the 🧙wizards limitations

[John stefan]

is it true that in the lord of the rings and the hobbbit the five wizards where forbidden from revealing that the valar sent them? because when I was playing a lord of the rings based game called war in the north there was a part where radagast was asked where he comes from and he says " that i am forbidden to reveal some things must remain a secreat at least for the present suffice to say we are wizards and think on it no more" why is that?

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

This is from the section on the Istari from Unfinished Tales:

It was afterwards said that [The Istari] came out of the Far West and were messengers sent to contest the power of Sauron....but they were forbidden to match his power with power, or to seek to dominate Elves or Men by force or fear.

 

[Alcuin]

We touched briefly on that earlier today in the thread “gandalf being asked about his origins” in which we mentioned that Gandalf more or less revealed the place of his origin to Faramir as “the West that is forgotten.” I don’t think they were forbidden to reveal their origins, but as Erestor Arcamen points out, they were forbidden to “match [Sauron’s] power with power, or to seek to dominate Elves or Men by force or fear.” It was precisely these two strictures that Saruman violated, in addition to his seeking to obtain the Ruling Ring for himself.