What if 🧙Saruman had succeeded in taking Merry and Pippin to Isengard?

[BalrogRingDestroyer]

As Obi-wan Kenobi would put it, he would find out "These are not the Hobbits you're looking for", and, what's more, would realize that he just revealed to Sauron that he was a traitor by trying to take the Ring for himself. While capturing them may have helped prevent the two from rousing the Ents against Isengard, and that he may have beaten Theoden and Aragorn at the Hornburg and thus have taken Rohan over, or parts of it, he STILL, as far as I can tell, won't get the Ring, and Merry and Pippin don't exactly know much about the lands east of the River and Saruman is quite likely to alert Sauron to the two Hobbits being over there and allow him to find them first if he sends a big army to try and take them. And sending a small force could still result in them losing track of the two Hobbits in the Dead Marshes.

It would be interesting, though, to see what Theodon would do, hate Sauruman as he does, if he thought he had a choice between losing to Saruman, who would then lose to Sauron, or siding with Saruman and possibly NOT losing to Sauron. However, given Saruman has been open about his plans to be the new Lord of the Ring, I doubt Theoden would see much difference long term, so, unless he uses his voice persuasion, I don't even see Saruman being able to win him or Gandalf over by blackmail of the safety of the two Hobbits either.

On the flip side, based on how stubborn Saurman was when he LOST to the Ents and Theoden, I fear he'd be ever MORE stubborn if it seemed that, lose as he might to Sauron, he stood poised to WIN the battle in Rohan, and that the idea of seeing the error of his ways, begging pardon, and allying with Gandalf would be even more remote of a possibility here.

 

[Ent]

In the 'for what it's worth' department, I suspect if Saruman had gotten Merry and Pip into his clutches, he would have wrung information out of them regarding what was happening with the ring. His voice still had its full power at that time.

Then, he would have murdered Merry and Pip, now being useless.

He likely would have sent folks to the spot where Merry and Pip were taken... (remember, they did not know Frody and Sam had gone on alone)... to see what happened.

The Orcs would likely not know what happened, as they were (possibly) unaware of the number of boats, etc. though they might have seen the signs that one had gone into the water, etc. as Aragorn did.

Saruman WOULD know now, the plan was to destroy the ring... he would have gotten that info from the two.

The next time he conversed with Sauron, Sauron would have wrung that information out of him via the Palantir... Saruman would be deceptive enough to convince Sauron he was working on Sauron's behalf the whole time... though more wary than he no doubt already was.

Sauron would now be on the alert and reinforce Mordor, as well as force Saruman to send his troups, along iwht Sauron sending his own, to hunt down the little maggots wherever they could be found.

Gandalf, would know the danger (since Saruman would still have attacked Theoden and failed, in his arrogance,pride and anger), as when he broke Saruman, Saruman would have revealed it all.

At that point Gandalf would finally have called on the Eagles, and they would have agreed to grab Frodo and Sam, drop them at Mount Doom, and the ring would be destroyed (Sauron not having his henchmen on the alert yet for such an intrusion, and the eagles being more maneuverable than those lunky fell beasts.)

Thus, M-e is saved from the present circumstances, and can proceed into the Age of Men in the same fashion as before, awaiting the next significant intrusion of discord and darkness, because though Melkor and Sauron are now gone, evil itself, of which they are only channels, is not.

The end.