White Council

The body that the chronicles of the Third Age call the White Council was never a people in the ordinary sense but an assembly of individuals, bound together by knowledge and purpose rather than by descent. In the Tale of Years it appears under this name without further explanation, its founding set down in the middle of the Third Age, at a time when the shadow in southern Mirkwood had already returned with renewed strength. The Hobbit, written before the wider history had taken shape, does not use the fixed title. Instead it says that Gandalf had gone to a great gathering of white wizards, whom it describes as masters of lore and of benevolent magic. In The Lord of the Rings the name has settled, and Gandalf speaks of the White Council at the Council of Elrond as a known institution whose counsels had shaped the watch kept on Dol Guldur.1

The Silmarillion gives the alternative title Council of the Wise and presents the White Council as its common name. Both names point to the same idea. The members were set apart by their wisdom and learning, and the epithet white marks them as opponents of the darkness gathering in the east. The account traces its formation to the growing unease of the Eldar and the Istari once it became plain that the power in Dol Guldur was no ordinary evil. The chairmanship went to Saruman because he had studied the devices of Sauron more deeply than any other. Gandalf, for his part, declined to take any office, since he wished to bind himself to no one except the powers that had sent him.2

Unfinished Tales fills in the character of the assembly from the perspective of its members. It suggests a gathering convened from time to time rather than a standing court with a seat of its own. Saruman and Gandalf, who otherwise went their separate ways, are said to have met chiefly at its sessions. Its composition joined the wisest of the Eldar remaining in Middle-earth, among them Círdan, with the emissaries who had come from the West. In origin it was therefore a meeting ground for two distinct lineages of the Wise, the Elven lords of the elder days and the Istari.3

The Council arose from the end of a long respite. Around the year 2063 of the Third Age Gandalf had entered Dol Guldur, and the power dwelling there withdrew into the East without contest. The years that followed were remembered as the Watchful Peace. That peace lasted nearly four centuries and broke in 2460, when the shadow returned to southern Mirkwood stronger than before. The Tale of Years sets the founding of the Council three years later, in 2463. Galadriel afterwards told the Fellowship in Lothlórien that she herself had first called the Wise together, and that she had meant Gandalf to govern them. Her plans in this had miscarried.1

For almost four hundred years after its founding the Council watched more than it acted. No certainty had yet been reached about who ruled in Dol Guldur. The turning point came in 2850, when Gandalf again went secretly into the stronghold. There he learned that its master was Sauron himself, and that Sauron was gathering the remaining Rings and seeking tidings of the One and of Isildur's heirs. When the Council met in the following year, Gandalf pressed for an attack on Dol Guldur. Saruman spoke against it and his view prevailed. Gandalf later recalled this defeat in Rivendell as a time when his own counsel had been set aside. In those same years Saruman quietly began to search the region of the Gladden Fields.2

The Silmarillion explains the head of the Council's reluctance as a matter of his own desire. By this time Saruman had begun to covet the Ruling Ring. He reckoned that if the Enemy were left undisturbed for a while, the Ring might reveal itself as it sought its master. For that reason he was content to let Sauron be. By 2939 Saruman knew that Sauron's servants were combing the Anduin near the Gladden Fields, and that Sauron must therefore have learned how Isildur had died. He was alarmed by this knowledge but did not share it with the other members. From this point the Council's leadership and its common purpose began to separate.3

In 2941 the Council met again, and this time Saruman agreed to move against Dol Guldur. By then he wanted chiefly to keep Sauron away from the river. The Council attacked and the Necromancer was driven from his hold, but Sauron had prepared for the blow beforehand and withdrew towards Mordor. That year was also the year of Thorin's expedition. In The Hobbit, Gandalf leaves the company at the eaves of Mirkwood on pressing business in the south. After the journey he tells Bilbo that the Necromancer has been expelled from southern Mirkwood. The victory did not last. In 2942 Sauron went back to Mordor in secret, and in 2951 he declared himself openly.4

Unfinished Tales shows that the events of 2941 belonged to a larger design. Gandalf had feared that Sauron might use the dragon in Erebor against the northern lands and Rivendell. He therefore wanted the peril of Smaug removed before war in the North could break out. The same text describes a rivalry between the two Istari that had grown over the years. Saruman came to envy Gandalf and to watch him, and at one gathering of the Council he openly mocked Gandalf's habit of smoking pipe-weed. It records too that Saruman kept Gandalf's interest in the Shire under observation, and that the watch he set on him extended the suspicion into Saruman's own affairs.5

The Council met for the last time in 2953. Its members debated the Rings of Power. Saruman assured them that he had found that the One Ring had been carried down the Anduin into the sea, where it would be beyond anyone's reach. He then withdrew to Isengard, took it as his own and fortified it, and placed spies to watch Gandalf's movements. No further sessions are recorded after this. When the Wise next deliberated together in 3018 at Rivendell, it was in a different assembly and on different terms, and Saruman was no longer among them but ranged against them.6

What set the Council apart from every other assembly in Middle-earth was the age of those who sat on it. Its Elven members had lived through the Elder Days or been born soon after, and the Istari had come out of the West already old in knowledge. Galadriel could speak to the Fellowship of ages she had witnessed, and Elrond recalled from memory the armies of the Last Alliance. Such a body naturally measured its work in centuries rather than seasons, and its instrument was knowledge. Gathering lore, weighing reports and reading the signs of the Enemy's movements came before any thought of force. That habit gave the Council patience, but it also left it slow to decide.1

Within the Council lay a power that was never openly acknowledged. Three of its members carried the Elven Rings. Elrond bore Vilya and Galadriel Nenya, and Gandalf wore Narya, which Círdan had given into his keeping. These Rings were not made as weapons. Their virtue lay in understanding, making and healing, and in keeping the things of the Elves unstained by time. The Council's deepest resources thus served preservation rather than conquest, and they could not be turned directly against Dol Guldur without being put at risk. Their keepers held them in silence, and the secret was revealed only at the end of the Third Age.2

The later writings describe the rule under which the Istari worked, and it shaped the manner of the whole assembly. The emissaries were forbidden to meet Sauron's power with power of their own, to appear in majesty, or to bend the wills of Elves and Men by fear. Their task was to counsel and to kindle resistance in others. A council founded on that principle depended on candour among its members, and this was exactly what failed. Saruman grew skilled in uncovering hidden things. He came to know of Círdan's gift to Gandalf and resented it, while he kept his own discoveries to himself.3

The Council was not divided into houses or clans. The texts list its members as individuals and never group them by descent. Its members nevertheless came from several distinct peoples, and the sources name their lineages elsewhere. The Silmarillion counts Elrond, Galadriel and Círdan among the lords of the Eldar who sat on it, alongside the two chief Istari. Galadriel was of the Noldor, a daughter of Finarfin and so of the royal house of Finwë. She had crossed into Middle-earth among the exiles of the First Age. Círdan belonged to the Teleri and had been lord of the coastal havens since the elder days, which made him the oldest link between the Council and the Elves who never went into the West.1

Elrond's descent was mixed. The appendices to The Lord of the Rings make him a son of Eärendil and Elwing, and they record that he and his brother Elros were each given a choice of kindred. Elrond chose to be counted among the Elves, and that choice gave him his place among the Eldar lords of the Council. The Istari were another order altogether. The Tale of Years dates their first appearance in the north-west to around the thousandth year of the Third Age. Gandalf tells Faramir that in the West, in his youth, he had borne the name Olórin, which hints at an origin beyond the Elven peoples.2

Further invented material leads up to the confrontation: a Morgul blade found by Radagast serves as evidence to set before the Council.

The later essay on the wizards states their nature plainly. The Istari were Maiar, spirits of the same order as the Valar's own servants, clad in the likeness of old Men. Before their coming they belonged to different followings among the Valar. Saruman, known in Valinor as Curumo, was of the people of Aulë. Olórin was sent at Manwë's wish. The Council therefore brought together Elves of Noldorin and Telerin descent, a Half-elf who had chosen the Eldar, and two Maiar from different households of the Valar.3

In the stories themselves the White Council never takes the stage. The reader meets it only in retrospect, through what its members remember and choose to tell. In The Hobbit it lies behind Gandalf's unexplained absences and gives a children's adventure the edge of a wider, darker world. In The Lord of the Rings it matters above all because of what it becomes in the telling. When Gandalf describes his imprisonment in Orthanc at the Council of Elrond, the earlier assembly's long hesitation takes on a new and unsettling meaning. The gathering at Rivendell then works as its successor and its corrective. There Men, Dwarves and Hobbits sit beside Elves and a wizard, and they debate in the open whether the Ring should be used or destroyed.1

The Council stands chiefly for the limits of wisdom. Its failure does not come from ignorance or weakness. It comes from within, through the member whose learning was thought to make him the natural guardian. Elrond warns at Rivendell that it is dangerous to study the Enemy's arts too deeply, and the remark reads as a verdict on the Council's former head. Saruman's appeal to Gandalf in Orthanc takes up the language of the Wise and turns it around. He presents the domination of others as the proper duty of those who understand more than others do. The idea of wise counsel thus becomes the disguise under which its corruption advances.2

The book's outcome lies, moreover, beyond the reach of the Wise. Early on, Gandalf tells Frodo that even the wisest cannot see every end, and the story bears him out. The Ring is not unmade through the deliberations of the great. It is carried to the Fire by those whom no council had ever reckoned with. Seen in this light, the White Council marks the point from which the narrative moves away. Wisdom and age still command respect, but the decisive deed passes to humbler hands.3

The White Council has only one adaptation that puts it on screen as a working body. Peter Jackson's film trilogy of The Hobbit uses the appendix material to dramatise what the novel leaves offstage. Ian McKellen plays Gandalf, Hugo Weaving plays Elrond, Cate Blanchett plays Galadriel and Christopher Lee plays Saruman, and all four had already played these parts in Jackson's earlier Lord of the Rings films. The first film of the trilogy sets a meeting of these four in Rivendell while Thorin's company is staying in the valley. The book records no such session. The films reduce the Council to this small circle, and the wider assembly of Eldar lords that the later writings describe, Círdan among them, does not appear. The films also present the Council's opposition as Saruman's scepticism about any danger in the south. In the source, Saruman's delay rested on a secret motive that he hid from the others.1

The larger departures concern Dol Guldur. The trilogy places Gandalf's discovery that the Necromancer is Sauron in the same year as Bilbo's journey. The chronicles date that discovery about ninety years earlier and separate it from the attack. The films also add a capture of Gandalf in the fortress. The assault on the stronghold becomes a rescue undertaken in person by Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman. Tolkien's texts say only that the Council acted and that the Necromancer withdrew, and they give no account of the fighting. Further invented material leads up to the confrontation: a Morgul blade found by Radagast serves as evidence to set before the Council. Jackson's earlier Lord of the Rings trilogy and the older animated and radio versions do not stage the Council at all, so the Hobbit films remain its only substantial screen portrayal.2