"I want them alive, and unspoiled."

[Morquesse]

I have a question: in the quote, " One of the Halflings holds something of great value, I want them alive, and unspoiled." said by Saruman to Lurtz(I don't know the whole quote), what did he mean? Did he mean make sure the hobbits did not get their own way, or did he mean make sure they were in good phsysical condition?<BR>Thanks, <BR>~M<p>[ October 21, 2002: Message edited by: Morquesse ]

[Birdland]

Saruman didn't know one Halfing from another. All he knew is that one of the Halflings was carrying the One Ring. <P>Of course, he couldn't go into details about that with the Orcs. One of them might try to take it to Sauron, or keep it for his own.<P>I suppose it never occurred to Saruman that his Orcs wouldn't get the right Hobbits, or that any of them would escape.

[Voralphion]

It meant that he didn't want the orcs to go through the gear of the hobbits in case one of the orcs found the ring and took it for their own. He wanted the orcs to bring them back as they found them so he could make sure he was the one who would get the ring.

[Diamond18]

Hmmm, by unspoiled he could, of course, have meant that the orcs should not let Merry and Pippin stay up too late, eat too much candy or drink too much orc-draught, or watch TV till their eyes fall out , etc.

[Birdland]

[Rimbaud]

"Unspoiled" in this context is an oblique reference to some of the darker practices of the orcs. Merry and Pippin got off rather lightly compared to most prisoners of the foul creatures, I would propound.

[Morquesse]

Thank you very much people! I appreciate it, the question was bugging me for a while.<BR>See ya,<BR>~M

[Kalimac]

Morquesse - sorry I'm a little late to the party here but just wanted to draw your attention to a passage from ROTK where the Sam overhears the Orcs discussing what they're supposed to do with Frodo, and the leader says that the "prisoner is to be stripped." Another Orc (sorry, it's late - the name is escaping me) says "Stripped? What, teeth, nails, hair, everything?"<P>Granted these weren't Saruman's Orcs, but still I get the impression that when it comes to things like interrogation, an Orc's an Orc for a' that. If that was their common definition of stripping, I would imagine that "spoiling" probably involved pretty much everything except using their severed heads as cannonballs a la the siege of Minas Tirith. So basically what Saruman is saying is that he wants them both alive and not rendered either immobile or brain dead.

[dragoneyes]

I thought it meant not touched in anyway

[mollecon]

Yes, what Rimbaud & Kalimac says. Saruman wanted them unharmed...

[dragoneyes]

ah, but Kalimac said not brain dead or immobile (or something like that) which would propose that they could hurt them in some ways, which they tried hard not to.

[Elenna]

In the book, it said something about the orcs wanting to "have some fun" with the hobbits, meaning something painful, I'm sure. I think Saruman was saying that he wanted them not only alive, but in full control of their faculties. Not alive as in "life support, brain technically dead but heart still beating" alive.

[Diamond18]

AAaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! I'm going to have nightmares if I get any more visual pictures of what the orcs wanted to do to my Merry and Pippin!

[Kalimac]

Yes, Elenna, that was basically what I meant - not that Saruman was saying "don't touch them, period" esp. since in the books they don't mind knocking them around a bit, using the whip, etc. More like avoiding doing them any serious harm; to put it in Elizabethan terms, to use only "the gentler tortures."

[mark12_30]

"To the victors go the spoils." Spoils, meaning plunder. Jewellry, weapons, valuables taken from prisoners or corpses. What Saruman was saying was, whatever they are carrying when you capture them, I want it brought to me, not divided amongst yourselves! <P>In other words-- Saruman did not want Lurtz making off with The Ring, which he was after in the first place; but he wasn't going to tell Lurtz, "Find the Ring and bring it to me, " because he didn't want Lurtz knowing it was valuable and doing something else with it.<P>I don;t think Saruman gave a hoot whether the orcs abused the prisoners or not; but he wanted them to arrive with all of their belongings. Saruman wanted to do the plundering himself, and take the Ring.

[Kalimac]

Mark, I hadn't thought of that about getting the spoils. The only thing I'd have against it is that saying "I want them unspoiled" sounds like you're talking about the hobbits themselves - their bodies. If he had said "undespoiled" that would have been a specific reference to taking any objects they may have had on them. Or maybe, since that line isn't in the books, PJ himself didn't quite know, and didn't mean it to say specifically either "don't hurt them" or "don't take their possessions, but I don't care what you do with them personally". Maybe it was just meant to be scary-sounding all-encompassing "hands off" order. <P>And while Saruman probably wouldn't care about having the hobbits knocked around, he probably would want very much to have them in reasonable physical shape; enough so that they were still capable of giving him valuable information. Saruman at this point is already thinking of grabbing the Ring for himself, and if he's going to be battling both Rohan/Gondor/the Elves on one hand and Sauron on the other, he'd better know a lot more about what's going on in the world than he currently does, and who better to get information from than a member of the Fellowship? It's true that he did have Wormtongue feeding him information from Rohan, but you get the feeling that was rather small potatoes compared to all the stuff he WASN'T finding out about from Rivendell, Lorien and Gondor. <P>You get the feeling that if Merry and Pippin had ever arrived at Orthanc, Saruman would have considered them valuable even when they turned out not to have the Ring; they were fellowship members, but not nearly as powerful, dangerous, or liable to escape or be rescued as, say, Aragorn, Legolas or even Boromir would be; he probably considers hobbits to be much more easily pumped for information as well, and also less likely to have all-out searches made for them since strategically they aren't terribly significant at the time. So yes - he'd want to make sure the Orcs kept their hands off of any jewelry the hobbits might have had, but he would have wanted the hobbits very much as well. <P>OK, enough burbling on this topic. Any additional thoughts? .

[Morquesse]

WOW! I did not know it would go into a deep discussion! But thank you both Kalimac and Mark, your work is very much appreciated. <BR>See ya,<BR>~M

[TealDude3]

At webster.com, the first definition of spoil is "plunder taken from an enemy in war or a victim in robbery"

[Melephelwen]

Another question, which I hope is realted to this topic. <BR>Saruman tells all of the "unspoiled"-part to <B>Lurtz</B>, but Lurtz is killed, so how would the rest of the Orcs be able to know? I'm pretty sure it's not worth telling all the Orcs in personal; I doubt they would be intelligent enough to copy and <I>remember</I> his words, so he needed to tell one of the leaders. Would Saruman tell two of them, just in case?<BR>Hope someone'll bother replying

[TealDude3]

I believe that he would have told one of the other leaders, such as Ugluk, I suppose.

[Diamond18]

Either that or Lurtz told Ugluk. I can't really picture the scene though...it seems too much like teamwork.

[ElanorGamgee]

I believe that by "unspoiled" Saruman meant that the orcs were not to do serious physical damage to the hobbits; in other words, don't start lopping off arms and legs while taking them prisoner. In this context, "to spoil" most likely means "to impair the value or quality of" or "to damage irreparably; ruin" (dictionary.com). If you gave the orcs an inch they'd take a mile, probably ending with the hobbits too traumatized and wounded to be of any use to the wizard or anyone, for that matter. By the way, I always wondered why in the movie that Uruk-hai looked ready to swipe Merry and Pippin in two right before Boromir came to the rescue after such specific orders. I guess someone forgot to forward him the memo <p>[ December 09, 2002: Message edited by: ElanorGamgee ]

[Earendil evening star]

There was one part in the movie which kind of contradicted itself and that was the part you were discussing.<BR>How come the orc, that has been told just like all the other orcs not to, tried to kill mery and pippin while boromir had to save them.<BR>I mean was he at the toilet when sarumon told them not to hurt the hobbits?<BR>just a little detail but kinda annoying all the same

[Melephelwen]

AN Orc at the toilet ... What a picture!! <BR>Maybe he was just more than normally stupid. I'll go thinking about that for a week or so

[Strawhair]

"Unspoiled" in this case would most certainly mean the uruks were to refrain from eating the prisoners, including cutting limbs off of still living prisoners to keep the rest of the meat fresh.

In addition to unspoiled simply not being used in English to refer to spoils of war or plunder, I'd point out that orcs and ostensibly uruks have no material culture, and thus would not value the jewelry or possessions of prisoners, although they obviously value combat equipment such as armor and swords (eg Frodos mithril shirt)

[mhagain]

What about them? They're fresh!

They are not for eating!

What about their legs? They don't need those. Ooh! They look tasty!

Get back, scum! The prisoners go to Saruman. Alive and unspoiled.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Difficult to tell, since while Tolkien would have been well aware of the original meaning of "spoil" (loot), there's no reason to think that PBJ were, so in the movie-universe "not eaten" might have been intended.

spoil (v.)
c. 1300, "to strip (someone) of clothes, strip a slain enemy," from Old French espillier "to strip, plunder, pillage," from Latin spoliare "to strip, uncover, lay bare; strip of clothing, rob, plunder, pillage," from spolia, plural of spolium "arms taken from an enemy, booty;" originally "hide, skin stripped from a killed animal," from Proto-Italic *spolio- "skin, hide," from PIE *spol-yo-, probably from a root *spel- (1) "to split, to break off" (see spill (v.)) on the notion of "what is split off."

From late 14c. in English as "strip with violence, rob, pillage, plunder, dispossess; impoverish with excessive taxation." Used c. 1400 as the verb to describe Christ's harrowing of Hell. Sense of "destroy, ruin, damage so as to render useless" is from 1560s; that of "to over-indulge" (a child, etc.) is from 1640s (implied in spoiled). Intransitive sense of "become tainted, go bad, lose freshness" is from 1690s.

In the book,
"Why don't we search them and find out? We might find something we can use ourselves."
"That's a very interesting remark," sneered a voice, softer than the others but more evil. "I may have to report that. The prisoners are NOT to be searched or plundered: those are my orders."
"And mine too," said the deep voice. "Alive and as captured, no spoiling. That's my orders."

_________________________

"In addition to unspoiled simply not being used in English to refer to spoils of war or plunder,"

Um, no.

unspoiled (adj.)
c. 1500, "not plundered," from un- (1) "not" + past participle of spoil (v.). Meaning "not deteriorated" is attested from 1732. A verb unspoil is attested from c. 1400, but it meant "despoil."