Istari Maiar:

The Legends of Istari

Posted by Kreep on Saturday August 26, @06:59PM

Only for the Tolkien Fans!!

Many questions can be asked about the Istari or the Wizards as we like to call them in our own tongue and many answers can be given. Some might be closer to truth than others but that they were send to Middle-Earth as emissaries from Valinor to aid the people in the was against evil can not be doubted but why it was those five it ended up with and who who chose them is quite interesting and some answers can be given.

Istari Maiar: Gandalf Saruman Radagast Pallando Alatar

Gandalf

In Valinor, Gandalf's name was Olorin. Wisest of the Maiar, his home was in Irmo's Lorien. He also often went to the house of Nienna and from her learned pity and patience. He loved the elves and walked unseen among them or in the same form. Thus they did not know that he was the source of fair visions and wise promptings that he put into their hearts.

Later, he was the friend of all the Children of Iluvatar, pitying their sorrows. If they listened to him, they lost their despair and the dark imaginations that come of it.

He was chosen to be one of the Istari sent to Arda as representatives of the Valar to counter Melkor's influence through Sauron. Instead of acting directly, they were to train the Children of Iluvatar to think and fight evil for themselves - to grow up. In order to do this, much power and many memories had to be removed from the Istari. Also, they took on the forms of old men as suited counselors and investigators, rather than active heroes.

He gave the Elessar jewel from Yavanna to Galadriel to give to Aragorn, as a token that the Children of Iluvatar had not been forgotten by the Valar, and would be given aid.

He watched for the doings of Sauron who would and did come again. He found the One Ring as it tried to make its way back to Sauron, but had been intercepted by hobbits with the aid of the Valar. He aided the forming of the Fellowship to have the One Ring destroyed rather than used, and did very much to see to that end.

He did have to fight the balrog of Moria, as should not have happened to a Counselor. He defeated the balrog but his form of Gandalf the Grey died, returning to Valinor. The Valar returned him as Gandalf the White, with greater power for the escalated battle they knew would come, and he the only Istari left.

As were other wizards, he was quick to anger. But his anger was mild, gentled by understanding and humor. He had the pity and patience learned from Nienna. He was humble and therefore able to care about even the people considered lesser, such as the hobbit people, which developed into his most important contact.

--References: Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales Image of Gandalf flying from the Tower of Orthanc on the back of Gwaihir Saruman

Saruman the Wise, Curun’r, eldest and first to be chosen of the Istari. The friend of men, the most clever and subtle with the tongue and the art of craft. It was he who wandered east, and to him Beren the Steward entrusted the keeping of Orthanc and the Ring of Isengard. This is where Saruman settled and began his abode.

It was when the shadow of Sauron was perceived to be returning that the White Council was created. At its head was Saruman, for his knowledge in the arts of the enemy, although this choice was against the wish of Galadriel, who chose Gandalf.

Saruman took then a great interest in the Rings of Power and their lore. At the Council where it was discovered that the shadow in Dol Guldur was indeed Sauron, he bade them wait and not make rash decisions. It was his belief, or the impression that he put forth, that the One Ring had been lost forever, and that it had made its way to the sea. It was most likely that Saruman fell at this time, brooding too long in the designs of the enemy and the desire for the Ring, and becoming ensnared by it.

He made Isengard strong, and gathered a great army of spies of many kinds, unwittingly helped by Radagast. However, another Council was called, and Saruman was forced to give up his search for a while, and debate with the others the matter of the ring, and in this he left out much that he knew.

It was Gandalf's plan that Sauron should be forced from Mirkwood, and to this Saruman agreed. Saruman had delayed them too long however, for Sauron fled to Mordor, which he had already prepared for himself, and Barad-D’r became strong again.

Saruman withdrew to Isengard again, and knew not that the Ring had been found again, and that Gandalf knew of this. However the armies were already gathering, and now in Isengard, as well in Mordor, orcs were once again multiplying. Saruman now greatly wanted the Ring for himself, and in his haste he tried to convince Gandalf to join him, and in this way revealed his treachery.

However, Saruman in his anger, struck too soon, and emptied Isengard against Rohan, when a force that Saruman had long forgotten turned against him. It was the Ents, and they had become strong again, and they laid Isengard bare, with Saruman as witness. There Saruman had to sit out the War, until the Ring was destroyed and Sauron vanquished. Saruman only had one power left: the power of his voice. With this he tricked Treebeard into letting him go.

From greatness he fell, and a beggar he became, wandering the Western Lands of Middle-Earth.

He was killed at last by his servant, Wormtongue, in the very heart of the Shire.

References - Silmarillion, Lord of the Rings Image of Gandalf the White breaking the staff of Saruman at the Tower of Orthanc while Grima starts to throw the Palantir, drawn by Carl Lundgren, from the Rolozo Tolkien page. Radagast

Aiwendil bird-lover, best known as Radagast, ad’naic for 'tender of beasts', the brown, one of the five Istari sent to Middle-Earth to contest the power of Sauron. He was a maia of Valinor, and before the time of the mission, nothing is said of him. In the council of the Powers that was to decide which ainu were going to be sent in aid of the free peoples, three were chosen: Curomo, Alatar and Olorin (Gandalf). But two were later added; Aiwendil was one of these, taken by Curumo at the request of Yavanna.

After his Arrival to Endor in 1000 TA, Radagast was wandering Middle Earth, developing relationships with its lower creatures, the animals. He gained wisdom in his own way during this period, through reading the growth and memories of the plants and beasts. He settled in Rhosgobel, said to be by Greenwood the Great, later Mirkwood, on the east shore of the Anduin and between the Carrock and the Old Forest Road.

As an Istari he bore the image of an old man, aging very slowly, and always wore a brown cloth and tunic.

Mostly interested in the creations of Yavanna, he did not succeed in his mission. Radagast failed in the Quest the Valar assigned the Wise, but not like Saruman, since it would be more correct to think that he didn't care for the events of the free peoples. He had little part in the War of the Ring, and unwittingly helped Saruman capture Gandalf at Orthanc, but later provided support by sending the eagles to the aid of Gandalf, and also, some suspect, in the last Battle of the Morannon.

In the council of Elrond, Gandalf describes him as "...a worthy wizard, a master of shapes and changes of hue; and he has much lore of herbs and beasts, and birds especially are his friends." He then affirms the wizard's loyalty with another statement:

" 'At first I feared, as Saruman no doubt intended, that Radagast had also fallen. Yet I caught no hint of anything wrong in his voice or his eye at our meeting. If I had, I should never have gone to Isengard, or I should have gone more warily. So Saruman guessed, and he had concealed his mind and deceived his messenger. It would have been useless to try and win over the honest Radagast to treachery. He sought me in good faith and so persuaded me.' "

Many conjectures state that he could have been allowed back to Valinor with time, or that he simply fell in love with Middle-Earth, becoming a mysterious character, as Tom Bombadil.

Pallando and Alatar

Alatar was a maia of Valinor, his name meaning "after-comer" (last to be chosen to be an Istar) which could suggest he was renamed as a title (a note on this is that he had no other name in Endor, see below), designed by the Valar to travel to Endor (Middle-Earth) as one of the three Istari (wizards, lit. "knowers"), whose mission was to aid the free peoples against the rising evil of Sauron. They were to be invested as kind old men and give advice to the peoples, not take direct action against the evil lords, as those who abided in Middle-Earth were left to their own destiny.

But the original three of the Istari (Curumo, Olorin and Alatar) became five, as Aiwendil (Radagast) was added by Yavanna, and taken as a companion by Curumo, and Alatar took Pallando 'as a friend'.

Upon his arrival to Middle-Earth, around 1000 TA, Pallando and himself were dressed in sea-blue, which gained them the title of Ithrin Luin, the Blue Wizards. They went together to the far east and south to aid the remaining peoples of the King's men of Numenor as the Haradrim and easterlings. Saruman went with them at first but he then came back to the west alone. About their fate J.R.R. Tolkien tells us:

'I think they [the blue wizards] went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of N“men”rean range: missionaries to enemy-occupied lands, as it were. What success they had I do not know; but I fear that they failed, as Saruman did, though doubtless in different ways; and I suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and "magic" traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron.' --Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien