Didn't Sauron Know?

[Andúril]

A thought once crossed my mind that Melkor's "power", transmuted into Arda, was concentrated in one location, namely Orodruin.

But I couldn't find any scholarly literature to support it, so......I started to fantasize about Luthien's body.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Blackheart


Actually, there's quite a bit of support for the idea that it wasn't Sauron's power in the ring at all.

Yeah, I've heard of these theories as well, and in part, support them. Only to the extent that Melkor's power was indirectly channeled through Sauron. By the third age Sauron was just as powerful as him.

[aeglos]

If Suaron was alive he knew the ring existed. As for knowing that Pippin had the ring, would you let Sauruman even near the ring? As for the power of the ring I think the reason the Nazgul let Frodo go was because he ordered them back, and since he wielded the ring they were forced to obey. Frodo has lot's of thoughts toward the end on whether he could control the ring and do good with it, or even challenge Sauron for the ring. And when Gandalf and Pippin arrive at Gondor and Gandalf and the Witch King meet, Sauron at that point knew they did not have the ring, but that his old enimies were uniting againist him, so I am still not sure why he did not redouble his efforts to find the ring. But hey it is a book not a real charactor.

[Khamûl]

Here is something I came across today while reading the intro to my edition of the Silmarillion. It says that this is also found in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981), no. 131. Skipping to the good part:

"But to achieve this he [Sauron] had been obliged to let a great part of his own inherent power (a frequent and very significant motive in myth and fairy-story) pass into the One Ring. While he wore it, his power on earth was actually enhanced. But even if he did not wear it, that power existed and was in 'rapport' with himself: he was not 'diminished'. Unless some other seized it and became possessed of it. If that happened, the new possessor could (if sufficiently strong and heroic by nature) challenge Sauron, become master of all that he had learned or done since the making of the One Ring, and so overthrow him and usurp his place. This was the essential weakness he had introduced into his situation in his effort (largely unsuccessful) to enslave the Elves, and in his desire to establish a control over the minds and wills of his servants. There was another weakness: if the One Ring was actually unmade, annihilated, then its power would be dissolved, Sauron's own being would be diminished to the vanishing point, and he would be reduced to a shadow, a mere memory of malicious will. But that he never contemplated nor feared. The Ring was unbreakable by any smithcraft less than his own. It was indissoluable in any fire, save the undying subterranean fire where it was made -- and that was unapproachable, in Mordor. Also great was the Ring's power of lust, that anyone who used it became mastered by it; it was beyond the strength of any will (even his own) to injure it, cast it away, or neglect it. So he thought. It was in any case on his finger."

Any thoughts?

[aeglos]

With the ring off his finger,why were the owners of the elven rings not able to press home the destruction of Sauron before he regained his strengh. Why was Gandalf reluctent to use his ring. If so much of Sauron was in the ring how was he able to even take any form at all. And why did the Valor allow him to escape with the ring in the first place?

[BeardofPants]

The elvish rings did not harness that kind of power. The rings were meant as a means of slowing time, rather than that of destructive power.

[Beruthiel]

Ah, Khamûl, that quote was telling. Thank you for posting it.

So, we see that Sauron's power was n the Ring; that while it exists he is whole, and when it is destroyed he is dminsihed.

So it is as though he is in two parts.....

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Beruthiel
So it is as though he is in two parts.....

We already got that much. Whether the ring was dissenting with him is another matter.

[Earniel]

I don't think the Ring could dissent from Sauron. I doubt it would be capable of it. After all it wanted to go back, well at least that's the idea that I got from it.

The BOX is BACK!!! Hide!

[Beruthiel]

Oh, BOXie! (I'm not afraid...)
You posted "The rings were meant as a means of slowing time, rather than that of destructive power."

But that's not entirely true. Each Ring had a different power. Galadriel's was the one that slowed time. Gandalf's had the power to kindle fires in people's hearts.
Elrond's governed the waters of the Earth and Sky - we saw him call the river up to drown the Back Riders.
Yes, they had powers of protection. But "slowing time" is not really acurate enough a description for all the Rings.

[BeardofPants]

Yes, I know that they had separate "powers" so to speak. But the basic premise of their creation in the first place was so that the elves could create "havens" in which time was .... put off... for them. (The rings maintained their respective realms.) Sauron played upon that particular insecurity. And I didn't say that was their only premise; I stated that they were not built for destructive purposes.

[Beruthiel]

Ah, but that's the crust of the biscuit, so to speak. One can't just generalize like that....can you back up your statement with a little hard evidence? Let's see a genuine quote!

[Sween]

what it comes down to is sauron took a caculated risk. i am sure that he knew if the ring was ever to be destyored he would of been pretty *@%$ed but he knew that no one he knew of could destroy the ring (he didnt count on a frodo baggins samwize gamgee and gollum). For the ring to be destroyed in the end it took a lot of effort and luck and someone to get stupid and fall off.

sauron was very unlucky in many ways.

[BeardofPants]

Originally posted by Beruthiel
Ah, but that's the crust of the biscuit, so to speak. One can't just generalize like that....can you back up your statement with a little hard evidence? Let's see a genuine quote!

No, sorry, I don't actually own a copy of Letters in which Tolkien stated this. If anyone can pull out their copies, and look for the quote...

The best I can do is cite the Encyclopaedia of Arda:

Nenya, Narya and Vilya; the only three of the Rings of Power to be made wholly outside the influence of Sauron. Their power maintained the realms of the Elves in Middle-earth until the destruction of the Ruling Ring.

From here: http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm

[BeardofPants]

Also: try Michael Martinez's article here:

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/4786/43808

In particular, note the quote that Elrond says: "they were not made as weapons of war or conquest: that is not their power. Those who made them did not desire strength or domination or hoarded wealth, but understanding, making, and healing."

"The Elves of Eregion made Three supremely beautiful and powerful rings, almost solely of their own imagination, and directed to the preservation of beauty: they did not confer invisibility...." (Letters, No. 131). (preservation of their realm)

[Beruthiel]

Ach, didn't 'The Letters' come with an index?! I despair. It will take me all morning to find only a tiny bit of information in that book.
Let me see if I can find it elsewhere.

At anyrate, Boxie, for I shall call you that, it's seems to be your demeanor

I was only ribbing you. There's no need to back up a generality.

Really my point is not to get people running to books to proove or disproove the actual cannon. What I am trying to do is get people to think of the process that led to the myth. A bit of imagination is needed...let's try hard not to be so 'boxed in!"

[BeardofPants]

Oh quit being so patronising.

I stated that the 3 rings were not used for destruction, but as a means of preserving their realm, and were made because of their paranoia of fading. That Martinez article cites quite a few quotes to back this up. You disputed it; tongue in cheek or not.

Please, tell me how I am "generalizing" and being "boxed in" when I'm not only discussing canon, but also some of Tolkien's key theories?

Here are the quotes you asked for:

"The chief power (of all the rings alike) was the prevention or slowing of decay (i.e., 'change' viewed as a regrettable thing), the preservation of what is desired or loved, or its semblance -- this is more or less an Elvish motive. But also they enhanced the natural powers of a possessor -- thus approaching 'magic', a motive easily corruptible into evil, a lust for domination. And finally they had other powers, more directly derived from Sauron ('the Necromancer': so he is called as he casts a fleeting shadow and presage on the pages of The Hobbit): such as rendering invisible the material body, and making things of the invisible world visible." Letters, 131.

"the [One] Ring is lost [at the beginning of the Third Age], for ever it is hoped; and the Three Rings of the Elves, wielded by secret guardians, are operative in preserving the memory of the beauty of old, maintaining enchanted enclaves of peace where Time seems to stand still and decay is restrained, a semblance of the bliss of the True West." Ibid.

"those that endure in Middle-earth shall grow weary of the world as with a great burden, and shall wane, and become as shadows of regret before the younger race that cometh after." (Silmarillion, "Of the Flight of the Noldor")

"in the first [Second Age theme] we see a sort of second fall or at least 'error' of the Elves. There was nothing wrong essentially in their lingering against counsel, still sadly with the mortal lands of their old heroic deeds. But they wanted to have their cake without eating it. They wanted the peace and bliss and perfect memory of 'The West', and yet to remain on ordinary earth where their prestige as the highest people, above wild Elves, dwarves, and Men, was greater than at the bottom of the hierarchy of Valinor. They thus became obsessed with 'fading', the mode in which the changes of time (the law of the world under the sun) was perceived by them. They became sad, and their art (shall we say) antiquarian, and their efforts all really a kind of embalming -- even though they also retained the old motive of their kind, the adornment of earth, and the healing of its hurts...."Ibid.

"the Elves are not wholly good or in the right. Not so much because they had flirted with Sauron; as because with or without his assistance they were 'embalmers'. They wanted to have their cake and eat it: to live in the mortal historical Middle-earth because they had become fond of it (and perhaps because they there had the advantages of a superior caste), and so tried to stop its change and history, stop its growth, keep it as a pleasuance, even largely a desert, where they could be 'artists' -- and they were overburdened with sadness and nostalgic regret...." (Letters, No. 154)

"found [the Elves'] weak point in suggesting that, helping one another, they could make Western Middle-earth as beautiful as Valinor. It was really a veiled attack on the gods, an incitement to try and make a separate independent paradise. Gilgalad [sic] repulsed all such overtures, as also did Elrond. But at Eregion great work began -- and the Elves came their nearest to falling to 'magic' and machinery. With the aid of Sauron's lore they made Rings of Power...." Letters, 131.

And so on, and so forth.

[Blackheart]

Originally posted by BeardofPants
Yeah, I've heard of these theories as well, and in part, support them. Only to the extent that Melkor's power was indirectly channeled through Sauron. By the third age Sauron was just as powerful as him.

Just as powerful? I think not. Perhaps relative to what was left in Middle Earth in the third age.... but not in terms of raw power.

At any rate, the idea that he could directly control his servants must have appealed to him. Melkor had this power to a much greater degree.

As any evil overlord knows, the most frustrating thing about the job is the incompetant minions they stick you with.

[Bertuthiel]

As any evil overlord knows, the most frustrating thing about the job is the incompetant minions they stick you with.

!!!!!

[aeglos]

I just re-read Unfinished tales. There are some real oops in the book. I always thought that Sauron had Celebrimbor forge all the rings with his assistance. In the book it seems that Celebrimbor became aware of Sauron's intentions and forged the three elvish rings without Sauron's knowlege. Only under torture did he reveal the secret. So how could the three be under the spell of the one if Sauron did not know of their existence? Also the rings Gil-Galad and Galadriel had protected Linden and Lothlorien, and the fact that Orcs shunned the place would lead to speculation that the power of the rings was certainly desructive to them.

There is a chapter on Gollum and his escape from Mordor. Sauron could not break Gollum without killing him, so he did not know what "Baggins" and "shire" meant. He did send the Witch King out to search for the ring, based on what he did get from Gollum. They visited Sauruman, who lied to them, but they came across Wormtongue and another operative of his who was a spy in the Shire. From this Sauron knew that Sauruman was a traitor and that he did not have the ring. But he did know where he was looking. When Aragon captured Gollum, Sauron knew that his enimies had done so and was "filled with anger and alarm"He also found out about Borimir"s mission to Rivenendell and the probability of the Return of the King.

In all of this he knew that no one could wrestle control of the ring from him and that the only way to destroy the ring was to return it to Mt Doom and it seems that logically he would protect all approaches to that area.

Sauron may have been over confident that with or without the ring he could finally triumph. But he definetly knew the Ring was out there and should have been able to find it.