The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

[viper37]

In all honesty Episode 8 wasn't much better either except that I really liked what they pulled with Hallbrand. I totally thought they were building the series' Aragorn since they clearly went for a similar look as well. So that was well done.

I thought he would be one of the human kings corrupted by the Rings.

EDIT:
In retrospect, I realize he told us from the beginning who he was.  I just never noticed it.

[celedhring]

Yeah, when his alleged royalty was first revealed I thought he'd eventually become one of the Nine.

[The Brain]

One more question: Gandalf claims that Sauron thought that The One had been destroyed by the Elves, until he learnt about Gollum's ring. Does this mean that Sauron isn't aware of the fact that the Ring's destruction would end him? Earlier Gandalf says that "only one Power in this world knows all about the Rings and their effects", and my impression is that he means Sauron, the Lord of the Rings. But maybe not?

So now I'm reading the chapter The Last Debate, where they discuss what to do after the Pelennor. Here Gandalf describes the situation regarding the Ring, how Sauron would unlock ez mode if he retrieves it, and how Sauron would be reduced to a shadow spirit without power if it is destroyed. Then he says "Now Sauron knows all this". Now my impression is that this "now" is just a rhetorical use of the word, and doesn't mean "at this point in time, as opposed to earlier". I am not aware of any reason why Sauron would have learnt this in the period after Gandalf's talk with Frodo in Hobbiton. Theoretically Aragorn might have told Sauron when he facetimed with him using the Orthanc palantir, but this seems unlikely since the whole point of Aragorn's chat was to lure Sauron's attention away from the destruction of the Ring. Even if Aragorn hinted to Sauron that he had the Ring himself, even mentioning the possibility of its destruction would seem insanely risky given Frodo's mission, and for little obvious gain. Or could there be gain? It could be argued that we don't know if Sauron knows that the Ring can only be destroyed at Mt Doom, after all he thought the Elves had destroyed it (according to Gandalf at Hobbiton) so he doesn't know everything about the way it works. Aragorn's aim with the chat with Sauron was to draw his attention away from Mordor, and threatening to destroy the Ring would likely do that, provided Sauron believes it can be destroyed in other ways than at Mt Doom.

So it seems possible that Gandalf is correct both at Hobbiton and at the last debate, that Sauron's Ring-lore has improved in the months between these moments. But this feels unlikely to me, my guess is that Tolkien in that case would have mentioned something more about this aspect. But Gandalf being mistaken doesn't seem like an extremely likely occurrence either. And if he is, what does that mean for other things we've been told about Middle-Earth by Gandalf? Will those have to be reevaluated?

One other thing related to this: at the Council of Elrond Gandalf says "For he [Sauron] is very wise, and weighs all things to a nicety in the scales of his malice. But the only measure he knows is desire, desire for power; and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it, that having the Ring we will seek to destroy it. If we seek this, we shall put him out of reckoning." But Sauron believed that the Elves had destroyed the Ring, intil he learnt of Gollum's find. Back then Sauron accepted the thought of the Elves destroying it on little or no evidence, but now the idea is completely beyond him? The fact that several powerful Elves (and Half-Elves) are the same individuals now as back at the end of the Second Age, speaks both for and against such a change of heart. On the one hand, why such a completely different view of the desires of the same individuals? On the other hand, since those same individuals didn't destroy it when they had the chance Sauron might reason that they never will in a million years. Both Elrond and Cirdan urging Isildur to destroy the Ring suggests that the impportance of doing so was well known even then. But of course Sauron might never have learnt that they did this. In the misc. pile are some possibilities: Sauron simply suffering from dementia is the least interesting explanation, and I think not Tolkien's intention. As always of course there is the possibility of Mistaken Gandalf or Lying Gandalf. Same with Elrond.

Addendum: could Saruman have informed Sauron what would happen if the Ring was destroyed? I haven't looked at this in any detail, but it doesn't seem impossible. And Gandalf wouldn't be aware of this or have guessed it until after his talk with Frodo in Hobbiton, when he spoke to Saruman in Orthanc and was imprisoned. This could explain the difference between The Shadow Of The Past and The Last Debate. But not his claim at the Council of Elrond that Sauron doesn't consider destruction of the Ring, even if it isn't logically impossible in a strict sense. Maybe he guessed it only when he saw the palantir from Orthanc after Saruman's fall. I'm not sure if Denethor knew enough to inform Sauron, but either way he wasn't a traitor the way Saruman was. Or did Sauron wrest some vital info from him?

[grumbler]

I think that the key difference between what Sauron thought when he first reconstituted himself, that the Ring was destroyed, and what he thought some 2000 years later, that no one would try to destroy the Ring, was that times had changed so drastically.

In c.1000TA, when Sauron was restoring his physical self and returning to Middle Earth, he would have learned of the total victory of the Last Alliance.  There would have been no threat to the Last Alliance that would justify keeping the Ring, so they'd have destroyed it right there at Mount Doom.

In c. 3000TA, he found out from Gollum that the Ring had not been destroyed.  Conditions are very different now, and the Ring now represented the means by which someone powerful enough to use it could restore order in the world.  There was now a use for the Ring, unlike in 0TA.

Does that reconcile your questions, Brain?  Or have I missed something?

[The Brain]

It's one of the possible reasons for his changed perception regarding the likelihood of the Elves or their henchmen destroying the Ring. But he could just have easily have read the evidence the other waý I think. But it also touches on my first question, about Sauron's improved Ring-lore. There are so many uncertainties; we don't know if Sauron knew at the time of the Council of Elrond, when Gandalf claims that Sauron doesn't entertain even the possibility of the Ring being intentionally destroyed, that destroying the Ring would effectively destroy him as well. This information might have an effect on Sauron's reasoning on this.

FWIW my impression is that the most likely explanation for this whole mess is Mistaken Gandalf. We know that he doesn't have perfect knowledge and doesn't have perfect memory*. Exactly at which points he is mistaken though is very hard to say. And, if I were to guess, the reason behind Mistaken Gandalf is Inconsistent Tolkien. Which, if true, doesn't really reflect badly on him I think, the dude wrote and re-wrote hundreds of pages over many years before the age of computer search functions or similar.

*Of course he might have those things, but that would mean a much more unlikely Lying Gandalf I think.

[grumbler]

Tolkien himself blamed his characters' incomplete knowledge or misunderstandings for a few inconsistencies in the text (I don't recall your issue being one of them).

Sauron's lack of a fear that someone would end him by destroying the Ring might also be due to the fact that he, for thousands of years, got along perfectly well "knowing" that the Ring had been destroyed at the end of the Second Age without eliminating Sauron's power.  He might have learned of the possibility that what he has "known" for two thousand years is wrong, but that's a lot of belief inertia to overcome.

Maybe.

[Jacob]

My personal interpretation is that "no one would destroy the ring as everyone, in their hearts of hearts, lusts for power like I do" is a fundamental part of Sauron's world view.

However, when the ring was gone for millennia Sauron reluctantly developed the hypothesis that the ring must've been destroyed, as the only thesis that fit the available facts.

Then when the ring reappeared he immediately discarded the hypothesis and went back to his fundamental belief in the inherent corruptibility of mortals (and elves, I suppose).

I suppose, also, there could be an element of "since there's no practical way to destroy it" playing into Sauron's assumption that no one would destroy the ring. If Elrond, Gandalf, and Galadriel could each trivially destroy the ring maybe it would figure larger in Sauron's mind (though then it'd obviously be a whole different book).

That said grumbler's reading that Sauron's judgement changed because the conditions of each age differed is perfectly plausible to me, as is the Brain's "Gandalf was mistaken" suggestion.

[The Brain]

One interesting thing related to these things is why Gandalf speaks with so much confidence about the knowledge and state of mind of Sauron. Without having read all the other Tolkien texts I assume that Gandalf and Sauron knew each other back in the day, but in late TA it's literally been thousands of years since Gandalf spoke with Sauron (I don't know if it's described in detail somewhere in Tolkien how the Council drove Sauron from Dol Guldur, but I'm not aware of any significant conversation between them then, though I'd like to be corrected). It's not like Gandalf has some general kind of great insight into people, he didn't see how far Saruman had fallen for instance.

Another thing: having gotten further in my current re-reading we know, as much as we can know anything in these books because it's from the narrator himself, that Sauron knew that the Ring being destroyed would end his power forever, at the latest at the moment Frodo put on the Ring in the Sammath Naur and claimed it for himself. Of course we still don't know when he came to this knowledge, which is key to understanding much about the late TA struggle.

Addendum: the Mouth of Sauron is described as knowing "much of the mind of Sauron" after studying sorcery under him and working for him for many years. This hints at knowing the mind of Sauron not being very easy or common.

[Threviel]

Sauron is a known entity with all his shenanigans during the first age. He was captured by the Valar and perhaps Gandalf spoke to him then. At the very least the Valar would have given Gandalf instructions and guidance before sending him east and they can be assumed to be in the know.

[Jacob]

Yeah, I think Gandalf knows Sauron much like the archangel Gabriel would know the cut of Baphomet's jib. Both Gandalf and Sauron are significant spirits who've been around since the beginning of creation more or less, and have faced off against each other in the cosmic war of metaphysical good vs evil.

Sure, Sauron may have had any number of individual personality traits - maybe he likes his morning coffee with cream - but he is also the arch-examplar of particular standpoint in the metaphysical battle of good vs evil since the dawn of creation, and that makes some things about his way of thinking clear to those who've known him for all that time.

Re: the Mouth of Sauron knowing the mind of his master, I took that as meaning that Sauron was callous and arbitrary boss of the highest order, but the Mouth - of all of Sauron's obsequious ambitious self-serving underlings - had a particular gift for anticipating what Sauron wanted. He was the best and cleverest lick-spittle, hence his high standing in the Sauron organization.

... I mean, that's all just my reading not some sort of "this is obviously the only correct interpretation" statement. Just my sense of it.

[crazy canuck]

I think that the key difference between what Sauron thought when he first reconstituted himself, that the Ring was destroyed, and what he thought some 2000 years later, that no one would try to destroy the Ring, was that times had changed so drastically.

In c.1000TA, when Sauron was restoring his physical self and returning to Middle Earth, he would have learned of the total victory of the Last Alliance.  There would have been no threat to the Last Alliance that would justify keeping the Ring, so they'd have destroyed it right there at Mount Doom.

In c. 3000TA, he found out from Gollum that the Ring had not been destroyed.  Conditions are very different now, and the Ring now represented the means by which someone powerful enough to use it could restore order in the world.  There was now a use for the Ring, unlike in 0TA.

Does that reconcile your questions, Brain?  Or have I missed something?

Was destruction of the ring one of the goals of the Alliance?  And if so, Sauron would have reasonably reached the conclusion that since they did not destroy the ring when they had the chance to do so, it was highly unlikely the ring would be destroyed now.

[grumbler]

Was destruction of the ring one of the goals of the Alliance?  And if so, Sauron would have reasonably reached the conclusion that since they did not destroy the ring when they had the chance to do so, it was highly unlikely the ring would be destroyed now.

I don't think that destruction of the One Ring was a goal of the Last Alliance because I don't think that they knew much about it. Celebrimbor and his assistants had been slain 1700 years earlier and a lot of knowledge about the rings would have been lost with them.  They did seem to know that the ring was forged in Mount Doom and could be destroyed there, but perhaps didn't understand its significance to Sauron's power.

[crazy canuck]

Was destruction of the ring one of the goals of the Alliance?  And if so, Sauron would have reasonably reached the conclusion that since they did not destroy the ring when they had the chance to do so, it was highly unlikely the ring would be destroyed now.

I don't think that destruction of the One Ring was a goal of the Last Alliance because I don't think that they knew much about it. Celebrimbor and his assistants had been slain 1700 years earlier and a lot of knowledge about the rings would have been lost with them.  They did seem to know that the ring was forged in Mount Doom and could be destroyed there, but perhaps didn't understand its significance to Sauron's power.

Thanks

[The Brain]

At the Council of Elrond Elrond says "It [the Ring] should have been cast then into Orodruin's fire nigh at hand where it was made. But few marked what Isildur did. He alone stood by his father in that last mortal contest; and by Gil-Galad [deceased] only Cirdan stood, and I. But isildur would not listen to our counsel."

This gives me the impression that the importance of destroying the Ring was known to the greats of the Elven hosts, and likely to more people since it appears to have mattered that few were close at hand and saw that Isildur took the Ring. It also suggests to me that destroying the Ring was not a war aim of the Alliance, or more people would have inquired about the status of the Ring in the immediate aftermath of the battle. People in general seem to have been content with Sauron having been killed.

Addendum: that they considered the destruction important of course doesn't necessarily mean that they knew or guessed that Sauron could rise again if it wasn't destroyed. Maybe they just knew that it was an evil artifact likely to cause some grief and should be destroyed on general principle.

[crazy canuck]

Thanks Brain, so perhaps a stupid question - who figured out that destroying the ring would destroy Sauron power - and how did they figure that out?