Dr. Bret Devereaux

Saruman instead, out of, I think, just raw hubris and ego, commits almost immediately to alienating both.

And it's remarkable how early he does this.

Because in that passage, by the time he is talking to the Witch King, at this point, has Frodo even left the Shire yet?

I don't think he has.

Saruman is already committed.

He is already at that point betrayed Sauron and Sauron knows.

And given that Saruman does not come to talk to the witch king in person, Saruman suspects Sauron knows.

So they are both kayfabing their friendship at this point.

But they're both pretending and they both know they're pretending.

And at the same time, he imprisoned Gandalf and Gandalf escaped.

So the wise of the free peoples also know that.

he is committed in both directions he can keep Rohan out of the fight for a while but if like the free peoples win then eventually Elrond or Galadriel or Aragorn or somebody Denethor who somebody is going to roll up yeah and any one of those people can wreck his army and and take his like because you know Rohan is not like the strongest power here and he will fail to defeat them

Yes.

So he is by far the weakest.

And so he is a weak power behaving like a strong power.

And it goes predictably badly for him.

And I want to stress, I don't think this is like plot holes.

I think this is Tolkien writing very kind of clearly about a certain kind of personality and the ways that it can go wrong, both in the sense that

Saruman has a lot of pride, just overwhelming pride.

It comes up very clearly when he speaks to Gandalf and especially when he speaks to Theoden.