Blue Wizards - Role

Role

The only reference to the Blue Wizards in The Lord of the Rings is Saruman's accusation that Gandalf wants to take the staves of all five wizards for himself. However, other Tolkien writings have more to say. In Unfinished Tales the tale of the five's choosing is told:

"Manwë summoned the Valar for a council at which it was resolved to send out three emissaries to Middle-earth and he asked who would go. They would have to lose might and clothe themselves in flesh to win the trust of Elves and Men but this would also imperil them, diminish their wisdom and knowledge and bring upon them fear, the care and weariness of the flesh. Only two came forward; Curumo and Alatar. Curumo was chosen by Aulë among "his" Maiar and Alatar was send (sic!) by Oromë. Manwë asked where Olórin was and Olórin just returned from a journey and coming to the meeting asked what he wanted from him and Manwë told that he wished him to go as the third to Middle-earth. Olórin answered that he meant himself too weak for such a task and that he feared Sauron. Then Manwë said that that was all the more reason why he should go and he commanded him to go as the third. There Varda broke in and said "Not as the third" and Curumo remembered that."

The tale ends with the statement that Curunír was obliged to take Aiwendil resp. with him to please Yavanna, Aulë's wife, and that Alatar took Pallando as a friend.

So Alatar was the second wizard to be chosen, at the suggestion of the Vala Oromë who had the most knowledge of the eastern lands. Pallando was then chosen by Alatar to accompany him as a friend. In an earlier draft Tolkien had associated Pallando with the Valar Mandos and Nienna, but he then changed this to also associate Pallando with Oromë. In a letter written at the same time Tolkien also wrote about their role:

"I think that they went as emissaries to distant regions, east and south, .... 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."

However, some of this changes in a text written in the last year or two of Tolkien's life (published in The Peoples of Middle-earth) of 1968. They are said to have arrived not in the Third Age, but in the Second, around the year 1600, the time of the forging of the One Ring. Their mission was to travel to the east and weaken the forces of Sauron. And it is here said that the Wizards far from failed; rather, they had a pivotal role in the victories of the West at the end of both the Second and the Third Ages. At the same time, Tolkien considered the possibility that Glorfindel arrived back in Middle-earth along with the Blue Wizards. On this later, more positive interpretation, the Blue Wizards may have been as successful as Gandalf, just located in a different theatre beyond the borders of the map in The Lord of the Rings.