Power of the staves by Kylinen_EarthSpeaker
Just in answer to the mistake where it says that Tolkien doesn’t say anything about the magical power of the wizards being in the staves, when Gandalf breaks Saruman’s staff it’s like he’s lost all his power; and when Gandalf and the hobbits pass Saruman and Grima on the way back to the Shire, doesn’t Saruman say something about still having one power left? That alludes to the fact all his power was gone once Gandalf broke his staff.
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That’s a very good point, and one I hadn’t considered yet. Though I think the breaking of the staff should be taken symbolically, that isn’t really said in the book so…
I guess you’re probably right :D.
Saruman’s one power left was the power of his voice. Gandalf describes him as a serpent with one tooth.
According to Tolkein’s World from A to Z The Complete Guide to Middle Earth, “[the Istari] possessed great skill of body and mind their powers were focussed through their staffs.”
I seem to remember something when Gandalf was trying to enter the hall of Theoden, and the gaurds asked for his staff. I believe he said something to the to the effect of why would you need to deprive an old man of a simple walking stick? To me, that meant that he needed his staff for his powers. I could be totally wrong though, it’s been some time since I read the books.
The belief that witches (and wizards) channel their ‘magickal’ power through their wands, or staffs (staves), is a long-held ‘pagan’ belief and has been researched by anthropologists (studying shamans and other cultural ‘wizards’).
I don’t believe that Tolkien ever said anything about a staff having a crystal in its crown, yet we see that Gandalf’s two staves do (and he uses one as a torch in Moria!), as well as Saruman having a much more polished stone in his (seemingly) metal-looking staff.
My husband and I went with friends to see FOTR again, late in its first run, and when Saruman ‘grabbed’ Gandalf’s staff by remote control, my hubby shouted in the cinema, “Watch out! He’s got a light saber, too!” (a reference to Count Dooku in “SW: AOTC.” The remark got a laugh. I suppose we could compare the Istari’s staves to lightsabers, in that they’re personal items–I’ll bet you anything that if Tolkien ever decided to write about how the Istari got their crystals, it would involve some kind of vision-quest, much in the same way non-technical peoples learn their totem animals.
But the final word about staves, I think, is that the power comes from the wizard and is just channeled through the staff as a focusing device. When Gandalf returned as White Gandalf, he was powerful enough to ‘exorcise’ Saruman out of Theoden, and to break Saruman’s staff at Orthanc (in ROTK/EE). What really snarks me is the scene in ROTK with the Witch-King, who breaks WG’s staff–it didn’t happen in the book, and furthermore, we see the staff in the Grey Havens scene (which is actually a continuity error, since that was filmed before the Witch-King scene).
“Just in answer to the mistake where it says that Tolkien doesn’t say anything about the magical power of the wizards being in the staves, when Gandalf breaks Saruman’s staff it’s like he’s lost all his power…”
Those are my thoughts exactly. I agree with you in that a wizard’s staff is not only a symbol of power, but an actual device that fosters it.