Post by artanaro on Nov 18, 2005 15:09:21 GMT -5
Names Alatar and Pallando, changed to Morinehtar and Romestamo
Kind Maiar
Family/Division Istari
Lifespan no known beginning or end
The blue wizards are (along with Tom Bombadil and Goldberry, and the matter of Balrog wings) probably the most uncertain and unknown characters of Professor J.R.R. Tolkien's works. Being not referred to in the Lord of the Rings trilogy--and even only Saruman’s enraged comment about “the rods of the five wizards” (The Two Towers “The Voice of Saruman") indicates the possibility of their presence--only after the death of the Professor was some relevant information revealed about them. That moment occured when Unfinished Tales was published in 1980. This book contains a collection of tales and essays that Christopher Tolkien has recovered from his father's works and edited into a book. One of those essays concerned the Istari, another name for the wizard order. Inside this section of the book, finally some information was revealed about them; and indeed, this is the greatest source about information on the Istari as a whole.
In the first text presented in Unfinished Tales, dated tentatively by Christopher Tolkien to 1954, the arrival of the wizards to the great havens is given. After a description of Saruman’s arrival, some information follows about the blue wizards:
"...But there were others, two dressed in sea-blue...of the Blue little was known in the west [of Middle-earth], and they had no names save Ithryn Luin ‘the Blue Wizards’; for they traveled to the east with Curunír, but they never returned; and whether they remaine in the East, pursuing there the purposes for which they sent; or perished; or as some hold were ensnared by Sauron and became his servants it is not now known. But none of these chances were impossible to be.”
There is another text appended to this, which Christopher Tolkien claims belongs to the same time. In it, Gandalf is stated to be the only successful Istar, which first hints at the idea that the Blue Wizards failed their mission: "Indeed, of all the Istari, only one remained faithful, and he was the last-comer" (Unfinished Tales). Here, Radagast is said to have strayed from his mission in becoming enamoured with nature. But for the Blue Wizards, there is no mention of their fate. Still, this text indicates that their fates must be one of failure, though the story of the Blue Wizards was still early in its development
The next source, chronoligically in the development of the story, is in one of Tolkien's letters(which were published by Humphrey Carpenter in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien). In Letter 180, a draft dated January 14, 1956, Tolkien writes: "There is hardly any reference in The Lord of the Rings to things that do not actually exist on its own plane (of secondary sub-creational reality): sc. have been written." In a footnote labeled at the word exist, Tolkien adds "The Cats of Queen Berúthiel and the names and adventurers of the other 2 wizards (5 minus Saruman, Gandalf, and Radagast) are all that I recollect." Thus, it is clear that at this point, really nothing had been determined, by the author himself, about who the Blue Wizards were (this letter even indicates less knowledge of the two wizardds than the first text gives above).
Another letter fills the spot of the next significant source for information on the two wizards. Letter 211, written in October 1958, offers more specific information about their fate:
"I really do not know anything clearly about the other two - since they do not concern the history of the N.W. I think that they went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Númenórean 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."
In this text Tolkien does begin to create a little story for the Blue Wizards, or at least an explanation of their fates, somewhat like that given in the first Unfinished Tales text, though here their failure is given as the more likely outcome. Tolkien's suspicion in many cases can be taken as fact, but not always.
In Unfinished Tales there is another text which reveals a bit more information about the Blue Wizards. The dating of the text is not known, though it is placed after the writing of The Lord the Rings (it could have been written before or after the above letter, but it is not entirely important for this discussion). The text is a description of a council in Valinor in which the sending of the wizards was decided, and some new information is revealed about the Blue Wizards. Their names here are Alatar and Pallando, both Maiar of Oromë (though Pallando was changed from being a Maia of Manods and Nienna). Originally, Alatar was the only chosen by Oromë, but Alatar chose to take Pallando "as a friend." No reason is given for their attribution to Oromë, but Christopher Tolkien here speculates: "Oromë of all the Valar had the greatest knowledge of the further parts of Middle-earth, and that the Blue Wizards were destined to journey in those regions and to remain there." This idea is the one present in Letter 211, so that there is no apparent contradiction between these texts, but the creation of the Blue Wizards' names is very interesting, and hints of the existence of much more information than before, when they were not even named.
All of the above information taken from the Unfinished Tales points to the arrival in Middle-earth around 1050 years after the beggining of the third age, since they arrived approximately at the same time as the other wizards (and this date is given in Appendix B to Return of the King). However, in 1996, when the twelfth book of the History of Middle Earth, The Peoples of Middle-Earth, was published, a new perspective on the Blue Wizards was revealed--a perspective that ran against the very information contained in essentially all previous sources on the two missing wizards. Notes that were considered uninterpretable during the writing of Unfinished Tales (as is stated in both books)were finally deciphered by Christopher Tolkien. Being written in the last years of Professor Tolkien's life - 1972 - the coming of the blue wizards is changed even in the date. The text given in The Peoples of Middle-Earth, "Last Writings," is here in full. First there is a more general overview of the wizards:
No names are recorded for the two wizards. They were never seen or known in lands west of Mordor. The wizards did not come at the same time. Possibly Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast did, but more likely Saruman the chief (and already over mindful of this) came first and alone. Probably Gandalf and Radagast came together, though this has not yet been said. (what is most probable) ... Glorfindel also met Gandalf at the Havens. The other two are only known to (have) exist(ed) [sic]by Saruman, Gandalf, and Radagast, and Saruman in his wrath mentioning five was letting out a piece of private information.
Again, here, we have reference to Saruman's comment of the "Rods of the Five Wizards" and the general mysteriousness of the two remaining Istari. However, there also follows a much more specific account:
"The 'other two' came much earlier, at the same time probably as Glorfindel, when matters became very dangerous in the Second Age.(26) Glorfindel was sent to aid Elrond and was (though not yet said) pre-eminent in the war in Eriador.But the other two Istari were sent for a different purpose. Morinehtar and Romestamo. Darkness-slayer and East-helper. Their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir -up rebellion...and after his first fall to search out his hiding (in which they failed) and to cause dissension and disarray among the dark East...They must have had very great influence on the history of the Second Age and Third Age in weakening and disarrayinbg the forces of the East...who would both in the Second and Third Age otherwise have ...outnumbered the West."
It is now clear what Tolkien's last view on the matter (though last, like everything involving Tolkien's writings, does not simply mean finalized). The Blue Wizards arrived in the Second Age, around the year 1600 to aid in the wars against Sauron. They were not sent to help the forces of the Free Peoples in battle against evil, as the other wizards were, but to head into the east to destroy Sauron's base there amid the Easterlings. Whereas in Letter 211 the Ithryn Luin are left likely failing their mission, here the opposite is true, for they have become pivotal to the victories of the West in the Wars against Sauron by lessening Sauron's forces from the East. Also, their names are changed to Morinehtar and Romestamo.
The matter of Glorfindel is not important here other than knowing that also in late writings of Tolkien it is explicitly clear that the Glorfindel of Gondolin was reincarnated, and he returned to Middle-earth likely at the time Sauron had forged the one Ring and was preparing war on the Elves who had discovered his secret (this will be discussed in full elsewhere). The Blue Wizards are said to have come with him to Middle-earth, but again, they were not sent to bolster Elrond's forces, but rather to weaken Sauron's, to disestablish his influence in the East.
Ultimately, one can see that the Blue Wizards have had complicated history. Originally, nothing was known of them, and hardly a hint of their existence is in The Lord of the Rings. Soon, their mission to the East was established, and while at first they have even odds of succeeding and failing, it becomes very doubtful that they succeeded. However, in the ultimate texts, though the story is never fully achieved, the rumours of failure are eliminated; rather, the two wizards have become very important to the survival of Middle-earth and the defeat of Sauron. That this contradicts such statements as Gandalf being the only Wizard to remain faithful is clear, however, statements such as these are given at time when earlier ideas of the Blue Wizards were in consideration, and were not published in Tolkien's lifetime. It is suitably clear that Tolkien's final (or at least last) views on the Blue Wizards, Morinehtar and Romestamo, are those given in The Peoples of Middle-Earth, where he attributes to them an enormous role in the victories against Sauron.
from LOTR Fanatics Library