How Powerful was Radagast?

Saran clearly thought he was a fool but Gandalf rated him highly so who was right how powerful was radagast hi everyone this is Robert welcome to indeep geek on this channel we cover tolk's legendarium in depth as well as other great fantasy worlds like the Lord of the Rings A Song of Ice and Fire And The Witcher if that sounds good there's a subscribe button around here somewhere radagast the brown is a character that appears surprisingly little in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit he gets quite a starring role in The Hobbit movies of course but in the books he has just one mention in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings he remains off camera so to speak the entire time only being mentioned when everyone is sharing their stories at the Council of Eland simply put he never even once actually appears in person in either story and yet he looms large as one of the asari along with Gandalf Saran and the two blue Wizards perhaps he is so clear in our imaginations because of this sense of mystery a clear powerful and otherworldly figure who we hear about but never actually see Gandalf and elund at the Council of elund clearly both think that he would be a valuable Ally and send people out to try to find him but when it's clear that he has disappeared he has literally never mentioned again in the rest of the story as if it wasn't that big a matter after all so is he powerful or just a longlived druid with lots of furry friends well let's start by going back to who or what he is he is a Maya one of tolk's sort of angelic beings who accompanied the Vala Arda supporting them as they shaped and ruled it in those days he was known as I Wendel and he served in particular yavanna who was responsible for everything that grew nature basically which makes sense when you see the kind of wizard that he turned into we don't really hear anything about him through the early Millennia of ardor and Middle Earth so presumably he was just getting on quietly with the work of helping things grow he comes into the story when the Valor decide to send emissaries to Middle Earth to help protect and guide the free peoples there in the third age ala The Valor chooses to send Saran arome sends alatar one of the blue Wizards who took his friend along with him and manway chose Gandalf then we hear that yavanna lobbied for ragar to go along too with Saran her husband 's representative tolki never tells us the exact reasons for this but it's a reasonable assumption that Yanna was doing what she always did Tred to ensure the protection of nature particularly against those who may seek to destroy it she has a history of this when ow made the dwarves she petitioned for nature to have some sort of protectors against those who might want to chop down a lot of trees for example in order to keep the fires of Industry burning hence the arrival of the ants so although tolken doesn't say it this is probably Yan sensing that sarahan may not care care as much of the natural world as she would like and wanting her person to go along to act against this she's not wrong of course sarahan proved that he was no friend of nature sarahan however was disdainful of radagast from the start and seems not to have even wanted to bring him along with him to Middle Earth yavan had to beg him to do so which incidentally probably tells us a bit about saran's character flaws even before he got to Middle Earth and in Middle Earth saran's view of r didn't seem to change much at all when talking to Gandalf we get this radagast the brown laughed Saran and he no longer concealed his Scorn radagast the bird Tamer radagast the simple radagast the fool yet he had just the wit to play the part that I set him we might dismiss this as just San being mean but he does seem to have a point of sorts radagast is not as wise or CL clever or powerful as the other Wizards Saran thinks that he can manipulate him and he's right indeed Christopher tolkin summary of how radagast is presented in his father's notes is of him having much less power and wisdom so not as powerful as Saran or Gandalf that much is clear on the other hand Gandalf in particular holds him in very high regard saying that radagast is of course a worthy wizard a master of shapes and Chang of hue and he has much lore of herbs and beasts and birds are especially his friends of course if we can dismiss some of what sarahan said as just him being mean old sarahan we should probably also put a little caveat next to Gandalf's words he clearly likes radagast and with the blue Wizards disappearing off to the east never to be seen of again and Saran being Saran radagast is actually the closest thing Gandalf has to a peer and a colleague his affection is understandable but Gandalf isn't lying radagast does have some pretty impressive Powers he can talk to animals for example even some powerful ones Gandalf asks him to send out messages to all the birds and beasts that are your friends this seemingly includes the great Eagles who fly far and wide at radagast's request in the movie gandal escaped orank on his own initiative using the moth Eagle Uber service personally calling for the help of guir the eagle not so in the books in the books guer went to aank because radagast sent him so radagast can talk to animals and get them to run errands for him and he is also a master of shapes and changes of hue according to Gandalf this is a wonderfully vague sort of thing to be a master of but it speaks to me of camouflage and illusion and changing perceptions it's rarely mentioned in the fandom but I do wonder whether we see some of this Mastery in his disappearance after he messed up with gandal and Saran he just disappears elron sends scouts out to go to his home but they can't find him there are seemingly no tracks and no trace of him sure the wise had other things on their minds at the time so the pursuit was short-lived but elves are pretty good at spotting things and tracking through the forest and they found nothing radagast just disappears from his home and from the sight of anyone looking for him good or evil perhaps this is radagast's Powers over shapes and changes of hue in Action a Master of Disguise and hiding in other words and there is one more thing that when you read between the lines you have to give radagast some credit for gandal Ponders over whether radagast may have been turned to Evil by Saran that's certainly what Saran seems to want Gandalf to think but Gandalf dismisses this idea almost straight away saying that it would have been useless in any case to try and win over the honest radagast to treachery a tribute to radagast's strength of character certainly but given how wary Gandalf is of saran's powers of persuasion he warns his companions some of the strongest minded people in all Middle Earth that saran has powers you do not guess beware of his voice Gandalf doesn't just think that radagast would be impervious to this he thinks it would be useless of Saran to even try that's power or perhaps just moral Integrity obvious to those who look for it either way it's impressive okay so at this point we might start to think well these are all good tricks camouflage speaking to animals immunity to corruption but compared to the other Wizards it's not much really it's likely that he shared gandel's propensity not to go for showy magic when something subtler would work just as well so he could have been using all kinds of nature magic and we would probably never know no and we don't ever get the chance to see his powers in action up against a real challenge like when gandal had to raise his game against the bog or the witch King but there's nothing in the text to suggest that he is as powerful as his peers in the asari or saon or the balrog quite the opposite in fact that said we should probably take a step back here simply comparing ragas to gandel and Saran is probably not fair he may well be the weakest Meer in Middle Earth but that probably still leaves him more powerful than almost anyone else as one of the Maya he is IM mortal he was there before time and will be there when time ends you can't just kill him his Spirit lives on he has foresight knowledge and expertise built up over many Millennia he is Incorruptible more connected to Middle Earth itself than almost anyone save a few Oddities like Tom Bombadil Tom Bombadil is always the exception great creatures like the eagles did as he asked and and when he wanted to disappear from view no one could find him radagast's Powers were not showy Powers but they were still very impressive Saran might have been able to manipulate him but he could never turn him many of the mighty Gandalf gu here held him in very high regard indeed and even grumpy old beor ConEd that he was not bad for a wizard although tolken is very clear that radagast did not return to valinor and by imp a abandoned his commission from the Val I don't think we should hold this against him too much he did help out a lot before the main story starts sending his friends the birds and others out to hunt for the one ring and although The Hobbit movies made a whole lot more of his involvement in discovering saon in dulur given that he lived on the edges of Southern merkwood he must surely have been involved and it's not as if he turned bad he just fell even more in love with nature and didn't want to give that up given tolk's own love love of nature I suspect he sympathized so how powerful was radagast very perhaps not in the top rank of those we see in The Lord of the Rings but certainly far in excess of anything mere mortals could dream of and probably more than most suspected when radagast was using his powers you probably wouldn't even see or know it just some bird circling overhead or a slight change in Hue there at the forest edge a worthy wizard indeed if you'd like to see more Lord of the Rings videos please click on the link on the left of your screen or if you'd like to support this Channel and get access to some exclusive content please click on the link to my patreon page on the right of your screen that's all for this time thanks for watching I'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

Views: 393,869

Keywords:

Id: 3sf42w33wE4

Length: 10min 49sec (649 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024