What happened to the Blue Wizards?

five wizards the estari were sent to middle earth to help humanity against sauron we know about gandalf sarah man and radagast but what about the other two the blue wizards did they play a pivotal role in all this without us even knowing hi everyone this is robert welcome to in deep geek this video is brought to you by my fantastic patreon community if you want more videos on jrr tolkien and the lord of the rings as well as other great fantasy and science fiction like a song of ice and fire and the witcher then please do click on the subscribe button in the bottom right of your screen and the bell icon the five istari sent by the valar to help the free peoples resist sauron were some of the most powerful beings in all middle earth we know of course about gandalf the grey and sarah man the white's power is there for all to see and even radagast the brown is powerful in his own way but what about the other two the blue wizards we never meet them in the stories and they only get passing references in tolkien's other writings but they surely had the power to make a huge difference so where did they go and what did they do might tolkien have left us any clues to suggest unseen and off map that they had a huge influence on the stories we know i think so reason many of us have only a fuzzy understanding of the blue wizards is simple tolkien deliberately i think didn't mention them much there is just one passing reference to them in the lord of the rings when sarah man angrily accuses gandalf of wanting the keys to baradur the crowns of the seven kings and the rods of the five wizards thereby putting a number to the amount of wizards in the order gandalf sometimes name checks in the book of unfinished tales we get a bit more information when the valar decided to send emissaries to middle-earth one of those chosen was called alatar he decided to bring his friend polando these two clad themselves in sea blue and became known as the ithrin luin the blue wizards they headed off to the east with sarah mann without stopping to make themselves known to the powers that be in the west while gandalf stayed in the west and radagast settled himself into the western borders of merkwood the very presence of the blue wizards was therefore a mystery or even a secret to the denizens of the west of middle earth tolkien even scribbled a little note for himself later discovered by his son that when sarah man even mentioned in passing that there were five wizards he was letting out a piece of private information no one was supposed to know about the blue wizards and so secret was their mission that it seems that they were there even earlier in the second age not just from about the year 1000 of the third age which is when sarah mann gandalf and radagast were sent this is what tolkien wrote the other two came much earlier when matters became very dangerous in the second age 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 disarraying the forces of east who would both in the second age and third age otherwise have outnumbered the west so now we see a much bigger picture here in the second age sauron was at his greatest power he possessed the one ring himself he brought about the downfall of numenor the mightiest human kingdom ever and made repeated and very nearly successful attempts to conquer all of middle earth in the face of this threat the valar were not silent and one of the things they did was to dispatch two of the maya who became known as morinita darkness slayer and romestano east helper they operated in secret behind enemy lines weakening sounds grip over humans and sowing dissension in the ranks in this they were successful apparently when the last alliance of elves and men fought sauron in that climactic battle we see in the opening of the lord of the rings films where saron had the ring cut from his finger it was a close run thing the mighty high kings of the elves and men were both killed from what tolkien tells us it seems that the work of the blue wizards in secret was probably what made the difference they had a very great influence he writes and without them sauron's forces would have outnumbered the west so the blue wizards in secret in the second age were heroes tipping the odds in favor of the west and leading directly to the downfall of sauron and then of course sauron disappeared for a thousand years in the absence of the ring having no physical form and presumably job done the blue wizards returned to valinor but of course sauron did return in secret at first the valar presumably remembering what a success the blue wizards had been the last time around commissioned alatar to head back to middle earth and do it again but as part of a larger group this time the five istari that we know about the main difference this time of course being that this time they didn't know where sauron was or what his plans were alatar persuaded his old mate polando to come along with him and joined up with salman to head east although we tend to focus in on gandalf's work in the west heading east was probably actually the most sensible place to go in middle earth if you were searching for sauron that's where his influence was strongest his allies held the most power and so on if he were to regroup anywhere that would be a reasonable place for him to go but although they seem to have had some success in preventing the forces of evil in the east from growing too powerful they very much failed to find sauron fair enough he wasn't in the east at all he was hiding out in dolguldor in south merkwood but then things started to go bad after about one and a half thousand years of fruitless searching sarah mann leaves the two blue wizards and heads into the west setting up a base at the strategically important site of orthanc and things were starting to happen in the world unbeknownst to everyone smeagol or gollum got hold of the one ring sauron was growing in strength and the witch king who had been quiet in mordor with the other ring wraiths for a few hundred years suddenly started offensive maneuvers capturing osgiliath for example the ancient capital of gondor and the blue wizards well the blue wizards faltered and failed we don't know exactly how because we aren't told tolkien sums it up that their fate was unknown but some held that they fell into evil and became servants of sauron that's quite a fall from grace it's possible that sarah man's own fall began back when he was with the blue wizards he certainly seems to have been focused more on the hunt for the one ring than sauron himself when he returned and perhaps sauron had realized belatedly what a huge influence the two blue wizards had been last time in the second age how but for their influence he might have won and perhaps part of what he was doing all those years he was in hiding was not just slowly re-gathering his strength but corrupting some of his most powerful enemies he didn't want the blue wizards doing to him again what they did last time it took a long time but eventually those two blue wizards succumbed and became servants of sauron as an aside i don't think it's a coincidence that kurdan the elf with the gift of foresight gave naya the ring of fire to gandalf to support him and prevent him from growing weary in his task and to rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill radegast played his part to be sure but of the five istari it was only gandalf who under fatiguably searched for sauron and rallied the west and generally did the job he was sent to do and it was only gandalf who returned to valinor the blue wizard's falling had an impact of course tolkien talks of their role in preventing sauron from amassing a much larger army to attack the west with this seems to have been successful in the second age and much of the third age but by the latter years of the third age when they had fallen by the time of the war of the ring sauron's forces hugely outnumbered those of humans and elves when aragorn took his forces to the black gates at the end of the lord of the rings we read that they are outnumbered by at least ten to one sauron had been able to send forces to attack lothlorien north murkwood dale the lonely mountain rohan the gondorian coast and elsewhere and still had enough troops left over to completely outnumber the largest army in the west if it had just been a matter of one army against another sauron would have won and there is one more twist to this story of the blue wizards because powerful wizards such as these do not just disappear when they switch sides with sauron finally defeated the witch king and ringwraith's gone they were probably the most powerful entities left in the region still honoring the memory of sauron what might they do in a world where aragorn was now unchallenged ruler and all sauron or melkor worship would be viewed as treason well they would probably do what they did best operate behind enemy lines sowing seeds of dissension and that's exactly what tolkien says they did in a letter in 1958 he writes that i suspect they were founders or beginners of secret cults and magic traditions that outlasted the fall of sauron and what's the twist well i did another video on the sequel that tolkien started writing to the lord of the rings called the new shadow it's set in gondor a couple of hundred years after sauron's fall the people are discontent and restless there's talk of rebellions and a secret cult the hero we are introduced to is asked to don black and wait until dark to be led to something that sounds cult-like he thinks he can sense the return of an old evil could the blue wizards have been the big baddies in tolkien's unfinished sequel to the lord of the rings it sounds suspiciously like they might have been founding secret cults sowing discontent and keeping alive the name of sauron is exactly what was going on in the start to that novel and exactly what we know that they were doing we may not have seen much of the blue wizards in the lord of the rings but i suspect that if tolkien had finished writing his sequel we would have seen a lot more of them if you'd like to see more videos on the world of jrr tolkien and the lord of the rings please click on the link to the playlist on the left of your screen or if you'd like to support this channel or get access to some content i produced just for my patrons please click on the link to my patreon page on the right of the screen thanks for watching that's all for this time and i'll see you again soon

Channel: In Deep Geek

Views: 112,899

Rating: 4.9669247 out of 5

Keywords: in deep geek, deep geek, lord of the rings, the lord of the rings, lotr, tolkien, blue wizards lord of the rings, gandalf talks about the blue wizards, the blue wizards the hobbit, the blue wizards, blue wizards, what happened to the blue wizards, where did the blue wizards go, istari, lord of the rings istari, the istari order, the istari of middle-earth, light of the istari, the istari

Id: p3LGfyXQzxQ

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 28 2020