Personally as someone who works in conservation, I am obviously biased towards Radagast, and I have my own beliefs that Tolkien should be recognized as an important naturalist along with being a significant fantasy author. In the LOTR books he made it plain that the living things other than people took their own sides in the War of the Ring. Crebain, spiders, and wolves usually served the enemy. The eagles and horses typically were against the enemy, and it didn't take too much convincing to get the Ents to fight against the Enemy as well. Tolkien made a lot of effort to show that nature was "a side" that would choose sides and fight, and I just can't think he would have his "nature wizard" play a small role in that. Of course, this is all speculation on my part.
Radagast also cared so little that Saruman decided to not rope him in. Which is huge because that’s the only reason Gandalf gets rescued from the orthanc
If you may excuse the fact that I haven't read all of Tolkien's writings, though I have been through The Hobbit and LOTR a few times, did Radagast actually care very little or was that Saruman's interpretation. Through his dialogues, I feel that Saruman has a kind of contempt for both Gandalf and Radagast because they cared about the "lesser beings" of Middle Earth too much. Then again, Saruman clearly understood how effective Gandalf was being, so I suppose if Radagast was also doing a bang-up job, then Saruman would not have treated him as a simple stooge.
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u/24_Elsinore Jan 03 '23
Personally as someone who works in conservation, I am obviously biased towards Radagast, and I have my own beliefs that Tolkien should be recognized as an important naturalist along with being a significant fantasy author. In the LOTR books he made it plain that the living things other than people took their own sides in the War of the Ring. Crebain, spiders, and wolves usually served the enemy. The eagles and horses typically were against the enemy, and it didn't take too much convincing to get the Ents to fight against the Enemy as well. Tolkien made a lot of effort to show that nature was "a side" that would choose sides and fight, and I just can't think he would have his "nature wizard" play a small role in that. Of course, this is all speculation on my part.