Why Did Saruman Want the One Ring for Himself?

Q: Why Did Saruman Want the One Ring for Himself?

ANSWER: Saruman never came near the One Ring. He therefore could not be tempted by it like Gandalf, Aragorn, Bombadil, Galadriel, and even Samwise Gamgee were tempted. So why did he want the One Ring? What seduced Saruman to “turn to the dark side”, as Star Wars might put it?

I believe J.R.R. Tolkien provided a thoughtful answer in a few brief passages, two of them in The Lord of the Rings itself. For example, when Frodo offered the Ring to Galadriel she said:

…In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!

That was the vision the Ring showed her, although it was surely a false promise only designed to trick Galadriel into carrying the Ring back to Sauron (or at least to reveal its location to him). Sam’s temptation was to become the greatest of all gardeners, healing Middle-earth and making it beautiful. All he had to do — like Galadriel — was claim it for himself.

In a margin note published in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, Tolkien wrote of Saruman:

Indeed, of all the Istari, one only remained faithful, and he was the last-comer. For Radagast, the fourth, became enamoured of the many beasts and birds that dwelt in Middle-earth, and forsook Elves and Men, and spent his days among the wild creatures. Thus he got his name (which is in the tongue of Númenor of old, and signifies, it is said, “tender of beasts”). And Curunír ‘Lân, Saruman the White, fell from his high errand, and becoming proud and impatient and enamoured of power sought to have his own will by force, and to oust Sauron; but he was ensnared by that dark spirit, mightier than he.

In another note also published in that book, Tolkien wrote:

An unplaced marginal note observes that Saruman’s integrity “had been undermined by purely personal pride and lust for the domination of his own will. His study of the Rings had caused this, for his pride believed that he could use them, or It, in defiance of any other will. He, having lost any devotion to other persons or causes, was open to the domination of a superior will, to its threats, and to its display of power.” And moreover he had himself no right to the Orthanc-stone.

Also, in Letter No. 181 Tolkien wrote:

There is no ’embodiment’ of the Creator anywhere in this story or mythology. Gandalf is a ‘created’ person; though possibly a spirit that existed before in the physical world. His function as a ‘wizard’ is an angelos or messenger from the Valar or Rulers: to assist the rational creatures of Middle-earth to resist Sauron, a power too great for them unaided. But since in the view of this tale & mythology Power – when it dominates or seeks to dominate other wills and minds (except by the assent of their reason) – is evil, these ‘wizards’ were incarnated in the life-forms of Middle-earth, and so suffered the pains both of mind and body. They were also, for the same reason, thus involved in the peril of the incarnate: the possibility of ‘fall’, of sin, if you will. The chief form this would take with them would be impatience, leading to the desire to force others to their own good ends, and so inevitably at last to mere desire to make their own wills effective by any means. To this evil Saruman succumbed. Gandalf did not. But the situation became so much the worse by the fall of Saruman, that the ‘good’ were obliged to greater effort and sacrifice….

Finally, in another letter (No. 131) Tolkien also said:

…And there is Sauron. In the Silmarillion and Tales of the First Age Sauron was a being of Valinor perverted to the service of the Enemy and becoming his chief captain and servant. He repents in fear when the First Enemy is utterly defeated, but in the end does not do as was commanded, return to the judgement of the gods. He lingers in Middle-earth. Very slowly, beginning with fair motives: the reorganising and rehabilitation of the ruin of Middle-earth, ‘neglected by the gods’, he becomes a reincarnation of Evil, and a thing lusting for Complete Power – and so consumed ever more fiercely with hate (especially of gods and Elves)….

All of this seems to point toward similar causes for “falls” among the Maiar and other powerful beings: the desire to do good, reshaped by impatience — or perhaps a lack of appreciation for the wisdom of the Valar. Saruman’s lust for the One Ring was not inspired by the Ring itself but rather by his own impatience (apparently due to or enhanced by his taking an incarnate form for an extended period of time). He wanted to set things right and eventually came to the conclusion that he could do so through his own power, which naturally would be enhanced by an artifact like the One Ring.

To use Sauron’s own power against him, to set things right again in Middle-earth, might seem just and honorable to someone who has lost perspective in an age-long war against the evil arising from Sauron’s creation of the Ring. Sauron himself used the Elves’ desire to heal the hurts of Middle-earth to deceive them into making the Rings of Power. The greatest temptation faced by all in these stories, it would seem, is to do right by setting things straight — by circumventing the natural laws and the wills of other beings. Saruman should have known better. I’m sure that in Tolkien’s view Saruman did know better, thus making his fall all the worse.

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