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#1 | |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Mar 2002
Posts: 314
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After reading the new theme on Saruman, I have a question concerning the following passage of The Return of the King, "The Scouring of the Shire:"
Quote:
[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: ElanorGamgee ]
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#2 |
Ghastly Neekerbreeker
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: the banks of the mighty Scioto
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Yep, Wormtongue et Lotho. No two ways around it, I'm afraid.
I heard he served him up with some fava beans and a nice "kee-yan-tee". (slurp-slurp-slurp!) |
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#3 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Apr 2002
Location: Bag-End, Under-Hill, Hobbiton-across-the Water
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BIRDIE!!!!!! That's gross!!!!
I really hope Worm didn't eat Lotho. I'm still trying to understand my feeling toward Worm. I knda like him, pity mostly. I'm still wondering wether I would have let him stay if the other Hobbits hadn't made Grima-kabobs out of him with their arrows. Hobbit-eating *shudders* *sniffle* [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]
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#4 |
Night In Wight Satin
Join Date: May 2000
Posts: 4,043
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Some people have already given their thought on this question in the Saurman Theme Topic.
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The Barrow-Wight |
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#5 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Dec 2001
Location: A place worse then Mordor........School!
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I think that is sick. But to soften the blow it really wasn't cannibalism. Since Wormtounge was a man and Lotho was a hobbit. There different speices so tecically its not canibalism.
But it's still sick. I hope Lotho was buried. Of course if Saruman hadn't wasted the Shire there might have been enough food for Wormtounge.
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#6 |
Night In Wight Satin
Join Date: May 2000
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Actually, hobbits were Men, only a different breed (like the difference between Great Danes and Dachsunds, I guess [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]) so if Wormtongue did indeed feast on poor Lotho, it would have still been categorized as cannibalism.
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#7 |
Spectre of Decay
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There's no explicit confirmation of Saruman's words, but it isn't unlikely that Gríma should do such a thing, poor debased creature that he was. My suspicion is that Saruman had been forcing him to find his own food, possibly as a punishment for throwing away the Palantír of Orthanc, and that hunger might well have driven him to eat Lotho. I suspect, however, that Wormtongue's words were a reference to the murder itself: I doubt if he would admit to the other crime before a group of armed and angry Hobbits. The point is that whatever Wormtongue had done, Saruman had forced him to it. Normally I would regard this as a pathetic excuse, but Saruman was more than capable of controlling the thoughts of one as weak-willed as Gríma even in his diminished state.
I should perhaps point out that Gríma wouldn't technically have been a cannibal even if he had eaten Lotho, since they weren't of the same species. In a moral sense, though, the line is a very fine one indeed.
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#8 | |
Night In Wight Satin
Join Date: May 2000
Posts: 4,043
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[ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: The Barrow-Wight ]
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The Barrow-Wight |
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#9 | ||
Animated Skeleton
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If you add up the parts, you can clearly see a Christian theme that is potrayed (intentional or not) - Saruman was given a chance to be forgiven but he refused and he suffered the consequences of his actions. The irony is that it wasn't one of the 'Good Guys' who finished him off, but one of his own servants and one with free-will at that. [ September 02, 2002: Message edited by: Shadowstrife911 ]
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#10 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: May 2002
Location: stronghold of the North
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However crazy it may sound but it seems to me Saruman knew quite well what he was doing while accusing Wormtongue of cannibalism, even if that wasn't true. Thus he made Wormtongue look the meanest of all creatures beyond redemption and pardon. And the cornered rat, you know, fights back most fierously.
I see this scene as Saruman's suiside. His fight was lost. He couldn't ask for mercy (was too proud for that and too used to dominating others). He wouldn't be ever accepted back to Valinor after his treachery. I don't think he was willing to spend the rest of his eternal life in M-E in the shape of an old man despised by everyone. But getting a wretched creature to kill him, or better say his body, and making all the good guys feel guilty and full of foreboding after his 'prophesy' - that was his style to get out of the situation with all his pride and wits.
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#11 | ||
Haunting Spirit
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#12 |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Australia
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I believe the "sigh" was not only literal, but figurative...a lament for lost chances, wrong turns taken on the road that goes ever on and on...
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#13 | ||
Spectre of Decay
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As for Saruman, I think his contempt for Gríma and his belief that this servant at least would always be loyal, if only through fear were so complete that the sudden attack came as a total surprise. I'm almost certain that Saruman's name for Gríma was a deliberate reference on Tolkien's part to the phrase "the worm has turned": another example of his ironic punning. Quote:
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#14 | |
Shade of Carn Dûm
Join Date: May 2002
Location: stronghold of the North
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And yet another thought. I've read that it's believed by Christians that anyone who was murdered goes straight to heaven, no matter how and why it happened. This is used as one of the arguments for banning death penalty. If I'm mistaken here please don't take offence and correct me. But to me this explains the shadowy figure was looking to the west, perhaps believing that by his death he could get a pass home.
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#15 | |
Animated Skeleton
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#16 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: May 2004
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One topic from 2002?
Thought this would be more of a thing
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#17 |
Gruesome Spectre
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I agree with the topic starter.
Saruman was showing his contempt for Wormtongue both by calling him "Worm", and by insinuating the cannibalism. Wormtongue's protest that Saruman "made him do it" referred only to the actual murder of Lotho in his sleep. Debased as Wormtongue was, I wouldn't think he was fallen enough to eat a Hobbit out of an Orcish evil, or that the food situation at Bag End was that bad.
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#18 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
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Saruman was skilled in treachery and lies. So I'm on that side more, however Grima was so ill used so corrupted such a pitiful thing a pet, that I could see him doing it. Not out of malice, just out of pure hunger and survival...
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#19 | |
Gruesome Spectre
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Granted, he'd been ordered apparently to stay out of sight and do his dirty work at night, but surely there was some sort of wretched food he could subsist on. There were the Shirrif-houses, and local Hobbit-holes and houses would have had gardens he could raid.
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#20 |
Curmudgeonly Wordwraith
Join Date: Jun 2007
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Good question. It has been noted that the appetizers known as "finger food" originated in the Shire.
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#21 | |
Laconic Loreman
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I agree that Wormtongue's confession is to the murder of Lotho, not eating him.
It is a great topic though, because it's the skill of Tolkien to leave questions like this up to the freedom of the reader. You could easily argue yes, as you could no. Putting myself in as Grima's defense attorney for a moment, the confession to the murder is undeniable. But the evidence of cannibalism is so slim there's no way he would be convicted in a court of law ![]() It's solely based on the word of a liar, and quite an effective liar as this blast from past will show. A liar trying to save his own skin and use a "mob's moral outrage" against the only victim he had left to blame. *takes off defense attorney hat* I do agree that cannibalism is as low that the poor and mean characters in the story can fall. It's a sign of complete moral depravity (as noted with Saruman's orcs getting fed "man-flesh.") There is another character that has fallen so low, there's also accusations of cannibalism: Quote:
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Fenris Penguin
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#22 | ||
Wisest of the Noldor
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![]() Not sure it's comparable to the case against Gollum, though, which I'd say is a good deal stronger- and from a skim of that thread, you and Sauce aren't so much concerned with disputing the alleged baby-eating as with pleading insanity on behalf of the accused.
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#23 | |
Emperor of the South Pole
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#24 | |
Gruesome Spectre
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Quote:
![]() That is all.
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#25 | ||
Bittersweet Symphony
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#26 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
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I would say Wormtongue at that stage was capable of cannibalism but only as a last resort, and once the murder victim disintegrates enough to be unrecognisable. I see him more as feeding on rotten stuff, being forbidden to touch Saruman's food, which would prompt the comment.
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#27 | |
Gruesome Spectre
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#28 |
Blossom of Dwimordene
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Actually, now I begin to wonder how much my interpretation was influenced by the Russian translation of his name, Rot-mouth (and Saruman calls him Rot at the end). But in any case I still imagine him feeding off inedible quality food.
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#29 | ||
Regal Dwarven Shade
Join Date: Jan 2002
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#30 |
Gruesome Spectre
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The degree of desire is not comparable, since the One Ring had a power to cause obsession beyond one's ability to resist, but it seems greed and a wanting for something he did not have (Éowyn) could indeed have put Wormtongue into a similar state as Gollum.
Bending all one's will toward "possession" has a degrading effect, regardless of the initial motives behind the want.
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#31 | |
Regal Dwarven Shade
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I primarily meant in the behavioral and physical outcome sense. Their behaviors in their degraded states had a resemblance.
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...finding a path that cannot be found, walking a road that cannot be seen, climbing a ladder that was never placed, or reading a paragraph that has no... Last edited by Kuruharan; 08-24-2017 at 02:36 PM. |
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#32 | |||
Gruesome Spectre
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or, a threat to induce compliance, as with Shagrat to Snaga at Cirith Ungol: Quote:
Perhaps hearing of, or maybe even watching Orcs eat one one another could have helped inure both to such an act, if it was down to either that or starving.
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#33 | |
Regal Dwarven Shade
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Was it something used as a punishment?
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#34 |
Deadnight Chanter
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On a veeery veeery offtopic trend, my apologies, - so your first was Muraviev-Kistiakovsky translation, then? I remember Гнилоуст was theirs
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#35 | |
Blossom of Dwimordene
Join Date: Oct 2010
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Out of curiosity, were there other variations of the name in other translations (if you know of any)? I've seen two variants on Glorfindel (Gorislav and Vseslavur), and the "C" names are wonky (Celeborn, Cirdan, Celebrian...). But I haven't come across a second Wormtongue.
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#36 | |
Deadnight Chanter
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![]() And he's Червеуст (Wormlips/wormmouth) in Каменкевич-Каррик version (You see, I've been somewhat obsessed with it as a teenager (not yet speaking English), laying my hands on any translation I could get hold of)
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#37 | |
Animated Skeleton
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Forgiving someone, treats them as a member of the human race. Saruman has fallen so low, that, not content with refusing forgiveness for himself, he tries to deny it to Wormtongue as well. He is acting in the spirit of Sauron, even though Sauron is now powerless. That may be why the description of the passing of Saruman is like that of the passing of Sauron. |
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