Wizards in Middle-earth

The Wizards or Istari in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction were powerful angelic beings, Maiar, who took the form of Men to intervene in the affairs of Middle-earth in the Third Age, after catastrophically violent direct interventions by the Valar, and indeed by the one god Eru Ilúvatar, in the earlier ages.

Two Wizards, Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White, largely represent the order, though a third Wizard, Radagast the Brown, appears briefly. Two Blue Wizards are mentioned in passing. Saruman is installed as the head of the White Council, but falls to the temptation of power. He imitates and is to an extent the double of the Dark Lord Sauron, only to become his unwitting servant. Gandalf ceaselessly assists the Company of the Ring in their quest to destroy the Ring and defeat Sauron. He forms the double of Saruman, as Saruman falls and is destroyed, while Gandalf rises and takes Saruman's place as the White Wizard. Gandalf resembles the Norse god Odin in his guise as Wanderer. He has been described as a figure of Christ.^[1]

All three named Wizards appear in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. Commentators have stated that they operate more physically and less spiritually than the Wizards in Tolkien's novels, but that this is mostly successful in furthering the drama.