> Given Saruman's pedigree (a powerful spirit from Valinor) and Sauron's (another Maiar), this is somewhat odd; the nominally highborn often behave badly (Sarum

> Given Saruman's pedigree (a powerful spirit from Valinor) and Sauron's (another Maiar), this is somewhat odd; the nominally highborn often behave badly (Saruman, Sauron, Boromir), while those of low birth (all the hobbits) often do quite well. Notice too that Aragorn and the other characters are scrupulous about the limits to their power. I actually wrote a paper on this called "The Paradox of Power and Defining Good and Evil in The Lord of the Rings." Tolkein grew up largely in and around Birmingham, which likely gave him a mix of good decent country folk (farmers) and the powerfully rich city folk (given Birmingham has largely been Englands second biggest city and for a long time - IIRC the 70's is when this ended - it had the highest household income, even exceeding London). He likely got a first hand look at the corruption of the powerful and the earnestness of country folk.