"Breaking Bald" and Omuruc

 

There is something with this theme or likeness of baldness...

Walter White was the main "anti-hero" protagonist of the Breaking Bad series.  One thing many watchers of the series realized after awhile was that it seemed literally every male character was bald or almost bald, thus the spoof name "Breaking Bald".

This Walter White has a tie-in with our friend Saruman, I think.  For example, they both share the same last 'name' of White, or at least Saruman's title or name before it was taken from him.

Interestingly, their first names are related as well.  In making this connection, I will actually go to Saruman's 'real' or Elvish first name of Curumo or Curunir.  The 'Curu' is typically translated as "skill or cunning" in the case of Saruman to align with the Old English definition of that name.

But "Curu" or "Kur" has a broader meaning.  Here is from Eldamo for "Curu-":

have power, strength, ability inherent physically or mentally; skill

So, there is the power or strength component to the name, also, in addition to skill or cunning.  It also has the meaning of "Wizardry, Magic" when looking it up under "Kuru".  In thinking of power or strength, compare this to the breakdown of Walter, which apparently is Germanic, and comprised of Walt/Wald and Hari:

Walt/Wald:  Power, Ruler

hari:    Army

So, from this, Walter is said to mean something like "Army Commander", but could also be more literal like Power Army, Army Power, etc.  So, right off, we can see that the first elements of these names - Curu and Wald are somewhat similar in meaning.

If one has read William Tychonievich's blog recently, he had a run-in with a being that I believe to be Saruman (or a Being portraying himself as such), who William specifically described seeming to be in the military in this post:

The speaker was a slim white man who looked to be in his fifties, neatly dressed in smart blue clothing, with very short white hair and a demeanor that gave the impression of high-ranking military brass, though I don't think his clothing was a uniform. It was just a sweater and slacks, I think, but still came across as "very smart." He spoke extremely quickly but with extremely clear enunciation, as if his delivery were precisely calculated to deliver the maximum amount of information as efficiently as possible.

Saruman in the Lord of the Rings was also the leader of an army:  the Orcs he bred that became known as the Uruk-hai.  This was the army that attacked the people of Rohan, with the pivotal battle occurring at Helm's Deep (as told in The Two Towers).

More fun with names has another tie-in to another bald character William brought up from the Superman comics:  Mr. Mxyzptlk.  He introduced that character in this post (where he also introduced this concept of 'likeness').

I had never heard of this character before, and in looking him up, it turns out his weakness (in his original version) is if you get him to say his name backwards he is forced back to the world or dimension he came from.

I had the idea to try this out, figuratively, with Saruman - let's turn his name backwards, and see what we find.  

Saruman wasn't really interesting, but that isn't his real name anyway.  Interestingly, Mr. Mxyzptlk ran into this issue with Superman in saying Superman's name backwards in an effort to turn the table on him and send Superman to the other world.  Superman isn't Superman's real name, so it didn't work, of course.

Using Curumo instead, however, proved very interesting (and so much for me resisting temptation in looking into all of this...)!

Backwards, we get "Omuruc".  I then broke this down simply into Om and Uruc.  With Om we get "voice or sound" in Elvish (and other things from Yoga and meditation practices, I suppose...).  Seems directly relevant to good old Saruman.

Uruc, if you can tell, is literally the type of Orc I just mentioned... the Uruc or Uruk (hai) who comprised Saruman's army (c and k are pronounced the same in Elvish languages).

So, this actually comes together quite nicely.  The source of Saruman's power is his voice, so much so that Tolkien dedicated an entire chapter heading to "The Voice of Saruman" (which, again, I would iterate is required reading, in my view).  If we substitute power for voice, since for Saruman they are the same, and Uruk for Army, since that is what Saruman's army was comprised of (in addition to some Men), we literally get the same definition or meaning as Walter.

Therefore, if you followed that, Saruman = Curumo = Omuruc = Om-Uruk = Power Army = Walter.  Like a math proof, and some creative license or magic, we have Saruman the White = Walter White, in both name and likely others things also.

Neat, huh?