human history.  However, it does not mean that certain themes could not exist.  The obscurity of the Blue Wizards, and what might have happened to them has always intrigued me. 

Although, if I were to take the idea of a "Christ figure" in the LOTR's, which would go into an allegorical interpretation of the LOTR's, I wouldn't say that there would be one single character that epidemizes an allegorical type Christ.  There are several "Christ" characters in the LOTR's - Gandalf, Frodo and Aragorn could all in similar and different ways be Christ figures, which makes the LOTR's anti-allegorical.   

And as for Mohammed, Buddha and Confusius (and others), these men did not simply disappear into obscurity - their influences have spanned many centuries, and even in the thousands of years.

The Blue Wizards could have been martyrs for the cause of good, or maybe they themselves were deceived and corrupted.  Nonetheless, their mission - chances to really make an impact, would have been much more difficult than that of the other wizards.  Sauron had always had a strong hold on the Easterlings and the Haradrim.  And the Black Numenoreans attest to this as well.  The Black Numenoreans were those of Numenor who were corrupted by Sauron and intermixed with the people of the South/East.  Not to mention that among the Nine, were several prominent Numenoreans.

I'd like to hear your reply.  This has probably been one of the more engaging discussions of all of the forums on this web-page.

Beren One-Hand

[Pringolfin]

Sorry, I'm new at this, so please excuse the delay in response, and please note that I've been sipping a little too much vodka/cranberry/diet cokes (traditional drink of Arnor) while tending to my wife's massagatory? needs.....

Thanks so much for your response, and thanks for the understanding of my question.

First off, I agree that there is no one Christ figure etc... 

When the movies came out, one of my friends that was turned onto JRRT by me was telling me about his pastor comparing Frodo to Christ bla bla bla, and (funnily enough) another one of my Catholic friends was telling me about HIS pastor comparing Gandalf to Christ....

All that aside, and all Tolkien's personal notes on his world aside, I believe the history of Arda is a more-perfect version of history,faith, myth, and nature pulled into on big story that IF we could take it back 10,000 years  and start preaching it's word, the world today would most-likely be a long way ahead of the pettiness that pervades society, culture, and modern religious differences today.

So after reading the stories over and over, I definitely get pissed about the total disregard of the facts that the movies bleed, but I also get pissed about the complete rejection of Christopher Tolkien, though I tend to side with him.

My problem is that I'm genuinely afraid that since I can never sit down with Tolkien and ever ask him all the billions of questions swimming around my mind, what am I going to do when NO ONE is the authority anymore, and everything is complete speculation???

The answer is that I'm simply going to read on and dream.  And as I dream about the un-answered questions, like "what did Annuminas look like?", I'm just going to have to accept the fact that this is now in my/our hands, and that's nothing better than the history books and accepted-religious books of all the faiths today.

So.......about the Blue Wizards, I think that when you look at the world according to the most recent writings, which would be (I'm guessing) the Simarillion, Lost Tales, and The Appendices, we're still talking about a world that was definitely B.C. or at best Arthurian contemporary, everything in the books covers all those allegories, ties them all together, and leaves enough room for not-necessarily interpretation, but more likely regional variation.  And I'm thinking that with the crowning of Aragorn, in comparison to all this stuff, we're talking about the end of the legends BEFORE men really wrote things down, and instead the deeds were recorded and kept alive by Homer-like story telling, but THEN,  the way had been paved for Phase 2 in the Istari Mission.

I won't pretend to be a Bible scholar, or a religious historian, so my "facts" are weakly supported and pretty vague, which is why I'm here.  BUT I think you can safely take the Blue Wizards' "Early Career" as part of their learning, when they went, figured everyone was falling from Grace fast, so they simply helped to keep those fallen from forming one big Sauron Support Force.  Then once it was realized by the common man that all his/her divisions from everyone else were derived from a false sense of competition, jealosy, and hatred for his fellow man came from the deceptions of the enemy, there was a period of enlightenment that came (in our history) before the rennaissance, where the Jesus, Buddha, bla bla bla's of the world sewed the seeds of Arda Unmarred.

I don't think we'll ever be able to pinpoint who did what, but I bet we can definitely give these guys credit instead of taking it away from them by stating they fell the way of  the Saruman bird.  I think Saruman probably tried to "do these guys in" like he did Gandalf for not joining in his plans for conquest, but in the end, they escaped the eyes of the enemy by leading humble lives and fulfilling their mission beyond the nearsighted victories of the dark forces.  Like true missionaries, they worked with the humble and ignorant, and helped them see the world as it was before it was deceived by the Devil/Mogorth.

This brings up MANY more links between this and the "dark past of men that they will not speak of"... 

I'm talking in circles now, but please throw me some questions that I might do some soul-searching and research to help me find the truth.

Thanks again,
Pringolfin

[Beren One-Hand]

This is some good dialogue.  Sorry to take awhile to respond.  I have been more engaged in the "Debate Society."  Some decent discussions, you should check them out sometime.  However, I have been craving for more actual Tolkien dialogue.  Where's Gil Galad these days? 

What you said about Christopher Tolkien eventually passing and how many more questions that that will bring is true.  But as has already happened years ago, with the passing of J.R.R., the eventual passing of Christopher will definitely bring more questions and will further Tolkien's legacy.  The mystery of Middle-Earth will also remain, and more will be open to speculation.

I would like to give the Blue Wizards credit, initially, when they first set out to go to the Harad, but by the time of the LOTR's, there is only one wizard that matters at all - Gandalf.  Even Radagast falls off along the way (not that he turned evil).  And I would say that the Blue Wizards, with all the mystery and intrigue surrounding them, were probably corrupted by Sauron in the end.  They might, as you have said, been martyred for the cause of good, too.  However, the fact that we don't hear of them leaves them in the realm of obscurity and mystery.

Maybe, Tolkien wanted his readers to decide for themselves, what happened to the Blue Wizards - kind of like those childhood books: "Choose Your Own adventure."

[zygis1]

I"m just curious. When the Fourth Age started did radagast ever leave middle earth?

[Beren One-Hand]

As far as I know he did not leave.  It seems as though he kind of disappeared and passed out knowledge, probably wondering about in the woods, being passionate about nature and animals.

[zygis1]

Ok, thanks

[Beren One-Hand]

You know, Radagast always and still intrigues me, being one of the Istari.  However, in the end, he turns out to be quite the disappointment.  He kind of "chokes" in the clutch.

[zygis1]

The things that I am most interested about is the istari except (gandalf and saruman), It's seems like tolkien just forgot about them...

[Beren One-Hand]

Who knows, maybe if Tolkien had had more time, he might have developed their characters more.  Christopher Tolkien said that his father wanted to develop several of the epics within the Silmarillion into more full and expanded stories - one of which is the partially completed "The Children of Hurin."  The others were "The Fall of Gondolin" and "Of Beren and Luthien" (my personal favorite from the Silmarillion).

Nonetheless, all of the Istari, except Gandalf, essentially failed in their ultimate purpose.