White. The fearsome color. The dreadful color. The color that fills the soul with fear. The color that strikes terror into the heart. The color of ghostly apparitions. The color of power. The color of purity. The color of HOLINESS.
Why does this simple color set our hearts palpitating with such vigor or send us cowering in the corner? Why do we fear white greater than any other color? More than the redness of blood? Or the inky darkness of night?
The reason that we fear white is because it is paradigm of what we are not; a symbol of everything powerful, everything pure, everything holy. For it is, as Melville says, ‘the very veil of the Christian God’.
Saruman of many colors vehemently disagrees with this statement, but may I ask who really cares what he thinks? The Fellowship of the Ring (p.252): “‘White!’ he [Saruman] sneered ‘It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.’
‘In which case it is no longer white,’ said I [Gandalf]. ‘And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.’”
"The only thing that anybody really knows about this author is that he is a real nutcase."
-Anonymous reporter
Well...