Q: Could Saruman Have Reincarnated Himself the Way Sauron Did?
ANSWER: In June 2018 a long-time reader submitted the following question:
In one of your recent posts, you wrote that the Ring allowed Sauron to bind himself to Middle-Earth and to reincarnate himself.
If I understand you correctly, then Maia have the ability to invest themselves in Middle-Earth which then enables reincarnation.
Does Saruman have a similar option? He made a Ring of Power on his own after all and that Ring is probably independent of Saruon, right?
Also, wouldn’t that Ring still have immense power despite Sauron’s death? Nothing mentioned on it after the Scouring of the Shire…
Gandalf, on the other hand, could only be reincarnated with the help of Illuvatar, right? Or could he simply gather enough power to materialize another body after enough time?
Reincarnation is a treacherous topic. Everyone has an opinion on it. Many people freely intermix older texts with newer texts, thus clouding what little clarity Tolkien himself provided on the subject. In terms of Ainurian self-incarnation the basic rules seemed to be:
- Any of the Ainur could take an incarnate form of their own desire; they could disincarnate at will.
- Some of the Ainur became so weak (of will) they could no longer disincarnate.
- If slain, an Ainu would be unable to re-incarnate (for a very long time) because of the disorientation their subsequent intense feelings of loss and anger would create. They would be incapable of focusing their thoughts sufficiently to reincarnate themselves.
- Melkor weakened himself by diffusing his native strength throughout Arda, but Tolkien waffled on whether Melkor might one day be able to take shape again. People who cite the Second Prophecy of Mandos don’t understand that Tolkien abandoned the idea.
- Sauron anchored himself by placing most of his native strength in the One Ring. Hence, the Ring gave him the ability to recover from death on two occasions.
Where the Istari are concerned, opinions are divided on whether they had lost or given up the ability to disincarnate themselves while dwelling in Middle-earth. We know that two of them died (Gandalf and Saruman). We know that only Gandalf returned within the context of the story and by Tolkien’s admission in Letter No. 156 (a draft of a letter for Robert Murray, written in November 1954) it was through Iluvatar’s intervention this occurred. I infer (as do many others) that Gandalf could not have been restored to life any other way.
On the other hand, Saruman’s situation was entirely different from Gandalf’s. Whereas Gandalf died in his full strength (having just defeated the Balrog of Moria), Saruman had already been diminished by the time Grima Wormtongue murdered him. The Saruman whom Frodo and his companions found living in the Shire was only a shadow of his former self. I doubt he had the power to disincarnate himself willfully (but that is entirely speculative on my part). All we know about Saruman’s spirit is that it appealed to the West and was blown away in rejection.
So what happened to Saruman’s power? I have explained elsewhere that Saruman made his own Ring of Power. He revealed as much to Gandalf when he tried to persuade Gandalf to support Sauron. That ring was apparently made according to whatever lore Saruman had acquired through his long years of study. Hence, it was subject to the One Ring itself, as were the rings made by Celebrimbor (Vilya, Nenya, and Narya). Saruman implied as much when Gandalf, Galadriel, and the others overtook him on the road in Dunland:
For a moment his eyes kindled. ‘Go!’ he said. ‘I did not spend long study on these matters for naught. You have doomed yourselves, and you know it. And it will afford me some comfort as I wander to think that you pulled down your own house when you destroyed mine. And now, what ship will bear you back across so wide a sea?’ he mocked. ‘It will be a grey ship, and full of ghosts.’ He laughed, but his voice was cracked and hideous.
The Three Rings failed when the One Ring was destroyed, just as Elrond predicted. That is what Saruman referred to when he said “you pulled down your own house when you destroyed mine”.
And so these facts of the story mean that it’s impossible to answer your question. I guess it would depend on how strong Saruman was to begin with and how much of his strength he put into his own ring. Somewhere I believe Tolkien wrote or implied that Sauron was one of the strongest, if not the strongest, of the Maiar. He was apparently stronger than Gandalf and perhaps also Saruman. In fact, given that Sauron was able to corrupt Saruman (probably through the Palantir), I think it’s fair to say that we have proof of Sauron’s superior strength. And this was Sauron without the One Ring. Imagine what he could have done to Saruman had he still possessed the One Ring.
Even if we assume that Saruman’s ring would anchor his spirit the way the One Ring anchored Sauron’s spirit, we know that repeated deaths weakened Sauron. Saruman might have needed a long time to recover had he been slain while he was wearing his ring. But if he had died before the One Ring was destroyed, I think his own ring would still have failed and he would be unable to reincarnate himself ever again.
Hence, for Saruman there was probably no real chance of recovering his wits and will enough to reincarnate himself. But in theory he might have been able to do it had he died while wearing a potent ring and the One Ring never found and unmade.
That said, recall that in the movies Saruman died before the One Ring was destroyed. I’ve never understood why Peter Jackson and his team felt this was necessary. Sure, it gave a (false) sense of completion to the second movie but it’s not like that was necessary. Everyone familiar with the book knew that Saruman should die after Sauron. And we can point to several trilogies where no significant bad guys die in the second movie.
Hypothetically, movie-Saruman might have been capable of returning at some point because of his ring – but as a matter of convenience the full story was resolved long before the movies would have had to address that.
See Also …
- Did Gandalf Really Die after Killing the Balrog?
- Why Did Saruman Want the One Ring for Himself?
- What Was Saruman’s Ring?
- Was the Ring a Danger to the Valar?
- How Does Death Work in Middle-earth?
- Why Did Tolkien Leave Out the Second Prophecy of Mandos?
# # #
Have you read our other Tolkien and Middle-earth Questions and Answers articles?
My interpretation of the Istari essay – “for with the consent of Eru they sent members of their own high order, but clad in bodies of as of Men, real and not feigned, but subject to the fears and pains and weariness of earth, able to hunger and thirst and be slain” – is indeed that their ability to disincarnate was constrained as part of their mission, and that they were in fact *actually* Men, and therefore would actually leave the world upon death.
Saruman’s method of death in the Two Towers movie was merely a tribute to Christopher Lee’s Dracula character. In one of those old horror flicks, the Dracula character was cast off (or fell) from a cliff and was impaled upon the upper portion of a cross that was planted far below.
The ‘WHY’ he died in the 2nd movie was most likely due to Jackson never intending to add a 6th ending to the Return of the King with the scenes from the Scouring of the Shire.
… Although his death scene, together with the “Voice of Saruman” scene which it followed directly from, was actually in the RotK movie.
Personally I think the fall/impale part was unnecessary, and another example of PJ being as subtle as one of those Monty Python weights with “1 ton” written on them. Up to then it was fine and the key part of it – that he was killed by his former servant – was reasonably intact. It would have been fine to leave it at that.
Honestly I do not think there is an answer that explains the question, but according to what Tolkien wrote about the Valar and Maiar, there is nothing that would make it impossible for Saruman to reincarnate back. The only plausible argument would be that Saruman transferred great part of his power to a Ring or Matter (we do not know if that happened),became impotent after his defeat. While Saruman forged himself a Ring, we know nothing about it. Imo, the statement that the Ring of Saruman was subject to the One is beyond what is written in the books. Saruman’s knowledge might have come from other sources, including his Aulëan learning.
The other base is that being an Istari, clad in body of men, Saruman would be trapped unless he was killed, that death would be a trauma to his spirit, so that it would lead to a weakening of him to the point of being reduced to a bodyless state. Sauron, Dúrin’s Bane and even the Witch King may have been reduced to that state, but by logic even they could still exist as spirits haunting some forest or hill. So, In my opinion, yeah Saruman could reincarnate back, maybe not after a long time, being a Maiar of reasonable power, I do not see how he could not.