#saruman

[erikag59]

[farewell-wanderlust7]

i just had a crazy thought about Chant from Hadestown but it’s LoTR. with a lot of the character dynamics changed. so Gandalf/Olórin is Orpheus, and tbh the whole of Middle-earth is kind of Eurydice, but for the sake of characters then that role is filled by Frodo, who is basically living in hell under the influence of the Ring and relying on Gandalf’s plan. obviously they’re not romantically involved.

then Hades is Sauron and Persephone is Saruman (tbh these two could be lovers if you really wanted them to be), and all their parts in Chant is Sauron manipulating Saruman to stay on his side, attempting to crush the doubts he’s having about their schemes (‘it ain’t right and it ain’t natural!//lover, everything i do, i do it for the love of you…).

the ensemble are kind of just everyone else. ‘low, keep your head, keep your head low’ would really work for like Galadriel and her lot, Elrond and his lot, basically everyone aware of the world and what’s going on, just trying to keep their people afloat. ‘oh, you gotta keep your head low//if you wanna keep your head’

now who Hermes is i’m not really sure, lwk it could just be Eru or Manwë or something lmao. a vague narrator who could work as mentor figure to Gandalf, so most likely Manwë, or even Eönwë.

i just particularly love the idea of Fro-ydice and that one part where Her-nwë goes ‘Eurydice was a hungry young girl//she was no stranger to the wind’ and obviously this doesn’t really work bc Frodo lived a life of total comfort before the quest, but i thought it could mean that he was very eager to listen to what Uncle Bilbo had to say about the big wide world, and thus considered himself quite educated on worldly matters of monsters and magic. and then he goes ‘but she had not seen nothing//like the mighty storm she got caught in’ and it obviously means that this is new territory for Frodo– the world is NOT like Uncle Bilbo’s stories. it’s much darker and more horrific than Bilbo made it out to be.

ofc i’m thinking of this like an animatic, so for the ‘mighty storm’ part i’m imagining Frodo trapped in some kind of Ring-induced nightmare. being Bilbo’s nephew, Frodo is going to be quite aware of Sauron’s previous escapades (meaning the people he’s hurt. Maedhros, Gorlim, Maëglin, Finrod, Celebrimbor, Pharazôn+Míriel, Gil-galad, Elendil+Isildur, hell even Gollum), and that all these people had two things in common; horrible fates, and the misfortune (or ‘mighty storm’) of Sauron’s attention fixed upon them. they were all caught in this Great Eye, employed into his schemes. Frodo considers himself to be the next one of this long line of misfortunate people, and has a nightmare about all their dooms (or just their suffering if Sauron wasn’t directly responsible for their ultimate fates), seeing visions of these dead and mutilated people. hence him crying out desperately ‘shelter us!//harbour me!’ because he’s just trapped in his head with this unrelenting thing, and nobody really knows how to help him.

uhh anyway yeah Frodo trauma is my favourite thing

[anothercrankyblogger]

I've been thinking about that bit in Fellowship of The Ring, the one where Saruman is up on top of Orthanc conjuring the thunderstorm on the mountain, the wind blowing, the sky dark gray.

It must have felt fucking great up there.

[peppermintquartz]

Recasting LotR is pretty impossible honestly. The new cast will have to be just as good as the original, the same charm and sincerity and mischief and loyalty. And Gandalf will need to have big naturals, and Saruman has to have artificial orbs.

[kiwizsstuff]

Thinking about orcs and evil creatures that are not warriors but still have odd jobs that help the Evil Takeover cause. They can’t source vegetables from the elves or men or hobbits so Saruman is contemplating with the eye but has to take a break to sign off on the new cabbage shipment to make soup for the new recruits

[straberry-frog]

According to some fan versions Sauron and Saruman one day were brothers.

The moment of their birth guess who is Marion here

[ashley-slashley]

worms?

Grima Wormtongue is a chain-smoker and buys useless shit from the Dwarf Shopping Network on The Orb, and it pisses off Saruman. Also Grima buys shitty bootleg movies off the Corsairs and forces Saruman and their Uruk-hai roommate to watch them. The tower of Orthanc has a bunch of useless shit, empty cigarette boxes, and cigarette butts all over the place. The blackness of Orthanc hides the tobacco stains that's embedded in every single surface of Orthanc

[wisesnail]

Quick video of a pencil portrait studio I made today as a warm up - the incredible Christopher Lee as Saruman ✨